Jackie's Fridge

Had to upvote for the ideal midwest pronunciation of “bag”

I also have to use it for work. I don’t know if it’s Adobe, or Windows 11, or a toxic combination of both, but not a single day goes by where I can just create without things randomly breaking. Illustrator stops letting me drag with the direct selection tool. Premiere switches to hotkeys as I’m typing text. InDesign…actually InDesign has been behaving.

But literally all the other Adobe apps will break AS I’M USING THEM - like, an action I’ve literally just done suddenly doesn’t work or glitches out. A couple weeks ago Premiere and Photoshop would literally crash on open. The day before they were both fine.

I have Gimp, Inkscape, and KdenLive installed just in case.

I use a Kaweco Sport as my daily driver.

Bonus: Nobody ever “borrows” it at work because it confuses and terrifies them.

Maybe Canada, but the US is ruining them too

Love it! Minimal but effective.

Can dimly remember what he looks like. Apparently he looks like someone’s creepy uncle who was always doing sleight of hand tricks to wow the little kids

She vaguely thinks there may be something out there but it has zero bearing on her life. I think that makes her functionally an agnostic atheist.

Another vote for the T480. I have a T480s running Mint and it’s been lovely. No driver issues and for office/light media creation/consumption it seems to work without a hitch.

A Mary Sue can fail, but those failures don’t usually have a massive impact and are easily reversed without the feeling that the MS had to struggle to earn the reversal.

The more flaws a character has, the more they have to work to balance them out. Readers are more likely on the side of a character that has to work and make sacrifices to make it through the difficulties the plot throws at them.

Random Example: Diana Rowland’s “My Life as a White Trash Zombie”. Protagonist Angel has a criminal record, drug addiction, abusive home life, and generally makes very bad decisions. Because of her life course, she has very few resources (she can’t go to the cops, nobody she knows has money or connections, etc) but she can think quickly and has a sort of desperate resourcefulness. Because everything is working against her, she has to fight for any positive forward movement, and one misstep can be a serious threat - and those happen frequently, undoing any success and forcing her to burn her resources to try a new path. IIRC in one of the books the B-story is her trying just to earn her GED as the main plot around her is utter pandemonium. Just that struggle to graduate high school is a herculean task given the deck stacked against her. Readers aren’t thinking “how will she win”, they’re thinking “well what’s going to go wrong this time?”

TL;DR: If every time your protagonist has a setback the readers shout “can’t she ever catch a break?” instead of “ah she’ll just breeze through this” you should be doing okay.

It’s a short series (six episodes so far) but with two more in production: The Devil’s Hour.

Go in blind, don’t spoil it for yourself.

If you like a series that gives you all the clues but none of them fall together until the last episode, this one is dark, brain-bendy supernatural mystery with an excellent cast.

Listening to other people, especially to women, is a skill. Don’t spend silent time in a conversation waiting for your chance to speak or be smart or witty, stay quiet and really process what you’re hearing. Imagine yourself in their situation. Accept that what they say is exactly how they feel.

The less time you spend talking, the more your conversational partner will tell you, and the more you will start to understand them, their lives, their goals, and their anxieties.

Knowing and understanding other peoples’ experiences will help you not only make better decisions in your own life, but understand why other people act and think the way they do. You’ll be less likely to snap-judge or make assumptions about others. And knowing more about your loved ones, co-workers, and neighbours will allow you to help them effectively if they need it.

And travel abroad as much as possible - listen to people from other countries and cultures. The human experience is wildly varied and endlessly fascinating.

You’re right, of course. Patent illustrations traditionally show the item only from behind.

No shreds given.

I feel bad it’s so materialistic but I’m stoked that the new model of the Dirtywave M8 music tracker is shipping this week or next. In the past couple years that single device has improved my music output immensely, and the user community on its Discord is ridiculously friendly and helpful.

The new model isn’t a radical update, but the new quality of life features plus the confidence that I will use it constantly really has me excited to continue my journey. For me it’s like a toy that’s always fun to play with, surprisingly deep, and after I play for a while I’ve accidentally created something. It’s cut down on my doom scrolling and social media consumption as well. For me, that’s money well spent.

*didn’t. They seem to have found a handy way to legislate from the bench. All they need is an excuse to hear a fake case and some imaginative takes on obscure rings that aren’t remotely precedent.

Hey that’s about when I started! And I also have a LOOOOT of awful stuff, but only now am I starting to occasionally make stuff that I don’t immediately hate.

Currently participating in Weekly Beats, which is something I’d never have considered even a year ago.

Of course, I’ll be learning the entire rest of my life, so…

We were evicted from our septic tank.

Stop projecting

Listen: FLAC files on my android phone using Foobar2000. Or for serious listening, FLAC files on an Astell & Kern with nice headphones.

Discover: Friends, family, Bandcamp. Bandcamp is great because the bands have the option to recommend their own favourites, and if they don’t, Bandcamp does the “other supporters of this band listen to this” thing. Bandcamp collections are public, so find out who paid money for an album you like and see what else they bought.

And now for the weird one: Goodwill. Not just browsing used CDs for treasures, but listen to their overhead music (especially around Halloween). There’s a surprisingly good mix of random stuff playing. I’ve Shazam-ed more music there than anywhere else.

With all his meddling it’s not even the Twitter of the US anymore