Hardware: what you currently have on hand to play around with.

Software: start with something simple and well documented. Not quite the driver for the learning phase, in my personal opinion.

“Utilities” as you call them: What is useful to you? What do you want to play with or need to improve your personal use case?

I don’t mean to be flippant with my answers here. Do a little introspection and determine what is genuinely useful for you to self host. I personally run Technitium, Jellyfin, a portion of the "-arr"s, Immich, and Navidrome. My family uses all of these services/utilities on a daily basis, so they are useful for me to host. I have some of the services that need CPU and GPU processing power running on my gaming PC and others running on a Lenovo ThinkCenter that I got for free from the IT department at work. They have bins of PCs slated for recycling that work perfectly fine but are “outdated”.

That’s horribly bleak. For what it’s worth, I hope you stay safe and have your basic needs met.

How much of an impact does federal/local government (or equivalent distinctions in Iran) have on your daily life? What does a typical day look like for you?

Oooh, that one looks bitey!

I’m just a geologist, so I only know which minerals are friendly or not haha. But yes, I always do my best to approach nature with a good dose of respect. Nonvenomous snakes bite, too, so no sense in stirring it up.

Absolutely! I’m very much an “observe nature doing its thing without interfering” type of person.

Perfect! I’m glad it was a friendly one

Okay, looking at the photos in the link, I’m pretty sure I saw a milksnake. I’m happy that I had a dull wildlife encounter! The state forest I was at is in southeast Ohio, and ODNR cautions that both timber rattlesnakes and copperheads have been observed there. I went with a healthy dose of respect

Dang, that’s a bummer, but I totally get making sure your dog was safe! Where I was hiking is in the territory for timber rattlesnakes and copperheads, so I was doing my best to be vigilant while huffing and puffing along the trail. I thankfully saw this one well ahead of stepping on it and getting bitten. That certainly would have put a damper on the fun

Shit, what about the giant clouds of asbestos dust that wafted through DC when the demo happened? They absolutely did not do any of the required sampling, abatement, or control measures throughout the surprise demo.

As cool as the breeze from a camel’s behind.

Oh it doesn’t happen every time or anything. It’s more just what my wife and I call any fart the day after drinking kombucha.

I get the intent of the question. As in, should the focus be on parents with non-adult children rather than parents with adult children and/or grandchildren? Not that all parents aren’t celebrated, but the parents actively doing it every day should receive more focus than those not actively parenting

Reminds me of a song with the same name

The gas production as a result of drinking kombucha

I like it. It produces the phenomenon of “bucha butt”

More phrases/references that we quote: “I just need to be pure” from Frank shaving his body and slathering himself in hand sanitizer.

“Can I offer you an egg in this trying time?”

“Because of the implication!”

“I need my tools!”

My first cat was partially deaf from a severe ear infection as a kitten. She would sit near the subwoofer when I played metal. I guess the bass drums made purr-like vibrations.

My current cats have no reactions whatsoever.

Knowledge and wisdom are not the same. Wisdom is knowledge compounded by experience. The examples you list are not wisdom, nor are they necessarily knowledge. They are parenting techniques with obvious flaws.

As for 18 being the magic number, that’s pretty societally arbitrary. Sure, one is legally an adult at 18 in many societies, but that doesn’t mean they have life experience to amount to having wisdom. Many 18 year olds know enough to function in society, but they’re realistically still children from a developmental standpoint. There’s no magic age for anything.

Strongest butt cheeks east of the Mississippi!

In reality, I’m simply a geologist