"They're never going to call a train to take us to the bad place. They can't. Because we're already here. This is the bad place."

I grew up in a city of 1M, moved to a city of 100K, moved to a town of 7K, and then back to the city of 100K at my wife's behest. I was happiest in the town, because it was uncrowded and affordable.

she explains that life in the city isn't all that great and I ain't missing out because most people aren't more social in cities than in our town or small city next to our town.

Your wife is completely right, in my opinion. Quite frankly, it comes down to what you make of it. If you don't make the effort to make friends, it doesn't matter where you are, you are going to be lonely. The bigger the city, there is going to be a better opportunity to meet people of your type, sure, but the odds of getting together regularly, let alone finding them, are slim because everyone is busy working to afford where they are.

it would be awesome to have a gym in the same block, a grocery store under my flat, a nice bar or coffee around the corner where I could socialize with others. But then my wife comes again with reality: "And it all costs money.

You are right, it would be awesome. And your wife is right, that setup is expensive AF. The people living that life are trust fund beneficiaries. But you should know the coffee shop is just a whirlwind of all the other people getting in, getting their morning stimulant, and getting out to get to their job to afford it all.

The time to have the city experience that you are wishing for was more than 30 to 40 years ago, when houses were affordable, and there was more free time, so you could afford to get together, and the odds of other people being available was greater again, because they could afford it too.

Your fomo is not just for another place, but for a bygone era.

There are many things I also don't like about the city, for example sometimes the smell, the homeless, the traffic, and I sometimes think I'd still need a car because of groceries, visiting family in the country side where I live now so I couldn't sell my car anyways.

Please believe me that this is the reality of city life today. I'm so glad you notice it. All of it is wearing.

I visit the city to go shopping for clothes or just eat out I am always glad I can leave again. [...] I was always happy leaving the city and I still am happy when I can leave after a whole day in the city

IMO, you are getting a taste of the wear.

I feel like I [am not allowed an] opinion on this subject and this makes me crazy.

This is really where the problem lies I think. You have a dream you can't shake, but all external signs are pointing to it not being a good one.

Can I give you some perspective from your wife's side? My wife is a bit like you, trying to move to a bigger center for dream reasons.

It drives me crazy when she talks about moving to a bigger center that is unaffordable, and is not what it is cracked up to be. She even knows it, but still insists. Her dreams are not founded in the reality of our times, but that's just my opinion. And it is wearing to have the same conversation about it over and over.

From one married guy to another, if your sex life, home life, and job life is otherwise good, for the love of god, try to invest in inventing something social where you are already at, to fill that missing piece. The city is a shitty, expensive, noisy place now. If your relationship with your wife is good, and you trust your wife, just believe her, she has your best intentions at heart. If you have all of that, and live away from it all, man, I envy you deeply.

This will not be popular but oh well.

The cause of inflation is: getting something for nothing. One can see how this notion would be unpopular, because, well, literally anyone would like to get something without working for it/for free. And some people are better than others at doing that, with varying definitions for "better", "people", "something", and "nothing".

The classic example of inflation is the one everyone knows: a store that raises prices because of theft. A skateboard maker builds skateboards, a skateboard gets stolen, the price goes up to cover the loss of the things that went into the skateboard (materials, labor, etc) so the builder can still eat. The price of skateboards has inflated because of theft; the thief got something for nothing. Fact of life.

Inflation in currency is caused by fractional reserve banking; the ability to lend more currency on paper than actually exists physically. You actually have to print more money in order to keep the system from grinding to a halt. The inflation would eventually resolve, but when interest is applied to the lent money it does not. Why manipulating the interest rate is related to combatting inflation lays in here. Find a decently long YouTube video about how fractional reserve banking works to find out more. I'd provide a link but I can't find the good one right now. Suffice to say, inflation went up, because the banking system got money for having money. Fact of life.

Prices way over the cost of the good due to corporate greed is another one, pretty similar to the classic theft example, just modified. The price of something goes up, not to cover a loss, but "just because" someone wants more money, when it comes down to it. You can quarrel all day about the fine details on that. Suffice to say inflation went up because they got more money for something by essentially doing nothing more. Fact of life.

The interesting thing about that last one is that the problem is compounded by (what could be considered the "excess") money going back into the fractional reserve banking system, especially without there having been any real work done to justify the added cost. You can kind of get a glimpse of how the interest rate is tied to inflation, and why raising it also doesn't fix everything; cheaper money means people don't care about the needlessly higher price of things as much, so if you raise the cost of money people have to be concerned again. But by raising the rate, the banking system is getting more money for no "real" reason, so...

So I suppose, knowing what we know now, it might be better to say, rather than "something for nothing": receiving something for less than it is genuinely worth, or the flip side, selling something for more than it is genuinely worth, or maybe just simply, getting value without working for it.

If this all sounds insane to you, and you are thinking of replying, before you do, you really should learn about how fractional reserve banking works. It is the thing that underpins everything in modern life, and is the literal foundation of our world economy. Not knowing how it works is like not knowing why you get sick from drinking still water on the ground. You can still get along without knowing it, but if you know, it sure helps you to navigate the world better. Do watch the most detailed video or something you can find.

Does this apply to spinners and other wait animations used to indicate to the visitor that something is happening or giving comfort that their request is indeed still being actively processed?

I can't help you with your animal fear, but I'll give you a higher priority reason to avoid a cat for now.

I'll give what will probably be an unpopular opinion; cats (and pets in general for that matter) are a luxury... item. I have 3 of them, and I would never recommend one to a person who is struggling financially and/or has lost their job. Their food and vet bills are not cheap, and even a cat that seems perfectly fine can suddenly have an issue that requires an expensive vet visit. As they age, they will inevitably have health issues, which not only adds more expense, but increases the rate at which expenses accumulate. They can also damage things and ruin things, which adds further expense.

All of this is fine, if you can afford it. However I don't think very many people actually sit down and work out the numbers. On top of food, litter, and equipment costs, IMO people should be saving ~$70/a month for the first 5 years, then maybe half that after that if you didn't have to use any of it, to be prepared for big vet events. It sucks not being able to afford the care your pet needs.

Further, I have found that having multiple cats does not decrease the amount of expense per cat due to expected efficiencies from overlap. There are subtle things that accumulate like cleaning expenses and drain on your time and greater resources. I wish I only had one cat, honestly.

People say you can't put a price on them because of their cuteness and company and what have you. But believe me, you can if your cat(s) turn out to be absolute dicks, but nobody talks about that either, IMO because of some kind of Stockholm syndrome, sunk cost combo. People generally gloss over the shitty parts of pet ownership.

Don't do it. Be well-off first. Your GF's sister is probably finding this out.

Please don't take the following as me being a dick, I am just genuinely curious. Your response is unique and interesting to me.

I have no idea what you are asking

Then why did you feel compelled to respond?

The rest of the thread is filled with people who know the topic and gave relevant responses very specific to OP's situation. Many hours before your response in fact. I'm a little perplexed.

Maybe custom built software

Any person (with enough budget) could get software built, but that's obvious to anyone, so it's kind of redundant to suggest, so why write it given the other responses? I am further perplexed.

Just install Gentoo. It will fix your problems.

I take this as humor. OP was looking for software to run on Linux, not a Linux distro. Was that the joke?

Anyway, I'm sorry if I have come across as critical or insulting. I really am just curious. If I have, and it's any consolation, if you care to genuinely answer my questions, I'll give you a short explanation of what OP was on about, if that is helpful to you. I think it was very kind of you to respond to OP, I think I'm just confused more than anything.

I'd count on Apple making the RCS bubbles green too, just to sow further confusion.

Don't forget the + version of some of those formats.

Okay, so I factory reset the thing, and to use the headset at all, the setup requires that you have to log in with at least a Meta account (only an email address needed, no Facebook), and you have to pair it with an app on your phone that controls things like developer mode. There's no way around it, the first thing you are greeted with in the headset is a pairing code for the app, and you need the app to make the headset work afaict. I didn't investigate if there's a desktop app or web app.

Side note, apparently developer mode now requires a phone number or credit card attached to the account. Maybe a vanilla visa could work, not sure. I've already bought stuff through the quest store, so enabling developer mode was just a click for me. I used developer mode to install sidequest just now to see what it's about, but neither it nor developer mode are needed for Steam link.

Mayyybe you could make a Meta account with an email address made just for the headset, maybe run the Android app in an emulator, but that would be a bit of a hassle imo. I suppose you could isolate the headset into a subnet, or it's own SSID if you've got the gear for that, and keep it quarantined most of the time and just let it reach out here and there for updates, but who knows if it blurts out any collected telemetry while it gets the update. You may not have to let it out for updates at all however; when I booted into factory reset there was a "sideload updates" option, so maybe you could update it manually offline.

Honestly, as good as this headset is for the price, if I were concerned with absolute privacy, I would just cough up the dough for a competitors OLED unit. I could spend all of the hours I was frigging around with the headset doing OT at work instead, and just use that money to get something better without the pain and hassle. I get that's not an option for everyone though.

Perhaps as an affordable compromise, if you don't mind temporarily leaking a little data to Meta one time, you could do the normal setup but with an email just for the unit, install the app for 5 minutes on an old phone or tablet without a SIM for the setup, get Steam link on the headset, uninstall the app on the phone, and drop the headset into whatever Wi-Fi isolation you can conjure up. Maybe an isolated SSID or even easier, an affordable 5g router dedicated just to VR.

I don't trust Meta either, but I gotta admit, it actually feels kinda neat to experience their $30 billion dollar metaverse disaster first hand while it's still around to look at. For the record, the only protection I did was make a Meta account. I don't use Facebook.

I have a Quest 3 and tried the Steam link app out last night. It works excellently. It is amazing to not have to run Meta's horrible and janky desktop app that uses up 2gb of video RAM just at idle.

Wow that sucks that you had so many issues, but at least they gave you the refund. That's lucky. What were the call issues you were having?