I guess if the VPN speeds were fine, if there were drops in connection, and whether you can manually choose a location.

Have you used the cloud service for photo backup? I currently have an iPhone and it sounds neat to switch to bundling Proton and dropping the iCloud subscription.

I’d probably just use Proton’s mail app on mobile. It’s actually pretty snappy and intuitive, and it has always had the basic features I need.

I also work 3x12s and mostly love having the 4 days off. The downside is being able to do virtually nothing on those days besides eat and sleep. I think one advantage of the 9-5 week is being able to still do a few things more often. It’s hard to practice hobbies and maintain the house with gaps on days that I’m working.

What you value changes slightly as time goes on. Having the more consistent day might be more appealing now. And if you dont like it, there are always nurse jobs that are in need. Maybe there is something in between the hospital and that gig, like dialysis nursing. Worth a try.

As someone who cares for elderly people sometimes, please please fill out an advanced directive (not just a living will). It’s a sort of “if this, then that” for health scenarios. It’s immensely helpful when when caring for someone not well, and can be much more stressful without one. I have had dying, incapacitated patients wait weeks for guardianship or POA-HC to be processed before care can be changed to comfort measures, because they did not have one on file.

Get one from the hospital you would likely go to, fill it out, give them a copy, keep a copy, and give a copy to who you list as a decision-maker. You do not want to add the stress of logistics to an emotionally difficult time.

I think as a society we should embrace death more. Pretending it doesn’t happen just makes things worse when that reality of mortality unwaveringly stares you in the face.

Try Lemma if you’re on iOS. It’s very smooth and has the right balance of features and simplicity imo.

I’m not sure what you’re using it for, but I use an ebook reader called eBoox. It’s free with no ads, not sure if open-source. I had bookmarks but I don’t think annotations. I like it because it can open my epub, mobi, and pdf books, change the font and font size, sepia and night modes, has many options for how to change the page, and fairly simple UI. The creator markets it as a cutesy cat thing, but that is only present on the initial setup and then it’s just a regular e-reader app.

Oh man, I have many many written down. I quickly found out that there are many schools of thought for approaching woodworking, so it’s helpful to think about what you want to make and what you like or dislike as you try different things. I decided I wanted to go the sharpening route, as opposed to continually buying electro-hardened blades, and I wanted to use as simple as tools as I can learn how. This ends up being axes, chisels, saws, and I did get a hand-crank grinder from 1910 for those heavy grinding situations.

I almost always have the Mortise and Tenon podcast on as I’m doing things. Joshua and Mike’s discussions really resonate with me and the philosophical elements really prompt some introspection. Joshua has two books that I’ll probably get soon. Otherwise, I bought Sharpen This and the Anarchists’ Toolkit; anything from Lost Art Press is probably worth the money.

As far as channels, Matt Estlea has many great videos for the essentials of sharpening and good form for chiseling and sawing. He also has other videos that I would consider “optional” but I did end up making his sharpening block stop, because it makes sharpening quicker. I may try to do free hand honing though, since the heavy cambre is difficult with a honing guide.

Paul Sellers has so many great videos. I especially loved him making a bench without having a bench. So many people show you how to make things already having many other tools and setups.

James Wright (Wood by Wright) has some really good videos and offers honest opinions. Beavercraft has some nice simple ones for getting started with carving. I haven’t explored one for tool restoration yet; if you have any that you suggest, I’d be happy to hear them. I eventually want to just make my own wooden planes.

That sounds like a unique experience. When I had a running coach for a short while, he said I should curl my toe down as I pull my leg back. The lack of exercising that bottom foot muscle often contributes to flat-footedness. This wasn’t probably an issue when people walked barefoot because we naturally dug into the earth for traction.

Do your feet ever get sore?

I can relate with the passion for learning. I think that is so invigorating. Since you like physics and reading, if you haven’t already, I would highly recommend Project Hail Mary and Artemis, each by Andy Weir. He is an astrophysicist, so his works occur how they would likely physically happen as we understand physics currently. Super neat but different plots for each.

Thank you. I wholeheartedly agree, learning to work with nature such as wood, instead of imposing our will on it definitely gives me perspective on considering our connection with nature. In the modern era, much of how we connect with nature is removed or sterilized.

I’m really glad to hear you sing. There are so many ways music and rhythm weave through our lives. I expect a follow up post if you Snow White like 20 birds onto your arms!

I have tried a few. Duolingo seemed to be good for making it fun to get interest but a lot of it was semi-random vocabulary. Try the Mango app for more practical conversation practice. It has flash cards that remind me of Anki that are nice for reinforcing memorization. It is free but I think has a premium option now.

Also, Tandem for practicing conversation with real people that speak the language via text, voice message, call, or video call.

Thank you for the list of suggestions; that’s really helpful. I haven’t been on Android in a while, is the Gcam app noticeably better than a stock camera app? What sorts of things would it do better? Low lighting or blur reduction?

I agree about the ROM. I’d really like to have something that is simple and looks to have continued support when necessary for security and other major updates. I also agree about the camera. It seems to be a deciding factor for smartphones. The last I checked the Pixels had excellent sensors but had some camera software issues that I believe were eventually resolved. I’m hoping that isn’t an issue if I’m just using a basic OS.

I think you have the most accurate answer. The “othering” behavior can be seen in essentially any group of people.

Plus, if you read any of the texts of these religions, I have never come across instructions to shun others. I think people have a surface level of belief and then sophomorically apply it to be “more righteous.” They’re really missing the forest for the trees if they elevate themselves above others.

Not the Middle East, but I remember Hinduism having a caste system that does actually rank people, but from information I got, people were generally on the same page about it.

Can you define what you mean by religious toxicity?

It’s not integrated into any of the apps I use, so I use a mobile browser. There’s a shield icon that appears next to the notification bell icon. It’s essentially another inbox that shows the reporter, reportee, post, community, and reason for reporting. I still have to manually click the post and decide what to do (ie, remove, ban, nothing), and then go back to the mod inbox and click a Resolved (like a “read”) button.

All spot-on advice above. I don’t work in IT but just wanted to add that I learned that the hard way, many managers are simply not good at their job and know they can pull a bait-and-switch with newer employees. It takes a little bit of experience to feel confident enough to say “That’s not what I agreed to.” In the nursing world they call that someone’s nursing voice.

What helped me and might help you is reassuring yourself that what you’re currently doing is not what was originally discussed, and you are looking for a role doing X. It’s nothing personal toward them, it’s simply “I am looking for this certain role and quality that is not available in this current role.” I personally hated confrontation, so sticking with objective aspects helped make that uncomfortable change.

I guess I didn’t explicitly say it, but that was actually the moment that I went from could exist to must exist. I know it sounds pretty crazy to commit to such an irrational thing. I have a better understanding now of why it’s called practicing a faith, because you don’t just immediately do it and you’re done. It constantly gets tested. So, there wasn’t one moment that just flipped all the way from not believing anything to believing everything, it’s a spectrum.

For me it was ironically a theoretical physics video that made a religious belief really make sense. It was a video explaining how we can conceptualize 11 dimensions that would be possible on the information we collectively know now as humans. The way it made me really think about how truly expansive space and time are really made me think that “that’s not impossible to think that there is a 11th dimension being that has some agenda that we cannot understand.”

I imagine it’s like a child trying to understand something beyond their comprehension but it doesn’t change how true it is, like “brush your teeth because it lowers your risk of gums bleeding and leaking bacteria into your bloodstream and eventually causing vegetative infective endocarditis.” They’re just not going to understand that yet, but still reap the benefits later if they brush their teeth. I think it’s much easier and safer for the kid to say, “I’m just not going to brush my teeth.”

Bottom line is, I think that’s why it’s called faith, because it’s just not definitively provable or disprovable. I have personally had many tangible positive benefits in my life from having a faith but don’t think that should be forced upon anyone.

And I know many people in western cultures equate religion to Christianity, but just a quick reminder that there are many many faith systems that exist in the world.

There is a really cool motivational speaker that talked about how people have the idea that “success will lead to happiness,” but it’s actually the opposite, “happiness fuels success.” That doesn’t necessarily mean more money, but he said people that can find happiness around them instead of waiting for it are more fufilled. What I took away is that it’s good practice to dig deep and think about the good things in our lives instead of waiting for X to happen to be happy. It’s difficult to explain, but I think he means not to put the control of our fulfillment with an external factor (job, money, etc). I think where people get sucked in is a little success gives you that high for a while, until they need to find another success, and keep needing to fuel that happiness machine.

That must have been a cool experience. There was/is an r/iwantout that was nice to get some local experience of some expats. I’m sure every place has its pros and cons. Id love to visit more places and get a feel for the culture and lifestyles.

But I agree, making time for just doing something that give you that spark of joy is pretty important. It seems too easy to get sucked into the cycle of bills, life tasks, credit, etc. Does anyone think of that on their deathbed? From I gather, people think of the important people and experiences they have had.

Spot on, it was a hand plane haha. Stanley 46 plow plane