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Brenticus's comments
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Brenticus  ·  2068 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: March 27, 2019

Hmm, it still feels like I'm sort of on that path, but now that I think about it my self worth has been pretty reasonable for quite a while now. So I guess I can talk about what's worked for me. For context, about a year ago my doctor diagnosed me with severe anxiety and moderate depression and I'd consider that to be the point where things started turning around

Full disclosure, on top of all this I'm also on cipralex, which probably helps a lot but is more for managing anxiety than anything else.

The biggest thing for me has been a combination of meditating every morning and journaling before bed every night. Meditation helps me set my mindset for the day — not even something as solid as an intention, just get myself more mindful of myself — and journaling lets me look back on my day and really pick out what felt good and what didn't. Over time this has helped me figure out what's important in my life and what I can stop worrying about, and that's helped me let go of a lot of ideas I was judging myself by but don't really care about in the long run. I'm also very prone to getting stuck in my own head, and both of those keep me from dwelling on dumb stuff, which overall helps me remember that I'm pretty alright on the whole.

I've also been getting more into minimalism and simple living concepts. Nothing too extreme, just identifying what in my life's important to me and reducing everything that isn't. My home feels much homier after decluttering and really working to make sure that when I look around I actually like what I see. Plus I've started doing some things like doing dishes by hand every night instead of running the dishwasher once a week or so, which I weirdly enjoy more since it means my dishes are always clean and I've done it myself so I know they're cleaned well. Sounds like a pain in the ass, but I've actually been enjoying it.

A lot of the other stuff is actually just little self-improvement actions, now that I think about it. I've got a budget so I'm always saving money. I'm cooking for myself more and eating healthier and trying to work more vegetarian meals into my diet. I'm reading more, which is something that's always been important to me but I've neglected for years. I've gotten more outdoorsy, biking to work and hiking for fun and sitting in parks on nice days. I actually make my bed when I get up in the morning. Just minor things that make you feel better about yourself and your environment. Just do things that you think will make your life better and be mindful of why it's making your life better. Easier said than done, of course, but typing it out on the internet is usually the easy part of a task.

Brenticus  ·  2110 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I Cut the 'Big Five' Tech Giants From My Life. It Was Hell

To the extent that she did? Hell yeah. Between AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud I can't even begin to guess how much of the internet you'd lose. A lot. I've done some annoying stuff to test out how dependent I am on various services and I definitely wouldn't bother.

But I think we should be more mindful about our internet and electronic usage. It's good to be aware of where our information is going and what it could be doing. Your information is used to inform search results and ads. It curates your social media feeds and changes product recommendations. It's not inherently a bad thing, but if you're not cognizant of the way you interact with these technologies then the internet starts turning into a bubble that specifically acts to reinforce what you like and want to spend money on. And that's a dangerous rabbit hole to crawl into.

Brenticus  ·  2110 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: February 13, 2019

I've seen a few posts about reddit alternatives since the tencent investment. I've had this account for a few years, but sort of stopped visiting in the midst of a bunch of stuff and forgot about hubski for a while.

I'm happy it doesn't seem to have changed a lot. Compared to reddit the posts and disccussion seem to be better quality and people are mostly friendlier. Not exactly a total replacement for reddit since there isn't as much entertainment value, but that's sort of nice, anyways. I think I'll try and stick around for a while.

Brenticus  ·  3375 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: ANIME CLUB -- Voting

Does every detail need to be in full context? That seems silly since it implies that you can't judge a show until you finish the whole thing, and you can't talk about what happened until you see what's going to happen. Just because the discussion at the end is stronger doesn't mean the others are meaningless. If I'm watching a show with someone each week, I'll frequently talk about every single episode with them, not just bottle the whole thing up till the end.

And I'm not saying it needs to be complex. A discussion thread once a week is probably less complex for the participants than trying to discuss everything about a show after a month with no reminders or pacing. If there were two of us I would still say lumping everything into one thread weeks later is a bad idea.

Brenticus  ·  3375 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: ANIME CLUB -- Voting

Well, we still get that stronger discussion at the end once the whole thing is complete, but we also get to discuss how things progress to that point and possibly pick on some smaller details throughout that would get lost in one big discussion.

I also voted for Shinsekai Yori, but Psycho-Pass is actually a good example of a show that frequent discussion could be meaningful for. There's a lot of stuff that happens that makes you think about that society and the pros and cons of something like Sybil, but they're not totally relevant to the overarching plot so they tend to get missed in discussions.

And I guess rather than making another comment, I'll say that averaging around an episode a day is probably a decent pace. Like, if we discussed 6-7 episodes once a week it would take us two weeks to finish a 13 episode series and we'd have a decent amount to discuss at each point. Conveniently, 6-7 episodes in is frequently some sort of turning point in a show so something exciting will probably lie around those episodes.

Brenticus  ·  3378 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: JTHipster's Summer of Anime

Samurai Flamenco is very much a love-it-or-hate-it show. I absolutely love it; the characters are great, the twists are fun, and it manages to be a bit deeper than your average anime despite how ridiculous the plot is. I guess you dropped it half way through, so you don't really have the full context, but I really think it would be a worse show without all the crazy genre shifts.

And I guess this serve as my umpteenth reminder to rewatch Eureka Seven. I enjoyed it when I watched it years ago, but I remember absolutely nothing about it other than all the characters being annoying at the start.

Brenticus  ·  3396 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Perseid Meteors To Light Up Summer Skies

I watched them in BC a few years ago, so yeah, you shouldn't have any troubles. Highly recommend - I missed the peak by a day and still saw tons of meteors!

Brenticus  ·  3396 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: ANIME CLUB -- New Series Suggestions

It's on my PTW already, so I'm up for that.

Brenticus  ·  3396 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Anime/Naruto

Crunchyroll has some stuff. Lots of plushes, from the looks of it.

Brenticus  ·  3404 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: It's Finally Here-- Anime Club Reviews: Serial Experiments: Lain

I tried, but I only managed to finish it today. Life was a little more important than anime for a while there. I would be interested in another one, and I should have more time from here on it seems like so I could probably jump into a future discussion on time.

I don't think two weeks was unreasonable - averages about an episode a day, which is doable for most people - but I agree with your other comments that more frequent posts would be better. Every three days, maybe, to discuss about three episodes (an hour of content) at a time?

edit: Also, if you're going to keep doing anime like this, more time is definitely better than less. I mean, I just finished it less than an hour ago and I don't have a whole lot to say other than "it was good" since it's the sort of thing that requires time to think about before you can discuss it very well.

Brenticus  ·  3418 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Cowboy Bebop OST

More things need jazzy soundtracks. Great riffs, super catchy, and appropriate for both shenanigans and sadness.

Brenticus  ·  3423 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Gaming's Best Ambient Tracks

Oblivion had some great ambient tracks. I especially love walking out of a house in the morning with the Sunrise of Flutes going in the background.

Brenticus  ·  3424 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What Anime to watch -- The Flowchart!

Not sure if it's quite right for beginners (stuff like Samurai Flamenco kind of require some exposure to various genres), but a good recommendation chart overall.

Sticking Gundam in the "hundreds of episodes" section is kind of weird because it's mostly separate series. There's an order to watch them in if you're planning on watching hundreds of episodes, but it's not required.

And it seems like both the "MMO Adventure" recommendations are... not recommendations. If anyone wants an MMO anime, both those series are fine and there's also stuff like .hack//SIGN, Danmachi, and Ixion Saga DT that are all totally different.

Brenticus  ·  3424 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Anime Club Revival -- Series One: *Serial Experiments: Lain.*

I've been meaning to watch this and I've wanted more anime on hubski, so this is great!

I just wish I hadn't just started a new job and moved to a new city. I'll see if I can finish it in time.

Brenticus  ·  3427 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What are your favorite browser based games?

Kingdom of Loathing is pretty great if you read all the descriptions. The gameplay is nothing particularly special, but the game is pretty funny a lot of the time. I go back to it literally every time I see this question asked somewhere.

Brenticus  ·  3429 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What's the easiest way to win a game of Civilization V?

Literally easiest way? Attila, Duel Map, Pangaea. Rush a couple of battering rams. Win by turn 50 most of the time.

Other than that, science victory, especially as Korea or Babylon. Go tall with 3-4 cities and beeline science techs (other than getting composite bows early to defend yourself). You can usually get to be a full tech era ahead of everyone else by the end of the game, depending on difficulty, which also means that it's really easy to defend against their pathetic troops. Depending on the map you might be able to win earlier with military or culture victories, but they're less consistent and require more effort.

If you don't want to choose a specific victory early on, Poland and Maya are good civ choices. Poland's ability is absolutely insane and adds up to a full policy tree by the end of the game, so if you do something you regret it's a lot easier to recover from or capitalize on it. Maya's bonuses are all very powerful as well: early archers, early science and faith, and a few free great people make for a very strong start to do whatever the hell you want.

Brenticus  ·  3431 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Gamers: what games have you been playing recently, and what do you think of them?

I started playing Valkyria Chronicles a little while ago. Lots of fun so far, nice blend of action and strategy and the story seems like it'll be pretty interesting.

Also Super Mario Bros 3, which I'm pretty sure will never get old.