“SO HOW ABOUT THAT ISRAELI - PALLESTINIAN CONFLICT?”
My wife and I literally started our first conversation with abortion. I’d jokingly mentioned it because she said she liked deep conversation and she went “fuck it, let’s go.”
“Fuck it, let’s go” has been our life philosophy ever since.
Had a gf back in the day and we started at the bar like that.
“I’m a man, my opinion doesn’t really count here, but I have one.”
“Correct answer.”
I love everything about this.
Be careful with your expression so that you offend supporters of both sides equally
On our old WoW guild application form we included:
“Please rank all of the Star Trek captains you know from best to worst”
and then gave them a nice big empty text box to go to town in. Some answered seriously, and exhaustively. Some only knew Kirk, or didn’t know any at all. Some chose to go off on a rant about Star Wars being better, or include a joke or tell an anecdote about their relationship to scifi.
Whatever the answer we always learned something about the person and that was a good jumping off point if they got accepted. We did get the occasional humourless “wtf this is stupid” type response but, shockingly, this was rarely the only reason we had for denying such applications.
What distro are you running as your daily driver?
Ok after 5months here I have to ask, what the fuck is a distro?
It has to do with Linux.
Linux itself is not a fully fledged operating system as most people would expect it. Since Linux has to work on servers and microchips as well as on desktop PCs, lots of stuff is not shipped with it.
For example Linux is missing a way to display windows and has no real package manager.
A distro (or distribution) is a predefined set of of software, that makes it easier for a user to use Linux.
This is mostly a window manager or desktop environment like KDE or GNOME, a package manager like apt or pacman and useful software like an office suite, a browser and other stuff.
Distros also exist for servers, the ln they don’t include a way to display images, but still have a package manager and other useful stuff preinstalled.
That’s of course not all, but maybe gives you a little overview.
That’s a great summary and completely explains it, thanks bud.
And I presume Arch is one of the more (if not the most) popular distro for PCs? Just because I see it referenced all the time
Arch is most memy distro out there besides Hanna Montana Linux. It became that way because Arch is super hard to maintain in working condition and became a status symbol to use it in some circles. Now there are couple layers of irony vowen into this meme and I am not quite sure where we are right now.I just checked steam hardware survey and now I am not sure. SteamOS is most popular due to Steam Deck, and with arch and ubuntu right behind.
Still whats popular is not always the best for starting out.
For begginers I would recommend Linux Mint. If you don’t like the start menu or file menager ask in one of linux communities, they would be happy to help.
Appreciate the info thanks mate, I’m not really interested in using it tbh, I was just curious.
My PC gets used to play trackmania during boring meetings at work and not a lot else these days. Simple and easy with next to no thought or maintenance is what I’m after so windows is fine for me.
You sound the coolest if you say you use Arch btw (this is a meme now).
Ubuntu is the most popular simple to use distro, Arch is meant to be modular and customizable for advanced users.
There are a lot of big ones like Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Fedora or Arch. Arch is for users with a little more experience. But funnily enough Arch has like child-distributions, that build upon its core. Ubuntu is also a ‘child’ of Debian an Mint builds onto Ubuntu.
It’s kind of like three or four big families, that had lots of children. 😂
(and then there are NixOS, OpenSuse and lots of others, which I forgot)
I heartily commend you for asking, and was happy to see you get a good response.
“What is the most common distro” is not straightforward to shat because of the breadth of users. Arch is one of the more… esoteric… distributions, it will allow you very, very fine grained control of everything - but it also requires you to be able to make those choices. At the other end of the scale we might find Ubuntu and Mint which are far less customizable* but “just work” out of the box and, as such, are obvious choices for users new to Linux or unwilling to invest in “tinkering”.
Really, the freedom of choice is overwhelming to many newcomers, and at the same time the strength of the whole system.
*Any distro is very customizable. You can make nearly the same changes to Ubuntu and Arch, it’s just that Ubuntu is not designed to make that easy for you.
Much, much, much shorter answer:
It’s the equivalent to an operating system, like Windows.
Arch btw
And why is it arch?
Fedora 39, and it runs beautifully on my gaming laptop. I’m pondering trying out the COSMIC DE for kicks, but I’m also liking GNOME 45.
This question is like catnip for Linux users, we just can’t help it.
My usual go-to is to ask what their latest/current obsession is. It works really well for a few reasons:
- it’s nice and simple to ask - it doesn’t require a monologue/wall of text to set up, and it doesn’t require you to know anything about them to ask it;
- it’s both as personal and as low-stakes as they want it to be. They can give very intimate, in-depth answers if they feel like it, or they can just mention something like the latest film they enjoyed. There’s no risk of making them uncomfortable by asking it;
- it lets you filter out boring people who don’t really take interest in anything;
- assuming they do have interests, it often gives you plenty of opportunities to dive into deeper conversation;
- it’s often engaging for them because they get to talk about something they’re passionate about;
- it’s often interesting for you because people talking about things they’re passionate about is awesome (and often attractive).
- it’s pretty much always relevant and fresh because their latest obsession will change over time. This makes it particularly great for things like dating sites/apps because people’s bios will often be out of date and/or they’ll have talked about the things mentioned in their bio so much that they’re kind of sick of them.
I’ve actually had multiple people on dating sites tell me how great a question they think it is, and that they’re going to use it themselves in the future. So obviously it’s not just me who thinks it’s a great question!
I sometimes ask what has been keeping them busy, usually like that, I find it doesn’t work. What sort of phrasing do you use? Or is what I asking like really different from what you are referring to?
Pretty different, I’d consider it. Something may keep me busy, while not being passionate about it.
I (body) am normally busy bc of work-related shenanigans, but I (mind) am obsessed with the latest game installed on my PC.
That sounds really cool.
@fellow_germans: How can I express this in german? The literal translation “Was ist deine aktuelle Obzession?” doesn’t sound right, because of the different meanings of obsession. Maybe “Welches Thema beschäftigt dich gerade?”, though this also doesn’t seem to have the correct ring to it.
Have you seen that ludicrous display last night?
What was he thinking walking it in like that?
Thing about Arsenal they always try to walk it in
I had a friend in college that would just say, “So, what’s your deal?”
I’m shocked at how well it worked. Open ended, so you only get what they’re willing to talk about, but they’ll still be ok talking.
Sounds agressive. Doubt it would work in all circles.
Delivery had a lot to do with softening the approach.
Definitely not for all situations, but to be fair, no approach could be.
“What’s YOUR deal?” sounds pretty aggressive, “what’s your DEAL?” sounds borderline inflammatory, but I think there’s a very neutral delivery without particular stress that sounds more like an open ended question than an aggression. Still, probably not great around fully sober folks.
It might work in a college environment but if as an adult someone would ask me that I would not take it kindly.
So, what is your deal? What have you been up too?
What did you say about my mother?!
very neutral delivery without particular stress that sounds more like an open ended question
So. WHAT’s your deal?
Are you forklift certified?
Yes, And you won’t belive how it happend…
I can’t believe how easy it is to get a forklift certification. All online, never have to touch an actual forklift.
I don’t know if that’s common knowledge, but I just found out because I went through the process myself to get certified.
I can’t believe how easy it is to get a forklift certification.
That varies by jurisdiction.
Where I am, it requires a theory test and an in-person practical test.
And you need to re-certify every 3 years.
I’m in Illinois. After the online stuff, they sent me a certificate which has a signature line for someone at whatever company hires me, to be signed after they train me on the specific truck they have.
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If the answer is yes it’s immediate love at first sight.
Weirdly enough I dreamt someone did this right in front of me last night. My subconscious is odd.
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Quentin is that you?
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He’s been into feet in mostly all of his movies. Uma must have been a toe in his bucket list
What’s your favourite dinosaur?
What’s your favorite dinosaur?
Thanks to Jurassic Park it was the Velociraptor. But then I learned that their depiction was totally wrong. But then again my children taught me that they are even cool as murder chickens. So everything is well.
But still, I think the Emu is cooler.
Hell yeah murder chicken packs have to be scary!
“What defines a sandwich?”
Mate, are you looking to start a conversation or a heated debate?
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TIL you do NOT call a piece of meat on a bun a sandwich in AU/NZ… That’s called a burger. I argue a burger, regardless of its own definition, is still a sandwich.
A burger is a sandwich.
What are you doing in my bathroom?
“Who are you and how did you get into my house?”
I’m a locksmith, and, I’m a locksmith.
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Something that’ll lead to fairly flippant, casual, low-stakes chit chat about completely unimportant bullshit. People like getting a chance to get a sort of baseline reading of you, so talk about flippant, dumb, unimportant things for a little bit. Preferably ones that they are 100% certain to have recently experienced themselves, so it can go back and forth smoothly.
Given the diversity of humanity, this is a fairly short list. Weather, food, free time hobbies, etc. If they’re like a student, or work in a particular industry, that opens up a lot of options. But for a stranger? Just got a few to pick from. So, just pick one.
They call it “small talk” for a reason though. The real purpose of the talk has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject of the discussion.
The real purpose of the talk has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject of the discussion.
That makes it really confusing. What’s a good question, then? Ask about the weather?
Honestly? The weakness of the standard small talk topics is how common and banal they are, which bores people. I recommend them because they’re so easy, and the cost of boring people for a few minutes is fairly small.
But it’s not ideal. For ideal you need something flippant, unimportant but also novel. Since novelty is now valued though, that means you can’t be using the same thing over and over. Other people will probably have used it too, if it works, and that means its not novel.
So, the actual best ice-breaker topic? Some clever, interesting or amusing observation about something in your immediate environment that you can both look at. That adds thinking on your feet to the mix though, so is more of an intermediate level of social skill. Best to have the boring fundamentals nailed down first.
So, yeah, I’m perfectly comfortable leaning on something as dull as the weather. And it makes decent enough practice at chit chatting. But eventually picking more novel subjects that also fit the requirements is better.
The actual question would usually go something like “Hey, did you see that?”
What init system do you use on your Linux distro?
My go to is “how was your weekend?” Hopefully they’ll drop enough information that you can turn it into a conversation.
It usually ends in awkward silence. 🤐
I kind of hate when people ask my things like that because I often had a fun weekend but now can’t remember what all I did so I have to stop and remember for a while before answering, so I usually just say it was nice and hope they don’t ask for more details.
Eh. Yeah. I don’t usually have a lot in common with people, so I try to find some common ground that can start a conversation. I’m not very good at noticing what people like/do, so this gets a conversation moving.
I also forget my weekends. Which turns into a topic of conversation too. 😬
I kind of hate when people ask my things like that because I often had a fun weekend
I hate it for exactly the opposite reason - I seldom go anywhere or do anything interesting the weekend.
I hate when people ask me this because either it makes me think about how I didn’t get to what I wanted on the weekend, or how I was depressed over the weekend… On a good day the problem is that I mostly like to keep my hobbies and personal life to myself. I guess I’m probably hard to get to know 😅.
I know what you mean.
I started doing it because I noticed that I felt lonely at work, so I put an effort into small talk and making myself a bit more available. Part of that involved being more open about my hobbies and free time. It was worth it for me.
I had an acquaintance that started following hockey solely so she would have a conversation starter. I don’t have that kind of commitment, so I just do the weekend thing.
You: "How was your weekend?“ Them: glares at you in silence
