What a nice surprise. Loading this community on my home instance shows just 2 subscribers! I was wondering why no one was subscribing!

Let’s hope so.

I did just want to follow up my original comment with another saying a big thank you for creating this space, whatever instance it resides on. I don’t want you to feel my words were a complaint. Just sharing of an observation and possible solution.

I hope that once my life calms a little (just moved apartments and downsized) I’ll be able to contribute more to this space and help it grow.

I see it now. Nice. ❤️

Fair enough. I just wanted to put the idea out there.

Lemmy certainly has growing pains and that is understandable given it is still under development. I just felt that being on this instance in particular appeared to be amplifying those growing pains and hobbling the community, perhaps avoidably.

For me the only reliable method right now is separate accounts on multiple instances that house the communities I sub to. Then I can view and comment locally with up a full and up to date view of the posts. It certainly isn’t a convenient or simple solution but it is the most reliable. I hope I can revert to a single account in the future and others aren’t discouraged from migrating here as Tte Reddit situation certainly isn’t improving.

I just see your comment. No picture.

Essentialism.

I started it once before and didn’t really like it and gave up, but I had been on a minimalism/simple living reading marathon for a while at that point and was a bit burnt out and needed some fiction. I’ve waited 6 weeks for a copy to become available again at my library again so am starting again now.

My wife and I wanted to live on a boat. Sadly, it never happened, but as part of the preparation process we went from a 1200 sqft house to a 600sq ft studio apartment and got rid of a load of stuff to make it happen. It was great!

We did well for several years of keeping a small footprint, even after the dream of the boat collapsed, but experienced a slight relapse during the pandemic. Just now reducing again having moved from a two bedroom place to a one bedroom to offset unaffordable rent.

I find this to be a catch-22 situation. If I buy cheap and then find it to be very useful (but inferior because it was cheap) then I would feel bad about replacing it with a quality item and wasting the cheap one (even if I donate it) because I feel strongly about minimizing waste and promoting the use of throw away products. Then again, if I buy expensive and the item sits around I have wasted needless money that frankly I don’t have.

Right now I have just downsized from a two bedroom apartment to a one bedroom due to skyrocketing rent. I have to shrink my WFH desk space and am considering transitioning from my 32" widescreen monitor to just my laptop screen and a 15.6" portable monitor that can be packed away. The portable monitor would also become my main monitor for my gaming PC. This may or may not work out as being practical for my use case. I could get a no-name cheap portable monitor for about $100 but the brightness and colors may not be that great and response times for gaming poor. Or I could spend $400 on one with higher refresh rate, better colors and likely better stand options but if it doesn’t work out I’ve likely lost a lot of money even if I resell it. On top of that I’ve now contributed to consumerism and pollution twice which goes against my ethos.

I think a third option of buying-used needs to be a consideration. Personally, I dislike buying used for most things (especially tech). I generally get burnt by finding out the item was being sold because of some unreported defect and that bugs me as I like to keep my stuff pristine.

No real answer for you there, just an acknowledgement that the struggle is real.

As someone who did phone helpdesk, then deskside support, then server support over a 10 year period and then, after the 2008 recession, moved into programming for another 10 years I would agree that support was the more enjoyable and simple role. You had to learn new tech, but not at the rate you do in programming, plus each day felt different as you were presented with different problems/people. In programming it seems like same stuff different day and it gets old.

I will say that this doesn’t have to be so black and white. A helpdesk role can have progression into desktop and server support and that brings fiscal increases and I didn’t feel any of those positions were overly complex in my life like programming is.

Slight caveat though, I haven’t had to interact people in a helpdesk sense for years now and with the advent of social media and the inflation of ego’s and narcissism in general it might now be that such a role is now less enjoyable. Perhaps your experience is more recent.