I get quarterly botox injections from my neurologist for my migraines. It’s 20+ little injections in my brow, jaw, neck, and shoulders. Before insurance would allow it, we had to try all other available treatments/medications, including a monthly at-home injection you give yourself. For me, at least, it’s been way better than the earlier treatments. I used to have 2-4 migraines per week at a pain around a 5 or 6 with a couple a year that would hurt more like an 8 or 9. Now I get 0-2 per week, usually no worse than a 3 on pain. It’s pretty common to go a few weeks without any, then just get one a week in the last month before my next injection.

Results vary a lot, probably because there are a lot of potential causes and even how we experience our migraines can vary so significantly. Efficacy can fade with time, too. But for me, at least, it’s held out for several years, and worked better than I or my doctor even expected.

I’ve always felt the Game Boy is the biggest icon of old Nintendo, before their more modern and less consumer friendly form. Its portability and low price also made it a more accessible system worldwide for many years, making it a good symbol of worldwide gaming for that era in general.

It’s a mess of proprietary software and drivers. Some of it I hopefully can get working, it’ll just take time. I’ve had a friend suggest a windows VM before, so I’ll definitely look into Quickemu and see how much I can manage. I swear one day I shall be free!

I’ll give that a shot, thank you! That will alleviate the latest, greatest annoyance at least.

I’ll still have to run OOSU10 for like three dozen other settings I can’t even remember, but that’s never going to change. It shouldn’t be that hard just to keep your settings.

I really do appreciate the tip, though. I will enjoy having copilot fuck off forever.

I know I have to turn this shit off every time, and I even have a program that reverts my settings in one click. But I still forget every damn “security update” until I notice that fucking copilot is on again. I will never, ever find it acceptable for my changes to be reverted on a regular basis. When any other program fails to keep my settings, it’s a bug and it’s a bad enough one that I usually don’t use the software. But Microsoft keeps doing it on purpose and it absolutely infuriates me that there isn’t more of a backlash.

I really wish I could get more of my stuff working in Linux to make a complete switch. I don’t even need all of it; I’ll give some stuff up.

Streaming can be a good fit. It’s a way to be social on your own terms from your comfortable space. You get to involve whatever other hobbies or hyperfixations you have at the moment. Almost anything works: games, programming, art, cooking, lego - I’ve even seen people do writing streams. Streaming itself is also as deep of a rabbit hole as you want to go down. You can just dip your toe in or you can learn all about audio, video, and other technical aspects of streaming depending on what catches your interest.

Just, if you do it, just don’t expect anything out of it. Do it for fun and learning. Enjoy the process. I’ve seen many people burn themselves out fast expecting money or viewers just because they go live. But that’s backwards. It’s the people who enjoy it that stick with it and learn. They stream regularly. They hang out in other streams and make friends. Then it doesn’t matter if they only have five people in chat, they’re still happy and having fun.

This probably at least plays a factor. It’s been researched, and people actually have different personalities in different languages. It’s a very individual thing, can be more mild or more pronounced, can vary over time, etc. It’s like a slightly split personality you access at will without realizing it (unless you pay attention).

Yeah, I understand very well. My disability is different, but money is still tight and when my Sound Blaster died it was really annoying trying to find a way to replace it within my budget and without rearranging my whole setup. I’m new to audiophile stuff too so it’s intimidating and a lot to learn.

For my use case, I look more into the USB audio interface side of things because I need to have an XLR input and a monitoring plug with zero latency. If you don’t need anything like that, then a DAC or a DAC/amp combo is what you want. I’m not really an audiophile and this is getting into that area so I’m not the best person to explain it. Definitely take anything I say with a grain of salt and make sure you check. But I think you only really need the amp if it’s required to drive your headphones. If you don’t have high impedance headphones, then you should be able to skip the amp and just get any DAC that fits your needs.

There’s a huge variety of brands, price points, and features. It’s dipping your toe into the audiophile world so the rabbit hole is bottomless, but you can also find very good quality gear on a budget. FiiO, Topping, and Hifiman are brands I recognize, but there are plenty of others I don’t which I’m sure would still be good. It’s the kind of gear somebody buys and expects to still be working in ten years.

The one thing I personally would look for is I would avoid anything with an internal battery. That’s why my Sound Blaster died. For whatever reason, they gave it an internal battery so you could unplug it and use it as a portable headphone amp. I never needed or wanted that, but the battery started expanding and died after over ten years, so that was the end. It’s not a feature I care about, so I’m better off getting something without a battery.

For what it’s worth, a quick search suggests any USB DAC should work fine in both Windows and Linux as long as it doesn’t require special software. So if you look for an affordable USB DAC with physical buttons/dials and all the inputs and features you want, that should help narrow things down to start. You can definitely find one with multiple inputs for both the speakers and a headset, and possibly different volume settings. But I’m not sure - different settings for different inputs might also be more in the realm of a USB audio interface, which may not be as good of a fit for your situation. But you could always look: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 and Motu M2 2x2 are very strong contenders for me.

Also, at least in the US, Sweetwater is a reputable site for audio gear. I’m sure there are others, of course, but it’s a start.

Good luck!

I haven’t made the switch away from Windows yet, but I hope to try in the near future. So I don’t know if my suggestion is of any help to you. But I’m one of the other weirdos not using onboard sound. Is there a reason you need a PCI card specifically?

Most good options these days are external. I had an external sound blaster for years that I bought before learning that it was basically just a sound blaster branded external DAC. When I can, I want to replace it with either another external DAC from a proper audio manufacturer or a USB audio interface.

If you look for those instead of sound cards, you’ll find a lot more options. I have no idea if that’s useful to you or if any of them work in Linux, though. Well… some idea. I know somebody who I think is running Linux with his DAC, now that I think about it.

So, I hope that’s helpful to you. Cheers :)

If you’re the type that can learn stuff online, growing your own is very easy. You can do anywhere from just a couple inoculated cups of instant rice to turning it into a full blown hobby.

Best practice is usually found on the shroomery message boards. Even if you end up just buying some, they have a wealth of advice for newbie psychonauts too. There’s no shortage of reading material for those with enough interest.

I had too many notepad++ tabs, so I let the autism drive and organized them into a smaller number around general topics, like “work notes” and “reminders”. But then it was too much of a pain to figure out which file I should choose in the moment, so I’d use an unnamed tab at the end to collect those hasty notes that I could go back and sort later when it was less immediate. Then the unnamed tab started to get long and unwieldy so I added a second unnamed tab.

I am up to seven unnamed tabs.

I’ve always felt like an outlier, but yes. I can go an astoundingly long time without human contact and be totally fine. I was shaking my head during the pandemic when people were getting antsy after only a week. Well before that I once realized I literally hadn’t spoken to anybody for over a month and it didn’t even register as odd.

Yes, “shawnan” is correct.

omg I can’t believe it took until seeing this to realize what his name meant. I’ve known about him for decades.

I’m similar. Definitely way more sluggish and depressed in summer, and my sleep is very poor even if I control the temperature. I enjoy rain and darkness. I prefer night shift. Autumn is my favorite because summer is finally over and it’s the longest time before summer comes again, plus it has the best holidays. I sleep best in winter and I’m more productive, energized, and happy.

But unlike SAD, it’s a lot harder to fix than just getting a sun lamp. I already do sleep in as dark a room as I can get during the day, but it’s never enough. Though the few times I’ve had access to a truly pitch black room to sleep in, it’s been really helpful.

It’s a weird way to be and most people really don’t understand.

It’s a fun sport to watch for so many reasons, but the first that stuck out to me when I first saw it was how fast it is. Sure, there’s a lot of ceremony and lead up between matches, but the matches themselves are short and intense. If you watch a summary that cuts straight to the matches or just have it on while you do other stuff and look up when the match is about to start, you’re basically getting nothing but highlights. Every single match is worthy of a slow mo action shot.

The more you learn about it, the more interesting it gets.

It has its moments of quiet exploration and somber reflection, but it’s nothing if not varied. It’s chill in that there’s no penalty for dying and indeed you’re literally forced to. But it’s still wild and exciting, and sometimes even terrifying.

While I was playing, I had someone ask me my favorite death and I knew my answer right away. That was one of the moments I realized my experience of the game had started to flip, because I had been enjoying even the parts I hated.

Better time control helps a bit too. You can wait at the fire before launch to get a better alignment for where you want to go or for a specific event. I think it was the tornado planet I tended to wait a short bit just so it lined up better? You can also end a loop early, but that you have to be taught. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say, but if you do don’t finish this paragraph (not sure my app is doing spoiler tags right):

As for my favorite death: I was trying to land on the interloper but missed slightly and it flew right past me. I scrambled to change momentum and chase after it. It got farther and farther away but then slowly I started gaining on it again. I gained more speed and started leveling out after what felt like minutes of turning as hard as I could at max thrust. And then the sun appeared from off screen, like an angry father that just caught a misbehaving child. My punishment was immediate and thorough.

I couldn’t stop laughing for the entire loop animation. (and then I went to the interloper as planned)

It did for me too the first time I played. I’m very bad with time limits and feeling rushed. It was never going to be a good fit for me.

But a friend convinced me to try again and it did eventually get better. It’s a combination of things that’s hard to quantify. The log of hints/objectives in your ship is a huge help, as is making liberal use of the autopilot. Then as the game unfolded and drew me in, I couldn’t put it down. Now it’s one of the most unique and unforgettable experiences in my nearly 40 years of gaming.

It starts out as a bunch of random stuff to explore and it didn’t feel to me like there was much direction or even motivation. But the more I explored and learned, the more I started to ask certain questions. I’d find myself thinking I wanted to explore a place with something specific in mind. But it’s a gradual shift that builds and builds and keeps building like a book that you forced yourself to read one chapter a night. Then it’s two, and before you know it you’re keeping yourself up way too late reading until you’re left empty that there’s no more.

I only say this because you always hear about the people who adore Outer Wilds, and I wasn’t one. I utterly bounced off it and set it down for years. But I’m so glad my friend got me to try again. I want other people like me to know that you can still get into the game and end up loving it even if it didn’t click at first. It’s also okay if you don’t want to. But I have only heard one person ever say it wasn’t worth it, and it was someone who spoiled themselves.

So, so many people couldn’t handle living in a world that wasn’t built around their needs. For one brief moment I got to experience what it’s like to live in a world that actually fits mine.

I’m sure you’ve heard all kinds of advice, so I won’t add more. I just wanted to say I hope you give yourself a chance someday. I hope you find something or someone that helps you heal. But it’s okay to take a break for a while too.