I would be surprised at the absolute stupidity of that, voting for the absolute corpo party in some bizarre protest, but you guys already voted him in for a first term so nothing is really surprising when it comes to the US anymore.

As you are both quite young, I hope this doesnt come across as patronising but there are a few points in what you have said there that I think would be constructive to address. But take my opinion/advice however you will!

Firstly, the most difficult one. You mentioned that he went to Netherlands and tried weed and mushrooms, he’s young, it’s his decision if he wants to experiment with those experiences, your comment that you “thought you made yourself clear” sounds quite controlling, and I would suggest reflecting on those impulses (I know they come from a positive place!) And ensuring that communication and compromise with partners in future is key to a healthy relationship. Likewise, if a partner wanted to control or limit your experiences in life. This may be worded poorly, but point is I would reflect on where these emotions and behaviours may be coming from within yourself and address this moving forward.

With that our of the way, the REAL issue here. My assumption would be that this is an immature person, who was not quite ready enough to handle the experiences of these drugs and has become quickly addicted to the high and the escapism, with no impulse control over himself or his actions. In some ways, it can be beneficial to have these experiences in life now when young, as opposed to later, however, that is only if he can find a healthy way out. Judging by his experimenting with meth, I would say he’s likely past the point of being able to do that without proper medical assistance and counselling.

BUT, that said, HE IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO FIX. It is not your fault. He is living his life the way he has chosen, and that does not align with your morals and values. You absolutely 100% should break up with him, ensuring that you put across that this is not what you are looking for in a partner, set your boundaries, express your concern for his wellbeing, and request that if he is not going to seek professional help then to be careful and safe. But after that, wipe the slate clean and move on.

Yes, it’s extremely difficult emotionally, and you may feel like you are abandoning him, but you are not. He has made his choices and they have diverted from yours and he is, once again, not your responsibility!

Better that way, in the hopes that he sees the error of his ways sooner and seeks help, because the alternative is you being dragged down with him. You need to be clear, firm, and set your boundaries that it is over, and BREAK CONTACT FOR AT LEAST 6 MONTHS. Do not get caught in the spiral, look after yourself and stay healthy!

Valorant?

I just started myself, after missing Overwatch 1 and thinking it was similar. To my surprise it is like an Overwatch with a Counterstrike feel to it, which I quite enjoy.

Has he now come full circle and lied so much that he accidentally told the truth?

As a non American I just can’t comprehend how any of you even have to think about this.

On one hand, an old man, who, despite his age and stumbling over his words, has ran the country relatively successfully for the last four years.

On the other hand, another old man that was a global embarrassment, cosied up to Putin and Kim, spent most of his time golfing and shitting his pants, stole classified documents and likely sold state secrets, he is a sexual abuser, an actual criminal, clearly has corrupt justices on his side with crazy plans, chummy with epstein and took multiple trips to pedo Island, promoted racism at every opportunity, many of the people connected to him for his first term were imprisoned, refused to accept your democratic process, contributed in instigating a fucking coup attempt, and that’s likely not even the half of it…

Like, how the fuck can ANY of you look at that and say “Yeah but Biden stumbles over his words so I’ll just throw my vote away/vote for trump…”

I feel like I’m going insane just watching this shit unfold. It is all so bizarre.

Well, besides the obvious of paying off mortgages and debts which wouldn’t even amount to a fraction of that, I’d buy an island to convert into a 24/7 mass paintball (or laser tag or something) warzone experience, like hundreds of people on both sides.

Sell the experience to people, classic Red team vs blue team, stay until you’re eliminated, barracks/camps, HQ, command structures, etc. It would be a live streamed competition with commentary, tactics, live go pro cams, everything. Maybe do it in seasons, have leaderboards, MVPs, whatever.

Players that have already been to the island before would be able to advise, or place bets on their accounts or whatever to build up load outs for their next trip.

The goal being a fun live game, exercise, stamina training, whatever, but mostly an outlet for the people in the world that get excited by war with the intention of hopefully reducing that with a safe environment.

I feel like if done correctly, and made as affordable as possible, it could turn into a relatively profitable business. I would then ensure the profits went to charities that provide aid to actual warzones and ensure that the primary message of the theme park is completely anti-war.

Any money leftover that didn’t go into that project I would donate and invest in animal welfare and conservation, renewable energy, and tackling the climate crisis.

Oh, look, another old comedian jumps on the bigot bandwagon. It’s an incredibly transparent trend now for when they can’t write the same material that got them there in the first place, or when they are no longer working with the person that wrote their material for them.

Take a few shots at trans people, purely for publicity, then use that sudden boost from the circle jerking media to secure yourself a Netflix special, where you can talk about how you’ve been cancelled for an hour and a half for a big payout.

It’s just a marketing ploy for using peoples own outrage against them.

I have a “world bible” that I created on onenote with all of my characters, locations, lore, etc. As part of that I have my stories plotted out in rough notes, then chapter by chapter in a table, (this often changes when actually writing but it’s a great foundation).

Lots of people use Obsidian or Notion to do the same thing. I already had onenote on all my devices, so it was easy just to add notes to my notes section if an idea came to me on the move that I could return to later.

I’ve tried to move to obsidian or notion a couple of times, but I think I have a certain efficiency now with my crude system, and it just seems to work for me.

Not sure if YouTube links are allowed here, but if you just search for automatic 1111 install tutorials, Sebastian Kamph’s channel is excellent and pretty much everything you’ll need to know is on there!

Keep an eye for his updated videos though, as you can imagine the tech moves so quickly that some of his more popular videos have been remade and updated!

Hahaha, I hadn’t considered it that way. Touché.

Short form content platforms aren’t going anywhere, Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts are just a carbon copy of tiktok. No problems with them, of course, because they’re American.

I’m still unsure why anyone would pay for AI image generation purely because of the trial and error it takes. I get that not everyone has a GPU that can do it, but I use stable diffusion through automatic 1111 and I’ll likely be about 2-300 generations of text to image, image to image, some inpainting and editing, then some more image to image and upscaling before I get a representation of what’s in my head down.

I love the process of it all, but paying for tokens would completely limit me. Is there a specific reason that people use paid models? Or is it just because a lot of people are limited by their gpu?

Currently in Tokyo from UK, paid for an Airalo esim before I arrived, and I was pretty impressed with how cheap and easy it’s been- and that’s with 20gbs data, which I’ve barely used.

My service provider O2 would have charged me £7 a day with their O2 travel bolt-on, but would have still been my usual contract of unlimited calls, texts and data, just that the data would have been throttled a fair bit. This is a lot more reasonable than it used to be, but still would have amounted in a large bill compared to the one off $18 esim.

Yes I did, wasn’t paying attention while I typed it! Fixed now.

Yep, had it the wrong way around! Oops, was typing while walking.

The bizarre thing about Rowling is her hatred for trans people only extends to MtF trans people. She has no problem with FtM.

*Apologies, I did have these mixed up, I typed this while walking and only just read it back now.

You are, and that’s by design, as the core of your country from the education right down to the media and pop culture, all revolve around the financial system, designed to keep the wealth in the pockets of the few while everyone else argues over the same pointless and divisive issues that are pushed every single day. It happens in most countries, but the US is the best example due to how transparent it all is.

Capitalism has really done a number on these poor Americans, the right wing have managed to push the compass so far in their favour that even a lot of the most basic items in this list are considered “far left” to them.

One prime example of the extremes of propaganda within the US has to be the mass opposition towards unions (which has thankfully began to ease in recent years.) I could never comprehend why so many people would argue against having a union to protect their own rights as workers. it was bizarre to me.

No offence to any Americans that read this. But I’ve done my fair share of arguing for you over the years, and some of the opposition I have come up against is just completely bewildering. Almost like some sort of capitalist Stockholm syndrome.

Sure, those are good examples of negatives, but that is just the way of it. This happens all the time when new technology emerges. Just think about the audio industry, all of a sudden people could produce music from their spare bedrooms- jobs weren’t needed anymore. But the music industry is now far more saturated than ever as a result, as it is so much more accessible to people, without the need for specialist equipment and stacks of cash.

Sorry, but the fact he was even elected the first time made America a complete joke to the rest of the world. It is utterly bizarre watching this all unfold, and that after everything that’s happened since, Trump still has a good chance of election AGAIN?

Wtf is going on over there?