Sounds from the example like OP doesn't want to miss out on media they might enjoy just because they're not hanging out with young people anymore. Seems like a reasonable thing to want.

You have to discover it somehow, and that's what they're asking for help with.

What would happen then if you took a tree which only has leaves at the top and submerged it to just under the leaves? Does the bark need to be exposed to air as well or would it just rot out like timber does?

Honest question, why is there a difference between preference and orientation? If I'm ordering pizza and ask you for your topping preference, you'd tell me pepperoni, for instance. You don't get to choose what your preference is, it's just what you prefer. There may be reasons you have that preference (the taste of pepperoni, you don't like mushrooms, etc.), but it's not a conscious decision to prefer pepperoni, it's just what you like. I couldn't negotiate with you to make you like mushrooms over pepperoni, it's something you have to discover on your own.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't understand why there's a difference.

Everybody reading these comments and considering the implications needs to go read Blindsight by Peter Watts. It's a first contact story set in the near-ish future, and really goes into consciousness and intelligence. Very thought provoking if you thought this comment chain was interesting.

The Linux client isn't perfect, but you can download the openVPN config file and set up individual server connections yourself. It's all laid out on their website, fairly simple. If you know what you're doing, you can also edit the config files to allow IP-based split tunneling.

I don't really think that breaks the analogy; there are people who would refuse to eat mushrooms on pizza altogether, there are people who would not be unhappy with the mushrooms, and there are people who would only want mushrooms. In other words, a spectrum, right?

I feel they should be paid the median income of individuals in their represented areas. Might be a good way to get them to give a shit about the people they represent. I'm sure there would be complications, but it seems like a nice idea.

Proton has their own cloud storage called Proton Drive. If you buy the top VPN tier I think it includes all of the premium Proton services, Drive included. I think it's like 500 gigs for a single user account and 2 terabytes if you get the family account.

I believe there's a way to do it using iptables, but I'd have to look into it more again. You might get more experienced people answering if you search for "openVPN force traffic through VPN iptables" or something similar. Let me know if that helps!

Just putting it out there, but the National Weather Service has a free API here.

I'm out of the loop, what's up with Proton recently?

You might be thinking of Animals as Leaders, I can't find anything about Animals as Companions. And you're right, they're definitely prog metal. Super intricate riffing and bizarro time signatures. It's a good time! I'm not familiar enough with them to know what song you're talking about, but they're a very unique group.

Thanks for the thoughtful response! I guess the whole "identify with" part is what is tripping me up here. I don't live my life thinking about how I am attracted to whatever, I just am. Do you have more of an explanation for me on what it means for other people? Not trying to be inflammatory, just want to understand, because I've been curious about the "preference" thing for a while.

My understanding of the issue with static discharge is not necessarily that everything must be at the same grounded voltage as your home's circuitry per se, but that your body's voltage (static electricity potential) must be the same as the component's voltage. You can accomplish this by "grounding" yourself to the component by touching bare metal away from any IC components before handling it. You can also use anti-static wrist straps that essentially do the same thing continuously by maintaining a connection between your body and the component you're handling.

I am open to someone who knows more about this chiming in to correct me here.

I was in a drive through once and the person on the other end of the speaker greeted us with "Thanks for choosing so-and-so restaurant" and nothing else. So I said "you're welcome" because it felt rude to just go right into ordering when they didn't tell me to order. She didn't think it was funny.

Good info, thank you!

Ahh yeah, that sounds right. When you use the official GUI on Linux it creates an IPV6 killswitch connection along with the VPN connection. Sorry, I don't have any better answers for ya there.

Anyone know the song?

I can't speak about pfsense or router-based configs, I have zero experience there. The Proton website does have openVPN and wire guard manual setup instructions though. You could try it with a free account first to make sure everything works before committing to paying for it. If you're interested, I can show you the changes I made to the openVPN config file to allow split tunneling. Again though, I don't know how that translates to pfsense.