• It’s always more expensive than I thought
• It’s always more physically demanding than I thought
• There’s never a local hobby/support group for it

… Sums up pretty much every hobby I have tried/am trying

1st to 2nd grade so this was what my parents relayed to me after I grew up a bit more

Apparently I was so aggressively autistic (and relatively smart) that I not only did close to perfect on all my exams, I once did the calligraphy/writing homework so well that my teacher had to talk to my parents to know if I cheated by having them do my homework for me… FYI: my handwriting now is as bad as a doctor’s

I am doing it… My local convenience store also sells tooth cleaners shaped like tiny brushes which I use. It does help a bit but not entirely

Wing it

I did worse than wing it actually… half of the groceries I got over the past few weeks were from Too Good To Go, so near-expired food that the grocery store winged-it for me💀

I’m usually a bit excessively modest, but if I’m reflecting on it… I left my precious job in the US & pulled off a successful cross-continental move with little to no outside help (even though there was a lot of stuff involved). Had a ton of fun traveling during the past year too as a result of that. I guess that would be the thing I’m most proud of

I remember every single place I’ve lived in (over a dozen) and remember the address of most of them; the ones I don’t I can look up quite easily

I do feel quite sentimental about two specific places (ironically the two “worst” places I’ve lived in), not much with most others; one I almost hate with a passion

Quite a few!

• Spicy food: didn’t grow up in a spicy-loving part of the world but tried a lot of Indian food in college and decided to just upping the spice level. I can handle some pretty extreme stuff, which always comes as a surprise when I meet Southern Chinese ppl
• Coffee: turns out it was less of an issue with my tolerance and just that I needed a good setup and locally-roasted beans
• Beer: surprisingly easy to get into, similar to coffee I just needed high-quality beer. I prefer the fruity ones over blondes/browns/pils though
• K-pop: unwillingly, because I play a “K-pop” game… I think I’m starting to get the appeal now though

A bit of a hot take… bigger communities tend to get harder to please, regardless of anything else

I saw a few gacha game communities (please don’t judge me lol) grow in real time, because gacha games need as large as a player base as possible for their business strategy (which is a separate topic)… Saw the level of toxicity rises in real time as my main game’s community get bigger. Like the community literally went from being okay with just about anything to arguing over the weirdest details on character designs and complaining about every live-service event. And then there’s all the rumor about communities of Hoyoverse games… including once when someone almost murdered the company CEO over a bunny girl event (I’m not making this up)

Among similar sized ones I’m not entirely sure

I assume you mean ppl who literally have “mathematician” as a job title? A few I could think of…

• I’d guess most likely as an academic researcher. There are academics in just about any field you could imagine, a lot of which are even more abstract/“useless” than advanced math. Not a traditional “job” in the sense that academics don’t directly add value to the economy… but are paid to do research that hopefully other people can add value based on. Downside is that these job openings are insanely competitive especially for the aforementioned “less useful” fields, because they are based on an organization having spare money to support research…
• As a cybersecurity researcher maybe? A lot of modern-day cybersecurity (the original “crypto”, before it became associated with bitcoin) are based on advanced math, so I’d imagine such expertise is still needed
• Somewhere in finance maybe? A lot of modern-day finance are built on data science/statistics, although I suppose this job fits statisticians better…

I have a pet rat that seems to be sick. My local vet has a long waitlist: do you have any suggestions on home remedies that can help them feel better in the meantime?

Speaking as an immigrant wannabe who personally investigated a lot on this… not ones that I’m aware of. At least I don’t know any countries that are both 1) what I’d imagine most Americans are willing to relocate to, and 2) have preferential or at least very “easy” paths for immigration for Americans. Maybe there are some for those with a “lucky” ancestry, but from my understanding that’s it

Netherlands technically “appreciates” American immigrants because of the DAFT, but that doesn’t really answer the question… NL isn’t that easy to move to, and from what I’ve heard a lot of people don’t end up making it on DAFT. Their job market is a bit screwed-up at the moment and they have a very significant housing shortage as well

Still, I think there are lots of countries that welcome aspiring immigrants who have in-demand skills (and some, with significant wealth), as long as one is willing to adapt to that particular new country/culture. If one is competent in a language that is not English that list grows even longer

I think there are lots of posts on this on r/AmerExit and r/IWantOut… lots of delusional posts, but a good bit of not-so-delusional ones too

Yes. I’m impressed at how well it works

I’ve been enjoying the payment app and personal information verification app in the country I moved to quite a bit. The only previous exposure I had to a centralized app-based payment and/or verification system was China’s WeChat, so I had quite a bit of negative stereotypes with them… but I’m liking these a lot

For additional information: the two are separate apps. Both are private companies (I think?) heavily regulated by and strongly promoted by the EU I believe, and the latter is the de-factor verification system that is used for governmental stuff as well

My personal upvote border:

• This is the best thing I’ve seen today
• Someone made a post/comment made in good faith that adds value to the community
• Someone replied to me in good faith, as far as I can tell

Neutral (no up/down-vote) border:

• Someone made a post/comment that I didn’t think much about
• Someone replied to me, but was not in good faith and/or seem factually dubious

Downvote border (I rarely do that):

• Someone made a post/comment that is factually wrong
• Someone seems to be trolling, making an agenda, or doing something else nefarious

I think maybe because of the lack of a meaningful “karma” system, people on the fediverse seem to be much more upvote-happy… less so than the beans era, but still a lot more upvote-happy than just about any Reddit community I still follow

Random ham sandwich offered via a seminar at work, no idea of the exact ingredients… served with Coke-zero on the side. This happened yesterday

Nothing, I don’t exactly need anything at the moment. In fact I almost forgot Black Friday existed…

I think I care more than I should. But then most people didn’t have their childhood shaped mostly by rhythm games so…

I have a very specific taste for music, and on top of that I basically don’t listen to anything lower than a subjective 8 out of 10 in my books. Also some meme songs are timeless masterpieces (no I’m not giving examples)

• Not really. I care much more about the melody than the sound effects, and unfortunately my ears aren’t sensitive enough to tell much of the difference
• I have very specific music that I listen to. At the very least it has to be a well-curated playlist, random playlist is a hard no for me
• Actually I mostly listen to music just to enjoy it… I used to listen to music on long roadtrips but I don’t do those anymore
• No, but it’s because there’s no one to talk to. One of the downsides of only liking “alternative music” I suppose
• Sometimes; there aren’t that many artists making things I enjoy in the first place

Music is leaning much more towards art for me

The first part is just an alias and doesn’t really have an interesting story

The second part is the airport code of the city I lived in when this account was created. I was actually quite curious if anyone could have guessed that without me saying it out loud

I think it’s the same country based on your Lemmy instance lol… Have to agree, the once-per-week collection sucks, especially organic waste since my tiny studio with the tiny fridge can’t even freeze the trash

Have fun with the move! On that topic… allegedly Etterbeek in Brussels tried the underground container thing, and then… somehow their recycling got worse, so they got rid of the container. I do not fully comprehend that decision

Recently and a slightly hot take: reckless drivers/cyclists. My take is that urban planning should be pedestrian-centric so… And yes, I did specifically include cyclists too: I would prefer to be hit by a bike rather than an automobile, but I’d much rather prefer to not be hit by either