Lasting happiness? There's always going to be downs as well as ups in life. Stoicism will teach you how to handle the pitfalls in life without dwelling on them and helping you to get on in life. Buddhism will help you to understand that life is full of sorrow but that the journey is it's own reward and that joy can be found anywhere.

A perpetual state of satisfaction can be reached that's liberally peppered with happiness. Happiness is not an end goal. It's the after affect of a effortful life that invites playfulness and new experiences.

The key word here is effort. Happiness should not be the main goal. Living your values. Finding a process and journey that meets your values and challenges you slightly will bring satisfaction.

Be carful of self help books and systems. Many are designed to put you on a perpetual wheel of needing more and more books to buy and classes to take. They are money generators that will tell you they offer the golden cure. And if you didn't succeed with the system in a few months then here's part two you can buy.

I do like THE HAPPINESS LAB podcast as a starting point. There's a free Yale course too. The teaching there can get you to examine some stuff.

Be kinder to yourself but do put some challenges in your way. Happiness is not about having a placid life.

I'd guess it depends on the thickness of what you are pasting. They're thin and I've only put down postcard like items. There is a double sided sticky tape out there too that's thinner. The dots are easier to manage. The tape a little messier. They both come in a self applying dispenser. I got mine off of Amazon. The tape is not temporary. You'll need to be precise your first time applying it.

I discovered removable glue dots. Using them now with my Hobo.

Google and Bing search has been horrible with that for some time. Bing AI will at least bypass the crap website's for now anyway.

Watching this post for some insight as well.

Curious if someone in an abusive relationship could use this trick if their phone was being monitored. If the abuser was just monitoring them with the phone's parental controls this would work but if there was an app probably not?

I'm always nervous about installing an apk package into to my phone. Will Thunder ever be in the Play Store do you think?

The rumbling on the Fediverse is that Sync should be available for Lemmy in the Play store fairly soon. But maybe I'll take the plunge with Thunder before that.

Seven Samurai is an amazing movie. It set the groundwork for so much more to follow.

Harold and Maude Silence of the Lambs Thor: Ragnarok Singing in the Rain Unforgiven

Silly to hold us to five but those were the first to come to mind.

Jerboa does have limited use here. You just can't post anything. I used it to comment here and to up vote.

Best course of action like others have said, contact the office directly. I'm not sure that it is a scam but if you have any suspicion then treat it as a scam. It's a bad habit on the sender's part to send it off where other people's emails can be grabbed.

One explanation, and it happened where I've worked, someone writes an email using the one PC that all supervisor level workers must use. Due to login credentials already in place, everything goes out from the wrong email and with the wrong signature by accident. Or they're training someone and the let them use their credentials.

I've never understood github, compiling, and running an app/program from there. I'm at best a code monkey. Show me and the code needed at the command line and most of the time I can make it work. Can you suggest where to get started?

I nearly spit out my drink. Relatable and funny.

We need a remind me bot. I've no clue other than Putin fled Moscow and they guy controlling a bunch of mercenaries is coming for him. I'll look back at this post later to see what the consensus is and if they supply links.

Porteus is cool. I messed around with it when trying to set up an idiot proof browsing pc for a relative.

Pop or Mint are fantastic. They are my go to.

Sorting by New and All is the best way to find active communities and magazines. I'm hoping that my subscribed list becomes as active as New currently is.

It was all about the concessions at intermission time. 🍿

The random events are a little predictable. Unless there was a patch, just avoid certain areas for your wandering, don't approach strangers in the wilderness and be prepared for the seldom snake bite. There's probably a good YouTube video on what to look for in the random encounters.

Agreed but they will bleed off users more than likely with their shenanigans. The Fediverse is at a tipping point. It will either develop to be robust and fun/informational, or it will remain the playground for a few. Societies only become better when more people are actively involved. We need the involvement now more than ever to guard against fracturing.

If you are viewing on a browser you can. The current app can not.

The thing is that Meta and Reddit are masters of social manipulation through their algorithms. They know what low common denominators get the most engagement. I blame FB for a big number of echo Chambers and that just fed people their own negativity right back, made them spiral into a bad place mentally.

If they have any ability to post to the Fediverse or to track things they'll do it all over again.

It's the halcyon days of the Fediverse. Negativity on my feed is nonexistent. There's discussion. There's respect for differences. I know things will change with time but it's important that the big instances never work as proxies for big tech. It's important that big tech doesn't get a seat at the table. Voices should remain individual and not some mouthpiece to an industry that wants centralized control.

I just read a good article about big tech is never a friend to decentralized stuff. You can find it here.

An excellent read. My synopsis is that if any big corporations joined the Fediverse they would fracture it, and that no matter what Meta, Reddit, Google, etc. would never want to see a decentralized platform succeed.

Pretty much the Fediverse needs to never let a big company tie into it. Our group needs to work at growing but at a sustainable rate.

I would argue that the only low level post that would be worthwhile is the social variety. For those in the Fediverse who want this to be a place to visit everyday there needs to be posts that create a dialog of sharing life events. Some of the best posts on reddit were the ones where the comment thread was better than the post. The post sparked something to share and people dog piled and created something fun and entertaining.

Maybe the Fediverse isn't big enough for that to happen spontaneously right now. But I do like when my communities/magazines ask the general low level question. It allows me to participate and not wait for a post where I have some expertise to share.

BTW, good observations and good ideas in your post.

A big shout out to Lemmy.one. I signed up not knowing but love the fact now. Down votes don't add to the discussion. And posts and comments that are in poor taste should just be reported. Ignoring poorly made comments and posts is the best way to extinguish them. It forces the writer to improve their input if they care about the up votes. Down votes just make the user give up in wanting to contribute at all. Lemmy is about contribution. For now it is anyway.

After 6 months of fostering some cats they're finally gone. The house is down to two. I'm hoping my allergies improve.

Sorting by New on reddit was just cringe worthy for the most part. When I wanted to see the newer stuff I sorted by the top posts for the hour. It at least weeded out the worst jokes, memes, and the like.

Here though my default is to open the new locally and then for all instances.

Magic can McGuffin any answer you need but it sounds like you want a non magic means to keep people away.

Have a guarded door, be it creature or armed guards. The room that is guarded is not the real room, just a place to hold private meetings. It's used on the regular to keep the focus on the guarded room.

The real room is in the town's bizarre. It's passed by all of the time and is curated by the most hated man. No one likes going to his shop. He's rude and his wares are over priced. Within his shop is the real room that is visited by the few who know.

The recipe is actually known. I came across a long article on the web about it. The true secret was that he used pressure cookers in the early years that no one else did.

Here's what Bing AI found and it might be from the article I read:

Here is an article I found on the KFC secret recipe. According to Joe Ledington, Colonel Sanders' nephew, the recipe consists of the following 11 herbs and spices: 2/3 tablespoon salt, 3 tablespoons white pepper, 1/2 tablespoon thyme, 1/2 tablespoon basil, 1/3 tablespoon oregano, 1 tablespoon celery salt, 1 tablespoon dried mustard, 4 tablespoons paprika, 1 tablespoon garlic salt and 1 tablespoon ground ginger¹.

The recipe is one of the most valuable fast food formulas and is considered one of the biggest trade secrets in the world³. The original handwritten recipe is housed in a 770-pound safe encased in two feet of concrete and guarded by video cameras and motion detectors³.

Source: Conversation with Bing, 6/23/2023 (1) What is the KFC secret recipe? Top 11 herbs and spices 'revealed'. https://twistedfood.co.uk/articles/features/kfc-secret-recipe-colonel-herbs-spices. (2) Is This the Top-Secret KFC Recipe? - The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/dining/is-this-the-top-secret-kfc-recipe.html. (3) KFC Original Recipe - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFC_Original_Recipe. (4) Here's KFC's Secret Recipe to Extra Crispy Fried Chicken - Taste of Home. https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/kfcs-secret-recipe-crispy-fried-chicken/. (5) What Are KFC's 11 Herbs and Spices? - Allrecipes. https://www.allrecipes.com/article/what-are-kfcs-11-herbs-and-spices/.

The whole super guarded recipe part I believe to be pure marketing pablum, a ruse to generate conversation.

My wife is a teacher at a small district. She's watched student's abilities drop over the past twenty years and the time of covid left them severely lacking. Yes. Their writing skills are practically not there. It's truly sad.

I just looked up what that game is. My wife and I love Arkham Horror. How big of a group plays tomorrow? Sounds fun.

Sounds like a fun challenge.

Used to love Red Dead Redemption. I want to get that game again when I can. So relaxing just to ride your horse if that's all you wanted to do.

May the words flow easily for you when writing your thesis. Best of luck in your endeavors.

Pizza night is good, but tacos are my weak spot. :D

What a nostalgic ride that was. Don't miss it.

YES: because he's not been a mod before and everyone deserves a chance to invoke the internet's ire.

The negativity is definitely less. Sure, out of say fifty comments to a post there's maybe two disgruntled souls. Overall it's conducive to discussion.

Over on reddit I kept to just hobby subreddits for the most part to make comments. Only way to not come across the trolls.

Yes, the clean UI is wonderful. It's good to have something simple. It's also fun to watch something grow.

I got back into day hikes. I'll bring back bicycle riding as well. The tires are all aired up and it's ready to go.

You make excellent points.

You're correct up to a point. A statistical bell curve is present in most things. You'll have those who lurk, those who comment, those who post, and those that will moderate in any group. Make that group bigger and each category will grow too. The group can skew the results, lower the lurkers for instance, by making them answer questions before joining. They self select themselves as being more engaged.

But I agree, the current business models are big on numbers and not necessarily what is going on with those numbers. We've been taught quantity over quality in real world applications to our detriment. It's sad really.