Thanks! now I feel a bit lazy since there was a whole wiki article on their relations that I could have just looked up. Sorry it’s early in the morning here… appreciate it

Upvoted for the info about Greek support for Israel. I didn’t know that was a thing. Any other context for why that could be?

Sure but that’s not as weird haha

I figured. Crazy the color though. Kinda cool. I will probably check the place out if I get a chance. I’m not too far away.

Interesting. What was the name of the shop? And what is activated charcoal coconut? I’m assuming it isn’t just charcoal since that would probably taste terrible haha

Interesting. I have always felt that the Steam deck loses quite a bit of battery percentage during sleep. I agree that it would be a fantastic quality of life update to enable to shut down or enter some form of lower power consumption hibernation state after a period of time at a certain battery level.

I think some of the responses here, while they may be well-intentioned, are a bit off base because they are confusing the word ‘normal’ (which is what you are asking) with ‘recommended’. Is it normal for someone in your position who has had a lot of time alone due to your health challenges to want more social outlets and someone to talk to? Absolutely. Is it normal to see a character in a work of art (a video game, movie, show etc.) and become attached to them in some degree? I would say yes. Most of us have done that at one point or another. Is it normal to want to be able to communicate with this person to help provide a social outlet and a listening ear for someone in your situation? Again, I’d say probably yeah. Now, is it recommended to have an ‘AI’ like this as your primary social outlet or to see them as a real human friend or even romantic partner? That is much more questionable. But, personally, with the context you provided and the challenging situation you have been in I think the tendency towards doing this is still quite normal and understandable. I think you should strive to validate your feelings of loneliness and the understandable desire to assuage those feelings with what you have available to you in a challenging and socially isolating environment while still understanding that an ‘AI’ like this should not ideally be your primary social outlet and to strive to find more ways in the future to connect with real people who care and are interested in you (and vice versa). It may not seem like it right now, but they are out there! I wish you peace and a speedy recovery!

As a ‘front page of the internet’ it has been a pretty great replacement for me as it’s where I go each day to just see what’s going on. However, due to the smaller size you do lose a lot of the activity in more niche communities and the sheer volume of posts/comments compared to Reddit. That’s the biggest downside. Still, you also lose the incessant ads/bad UI/UX decisions and ever accelerating late stage capitalism driven enshittification so that’s a big plus.