I used to work for a cable company. I remember a coworker telling me a long time ago that one of the challenges they used to have was making sure the caller’s TV was tuned to the correct channel. So, the conversation would go like this:

“Please change the channel to 27” (or any other random number that isn’t a locally used channel) “What do you see?” “Nothing…” “Good, change it to 3, now what do you see?” “Nothing…” “Good, change to channel 4” “It works!”

For those that don’t know, there was a long period of time where the auxiliary input into TVs was tuned to either channel 3 or channel 4. There was a good chance that the customer didn’t know which one was correct for their TV and would have assumed that it was already set correctly if you asked.

It’s common in the U.S., especially in apartments, to have rooms with no light fixtures. Instead, there will be one outlet that is wired to a switch by the door. That outlet is sometimes upside down to distinguish it from the other outlets. That gives you the option to connect a lamp to the switch to get the same result as having a light fixture. I would generally prefer that every room has a light fixture on the ceiling, but this is marginally better than having to walk across a dark room to turn on a lamp.

I mean, depending on where exactly you ended up, it could go either way. I’ve watched some British TV over the years and I frequently need subtitles and I assume the actors are enunciating better than the average person.

I hope you’re not using that map to navigate your new home.

Wow, 1st class, I didn’t realize out of context comics paid so well! :)

I’m really impressed with how quickly you’ve made such a huge life change, that takes some serious courage for you and your family. I would love to follow along behind you, but have no path for it, so I’ll have to stick things out and hope for the best (or not worst) here.

Mine is off at the moment.

Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, and Mass Effect Legendary are my favorites that I come back to repeatedly. Of course, they were all probably perfectly playable on your old PC.

Hitman World of Assassination was good and not playable on your old PC. I have not replayed it yet, but it is definitely repayable with the option to approach every level in different ways.

I’ve gotten bored with the Assassins Creed games, but the newer ones are very pretty and they’re open world with lots of story and tons of things to do.

You mentioned Far Cry 3, there’s also 4, 5, 6 New Dawn, and Primal. I haven’t played 5, 6, or New Dawn, but 4 plays the same as 3 (just a different story) and I actually like Primal quite a bit.

The Just Cause series is really over the top mayhem, but I enjoyed them. Lots of open world destruction for a…just cause (or maybe just because).

The Saints Row games are ridiculous, childish fun. Very similar to GTA, but makes GTA look classy by comparison. I think Saints Row 4 and Gat Out of Hell are the best ones. The first 2 are quite dated at this point. There is a recent remaster of 3, I liked the original, but haven’t played the remaster yet. There’s a newer one that’s just called “Saints Row”, I’ve only played a little of it so far and its pretty bland.

I don’t know a lot about the Amish, but possibly. From what I know, it seems like they embody some of the core principles in terms of contributing to the community and managing a balanced, relatively equal society. I don’t know anything about their religion, so I don’t know if there is a level of control from church leaders that might be more of a centralized control structure. But they might be an example. You can also search for examples of hippie communes or artist collectives.

There have been many groups that form communes within a larger system. Sometimes its built around a religion (or cult), sometimes around various ideals, like artist communes. In my opinion, what makes these work is that they’re small (your reputation matters), people join it voluntarily, and people can be kicked out if they don’t uphold the ideals. So, you don’t need a state to enforce the rules aside from a mechanism to remove people who don’t participate fairly. And because they are within a larger entity, they don’t have to deal with things like national security or foreign affairs. I don’t think that model scales to a national level.

I’ve blocked as much news out of my life as I can manage with the exception of some financial news. That includes blocking all the news communities on Lemmy. Things still slip through, but I also push myself to just ignore the bits that I still see and move on with my life. I’m much happier as a result. In terms of being aware of big news, if its a big enough deal, the fine folks here at Lemmy will create memes to let me know.

I have clothes that I keep out of the dryer, but I’m willing to put pretty much anything in the washing machine (aside from dry clean only stuff). I will hand wash my workout clothes, mainly in the summer, when they are drenched in sweat and I don’t have enough dirty laundry to make it worth putting them in the laundry right away. I just put a little splash of laundry detergent in the sink with some cold water to wash them, then hang them to dry. But I do that to keep them from getting stinky, not to prolong the life of the clothes.

If travel time and cost doesn’t matter, I would always pick Hawaii over Florida any time of year. If travel time matters, then I’d look at the Caribbean before Florida for anyone on the East coast. Florida would be my last choice if I needed to keep things cheaper.

If you use this equipment frequently, try to quantify them on your resume to show you have experience. You can ask chatgpt for better wording, but you might have something like “unload 20-30 trailers per week using an electric pallet jack.”

Create a list starting out of everything you might want to tell a future potential employer. The original list can be messy and have awkward wording, but try to list all of the useful skills you have and wherever possible, quantify your impact. Once you have that, then go to your AI of choice and practice some different prompts to see what kind of results you get. You’re not going to get a great or even necessarily accurate resume on your first try, you have to put in some effort to edit and re-prompt for improvements. Here are some possible prompts to play with starting out:

• “You are an experienced recruiter helping me craft a resume to get a job in a warehouse. Review this list of experiences and recommend better wording to show that I have the skills to be an effective warehouse employee.” <paste your list that you created>

• “For this experience, recommend how I can quantify my impact to show that I added value.” <paste a bullet that you want to improve>

If you find a job description that represents the kind of job you want, you can also provide that to your AI friend to get even better results. Something like this:

• “Using the following job description recommend changes to my resume that better reflect the role.” <paste the job description>

Once you’re done editing your resume to fix any errors the AI gave you or to change the wording to be a better reflection of your writing, you can paste the resume in again and ask for a final review.

• “Review my revised resume to improve readability and recommend any changes to better fit the job description.” <paste your updated resume>

The first time you do this, you’ll probably think “wow, this is so much better than what I started with” or possibly, “this is garbage, it’s making things up that aren’t even true.” Either way, if you keep playing with it, you’ll start to get a feel for a good balance of words that reflect your experience, but also connect well with job descriptions for jobs you’re interested in. Or maybe you’ll get lucky and get a job offer right away and not have to think about it again for years!

Some bonus prompts for when you get an interview:

• “You are an experienced recruiter helping me prepare for a job interview. I have an upcoming interview with a <recruiter/hiring manager>. Based on the job description, what are 10 questions they are likely to ask me. Explain what the purpose of the question is.” <paste the job description>

You can take it another step and provide your resume and ask it for suggested answers to the question. Careful here though because you don’t want to try to memorize the answers. And finally, you should always ask questions in an interview (ALWAYS), try this:

• “What are some questions that I can ask in the interview to show that I am engaged and very interested in the role?”

Good luck with your job search!

Worst book I’ve quit is Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. What a horrible book!

Worst I’ve finished is Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, immediately followed by Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I’ll throw in a special mention for The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby. All terrible books that I finished only because they were required reading in school.

When I was in the office, always metal. At home I’m more likely to listen to classical, but still metal if I need to be totally focused.

I put on music, preferably with full coverage noise canceling headphones to block as much outside stimulus as I can. Depending on the mood, I might put on something soothing (listening to Sean Townsend on YouTube right now) or I might go with metal.

If you are in US K-12 education and have a diagnosed condition (depression, anxiety, autism, etc.), you can have your parents request a 504 plan with the school. This requires the school to make reasonable accommodations for someone with a disability or illness that makes it difficult to be successful otherwise. When my daughter was suffering with anxiety and panic attacks, we worked with the administrators to setup safe places where she could go to calm down. The teachers were required to let her go any time she needed a break from the classroom.

I got my lawnmower about 9 years ago secondhand and have never done any maintenance on it. I’m pretty sure that’s how you’re supposed to do it.

Same, I actually use a french press and then pour the coffee into the insulated carafe from my dead coffee machine to keep it hot until I finish it.

I’ve noticed this with my kids’ schools. Many kids are open about who they are - LGBT+, neurodivergent, mental illnesses, etc. - and people are generally accepting of that. When I was a kid, people were bullied relentlessly for showing any form of difference from “normal”. It makes me happy to hear them talk about things like that like its no big deal…because it shouldn’t be.

https://www.positive.news/

This site usually has some good stories worth checking out.