Coconut Monkey Cornerclub

[Pifanjr]

My entire department got asked to come into the office today and we were told most of us would be laid off. Luckily I'm not one of them (for now), but it's left me pretty rattled.

If I do get laid off somewhere in the future it shouldn't be too hard for me to find a new job, but finding one that's as good as this one would probably be challenging.

 

[neogunhero]

I'm really old school I guess with music. I either listen to it on my desktop with wired headphones, or in my car with my phone wired to the dash. The closest any of that comes to wireless is when I get a call on my phone while driving and I tap the screen to answer it, then the song automatically mutes and I can hear the caller on my car speakers hands free. I swear it sounds a TON better than straight through my phone too.

Since I'm officially retired I also spend so much time with screens and PCs that I have committed to dedicating meal prep, eating, and cleaning up time as being void of any of that. During those times my audio is the sizzle of what's cooking, the chime when my Breville grill is up to temp, or my Flavor Wave oven indicating it's cooking cycle has ended.

If I didn't have a roommate and have such an eclectic music taste, then ideally I would play music off of nice speakers. My living situation requires headphones, so I figured wireless earbuds would be the best bet. They can be bliss if they check all the boxes: great audio, great battery life, and extremely comfortable. However the pair I got isn't comfortable in the slightest, so I think I'll have to return them. It got such great reviews from many sites that I read, but I guess my ear is just oddly shaped or something

My entire department got asked to come into the office today and we were told most of us would be laid off. Luckily I'm not one of them (for now), but it's left me pretty rattled.

If I do get laid off somewhere in the future it shouldn't be too hard for me to find a new job, but finding one that's as good as this one would probably be challenging.

Really sorry to hear about that. I hope things go well and you're able to stay for a long time. Might be time to start looking for backup plans in case things go bad.

 

[BeardyHat]

(Think I might have told this story before?)

Back in college, my roommate said he would drive me up to the airport about 90 miles away. It was starting to get past time to head out, so I started bugging him to go, but wanted to watch some TV show and said there would be plenty of time.

We left pretty late, and some other friends happened to leave a little before us in another car. As soon as we hit the highway, he takes off at HIGH speed. 80mph when the limit was 55mph? We soon pass the other friends.

Then he gets caught. The other friends drive right on by while he's getting a ticket, laughing.

As soon as the cop is out of sight, ZOOM! Off he goes again, trying to make up for time. We pass the other friends again. He gets caught again. They pass us again. This time they are laughing VERY hard!

I did catch my flight somehow.

Yikes, is said friend still living and breathing?

I had a buddy like this, in high school he would drive his '65 Mustang at very high rates of speed and then often be unable to stop, because it had drum brakes all the way around. He's still alive after all these years, surprisingly, but I certainly don't go anywhere with him...

I'm really old school I guess with music. I either listen to it on my desktop with wired headphones, or in my car with my phone wired to the dash. The closest any of that comes to wireless is when I get a call on my phone while driving and I tap the screen to answer it, then the song automatically mutes and I can hear the caller on my car speakers hands free. I swear it sounds a TON better than straight through my phone too.

Since I'm officially retired I also spend so much time with screens and PCs that I have committed to dedicating meal prep, eating, and cleaning up time as being void of any of that. During those times my audio is the sizzle of what's cooking, the chime when my Breville grill is up to temp, or my Flavor Wave oven indicating it's cooking cycle has ended.

Wireless is the way to go for me. I didn't think I'd like it, as at once point I fancied myself an Audiophile, but it turns out, I can't tell the difference between high quality stuff and mid range stuff, so I just buy decent quality audio stuff and call it a day.

When I'm cooking (aside from driving) is pretty much the only time I actually listen to anything. I alternate between podcasts and music, but I usually get pretty annoyed when something smokes and I need to turn on my hood, then can no longer hear my podcast.

Although, I am listening to music right now, because otherwise I'll get distracted by Youtube and do nothing else.

My entire department got asked to come into the office today and we were told most of us would be laid off. Luckily I'm not one of them (for now), but it's left me pretty rattled.

If I do get laid off somewhere in the future it shouldn't be too hard for me to find a new job, but finding one that's as good as this one would probably be challenging.

Yikes, hopefully goes ok. Finding a new job is just so stressful, especially when you want a particular thing; I ought to start looking this year, but my anxiety precludes me from doing it because I'm worried about interviewing, as well as finding something I consider acceptable and that has a similar culture to my old job.

 

[ZedClampet]

Being forgetful after a long day is normal. Brain needs a break.

I wish I would just do stupid things and be forgetful. Unfortunately mine is a little more extreme. I fall asleep while driving and have terrifying blackouts where I don't have conscious control over what my body is doing.

Fortunately, I didn't crash when I fell asleep driving. I woke up sitting at a traffic signal. I have no idea how I managed that.

And the blackouts are terrifying. I will wake up for just a second and I'm walking down the upstairs hall. I have no control over what I'm doing. Then I'll wake up again for another second, and I'll be in the basement walking towards the storage room door. Then I wake up for a second and I'm in the dining room sitting at the table. Etc. Eventually I usually come fully conscious lying in bed, or sometimes on the floor, a few hours later.

But, as I said, I have an extreme form of insomnia. I'll go a full week with 6 hours of total sleep. Do that long enough and strange things start happening. But I definitely don't drive when I'm like that anymore. Waking up and realizing you are driving is not something I ever want to do again.

My entire department got asked to come into the office today and we were told most of us would be laid off. Luckily I'm not one of them (for now), but it's left me pretty rattled.

If I do get laid off somewhere in the future it shouldn't be too hard for me to find a new job, but finding one that's as good as this one would probably be challenging.

The only time I ever got laid off led me to the worst job I ever had. I'm not trying to depress you. All I'm saying is that if you get laid off, don't panic and get the first job that comes around like I did. Taking that job not only affected my emotional (and therefore physical) wellbeing, it also inhibited my ability to get hired for better jobs because I was working all the time. If you are going to take a bad job out of necessity, at least make sure you have the hours flexibility to continue going to interviews for better jobs. In other words, take a crappy evening job instead of a crappy day job.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm going to get a burner phone so I can call back scammers without using my real phone. Why? Because I want to amuse myself by abusing someone who deserves it. I think it will be therapeutic.

 

[BeardyHat]

I'm going to get a burner phone so I can call back scammers without using my real phone. Why? Because I want to amuse myself by abusing someone who deserves it. I think it will be therapeutic.

Why not use AI?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV_SdCfZ-0s


I think these were posted here and I know there was a couple of more of them with an older man, but I can't seem to turn it up.

 

[Pifanjr]

Really sorry to hear about that. I hope things go well and you're able to stay for a long time. Might be time to start looking for backup plans in case things go bad.

My manager said there were no plans to get rid of me any time soon. I'm on a different project than the people that got laid off, so I suspect I'll be okay for the next months at least, but I've decided to start getting more serious about saving money so we're okay if I do get laid off and it takes some time to find a new job.

Wireless is the way to go for me. I didn't think I'd like it, as at once point I fancied myself an Audiophile, but it turns out, I can't tell the difference between high quality stuff and mid range stuff, so I just buy decent quality audio stuff and call it a day.

When I'm cooking (aside from driving) is pretty much the only time I actually listen to anything. I alternate between podcasts and music, but I usually get pretty annoyed when something smokes and I need to turn on my hood, then can no longer hear my podcast.

Although, I am listening to music right now, because otherwise I'll get distracted by Youtube and do nothing else.

I really only listen to music or a podcast when I'm folding laundry or cleaning up. I used to while driving to work as well, but it's been a while since I had a car.

Yikes, hopefully goes ok. Finding a new job is just so stressful, especially when you want a particular thing; I ought to start looking this year, but my anxiety precludes me from doing it because I'm worried about interviewing, as well as finding something I consider acceptable and that has a similar culture to my old job.

Yeah, I'm really hoping I'll be able to keep working at my current job for the foreseeable future. At the very least until I get my promotion which I should be getting at the start of next year.

I wish I would just do stupid things and be forgetful. Unfortunately mine is a little more extreme. I fall asleep while driving and have terrifying blackouts where I don't have conscious control over what my body is doing.

Fortunately, I didn't crash when I fell asleep driving. I woke up sitting at a traffic signal. I have no idea how I managed that.

And the blackouts are terrifying. I will wake up for just a second and I'm walking down the upstairs hall. I have no control over what I'm doing. Then I'll wake up again for another second, and I'll be in the basement walking towards the storage room door. Then I wake up for a second and I'm in the dining room sitting at the table. Etc. Eventually I usually come fully conscious lying in bed, or sometimes on the floor, a few hours later.

But, as I said, I have an extreme form of insomnia. I'll go a full week with 6 hours of total sleep. Do that long enough and strange things start happening. But I definitely don't drive when I'm like that anymore. Waking up and realizing you are driving is not something I ever want to do again.

That sounds a bit like the stories my wife told me about the time she was prescribed valium for her insomnia. She decided to quit taking it when she woke up outside.

The only time I ever got laid off led me to the worst job I ever had. I'm not trying to depress you. All I'm saying is that if you get laid off, don't panic and get the first job that comes around like I did. Taking that job not only affected my emotional (and therefore physical) wellbeing, it also inhibited my ability to get hired for better jobs because I was working all the time. If you are going to take a bad job out of necessity, at least make sure you have the hours flexibility to continue going to interviews for better jobs. In other words, take a crappy evening job instead of a crappy day job.

I'm not too worried about getting stuck in an awful job, as an experienced software engineer I should have enough options to avoid the worst places even if I do have to find something quickly.

 

[ZedClampet]

That sounds a bit like the stories my wife told me about the time she was prescribed valium for her insomnia. She decided to quit taking it when she woke up outside.

Yeah, the big one for that is Ambien. People report things like driving and sexual activity when they aren't conscious. There have even been two murders committed by people who were sleep walking. I knew that and that was one of the reasons it was so terrifying.

I wasn't on any of those types of drugs, though. They have no effect on me at all. I don't get calm, I don't fall asleep. It's just nothing, at least not at the levels prescribed. I don't get addicted to them either. A long time ago, just out of college when I was working at a bank, I was experiencing anxiety and went to the doctor and got xanax. It didn't work so they kept raising the dose until it was at max. I don't know why, exactly, but even though it wasn't working, I kept taking it at max dosage for 2 years. I think it was just comforting to know I had taken something. Then one day I finally thought, "Why am I taking this?" and I threw it away and never thought about it afterward. I never had any desire to start taking them again.

 

[Pifanjr]

Yeah, the big one for that is Ambien. People report things like driving and sexual activity when they aren't conscious. There have even been two murders committed by people who were sleep walking. I knew that and that was one of the reasons it was so terrifying.

Oh yeah, it probably was Ambien, not Valium.

I wasn't on any of those types of drugs, though. They have no effect on me at all. I don't get calm, I don't fall asleep. It's just nothing, at least not at the levels prescribed. I don't get addicted to them either. A long time ago, just out of college when I was working at a bank, I was experiencing anxiety and went to the doctor and got xanax. It didn't work so they kept raising the dose until it was at max. I don't know why, exactly, but even though it wasn't working, I kept taking it at max dosage for 2 years. I think it was just comforting to know I had taken something. Then one day I finally thought, "Why am I taking this?" and I threw it away and never thought about it afterward. I never had any desire to start taking them again.

You sound like the kind of person who drinks caffeine to go to sleep.

 

[ZedClampet]

Oh yeah, it probably was Ambien, not Valium.



You sound like the kind of person who drinks caffeine to go to sleep.

No, one soda and I'm definitely up all night. I stop drinking coffee pretty early in the day. It's only benzos I seem to not react to.

***

By the way, if PCG brings its automated moderator over here, I will not be able to post anymore. The way I write causes most posts to be flagged, and I then have to rewrite, sometimes more than once, to make my post as generic and non-triggering as possible. I'm simply not going to do that here. I'll just have to use my sports site to moan and complain, and I can start a gaming megathread. It won't be exactly the same, but I refuse to have my posts judged by an algorithm, and a poorly done one at that, and I absolutely refuse to write like I worked on the last Dragon Age. PCG is run by political extremists. It is what it is.

 

[Pifanjr]

By the way, if PCG brings its automated moderator over here, I will not be able to post anymore. The way I write causes most posts to be flagged, and I then have to rewrite, sometimes more than once, to make my post as generic and non-triggering as possible. I'm simply not going to do that here. I'll just have to use my sports site to moan and complain, and I can start a gaming megathread. It won't be exactly the same, but I refuse to have my posts judged by an algorithm, and a poorly done one at that, and I absolutely refuse to write like I worked on the last Dragon Age. PCG is run by political extremists. It is what it is.

My guess is that the auto-moderation is just the cheapest way to appease advertisers, or at least to avoid paying any actual human moderators. Though I'm not sure why they even bother with a comment section at that point.

I'm not a fan of automatic censoring in general. You're always going to have a whole bunch of false positives, especially with how poorly made most of these auto-moderators seem to be, which gets you stuff like this:

Automatically censored subtitles is a dumb concept anyway. Apparently the hard of hearing aren't allowed to read obscenities (that aren't even censored in the audio)?

 

[BeardyHat]

Yeah, the big one for that is Ambien. People report things like driving and sexual activity when they aren't conscious. There have even been two murders committed by people who were sleep walking. I knew that and that was one of the reasons it was so terrifying.

I wasn't on any of those types of drugs, though. They have no effect on me at all. I don't get calm, I don't fall asleep. It's just nothing, at least not at the levels prescribed. I don't get addicted to them either. A long time ago, just out of college when I was working at a bank, I was experiencing anxiety and went to the doctor and got xanax. It didn't work so they kept raising the dose until it was at max. I don't know why, exactly, but even though it wasn't working, I kept taking it at max dosage for 2 years. I think it was just comforting to know I had taken something. Then one day I finally thought, "Why am I taking this?" and I threw it away and never thought about it afterward. I never had any desire to start taking them again.

All the sleepwalking and stuff sounds terrifying.

Did you not experience any negative effects from dropping the medication? Usually they say to taper off, rather than drop it completely, as there can be issues. No idea what they are, but it's what I was told, anyway.

No, one soda and I'm definitely up all night. I stop drinking coffee pretty early in the day. It's only benzos I seem to not react to.

***

By the way, if PCG brings its automated moderator over here, I will not be able to post anymore. The way I write causes most posts to be flagged, and I then have to rewrite, sometimes more than once, to make my post as generic and non-triggering as possible. I'm simply not going to do that here. I'll just have to use my sports site to moan and complain, and I can start a gaming megathread. It won't be exactly the same, but I refuse to have my posts judged by an algorithm, and a poorly done one at that, and I absolutely refuse to write like I worked on the last Dragon Age. PCG is run by political extremists. It is what it is.

I haven't had any comments flagged yet, but I don't know what causes them to be so. I also don't comment all that much, so...

 

[Colif]

By the way, if PCG brings its automated moderator over here, I will not be able to post anymore.

what site is the auto mod on? front page? Not sure how that works..
Or is it on the new comments site?

admin mostly ignore here unless they want to post a banner about an article. So I don't know if they would do that. Not even sure how it works.

I don't know anything (nothing new).

 

[BeardyHat]

what site is the auto mod on? front page? Not sure how that works..
Or is it on the new comments site?

admin mostly ignore here unless they want to post a banner about an article. So I don't know if they would do that. Not even sure how it works.

I don't know anything (nothing new).

Think you've totally nailed it here. The forum is such small potatoes, it's likely to be completely ignored; don't think we really generate much, if any, money. More likely they'd shut down the forums before anything else...

 

[Colif]

Given how it was here in 2020 and under full spam war conditions, and they didn't close it then, I don't know... why here exists has been a mystery to me for years.

We still get new people joining all the time, mostly to ask questions but that is what forums are for these days. Its probably how most of us joined any forums they are on. Its the case for most of the ones I am on.

Its much quieter here now than it was in the past but at same time most of the posts don't get deleted within a week anymore. At least, the ones we see on the forums, many don't make it this far. Still a trickle of spam but the entire front page used to be full of it.

Probably best to change the topic

 

[ZedClampet]

All the sleepwalking and stuff sounds terrifying.

Did you not experience any negative effects from dropping the medication? Usually they say to taper off, rather than drop it completely, as there can be issues. No idea what they are, but it's what I was told, anyway.

I didn't taper off, and I didn't have any negative effects. But, as I said, using them didn't do anything to me, either, so I wouldn't recommend that other people do it my way.

 

[ZedClampet]

Probably best to change the topic

I just wrote a huge response to this, but decided that even though I feel very strongly about certain things, I don't want to make the mods lives more difficult. None of it is their fault.

 

[Colif]

None of it is their fault.

They are just users with more things to do than we do. Mainly to keep place tidy and us under control... good luck with that

 

[Pifanjr]

They are just users with more things to do than we do. Mainly to keep place tidy and us under control... good luck with that

Wait, aren’t you... *checks username*... wasn't there something blue there recently?

 

[ZedClampet]

Wait, aren’t you... *checks username*... wasn't there something blue there recently?

I'll let him tell you if he wants to, but let's just say that gallons of ice cream and nudity were involved. /jk

I feel like the "/jK" ruined the whole thing, but I wasn't sure which way to go there.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'll let him tell you if he wants to, but let's just say that gallons of ice cream and nudity were involved. /jk

I feel like the "/jK" ruined the whole thing, but I wasn't sure which way to go there.

I've started noticing people using the forward slash with an abbreviation to denote the tone of their post a couple years ago, but I'm not sure where it started. I thought it originated or was popularised on Tumblr.

 

[ZedClampet]

I've started noticing people using the forward slash with an abbreviation to denote the tone of their post a couple years ago, but I'm not sure where it started. I thought it originated or was popularised on Tumblr.

Memories are created by the brain quite often. One time my wife was at an Italian restaurant and saw a famous actor eating a couple of tables away. Years later, I reminded her about the time I saw the actor in an Italian restaurant. She laughed and told me it was her who saw the actor, not me. To this day, I still have a vivid memory of seeing him sitting at the table near me, but it didn't happen. Plus, who says it's not my wife with the false memory? We both ate there without the other one on occasion when we took people visiting on business to dinner.

That said:

I used to run a political site (not a fake memory as I still talk to a couple of my writers ) and we had a forum. I feel like the first time I used /jk was on this forum. I'm getting an image in my mind of looking at a post in that forum's style and wondering if anyone would know what /jk meant. I gave that site to someone else in 2009, so if my memory isn't BS then I've been using it awhile. I do definitely remember using it in the comments of PCG back when I was posting regularly in the 20teens, but 20teens is as close to a date as I can get.

Something else is that I'm pretty sure that I hadn't run into /s yet the first time I used /jk because the first time I saw /s I thought about it being similar to /jk

I need to contact the people running this simulation. My memory is a mess.

I have a funny story that kind of relates to me and /jk, but I've written enough for now. Let's just say I once talked to someone on the sports forum who had invented nearly every technology for the previous 30 years...according to him.

 

[Pifanjr]

Memories are created by the brain quite often. One time my wife was at an Italian restaurant and saw a famous actor eating a couple of tables away. Years later, I reminded her about the time I saw the actor in an Italian restaurant. She laughed and told me it was her who saw the actor, not me. To this day, I still have a vivid memory of seeing him sitting at the table near me, but it didn't happen. Plus, who says it's not my wife with the false memory? We both ate there without the other one on occasion when we took people visiting on business to dinner.

It's amazing we can remember anything from multiple years ago considering the amount of information our brains are processing every single day and the fact that it all needs to be stored in a relatively tiny area of our brain in the form of some cells that have electricity shooting between them.

That said:

I used to run a political site (not a fake memory as I still talk to a couple of my writers ) and we had a forum. I feel like the first time I used /jk was on this forum. I'm getting an image in my mind of looking at a post in that forum's style and wondering if anyone would know what /jk meant. I gave that site to someone else in 2009, so if my memory isn't BS then I've been using it awhile. I do definitely remember using it in the comments of PCG back when I was posting regularly in the 20teens, but 20teens is as close to a date as I can get.

Something else is that I'm pretty sure that I hadn't run into /s yet the first time I used /jk because the first time I saw /s I thought about it being similar to /jk

I need to contact the people running this simulation. My memory is a mess.

I have a funny story that kind of relates to me and /jk, but I've written enough for now. Let's just say I once talked to someone on the sports forum who had invented nearly every technology for the previous 30 years...according to him.

According to Wikipedia the tone indicators that start with a forward slash were originally written as xml tags (</sarcasm>):

Tone indicator - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[ZedClampet]

It's amazing we can remember anything from multiple years ago considering the amount of information our brains are processing every single day and the fact that it all needs to be stored in a relatively tiny area of our brain in the form of some cells that have electricity shooting between them.



According to Wikipedia the tone indicators that start with a forward slash were originally written as xml tags (</sarcasm>):

Tone indicator - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

All that stuff, which I assume is accurate, is much more recent than my faulty memory allows. On the other hand, /jk isn't listed and I never see anyone else use it, and it isn't nearly as good as /j, so I probably invented it, and it's just as prestigious as inventing a a pasta pot with the colander holes conveniently located on the bottom so that it can't hold water.

Also, I was reminded of something else I was wrong about when I followed one of the article's references, which is that I always assumed that elevators were made unbalanced so that if the cable broke it would wedge itself in the shaft instead of falling. Nope, they just fall all the way to the ground, as has unfortunately been proven recently. No idea why I thought they were unbalanced. If I had known that, I would have demanded a ground floor office when I worked in a 29 story building, and it had the oldest, worst elevator I've ever seen. When you went down, it felt like you were on a rollercoaster with that odd feeling in your stomach, and when it went up, it took forever, and no matter which direction you went, it made godawful screeching sounds like you just disturbed a huge nest of harpies. I always pictured the hunchback of Notre-Dame standing at the top of the shaft struggling to turn a wheel and gear mechanism that hadn't been greased in 100 years.

 

[Zloth]

Given how it was here in 2020 and under full spam war conditions, and they didn't close it then, I don't know... why here exists has been a mystery to me for years.

There was an older one, too. It had different software powering it, but it was basically the same idea. It lasted two or three years, I think? Then went away for quite a few years. Then came back as this.