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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • The problem with the golden rule is that different people want to be treated differently, so they may treat you how they want to be treated but not how you want to be treated, and vice versa.

    Maybe when you’re struggling with an issue, you want to be left alone to figure it out by yourself, but your friend in the same scenario would want someone to start doing anything to help out and insisting on troubleshooting the issue together. So your friend ends up frustrating you by offering to help too much when you just want to be left alone and then when they’re struggling, they get upset that you leave them alone to deal with it.

    So communication is important. Ask people how they’d like to be treated rather than just assuming they’d want to be treated the way you want to be treated and be honest with them about how you’d like to be treated.







  • Generally, no, but context and approach matter.

    The ability to notice a flaw isn’t the same as the skill, experience, and background that might be necessary to design a useful solution for a particular issue, especially complex issues. It’s generally reasonable to say, “I don’t know of a better solution, but I can predict that x and y problems will likely result from your proposed solution.”

    It’s especially valid to warn someone when their proposed solution will harm people or make things worse. You don’t have to have a better solution to try to prevent someone from doing something ill-conceived or hasty or reckless.

    If the stakes are low or the person proposing a solution is likely to be sensitive to criticism, it might work better to try to approach your response as an attempt to help them refine their solution, rather than just opposing it outright. Be considerate of their feelings and make it clear you’re working together.








  • I really like having learned delayed gratification. There are plenty of great games (and shows and movies and music) that I’m happy to wait to experience later when I’m ready for them. The only issue is just time-sensitive things like spoilers from other people or games that depend on live servers/seasonal events and I try to avoid those. And being patient often means better discounts, game of the year editions, multiple DLCs, humble bundles, more mods, etc. As long as you aren’t worried about FOMO, it means you’re far less likely to be surprised or upset over the quality or price point of any particular game.








    • Familiarity
    • More games/better gaming support
    • Consistency with computers used at work/school or by friends/colleagues
    • IT people can benefit from using the same systems as their users to provide better support
    • Availability of proprietary software necessary to run specialized equipment
    • Non-power users might not run into significant issues with Windows since it does basic tasks like web browsing, game playing, and movie watching just fine