One thing that helped me a lot was practicing in low-stakes situations. I started chatting up Uber drivers pretty consistently and learned a lot about just letting go in the moment. I was using rideshare for all my travel at the time, before the pan made me realize how vulnerable I was without a car. I don't get that practice anymore because taking Uber is much less frequent and I let the habit ossify.
That guy who went to jail believed in it, so it has to be good.
I hope SBF doesn’t buy a pardon from our corrupt president, but I hope for a lot of things that don’t turn out the way I’d like. Apologies for USA-centric framing. I’m tired.
I already told my loved ones to stop getting me gifts for my bday / holidays a few years ago. I have everything I want that wouldn't be obscenely expensive and in poor taste to request. Whatever people got me ended up on a shelf or in a drawer and was just a waste (with a couple of rare exceptions when someone made / crafted me a gift, and then it's really wonderful).
I can't imagine how useless an unthinking AI would be at this when my own family and friends who, and this is important, _know me_, can't find anything to get me that doesn't land in the above categories. I wouldn't have expected gifts to be a source of AI resource waste, but I must not be very imaginative.
> [..] I can't imagine how useless an unthinking AI would be at this when my own family and friends who, and this is important, _know me_, can't find anything to get me that doesn't land in the above categories
This is precisely the problem - an AI does not really "know" the recipient (set aside of what it means to "know" someone). The result is you get something just a bit more varied than the usual "He's a Guy - he'll love some Whiskey Stones, a Bacon-of-the-Month subscription, or a Beard Care Kit" advice. (Adjust for whatever target demographic.)
consumables are the way to go.
as a receiver there's no long-term clutter or obligations.
and depending on the type of consumable, there's the possible of getting to share/partake in it with the gift-giver and you've turned your consumable-gift into a no-obligation experience which is another nice type of clutter-free gift.
While I agree with you in principle (people should do their own thinking if they want gifts to be genuine), I thought I would go ahead and see how well Gemini can advise someone on choosing a gift for you.
The advice seems very good. What do you think? A donation to EFF or an open source project, a rare book, or handcrafted headphones seem like a good start for someone who can't afford anything extravagant.
Yeah, that was a little joke I slipped in, but OTOH, I've seen headphone kits that used 3D printed parts and it's not difficult to imagine someone replacing the 3D printed parts with handcrafted wood.
And at the same time it's a not uncommon activity especially around university physics labs to wind various purpose-built magnets and transformers with exotic shapes.
Same here. I have just about everything I would want/need. Anything else is niche that I wouldn't want anyone else buying for me anyway (because they don't know enough about the hobby/I want to choose it myself), or far too expensive beyond what I'd be comfortable receiving as a gift from a loved one (Sure, I'd love a Pro Display XDR, no I'm not going to ask anyone to buy me a $5,000 monitor as a holiday gift).
Otherwise, my living and offices spaces are sparse and minimal, I already have all the art, decor, or knick-knacks I'd ever want or need, and I generally despise clutter.
I tell everyone, want to get me a gift? Let's go do something together. Let's go out to dinner, or go on a day hike, etc.
Not liking "stuff" culture doesn't make you a narcissist.
Giving for your own pleasure and getting mad when you don't get the reaction you wanted... one of the most narcissistic behaviors is frequently accusing others of it.
And that's not what I said either (even though I used the word narcissist first), that he has to like the gifts.
Putting yourself above others is what makes your actions ego centrical. When somebody does something nice for you, that's a very beautiful gesture, even if you didn't particularly fancy that thing. Part of being mature is learning these things. That's why we are happy and grateful when a friend invites us for dinner. Not saying: "Hey! Don't cook anything I don't like! And anyway, I prefer eating take-out, so don't invite me!".
It's not about the physical gift, it's not about the food or about the drink. It's about the human connection, and that is a very fragile thing. People forget these things in these hyper-materialistic and yes ego centrical times we live in.
Gifts which you didn't want are easy to get rid off, just give them to somebody else.
"narcissist", "ego centrical", "very beautiful gesture", "Part of being mature"
Just tone it down. Nobody deserves the joy of giving you a gift if they don't want stuff, being so mad about it is selfish and lacking empathy. "Maturity", since you bring it up, is respecting somebody's preferences and not diagnosing them of a personality disorder because they don't want to participate in something the same way you do.
When somebody says they don't want gifts, the correct response is not "you're a narcissist".
I toned it down already with an edit. But this is a discussion forum, so we're here to discuss, and any comment is an invitation for further replies, wouldn't you agree?
Yes, everybody deserves the joy of giving gifts, and it doesn't matter if the receiver wants it or not. They should be happy that somebody thought of them and wanted to show their appreciation. The gift itself doesn't matter very much. Nobody should take for granted that anybody wants to give them any gifts at all, so let's appreciate it when it happens. God knows that there are many people in this world who never receive gifts or any gesture of kindness, and would be overjoyed if it happened to them.
Secondly, gifts were never ment to have utility value for the receiver. At most, when we are children we can expect that our parents may figure out what objects we desire. After that, gifts can never be expected to be what the recipient wanted. And that's why I mentioned maturity. How in the world are people who don't live with you in your house supposed to know what you want or need? That's why we as adults need to understand that it is all about the gesture, and not at all about whether the gift is useful or desired by the recipient. So put it in a drawer, give it to somebody else, or throw it away if you must.
Just like being invited to dinner isn't about stilling your hunger.
>Yes, everybody deserves the joy of giving gifts, and it doesn't matter if the receiver wants it or not.
Yup, that's the narcissist behavior.
You think you deserve to be able to treat people the way you want, and if they don't let you they're wrong, and possibly diagnosable.
>Just like being invited to dinner isn't about stilling your hunger.
You clearly also think that someone declining a dinner invitation is wrong. I'm guessing you've experienced people declining and don't understand why, I can guess.
This is borderline abusive treatment of others.
You need therapy, engaging with narcissists online is never worth it so I'm not going to reply any further.
You're making a conscious effort to not understand, so that you can feel good (maybe even feel great) about spewing insults etc. Go ahead, blow off as much steam as you like. We're just two anonymous posters on the internet.
Declining a dinner invitation is not wrong. But depending on the situation, you might not get invited again. Accepting a dinner invitation with the idea that the purpose is to still your hunger is misunderstanding what is happening. So is expecting a gift to be something which has to be useful to you. But declining a gift is a brazen insult to the giver, while declining a dinner invitation isn't.
Even as children, we're taught to say "thank you" and be grateful when we receive presents, no matter if we like them or not. So when adults are complaining here about getting gifts they don't like, then I will say that there is some maturing to do.
Even in our modern materialistic and ego centric world.
Are you saying that a child in the car with their DUI parent deserves to be on a YouTube bodycam channel because cops have to appear uncensored in the same video? I genuinely don't understand how you could mean anything else, and that makes me think I misunderstood. I sure hope I did.
Moved from private to government and couldn't be happier. Look for a state position so that lunacy like the current admin can't touch you down the road.
I used to have problems with the TM db files becoming corrupted on my NAS, but that hasn't happened in at least five years. I also have a local USB drive connected for alternating backups, but even so the NAS has been fine for quite some time.
Someone said TM was never fully supported over a network, but that's bullshit. Apple used to sell a wifi hotspot with built-in storage called Time Capsule. First party network support is different from third-party NAS support, sure. But the statement was overly broad.
(I also clone nightly to another USB drive, fwiw… And backup to the cloud with Backblaze. And left a drive with a friend last weekend for local offsites. And plan to ship another to a friend in a different geographic region in case of natural disaster. I guess you could say that the stakes are pretty low for my NAS backup, but that doesn't change that it's been solid for a good amount of time.)
> making it appear he was instigating the occupation
> The inciters gave their fiery provocations, then Trump told his recruits, "We're going to the Capitol, and I'll be right there with you."
I don't know anything about what footage was or wasn't edited, but if you think he didn't instigate, we're not going to agree on much about that day. I didn't just read this right now. I searched for it because I remember seeing him say it.
You still believe that lie? The riot had already started before he gave his speech. How then could the speech have instigated the riot? The people who were rioting never even heard it. In fact, most of the people there planned in advance to be there. How could Trump incite them when they had been planning to do that for months?
And you also “misquoted” Trump, because what he actually said was “… and we’re going to go down to the capital and cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women…”. The “…and I’ll be right there with you…” was from a completely different part of the two hour speech.
Also, the article you quote repeats quite a few other lies from the testimony at the hearings, such as the tall tale of Trump grabbing the wheel of the car and assaulting a secret service agent. The commission never actually interviewed the driver of that car until after the 2020 election, months after the testimony in question. Why? Because he refutes the entire story. It never happened. Cassidy Hutchinson wasn’t even in the car at the time and her testimony was at best hearsay, if it wasn’t simply a lie.
> The riot had already started before he gave his speech
Sort of. It started before the speech finished, but about 50 minutes after it started. Here's the relevant timeline from the Wikipedia article.
>At noon, Trump began an over one-hour speech at the Ellipse, encouraging protesters to march to the U.S. Capitol. At 12:49 p.m., Capitol Police responded to reports of an explosive device, later identified as a pipe bomb. At 12:53 p.m., eighteen minutes before Trump's speech ended, rioters overran police on the west perimeter of restricted Capitol grounds.
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