Good morning my DU family,

[usonian]

8. Great observation, John.

I haven't had TV for over 12 years.

I use DU and Hacker News as my "aggregators" and I can just skim the one-line titles to know what's going on, and what to read or not to read. Since Hacker News has over 200 posts a day, that's a challenge, and since tech was my living, that's not easy. Hacker, in this sense means white-hat coder, and the audience consists of coders, techies in general, managers and VC's.

But, as you noted, living in the country, not seeing neighbors, sparse as they are, for months on end, I put sports talk radio on, knowing that it's entirely meaningless (1) and good exercise, picking up the remote to halt the carpet-bombing repetitive ads, every segment.

(1) speculating on team moves is a waste, since the hosts and listeners have zero influence, and recounting game hits and misses is pointless. The deeds are done. Does it help to hear others vent? I think it's a guilty pleasure, even though negative vibes are not good, but they are someone else's negativity, and I have my own hobbies and chores (a very long list of chores).

Family being so far away, we do message and email all day, and there's community here. I quoted this to my family and it rang bells.

ALL THE SUPPORT FROM OUR DU FRIENDS REALLY DID MEAN A LOT -- when any of us finds ourselves in the midst of a crisis, it's not the crisis that beats you down, it's the loneliness. Knowing that folks you never met and never will meet are concerned about you, worried about you, sharing your worry keeps you going. THANK YOU ALL.

I don't think it was you, but a lot of us do love the shared values and compassion for others.