Casual Conversation

What are some daily little ingrained habits that you have? The kind of things that are automatic, ritualistic, and usually without much thought.

I keep a tube of chapstick with me all the time and apply it a few times a day without much thought. I only really notice when I happen to misplace it or run out. In those cases, I'll feel a bit off that day.

_

P.S. The balm also works great as a lotion backup. Like when a child of mine complains about their dry, cracked knuckles in the winter. I suppose some people might find that weird, but it's pretty common for me to MacGyver solutions.

i think i compulsively "remix" things. not in a musical sense, but in a conversational one. it doesn't feel to me like it's enough to just react: if i send a meme to a friend, they will usually respond with an emoji, but when they send something to me i feel this... pull to continue the conversation. the original joke is not enough, it needs to be riffed on. if i can't think of a witty comment for the thing, i often do not respond at all until i've thought of something.

what's more, when i meet someone in real life whose response to a thing is just confirming the meme/reference out loud, i get annoyed. i'm fine with it in text form (it's always fun to imagine someone chuckling looking at their phone), but when i make an allusion to a reference and someone goes "ah, " i feel like the conversation has just stalled. it makes me feel like i'm in the big bang theory and i have to pause for the laugh track. for some reason band kids do this a lot, don't ask me why.

is this... weird? i feel like it's weird.

I mean it's about a hillbilly white American family...

Yea idk how white families are like so... feels a bit "foreign" to me as an ethnic Chinese immigrant to the US.

My parents are rural, but I've lived in cities for the most part, so that's one big difference from the movie.

Light spoilers from the movie:

The biggest differences from the movie and my own family is that, its the father being the shitty parent while my family is sort of reversed, its my mother being that parent... and instead of alcoholism is a (presumed) undiagnosed bipolar disorder...

I don't remember actually being starved but I was threatened with "you are misbehaving so you don't get to eat tonight" then I just cry in my room...

I mean I probably would've get fed if I actually asked, but its embarassing and hurts my ego so I just refuse to eat anyways... then my mom is like condecensingly, "c'mon you misbehaving child, eat... even though you're useless and don't deserve to eat"... so sometimes I'd just eat random snacks or like fry eggs in the middle of the night and then mom comes downstairs and stare at me judgingly and then either say "useless shit" with a scary glare, or depending on which stage of bipolar she's in, she could act like a victim like "I love you and sacrafice so much for you, do you want to make me abandon you" like those words just trigger me...

I don't wanna feel abandoned...

No mama pls, don't abandon me is what my brain instictively though of

I felt so scared.

She was scary.

What happened to the mom that cuddled me just days or even hours before?

This love/hate cycle fucked with me a lot.

The Glass Castle also delt with very serious shit like... the grandma character attempting to molest her grandson (aka: the brother of Jennette Walls (the main focus of the story)). Luckily, I don't have any memories of such sexual abuse... at least I don't think so... I mean it could be a repressed memory somewhere in my brain, but idk... I hope that's not the reason why I'm feeling so anxious all the time...

But yea the BIGGEST difference is... in the movie, the kids banded together... whereas my older brother is so toxic I'd need my also toxic mother to protect me from my older brother's abuse... (he zip-tied me when I was like 5 or 6 years old)

Then just when you think you feel safe, mom does bipolar again...

Mental illness is so stigmitized in China, where we came from, so I doubt she'd ever get treated for that... presumed bipolar disorder.

I want my own "The Glass Castle" movie someday... probably gonna get my ass sued by family lol.

I know this is meant to be a casual conversation and this topic can get deep fast, but I’d love to hear everyone's elevator pitch for their religion or lack thereof. peace and love<3

I overhead the livingroom conversation and its annoying af.

"Why are you so fat, lose some weight. This is why get no girls"

"Why are you working such a shitty job, didn't you go to college for 5 years? Did you ever get a diploma or are you this stupid?" (referring to the fact that the internship requirements weren't fullfilled so no diploma was issued at first)

"You need to [爭氣]¹, stop being such a loser"

(¹爭氣 Antonym of 不爭氣 meaning: disappointing; failing to live up to expectations; so basically something like: "strive for more in life?")

These are directed at my older brother, so then he gets insecure and starts be like: what about [him]? (he's referring to me) so then he starts insulting me...

like dude wtf I didn't yell at you, the fuck you targeting me for?

Then here's the kicker: later my mom would also go say a lot of similar stuff, but directed at me instead and when my older brother is not listening to it, and from my older brother's pov, he views himself as if he's being unfairly mistreated and so he's then hates me because of that, even thought I don't exactly get any special treatment, I'm 5 years younger btw.

So like both my mom and brother would say a lot of shit to me and like bruhhh...

So... just your average Asian American household... 🙃

I feel like one of these days we're gonna end up murdering each other then she's gonna end up childless lmao... wonder if she'll even feel shame for getting her children to murder each other. (okay kidding, don't think murder is happening yet, but it does feel quite scary when the yellings erupt)

I know a lot of westerners here are gonna be like "go no contact", but like honestly if Asians all followed the western standards, I bet like 80% of "boomer" Asian parents are gonna have estranged kids, this is just the norm.

Do you think like because the "overtion window" of parenting is different, that maybe sometimes you just have to accept that this shit happens, or should I just like embrace western culture and beome a "banana" (Asian on the outside, Westernized on the inside)?

Sorry if my thoughts make no sense, kinda just thinking aloud.

My insta feed is drowning in gushing memes about it

I just saw someone else post asking why someone would want to get married, so I'm curious to see the opposite. Within the U.S., you can pretty much marry whoever you want as long as they are of age, and many legal benefits come with that. I personally know a couple who have been together for 20 years, and we live in a state that doesn’t recognize common-law marriage, so they are now considering it. Are there other situations where it simply makes sense to not get married?

I have been thinking about this is for a while now.

My teeth's have always been crocked(overbite here) and I have been always conscious about it. They yellowish(especially the four lower front) and not equal sizes(some look like they are broken)

Recently I found out that my adult tooth grow under my mild tooth even though I am in my 20s. I got the millk tooth removed and the dentist said that the adult one will move into place in a about year but its still at the back of the other teeth for two years and I kept rubing it with my tongue and its driving me crazy.

He did say that I can install braces if it doesn't move into place and I just don't have the money for that. Instead I looking to get it removed altogether.

But this is not a mouth anyone would wanna kiss

It seems to be a family isue, with most of family(especially mom) and my other relatives having dental problems

Mom herself have been having teeth installed and its costing us months and months of rent

I keep thinking that this is my fault for not brushing twice a day or after every meal or whatever but I genuinely think that this is something only a dentist could have prevented.

Let's take a moment to look at what's going right. What's made you laugh or smile recently? No matter how big or small it is, we want to hear about it!

Just wondering if you all can suggest me some good active ones ad im not sure where to start?

Or does it depend on various topics of interest?

I realized a while ago that in my whole career I've never worked for a for-profit corporation.

Recently I've been wondering if non-profit corporations could succeed in areas typically dominated by for-profit corporations. I'm in the U.S.

There are certainly plenty of non-profits functioning, employing people, and providing services to the public. Schools, Hospitals, public radio & TV, etc. But what areas are there where non-profits could exist and survive where they don't currently?

I've been in a stable relationship for a while now so naturally the idea of being married to that person comes up. But I just can't think of any argument in favour of it.

1. The government is discussing equalising tax groups, so unmarried individuals are no longer disadvantaged compared to married couples.

2. I engage in a contract with high risk. If I don't get my legalese right, I risk forfeiting a sizeable portion of my belongings when the contract comes to an end. High risk should entail high reward but in fact I don't see any reward.

3. Getting married changes nothing about the relationship. Until recently, the government didn't even recognise same sex marriages. So if a straight couple gets married, should that make their relationship more valid because the government decides to put a stamp of approval on theirs and not on a gay couple? I hope not.

I've tried putting myself in other roles to imagine why I would want to get married. This is what I came up with:

1. I like labelling things and I like the sound of the label "married"
2. I want a big party called "marriage ceremony" that other people also understand as "marriage ceremony" (as opposed to just any party)
3. I like the way married couples are portrayed in films and books (Ignoring the fact that in real life, a lot of marriages are unhappy, dysfunctional and draining until they end up in divorce).

I told my dad about the appointment a few times before and he didn't even seem to remember it to wake me up...

I hate my life...

It's weird. When I look in the mirror I never think I look average. Either I think wow I look handsome or eww have I always looked like that?

Today was the latter. I'm noticing for the first time my eyebrows are glued to my eyes. And combined with the receding hairline it's like my hair and my brows are conspiring to make sure my forehead is as large as possible 😭

Have you been rocking an old classic? Discovering something new? Revisiting some nostalgic bands from the past?

If you've got links, post 'em up!

A fun tool for discovering new bands: https://www.music-map.com/

Hey all,

Been slowly getting back into the habit of working on MusicBrainz stuff today, and decided to put some focus into adding relations between songs I like, and the songs they sampled. So far it's been rather run-of-the mill stuff, something sampling Justin Timberlake, another sampling Limp Bizkit, some stuff I was working on few days ago sampling Skrillex, Tech N9ne, Avicii, list goes on.

However, I decided to see where the vocals came from for one of my all-time favourite tracks, that being cynical by N_dog. Song is fantastic, love the energy the track has, instrumentals are great, love the switchups, list goes on.

Decided to search the lyrics and came across the lyrics through Shazam, which matched them to a track called Fuzzy Love by Diluli. If the album art didn't already make it clear this was AI-generated, looking around further brings up a YouTube channel of the artist where the banner reads "Applied AI Architect".

I feel conflicted here with what I think about this song now. The first thing that comes to mind is disappointment that the vocals sampled were taken from a track that was AI-generated knowingly or unknowingly. The vocals aren't from a real person, which feels it should ruin the immersion, and knowing that they're almost certainly generated from a dataset without the consent of however many artists is honestly gross.

On the other hand, I weirdly almost appreciate the track more than I did before? The song itself is without a doubt made by a person, it just so happens the sample they used was from an AI-generated song. A lot of work went into it, and the fact that they took stuff that was devoid of creativity and gave it creative life honestly feels a bit uplifting, even despite the fact that the vocals would be much preferred to be from an actual person.

What are your guy's thoughts on this? Is sampling AI music giving acceptance to AI music as a whole thus bringing the music industry down, or does it come off as rejecting the idea of literally lifeless music by infusing it with genuine human creativity?

Another day, another universe to scan for any human world.

I work with a machine that can open interdimensional wormholes to other branches of the timeline. It goes down for repairs sometimes. We don't build a backup. We don't want to deal with a second one on the same planet.

Each branch of the timeline is like another universe. Air, water, stars, cosmic background radiation.

All the humans we've found share nearly identical home planets, in nearly identical star systems. In English, they're named "Earth" and the "solar system," of a star called the "sun."

Most universes have no Earth, and most Earths have no humans, and most human Earths have no English language.

One theory is, humans don't happen anywhere else. It takes Earth, and it takes the right Earth, to get any humans.

Another theory is, we're just far away from any timeline where humans had a different start, and our wormholes are biased to "nearer" timelines.

We do notice some kind of bias. By random dice rolls, we shouldn't be finding universes with Earths or humans at all.

Measurements suggest it all started from one "Big Bang," and quantum physics created 2 different copies of everything, every time something could go 2 different ways.

It's like our wormholes are somehow magnetized to other timelines with similarities to ours. That's why we can find any human worlds at all, even if most timelines have none.

I don't have a valentine so I'm probably going to be spending it cozied up in my bedroom with snacks, my Kobo, and my tv! How about you guys?

Feel free to have a look at

!movies@piefed.social
!television@piefed.social
!animation@piefed.social

What makes it worse is the language barrier... cuz I've been using English since 8 and its my primary lanfuage, and my mom sounds awkward af in English and she won't understand complex topics...

And like if I start talking philosophy, then it sounds so doomer and like mom be like: (translated) "Why are you overthinking everything?"

But okay wtf do I talk about? Do I start going on a rant about politics and them mom be like: "You can't change politics, just accept it"

Like WHAT DO YOU WANT?

I talk to dad about like hypothetical interstellar travel and time dialation and dad was like: "Cool story bro" (like the Cantonese equivalent of it)

Like what the hell, are they just so boring? And they are saying I'm gonna become "autistic" because I never talk to them...

There's nothing to talk about that ends the conversation happily.

Literally more boring responses than a fucking LLM lmfao

Lihkku Beivviin to all sámi people in the Lemmyverse

It's not unreasonable to percieve the WWW for the past 20 years, definitely 10 years, to basically being a handful of website with 90% of the users.

I for one miss the smaller internet of days past, but I've always assumed I was in the minority here, as most of my peers don't seem to care about everything being on Facebook these days.

However, as AI slop overruns these platforms, I've noticed increased interest in alternatives. As each major platform gets slopified, the sites and communities that are too small to warrant much interest from bots become more lucrative.

And as for the ones who are fine with the slop feeds who think what they're seeing is actually real, I guess we're not losing much of value if they stay with InstaFaceTwitterTok

Idk wtf lol.

I wanna take a shower?

Nah, later, gotta watch this youtube video first...

I don't feel like doing anything lol...

I'm Gen Z so I think the older generation is probably gonna throw a few insults at me lol

But tbf, my parents are on social media all the time too.. or watching some tv stuff on youtube... 🤷‍♂️