yarn

I'm still working my way up to listening to symphonies. I've mainly been listening to sonatas, concertos, and things like quartets and stuff. But of the few symphonies I've listened to so far, that's one thing I noticed. They reminded me a lot of all the movie soundtracks I've heard throughout my life.

It sounds stupid since soundtracks are commonly played by a full orchestra, so what else what they sound like. But I just never made that connection before that they're basically modern day classical music haha.

That's a good idea though, thanks! I'll mix in some soundtracks to my classical music exploration.

My lifestyle is unhealthy and would most definitely benefit from therapy. But that disclaimer aside, I have a few things I find happiness from. Listening to music is a big one. Over the past year or two I've transitioned to listening to mostly classical music, so I have a whole new world to explore in that genre. I'm currently listening to a lot of Shostakovich. Another big source of happiness is continuing to learn about programming. That's kind of like a ritual that I've maintained since my school days. And one of my guilty pleasures recently is those stupid reaction YouTube channels. Not the obnoxious ones where they're all like "WoaaaAAaa!!1" or whatever. But just regular people watching comedic and music things.

The current big battle in One Piece has been going on for like two years

I know about two forms of meditation: mindfulness meditation and transcendental meditation. They're both pretty much exactly the same, except in mindfulness meditation, you focus on your breath traveling through the tips of your nostrils, and in transcendental meditation, you focus on a sound/word/phrase in your head.

This guy explains transcendental meditation really well. If you want to try mindfulness meditation, then just change his instructions to focus on your breath instead of a sound, and keep the rest of the instructions exactly as they are: https://youtu.be/nBCsFuoFRp8

One thing to note is that there's transcendental meditation, and then there's Transcendental Meditation™. They're the same exact thing, except with with transcendental meditation, you pick whatever sound you want, but with Transcendental Meditation™, you pay $1600 to have some dude sprinkle a bunch of essential oils or some shit on you and pick your sound for you. Plus, who knows what kind of recurring hidden fee nonsense you're signing up for, so I suggest avoiding Transcendental Meditation™.

Thanks!

Yes, it's a safe bet that it's just my current job. I was a lot happier at a previous job with a government contractor that was very low stress. I'm going to start applying for new dev jobs.

I'll most likely stay in the dev field because it's the path of least resistance for me, and because the job security most definitely shields me from a lot of new stressors I'm probably not even aware of. But I still wonder sometimes what it would be like to have a job outside like that one guy who said he became a wildlife ranger. Or to have a job where you solve physical problems with your hands, instead of abstract problems with your brain.

Cool, thanks for the update! Coincidentally, Liftoff put gestures with no option to turn them off in their latest release, so I've been a little unsatisfied about that. I'll try Thunder again.

The play store release is a huge deal too. Ngl that I probably wouldn't have used Thunder if I had to manually update it from github for each new release.

It's not as black and white as that. There's obviously a point where the West would have to push back against Russia. Most likely this grain deal won't be enough for the West to make any significant new moves apart from what they're already doing, but Russia is playing a stupid game by using mass hunger in poorer countries as a pawn in this war.

Good, so this scenario was already planned for

This is some bullshit. The first time Russia blockaded Ukrainian grain in the Black Sea, they had the plausible deniability that they weren't aware it was going to cause mass food shortages in poorer countries. Now they know full well that's what will happen, and they're doing it again.

The West would be justified in clearing a path in the Black Seas themselves, in my opinion. Russia's being little terrorist bitches.

Thanks for the info. Yeah, two year Associate Degree might not be too bad, if I really wanted to make the transition.

That is a whole lot of new insubordination. Hopefully this all starts materializing to broken Russian defensive lines.

One paragraph called out a Russian division which has apparently already threatened to abandon their positions if their favorite insubordinate commander is arrested:

Insubordination among commanders appears to be spreading to some of their soldiers. Russian milbloggers shared an audio excerpt on July 16 in which the alleged elements of the 7th VDV Division threatened that they would withdraw from their positions in occupied Kherson Oblast if the Russian MoD arrests Teplinsky or threatens his life.[14] The elements of the 7th VDV Division also claimed that they would defend Teplinsky against the Russian MoD and asserted that the high command is targeting Russia’s most combat effective commanders. This audio appeal, if legitimate, is a threat of mass desertion in the face of the enemy on behalf of Teplinsky. Desertion in the face of the enemy is a capital offense in many militaries. The VDV servicemen are blackmailing the Russian MoD to ensure that Teplinsky continues to command troops in Ukraine, despite Teplinsky’s previous affiliation with Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin who had led an armed rebellion on June 24 to overthrow Shoigu and Gerasimov.[15]