I have been enjoying sparkling water flavored with hops. It’s distinctly different from non-alcoholic beer, and much better IMO.

Unsweetened iced tea and cold brew coffee are also standards in my kitchen during summer. My significant other likes kombucha enough to make it at home sometimes, but I never liked the stuff myself.

Articles of Interest. It’s nominally a fashion podcast, but they tie it into lots of other topics: history, culture, identity, religion…

clubs here are filled with MAGAs and plastered with Republican propaganda so I don’t feel as welcome as I used to.

As a kid, my dad and I occasionally went to the local gun show just to look around at interesting stuff. The collectors selling antiques, fancy custom pieces, and guns with historical interest were always fun to chat with. But at some point it turned into crazy town. I don’t go to those events anymore.

Getting an engineering degree is generally a good thing. Demand and pay tend to be above average. A certificate can be helpful, but I have watched people hit a “paper ceiling” in their careers; people stuck with the title of “designer” doing an engineer’s work without an engineering degree, and never getting an engineer’s salary for it.

Whether a bachelor’s degree is beneficial for you personally will depend on a lot of things, not all of which are within your control. 20 years ago a BS in computer science was a golden ticket. Now the industry has shifted and the job placement rates for new CS grads are awful. It’s hard to predict the future.

I agree with the other commenter that going to university is good for the whole self. I was exposed to people, ideas, and experiences that I would never have encountered elsewhere. That alone made the effort worthwhile.

Wrong community. You need to ask in !perchance@lemmy.world

Don’t let Java try hallucinogens. It will get lost in the public static void.

This is me during warm weather. During winter the phone and wallet go into coat pockets. Sitting down is more comfortable with empty pants pockets.

Yep, he adopted the stage name of his father, Martin Sheen (Ramón Gerard Antonio Estévez).

I think the issue is people getting hung up on the gender identity, not the name. I have known lots of people who go by preferred names, whether chosen themselves or given to them by friends as nicknames. Hell, there are a few people I knew for years only by their preferred name/nickname without realizing it wasn’t their given name.

And stage names make a lot of sense from a practical standpoint. Being famous by your given name can make it hard to separate professional life from personal life.

Mine is a video. In my memory it’s a well-produced, fast-paced, choreographed fight scene featuring the Power Rangers battling a band of generic goons for possession of some MacGuffin: a crystal or orb or whatever. The twist is, the whole thing is set to the song Run by Ghostface Killah. Every few years I look for it, and always come up empty-handed.

Know when the museums have free or discounted events for the locals.

Know that the library probably has free passes to the museums, too!

And if you’re in a city with a decent sized college, there are lots of cheap or free interesting things to do related to it: public lectures, music performances, theater, sports…

I missed that, my bad.

This also occurred in the middle of the Great Vowel Shift, a period when spoken English pronunciation was changing significantly.

I don’t even try to hide it anymore. My manager and I send each other memes during the work day.

I am 100% in favor of the message behind this flag, but holy crap it’s a real eyesore. Same with the Progress Pride flag and some of the other LGBTQ flags. I keep hoping some skilled graphic designers out there will come up with cleaner designs.

I Am A Rock by Simon and Garfunkel

A winter's day  
In a deep and dark December

I am alone  
Gazing from my window to the streets below  
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow
I am a rock I am an island

I've built walls
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain
I am a rock I am an island

Don't talk of love
Well I've heard the word before
It's sleeping in my memory
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died
If I never loved I never would have cried
I am a rock I am an island

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock I am an island

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

As far as dealing with reports and removing inappropriate content, it scales exponentially with the popularity of the community and the contentiousness of the topic. Most communities require little or no effort on this front. A community like !jazz@lemmy.world might get a couple reports per year as people argue about whether specific posts fit the genre. A larger community like !games@sh.itjust.works gets a few reports per month due to users bickering. Really big communities like !technology@lemmy.world or !world@lemmy.world get targeted by trolls and spammers and are a daily chore.

You should look at the community modlogs for a few communities that are similar to the ones you want to start. That will give you a feel for how busy you may be.

The bigger burden is going to be keeping your new communities fresh with new posts. That work is much harder than moderation, in my experience. Look at !superbowl@lemmy.world: it has 4.9k subscribers but most of the content comes from a single user with a passion for the topic. Same with !science_memes@mander.xyz and many others.

Inflation means cash is losing value, so prices will rise. You don’t want to have a pile of cash sitting in your bank. Here are some possible options. (I am not a professional, do your own research, etc. What works in one situation may not work in another.)

• Convert your cash into more stable stores of value. Buy physical property (homes and land), invest in gold or other precious metals, invest in agricultural commodities, etc. People always need places to live, food to eat, wood to build, clothing to wear. These sorts of things tend to stay in demand.

• Convert your cash to a more stable currency. You could buy a foreign country’s sovereign bonds, or exchange some of your cash for Euros or whatever. Over the past 80 years US dollars and US government bonds have been popular for this, but those feel a bit risky at the moment.

• Spend your cash now on quality, durable goods that will last a long time. The new roof you need on your house will only be more expensive after inflation has eroded your purchasing power.

• Buy investments that (hopefully) return an interest rate greater than the inflation rate. Stock funds can sometimes do this, but not always.

• If you have stable income and are confident that it will remain stable, you can gamble with debt. For example, borrow money today at X% interest, and if future inflation is >X% then you benefit by repaying the debt with cheaper future money.

!whatcouldgowrong@lemmy.world

Though it has been dead for two years. Maybe you can be the person to start posting and bring it back to life.

When making small talk, ask for opinions farther down someone’s list. Like, “What was the third best trip you ever took?” It catches people off guard in a good way, and garners better answers than asking for their top choice.

You can do it the other way, too. Saying, “that was the fourth funniest thing I have ever seen” immediately prompts questions from your audience. Just be ready with a good follow-up story if you try this.

Another option is to learn little party tricks that don’t require much talking. Learn to fold simple origami, or some coin tricks, or whatever. When you’re with a group of people and you don’t know what to add to the conversation, you quietly do your thing until someone notices. Suddenly a banal moment becomes a memorable moment and you didn’t have to say anything.