Back in college and grad school I used Adobe Acrobat to read all class materials and write notes/highlight texts. One of the benefits was that it was easy to search for key words. You could search your own notes/comments and you had the option to copy the highlighted text so it was searchable.

The pro version also has OCR features so you can do the same with scanned text. I wouldn’t pay for it now considering Adobe’a anti-consumer policies, but you can easily find a bootleg copy.

And if you enjoy reading print outs, you can print the pdfs along with all your comments and highlights.

Edit: Forgot to mention this was all on my laptop since typing and reading is a lot easier oh that than a smartphone

Surprised PBS shows aren’t mentioned more here, especially not Mr. Rogers Neighborhood being mentioned.

So in no particular order:

• Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood: great show for teaching kids to how to navigate emotions and complex situations like death and discrimination but in ways they can understand

• Sesame Street: similar to Mr. Rogers but more for younger children

• Bill Nye the Science Guy: Made science accessible and fun for children. Good way to build a sense of curiosity and desire for experimentation

• Zoom: similar to Bill Nye in that it made me what to try all the activities they shared. Lots of fun games, recipes, brain teasers etc to keep kids busy. The fact that it had an all kid cast made it more accessible as a kid. Highly recommended since it seems less remembered than other PBS shows

Non-Educational:

• The Simpsons: this may be divisive but I grew up when they were super popular and I believe it helped develop my sense of humor. The earlier episodes were also pretty wholesome

• The Avatar (Last Airbender and Korra): well written show that is based on many East Asian cultures and touches on themes of depression, genocide, war, and hope (among many others). One of my favorite shows to this day

Can you use an aux cable? Just thinking of old school solutions

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Is a dedicated mp3 player out of the question? Would be a simple solution that doesn’t require any internet access for when you’re in areas with poor reception.

Never went to the big cons but I recently went to a small local anime market. Went with a friend who goes to a bunch of those events and had a lot of fun!

Some tips if you go

• Bring water. It gets hot in there and I couldn’t find any vending machines so I was dehydrated
• Eat first. The venue had two food places and both were super crowded. Was like a 30 min wait for mall food court food
• Be prepared for the smells. The stereotypes are true. Some people smelled so bad there. I wore a mask but I could still smell some people
• Go with a friend. It was a lot of fun and way less intimidating
• Start small. Same as going with a friend. Less intimidating and more doable.

Frank to Dee: There is nothing more threatening to a man than a woman who is smart and attractive. We have to pretend you’re both!

Everything All at Once by Bill Nye

+.

The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

=

Bill Nye must solve a series of mysterious crimes including theft, witch hunts, and murder on a 17th century East Indiaman ship. I’d read the heck out of that.

The original Jurassic Park. Crazy to think that movie came out in 1993, over 32 years ago.

If you’re using Lemmy there’s a good chance you’ll be excluded from the study. Some of the largest Lemmy communities are Linux related.

Never heard this song before but it looks like “Don’t Hurt Yourself” by Beyoncé fits the bill.

I bought a Sony Blue Ray player back in 2014 and though it doesn’t see much use now that I have a Plex server, it still works over a decade later.

First thing that came to mind was that scene from the pilot episode of Bob’s Burgers where the Louise calls Tina the worst kind of autistic..

Other funny gags that live rent free in my head:

• Homer punching Lenny
• Homer trying to get back the letter he wrote to Mr. Burns
• Do a flip! from Futurama
• The rabbit flashback from Ghost Stories. And yes, this is the official dub. Highly recommend the dubbed version of this show.
• Haircut bit from Asobi Asobase. Honestly, this is one of my favorite anime. There are so many batshit crazy jokes and gags.

So many people aren’t listing their hobbies (though many of them are guessable).

Gaming has been a hobby of mine for decades now. I love that it pushed me into other relevant niche hobbies, like mechanical keyboards, audiophile/headphones, desk accessories, and other random tech, though these were mostly only to a beginner’s level.

I also learned how to do basic soldering but that’s more being interested in electronics than in gaming. You could make the argument that gaming made me interested in technology in general.

I’d disagree on Pedro Pascal"s performance. I thought he did an excellent job as Joel. He was nominated across multiple awards for that role.

As for the movie/character you mentioned, I had never heard of it but will check it out. I’m assuming you mean the 1984 version which seems to have better audience reviews than the 2024 Netflix TV series adaptation.

Fair. I’d say the bond between Joel and Ellie is wholesome in a world that everything and everyone is out to get them.

Wrote this in another thread but I love the found family trope and Spy x Family totally fits that bill. I wrote a few other examples below.

Movies

• Logan
• Ice Age
• Wild Robot
• Up
• Despicable Me

Shows

• The Last of Us
• The Mandalorian
• The Witcher
• Daddy Buddy (this one is an anime on Crunchyroll. I highly recommend this if you liked Spy x Family. Revolves around 2 assassins who accidentally wind up with a 4 year old)

Oh that’s really funny. Never knew that about Del Toro. He has good taste

Yeah when I got to that issue and heard McLain’s GLaDOS voice again I was so happily surprised! Totally caught me off guard in a good way. Made it much harder to assimilate them back into Delmer.

Didn’t know that. That’s pretty cool!