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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: February 26th, 2024

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  • Yeah, I’ve had a realization a few days ago when I checked out about a dozen songs that had north of 10 million views on YT, but I’ve never heard of them, at all, or of the artists behind them. And all of those were from some 10 years ago. So I guess my taste in music is kind of frozen in time and I’ve been trying for a while to complete collections of “old” artists rather than getting to know new ones.
    I do get occasional inspiration from the folks at I Love Music, though.




    • Language is by far the most important door opener, so put in one hour of learning every day for at least a year.
    • Mingle to get out of your comfort zone: Go to after-work parties and flea markets, take public transit. Use hobbyist/ meet-up apps. Read/ watch the local news.
    • Don’t expect to be invited, especially not to people’s homes. People might also be uncomfortable being invited to your home. Meeting in a public place is almost always the better option, unless you’ve gotten to know someone really well.
    • Irony/ sarcasm don’t translate very well between cultures.
    • Europe has some lousy weather, so get watertight coats and waterproof your shoes and backpacks.
    • Take it slow.
    • Also: Enjoy it! Europe is a fantastic little place at the crossroads between Asia and Africa and I would never want to leave.



  • Yeah, the 90s were a good time for movies that could not have been mainstream in any other decade. I’d place Judge Dredd, Demolition Man and Total Recall in the same “corny, but excellent” league as the 5th Element.
    Then you had unofficial double features of sorts: Smoke/ Blue In The Face, Casino/ Goodfellas.
    12 Monkeys needs to be mentioned as well, it’s probably the most palatable movie on my list.
    In the “disconcerting, but unforgettable” league, I’d place As Good As It Gets, The Crossing Guard and, of course, the grisly “8 mm.”






    • Don’t be afraid of loneliness; don’t be afraid of too many people around; don’t be afraid of sharing your life with an SO you think you don’t really know. As you age, these phases tend to blunt and blend together, like the seasons. The only thing you really have, in the end, is yourself.
    • Adult life is a lot more about compromising than fighting. Don’t make other people’s life shitty on purpose, neither allow them to make yours shitty.
    • Get your regular medical check-outs.
    • Leave a place if you positively can’t stand it any longer, and start from scratch. It’ll be okay.

  • It took years for me to really disconnect.

    • They introduced, with much fanfare, a mysterious new way of counting votes, and back-propagated it. Suddenly, all upvotes of past and present posts and comments got boosted by a factor of 8-9 or so. Felt hollow, manufactured, disingenuous.
    • The founders admitted that in the early days, they made up lots of sock puppet accounts which talked to each other. That eerie, self-congratulatory sentiment never really left the site.
    • Proven to tamper with comments.
    • That derailed AMA with Julian Assange. It felt 99.9% inorganic.

    And so much more.

    My Discord registration was denied several times without explanation, so as soon as I discovered Lemmy, I came over and never looked back.