As a kid in the '80s/'90s, my hair looked exactly like Will’s from Stranger Things. When my peers pressured me to change my hairstyle in 7th grade, I tried a bowl cut. It was the same, just the bottom half was shaved. Looked super ugly.

In 8th grade, I tried a buzz cut, which seemed to be pretty popular with my peers. A little longer on top, tight on the sides, tapered in back. Back then, I think I asked barbers to cut it as a #4 on top, #2 on the sides. It was extremely low maintenance; I could just shower and towel dry and my hair was immediately dry and perfect for the day. My hair was so extremely thick and soft, people joked that I had fur instead of hair. I had a lot of comments that touching my head was like petting a puppy, or a bear pelt. My hair also grows straight out of my scalp, so if I took too long to get a haircut, I started getting a bit of a mini-'fro.

Then I joined the US military at 18 and got the buzz cut professionally trimmed every couple weeks. My hair grows extremely fast and we had military hair regulations that had to be maintained, so I constantly needed to touch it up. I changed my cut to a #2 on top, #1 on the sides, with a little extra length in the front. Of course, still tapered in the back. The military doesn’t allow block cuts, you have to taper the ends.

I spent 13 years with a buzz cut in the military. My wife spent most of those years begging me to grow my hair out, but I kept telling her I can’t; military regs prevent me from having long hair. Finally, she showed me a picture of Captain America from the Avengers movie. Claimed he was technically military, but he had longer hair styled in a way that was still within regs. So I agreed to grow out my hair like Captain America.

Unfortunately, I had started balding a bit in my late 20s. My hair was getting thinner and my hairline was receding. I didn’t have enough hair in the front to style it like Captain America’s, so I combed the front back and over to a side, giving a bit more lift in the front with what thinning hair I had left. I grew out all the hair on top of my head and parted it to one side. On the short side, I buzzed it right up to the part, then kept the sides buzzed short with a taper in the back. I would tell barbers to buzz with a #1 up to the part, then go “skin” on the sides and back, tapered on the back.

It worked fine for the last 7 years of my military service. Then I retired and spent nearly 3 years struggling to figure out a civilian haircut. I had spent so long adhering to military regulations that every time my hair got a little shaggy, I’d panic and get a military haircut again. But I also didn’t want people to immediately look at me as a military guy when they met me. Short hair made me look much older, and as I was just starting my 40s, looking older is not what I wanted anymore.

Finally, I just shaved my head. A complete reset on my hair. I figured, if I’m completely bald, I’m going to have to go through an awkward regrowth period, so I’ll be forced to deal with it instead of being able to fix it on a whim. I was fully retired after my military service, so I didn’t have to worry about looking presentable for anyone. I basically just holed myself up at home; no one saw my bald head except my wife. I should note that I have a wrinkly scalp that looks like a scrotum, so the bald look is really ugly on me.

After nearly 6 months of letting it grow wild, I finally got a trim. I parted my hair to one side and cleaned up around my neck and ears, but left the rest. My hair is still growing straight out of my scalp, so I need a little hair product to comb it down and hold it, but otherwise, it’s been holding a side part pretty well.

I also grew out a beard for about the past 4 months. When I retired a few years ago, my chin had a white spot to one side, and in the 3+ years since then, it’s spread to my whole chin. So my beard is salt-and-pepper with a solidly white chin now. I don’t really care for the beard, but my wife likes it and I get compliments on it from others, so I keep it trimmed neat and maybe an inch long. It definitely helps to hide the fact I was former military, since we couldn’t grow beards while serving. And it adds a unique character to my look.

Hmm, this looks interesting. And you can’t beat the free price tag. I’ll check it out.

Are you retired or young?

I’m retired AND young… well, relatively speaking. I retired 3 years ago, at 38 years old. I’m 41 now.

I was in the US military for 20 years, earned a pension, plus 100% disability through the VA. With the passive income and benefits (free medical/dental for life), I can afford to be fully retired now. I’m not filthy rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I make enough to live a quiet, relaxed life and have my basic needs met. And that’s good enough for me. Plenty of time to indulge in my many hobbies. And I have ADHD, so I’m always finding new and interesting things to deep-dive into.

I actually started a movie review blog about 6 years before I retired. I ended up taking a hiatus from it shortly after retirement and just haven’t been motivated to get back into it lately, despite all the movies and TV shows I watch regularly.

I switched to reviewing video games sometime last year and have been mostly keeping up with that; although it’s been over 2 months since my last review. I should probably make a new post soon, or declare another hiatus. 😬

I’ve been playing it this morning. Virus scan came back clean, and the game has been interesting so far.

That’s cool, no reviews yet then. Not a problem!

I play a lot of games (over 4,000 games in my Steam library) and I’ve made a hobby of reviewing them here on Lemmy over the past year. I especially love horror games. I would love to give it a playtest and provide constructive feedback.

It’s up to you if you’d like me to also post a review of it here on Lemmy or wait until a finished product is available. You can see my post history to see the kind of reviews I write, or you can check out my blog where I’m archiving my reviews here. Easier to browse the history of posts on the sidebar at that website.

Say what you will about Idiocracy, but President Camacho knew his country was suffering a problem and he found the smartest man in the world, hired him, and put him to work to resolve it. If only we could get Trump to care this much.

As a pansexual, intellect is the #1 most attractive trait I find in a significant other. I need someone whom I can have a solid productive discussion with. Intimacy only takes you so far; if you can’t bond on a mental or emotional level, then I can’t stay engaged in a relationship with you.

Empathy is a close second; without empathy, I can’t necessarily trust that your conversation or personal morals/goals are coming from a good place. And I will quickly start to doubt every choice you make in the relationship.

Physical attractiveness is always a bonus, but not required. I am happy with any gender, any body type. I have preferences, but they won’t make or break a relationship. My wife used to worry because she has the opposite body type to some of my preferences. But I informed her that her differences gave me a new experience and helped me to better appreciate her body type. There’s no such thing as a bad body type in my opinion.

I married my wife, not because of her looks or gender, but because she’s my best friend in the whole world. The one person I can talk to about anything and not hold secrets from. We understand each other, wholly support each other, and can agree on most things. And the few things we disagree on doesn’t hurt our relationship. You shouldn’t blindly agree with everything anyway. It’s good to have some conflicting opinions in your life so you don’t get sucked into confirmation biases.

Again, discussion is key. If someone just accepts what you say without any personal thoughts or opinions, then I don’t feel like they’re able to make informed decisions or use critical thinking skills. And that’s not attractive at all to me.

If you were a member of ISIS, you would be considered a member of ISIS regardless of whether you were a janitor or secretary or worked in the cafeteria or you were a combatant.

By this logic, all Americans are terrorists, since they exist under the rule of the US government and haven’t risen up to overthrow it. Therefore, complicit in its actions.

Which, by the way, is the mentality I was regularly exposed to while living abroad. There are some countries that judge our entire nation based on the actions of our government and persecute any citizens of that country because of it.

The world isn’t black and white. Real life is complicated. You can’t make blanket statements against an entire group of people based on the actions of an organization. That’s just encouraging hateful and biased rhetoric toward people you don’t know anything about.

That’s a life lesson I learned while traveling the globe. Some people treated me like a hero when I arrived; some treated me like a terrorist. None of them actually took the time to know me. I was judged based on the actions of the organization I associated with instead of taking the time to witness how I was trying to influence that organization.

And the same could be said of other countries. We’d receive reports of terrorist cells embedded in the populations of third-world nations and be told not to trust the citizens. Yet most people I encountered in that nation were grateful for our presence and glad that we kept the local crime and violence at all-time lows, simply by being there.

I worked with Iraqi citizens who begged us not to leave their country because they hadn’t known peace until we arrived; there was so much violent and murderous infighting between the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds. And having a foreign military power in the area, especially one with our reputation, prevented a lot of deaths and gave local citizens a chance to rebuild and get back on their feet.

I don’t believe in violence. I don’t believe in supporting rich powerful elites. I joined the military to help empower the working class; to give them the tools and resources to rise up against dictators and take back their rights as human beings.

And during my 20 years of service, I had a net positive result in that regard. I never had to raise a weapon against anyone. Never had to violate anyone’s rights while supporting their oppressive government. Never had to compromise my own morals for my job. I accomplished my personal goal of being a positive influence on this world.

You talk about Iraq as if it was a one-off, an outlier.

This was the largest conflict during my time in the military, so it was the first example I defaulted to. Yes, I’m aware that the US has involved themselves in foreign conflicts that it doesn’t have any right to be associated with. Heck, I’ve been protesting our direct involvement in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and the poor way we’ve handled the Russo-Ukraine War so far.

I am but one man. I can’t stop the US government from making bad decisions. But sitting on the sidelines and protesting something I don’t have any experience with hardly made a difference. I chose to be directly involved so that I can influence positive change from the inside.

While serving, I made sure my subordinates were educated on our military’s current actions. I made sure they made informed decisions when ordered to do something, so they would use critical thinking skills when given orders and not just be “yes men.” This was not only to protect them, but to ensure they made choices that helped people instead of pushing ruling party objectives.

The military is a propaganda machine, I won’t deny that. But by being directly involved, I could use that propaganda to push its members toward wholesome choices. The military claims they’re a humanitarian service? Fine, let’s do some solid humanitarian work! Let’s get outside and actually help struggling citizens.

Community volunteer service was a requirement in military life, and I made sure myself and my subordinates were actually affecting positive changes in communities instead of just going through the motions for the publicity. We rebuilt low income neighborhoods, set up organizations to house and feed homeless and/or abused people, created safe spaces for people to receive free mental health services, etc. I did my best to ensure we weren’t just showing up to a single public event to “help out” and then abandoning it the next day.

Change comes from within. You can shout and protest the government’s actions from the sidelines all day, but what are you doing to actually change them? Until you’re directly involved and have hands-on experience with that organization, you can’t really claim to be doing something positive. This is why I joined the military, despite my friends and family thinking I wasn’t the kind of person to do well there. I didn’t join to shoot people or spread hate and fear. I joined to use their power and influence to help out citizens. And I’d like to think I succeeded in that regard, while also positively influencing other military members to do the right thing.

My hope is that the “butterfly effect” of my actions permeates through the organization and continues to positively influence members. Heck, I’m still mentoring some of my old subordinates, several years after my retirement.

One of my friends is currently working for a unit stationed in Germany that is filled with pro-Trump members, and he claims it’s getting hard to see any opinions besides their view. We’ve had lengthy discussions on the destruction and harm Trump has been up to here in America. I’m hoping he can turn around and be a voice of logic and reason in his unit and spread some reality instead of the fascist propaganda that’s already settling in. If I hadn’t served, there would be at least one unit in Germany who is falling for that fascist propaganda. Every little bit helps.

If you’re a US citizen, I’d recommend getting involved yourself. You don’t need to join the military, but we need positive voices in local and federal government positions to fight against tyranny and oppression in our own nation. Our human rights are already on the chopping block and we need everyone we can to speak up against it from positions of authority. Even being on the board of your local town hall is better than nothing.

Yes, this was one of the common stereotypes I heard a lot, mostly from anti-war people who only view the military as a war vehicle. Fortunately, I had no direct involvement in terrorism during my service. We mostly engaged in humanitarian aid. Publicly, we promote ourselves as a humanitarian service, and in my experience, that was the majority of what we focused on. But some people (like myself, initially) only know the military through war films and assume we’re just there to kill people.

That’s not to say the US is completely exempt from bad deeds. For instance, the Iraq War should never have happened and there was literally no reason for us to be there. That was a very bad call by Bush Jr., who expected we’d find something to justify our campaign into the country. (Note: we did not.)

We have regulations about what type of orders we have to obey and what orders we’re required to disobey. Thanks to the Nuremburg Trials, we know that “just following orders” is not an excuse to carry out horrific actions. So if we’re given an order that violates the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), we’re expected to ignore those orders, and depending on the situation, we may even remove the person who gave those orders from command.

Honestly, I’m glad I retired when I did. I served during Trump’s first term in office and it was a dark time for us. But he was mostly restrained by a majority Democrat government that time, so most of the fascist ideals he demanded got shut down.

This time around though, he’s running with a majority Republican government and they’ve given him a green light to do as he pleases. He even replaced the Secretary of Defense with an unqualified alcoholic National Guard captain. Completely circumventing the promotion programs we have in place to ensure only the best and brightest are allowed to hold those positions. You’d better believe I’d be abusing the hell out of that regulation to disobey unlawful orders if I was still serving.

what OS do they use in the military?

It depended on the function, but most computers were Windows. Historically, Windows has had the most versatility with other common file systems that we and our allies/enemies used, plus it was easy enough for any service member to pick up and use with minimal training.

However, we always had custom-configured Windows images; we didn’t just install a blank copy. Like I mentioned, our systems were severely locked down, so there were plenty of registry configurations and custom software suites that would take us a few days per computer to install manually. So we would build one that met our requirements, then create an image of it and copy that to every other computer in our unit.

Depending on the unit, there might be custom software builds to meet a particular mission requirement, so there were always several images ready to be pushed to specific computers.

they believed that the best security was older systems that had been thoroughly tested for vulnerabilities

Oh no 😅 I am not a cyber security expert but that seems to me like a recipe for a disaster

It worked well enough for a while, but computer technology kept evolving, so we were constantly playing catch-up.

For the first half of my career, we were always at least one OS behind the civilian sector. When I joined in 2002, we were just phasing out Windows 95/98 and replacing it with Windows 2000.

Then in 2008, we were on Windows XP and Microsoft was trying to get us to upgrade to Windows Vista. Vista was a terrible OS, so we decided to just skip it and go for the new Windows 7 that was supposed to be coming out a year later.

Then Microsoft announced an end to support for Windows XP in a few months. We can’t have an OS without any support, so we quickly signed a contract to upgrade to Windows Vista. Before the ink dried on the new contract, Microsoft announced that they would be extending support on XP for 4 more years.

So we got suckered into a Vista contract, and as soon as Windows 7 dropped, we switched to that. We stayed mostly caught up ever since, although it could take up to a year before we switched to the latest OS. Our own cyber security teams did their own vulnerability assessments before pushing out a new OS across the Air Force, and that could easily take them months of testing and research.

In the last few years before I retired, the Air Force started testing the concept of handing computer support functions over to civilian companies. This was something they had been talking about long before I joined the military, but they were finally pushing forward with it. My last base was one of the test beds in the US, and AT&T took on the contract at that particular site.

Our base-wide IT unit had to hand over administrative access to our unclassified network to them, and as the civilian company took charge of more functions (and had security clearance investigations completed), we started handing over classified networks too. Which seemed wrong to me; we had always kept our classified networks secure by managing them ourselves, so handing it over to a civilian company felt like trouble.

It was even worse when Trump became president the first time and started discussing classified operations on Twitter. Dude had no concept of security protocols and messed up a lot of missions we had overseas, putting our members’ lives at risk so he could brag about secrets he knew.

He ordered us to give security clearances to a bunch of civilians whom we had already refused in the past for being a threat to national security. But you don’t say no to the president, so we started handing over classified access and before long, a bunch of our foreign operations started getting compromised. It was an absolute clusterfuck.

Things mostly went back to normal under Biden and I soon retired. I can’t imagine how messed up my old career field must be now, since Trump got back in office. All I can say is I’m glad it’s not my problem anymore.

They later said the only finished animations were the ones in the trailer. Live action filming was done, but they had barely gotten started on the CG animation when the awful trailer dropped, so it was easy to change course and redesign Sonic for the rest of the film. Also, the film was delayed while they made changes, so it did cause a setback.

Although I would believe that somebody dropped that trailer to prove a point that no one would watch a Sonic movie with that abomination. After the outrage and public backlash, the point was proven and whomever greenlighted the original design backtracked and let the animators fix it.

Of course there is Roger Craig Smith from AC II

Roger Craig Smith will always be my favorite Sonic the Hedgehog voice actor. The others are pretty good, but he has a quality that I personally feel captures the character.

Being in the Air Force, the job was mostly like any civilian IT job. We worked off a ticket system to resolve computer issues, dealt with “customers” (other military members), managed servers, satellites, networks, etc. The specifics depended on the exact job; it seemed like every base I was assigned to had different equipment or mission requirements, so I was always learning some new system to manage.

Probably the biggest difference from the civilian sector was that military networks were severely locked down. There were approved software lists that were managed from much higher levels in the Air Force and only that software was allowed to be installed on computers. Half the time, even us administrators at the base level couldn’t mess with installed software.

There were software scans that would detect unauthorized software and boot computers off the network until it was resolved. Most places I worked, you couldn’t bring CDs or flash drives with your own programs on them. USB devices would be flagged instantly and get your account kicked off the network until you completed remedial training through your local IT office.

Our web browsing was severely limited too. Some bases only allowed official military website access; others would allow access to the web but only from an approved white list of sites. It depended on the job and the classification of the network.

Also, they believed that the best security was older systems that had been thoroughly tested for vulnerabilities, so we were usually a step or two behind the civilian sector in terms of operating systems and software/hardware. They preferred that new systems were thoroughly tested in the civilian sector first, most vulnerabilities identified and remedied, and then we would trust it. So I rarely got to learn about modern IT technologies unless I researched it myself in my own free time.

EDIT: In terms of harassment, there was sometimes a lack of respect for the IT guys. Lots of higher-ranking officers made unreasonable demands, expecting us to make some impossible network requirement magically work because “that’s your job.” Or just getting mad when things were broken, because “Why do we have IT guys if things are always broken?” Or the same if things work: “Why do we have so many IT guys when nothing ever breaks?” We had our own leadership in the IT field whose job was to explain to other leaders exactly what we did and how it benefits them, so the rest of us could focus on the job.

The branch you join does make a difference in experience. I was in the Air Force, which is one of the most chill branches to serve in.

Despite the name, most Air Force members are not pilots. In fact, only about 5% are pilots, while the rest work in careers that either directly or indirectly support those pilots. We have doctors, lawyers, accountants, police, cooks, engineers, teachers, etc. I was an IT professional in my service, so my job was basically to sit at a desk and fix computers.

The Army and Marines tend to abuse their members, both mentally and physically, so I wouldn’t be surprised if those guys don’t recommend military service to others. I’ve heard horror stories from my Marine buddies, and I’ve personally witnessed some of the harassment/hazing rituals Army members go through.

They have a lot of toxic behaviors that keep getting passed down to the next generation. Surviving it and promoting above it is more a badge of honor than anything, so they subject the new guys to the same abuses to “toughen them up” or something.

The Department of Defense also uses it as an excuse to give them the worst equipment and hand-me-downs in the military, so they tend to operate with old and barely serviceable gear, while the Navy and Air Force tend to get the newest equipment.

But the Air Force was pretty fun. The Navy is pretty good too. They have some of the best technical schools in the armed forces, so they set you up with plenty of opportunities when you leave the service.

The Space Force is basically Air Force 2.0. All our space programs were under the Air Force until the Space Force was officially created, so they just transitioned those members into the new branch and copied Air Force regulations over until they could define their own unique requirements.

That is very true. Leaning more toward the terrible side, in my experience. However, the terrible people usually get out pretty early in their career, while the good people tend to stick around longer and make a full career out of it.

Not always the case; I’ve definitely met some terrible high ranking leaders in the military. But generally speaking, You need some solid core values in order to go far in your military career.

As a teenager, my friends and family always told me I was the nicest guy they knew… and they were genuinely shocked when I joined the US military.

I came home after Basic Training for a couple weeks before moving to my first assignment and everyone was surprised I came back successful. They expected I would’ve been kicked out for being too nice. In fact, I earned Honor Graduate.

I didn’t know much about the military when I joined, except for what I’d seen in old war movies. But they had some amazing benefits that I couldn’t pass up, and my uncle, a retired service member himself, highly encouraged it. I got free medical and dental, free college education, my initial career field training qualified me for most of an associate’s degree in my field, free travel around the globe, free food/housing… and they paid me to do it all. It was the best deal I could get right out of high school.

My whole military experience was a lot different than I expected; I spent a lot of time correcting stereotypes about military service with my friends and family. I actually had a pretty good career and retired after 20 years of service.

Do you use youtube mainly?

I use it pretty frequently. I wouldn’t say “mainly.” It’s a source of education and entertainment for me, but not my only one.

Do you care about clickbait?

It’s a pretty large annoyance to me, so yes, I do care about it to the extent that I wish it would go away.

Did clickbait make you stop seeing some creator?

Yes, I’ve purged creators from my subscription list solely because I was getting annoyed at the clickbait titles and/or title cards they used in their videos.

Did you use youtube but clickbait (among other things) made you to stop using it’s platform?

I avoided YouTube for a while, partly because of all the clickbait, but also because of the amount of ads popping up on the service. I only came back when I learned how to block ads. I tolerate a certain amount of clickbait now.

Do you think clickbait is the major of the YouTube’s problems?

One of the larger problems, yes. But not THE major problem of the platform. I feel issues with censorship, AI moderation, and an abundance of advertisements interrupting videos are worse issues that should be addressed.

Clickbait is more of a creator issue; it could be resolved by creators refusing to use clickbait to draw in viewers. Let the quality of their content speak for itself. But because monetized content is earned based on views, it creates an incentive to get people to click on your video no matter what, which promotes clickbait. If you’re using YouTube primarily to make money, then clickbait is the default most content creators go for.

I guess YouTube could fix that by changing their monetization standard. Maybe base it on popularity ranking over time instead of number of clicks or something. But it would take time to phase out clickbait, and I doubt it would ever fully go away.

Do you see something good in clickbait among the bad things? Like, which ones?

I personally don’t see any value in clickbait. It’s just a way to pull your attention in an ever-distracting online world. It’s the lowest common denominator of recruiting views for your content. I don’t hold any respect for anyone who employs it in their content.

Could we see clickbait as a necessary evil?

Never. It’s a tool used by people who don’t know how to market their own content to the general public. It’s using manipulation to draw your attention to content that typically doesn’t live up to the clickbait title. It’s an extreme action in a distraction-filled world to stand out.

With a little effort, creators could market themselves better and not need clickbait. But it’s the easy way out, and most creators would rather go this route than put effort into expanding their audience.

mine is risotto

Rizzo the Rat is unfortunately gone. His original creator and performer, Steve Whitmire, was dismissed by Disney in 2016 and they haven’t announced plans to hire a new performer for Rizzo since.

On the Muppets shows and movies, they’ve fully replaced Rizzo with Pepe the King Prawn. He’s Gonzo’s new annoying sidekick.

Me personally, I’ve always been a Kermit fan. He’s exactly like me, personality-wise. And I’ve definitely dated a Miss Piggy or two over the years…

I have not heard of that. I’ll have to look into it.