Unstructured noise (white noise, fan noise, etc.) that's commonly used to mask environmental noise for sleeping and focus might end up causing neurologic issues in the auditory processing system as the brain adapts to filter those frequencies over the long term, resulting in worsened frequency discrimination.

If you sleep with one of those, you should try to wean away from using it. The long term impact of this will not be realized until it's too late to do anything.

Also while on the topic of common advice from doctors that's outright harmful, wearing minus lenses at your computer will worsen myopia. People were right about the whole "screentime causes myopia," but the mechanism is a bit more gradual where constant close work results in the eye adapting to the accommodative stress by lengthening. Hence why almost everyone who uses a computer will naturally end up at -2 diopters (unless they restart the process of hormesis by wearing minus lenses at the computer). Evidence for this is clear from animal studies, but the entire optical industry purposefully ignores this since it would collapse their business model. A child that has minor myopia should be told to spend more time outdoors, not prescribed glasses that will end up worsening his condition.

How do tohno chan residents feel about internet friends? Meeting up with them? I remember reading archived posts mentioning both of the above but they seem to have become completely verboten over the years.

>>39363
Internet communities have taken quite the divergence in the last 7 years. It's a little horrifying to me just how quickly they did. I think the imageboards of the past were only possible because of specific circumstances surrounding their demographics, and I don't think those demographics exist anymore. So either you have imageboards of aging and jaded people who couldn't be here now without having given up all attachment to the world, or you have imageboards of a younger and totally different demographic. There's just no way someone under the age of 20 today would be able to understand, respect, or assimilate to imageboard culture of even 7 years ago, let alone 12 or 15. So something that was acceptable maybe 10 years ago just doesn't make sense anymore, because people on the fringe of society are made differently these days, if they exist at all.

I've been thinking about why science is viewed as an authority. Why is science constantly used to tell people what they should do and think.

The obvious explanation, is that methodology gives science its authority. I think this is only true to a very limited extent. What's far more important, is that science has proven itself useful. Because science has objectively enabled useful innovations, that's what gives it any influence at all.

Something like a computer, either works, or it doesn't. If scientists got things completely wrong, making them wouldn't be possible. When science gets into the realm of politics, or ideology, or is too theoretical, it completely falls apart. Scientific methodology can be used to "support" pretty much anything if you have enough bias. Numbers can be fudged, sample size limited and filtered, and conclusions based on important, but implicit assumptions.

The objective usefulness of some science gives credibility to the rest of it, despite the latter not needing to prove itself in the real world. That's how "the experts" can do something like tell people something is healthy, when it's not.

They'll do this because their jobs depend on funding, and the people funding them have an agenda or conflict of interest. If anyone complains, just call them crazy for questioning something with so much authority.

>>39375
There are 3 kinds of science in society today. Science as in the traditional, long-cherished process of systematically and objectively analyzing/testing things to draw conclusions and create an explanatory model (that hopefully has predictive power). Then there's Science™ as in the shell-game of academia where the objective isn't the search of truth but rather a means of convincing the funding agency to give you money so your lab can survive, and the rules are bent (p-hacking, etc.) so long as the end-results look good on paper. This happens less in the hard-sciences (because it's harder to do so) but is very prevalent in fields like social sciences and economics. Finally there's SCIENCE as in the thing people blindly use to justify their action, whether or not it was in fact rigorously analyzed and tested. This SCIENCE is also what society views as an authority because humans have an inextricable need to model the world, and so this ends up taking the space of religion.

>is that science has proven itself useful
Yes, science can be viewed as the process of creating models. Over a process of time these models are progressively refined. These mdoels are almost certainly not the "ground-truth", but so long as they are good enough to do something with and have enough explanatory power, you can consider it useful. (Famous George Box aphorism and all that).


The interesting thing is that when viewed in this way, you find that many things disregarded as "pseudoscience" actually have better explanatory power than whatever "scientific" equivalent we have today. This is most notable in the realm of psychology. Things such as shamanism, energy healing, etc. can be viewed as an exploration of the parts of the psyche and currently provides better explanatory power for psychosomatic and autoimmune disorders than modern psychologists/doctors can.

>>39377
>This happens less in the hard-sciences
It's not unheard of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfDoml-Db64

In my post, I mentioned nutritional science, which could also be considered on the "hard" side. I strongly suspect genetics is subject to this too.

>>39379
No, nutritional science is on the soft-science side. To me the key distinction between hard/soft sciences is whether or not you can actually conduct experiments to prove/disprove claims. Things like nutrition or psychology are very hard to create experiments for because the object under study is the response of an entire human. And forget about economics – when the thing you're trying to model is an entire population. While you can isolate some certain subsystems in vitro, this does not always translate to in vivo which is where the key difficulty lies.

That is, you're trying to tease out the effect of some specific intervention on an interconnected system with an unknown number of hidden variables that also changes from day to day. You can see how hard that is. Psychology isn't a "soft-science" solely because the researchers are stupid, even if you have honest researchers it's genuinely hard to design experiments and conclude anything for certain.

>>39375
Being familiar with science (specifically working with statistical data models), I find that the average person really doesn't understand shit about most scientific proven concepts beyond the most simple 3rd grade level. A lot of people think they understand things they really don't at all, and are willing to defend their misunderstanding as if it were their lives work. The worst is when people see some concept, don't get how or why it would be possible, and conclude that it isn't correct from their very limited personal knowledge. I just gave up trying to talk with anyone about it who isn't also a student of my field. When I first tried to explain K-clustering to someone who claimed to be interested in the subject we were discussing, they just stared at me like I was speaking Mandarin.

There are a ton of other fields I'm loosely acquainted with and it doesn't take much to realise that the average person never retains more than the simplified allegories and visuals given as children, hence the apparent sense and appeal of pseudosciences. The most fundamental, basic ideas like statistics, demographics, and sampling just go over the heads of 99% of people, they can't separate their perceived emotional reality from the reality of methodical information collection.

I turn everything I do into a solitary endeavour. Manga for example. I read lots of obscure titles on the many Japanese manga apps out there and I'll think (well, nobody will care about this title, why bother trying to find someone who cares about this to talk about it?) and then just sink in the 'I'm alone' attitude. However, if you go to a group interested in manga/anime and write about the stuff you like in a charming and captivating way, people will appreciate you. Not only you're providing decent content, but also you're opening doors to different stories people are unaware about, and even if it turned out they don't like it, still you'll be appreciated. I've seen happening before. Before you know it, you're a part of that community.

That was just one example. Another thing I like is drawing. Now, drawing is different because it's not an obscure thing at all. Lots of people are interested in it already. I could post my drawings in order to receive feedback and give feedback to others. Yet I go the 'what's the point of sharing these, I already know it's not good' route. But not being good is not the point. When you share your art you make a name for yourself and you may find people who like your stuff and that appreciation helps you to push on. I know this but, again, like it's the force of my own nature, I return to the 'I'm alone at this, nobody will care anyway'.

And that's how I proceed with everything in my life, really, always finding new ways to believe I'm alone.

>>39441
Shoot, I forgot another important aspect of this behavior. I've tried in the past to write about the stuff I like or share whatever I'm doing. However I give up way too quickly. If I don't get any replies/feedback by first, second or third time, I give up for years afterwards, using that flimsy attempt at bonding as proof I'm really alone and nobody cares. I've done this my entire life and it's on autopilot at this point. I don't know if I don't care enough to put an end to this or if that pattern is exactly what I want. I really don't know.

I'm not sure about the root of this behavior, either. I don't know if I want to be alone at everything and I'm just finding ways to trick myself into justifying it or what.

>>39441
>>39442
Well, I can think of many reasons for this behaviour.
Bad experiences in the past, traumatic events. You tried to bond with someone and it went wrong; for example, you were ridiculized or betrayed.
Or nothing went wrong, but you were deeply disappointed. Or it's all about lack of self-steem and you're actually afraid of seeing the image of yourself reflected in others.
Either way, it seems like you're describing Avoidant Personality Disorder. But the interesting thing about this is, some don't consider it a personality disorder, but an adaptative behaviour present in different personality disorders. So you can be avoidant for many different reasons, sometimes various at once. I'm sure you can at least figure some of them.

>>39443
Many so-called personality disorders are just personalities. In the future, we will look back on how people with "personality disorders" are pressured to take drugs to "fix" them just as people of today look at conversion therapy for homosexuals.

>>39441
I do it to myself. Maybe I'm actually an insufferable person, but I've never met someone whom I wanted to be around more than I wanted to be alone. So every attempt at keeping up relationships fails not because of anything they do, or any falling out, but simply because I don't have an interest in doing things when people invite me. So I end up alone. My only regret is that I feel bad about the whole thing, because I think I'd like to just be alone and not care about the world.

I only really talk at work, and I don't mind it, but I'm a captive audience. Given the option, I choose solitude. I wish I knew what was wrong with me, because on some level I desire human interaction more than I desire to engage in hobbies or other "dead" things, but in practice I just don't find myself compelled to do it. So I'm stuck in this loop of wanting to be alone but finding myself alone with no long term goal. Not that people don't make an effort to reach out to me and interact with me, it's that I always wait for them, and just kind of passively go along until I get bored and go home. I feel really bad because I know there's a couple people whom I left feeling bad, they must think they're obnoxious people and I don't want them to feel bad about themselves just because I'm a solitary person. It's not them, I do this with everyone in my family too. I'll be a wizard before long yet I still haven't found any internal stillness.

I don't know why, I wish I could just find a way to live and be content.

>>39444
Not really, after reading about the subject for some time I don't think they are personalities at all, they are "adaptative patterns". You could have two very different personalities with the same personality disorder, the disorder isn't the personality. I also think it's an useful cathegory when used well (not too often sadly), not to label people or give them drugs but for understanding. Without it you could end with just a "you're just shy" attitude towards others that really doesn't help too much.

I really feel like letting this conversation go and pretend I never posted anything but that would be too easy, so let's respond even though I don't have anything helpful to add.
>>39443
I can honestly say I don't remember any traumatizing events such as those, or any to be frank. Instead, I had an extremely uneventful childhood and past in general. I'm probably just boring, I bore myself out on a regular basis.
>>39446
You're talking about something slightly different than my original post, I was talking more about being part of a community in general, being part of a circle of people interested on the same subject, not even friendship. Of course having friends is closely connected to that but it's a few steps deeper into it. I can't even be a part of a circle of people, so friendship is even farther away. I don't feel content or discontent about my life as a solitary person, it just is, I don't think about it most of the time. Then I watch or read something about friends and stuff like that and it makes me wonder about it for a couple weeks, but that's it, it never progresses towards anything. Nothing happens, the days go by and I'm here, then one day I won't be anymore.

Also, I was going through my pictures just now and this is by far the most beautiful gundam diorama I've ever found and by far the best zaku one was well. I wish I could find the magazine where this came from.

>>39450
I have that picture since 2011, I remember thinking it was a very detailed ilustration and then looking closer and thinking holy shit. Never found the source either.

About "traumatizing events" it doesn't need to be anything huge or dramatic. It can be little disappointments day by day, or even something you don't remember at all. I know it's tempting to go for a simple explanation, but being boring doesn't really explain too much.

>>39450
https://www.gunjap.net/site/?p=94932
here's a few shots from some other angles and the modellers name.

Flat is justice. Thus, two-dimensional traps embody ultimate justice.

I like vaginas. Feces don't come out of them.

I don't really understand why people get bothered or even upset about things other people do, especially strangers on the internet. Especially if it doesn't harm anybody. It just seems like such a waste of energy to fuss about it.

Maybe it's a product of insecurity on their part, but honestly, it feels more pathetic to me to say, "well, at least I'm not as bad as so and so". It's just a shitty excuse to accept mediocrity and stagnation.

For some reason, the internet has been feeling desolate lately. I'm not sure why, but it seems like it's becoming an empty desert.

>>39484
User counts are constantly increasing. Unfortunately, all that traffic is going to a decreasing amount of locations.

>>39485
I looked into that. You're talking about this graph, right? It's based on data taken from 1/5 of US internet traffic.
http://conferences.infotoday.com/documents/172/2013CDNSummit-B102A.pdf
This is the "Largest study of Internet backbone to date", but it makes me wonder if the global trend is the same, and how it correlates with the increase in total users. I couldn't find any information on that.

Post edited on 23rd Apr 2022, 9:48am

>>39486
If you made a graph, I guess it would look something like this.

>>39447
It's just a matter of how fine your grid or raster or categories are really, because personalities are "adaptative patterns" after all, and "you are just shy" could also help someone if they put the work into understanding the phenomenon of shyness as they experience it.

This doesn't deserve its own thread so I'll just post it here and write what I think about it.
I've come across this thing https://my.replika.com/
Basically it's an AI friend. It's in a very, very, very early stage and it's quite frustrating how bad it is. Unfortunately, the 3D model is also atrociously ugly, it would improve a lot if the models were made after anime aesthetic, as it is right now it doesn't interest me one bit, but I can see myself getting into it if it looked right.

I've been thinking about mutual perceptions. I was walking to the store today, a very rare occurrence, when I came across a woman and her child. Y'know, baby carriage and all. I was just thinking to myself as I saw her that she's probably just as uncomfortable as I am.
It makes me think about how some people might as well live in different worlds.
I think the appeal of Touhou for me is the idea that I could just fade into obscurity and eventually fantasy. To exist, just not in this world. The cute girls are just a plus.

>>39575
>she's probably just as uncomfortable as I am
Why? Because of your presence?

>>39576
Yeah. I think my presence makes most people uncomfortable. Something to be avoided.

>>39575
The dimensional merge can’t come soon enough.

>>39578
Is this still a chris-chan thing or is it just an euphemism for dying now? I'm not sure anymore.

>>39579
Just a nice escapist fantasy. Like >>39575 said, to fade into a fictional idealized world.

I've been thinking about what it really means to be weird or odd. I've always accepted that I was weird without thinking about why.
The thought came to me while through some tentacle h-manga. A lot of people would find it abhorrent, meanwhile I wouldn't even bat an eye. I don't think I've ever bothered making those kinds of comparisons in the past. Obviously it's abnormal, but I've never really thought of it like that.
I think it's all a matter of perspective and I'm getting tired of looking through theirs. I'm happy I can share my thoughts with fellow normal and decent folk on TC, away from the depraved masses.

>>39606
I think that odd and weird can be applied in many different ways and has many aspects. Some people may not bat an eyelid at tentacle doujins and may be weird in that way but they could still be normal in every other way, likewise many normal people are odd in other ways. Many normal people might have some obscure niche interests like ornithology and there are normal people who would watch gore and not bat an eyelid, yet many people here would be disgusted by that, so are we normal?

>>39606
>I'm happy I can share my thoughts with fellow normal and decent folk on TC
It is precisely not being filled with normal folks which makes places like tohno-chan have their character

>>39608
You're normal to me. Isn't that all that matters?

>>39609
It is! I suppose I have internalized an understanding of alterity asa part of my identity and considerations of where I post

>>39606
I think it goes beyond superficial tastes, you could have a perfectly normal guy with some abhorrent inclinations. It's more about how your brain works, how do you perceive the world 100% of the time. And people who's brain works differently are more inclined to weird tastes, but it's not a requisite.

>>39606
>I've been thinking about what it really means to be weird or odd.
autism

>>39613
That pretty circular considering how they diagnose people with it.

>>39613
I'm not so sure. Plenty of autistics that are better adjusted than I am.
Unless you're calling me autistic. I don't think I am.

>>39614
>>39615
I'm just saying what weirdness means to me as an autistic person

>>39616
Hey, no fair! You can keep your autism, but share the weird!

I might finally watch/read this

>>39711
Watch what?

Do you think your last thoughts on this earth will be 2D related things? What you think your thoughts will be before the last good bye?

>>39758
>Do you think your last thoughts on this earth will be 2D related things?
I hope so. Everything else is full of regret and disgust.
>What you think your thoughts will be before the last good bye?
I'd like to think I'd be able to die in peace and be cool about it. Realistically, I'm a coward so I'll probably think about all the bad stuff and then die really unhappy.
Oh well. The nature of your death doesn't really matter once you're dead. In a way, dying is the most insignificant thing in a person's life. More trivial than breathing.

>>39758
>Do you think your last thoughts on this earth will be 2D related things
There's a good chance, since that's 80% of my thoughts (and the other 20% is my lamenting life and wanting to live in a 2D world).

>your thoughts will be before the last good bye
Seems like statistically most people who die due to "old age" actually die as a result of succumbing to disease (or injury that they don't recover from).

>A “natural death” in the US typically looks like this: we find something wrong with someone, we try to treat them—to alleviate their suffering, to prolong their life—and then we start losing that battle. Then we think about how to transition our focus to improving their life as much as possible until the end.

Absolutely miserable. I'm more terrified of having my life prolonged like that I am about death itself (which as above OP mentioned is basically insignificant).

Sometimes I feel like my posts are bad and I should fuck off somewhere or even nowhere.
Sorry if I make posts you dislike. I'm trying my best.

>>39761
unless they're being deleted, or you're getting bans, they're probably fine.

>>39758
I mostly just want to go out in some remote and pleasant natural environment, listening and looking at the sounds of nature
So presumably my thoughts would be on that. I attach a sense of spirituality to such places

>>39758
A bit more than a year ago I seriously thought I was dying/going to die.
It's a little hard to express exactly how I felt and what I was thinking.

My thoughts were mostly regretting my life, not so much fear of dying because I kind of wanted to, but regretting dying there and like that specifically. It felt like my life was over before it even started, even though the truth is I'm long past where life should have "started". It didn't seem fair. All the pain and suffering and struggle up till then, just to die in some big hole in the middle of nowhere. what could have been an easily prevented death if the only person around me, wasn't the brain damaged burden that helped a lot in making my life as miserable as it was. My mother couldn't help or get help, instead she would only make things harder like she always has. I'd die like I lived, alone. Sure there was someone there, but they might as well not have been, would have been better if they weren't at all. I was alone like the only sane man in a mental institution is "alone". If I was going to survive this, I'd have to do it on my own, while fighting her and her attempts to "help".
I thought to myself "This is how it ends?" some moron crying on the other side of a flimsy door as I lay there, wishing I could be anywhere else, with anyone else. She'd be stuck there, far far away from anyone to take care of them now. How long would they last on their own in a strange new place?
No one else would know I died, no one would care. Not for a while at least. Maybe once my website 404d people would notice, maybe assume I finally offed myself, be bummed out for a short time, but soon enough move on somewhere else and that'd be that. I struggled just to roll over and hold my phone, and to concentrate enough to start irc, and make some incoherent messages about handing this site off to someone else in vain.
I felt regret for all the people I wronged, and wished I could have been better, done better. I guess part of me still feels like this hard life of rejection and abuse I've lived was because I didn't live it right, that I was getting what I deserved, or at least that's how I rationalize it. It all felt so pathetic.

>>39764
You say that was a year ago, what about now?

>>39765
I recovered after a couple days, again no thanks to my mother. Life only got worse since then. I guess if nothing else, I wouldn't have no worry about my mom as much now since she's got a place to stay and some family isn't too far.

I posted more details here;
>>38316 >>38989
but I noticed after looking that over that I left a lot of stuff out in the time we spent on the road. Lot of the more day to day stuff I posted to my twitter account, https://twitter.com/Tohno__

The word "maturing" is often used as a euphemism for becoming a boring, milquetoast husk of a human.

It seems to have been forgotten among the general populace, if they knew to begin with, that people are more honest on the internet. They talk about going out into the "real world" and maturing. And maturing is why they don't like x, y, and z anymore. Because they're so "mature" now. Really, it's because the censors have cracked down, so even the internet has become suffocated by a chilling effect, and they're conformists.

In the "real world", people are constantly fake. Constantly full of it. Constantly putting on airs. You don't learn anything about how people really are by talking to them in real life. So this idea that you can mature by exposing yourself to people's fake personas, and convincing yourself that's how they really are, is just absurd. You learn how people actually are, by seeing what they do when there's no perceived consequences.

Post edited on 2nd Jun 2022, 12:48am

"Toxic".
It's a word overused by those barbaric normalfags that have been invading everything good for a long time now.
Personally, I don't really understand it. I've been called toxic a lot of times, and I admit, I might call people something along the lines of "retarded faggot" sometimes. I don't think that makes me "toxic". It's just hyperbole. I wouldn't say something like that to someone I don't know either, so it would always be some stupid friend or someone else's stupid friend commenting on what I said to my friend.
I mean, what the hell am I supposed to say anyway? "Good effort, sport. I'll take the team out for some personal pan pizzas after the game?" Fuck that.
Why do they never come back with something clever like calling me a "fucking nigger monkey" or some other colorful language? What happened to fun? Everyone just wants to screech their autistic call-outs, despite playing casual modes. Why even bother?
Good thing I don't play multiplayer anymore, or even bother with friends.

There should be a button for youtube to recommend you completely random content. And I mean completely random, not just videos with millions of views or videos from popular accounts. I mean every single video update to yt to have equal chance to pop up on my recommended tab. I bet I would have a lot more fun going through completely random videos than have just trending stuff like they regularly do with recommendations.

>>39779
There is Firefox addon that can disable youtube clickbait like feed, recommended videos, clickbait thumbnails, etc. That way at least the crap is not pushed into my face constantly, only when I'm searching for stuff.

>>39779
Wasn't there such a thing some time ago?

>>39780
You're talking about unhook? That looks interesting but I was talking about having random recommendations, not completely obliterating them, though the idea of having a very clean yt is appealing. I'll try it for a while.

>>39781
I can't find anything about it. You would think true random is something people would want. Instead they're always implementing things I don't care at all about, like a tab for shorts.

>>39782
The addons I use for YT: DF YouTube (Distraction free), News Feed Eradicator, YouTube Popup Player, Youtube Subtitle Downloader, Age Restriction Bypass For YouTube, Clickbait Remover For YouTube.

>the idea of having a very clean yt is appealing. I'll try it for a while.

See if you like it. I personally found that these feeds and streamlined content and sidebars just promote net-addiction and time-wasting, so I disabled most of them and dont regret it.

>>39783
>Clickbait Remover For YouTube.
How does it know what's click bait?

>>39783
Couldn't you get the same effect with ublock origin's element picker?

>>39784
"This extension replaces thumbnails with a frame from the video..."


>>39785
I also used the AdBlock element picker but this dedicated tool is more convenient.

I'm seriously thinking about purchasing and maintaining a bonsai. A little piece of life that needs less attention and money than a pet but still requires commitment. Some green too which is nice. Many, many years ago I had a cactus and, don't laugh, I actually managed to let it die. In the most stupid manner, too. I had it by the window and one day I forgot one of panes open. I guess a strong wind blew the pane shut and the impact pushed the vase from the very narrow window stool it was in to the floor and the cactus literally bursted open with the impact. I thought it would mend itself somehow but it didn't. Quite a tragedy. Never got a new plant since but I guess I'll try again. I'll be a lot more careful this time.. if I get it I'm still not 100% sure on this.

>>39804
You could try something else. Just to see how it goes. The cactus incident is rough, but accidents happen. Nothing to do but learn from it and move on.

>>39804
>Many, many years ago...
It's time to move on, anon.
I have multiple cactuses so when one dies it doesn't feel like tragedy. I just replace it. Non-cactus plants always died on me eventually.

I wonder if there's ever been any attempt to formalize/quantify the notion of creativity/originality by linking it to compression. I'm aware of the hutter challenge which links general intelligence to being able to compress well, but this goes the other direction in showing a link between the originality of X and the lack of compress-ability of X.

>>39812
So you mean looking at how far you can simplify something while retaining the qualities making it unique so that you can see at what level it is original?
In other words, finding the point at which something can be distinguished from what came before it?

>>39813
I'm not really sure what I mean, I just had the thought that something like something like the content of reddit comment threads are usually predictable just from the title itself, and this implies that there's little novel information contained within them. If you think about what people mean when they something is "creative" or "original", it's usually when something deviates from an a priori distribution. A "creative" movie shouldn't have very many tropes in it, for if it did it would be predictable, and if something is predictable that means anyone could have come up with it (indeed, in the reddit comment thread example the output may well be similar to that of a markov model).

But I guess lack of compressability isn't sufficient, since otherwise radom noise would be considered "creative." Maybe you need to also factor in how much meaningful information is contained within the thing, so it's really the ratio that's important.

I was also thinking in the context of generative models, where "creative" outputs are areas of the latent space that usually have low probability of being hit. But again, you'll get lots of random junk if you use only that definition.

>>39814
It's an interesting idea to be sure. I would imagine most of the predictable responses are more social in nature. Social interactions don't encourage originality, after all. You'd find more original and interesting dialogues in places that are for exchanging information.
Sorry I can't provide any solid thoughts on this. I'm not exactly knowledgeable.

>>39804
>>39805
>>39806
For the past few days I've been doing some research and due to price and not having an external area for the plant to be happy in, I decided against it. For now at least. The bonsai trees I saw that actually look good are incredibly expensive, from hundreds to actually thousands of usd, quite an amazing thing, really. They do look beautiful though, but it's just out of my league. I don't even have the space for something like that. Maybe some day.

However I did not give up on having a plant. I went to a variety store and they had a little area for gardening tools, potted plants and the like. They had maybe a hundred or so plants in there lined up on the shelves, lots of cactuses, succulents and others. After walking back and forth for maybe 20 minutes, inspecting all of them trying to decide, I ended up going with this one. It was at the bottom shelf and had dirt all over its leaves, probably because people were handling other plants from the upper shelves and dirt was coming down on the ones bellow. It also has two damaged leaves but it's no big deal. It seemed to be there for a while and that's part of the reason I went with it.

Came back home and carefully cleaned it up to the best of my abilities. There was a dead flower in there so I cut it off. Then I took a few pictures for you guys. Here it is. It's a Saintpaulia ionantha, aka African violet. I remember my mom had one of these when I was a kid, at least it looks quite similar to what I remember. It doesn't like to be in direct sunlight and it doesn't enjoy dark places, either, lots of indirect light necessary. It does prefer to be indoors so we have that in common at least. Nice start I suppose. Water once a week and maybe twice in the summer.

My decade old camera can't quite pick up the right colors on the leaves. The pics I took from a distance has this brownish green but it doesn't look like that in reality, it's closer to the picture on the bottom with a brighter green but it's not quite like that, either, so try to imagine something like the closeup picture but with 20% of the brownish green. The colors on the flowers are actually accurate, not sure why it failed to capture the right color on the leaves. Maybe because they are a little shiny and that tricks the camera for whatever reason.

It was very cheap, not as cheap as a cactus but still easily affordable. I'll post again in a month or two to tell you how it's going. Gotta say my room already looks like a better place to be in with this violet here. If I manage to keep it alive for a year, maybe I'll even get another one, we'll see.

Post edited on 12th Jun 2022, 5:14pm

I used to listen to music a lot when I was still in school and working. Constantly downloading new (to me) music to listen to. Now I don't really bother. If I want music, I'll usually throw on some Touhou arrange playlist. A lot of times I don't bother.
It makes me wonder if I was just using it to shut out the people and world around me. I wish I still had my old music library. I might still have it somewhere on a flash drive, but I'd really have to search for it. I have my record collection too, but my equipment is in storage. Sold a good chunk of my collection a while ago too. It might be nice to revisit stuff I might have forgotten.
It's such a pain. I can hardly remember what I used to listen to beyond the obvious stuff. It was only a couple years ago. I wish I invested in more digital storage back then.

I wonder if going through basic military training could cure my internet addiction or if I would just go back to being terminally online after I return home.

>>39870
jail would also be a good “digital detox”

I've been thinking, the premise to a lot of hentai only makes sense from within the context of an obedient, hyper-conformist society. I think stories involving strange customs, or mass hypnosis, or generally things that "force" people into having sex, are so common because the asian idea of rebellion is becoming the new master.

The protagonist either benefits from preexisting rules, or makes new rules which suit them. There isn't really much about protagonists breaking rules and still getting ahead.

I watched Barry Lyndon yesterday, and while he isn't an enviable character, I think his story strongly contrasts with this. In the first half of the movie, he gets ahead in life by deserting his military post, immediately giving up his secret identity when acting as a spy, cheating while gambling and starting an affair with a wealthy noble woman whose husband is close to death.

>>39883
Sex fundamentally is sort of something that requires one person to dominate another. A narrative about someone freeing themselves from society and becoming a celibate monk as a result wouldn't really work.

Do people really lie on the internet? Wouldn't it be better to not share something you'd have to lie about entirely? It just seems strange, especially on imageboards. The worst that'll happen is someone will call you a loser or something and probably forget your post in a few minutes.

>>39883
I don't really think that is the reason behind it, I feel there are two reasons.

The first is to keep the girls pure, if she is hypnotised, or it's part of a ritual or time is stopped or something like that then it can be spun that she is still pure or at least not acting like a trollop.

The second is simply escapism. It's like isekai only instead of thinking 'wouldn't it be nice if I went to another world and this happened' you are thinking
'wouldn't it be nice if I could hypnotise any girl to do this, or if I could stop time and have my way with them'.

>>39884
Yes it would, sex is also about being dominated by your own impulses and by what society expects from you. Being a celibate monk would be freeing yourself form your impulses and from society.

Imageboards make me feel stupid, but occasionally I'll get a glimpse into average internet communities. Immediately I feel much better about myself.

>>39894
Tangentially related, but did you know if you look for hikikomori imageboard on ddg, tc is the eleventh result, just above an wikipedia article and the first link on page 2? At least it is for me, for now. I very rarely post in other ibs other than here but I like to have a roster of crap to spin around every few hours, so I search for new ibs to lurk on occasion. I would gladly find more nice places but most ibs feel like a jagged rock while tc feels like a nice little pebble. Other ibs also feel like pebbles but it's those comfy-by-the-rules places and they feel like artifical pebbles made in rolling drums, while tc got around by rolling in the ocean for a whole internet era.

Seems like forums are making a little bit of a come back, which to me is very nostalgic but the few I found are not there yet.

In my experience most mentions of TC outside usually come with something about waifus or the no 3D rule and how weird and/or disturbing it is. I'm surprised that's where a lot of people draw the line.
I can't complain. If it's so weird, I don't want to be normal!

I think I've come to really appreciate how sincere the posters on this site seem, especially compared to many of the more recent breed of imageboards. It kinda of makes me wish I fit in better here, since I feel like I'm not really cut from the same cloth as the rest of tohno, and I don't really know all that much about otaku-oriented stuff.

I was going to write out some idle thoughts I had comparing immortality and being a neet. I'm too sleepy to write anything cohesive right now, but I'd like to think on it more tomorrow.

>>39959
I guess I can sort of see the similarity. I wouldn't like immortality though. I'm already tired of life, having to endure that for eternity would be torture.

Immortality is a dream of mine. There are many that will think this is ridiculous but even though I am only 29, I feel like most of my life is already over. I feel like I am at the very edge of my youth and any day now I am going to start ageing. I really don't like the idea of losing my youth.

>>39960
I wanted to say that the issues a lot of NEETs run into would be similar to that of an immortal. It's more due to the indefinite free time a NEET has. It's not so different from the infinite amount of time that an immortal would have. It makes it very easy to put things off for another day. I know if I was immortal, I'd never be in any rush to do anything.
I suppose being unaware of something's value would make it easier to waste.

>>39962
I'm a NEET and don't have that issue, I suppose it's more based on the individual than anything else.
Even if you yourself have an infinite amount of time the task itself is not going to be able to be left for another day for an infinite amount of time, whether you are immortal or not you can't put off washing dishes.

But I also feel it's more based on the mindset of the individual, there are people that will leave tasks to the last minute and won't worry about it but then there are other people like me that like to get things done as soon as possible so that I don't have to do them later and so it's completely off my mind. Being Immortal would not change that.

>>39963
Ah, that's probably the case. It's not as if I know very many NEETs, just myself.

I sent my siblings a picture I took >>>/fig/3807 and both complained it's too blurry. I thought that would bring out a ghostly quality to it but they said it's blurry to the point of being annoying to the eye. I would like to know your honest opinion on that picture.

>>39966
Blurry works for a horror-movie vibe, but if you want something less "cheap", camera angles and lighting would achieve that effect better. Maybe some post-production too, or even some dry ice to make a smoke effect. I'd also recommend a black background instead of just your room.

Post edited on 3rd Jul 2022, 7:36am

>>39965
Sounds like they didn't get what you were going for.

>>39965
It's not blurry, it's just grainy. Maybe increasing exposure time or lowering ISO would help (I'm not much of a camera guy so there are probably better techniques you could use).

>>39959
A bit related, but your comment made me want to flesh out some thought I had comparing NEET life to that of a monk (the traditional kind who basically rejects society to go live in the woods, if those still exist nowadays).

Consider: the vow of celibacy is often seen by most people as the monks "sacrificing" or "giving up" something in order to focus their mind or whatever, but what if all this started simply because they hated interacting with society? Back then land was also essentially infinite, so they could simply go off into the woods, set up a hut or something, and just spend the time idling. Maybe when asked what they were doing (or forced to give some explanation for why they shouldn't be hunted down for not paying taxes) they can just mutter something about religion. By doing so they were somehow able to convince society into revering monks, conferring respect (but more importantly convincing society to leave them alone). Some societies (e.g. Tibet where monastic traditions still remain) go further and also start to prepare food for these monks food, and in return ask that the monk answer questions and share their wisdom – maybe a bit annoying initially to the monk who preferred seclusion, but not a bad trade overall since it means he does not even have to bother with food preparation, he can live a carefree life (though the monk probably finds the normals' questions amusing in their superficiality).

>>39966
I did work the angles and lighting and edited on ps later to look less like a toy and more like a ghost. I'll try other angles and ligthing soon. You think it looks cheap?
>>39967
I thought the image would be appealing even without any description of intent on the part of the author.
>>39968
You'll find this funny but I superficially added that noise in there with photoshop, the original picture doesn't have that. The camera I'm using is a decade old smartphone camera but I think most of the shortcomings of this picture is on my own artistic decisions.

>>39970
What tool in photoshop gives you the noise effect?

>>39971
Filter > Noise > Add Noise

Very banal, but I've wondered how many older men still play visual novels/watch anime/or just engage in such things.

>>40026
How old you need it them to be to call them older men? I'm in my mid 30s and do all those things.