Yeah, this stuff is wild, there was a little girl years ago who had a seizure disorder, and they removed one half of her brain, she somehow kept most functions and could walk but had some weakness in the limbs on the opposing side.

I just looked her up - holy shit look at how she is today!

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/22/1165131907/neuroplasticity-plasticity-glass-half-full-girl

The loyalty thing is what kept me.

I was wary of another gaming platform, there were so many and they all seemed the same, I never liked one over the other - they were just means to an end.

A few years back I really wanted to play RDR2 with my friends. It was expensive and I never pre-order, but as soon as it came out on (a small) sale I bought it for all 4 of us.

It was a lot of money for me, but I really wanted the story to play with everyone.

All was well at first, until we had each completed the tutorial and met up in open world. That’s when we learned that the game was based on GTA and the devs do not care about hackers.

We had one fucking with us for over an hour, teleporting us into the air and dropping us, setting us randomly on fire, spawning space ships and so on.

I begged in voice for them to just leave us be, to no avail.

We are all older, we rarely have time to play together. I was crushed.

I was an hour over the return time on Steam, one of the other friends took a bit longer exploring and was even more than that.

I contacted steam anyway and tried to get a refund, and they granted it for all of us.

Later I learned this was a thing in RDR2 and there was now the ability to create private lobbies, but I just can’t make myself try it and give Rockstar any money.

Steam however, won a lifelong fan. They didn’t have to honour the refund, and they don’t have to provide personal support that offers more than just the canned responses, but they do.

I hope Gabe lives forever, or finds another like him to carry the torch after he’s gone.

My daughter. <3

I live in Australia where the temperatures get insane and destroy most electronics left in cars.

I have a Viofo A229 PRO 3CH, it has a module that faces forward, and a separate camera that gives a view of the inside of my car as well as some of the outside sides, and a third camera on a long line that is mounted on my rear window that has a view of the rear.

The images are clear, I can read licence plates easily day and night, and after being in two accidents it gives me peace of mind that I am protected in court if someone hits me again.

^ This!

I learned the retinol lesson the hard way. I used to use retin-a daily, and wasn’t careful about getting it near my eyes because I wasn’t sensitive to it.

I now have chronic dry eye, this eventually got so bad I couldn’t see, and had to go get ipl treatments once a month, have the meibomian glands expressed, and have punctal plugs placed every month, then every few months. (don’t google any of that)

After it got “better” I only have to do this stuff every 6 months…

It’s expensive.

Stay safe kids, never put a retinol near your eyes.

This is correct, I use this method a lot in my work with the disabled. Often with clients that struggle with mental health, it’s important to redirect negative thoughts and feelings, but you have to do this without jumping to condescending or infantilising language.

The easiest way is to empathize with <negative thought or feeling> acknowledging it as worthy of the space it’s taking up and offering up something related that I might worry about. Then redirect with a similar subject, but framed in a way that gives more power over it. Maybe a news article that pointed out how <related thing> is being solved by someone, or overcome, or even simply made fun of.

If you can laugh at something for being ridiculous it has less power.

You don’t need to change their belief in <negative thought or feeling> you just need to redirect it and reframe it, they will then have a different mental relationship with it later, and over time change.