Ask Lemmy

These are my most recent monthly State Farm vehicle insurance payments, from most recent ($114.35) to sometime back in 2021 ($69.32). I have no control over how much or little they decide to take out of my bank account every month. I noticed it steadily going up over the months until suddenly my December payment DECREASED by $16.75. I really don't feel like contacting my insurance company with this trifling question but I am curious what affects their fluctuating prices.

$114.35 (December 2025) $131.10 (November 2025) $131.10 $131.10 $131.10 $131.10 $131.10 $122.45 $122.45 $122.45 $122.45 $122.45 $122.45 $121.87 $121.87 $121.87 $121.87 $121.87 $121.87 $100.89 $100.89 $100.89 $100.89 $100.89 $100.89 $95.40 $84.24 $83.56 $83.56 $69.32 (January 2021)

Spotify Wrapped is on the streets now, but rather than everyone saying what a cold algorithm told them their favourite songs were this year, I’d rather hear what actual people actually think.

So what are your favourite musical discoveries this year? Whether those were brand new songs from 2025, older songs that you only heard for the first time this year, or even songs you re-discovered after years of not hearing them.

Here’s some of mine, in the format of a goofy award show:

Favourite New Song From This Year
Lead Up by Goose - Maybe technically cheating because the band has apparently been playing this song live since at least 2023, but the studio version is from this year.

Favourite New Song Actually From This Year
the thoughts that keep me up at night by Marhly - This one makes me feel old, mostly because the artist is that much younger than me. But there’s something about the anxious lyrics that felt very 2025.

Favourite New Song That Really Made Me Feel Old
Year of the Optimist by Beach Bunny - Speaking of artists that are way, way younger than me, we have this song. I’m not sure about the warbly vocals in some places, but it’s upbeat and optimistic (like its says on the tin).

Favourite New Song That Made Me Feel Young
Well, Whatever it Was by Joyce Manor - This song feels like it could have come out when I was in high school, but rather than make me feel my age, it put a spring in my step. I didn’t actually listen to much music back then, so maybe I’ve misestimated my musical eras, but I can’t really shake the feeling.

Favourite New Song by a Band That I Saw Live
No Angels in this Town by Our Lady Peace - Granted, I only went to one concert this year, but still counts, right? I’m not a huge OLP fan, mostly knowing their songs by osmosis, but hearing this song for the first time made me buy a ticket. It was kind of a rebound concert as I had to miss seeing my favourite band on their farewell tour, but I still enjoyed myself, even if they didn’t play this particular song.

Favourite Rediscovered Song
Tornado of Souls by Megadeth - I used to listen to Rust In Peace quite a bit when I was younger, but I kind forgot about it (and most other metal) for the better part of a decade until a new Megadeth song hit my recommendations. That caused me to go back and listen, and reawaken by appreciation for this song.

Favourite Song Discovered Through Weird Coincidence
It’s Not Because of You by Witchcraft - This one randomly came up in my wife’s playlist. Neither of us had heard of the band before, but I figure it had something to do with the Ghost songs that we both like.

Favourite New Cover
Folsom Prison Blues by Sawyer Hill - A heavier take on a Johnny Cash song, my first thought when I heard this was, “Boy, they don’t make them like this any more.” Sawyer Hill has an interesting voice, baritone like Cash but more gravelly. Speaking of which…

Favourite New Song That I Liked Purely for a Single Element
Need Me Now by Sawyer Hill - Do I actually like this song? Is this actually a good song? I don't know, but Mr. Hill has a really interesting voice, so I’m willing to forgive some lyrics that feel a bit too cute. I do understand if his voice drives people away, though; what I’ve gathered is that some people really cannot stand it.

Favourite New Song With the Hardest Hitting Lyric
Troubadour Moon by The Wildhearts - “It’s a bitch when you find out you’re just an ordinary man.” Oof.

Favourite New Song That Really Has Me Hoping the Artist Isn’t Problematic
Sweet Southern Sound by Samantha Fish - I kid (mostly), but it is southern rock. I haven’t found anything problematic about Ms. Fish, thankfully, but I also haven’t dug too far.

Favourite New Song Discovered Through Lemmyvision
Band LIke That by fanclubwallet - I submitted a bunch of songs for my country’s entry in Lemmyvision. None of them got many votes, but I did discover this one submitted by someone else.

Honourable Mentions
Beatrice by the Toxhards
Ma Cherie by Palaye Royale and Kellin Quinn
Karaoke by Queen of Jeans
In My Pocket by Cafuné

I’ve been struggling with writer’s block for a while, feeling like there’s no point in me writing anything when there’s already so much out there for people to read. When you have writer’s block, how do you get out of the rut and start writing again?

If you've never been in one, no need to comment "never". For me it was over a decade ago as a teenager at a state fair. Quick fight broke out between an annoying guy and myself. He was following my little group around tossing stink bombs at us. A little pushing turned into a little punching. We both ended up in cuffs but neither with actual charges. We were both banned for the following 2 years from that fair.

I see the RSS symbol on some post and I was wondering how to do it since I mod 2 communities. Yes I did try to google it but I was fed sponsored links and bullshit. If someone could point me to something that is understandable for a non tech guy I would appreciate it.

Is there is like a website or an archive that has everything organized and updated?

If you can historically re-enact the 1890s, can you do the 1990s? Where does it end?

I'm hosting a jellyfish themed party and want to set the vibes. If you were a jellyfish, what songs would be on your fave playlist? Give me your bloopiest tunes! -🪼

Bonus points if it was open source and allow NSFW.

Please don't suggest alternatives like Reddit and Lemmy, as I am looking for an alternative to see and post memes only.

Inkscape and GIMP

I give money to Gimp and Inkscape because they are creating free open source alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. The developers behind these projects are amazing people.

https://www.gimp.org/

https://inkscape.org/

I also want Inkscape and GIMP to be great so more photographers and artists can switch to Linux.

The Guardian

I give money to The Guardian.

It's the largest non-profit newspaper in the world. They have reporters around the world. Their environmental coverage is impressive. They also refuse to display gambling advertising,.

Independent journalism is costly and supporting them is the least I can do. I'm so tired of people whining about "corporate media" but refusing to fund non-profit media.

When The Guardian exposes scumbags, I feel my money is super useful.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/02/christopher-booth-far-right-youtube-channel

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/06/michigan-university-gaza-surveillance

Actions meet consequences.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/09/university-of-michigan-surveillance-students

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/neo-nazi-concerns-in-montcalm-county/69-b484159f-3d61-449d-b72a-c3317efd7116

Libre Office

I give money to LibreOffice. They are creating a free open source alternative to Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Excel. This is a very important project.

Fuck Microsoft Office overcharging people and communities.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

Ukraine

I started giving money to Ukraine. What the Russians are doing is just horrific

It's literally a democracy fighting against Russia + Iran + China + North Korea.

Yale Professor Timothy Snyder is a great historian:

He is fundraising to help Ukrainians acquire armored medical ambulances equipped with anti-drone devices.

Professor Snyder is a great author and thinker. I would trust him with my own life.

So I decided to give money to his fundraising campaign. In fact, I felt guilty and gave again and again:

https://snyder.substack.com/p/freedom-is-action-a-campaign-for

Lemmy.world

I give money to Lemmy.world in order to support them. Reddit advertising executives absolutely hate Lemmy. My message to them: We aren't going anywhere.

https://ko-fi.com/fhfworld

What are non-profit organizations that you actually give money to? And why?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39643616

I’ve recently fallen down a rabbit hole of fake video games. Not fake like fraud, but fake like art; games that don’t exist to play, but do exist to tell their stories. I’m super into it but finding more is kinda difficult, so here we are!

What fake games do you like? Why do you like them? Pictures, links, videos, whatever.

I really enjoyed Petscop (video 1/25 linked) and Valle Verde (video 1 linked, Spanish with subtitles), both series are let’s play style, exploring fake games to tell their stories. Petscop is much more narratively involved, and tells a great story (you’ll probably want an explainer video afterwards.. it’s involved) while Valle Verde is more ghost-in-the-machine horror.

I found this rabbit hole through this video, from Super Eyepatch Wolf about fake video games, why they are made and how they “work” as an art form. Their content is weirdly enjoyable to me, and pleasingly entirely too long. Plus they have their own fake video game.

Edit for clarity: Fake video games is a super broad category. Pictures with gameplay hud that implies a video game, videos of gameplay or cutscenes styled after games count (even those weird live action “games” people record for TikTok count), books or stories that describe gameplay for games that don’t exist count, even soundtracks modeled after game sound tracks count. So if it’s a game or part of a game that doesn’t exist, it counts!

Could be any kind of performer be it comedian, podcaster, actor, etc.

What is it about Idaho in particular that appeals so much to neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists that they all keep moving out there?

A friend of mine was helping me to do some screens to make some OBS Studio scenes. We were on discord sharing our workflow via screen share, then he looks for an AI model using a search engine. Then upload an image just to cut the white background. I told him that easily he could use the magic wand in photoshop or gimp to cut it out, even, if he wanted, customize the settings to achieve saw edges or none of them. The place where he works loads a bunch of work to him, so, he says me that that's the only way to make the day job done, but, the image that the AI spit out was horrible. The AI not just cut the background, it cut relevant part of the image too, also, it added some transparency to the image. Thing that my buddy had to fix in photoshop adding some black under it in another layer.

I do not know how to talk to him about it, because he was the photoshop guy in highschool and I was the gimp guy in highschool, we always tried to achieve the same things in both softwares, we got pretty good in them. He uses AI for everything now, to add subtitles, to delete content from a video or image, to cut background, etc, just to fix it in photoshop or whatever.

According to this https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/fbi-subpoena-tries-to-unmask-mysterious-founder-of-archive-today/ source, FBI gave Tucows a deadline of 29 November. It has already been 3 days since that date and I see no signs of any action being taken: the archive is operating as usual, and there's absolutely nothing I could find online about the aftermath of this investigation. Was it dismissed? Did Tucows actually give FBI the owner's data? If so, are they in a safe place right now?

Likely many other, I've been grossed out by some of the shit getting churned out with generative ai. But it's also made me notice some of the existing things that give me the same feeling.

Poorly translated stuff, as often seen on cheap Chinese imports, has the same uncanny valley awkwardness. It sounds like English, but it isn't what an actual human who spoke English would say. And if we want to talk about an algorithm that's gone rogue and is destroying the world while trying to fulfill some arbitary metrics, there's always late-stage capitalism...

Anyone else notice things like this?

I have 10-15 years of Linux experience for personal use and I have a few years of IT support work in the cloud but I still have some gaps in my tech knowledge, especially in regards to networking. I recently lost my job to AI and I'm interested in what comes next. I won't touch windows. I don't want to install it, image it, use it, support it, etc.

Is it possible to get into an IT career without ever acknowledging the existence of windows?

I joined lemmy a couple of years ago and added a lot of lemmy.ml communities but the politics there is unhinged and I don't even care about politics! What are some fun/funny communities with less unhinged people?! (no .ml please)

Edit: You guys are awesome! thank you for making my days more fun and cute

I feel that people will misunderstood me here, but I wanted to ask this question.

Why did no company employ basically 70%-90% trainees, people with disabilities and desperate people and outsource the work that cannot be finished cheaply?

Is there is a company like that, but I just don't know it?

I understand having a limit for small crimes but for huge ones, like murder, why would the crime prescribe? Is there a reason for that?!