Casual Conversation

Inspired by this article: https://theconversation.com/reluctance-to-reach-out-to-old-friends-is-a-common-experience-but-reconnecting-can-pay-off-263079

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I feel like a child. 🤣 I've wanted to do this all my life and, along with a couple of my kids, we decided to look up tutorials and make it happen. And... I can finger whistle now! And I can't stooop! 😗🎶

There's multiple ways to do it and they're all pretty similar, but the keys seem to be rolling back the tip of the tongue and making sure to close off extra spaces so the air has only one route to travel.

What's something silly you've learned recently that's brought you joy?

I only gave it up a year ago after COVID had begun, but suddenly everyone around me is snorting and hacking, and apparently very few people bother covering their mouth when they do anymore. It's just for crowded spaces but 1 in 65 people in Canada have COVID right now, and while I'm super ultra vaccinated I don't want to catch anything in general. It feels strange.

I hadn't have the best interaction with people and I have made friends that I felt wasn't great for me as well as gotten out an controlling relationship a year ago. It has eaten up my self-esteem where I am scared to actually talk to anyone in real life as I worried similar thing would happen.

I know I need to push myself out there which is easier said than done. One thing I tried to do is if I am in a decent mood, I got to one the social group which is on like every month as well as join in to my friend's karaoke night and sing terribly. Sadly, I'm not Mariah Carey.. 😔

So I have taken slow steps up which is better than taking none I guess but I got long way till I feel confident in myself where I stop worrying about everything as it really does held me back in general.

As much as I like AI but the last years are kind of a lot, sometimes just too much for me.

I can't even watch youtube without getting a video translated into my language which is quite annoying.

The first search on google has an AI telling me the stuff I need to know, don't even have to look at real human threads at this point.

Not even going to deep on the AI generated videos, news etc. because that is insane already and we aren't even peaking.

I am 40 years old. Imagine studying a few years on a 200.000 €/$ or whatever currency degree just to find out that the job won't even exist by 2028.

Imagine finding out that you won't be able to pay off your debt cause most fastfood restaurants will use AI/ Bots that can serve, prepare, clean etc. 24/7 while a useless human needs breaks, wants money and needs days off and can only work 8 hour shifts.

I know this sounds crazy but I really think by 2030 we will have 80% jobs replaced by AI and the new jobs that might evolve out of jobs that have vanished will only be doable for AGI/ Super Intelligence.

Think about it.... while in the 1800s machines have replaced or made jobs easier, they still required humans manpower to produce them, to maintaine them and to even use them.

Now we are basically replacing what made humans - human - our brains. As we know the human brain has never ever been replaced by something and that is the organ that put us where we are in the food chain. And we are creating something that is BETTER, FASTER, MORE EFFICIENT than our a brain.

It could all be cool and nice and fun and games if we wouldn't be replacing humans in a very short time frame til 2030. It could all be cool,... if not every country would be competing in this race to super intelligence.

Looking at this neutral and seeing what is happing, imo I might be doomed in 5 years.

I really think I will be fck.d up in 5 years. A job is annoying, but it's also a humans purpose. A way to express itself and be useful to society. If this is being taken away we will find 95% of humanity in a huge depression and suicide rates are going to rise by 2030.

Edit: We can't even imagine and visualise what super intelligence will do and can do. Before we even understand what this AI just created and offered us the next best thing is already produced.

We are basically getting smarter with every new upgrade AI will give us, but get dumber in the process cause we can't even PROCESS the new stuff.

Bland example: currently phones are getting upgrades 1-2 years and we can read whats new and see the new things. Imagine those phones being produced every week with new and better and more useful upgrades. We'd buy the phone, understand the phone and after a week the next phone with 5 new features is on the markert and we are outdated.

We can't process the new upgrades etc. in such a short time frame. We aren't capable of that. This leads us to getting dumber with every new upgrade.

Imagine AI creating a Boeing and after a year we understand how to use it. But during that year it already released a Boeing that can fly at the speed of flight. It can't be used cause humans cant use it and would die at those speeds. But AI could.

AI will be producing so much trash knowledge lol.

Mine's coming up and trying to decide on something special.

I have some free time after having been laid off, and one of the things I've though about is a video series where I go around the towns that Amtrak stops in between the big cities. The two goals would be to have it make money, and the long term goal being to increase rail interest in the US especially on tracks that already exist. I worry no one would watch it and I'm wasting my time.

I don’t even know if this has an actual solution but this is the best I’ve managed.

Challenge (with every letter of the alphabet, once), use all the tiles making complete words.

Can obvs do scrabble style like this.

How’s everyone’s week so far?

What are some of your favorite relaxing activities? Could be anything that puts your mind at ease, a relaxing game, a hobby, a place you visit or music.

@Casual Conversation

Not quite as dramatic as in Liar, Liar, but I’ve been having a really shitty past few days mentally, and today was the first opportunity I’ve had to get to the gym since last Thursday.

We did a lot of cardio today: 7 minutes alternating between running, rowing, running again, and ski machine; then we did 5 minutes alternating between rowing and kettlebell jump squat; and 5 minutes alternating between skiing and dumbbell thrusters.

I absolutely killed it. I usually run out of breath and end up maxing out my heart rate (180bpm), which usually causes me to hit the wall pretty quickly with cardio. But today I ran 725m out of 800, and I did almost everything unbroken (i.e. non-stop). I did pause for 10 seconds near the end on the ski machine to catch my breath, but I’d like to think I made up for it by going full blast for the last 15 seconds.

Suffice it to say, I feel less shitty right now.

Whether you laughed out loud or just had a really happy moment, we want to hear all about it.

City cleaning just came by to pick up our old sofa set. It was old and completely worn out and really had to go.
But I definitely made a mistake seeing them pick it up. A huge truck came by with a big crane and pretty much tore our old couch to pieces while lifting it in.
At that moment I felt so emotional. I thought back to all the great memories I had with that couch. Seeing my kids grow up playing on it, our late cat sleeping on it in the sun, all the cuddles we had on it...
For some reason I felt like our couch deserved better than such a cruel ending. It's funny how attached you can get to some inanimate object.

Originally I was thinking of violent thugs, but then I came to think that thugs exist in many varieties, like the aforementioned thugs of physical violence, but then also economical thugs or general power tripping thugs abusing power at whatever level they are at. It such a simple and pointless living. I can't understand it.

Just joined Pixelfed and there's a lot of interesting thing going on, but i wish i can explore by hashtag so i can follow thing that interest me, and maybe post with it.

Have you been rocking an old classic? Discovering something new? Revisiting some nostalgic bands from the past?

If you've got links, post 'em up!

A fun tool for discovering new bands: https://www.music-map.com/

So weird situation. I'm a contractor that does work at a lot of commercial kitchens. A few days ago I was repairing a piece of equipment at a local resturant where I work fairly often and one of the new employees there called me out by name and said she recognized me from somewhere but couldn't remember where. I didn't recognize her at all. We chatted for a bit while I was working and neither one of us could figure out how she recognized me. I was back a day later to replace a part on something and she said she still couldn't figure it out and of course I still had no clue.

Well, earlier today it suddenly dawned on me. We matched on tinder like 5 years ago. Back then we chatted for a couple weeks but it never really went anywhere beyond casual chatting. I kind of get the feeling that neither of us was in a great head space at the time so things just dropped off.

Well, I'm going back there on Tuesday to finish up the repair. Should I tell her why she recognizes me or would that be inapropriate considering we are both working? The last thing I want is to make someone feel uncomfortable and trapped.

I really do. But there are always obstacles in the way, ruining everything. I can't remove or avoid them. People say "Nobody is an island" but that's not true. I am an island. Unable to reach other islands out there, just like they can't reach me.

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I generally don't remember my dreams; at least, not for longer than a couple minutes after waking up.

Over the last month however; I've had three rather upsetting dreams that don't seem to want to fade from my usually poor memory. I'm going to describe them below; have you had anything similar lately?

I guess I'll work my way up from least to most upsetting. This is going to be fairly long, so I'll end each with a quick TLDR.

Two nights ago:

I woke up in my room [in dream], feeling extra groggy/dizzy and really warm. I didn't think much of it, but went to leave my room and found my door was closed. That's bizarre as my door is always open. I tried to open it but the handle wouldn't turn and the door wouldn't budge at all. Then I noticed it was really warm to touch, crouched down and saw the flickering light of fire under the door.

I ran screaming 'Fire! Fire! Help!', first trying to trigger the fire alarm (Apartment. There's a fire alarm in each of the bedrooms, but the button on it is to silence it, not trigger it. It's automatically triggered by heat/smoke detectiors, or pull stations in the communal hallways/stairwells) then running to the window to call for help. There I found we were on the ground floor instead of the fifth floor I actually live on, so I escaped out that window and ran to rescue my sister+mother in their own rooms. My sister was already on her way out when I got there so I continued to my mom's room.

When I turned the corner of the building; I found my moms windows were tiny, the size of cat doors. I began screaming into them trying to wake my mother, who's chronically fatigued and usually deep asleep while mentally panicking trying to figure out how we're going to get her out of there with these super tiny windows. After screaming for a minute or two I was just starting to see movement that I thought was her getting up, when I woke up....

TLDR: woke up in an apartment fire and struggled to save my mother. Woke before resolved.

The very next night:

I had taken a bus to a different city for some medical treatment. Whatever that was had been completed and I needed to get home, but was struggling to figure out how. Unfamiliar city, asking people for directions they just shrugged me off, and I was just feeling very mentally overwhelmed and unstable (this alone is quite unusual for me).

While trying to figure out how to get home, looking down at my phone; some sketchy looking guy sneaks up on me (I mostly just didn't notice him approach from behind) and surprises me asking questions. I don't remember much detail there (what he looked like/asked), I just remember feeling immediately uncomfortable/unsafe and startled, so I quickly walk away not talking to him, while discretely pulling out my pocket knife and getting ready to use it if necessary.

I head to the other side of the building I was beside and continue trying to figure out how to use my phone to get home, struggling to use gmaps; when sketchy guy sneaks up from behind a second time. This time I lunge at him and try to stab and slash him with my knife probably a dozen times, but find it's incredibly dull and doing absolutely nothing. It may as well be plastic. Guy is not getting upset/aggressive at all, in fact he's just kind of laughing at me and commenting on how dull the knife is.

This is all adding to the feeling of mental instability and being overwhelmed, quite dramatically.

The next thing I remember; I'm standing in the middle of a road intersection desperately trying to type 'home' into the destination for google maps, but the phone keeps replacing whatever I type with some long name I don't recognize. I end up handing the phone to the same guy I had tried to stab and through tears sobbed 'please type home for me'

At that point I was completely and utterly overwhelmed by the whole situation and had a total mental breakdown. I collapsed in a heap in the middle of the road, doing that ugly crying where you're not even making sounds because you just can't get any air in or out. I had pulled my shirt off to use as a rag, wiping my face off, but it was absolutely soaked in tears, snot, and sweat.

The last thing I remember is laying on my back in the road, eyes clamped shut as hard as the muscles could, but trying/wanting to open my eyes; and just clawing at my throat and chest desperately trying to take a breath, but woefully unable to; like my body was shutting down and suffocating me. Then I woke up...

TLDR: I got lost in an unfamiliar city and suffered a complete and total mental breakdown after trying (and failing) to kill a guy I thought was going to hurt me.

I want to add a disclaimer before this one: I fucking despise Nazi ideology. People are people, we're all equal, just living our lives making our own choices and everyone should have to opportunity to live freely doing the things they love. Racism, sexism, and hate all around have no place in this world.

Last dream, around 3 weeks ago:

I was a guard in what I can only assume was a Nazi prison camp; specifically standing guard during executions by electricity. I don't explicitly remember any nazi symbols, but there's a gut feeling that that's what it was.

A woman and man were both brought in, chained to the wall and connected to wires. It seemed clear from everyone's body language and demeanor that we all knew this was very wrong, yet we were still doing it. Someone flipped the switch, and I remember turning away and pounding the wall with my fist in despair. I also remember the sound of this woman, now behind me, just screaming on top of electrical buzzing/sparking sounds. That haunting sound just won't fade, it's so vivid in my memory...

I turned back when it was over, grabbed the hand of the woman's now smoking corpse, and just quietly said "I'm sorry". That's where I woke up.

TLDR: Participated in/listened to/was a Nazi executing people via electrocution.

I at least had a nice peaceful sleep lastnight... Slept a good 7ish hours comfortable and uninterrupted and I don't recall any bizarre or upsetting dreams from it.

Thank you for listening to/reading my self-inflicted(?) trauma dump. Sry if I chose the wrong place for it.