“Most of us have been in your shoes, with the same amount of fear, confusion and helpless feelings. So…uh…welcome to our little club. We get together sometimes and hang out (mostly virtually, admittedly).”

This exactly. I felt such an overwhelming sense of solidarity when reading this post because I have been in this position so many times before. Hell, I still occasionally get like this — although I am way more confident in solving most of my technical problems nowadays, that additional knowledge just makes it all the more frustrating when I run into something that makes me feel confused and overwhelmed.

I’m not going to give you any technical advice because there’s already a lot of suggestions already. I just wanted to leave a comment in solidarity.

I am the techiest person in my fairly techy group of friends, and even I often end up making silly mistakes that mess up my system sometimes. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, especially when there seems to be solutions to my problems that I’m not able to understand.

Trust me when I say that you’re not stupid for not getting this. This shit is difficult. I have been in your position so so many times before — right down to the despair making me feel suicidal. It’s hard when you desperately need to fix a thing, but the more you throw yourself at the problem, the harder it gets. Take as much of a break as you need to, and come back to some of the answers that sound promising, but you’re struggling to understand, and ask questions. You’re not dumb for not understanding — you’re new at this, and that’s okay.

I can’t speak for other people in this thread, but I know that when I’m giving technical advice to people, it often feels like I’m getting practice at communicating things in an accessible way. I want more people to be able to participate in this hobby that I enjoy, but I’ve been steeping in this environment for so long that sometimes, the advice that I give is overly dense, or it assumes knowledge that the person needing help doesn’t have. That’s an unfortunate mistake to make, because it makes the person reading my reply feel stupid, and that’s the last thing I want. I’ve found that giving technical advice online is often a mutual learning process — the person I’m helping is learning the tech stuff, and I’m learning how to communicate better. If you revisit some of the comments in this thread, bear that in mind — it’s not all on you.

On the topic of wishing you were stronger, I can relate to that — like I said, I’m pretty prone to getting myself into a spiral of shame when I don’t understand a thing and everything I do keeps getting worse. For what it’s worth, I think that asking for help as you have done here is something that requires a lot of strength; it’s hard to be vulnerable when you feel like you’re messing things up. It also takes strength to recognise that you’re getting overwhelmed enough that you need to take a step away. It’s valid to want to be stronger than you are now, but I hope you’re able to recognise your small achievements.

Finally, a small bit of practical advice that I’d give is that if you’re entering terminal commands or changing settings to try fix this, it’s super useful to make a note of what you’re doing. Sometimes when I have a complex problem and I try one potential solution that doesn’t end up working, the changes made in that solution can conflict with steps involved in attempting a second solution. It can make it easier to keep track of what you’ve tried so far, especially if you have to undo stuff later. It’s okay if you haven’t done this so far, but it can help going forward. I find that when I’m panicking and desperate for a solution, that makes me more likely to just attempt basically everything, and those are the times when keeping track of what I’ve done is especially important.

Don’t feel guilty for asking for help, or for needing clarifications. We’re all here of our own free will. Many of us have been in your position before, and only got to the point where we are now because of the patient help of kind online nerds. That’s a big part of why I try to chip in when I find someone with a problem I can help with — it feels like giving back to the community that helped me to learn back when I was new to this.

I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’re doing well. Keep trying, and I promise things will get easier. Don’t beat yourself up for needing to take breaks, or for feeling overwhelmed. How you’re feeling right now is within the range of what’s normal for new people running into a difficult technical problem like this. You’re not stupid, this stuff is just hard.

I see plenty of hate, but a lot of it seems to be coming from disingenuous places. Videos that hate stuff are much more likely to go viral than ones from people who are loving the show (or people whose take is “it’s pretty mid”).

Having deep disagreements over which Trek is best Trek is a part of Trekkie cultural heritage, so I have no problem with people who genuinely do hate the show. What I have a problem with are the people whose criticism is clearly coming from a disingenuous place. An example of what I mean is that I’ve seen a few people criticise episode 5 as simultaneously being too nostalgic for DS9, but also not nostalgic enough? People are contradicting themselves in their own reviews, and it makes their goal completely transparent.

Besides that, people who have been into Trek for longer than I’ve been alive have emphasised that this is fairly typical for whenever a new Trek show releases. Initial reactions are often disproportionately negative, because it’s different than what people are used to — but then over the years, the series comes to be viewed in a more positive light. I’m too young to have seen much of this play out first hand, but it does resonate with my own experience; TNG was what made me fall in love with Star Trek, and so when I first watched DS9, I hated it — it felt like an affront to Star Trek. Now, years later, DS9 is probably my favourite series, and I feel like it captures so much of what makes me call myself a Trekkie.

I have been enjoying Starfleet Academy, but even if it wasn’t my cup of tea, I think I’d still respect it for being bold enough to go where no Trek has gone before. It’s trying to do something different, and I appreciate its contribution to the wider conversation of what Star Trek is, or should be. It’s been such a long running franchise precisely because of this willingness to adapt with the times, and I am glad to see Starfleet Academy continuing that tradition

The CPU is the silver squarish shape towards the right. It generates a lot of heat when in use, so having good cooling for it is important. So important that CPUs come with a fan in the box. This involves a heat sink to help draw heat away from the CPU. This screws on mounting points around the CPU, but thermal paste is also used to help heat transfer up. Then there’s a fan that attaches to that heat sink, so that the hot air from the CPU can be blown away from the CPU.

People spend a heckton of money on cooling for their CPU and GPU, because when things overheat, they throttle themselves and performance becomes super slow. Longevity of components can also be harmed by higher temperatures. If it gets too bad, then it will crash entirely.

This PC has put the CPU heatsink on the case fan on the left. I don’t think this is especially harmful in and of itself — the big problem is that the CPU is entirely “naked” and has no cooling whatsoever. This means the CPU begins overheating basically as soon as the PC is turned on.

Edit: you can actually see where the heat sink should match up to the CPU here

The big silver heat sink that’s on the left is meant to be on the CPU, which is the Silver squarish shape towards the right. Keeping the CPU cool is a big deal — CPUs come with a smaller fan which is sufficient for many people, but people who use their PC more intensively, or want to extend the life of their CPU typically buy an additional cooler. Here’s an example of a stock cooler, and here’s a motherboard that’s using the fairly basic aftermarket CPU cooler that I have. It was only $30, but when I was new to PC building, it was strongly recommended, because if your CPU gets too hot, it’ll throttle itself and slow down. People who over clock their CPU (running it at a higher voltage for better performance) have to get even beefier cooling, such as water cooling. You can completely fry your CPU if you do something wrong when overclocking, and even if it doesn’t get that bad, minor mistakes can cause crashes due to CPU overheating.

So TL;DR: keeping your CPU cool is super important for both performance and longevity of the CPU.

The PC in the top photo has zero cooling for the CPU. Not even the stock fan that comes with the CPU. That heatsink that’s attached to the case fan is almost certainly intended for the CPU — you don’t even need a heatsink in that location.

This means that this person’s CPU will rapidly overheat soon after it is turned on.

Edit: you can actually see where the heat sink should match up to the CPU here

Movie dialogue tries to be verisimilitudinous, rather than realistic.

I’m mostly making this comment because “verisimilitudinous” is an excellent word that I love getting the opportunity to use.

Various words and phrases I have adopted ironically over the years, that have mostly lost their ironic sense:

• Yeet (this is the big one. Whenever I throw something, or see someone else throw a thing, my brain goes “Yeet!”)

• Get rekt (gaming slang)

• Aura-farming (originally from anime, I think. It sort of means being very cool

• I gotcha fam

• Mate (this is an outlier because it’s not so much new slang, but it’s new to me. Your mind may default to an Australian accent when reading this, but the vibe is more “working class shit hole in Northern England” (in other words, home <3 ))

• Vibe (despite my use of this word never being ironic, it’s probably worth mentioning too, due to how often I use it. I use it so frequently that I’m puzzled about what I did before this word entered my lexicon)

• [Noun]-maxing (originally stems from “looks-maxing”, which means putting effort into looking very good. This isn’t a term I use frequently yet, but I’m trying to use it more, in order to annoy a friend. For example, when she took 3 bathroom breaks during movie night, I said that she was “piss-maxing”. I do love knowing someone well enough that you know how to cause them psychic damage. Ahh, friendship)

I felt like there were more when I started this list, but I can’t remember any now

This is a dangerous way of thinking. It’s not far off from the logic that Israelis use to justify the killing of children, who they argue are predisposed to become terrorists.

There is nothing intrinsic to IDF soldiers that make them capable of perpetrating a genocide. The vitriol that fuels them is built up over years of sociocultural conditioning, and no-one is immune to that. It’s important that we recognise this if we want to avoid creating a world with more people who think like this.

I remember seeing a post of yours elsewhere where you mentioned about difficulty mustering the energy and mental strength to go out beyond your home (possibly linked to your parents being quite overprotective? I may be remembering wrong). Regardless of the specifics, I think that factors like that can worsen relations between family members. My brother and I don’t get on well when we’re living in the same house, for instance. That’s made worse by my mom being a difficult person to live with.

But I think you’re right also, that there is a significant component of the grass being greener on the other side. I know plenty of people who are only children, who wish they had siblings, and people with siblings who wish they were an only child.

In that case, the finished product would be of pretty mediocre quality, in my case. That’s because most of my projects are things that I actively want to learn, and I tend to be overambitious when setting aims. Despite this though, even when I completely botch it up, I struggle to think of a time where I have regret my endeavour. I like the learning

No. The main reason I do projects is for the learning. Any useful items I produce as part of the process are just happy side effects.

Stimming

Everyone reacts differently, and I’ve known people who don’t find medication helpful, but personally for me, they saved my life. I was going through some real bad depression at the time, but being medicated felt like a big boost to my mental wellbeing. It was much easier to do all the things that they say that depressed people should do to get better, such as personal care, dragging oneself out of the house, and engaging in hobbies.

It wasn’t a miracle fix — and I did need to work at developing new skills to ensure that I wouldn’t forget to eat, or spend an entire day organising my music library rather than anything I’d actually want to spend that much time on. So be cautious about expecting a miracle. Medication didn’t solve any of my ADHD problems, it just transmuted them into easier to manage forms. It was like a ladder dropped into the pit I was in, but climbing that ladder still took a lot of work

Something that feels notable to me in your comment is “will they help me read books again?” “Again” sticks out to me, because if you used to be able to read books but now no longer can, then it might be something in addition to ADHD that’s blocking you — burnout, for example. If you are struggling with burnout, then be careful because if you go into meds with the wrong mindset, you could do yourself more harm. Like, if the meds help you to be more productive at running yourself into the ground, that would not be good. My sympathies if this is indeed where you’re at. Personally, I would find it hard to recover from burnout without being on my meds, because they help me to focus on things that I want to do as well as the things I have to do, so they definitely do help overall. I just need to work hard to be kind to myself, and that’s easier said than done

Seconding the coffee shop recommendation. When I found a place near me that was nice and not overwhelming, I really enjoyed being able to be a regular there. There were days when I was not well and knew that it would help me to get out of the house at least once, and it was nice to have a place like this that could act as an achievable goal.

Even on good days, I find it useful to have somewhere I can go and exist and feel safe in a place that’s not my home. I find I get more work done this way sometimes, so I’ll often take my laptop, my headphones, and just spend an entire day working in a café. My regular place had a few tables that were sort of tucked away in a nook, and had a plug socket nearby, so it was great.

I hope that you never find yourself opposite an asshole cop who doesn’t care whether you actually pose any danger to them.

This reminded me of the edits of Disney princesses that make them look alternative that I often saw on Tumblr when I was a teen

Apologetics for past US imperialism does not seem a productive strategy for criticizing present imperialist actions, nor preventing future imperialism.

A writer friend I have says that if she were looking at just her own financial security, she’s super grateful for AI, because she’s pivoted into fixing AI written articles from places that laid off all their human writers. Being a contractor, her hourly rate is way higher than times when she’s been employed full time as a writer, plus it takes way longer to rewrite a broken article than it would’ve done to just write a decent article from scratch (and they insist that they want her to fix the AI articles, not rewrite them from scratch. I assume this is because the higher ups have their heads so far up their arses that they’re not willing to acknowledge that they shouldn’t have laid off the humans).

The work isn’t as fulfilling as proper writing, but she’s getting paid so much compared to before that she’s able to work less than she was before, and still has money to put into savings. She’s still living super frugally, as if she were still a typical, struggling writer, because she was expecting that this wouldn’t last for very long, but she’s been at this for quite a while now (with a surprising amount of repeat business). She thought for sure that work would begin to dry up once the financial year ended and companies went “holy shit, why are we spending so much on contractors?”, but last we spoke, it was still going strong.

I’m glad that at least someone human is making bank off of this. And if it was to be anyone who lucks into this, I’m glad that it’s someone who has the extremely poor fortune to be laid off 4-5 times in one year (and this was pre-AI — she was just super unlucky)

I’m a biochemist who got into programming from the science side of it, and yeah, code written by scientists can be pretty bad. Something that I saw a lot in my field was that people who needed some code to do something as part of a larger project (such as adding back on the hydrogens to a 3d protein structure from the protein database) would write the thing themselves, and not even consider the possibility that someone else has probably written the same thing, but far better than they be can, and made it available open source. This means there’s a lot of reinventing the wheel by people who are not wheel engineers.

I find it so wild how few scientists I’ve spoken to about this stuff understand what open-source code actually means in the wider picture. Although I’ve never spoken to a scientist in my field who doesn’t know what open source means at all, and pretty much all of them understand open source software as being a good thing, this is often a superficial belief based purely on understanding that proprietary software is bad (I know someone who still has a PC running windows 98 in their lab, because of the one piece of essential equipment that runs on very old, proprietary code that isn’t supported anymore).

Nowadays, I’m probably more programmer than biochemist, and what got me started on this route was being aware of how poor the code I wrote was, and wanting to better understand best practices to improve things like reliability and readability. Going down that path is what solidified my appreciation of open source — I found it super useful to try to understand existing codebases, and it was useful practice to attempt to extend or modify some software I was using. The lack of this is what I mean by “superficial belief” above. It always struck me as odd, because surely scientists of all people would be able to appreciate open source code as a form of collaborative, iterative knowledge production

You make a compelling point