1. First vape (a cigarette-shaped item from the corner store, cherry flavor). I had been smoking with suicidal enthusiasm for 18 years. I was out of breath, coughing, stinking, and (at $7 a pack) broke. A decade later, I still vape, but I can breathe now.
2. First not-fully-depreciated used car (3-year-old 2012 Focus SEL hatch with 30K mi). Apart from warranty transmission work, the car's been stable, and pretty. The real change was introducing me to finance and lending. I grew up poor with a debt addicted dad. At 32, I had never had a credit card. I've still never given the bastards a dime, but I've pulled in thousands in rewards and have an outstanding credit score.
3. Passport / first international airline ticket. I mean, yeah. I hadn't had any desire to leave my state, let alone see the world. At 20, I grudgingly flew to Europe to visit my girlfriend who was studying abroad. We didn't last, but the travel bug did.
Honorable mention, only because it isn't technically a purchase would be my first union payment. Best deal ever.
Edit: how do you add line breaks? It worked, magically, when I made the list heading bold, but that was hella annoying.
The Cold War had just ended, long-standing music barriers were breaking down, cell phones became affordable, falling crime rates, falling airfare, and on and on. 90's.
It's not that. I'd be happy to upvote an unpopular opinion like "Coffee should have the same ad restrictions as tobacco" or "Coffee should be scheduled alongside cocaine."
Your post reads as a criticism disguised as an opinion.
It comes off as smarmy.
There's a reason that the major sobriety programs have a tradition of not expressing opinions about what other people do with their lives, avoiding any opinion on temperance, or anything political, for that matter. It would be counterproductive and make them easier to dismiss as fringe wackos.
Just taking the YouTube app off my home screen and replacing it with a Firefox shortcut has done wonders for my sanity. It's really disorienting now, when I follow a YouTube link that opens up the app. All of a sudden it's all ads and shorts and sponsors.
It's really a failure of one-size-fits-all AI. There are plenty of non-diverse models out there, but Google has to find a single solution that always returns diverse college students, but never diverse Nazis.
If I were to use A1111 to make brown Nazis, it would be my own fault. If I use Google, it's rightfully theirs.
It's honestly still small enough that anything with a few upvotes shows will appear in the main feed. I've just scrolled through and followed as I saw things I'm interested in, and blocked things I don't ever want to see.
I grew up in the San Geronimo Valley. I remember when that course was built. It never felt right. Very glad to see it going back to a more natural state.
By order of lasting positive effects,
1. First vape (a cigarette-shaped item from the corner store, cherry flavor). I had been smoking with suicidal enthusiasm for 18 years. I was out of breath, coughing, stinking, and (at $7 a pack) broke. A decade later, I still vape, but I can breathe now.
2. First not-fully-depreciated used car (3-year-old 2012 Focus SEL hatch with 30K mi). Apart from warranty transmission work, the car's been stable, and pretty. The real change was introducing me to finance and lending. I grew up poor with a debt addicted dad. At 32, I had never had a credit card. I've still never given the bastards a dime, but I've pulled in thousands in rewards and have an outstanding credit score.
3. Passport / first international airline ticket. I mean, yeah. I hadn't had any desire to leave my state, let alone see the world. At 20, I grudgingly flew to Europe to visit my girlfriend who was studying abroad. We didn't last, but the travel bug did.
Honorable mention, only because it isn't technically a purchase would be my first union payment. Best deal ever.
Edit: how do you add line breaks? It worked, magically, when I made the list heading bold, but that was hella annoying.