Ryan

I’ve been using wayblue on my own desktop. They have sane defaults & very pleasant theme. They do a good job keeping their image up to date & enable auto-updating from the get-go.

Usually, I just smoke cannabis until my body goes “TIMBEEEEERRR!” ;-P

Seriously, though, routine plays a big role. I tend to lay down/wake-up at around the same time every day. About an hour before I go to bed, I put on a comfort TV show & brush my teeth. At this point, notifications are being silenced on my phone until the next morning, so less incentives to pick it up. While I’m watching the show, I intermittently close my eyes for a few minutes as a signal to my brain about the direction we’re heading, helps keep the peanut gallery in my head from getting chatty right as I’m laying down.

White noise while I sleep is required, I need something constant that covers-up the incidental noises. Otherwise, I pop awake when someone runs the faucet or what-have-you.

That’s what I’ve figured out works for me, YMMV.

Yeah, given the choice, I’d rather avoid the phone all together. Unless it’s close friends/family, I have to script what I’m going to say to get through it. I don’t have the same reaction to video calls, interesting enough…

Having not read the article (I know, breaking Rule #__ of The Internet ;-P)…

It doesn’t surprise me that some autists are drawn to doing stand-up. Having seen the documentary “Misery Loves Comedy,” comedians often use stand-up as a way of processing chronic mental health issues or other forms of divergence.

I could never do it myself, I have to stim like crazy just to (barely) make it through a phone/video call, without the pressure of actually being funny…not to mention that anytime I say something that I think is funny, I’m often the only person that actually laughs. lol

I definitely prefer it over Snaps or appimages. Straight-forward to update, and Flatseal provides a nice GUI to control permissions (if needed). Themes may not work properly, but whatever, not a big deal for me.

The distro’s repo is always my go-to. If it’s not available there, then flatpak, and I’ll use appimage under duress. If that doesn’t work, I’ll figure out a different solution.

I say go for it. I’ve been using it for about 2 years, and I no longer feel like distro-hopping (not sure if you fall into that category of Linux user), because it’s not opinionated about how it’s meant to be used. It gives you all the tools (and foot-guns) to do whatever you want with your computer.

You don’t need separate computers for a local mirror and/or build server to run Gentoo, I’ve never done that. I’ve never owned a Mac, so I can’t really offer any tips hardware-wise, but use a live USB of a distro that you’re already familiar with, so you can refer to the handbook as you go. The people on Gentoo’s IRC channel & forums are very helpful if you come against any roadblocks.

It does take a while, not gonna gloss over that. Once you have it installed, there are very few issues that would require a full re-install. Portage is an awesome package manager, the language of its warnings/errors took some time to wrap my brain around, but it’s very verbose in describing what’s going on.

I’ve read articles that were clearly created using ChatGPT, there was no extrapolation to add context/details to illustrate their points, and parts of it read like it just pulled from a Wikipedia page. The tone felt more robotic than pieces they published 6~8 months ago.

ChatGPT can be useful when it’s part of a larger writing process, but I have a feeling that sites that create prompts and paste the output as their articles will slowly die-off because the quality isn’t there.

First off, I’m sorry that this happened to you.

If it were me, I’d drop that " “friend” " (extra quotes added for emphasis) like a boulder off a cliff. People that are actually friends listen & make amends when told their words caused pain & invalidation.

If it were me (I’m not familiar with your life situation outside of this post), I wouldn’t contact her in any way/shape/form, and the only words I would say if she contacted me would be:

“Actions have consequences,” and walk away.

I know that some of what I’ve wrote may come across as harsh & nuclear, but I have no patience for people that do this. Life is too short to keep people like around.

In spite of the negativity & pain being spewed out of our screens, there are plenty of people that do care & empathize.