Pineapple on pizza is great once in a while. I like to pair it with jalapeños.

I once heard taxes described as “infrastructure subscription”, which I think is a neat idea.

I actually pay for quite a few digital service subscriptions. Off the top my head: Proton (email/VPN), Mega (storage), Kagi (search engine), Inoreader (feed aggregator), Signal (both voluntary donation and for online backup), Audible (audiobooks), Reuters (news), a few newspapers and magazines (online editions), some apps, …

I used to spend a lot of time configuring different launchers (including Nova Launcher) but since I’ve switched to GrapheneOS, I’m actually quite happy with the stock launcher. It has everything I need — multiple home screens, widgets, folders. And I use App Search as dedicated search and secondary launch app that I’ve set up as digital assistant for gesture invocation.

Do you have a source for the oil money story? I’m not dismissing it, just would like to follow up on it.

I like Deutschlandfunk for my basic news. They have their own app Dlf Nachrichten (German, free), as has Reuters, which I use as a secondary source for international news (English, 1 €/week). When I have more time or want to follow something specific, I go for the web versions of newspapers, mostly Süddeutsche Zeitung (German, subscription) and The Guardian (English, mostly free). For European politics Euractiv is pretty good (English/German/others, free).

I know you said no RSS but you should consider it. It’s really the only way to handle more than a handful of news sources. I’ve been very happy with Inoreader for years, which allows me to manage over a hundred sources, some of which I only want to monitor for specific subjects.

I’m not gonna argue with you, only wanted to put a warning that you’re either rage-baiting or just want to smear the show for some reason. Also, nice biphobia you’ve got there.

This is a gross mischaracterization of the show. Yes, it has several sex scenes in most episodes, and for TV (and it being gay men) they are relatively explicit. But they are essential for the plot and characters; the relationship starts as purely hookups and develops from there. A lot of the early unspoken dialog between the main characters is exchanged in these scenes. And the vast majority of the runtime is filled with quite a bit of plot showcasing some very fine acting. I can understand if someone dislikes sex scenes, I’d often rather would do without them myself when they don’t add much to the story or are badly done. But for this show they are essential and painting it as just softcore porn makes me believe, OP fast-forwarded through everything but the sex scenes.

Perhaps a bit out of left field: Heated Rivalry, a Canadian romance about gay, closeted hockey players. I usually don’t care about that genre at all but started watching the show on a whim after seeing much hype online. It’s really good—acting, dialog, cinematography, sound design, … Just be aware that the sex scenes are quite explicit—not porn but up there in what can be shown on TV (well done though and always relevant for the story).

I can understand that many people find reaction videos useless and low-effort content. Personally, I enjoy rewatching a lot of shows and it adds to my enjoyment doing so with somebody else. I have nobody in my life who is interested in that, so reaction videos work as a parasocial substitute. I can still see people I like (as little as I really know them) sharing the experience and sometimes having interestingly different reactions and observations.

BTW: For those who think reaction videos are a sensible way to not pay for the original content, may I introduce you to BitTorrent?

Something self-made is probably the way to go. Another option could be books, especially if you can come up with something that both meant a lot to you and you think would be enjoyed by the recipients. This can be quite cheap if you have secondhand bookstores nearby, and you can personalize them with a handwritten inscription.

Similar to the German “can’t complain”.

I’m German and switched from Mama/Papa (mom/dad) to their first names sometime in my early teens as did my sister. I couldn’t say how exactly it happened—just felt too old to use the former. But that’s not universal here; I know people who still use the nicknames in their forties.

What helps short term for me are workouts, mostly strength training, and playing board and role-playing games with friends (often online), a nice combination of socializing and concentrating on something. On bad days I’m ignoring the news even though I like to keep informed. For long term improvement I’m looking at getting more into Buddhism, which has shown some promising early results. It’s all about alleviating personal suffering, basically a system of therapy so effective, people made a religion out of it. (The religious trappings can easily be ignored and usually are outside of Asia.)

GrapheneOS has been working flawlessly for me for years. Highly recommend!