[Off-Topic] Community Chat Thread

[kirkusjones]

Whoa, okay, don't read too deep into my statements please. I'm an armchair nihilist at best and I don't actually wish anyone any harm or death. However, I am now considering joining the church of "I Got Mine, C U Later Sh*tlords". It's probably my best chance at being canonized thus far (inb4 I am posthumously proclaimed Supreme Douchelord of the religion!).

Edit: Mods, I'd like to claim precedent and a religious exemption for evading the censor. If that won't fly, go on and slide me up to level 2. I'll eat it for my faith.

Edit 2: just so we're clear, mad respect to all sides of this debate. It really made my day to read all of everyone's thoughts in this converastion. Better than %$#% TV, man.

Are you envisioning some kind of crown or more of a miter?

[TheGildedGoose]

It was a direct response to Goose saying flat out that they would sentence countless humans to agonizing death for their own benefit.

jesus christ

[BeneTleilax]

jesus christ

I mean, I gave you the benefit of the doubt before you straight up said

I'd rather get hit by a meteorite

Now, given that you're still here, I take it you'd rather not be personally obliterated. It's just us the rest of us inconvenient folk cluttering up the globe that you'd like to see dead.

This post is borderline Trolling/Flaming. While no warning is being issued currently, please be careful of your tone and word choice so that we have a healthy, mutually respectful conversation about a sensitive topic! - benjameenbear

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@kirkusjones

A miter would be dope. Maybe the haberdasher could sculpt it so it looks like a hand flipping the bird too. It would behoove and befit the office of Supreme Douchelord, I believe.

Warning issued for Trolling. - benjameenbear

[kirkusjones]

@kirkusjones

A miter would be dope. Maybe the haberdasher could sculpt it so it looks like a hand flipping the bird too. It would behoove and befit the office of Supreme Douchelord, I believe.

Than it shall be so, oh great and vociferous Douche.

Warning issued for Flaming. - benjameenbear

[DirkGently]

jesus christ

I mean, I gave you the benefit of the doubt before you straight up said

I'd rather get hit by a meteorite

Now, given that you're still here, I take it you'd rather not be personally obliterated. It's just us the rest of us inconvenient folk cluttering up the globe that you'd like to see dead.

I feel like that's a very uncharitable interpretation of what was most likely intended as "all our slow-burn geopolitical problems are making me anxious" with a bit of hyperbole thrown in.

[tstorm823]

just so we're clear, mad respect to all sides of this debate.

Funny, I was thinking just about the opposite. The "debate" here is such that I genuinely can't tell who is being facetious in any given post.

[pokken]

I feel like that's a very uncharitable interpretation of what was most likely intended as "all our slow-burn geopolitical problems are making me anxious" with a bit of hyperbole thrown in.

I feel like I've entered an alternate dimension where you and I are on the same chill wavelength instead of riling threads up

[benjameenbear]

Please be aware and sensitive of what you say in response to comments. Discussing the state of the world and potential disaster can be a very sensitive topic for some, particularly given what has happened in the past 2 years.

While I'd be sad to take further mod action, further inflammatory remarks and comments will be noted and if the conversation escalates then I'll move forward with locking this thread.

If you have personal questions, concerns, or comments that you'd like to share with me, I'm happy and more than willing to have an honest, sincere conversation with you via PM.

Respectfully,

benjameenbear

[DirkGently]

I feel like that's a very uncharitable interpretation of what was most likely intended as "all our slow-burn geopolitical problems are making me anxious" with a bit of hyperbole thrown in.

I feel like I've entered an alternate dimension where you and I are on the same chill wavelength instead of riling threads up

I can't be arsed to create the meme, but it's basically:

Climate change threatens all life: I sleep
Someone wants to reinstate banned as a commander: REAL %$#%

I have excellent priorities.

[kirkusjones]

All right people, I'm looking at changing jobs in the next 6-9 months and need some insight. I despise the job hunting process because it often feels like a massive waste of time and energy, but I don't have a safety net and ain't nobody wanna see me on OnlyFans, so here we are.

I've taught elementary school in various capacities for six years and want something that I don't take home with me and will still cover my bases.

Ultimately, I want my writing to pay the bills, but we're not there yet, so a job is what I need.

Open to any and all suggestions. Fling that spaghetti at the wall and let's see what sticks.

[BeneTleilax]

Private tutoring can be a decent gig, and you can use both your education and writing experience as credentials.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

My suggestion would be to try to nail an editing gig with a nearby university. Turns out most scientists are not wordsmiths as well, and many univerisities will pay top dollar if you can make their people sound smart in the great publish-or-perish cycle.

Another option would be to get into technical writing. My friend's mother does that for the SAS Institute in Raleigh and makes six figures doing it after 15 years in the field.

Are you feeling daring? Do you have nothing really tying you to your current location? If the answer to both is yes, go somewhere else. Somewhere radical. Go to Alaska and fillet fish for 6 months. Take a job as an ESL teacher and expand your viewpoint of other cultures. Go to New York and couchsurf while you audition to be a radio host. Do any of them or none of them, but give yourself ample ammunition for writing. If your experiences are sufficiently cool, they'll yield a world of strange muses.

You could also write children's books. They're not long or complicated, but they're an excercise in brevity that can pose surprising challenges as a writer. You could crank them out and self-publish until maybe you strike literary gold? Maybe end up the next Shel Silverstein?

My last idea is that you consider a career in security. You can pass off your education experience as deescalation experience and if you work the graveyarf shift, you'd have a lot of idle time to write, ponder, sketch, etc.

Ideally, I think you should start writing today and worry about jobs tomorrow. Loads of great writers were nobodies working no name jobs until they said %$#% it. Gary Larson, author of the Far Side comic, worked at a record shop. Kurt Vonnegut jr worked for General Electric. Mark Twain worked on a steamboat. The important thing is that you find something, anything to support your lifestyle while you write like mad in the time it leaves you. And when your writing takes off, you gfto with obscene gestures blazing and coast into an easy life of issuing intelligent quotes and writing provocative op-eds.

[kirkusjones]

Private tutoring can be a decent gig, and you can use both your education and writing experience as credentials.

Currently doing this to supplement my income. It's viable if I can build a big enough roster of clients. I need to dig a little deeper and see if my current clients will refer me out.

[kirkusjones]

My suggestion would be to try to nail an editing gig with a nearby university. Turns out most scientists are not wordsmiths as well, and many univerisities will pay top dollar if you can make their people sound smart in the great publish-or-perish cycle.

Another option would be to get into technical writing. My friend's mother does that for the SAS Institute in Raleigh and makes six figures doing it after 15 years in the field.

Are you feeling daring? Do you have nothing really tying you to your current location? If the answer to both is yes, go somewhere else. Somewhere radical. Go to Alaska and fillet fish for 6 months. Take a job as an ESL teacher and expand your viewpoint of other cultures. Go to New York and couchsurf while you audition to be a radio host. Do any of them or none of them, but give yourself ample ammunition for writing. If your experiences are sufficiently cool, they'll yield a world of strange muses.

You could also write children's books. They're not long or complicated, but they're an excercise in brevity that can pose surprising challenges as a writer. You could crank them out and self-publish until maybe you strike literary gold? Maybe end up the next Shel Silverstein?

My last idea is that you consider a career in security. You can pass off your education experience as deescalation experience and if you work the graveyarf shift, you'd have a lot of idle time to write, ponder, sketch, etc.

Ideally, I think you should start writing today and worry about jobs tomorrow. Loads of great writers were nobodies working no name jobs until they said %$#% it. Gary Larson, author of the Far Side comic, worked at a record shop. Kurt Vonnegut jr worked for General Electric. Mark Twain worked on a steamboat. The important thing is that you find something, anything to support your lifestyle while you write like mad in the time it leaves you. And when your writing takes off, you gfto with obscene gestures blazing and coast into an easy life of issuing intelligent quotes and writing provocative op-eds.

I make time to write every day, I put it off for a long time when I first got out of college and finally committed to an every day schedule about a year ago and have gotten five or six short stories done. Currently working on a fiction podcast with a friend and a sci-fi novel with another.

My desire to change jobs is because teaching is draining. There's so much to do all the time and I worry about my students. It keeps me up at night and selfishly, I want that time for myself.

Currently tied to my location. I've bounced around a lot over the last ten years, New York, Austin and Denver. The experiences have been mixed, but it's provided a lot of fodder for stories.

I went back to school for technical writing for a year, did some shadowing and really didn't like it. I've been trying to make inroads with the grant department in my district, because that is some technical writing I can get behind, but haven't had much luck as yet.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I make time to write every day, I put it off for a long time when I first got out of college and finally committed to an every day schedule about a year ago and have gotten five or six short stories done. Currently working on a fiction podcast with a friend and a sci-fi novel with another.

That's the hardest part and if you're already on a schedule and creating output, I'm sure something will pan out eventually! Just don't forget us when you're an internationally appreciated literary genius of the 21st century.

Edit: sweet jesus, my spelling

[pokken]

My desire to change jobs is because teaching is draining. There's so much to do all the time and I worry about my students. It keeps me up at night and selfishly, I want that time for myself.

This is a huge lesson I think a lot of people who have extremely demanding jobs don't think about. Once you start calculating your salary against hours you actually are engaged with work somehow, it becomes kind of embarrassing what we pay teachers, for example.

I've had friends in the IT industry go into leadership roles and tell me about their massive raises and I ask how many hours they work now, they say oh, 50, 60. Sounds like your raise was just proportionate.

I sincerely hope for a tectonic shift in how we think about work in my lifetime. It really bums me out how unfairly compensated so many people are.

[benjameenbear]

@kirkusjones
Since you have a natural teaching gift and are experienced writer, might I suggest copywriting? It's the natural synthesis of technical writing and teaching (despite what you think/have heard about it). It's what I do for my full-time job and I FREAKING LOVE IT. I get to persuade people (I write to the legal industry, one of the most skeptical and jaded segments of the market), do intensive research, and work with an ALL-STAR team. There's a lot of gigs out there for SEO writing too and it's something you can do anytime, anywhere and could engage you in a ton of different research areas. And it's been quite profitable for me, personally. I get bonused on the number of deposits that are made at the events that I write for, and I've brought in an almost extra $6000 from the bonuses alone.

Happy to talk via PM if you'd want more details!

[Legend]

My desire to change jobs is because teaching is draining. There's so much to do all the time and I worry about my students. It keeps me up at night and selfishly, I want that time for myself.

This is a huge lesson I think a lot of people who have extremely demanding jobs don't think about. Once you start calculating your salary against hours you actually are engaged with work somehow, it becomes kind of embarrassing what we pay teachers, for example.

A lesson I learned when I started working for myself. For example, a 0.5 hour commute, 2 times a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year is 250 hours a year (not to mention costs to commute such as fuel or bus tickets, etc). Add 250 lunch hours each year, and that's 500 hours of "unpaid" time out of your life every year. And there's more really.

My wife was a teacher. We did the math. Where we live, high school teachers effectively work 42 weeks a year (minus spring break, summer break, Christmas break, etc), about 60 hours a week (including commute, grading, communication, administration, training, and no small amount of mandatory extracurricular participation) with starting annual salary of $43,000. That comes out to about $17.00 an hour before taxes.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

A lesson I learned when I started working for myself. For example, a 0.5 hour commute, 2 times a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year is 250 hours a year (not to mention costs to commute such as fuel or bus tickets, etc). Add 250 lunch hours each year, and that's 500 hours of "unpaid" time out of your life every year. And there's more really.

This is true wisdom right here. I started taking only jobs within 5 miles of my house because I realized commuting was essentially work that cost me money instead of making it. Since then, my job satisfaction has soared. My current job is pretty uninspiring and insubstantial, but I can walk to work in half an hour and that is one hell of a perk. That walk is just infinitely more pleasing than any drive. I get to see the world wake up or tuck in, depending on the shift. All the sights and sounds that can't be appreciated at 45 mph are mine alone to enjoy. I have time to think, decompress, and get some honest exercise to boot. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

[kirkusjones]

I've got a lot to think about. I really appreciate all the advice!

[5colorsrainbow]

I'm super hyped for the Wheel of Time tv show coming out this week. It is my favorite fantasy series and I'm hope the tv show can get more people into it. The books are ~800 pages each and their are 13 main books with a shorter prologue story so its a task for anyone to get into it.

I also am interested in how they will change it from the books. As said their is a lot of stuff in the books and not all of it need to be adapted (and could have maybe been cut from the books).

[Venedrex]

Definitely a longshot, but has anyone here played any Halo Infinite? I tried it today and was sorely disappointed. Maybe I'm just mad cuz bad, or an old fogey who doesn't like the new-fangled systems, but man my first impressions are not good so far. Of course, it's still early in development, but the core of the game does not feel fun. I hate the fact that they basically turned power weapons and vehicles into once in a blue moon maybe someday you'll be able to get one occurrences, versus spawning in your base or in the middle of the map.

The maps were so large I feel like you could write your opponents a letter telling them you plan to kill them, and by the time you've sprinted (because vehicles are nearly non-existent for some reason) across the map your letter will have arrived at your opponent's house. The weapons in general seemed to be wonky, and plasma pistols are now rarer than rocket launchers. The best part? I find it harder to track where the flag is with the massive cluster of info on my screen in this game then all the previous ones.

So, while I love the release on the anniversary of Halo, boy was it tough to play. I kept trying it again throughout the day and playing felt like a chore for me. To sum it up, I'd call Halo Infinite as it stands: HoD, Halo of Duty. All the worst mechanics and bad changes from modern game design replacing the good ideas of Halo. But hey, at least I can have a guy in a British accent tell me how great rocket launchers are.

[benjameenbear]

I'm super hyped for the Wheel of Time tv show coming out this week. It is my favorite fantasy series and I'm hope the tv show can get more people into it. The books are ~800 pages each and their are 13 main books with a shorter prologue story so its a task for anyone to get into it.

I also am interested in how they will change it from the books. As said their is a lot of stuff in the books and not all of it need to be adapted (and could have maybe been cut from the books).

When I saw the video trailer on Amazon Prime I legitimately squealed like a fangirl, no lie. I'm SO EXCITED to watch this. I told my wife she had to keep Amazon Prime for as long as the Wheel of Time series is on it and best believe I'll be glued to any updates on that show!

And if Amazon's as ambitious as I think they are, they'll hopefully blow Game of Thrones OUT OF THE OCEAN with how amazing I expect this series to be. Wheel of Time is the SUPERIOR high fantasy epic compared to Game of Thrones and I will fight anyone with my highly honed keyboard warrior skills!!!!

[pokken]

I unabashedly love WOT. Man, to this day, one of the best RPGs I ever played was Wheel of Time D20 where the guy running it basically set it up to have us watch Rand, Perrin and Mat all die tragically at various times throughout the game, so we knew out of character that there were no Ta'veren to save us and we had to pick up the slack.

Definitely looking forward to it. The Sanderson books were also magnificent close to the series