I guess if the VPN speeds were fine, if there were drops in connection, and whether you can manually choose a location.

Have you used the cloud service for photo backup? I currently have an iPhone and it sounds neat to switch to bundling Proton and dropping the iCloud subscription.

I’d probably just use Proton’s mail app on mobile. It’s actually pretty snappy and intuitive, and it has always had the basic features I need.

I also work 3x12s and mostly love having the 4 days off. The downside is being able to do virtually nothing on those days besides eat and sleep. I think one advantage of the 9-5 week is being able to still do a few things more often. It’s hard to practice hobbies and maintain the house with gaps on days that I’m working.

What you value changes slightly as time goes on. Having the more consistent day might be more appealing now. And if you dont like it, there are always nurse jobs that are in need. Maybe there is something in between the hospital and that gig, like dialysis nursing. Worth a try.

As someone who cares for elderly people sometimes, please please fill out an advanced directive (not just a living will). It’s a sort of “if this, then that” for health scenarios. It’s immensely helpful when when caring for someone not well, and can be much more stressful without one. I have had dying, incapacitated patients wait weeks for guardianship or POA-HC to be processed before care can be changed to comfort measures, because they did not have one on file.

Get one from the hospital you would likely go to, fill it out, give them a copy, keep a copy, and give a copy to who you list as a decision-maker. You do not want to add the stress of logistics to an emotionally difficult time.

I think as a society we should embrace death more. Pretending it doesn’t happen just makes things worse when that reality of mortality unwaveringly stares you in the face.

Try Lemma if you’re on iOS. It’s very smooth and has the right balance of features and simplicity imo.

I’m not sure what you’re using it for, but I use an ebook reader called eBoox. It’s free with no ads, not sure if open-source. I had bookmarks but I don’t think annotations. I like it because it can open my epub, mobi, and pdf books, change the font and font size, sepia and night modes, has many options for how to change the page, and fairly simple UI. The creator markets it as a cutesy cat thing, but that is only present on the initial setup and then it’s just a regular e-reader app.

I have tried a few. Duolingo seemed to be good for making it fun to get interest but a lot of it was semi-random vocabulary. Try the Mango app for more practical conversation practice. It has flash cards that remind me of Anki that are nice for reinforcing memorization. It is free but I think has a premium option now.

Also, Tandem for practicing conversation with real people that speak the language via text, voice message, call, or video call.

Thank you for the list of suggestions; that’s really helpful. I haven’t been on Android in a while, is the Gcam app noticeably better than a stock camera app? What sorts of things would it do better? Low lighting or blur reduction?

I agree about the ROM. I’d really like to have something that is simple and looks to have continued support when necessary for security and other major updates. I also agree about the camera. It seems to be a deciding factor for smartphones. The last I checked the Pixels had excellent sensors but had some camera software issues that I believe were eventually resolved. I’m hoping that isn’t an issue if I’m just using a basic OS.

I think you have the most accurate answer. The “othering” behavior can be seen in essentially any group of people.

Plus, if you read any of the texts of these religions, I have never come across instructions to shun others. I think people have a surface level of belief and then sophomorically apply it to be “more righteous.” They’re really missing the forest for the trees if they elevate themselves above others.

Not the Middle East, but I remember Hinduism having a caste system that does actually rank people, but from information I got, people were generally on the same page about it.

Can you define what you mean by religious toxicity?

It’s not integrated into any of the apps I use, so I use a mobile browser. There’s a shield icon that appears next to the notification bell icon. It’s essentially another inbox that shows the reporter, reportee, post, community, and reason for reporting. I still have to manually click the post and decide what to do (ie, remove, ban, nothing), and then go back to the mod inbox and click a Resolved (like a “read”) button.

I guess I didn’t explicitly say it, but that was actually the moment that I went from could exist to must exist. I know it sounds pretty crazy to commit to such an irrational thing. I have a better understanding now of why it’s called practicing a faith, because you don’t just immediately do it and you’re done. It constantly gets tested. So, there wasn’t one moment that just flipped all the way from not believing anything to believing everything, it’s a spectrum.

For me it was ironically a theoretical physics video that made a religious belief really make sense. It was a video explaining how we can conceptualize 11 dimensions that would be possible on the information we collectively know now as humans. The way it made me really think about how truly expansive space and time are really made me think that “that’s not impossible to think that there is a 11th dimension being that has some agenda that we cannot understand.”

I imagine it’s like a child trying to understand something beyond their comprehension but it doesn’t change how true it is, like “brush your teeth because it lowers your risk of gums bleeding and leaking bacteria into your bloodstream and eventually causing vegetative infective endocarditis.” They’re just not going to understand that yet, but still reap the benefits later if they brush their teeth. I think it’s much easier and safer for the kid to say, “I’m just not going to brush my teeth.”

Bottom line is, I think that’s why it’s called faith, because it’s just not definitively provable or disprovable. I have personally had many tangible positive benefits in my life from having a faith but don’t think that should be forced upon anyone.

And I know many people in western cultures equate religion to Christianity, but just a quick reminder that there are many many faith systems that exist in the world.

Spot on, it was a hand plane haha. Stanley 46 plow plane

Yeah I’m hoping it was an honest mistake, but if I don’t get a reply, I definitely want to leave a review about what to possibly expect from the seller.

The seller has high ratings. I guess I’ll just try messaging them for an answer and leave a review about my experience if they don’t respond. I had some bad experiences with eBay in the past and seemed to have gotten better, but this makes me a bit more hesitant again.

It’s a vintage woodworking tool and semi-difficult to find. There are new ones available but are double the price. I’ll just have to try to find another one from a different seller, but I’m kind of upset because I thought it was a done deal.

It is an antique woodworking tool. It was a decent price, that’s why I scooped it. The idea was to buy a vintage one and fix it a little so it was cheaper than a very expensive new one. But many of the vintage ones are approaching new prices.

Bill who? Well, good job Bill

I’ve never heard of those. I looked them up and they look super fun! Like a skateboard and rollerblades had children.

I’ve had a good experience with an old Kindle 3G and the Calibre program. You can get the old Kindles pretty cheap and they don’t have the built-in ads and some of the slightly useless features of the new ones.

That, or like the16bitgamer mentioned, an iPad has good options for free ebook apps without ads or tracking. I found this one called eBoox that has great usability and no ads. It’s weirdly marketed as a “cute” ebooks app, but it’s honestly better than the stock one and doesn’t actually have cats or those pictures that are in the description in the actual app.