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Joined 13 days ago
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Cake day: September 10th, 2025

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  • Going against the trend here, but i wouldn’t be without spotify. We use the family sub, so I’ve got separate accounts for the family and for our smart speakers. My parents also use my account. We listen to a lot of music and podcasts, and it just works.

    Beyond that the only other sub i have is Amazon prime, which we’re kind of stuck with as all our photos are in the cloud using their service. It works pretty well and the fire TV does a slideshow so we actually look at them from time to time.

    The rest of the streaming subs we’ve had in the past are long gone. IPTV does the lot, which I use through express VPN.









  • I was popular in primary school. Then, in High School I hung out with friends who were into Dr Who and nerdy stuff, because I knew and liked them and could never play the social status game by just cutting them off to be cool.

    Four years in, when i was about 15, one of the jocks decided that we were gay (which was social death in the early 90s in rural Scotland), so my status plummeted even further.

    That summer, at 16, I got drunk and had sex with a girl, which was something we both regretted. The rumour got out and that seemd to elevate me, socially. By this point me and my friends were big into Nirvana and had formed our own little clique of stoners so the jocks left us alone.

    I look back on it all with some regret. I wish I’d been more confident. I would have liked to have been involved in team sports and activities that I was drawn to, but my friends derided.

    My understanding is that these days kids are less socially segregated and you’ll find nerds doing physical stuff and jocks trying to be academic. Dunno if that’s true, but it sounds like progress.

    It was really university that changed me. I left the small town and found people outside that tiny place to be friendlier, and I grew in confidence.

    Looking back, I think the socially harder times in school made me who I am. I’m fairly resilient and find it easier than my colleagues to communicate with others and find common ground. It was a baptism of fire and I was miserable through my teens, but now life is pretty manageable.