Personal chat thread

[wjfox]

An exhausting, but productive weekend. Practically non-stop at my keyboard here. Still a way to go, but I'm proud of what I achieved, and excited about improving this forum even further in the coming days/weeks. Looking forward to everyone's feedback and ideas.

[MBM]

Testing to see if I need to reintroduce myself in order to post replies.

[weatheriscool]

An exhausting, but productive weekend. Practically non-stop at my keyboard here. Still a way to go, but I'm proud of what I achieved, and excited about improving this forum even further in the coming days/weeks. Looking forward to everyone's feedback and ideas.

What are the advantages of the new forum over the old one???

[wjfox]

What are the advantages of the new forum over the old one???

– Database is brand new, and no longer broken, which greatly improves forum stability, security, and ability to add new features

– phpBB is open source, with an entire global community for technical support. So if anything does go wrong, we won't be solely reliant on Jon Reid (Caiman), who was almost never here

– SSL certificate is now installed across the entire forum, making posts and user data more secure

– Admin control panel is vastly improved

– Support for Google Analytics, for improved monitoring of site traffic

– Twitter embedding is now enabled. So, no need to screenshot tweets and re-upload anymore, just post the tweet URL and it'll appear.

– YouTube embedding was broken before, and is now fixed.

– WebP image embedding is now supported (in recent years, this image format has begun to rival .jpeg)

– Larger avatars

– Improved search engine

– Increased storage space for PMs, plus ability to organise messages

– Chatbox can update in real time, and includes sound notification

– Return of the "like" button.

I think people are focusing too much on the appearance/styling. The new forum is, objectively, an improvement on the previous one. Yeah... I know people miss the dark theme (I miss it too), and the banner needs some improvement, but I'm working on that.

[Yuli Ban]

As someone who never even used the dark theme post-2015, the only issue with this forum I have is that there's no content... yet.
And heck, if someone does become a hero and host the archive somewhere online, we could have a direct link to it on this forum.

I do have a question as to if gifvs and mp4s are supported.
Let's see:


Edit: They are

[wjfox]

Got a load of shampoo in my left eye this morning. It wasn't fun, I tell ya.

[Cody93]

The side effects from my second Moderna shot were not fun. Intense chills and hardcore aches all over like I've never had before. Thankfully seem to be getting over it now after about 8 hours of that.

[erowind]

.

[Cody93]

I thankfully haven't had the flu in a long time. The soreness lingered over the next two days cause of the muscle aches, almost gave me a strange hangover-like feeling. I've had a few vaccines in recent years and barely ever react to them, so this was a first. Finally on the other side at least.

[Revolutionary Moderate]

During a thunderstorm today, a lightning bolt hit the ground near my house because it was loudest lightning I have ever heard.

[Ken_J]

yeah I go in for my second shot, a week from today. I expect a repeat of the first one. Because I had covid, the first shot is like most experience the second. So this will tell me what a third would feel like for people.

[wjfox]

Felt very depressed the last few days. Mainly worried about the next few months, both for me personally and the UK as a whole.

But at least the weekend is coming up soon, the weather's improving, and then it's Bank Holiday Monday too.

I need to start getting out more, to the local park, and woodlands.

[Ken_J]

my car destroyed it's engine and while I'm staying with family my landlord is now saying that he doesn't think I should stay there anymore. and looking at rentals in my state, I can't afford to pay 900$/month for a bedroom in a 3-4 bedroom apartment share. so I'm likely to have to quit my job, and take a chance on traveling to another state where there are rents I can afford. and hope I can find a place to live there instead.

I've never lived outside the state of NH. alll that's left of my immediate family is there. My mother who is turning 80 soon. My sister who's facing some of her own struggles right now. and some good friends I've had over the years though we don't get together much of late.

But I guess I've not got a lot of options but to pull up roots, and trek off alone to the middle of nowhere and try to scrape by on my own.

[wjfox]

Hottest day of the year so far, here in London.

Just had a lovely walk in my local park.

[Time_Traveller]

Hottest day of the year so far, here in London.

Just had a lovely walk in my local park.

I had my share of the hot weather yesterday whilst walking to my friend's house around 40 minutes from me, i spent the rest of the day at his and today relaxing at home before i have to go back to work tomorrow.

[Ken_J]

Hottest day of the year so far, here in London.

Just had a lovely walk in my local park.

gah, that freaks me out. around here, you so much as look at a blade of grass, you best strip down and do a tick check when you get to a bathroom. little parasites are horrible this year. and Lyme disease is no joke.

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Had a great weekend.

Tons of progress on Past Timeline - the first non-homepage content should be up fairly soon.

Went to the local park again and enjoyed the sunshine and 28°C temperature. Then came home and watched England beat Croatia 1-0.

Had a great long phone chat with my parents and talked about London, Covid, work, life, and future plans.

Then played some Dying Light on my PC.

What did the rest of you guys get up to?

[Yuli Ban]

What did the rest of you guys get up to?

Waiting for GPT-4, procrastinating, and working.

[Ken_J]

mostly having an existential crisis, a midlife crisis, a financial crisis, a transportation crisis, an employment crisis and a housing crisis, all at the same time.

it's been enough of a ride that I'm struggling to remember why the hell I hoped to be here to make it through longevity escape velocity if this is what the rest of indefinite existence is going to feel like.

starting to get the transportation and employment crisis taken care of, maybe soothing the financials, and housing so they are not immediate crisis, and can be handled more gradually after I've had the chance to manage the others. And so the existential crisis and midlife crisis are still hampering my ability to function and fix the things on my plate right now.

I'd love some kind of letter from a future me, to tell me that I still am around and finding joy in life past my 80s. that would go a long way to easing the midlife, and some degree of the existential. It would be truly great to have a sense of deep time in the future from which I am looking back. Sort of like in the movie Big Fish where in the midst of danger and fear he can remember that he found out how he dies from the witch and the struggles he's going through now aren't it. That would be nice, but I feel like to a degree my worry is less about the death, and more about the dability, enfeeblement and decline.

but it is what it is and it will just have to be what it will be. and tomorrow must be handled as it comes, whatever that entails.