Radio dominated the first half of the 20th century but the advent of affordable TV sets in the 1950s seemed to spell doom for the format. Yet, radio endured. Radio was able to create a distinct image for itself, separate from TV. I have own theories as to why (cars, transistor radios and the music industry) but nothing conclusive.

I am feeling that a lot of acts which harm our ecosystem, cause global warming and cause damage to other beings too. What things can I do to minimize the harm from my side? I try not to throw rubbish on street but that is only thing I know. I don't have recycling bins where I live.

This sort of question comes around every once in a while; "what's your must-buy under $100", "what goods would you recommend for people just moving out on their own", and so on. I love reading these because, despite my simply vast experience[^1], I sometimes pick up new tricks.

This question is about second-level stuff; maybe not "must haves" that you'd recommend as a first purchase, but the stuff that makes life easier, that you might acquire after you've gotten settled. Things that you may have only discovered that you'd buy again if the house burned down.

For example, my wife bought a couple of these microwave tools years ago, and at the time I thought they were going to be gimmicky stuff we never used. Turns out, we use them all the time; whoever came up with the idea was brilliant.

[^2]

I like them because, unlike a hot mitt, if they get food on them you just wash them. They're way easier to use than mitts, and can be used more securely one-handed. I wouldn't trust them on stuff from the oven because of their size, but for plates and bowls from a microwave, they're surprisingly handy. It took me a dozen times using them before I realized the ring in the back actually works to clamp them to the bowl and turn them into a handle, rather than just using them as grabbers.

The thing I used today which prompted my post, and something I'd encourage people to buy if they don't have one, is a battery-powered rotary tool. My current one is a Dremel 8250, but many companies make them. They're handy and make short work of a lot of odd jobs, and IME if you have one you constantly find places to use them.

[^3]

A kit like this one runs about $150, and I think it's worth the price. I think it's worth getting an accessories kit, but the bits that came with the kit are the ones I use most often and can take you a long way.

So, what are your tools, devices, or products that you've discovered which may not be a common, basic first-level "must have" household item, but which you'd not want to do without? Things which might be a little off-the-beaten-path but indispensable? Stuff you may have stumbled upon which turned out to be surprisingly useful?

[^1]: a.k.a. advanced age
[^2]: Image grabbed randomly from a web search
[^3]: Image from product page

mine are:

Another Step Against The Orange Site

Which One

You Dont Have Farma

Dont Be Use The All Feed

EDIT: For those concerned about how this story sounds: I'm leaving out a ton of detail for the sake of brevity. The history of how I've felt about possibly being trans technically goes back since I was a kid. And over the past years its been more notable and its intensified in the past few months. Past few days are just sort of a sudden cracking of the egg.

EDIT2: Also, HRT doesn't bring about any permanent effects for the first few months is what I've read. Just softening of the skin basically and emotional changes. Some of you freaking out about me immediately starting HRT are being alarmist. If by some incredibly unlikely situation I end up hating being on HRT I'll figure it out within the first month or three and stop. But I know that's not going to happen TBH.

So, let me give some quick explanation on how I got here: Last Thursday, a girl I was essentially obsessed with told me to fuck off forever, even as a friend. To be honest I alienated my entire friend group surrounding her. I deserved this by any conventional measure, but that's not what I want to litigate.

I had been on a mental loop essentially obsessing over her, and when it was clear I'd not get to even be her friend anymore, let alone be with her romantically, I realized I had absolutely nothing to think about or put my energy into. She was kind of part of my last (I'm autistic) hyper fixation of romance that had crumbled before me. I went from Video games to Politics to Romance. I cared about nothing for a few days, purely operating on survival mode, work was absolutely miserable and free time I sat around doing essentially nothing but thinking and watching garbage youtube. I did not want to live anymore, though I had suicidal ideation even before she rejected even my friendship.

Saturday night and Sunday morning, in bed I ruminated about the only thing left basically all night waking up randomly: myself. My identity. Who the fuck am I? I wont get to heavy into details but I realized I was in denial with my "gender ambivalence" I wasn't ambivalent. I'm a transwoman. I told a friend and they immediately called me "Girrl!" and called me by a feminine form of my name via text. I immediately liked this to an extreme degree. And I think this kind of confirms it. I literally had a strong emotional sense of pleasure. I've never been excited to be a guy.

I feel both amazingly good about this revelation but also extremely... sad. I'm 38. I feel like I missed out on literally the best possible years to be a woman and I'm about to go into the worst. And the years I lived as a man were pretty terrible. I feel like I've been cheated.

I've realized the only real way I'm going to manage any real romance is to embrace who I actually am and stop pretending. I thought all my masking was to appear allistic (I'm autistic) but I was also essentially masking my gender. Pretending to be a guy. And I fucking suck at it.

Fortunately, I've aged surprisingly well despite being 38. I have all my hair. I already have a somewhat elven-esque pretty boy face even today that I think will not really require facial work. I have a "sing-song" voice for a guy. I am naturally relatively lanky/thin. Because I'm an indoors and night time person I've suffered minimal to zero UV damage to my skin and I don't smoke.

This almost stings more though: god how cute I could have been! What an absolute waste. But there is something to be salvaged at least. I plan to start HRT ASAP. I intend to call Planned Parenthood today.

Anyway, the actual question is: Other than HRT, what do I do now? What do I need to be careful about? What should I avoid? What should I try?

Not sure if they do it deliberately, but there's like this sorta expectation to sympathize with parents who despite being poor still have children. Didn't they make a CHOICE though? Do you think they should be solely responsible for making it?

I work in tech and people keep telling me an O-1 move to the US is doable "if you build the right case". Curious what that actually looked like for people here: how many recommendation letters, what kind of press or awards genuinely mattered, and how long it realistically took from start to approval. Trying to figure out if it's within reach or just marketing.

Decided to watch An American Werewolf in London last night because I don't know if I've ever watched the movie. I knew how it ended because it's 45 years old and there's been plenty of videos on it, but I had never actually watched it. It was quite enjoyable.

It got me thinking about how many good movies end with the main hero/protagonist(s) dying. I can think of quite a few great movies off the top of my head, but I wanted to hear from Lemmy on their favorites!

I work in tech and people keep telling me an O-1 move to the US is doable "if you build the right case". Curious what that actually looked like for people here: how many recommendation letters, what kind of press or awards genuinely mattered, and how long it realistically took from start to approval. Trying to figure out if it's within reach or just marketing.

I've had a couple of friends ask me if I'm prepping.

Prepping for what?

I see the UK is doing a Be Prepared campaign and Fucking Dan Bongino said something on a podcast. What's that about?

Just as the title says, tell me your most recent dream and I will perform a dream analysis of dubious distinction. Trust me I'm an expert.

For context, I’m in the States.

I already have a Tuta mail account so I figure for mail/calendar/soon-drive I’ll stick to them but what about other services?

Ideally I can try with a free tier before committing. iOS and Android and Linux are the platforms used in my household.

Still looking for:

• password manager
• vpn
• authenticator
• less important: docs/sheets

I was all in on proton services because it was easy for my family to switch from google and still have all these services in one place but now I’m more open to spreading these services out to more than one provider in case any of them shit the bed so to speak.

Thanks!

edit:

• probably staying with proton's authenticator
• I'm sure most here won't agree but my entire household uses firefox on desktop/mobile and my wife and I just decided to use firefox's built in pw manager + sync for pw management. Please understand that convenience is top of mind for us tbh, out lives are too busy to be overly concerned with what to choose here.
• waiting for tuta drive to start using that but backed up out drives to a couple external drives and will just use that until tuta drive is released.
• vpn is still tbd

Hello friends!

I am creating a gift guide and, while I have a pretty good list so far, I wanted to crowd source some additional ideas from your weird, wonderful brains.

What tech gifts would you get for your friends that are priced under $25? (Both functional and gag gift ideas welcome.)

People start talking shit about you/mocking you →you do nothing or brush it off or laugh it off →they start getting comfortable with it and continue doing it + you become "that shy dweeb, who it is ok to pick on, because he ain't gon' do sh- about it"

People start talking shit about you/mocking you →you insult them back →you somehow come off as "angry" and "talking back"

People start talking shit about you/mocking you →you resort to physical violence →you're now "aggresive and violent"

You can't win, can you? How do some people manage to make others respect them?

Yeah, I heard that the trick is to make them consistently suffer the consequences for disrespecting you, but how exactly are you supposed to do that, especially if the one disrespecting you is your boss/has another type leverege over you (yet, I've witnessed some people not allowing others to rail them while being in that position)

I know the word normies may have weird connotations, but I just mean that, regular everyday people.

I've been enjoying Lemmy a lot and even recommended it to a few close friends who are working in tech. But I would like Lemmy to be way bigger, maybe have those makefriends communities like reddit has, be it gaming friends, just for chatting, for voicecalls, etc etc...

But I also wonder, could growing Lemmy indiscriminately be a bad thing? As you relax filters and barriers to entry, yes, more people can come in, but I have a feeling the quality of the people might go down aswell.

Is a clique-like platform what Lemmy is supposed to be like? Or is it supposed to try and absorb as much users as possible and be just a user-managed user-owned reddit alternative with no ads and less censorship?

I believe the answer may lie somewhere in the middle, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, as I'm a total newbie on here.

(Also I understand private dms on Lemmy are not secure, but you can keep the idea of the "r4r" community and just drop a matrix or session link in dms, not perfect as the admins can be what username you sent out, but at least it ends there)

I say the first one knowing if the zodiacs antics distracted the police from boots on the ground beat work. Example of security by obscurity?

After reading this news story that half of Americans are skipping meals because of affordability and a bad economy, I have to ask how are you all doing out there?

I heard from a real estate agent friend of mine that REOs, i.e. bank foreclosures on home mortgages, are going up like crazy, which is a sign of bad times, like the recession of 2007-08.

I have heard from others about rents not being paid, lack of jobs, etc.

Every day, there’s more news of corporate layoffs, moreso than usual.

I live in the economic bubble of the SF Bay Area, where tech wealth more-or-less insulates me and mine from the most serious consequences of a bad economy, but how are things elsewhere?

how?

Like come on, people are otraged about the most minor stuff, but somehoe can't be bothered to boycot or change the situation with convenience pricig, where same stuff you buy at a store is 10-20x the price per unit.

"Youre taking advantage of my tiredness, making me pay more of my hard-earned money for the privilege of being too tired to prepare my own food/drinks myself, essentially making me work more hours for having worked too many hours and being tired as a resilt of it. So: making me more tired for being tired already"

What are you guys doing for Halloween? Any cool costumes!?

I have a big no soliciting sign on my door, when sales people knock anyway I make it a point to waste as much of their time as I can and not buy anything.

Nostalgia isn't only a hell of a drug, but it's a hell of an addiction too. Chasing times when you last felt good or when you felt things were right. Getting in touch with old flames that you forgot that there were reasons you moved on from, until you read the painful endings as to why those connections died.

Having those rose-tinted shades aren't always good for you.