Yeah, most online stores don’t accept gift cards, unfortunately. 🙁 Especially Amazon…tried to order some much needed products with Amazon cards, and they require a bank card.

IME, (on Amazon at least…and a few others I’ve tried) masked cards are usually accepted as bank cards. Gift cards are not.

I’d love to build myself a privacy-respecting online store that accepts everything from Monero to cash to Apple pay (for the general populous that doesn’t care), but I sort of lack the capital. 😅

I mean, yeah, it would be great if Amazon took Monero, but I don’t see them ever even considering that.

I was living at or below the poverty line for years before COVID. As a senior developer, I wasn’t finding any work. Then when COVID hit, I wasn’t able to keep up with the work. I was finally earning 6 figures. I was able to travel (like in a jet, legitimate travel) for the first time–just because. It was amazing. I was able to network with people and provide value for people. I felt like my career was suddenly moving!

Then around 2021-2022 all my clients abandoned me, my network ghosted me, and I was back to square one. That’s where I am today.

I’m working on having a breakthrough because someone college-educated with a GitHub profile should not be standing at food bank lines every month.

With me it depends on quality & depth.

If I socialize with a really good friend (or a romantic interest–which hasn’t been for a while 🙁 ) every day, that invigorates me.

But if I drag myself out to even one hour long social event for a week I have to spend 8 weeks recovering. 🤣 (OK, maybe not that long, but you get the idea).

Already had one power outage, another is on the way.

I actually kinda like power outages. They’re sort of an adventure.

The only gut-punch is that I’ve been looking for work for a while now. Hoping on a miraculous break-through soon. But I had to ask for money from friends for non-perishables.

Was it ever for jobs?

Been an active user for well over 5 years and not one interaction has resulted in a job.

A bunch of people acting like they were hiring, sure.

This was really good. My only (very small) gripe was that the acting was stilted. Other than that, it was absolutely enjoyable.

Inspiring Philosophy lays out the whole issue here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei0gPoqx_bQ

I know it’s age-blocked due to some of the content, so if anyone knows where to find the youtube-alternative link that would be awesome.

Earn more.

It’s not easy, but I used to be in the “we need to make everything fair” crowd.

Now (currently unable to afford groceries myself) I’m part of the “if I’m not getting paid my worth, I must show my worth.”

Where in the USA Is This?

My closes distance was like 400 ft away in Alaska even though I’d never been to Alaska.

Yup, start by running nvidia-smi to get the details on your Nvidia. Then install pytorch. The rest is up to you!

Social security never made any sense to me anyway. Why not just make the economy healthy so that people can save into old age? Perhaps invest a little into financial literacy so someone doesn’t blow all their savings in Vegas when they’re 45. It’s frustrating the the government’s like, “You can’t spend that money. We don’t think you’re smart enough to plan for the future, but we’re ethical enough we’ll keep it for you and return it to you when you’re old and grouchy.”

As a man (straight) I consider it my duty to pay for a date, but if the woman wants to pay or go Dutch I’m not going to raise a fuss.

I’ll usually tell her straight up I do this as well. I figure if someone isn’t comfortable with me communicating something as simple as who’s going to pay for a date, how comfortable are they going to be with me communicating about other things as well?

Looks like the consensus is…yes, give it another go (though a few warned that, yeah, it may not be all people promise).

Alright, once I can afford it and things stabilize I think I will. Thanks for the input!

Thank you for your honesty. 😆 I kinda had that reaction recently when I saw free Andromeda episodes on YouTube. Checked one out to see if it’s as good as I remembered and…hardly. 🤣

Oh, no, it’s not that. I mean, the special effects definitely didn’t age well, but I focus on the story, the suspense. I’m someone who can easily get wrapped up into what the characters are thinking/feeling/etc. With the right director, writer, and crew at the helm, you can have a sci fi show with two people in a room having an intense political discussion and have it be good.

Oh, yeah, for sure. And no, worries, I’m not discounting world building. I realize that most shows these days have a world building phase where not a lot happens. But in the end the world building should lead to something exciting. I tried to turn my mom onto the Expanse (one of my all-time favorite shows) but she said she gave it a go but couldn’t get interested. 😅

Nice! Thanks.

In the novel I’m writing this occurs. Someone from 2004 is transported to a planet in the year 240,000. She learns the language, but she can’t quite get the dialect down because humans have evolved different facial/vocal muscles by this point.

Obviously it’s in writing so I can get away with not having to explicitly define the accent. 😅

Totally agree, there.

My dream is to build businesses and hire the hell out of America…when thinking about it I really don’t care if you champion my brand or not…at the end of the day I’d just want you to get the job done. And if you can’t then I’d expect you to reach out for help (I’m talking hypothetically).

So I guess I’m expecting the same from employers. I’ll still serve you to the best of my ability. I want your business to succeed because I want you to succeed. It doesn’t matter if you sell vacuum cleaners or financial advice.

The past 2-3 years have been rough for me, too. It’s only the past week or so that I’ve been getting additional request for work from existing and new clients. It always feels so odd to be chatting with a founder about my Python experience, then walk to the local food bank to stand in line to get food.

FWIW, keep it up, dude. You’re doing alright. I love your vulnerability. I’ve found it’s really hard to find people to help, but I push for it anyway. And I often have to ignore “is this ethical or not?” and allow myself to take full advantage of their help.