I've been tinkering with my Linux machine for the past 8 months or so, and having random issues like the ones I listed and more besides that I've already solved. Meanwhile my old Windows 7 machine has been working flawlessly for about 8 years, no regedits or crap software issues. I think I had a driver issue with my mouse a couple years ago that I clicked a button and it fixed it. My laptop running Windows 7 also has been working flawlessly since about 2016 beyond prompting me to format media that I connect to it, but I press a button and that goes away. Recently I've been having compatibility issues with software because it's such an old OS but as you said, that's a 3rd party software issue, not a problem with Windows 7.

Glad your Linux experience is so smooth though. Must be nice!

I think there's a difference in personal interpretation of what a "Linux issue" is, here. It sounds like you might be interpreting "Linux issue" as problems with the software itself, or its capabilities, features and processes etc. Personally, I am using "issues with Linux" to mean the entire user experience from start up to using the GUI and whether or not I can do the things I want and need to do on a daily basis easily and intuitively. Certainly, Linux as a software plays into it, but the things you are brushing off as 3rd party incompatibilities are absolutely part of the Linux experience in my opinion. I'm not trying to throw blame, but when introducing new people to Linux it's best to acknowledge there may be some tinkering and adaptation needed to get things working as they should.

Stuff breaks? What breaks? I don't have stuff that breaks. Windows has been far more breaky to me over the last decade than Linux has ever been. What have you been doing? This may have been true 20 years ago, but not today.

I've been trying to adapt to Linux Mint/Cinnamon as my daily driver and yes, stuff breaks. My sata and nvme connected drives kept disappearing every time I started my computer so I had to learn about mounting and auto mount (they are just there on Windows). My game and program installs on Bottles and Lutris kept going "missing" and losing their .exe's. I downloaded 70gb of Guild Wars 2 files at least 8 times because I thought each time I had fixed the "files missing" problem only to have them disappear on reboot. I still didn't figure out what was happening and am only able to play now because I found out how to use the provider portal on Steam. I can't make launcher short cuts from the actual executable, I have to go to the desktop and do it and when I do, it won't let me drag it to my panel for some reason. When I thought I had found a solution, I reactivated some launcher applets and ended up with three different instances of my panel launcher icons and still no ability to add new ones. My systems connected to the same ethernet used to show up in my network panel and I was able to access my shared folders and media files but they all stopped showing up a few days ago and I had to learn all about Samba share and minimum and maximum server protocols and still am trying to find a solution.

Yes, Windows breaks stuff too, but Linux is NOT a perfect product that works flawlessly for everyone and [@cRazi_man@europe.pub is right. All of their points are things I've been struggling with and would warn a Linux noob about. I personally would rather trust those random forum posts than LLM summaries (and have solved some issues that way) but otherwise I agree with each of their bullet points.

What you say is mostly true, but we don't all have the same circadian rhythms. There is such a thing as night owls, and while you might not sleep well in the daylight I genuinely sleep better in a sunbeam. The times in my life that I have been the most exhausted and chronically sleep deprived were when my circumstances demanded that I be up and active before 10am. I have struggled for years against the constraints of others schedules while my body screamed at me that it wanted to do everything later. The simple fact is your body will tell you what schedule works for you or not. If you are not energized or at your best at midnight, fine, but humans come in all sorts of variations and some of us evolved to guard the tribe while others slept.

At this stage, truly and seriously be glad and grateful for those long sleeps and naps.

I had a ton of trouble with milk, and my baby had absolutely no interest in latching, so we did bottles supplemented with formula from day 1. There's a perk to using the bottle, in that you, the non-nursing partner get that good 1 on 1 feeding time too. Mama can sleep and pump on her schedule, not baby's. Consider it a blessing. If kiddo is feeding and gaining weight, you're doing it right. As others said, fed is best.

For the first four months babies are basically Sims with four "needs" bars. They cry if they're hungry, need to burp or their tummy is upset, if they're lonely or if they're dirty. They make pretty distinct faces and signals you can follow to see what they need, and you'll get to know your kid and what those signals look like.

As far as having a smart kiddo, I recommend you try teaching them simple sign language. We started teaching our kid signs for things when he was about 5 months old, like "more", "hungry", "thirsty" etc and he picked up on it and started using his own signs and sounds to communicate with us when he was about 8-10 months old. It was invaluable to be able to understand and communicate with him and helped us bond and build trust very early.

There's a lot of guff and hot air about how to make your baby smarter, but one thing that's been consistently proven to give positive results is reading to them. Read to them from day 1 whenever you have the opportunity. Its good bonding time and they learn so much from hearing an illustrated story. My kid and I used to play "find the x" style games with the pictures on the page and he showed me he knew what an armadillo was, or a combine harvester was before he was 2, because he could point to the appropriate pictures. I never dumbed down or lessen my vocabulary with him either, and he's proven that he's a sponge for words.

Book recommendations:

How to speak so children will listen, and how to listen so children will speak. Some parts are dated but there are some extremely valuable tips and ideas in there too

Precious Little Sleep, Zubief, it's a very relatable read for helping sleep train your baby when you get to that point.

I'm someone who can eat multiple pounds of blueberries in one sitting. Next time, try spraying them thoroughly with vinegar and letting them soak for at least 5min, 10 or even 20 is better. Then rinse thoroughly with water. There are some tummy upsetting molds and bacterias that are neutralized by the vinegar. This works for any berries or easily spoilt produce. It's majorly cut down on the "consequences" of my grape and berry binges.

As a night owl, this is some daywalker shit. Night shift means an easy commute, cooler temps, no need for sunscreen, quieter working environment, usually higher pay, fewer distractions, sleeping in, the list goes on. Night shift and second shift have their perks.

I've always been one that tries to fix before we replace, and that's lead me to a few things like soldering some loose connectors on electronics, or basic small engine repair like an oil change and installing a spark plug. I like making things so I've been slowly expanding my experience levels with various interesting power tools. I can install insulation, mud and sand drywall, stain and refinish furniture, that kind of thing.

However, if I think about things that are truly flipping the script on gender roles, probably the most masculine "skill" I have is the ability to assertively ask for what I want and delegate tasks to others. It seems almost foreign to other women outside of a business context.

This was particularly noticeable when I lived in the American south as a caretaker for a family member. Some of the conservative biddies we had over to visit sometimes would make little passive aggressive snarky comments and the exchange would go something like this.

"Oh, I didn't know where to put my trash, the bin is just overflowing with garbage so I left it on the counter"
"You're right, we usually put the trash in the bin in the garage, spare bags are under the sink, just make sure to close the lid when you're done"
"Oh, uh..." (palpable confusion)
"Thanks for helping out!" (direct eye contact, pleasant smile)
(flustered acquiescence)

It would throw them for a loop so hard it was consistently hilarious. They clearly expected me to bashfully apologize or get all defensive or shamed at the state of the house in some pecking order power play. Lol. You brought it up, have fun getting it delegated to you.

We use these stick on toddler locks

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334846219569?itmmeta=01JY9H130N0FY8D285F9VH9Y04&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA4MHg7L1Zz0LA5DYYmRTS30lXQGwA6UuLWz7XV%2FixY2d%2BE58JAh8bx4A84i6vsTNcmt5N%2B1kIvZ95gY2tkSe5bjnRHYP061FO3ihPKaBtRAoIJuRO4saZdezjW94AjpDjBJOMcGTz%2F0vtALNXY%2FKe43EsYtutSPW1CPGfDt6ISdbWRXc9fK%2BVn%2FuBSEI%2BizhCwKVSVP0%2FHs9hEDfD%2B262BIoUUz4U5yrgOur2ySHsuSKSyANVBRKtbo2O43NBG52WrjyacZHaw5Sh1lSiolASzGPtcLHOiI9dhwSRDqmDcsgT%7Ctkp%3ABFBMurCEsfJl

I have ADHD and a tendency to forget all sorts of obvious things but using the toddler locks has just become a part of my muscle memory. Closing the oven or certain drawers just takes an extra movement now and it wasn't too bad to adjust. The price is low enough and it's efficacy is high enough I would recommend you at least try them before experimenting with more expensive or time consuming set-up heavy options

Yes, humans used to live much closer to water sources. On a town level, if you didn't have a creek or river or water somewhere nearby you just didn't settle there. Available water was absolutely necessary for agriculture, domestic animals, cooking, washing, and of course drinking. On a personal level, you would go in the morning to a central well or water source and gather your water you would need for the day. Depending on the household needs it might be multiple trips with heavy, full vessels. You would put the water in to household water vessels, like a basin for cleaning or a ewer for washing or your cook pot. If you were thirsty at home, you would take a dipper (basically a ladle) and take some water from the household supply.

Where did you get the impression we didn't used to have water bottles? They weren't made of plastic or metal but humans have carried water with them for probably as long as we've used tools. You can carry water in drinking horns, in clay pots, wooden buckets, in dried out animal bladders or leather skeins, and there's literally a type of gourd called a "bottle gourd" which has been dried out and used as a personal water bottle for milennia across any region that can grow them. Don't underestimate human ingenuity, we didn't always have access to the same technology and materials but we have always been able to problem solve.

Why would you need a 100% success rate? Meanwhile, not asking has something like a greater than 90% failure rate in the current western dating paradigm.

I mentioned it because I've personally chatted up someone wearing one before, so it does totally work at certain nerdy conventions, as does carrying a Horga'hn.

Ok so yes looking like Henry Cavill helps but how do you expect to go on a date with someone you like without asking them out? An amulet of Mara?

Ok

I'm against 15 year olds being depicted as sexy in media developed by adult men, yes.

HARD disagree about Amazon. It's nobody's friend but most especially it's terrible for buying clothing. For one, just about everything the search algorithm will show you is mass produced at the most cut throat profit margin imaginable, which means even if you ignore the moral complexities of supporting businesses with unethical labor practices, heavy metal contamination, and dangerous chemical dyes, you're almost definitely getting crappy quality clothes that will not fit well and will not last. Not only that but the pictures are, with very few exceptions, extremely misleading or of different products entirely. The products they list seem like bargains because of their marketing but you get exactly what you pay for or even worse, and you end up spending way too much money on something that will end up in the trash within a year or look terrible on you or both.

There are even more reasons not to buy clothing on Amazon, including that most returns you make for size or color go straight to a landfill, but I have only so many minutes in my day to rant about fast fashion.

If you don't know what you like yet, or what your style is, try going on FB marketplace or Craigslist and look for a closet clean out. This is the season for yard sales too. Try to find someone listing things in roughly your size (they sometimes will say "lots of XL clothes!" ) and then you can pick up giant bags or whole bins of random clothes for not even 10 dollars.

If you score a haul or two like that and get a chance to play dress up and experiment, you can figure out what you like on your body. What kind of necklines do you feel are flattering, what silhouettes, what length skirts or sleeves etc. Once you have a better idea of what you actually like on you, you can move on to shopping at thrift stores. There, you can keep an eye out for pieces that fit the profile of clothing you decided you liked. Not all thrift stores let you try on clothes and you might not feel confident enough to throw it on over what you're wearing, so be prepared to buy, try, and maybe return.

Try to go for higher quality items made of natural materials. You should aim for as little polyester, nylon, acrylic or spandex as possible. Look for cotton, linen, and wool, rayon and viscose are ok too. Feel the clothes and see if they have weight to the fabric, and structure to them. Good quality clothing has construction and patterning that makes them fit a body better than just a sack or a rectangle. Look for clothes with linings and complexity.

Hopefully you will be able to build a starter wardrobe of some good core pieces that you love!

Goodwill is ubiquitous but if you're in America, rural areas should have church thrift shops or animal shelter thrift shops. They rely on donations to raise money for good causes and while they won't have as much inventory, they are extremely motivated sellers. Goodwill, Value Village and Savers are big corporate chains with a lot of stuff and variety, but sometimes you can't beat a little church thrift shop for a bargain.

As others have said, it's a life long thing, but a lot of the patterns can be brought on in people who don't have it with consistent sleep deprivation and a state of tiredness and exhaustion. If you're starting to relate more and more to ADHD memes well into adulthood, try to get a few nights of good sleep!

Yes, he said he didn't like feeling like a kid next to me 🤷‍♀️