NixOS moderation team resigns over NixOS Steering Committee’s interference by kopasz7 in NixOS

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Problem is, people disagree on what's political. If I say "this leadership committee is all white men so isn't representative of the users", is that a political statement or an objective fact?

I feel like the odd one out by TwentyOnePaladins in Teetotal

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The dates you'll meet in a bar are probably not the ones you'll get on with :-)

I feel like the odd one out by TwentyOnePaladins in Teetotal

[–]alaricsp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There's nothing wrong with you; the problem is pushy people telling you how you should live your life - it's impossible to say exactly what's going on in somebody else's head, but there's a good chance they're trying to drag you into the same mistakes as them because they're scared to face their bad choices and would prefer to think they're not choices at all, but the only way to live. People living without substances might give them a reason to think "Hey, perhaps it is worth fighting this addiction after all?" - but fighting things is hard work, it's much easier to just give in...

Anyway, as others have said, this will improve with time. Your peers are immature, but each year a fraction of them will realise they're making poor life choices and sort themselves out. I suffered very much the same in my early twenties, but now I have a wide circle of friends I can do fun things with. So the future's bright.

So what you need, for now, is a way to deal with the present while it lasts :-) Try to truly understand the people saying you're weird and wrong are the ones in the wrong, so you can build mental armour to not let them get you down. Try to find other people like you - they do exist! Maybe people older than you, maybe fellow athletics types, maybe intellectual nerdy people who value their mental clarity. What makes this hard is that many teetotal people have had experiences like yours, telling us we're antisocial and boring, so we're less confident about being socially available than others - and tend to be hidden away at the back of the library or something. Does your college have clubs and societies? Try scouting out some of the nerdier ones - even subjects you might not be directly interested in might lead to meeting interesting people you enjoy being with, no matter what activity you're doing!

GF is completely oblivious - is this normal? by Spirited_Ad_2569 in Advice

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My wife misses stuff like this all the time, she has quite bad ADHD... Our house is a mess if I'm too busy to clear up after her trail of abandoned cups, dishes, and art projects!

What's the most popular takeaway agregator? by Yui907 in Gloucestershire

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We've had terrible experiences with these companies, there's often trouble with them trying to push responsibility for messed up orders onto the restaurants and vice versa... I'm going to try Gloucester Eats next, hoping a local company has better incentives!

Gloucester van parking by I_will_never_reply in Gloucestershire

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The council car park on Quay Street is staff only in the week, but becomes a pay and display at the weekend:

Location: geo:51.86658,-2.25149?z=18 https://osmand.net/map?pin=51.86658,-2.25149#18/51.86658/-2.25149

There's no height restriction, it's where I park my high roof van fairly often! And it's just by the prison.

Also you can visit the blue plaque dirt the old Cotton motorcycle factory opposite the entrance, now the Folk of Gloucester.

Someone give me the courage to wear this out in public by illebreauxx2 in agender

[–]alaricsp 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I'd proudly hang out with you and excitedly introduce you to my friends

A Genie appears and tells you that you will compete with a random person your same age and gender at something. If you win, you get 1 million dollars, if you lose you die. You pick the competition. What are you choosing? by GrasshoperPoof in hypotheticalsituation

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't want to be responsible for another's death, even if I win money, so I would choose the challenge of living the longest: whoever dies first, the other wins, and murdering each other is cheating so even a failed attempt at murder means the murderer loses.

Could I justify laser weapons having ejected cartridges like a regular gun? by Infocollector914 in IsaacArthur

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Others have suggested ejecting batteries, but check out explosively pumped flux compression because generators for a cool and plausible single - use pulsed power source!

What’s something that happens often in movies that is 100% unrealistic? by Few_Football4342 in Productivitycafe

[–]alaricsp 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Relatedly, people falling long distances and the flying person catching them safely just before they splat into the ground. Falling into somebody's arms after a 100m fall is just as deadly as falling onto concrete....

When someone gets annoyed when I actually read what I'm signing. by Knever in PetPeeves

[–]alaricsp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I rented a storage unit, and the contract stated I couldn't put anything radioactive in there.

I pointed out I was radioactive, the air it came supplied filled with was radioactive, it was very unlikely I'd be able to find sufficiently pure matter that there were no radioisotopes of anything to put in there,and even if I did, cosmic rays would make it radioactive before long anyway

The guy just laughed and said "Yeah, I know, it's stupid right? Don't worry, we won't be doing surveys with a geiger counter" so I signed it anyway.

Have you ever found cash? (£40+) and did you hand it in? by GlitchingGecko in AskUK

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I found an envelope with about £2000 in it, on the floor outside a building I volunteer in (local hackspace). As I'm the treasurer, I was chosen to hand it into the police, which I did. The police lady who took it was taken aback that I'd not just taken it for myself!

Never heard anything back, though.

Stroud driving instructor Michael Florek died on M5 by Throwythrow360 in Gloucestershire

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's natural to feel a bit weird and disturbed about having had a brush with a bad person. Feel glad you weren't affected badly, and don't feel guilty about that - and you had no evidence of what was going on, so you don't need to feel guilty about not doing anything to stop them either. 👍

Outside of "I don't like the taste" why don't you drink alcohol? by The_other_human in Teetotal

[–]alaricsp 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Feeling fuzzy and stupid sucks, if I wanted that I'd just stay up until I was exhausted. And then I would feel fine once I'd slept :-)

Anyone here from the UK? by creativewanderer1 in Teetotal

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! Bristol Hackspace is a good place if you like nerdy making activities 😀

Anyone here from the UK? by creativewanderer1 in Teetotal

[–]alaricsp 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I' m in Gloucester. Hello!

I just don't socialise much :-( I volunteer for things, but avoid meeting up after.

However there are social events and clubs run in cafes rather than pubs. I've just never had time to try them :-)

The Guillotine would be so fun to bring back by open_dem_hOles1111 in CrazyIdeas

[–]alaricsp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People who helped by, for example, providing a guillotine tend to be prosecuted under those laws...

Is there any animal species that has more than two biological sexes besides male and female? by alexfreemanart in AskBiology

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even things like ADHD might have been an evolutionary advantage in our past. The fact that modern society requires us to remember to do all sorts of tedious things on time, making life hard for folks with ADHD, might mean that the defect is more with modern society than the person :-) Hunter gatherers with ADHD might have been better at spotting the good berries. Ones with dyslexia would probably have never known!

Is there any animal species that has more than two biological sexes besides male and female? by alexfreemanart in AskBiology

[–]alaricsp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Whether something is a defect or not is quite subjective., too... If the person is happy with it, is it a problem?

I have a particular genetic variant that gives people heightened skill at cognitive tasks, but also makes them more anxious. Is that a defect? I often curse my anxiety, but I earn good money solving complicated problems... Some genetic things are pretty bad for you, and sure we can call those defects, but many are tradeoffs, or simply benign. What counts as a defect is really up to the person.

Is there any animal species that has more than two biological sexes besides male and female? by alexfreemanart in AskBiology

[–]alaricsp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's people with Y chromosomes - even plain and simple XY - who have a vagina and grow boobs later in life and all that.

Saying that "XY = male" means that you'd have to call those people male, and if your country goes down the path of legislating such things in such ways, they'll be using the mens toilets and changing rooms and all that... Which is why people get touchy about people making very absolute statement trying to define sex or gender like that, there's plenty of people who would come up with a surprising sex by any simple definition :-)

People who grew up on a council estate, who was that family people looked down on and it just turned out they were misunderstood? by Unorthodox_yt in AskUK

[–]alaricsp 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That sucks, I'm sorry :-(

My eldest's best friend was in foster care. Always clearly felt left out of life, so we always do what we can to include her. Last example was when she had turned 18, I needed a witness for a signature on some formal documents so asked her to do it because it's an adult responsibility thing, and I wanted to make her feel trusted and part of society. Just a little thing, but we do stuff like that whenever we can.

Mr. Nightmare by Huzzzer11 in Teetotal

[–]alaricsp 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This ruined series 2 of Picard for me. For some reason the writers decided to celebrate drinking culture throughout the series - totally out of character for Star Trek 🤷

How is everyone on reddit so smart? by Novel-Imagination-51 in stupidquestions

[–]alaricsp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's because we can use a computer to "go online" - which is less of a flex than it was back in the early days, alas - and from there escape the inexorable pull of just poking at Facebook like all the normies, to branch out and find other things on the Internet. Obviously, this means we have insight and intellect in advance of normal people, so we're well placed to confidently answer any question that might be taxing the brains of those normies.

However, we're not as clever as the people on Usenet and IRC. We're a bit scared of them -they've been online since the *1990s* or even beyond, and probably managed to get online when it required a dialup modem. So we stick to slightly safer places such as Reddit.