Lemmy, lose terribly at pinball, excessively long walks when I have the time, check out live music if something cool is happening that won’t bankrupt me, pot (due for a long break soon), drink (same), read random stuff online, watch movies (usually hilariously bad ones), maybe clean my house.

Kinda need to branch out, tbh.

Could definitely use more sustained for a reasonable amount of time, that much I’m sure of.

I mean we have at least two study trials, Mincome in Manitoba in the 70s and the Ontario Basic Income Pilot Project in 2017 (though that one was cancelled after a few months due to a change in government).

List your useless shit on a buy nothing group. Chat with the people who pick up said shit and learn about their circumstances. If they’re not psychos/grifters, set up means to keep in touch. Repeat this process. Pay attention to things those people need/their circumstances, and connect people who can help each other. Encourage others you meet to do the same.

Keep it up long enough, and bam, you have the bones of a mutual aid group.

I’m talking out of my ass here, but hmm…

My gut says fuck no. My brain says have a frank, balanced discussion with your kid and decide from there.

I know my own answer would still be fuck no, but I don’t know you or your kid.

So I like where you’re going with this, and it’s the kind of thing that’s been bubbling in my brain for a bit now, but question: I’ve been to a few soup kitchens in different areas of my own country. Never once have I witnessed or heard of anyone having to renounce anything to get served. You show up, you get fed - there’s Jesus freaks in the wings who may use the opportunity to try and convert you, sure, but if you walk away from them it doesn’t mean they take your plate.

Do you have any specific examples you can point to where this isn’t the case? If nothing else, helps name and shame.

It’s normal, and frankly as old as the internet (any of y’all remember the term ‘flame wars’?). A lot of people here have made great points as to why it happens.

My suggestion? Ignore the attacks, and speak to the content in as even a tone you can manage if you feel the topic is worth discussing. If it gets to a point where the meat of the discussion is lost in the attacks, disengage. Recreational discussion on the net doesn’t need to be a combat sport.

The worst you’ll get with this approach is an accusation of ‘sea-lioning’, which makes some assumptions around intent you can’t really correct all that well if someone’s decided that’s what you’re doing. Though I welcome any suggestions - good faith is hard to prove online when people are so used to attack/counterattack discourse.

Big subgenius energy in anon’s post.

The subgenius MUST have slack!

On a CRT? Sure, probably a lot haven’t seen it. On a modern TV? Still possible for some - mine does this if I hit the channel button rather than volume accidentally.

420/Yes please/Your mother’s bedroom

(I understand the curiosity, but come on now)

Quick shoutout for Trail Sense for Android. Designed to function offline, lots of cool navigation/basic tools I haven’t used outside of the GPS and compass, reasonable permissions, etc. One of those “You don’t know how useful it is until you don’t have connectivity” things.

(All jokes aside, fuck anyone who does this)

Fuck that, give me another version of Pokemon Master Trainer.

My take has always been that we have strong regional cultures over a unified Canadian cultural identity. The U.S has a little bit of this as well, but not in the same way/with more stuff to point to in terms of national identity.

Edit: Actually, here’s a good experiment for anyone who wants to think about this more. Take a look at some of the Canadian TV shows and movies that have actually been successful, and people abroad may point to as representative of Canadian culture. What about them is distinctly Canadian, over [x]-Canadian? Can start with the obvious (Trailer Park Boys, Letterkenny, Schitt’s Creek, Kim’s Convenience, FUBAR), but I’d bet folks may find this holds across some less obvious ones too.

Not a local, but as someone who joked “We could go to Regina! There’s…” and trailed off as I saw stuff on Google Maps, here’s some suggestions:
-The Regina Floral Conservatory.
-The Mackenzie Art Gallery
-The RCMP Heritage Centre
-Government House
-Royal Saskatchewan Museum

There’s some other stuff too, particularly if you’re willing to drive out of town. Enough to make me go “Huh, that could be mildly fun/interesting”.

At the same time though, this kind of thing is the best sort of learning. Take your assumptions and make a theoretical model, go out and test it, and learn first hand what elements you didn’t account for.

My opinion is that once your kids hit a certain age, your role is more support and providing guidance to avoid/recover from really bad outcomes (see: if your son’s plan had a flaw that would’ve left them stranded. They made it there and back, if exhausted and slightly [but from the sound of it not unrecoverably] poorer. Shitty, but they probably learned some valuble lessons.)

Edit: This may just be copium from my own “I’m gonna move to the middle of a different province with my homies” adventure that left me with just enough cash for a bus ticket to supportive family if I survived on Corn Flakes for two weeks. Ah, to be 19 and know everything again…fuck that would suck.

Thank you for the cat tax, though I’m sorry to hear you got bit.

I completely understand re: campus being too far to be practical, but 100% recommend giving the library a shot. Given that it’s coding, the whole ‘use an organization’s device rather than yours’ thing is tricky (unless you can put everything you need on a remote/web-accessible IDE or something - I remember screwing around with something like this but as decidedly not-a-coder, it may not be practical). Still, the library has the whole other humans being around aspect going for it, with the benefit that said humans aren’t going to go out of their way to distract or push you. Sometimes people just being there, but doing their own thing, is enough to help folks buckle down a bit. But it might not be, and that’s ok - at least you’ll know.

If all else fails, pay more attention to my first post and the others like it here than the second one. It’s certainly worth trying for progress while waiting on meds, but if it’s just not happening focus on well-being. I obviously don’t know you well enough to offer more practical advice on trying to get the project done, but definitely think meds will help if your psychiatrist agrees.

Hang in there buddy.

No problem my friend. On the project side of things, a couple of thoughts. This is assuming it’s a project for school, if it’s not either see if any of this can be adapted to your situation, or otherwise discard it without any guilt.

0. 100%, do whatever is in your power to expedite things with your psychiatrist. Ignore my caveat above on this one.

1. If possible, do one thing a day that moves the needle a little bit. It can be tiny - like, write 2 sentences - but just something where you can say “I did something”.

2. If you need to use a computer for some project tasks, go to campus (or a library) and use theirs. Sometimes being in an environment where folks are doing focused work (or at least pretending to) can help people stay on task a bit better. Turn off wifi and mobile connectivity on your phone, and keep it in your bag.

3. Set timers for doing project related tasks in increments - 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5, whatever makes sense for you. Try your best to just do something project related for that increment. If the end product is you wrote a sentence, that is still something.

4. If you find you’re lapsing into doom scrolling instead of project work, give yourself permission to stop ASAP and go do something else (see prior comment). If you’re not going to be productive anyway, at least do so in a way that isn’t causing you as much distress.

5. If you need to review sources, print them out over just viewing them online. Go through them with a pen and a highlighter and take physical notes.

6. [should probably be higher on the list] Set a meeting with your prof and be brutally honest about your situation. Let them know your struggles with the project, and what you are trying to do about it. See if an extension is an option at all. It may not end the way you want, but having that conversation is something you can control (if not the ultimate outcome).

7. Be gentle with yourself. You’re in a hard spot, and you are trying your best while working to get the professional assistance you need. Maybe you do or are doing all of the above, and you don’t feel like it’s getting the results you need. That’s OK. When you get the professional support you need, you can revisit. Prioritize your well-being.

I hope you find at least some of this useful.

Do yourself a favour: put the phone down. Stay away from your computer screen. Do literally anything else - some chores, a hobby, counting the number of people walking by your house, fill pages with drawings of squares, take several really long walks, find a pond and skip some rocks, whatever floats your boat. The point is not trying to accomplish anything, but to shift your attention. If something you’ve been putting off gets done, that’s a nice side effect, but not the point - so don’t worry too much about the result.

You have no control over the outcome of the U.S. election whatsoever. It is not worth your health to obsess over something that you can’t control that fills you with negative feelings. So block it out - if anything, try to summon some gratitude that you have the option to do that (though it’s ok if you find that hard to do).

I know this is much easier said than done. But you’ve got this. You’ll be ok. I’m pulling for ya.

Honestly, now that I know Pee Pee island is in the mix, I’m sold on a trip to Newfoundland. Dildo was almost enough to make that happen as it was.

Edit: There’s campsites at Dildo Run Provincial Park, btw. Do with that information what you will, people.