For items purchased online only, I try to. I tend to buy on AliExpress and the photos don’t always do justice to the product. It’s very helpful to see the experiences of others when making a purchase.

Interestingly I have had many experiences which resulted in products better than expected, and if I see this trend of comments on a product I’m undecided, I’ll probably be swayed to purchase. The opposite is true when the reviews denounce a product or seller as a scam.

Other than that I will give my opinion on other products if someone asks. Say for example someone on Lemmy asked about vacuum cleaner recommendations, or wondering about a specific phone model I once had, I would chime in with my personal experience.

TLDR yes whenever possible, because you can’t always trust the seller to be honest. You need an impartial opinion.

Depends on what you consider a cartoon.

I can’t pick a single decade either. I’m a fan of the 30’s-50’s cartoons, in spite of any content/stereotypes that hasn’t aged well.

Fast forward a little bit I think the 90’s have some of the best cartoons produced, with cartoon network and nickelodeon taking the lion’s share of it.

If you consider anime a cartoon too, I would say the 80’s is where it’s at.

No

I’ll be curious.

It never worked properly on my android phone that doesn’t have Google services

Just properly or actually not at all? Currently, my android has Google services, but my WhatsApp isn’t linked to any Google Account. It runs as expected. I wonder what your experience was, as I’d like to own a google free phone sometime but I don’t think I’ll be able to remove WhatsApp from my life unfortunately.

It doesn’t spam your phone with photos, unless you decide to download them

It doesn’t backup your conversations to your already nearly full, Google owned Drive

Dark mode by default

Not owned by Meta

No frills, I couldn’t care less for “personal stories” or whatever bs Whatsapp has

Basically it is somewhat more respectful of your agency as a user.

…edit: yes you have a setting to toggle backup off. And to change background to whatever you want. And I’m sorry for you, because your deeply cynical friends (your words) probably won’t care about my points either. Because in essence, all my reasons rest on personal values. Which your friends already don’t care about, else they would be complaining about things such as no space on phone or being annoyed at having to change settings for things they don’t want or need.

I use signal but never managed to get rid of WhatsApp. It’s a default app nowadays and most people use it. I constantly deal with random customers and whatnot through it. Only family is on signal. Which is sort of nice, I see a signal notification and know it’s someone important.

I haven’t read this. Curious as to the combat. What makes it good? Is this one on one combat or are we talking about troops facing each other? Or both?

Ah, I love recommendation posts.

It depends on what you actually enjoyed reading and why. I see you already have a lot of great suggestions. The only author I haven’t yet seen mentioned is perhaps Asimov, although you said you prefer fantasy to sci fi. That’s also my preference, however I find his short stories are worth reading and also low commitment for this reason.

One thing I find useful in recommendations is to know what else people have read and what they think about that. It helps me get an idea of which books I’m more likely to enjoy best or not, especially if I can compare their thoughts to mine about the same books. With that in mind, my thoughts:

Discworld is amazing. Pratchett is a great author. I like that he can write a story that on the surface is just a simple comedy/adventure, but if you are the type that also analyzes what they read you will soon see his stories go much deeper than what they appear to be. He will keep things entertaining and witty but also throw at you a piece of his mind for you to mull over and reflect on various aspects of life. Small Gods is one of my favorites.

I also really enjoyed Dungeon Crawler Karl, and I mean really really really. Hilarious. But it doesn’t have the depth Pratchett has.

On a similar vein, The Witcher- loved the characters and the story is very entertaining, but t can’t say I was blown away as with Pratchett.

I absolutely loved Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy. Now that’s some solid writing. The characters are so well fleshed out, unique, original. Somehow the world and the plot feel realistic, crazy as it sounds for a fantasy book. It may feel a bit slower in pacing than any of the three I previously mentioned, but not slower than LOTR which you have already read.

Well I haven’t been using Newpipe for ten years… Maybe Skyrim…no, I haven’t played that in years… Well it seems my list is gonna be short:

VLC
GIMP
7zip

Ah, another Sumatra user! I also used RawTherapee during my student years. I’ll keep in mind your other two suggestions, you sound like a reasonable person

I don’t understand why you are getting downvoted

The mention of AI as an introduction suggests you may have a specific context in mind. If the question is so general, you don’t need to give irrelevant information. Asking “do you feel valued?” is enough, and the absence of context becomes obvious.

Professionally? No

As a family member or friend? Yes

As a member of society? Barely

What’s the context of your question?

Bread. Cheese never makes it

Yes.

I see two scenarios. One, they catfish me if they can pass for a regular straight man. How I react to this when I find out will depend a lot on their personality and how everything unfolded, but it’s very likely I’d be very angry about them lying.

The other scenario is one in which our personalities click really well, so well we would be besties. But the advances would theirs. Again, how I respond to these advances would vary a lot but if we already have that exceptional affinity then it’s likely to go well. I think looks would be important here, they don’t need to look masculine but they would need to have somewhat conventionally attractive features. I’m boring and limited like that, sorry.

Okay I found the post and I’m still intrigued on how that inspired this

WTF? LMAO

LCL vs FCL? I’m OOTL

It’s raining and it’s cold

I don’t have a place of my own, I certainly don’t own any TVs. However, whenever I stay somewhere with a TV, it is ignored. I don’t turn it on. If I had a place of my own I wouldn’t have a TV, anywhere.

Most people do have TVs though, but I would say only about a third keep one in the bedroom.

So you ask us to isekai and to tell you which, but you don’t say if we get powers or not.

Take Overlord for example. I would love to, but, do I arrive there as a level 100 player or am I another regular human?

I would probably also love any DnD setting, say Baldurs Gate 3 to give a specific example. But again, under which conditions do I materialize in my chosen universe?

Giving you a general answer, I think I’d be happy in any high fantasy setting provided I’m in good health and can harness many of the special magic skills and abilities the main characters have.

Being more specific though, I find that what I really like is universes that really value craftsmanship and the arts, which is something that keeps eroding in this reality we live in. It’s not just being somewhere with magic, it’s being somewhere I can design, create, use and give to others items that are beautiful and treasured.