Looks like I registered just one day before you! Do you remember what was going on that led us to sign up? I was very young back then and have no recollection.

As a kid Velveeta was my favorite mac and cheese brand. I tried it more recently and I don't know WTF I was doing as a kid.

Every use of American cheese could be suitably replaced with either cheddar or provolone, assuming you want to maintain the safe, non-intrusive flavor.

Gouda on burgers is delicious.

I remember when Google+ was new, and still in closed beta. Everyone I knew was excited for it, even the tech-illiterate Facebook moms and grandparents. But it was invite-only for so long that people lost interest by the time it opened to the public. In the end only a handful of my school friends signed up, and we all abandoned it after a couple weeks. Its design felt sleek and modern at the time but it wasn't that much better than Facebook.

It may have failed as a Facebook replacement but it's still in heavy use among certain communities, especially tech (Linux and Android). Linus Torvalds, for example, used it as his main public-facing social media (though he seems to have stopped early this year). A lot of groups on there are thriving and are gonna be hit hard by this. Still, I was wondering if/when it would be shut down just a couple days ago. They were pushing it so hard for a while that shutting down seems like an admission of defeat, even if they abandoned their G+ centric strategy a long time ago.

Starting with first to drop:

1. Facebook. Although I have an account, I am barely active there. I get the general impression that Facebook is a dying platform among my age group (18-24). Most people communicate through other mediums, and a number of people I know have deleted their accounts.

2. Microsoft. I stick with Windows for stability and gaming, but I have enough experience with Linux that a permanent switch would be reasonably smooth. Windows is the only Microsoft product I use.

3. Google. The only Google services I use are Google Drive's excellent $2/100GB deal, Google Play, and the search engine itself. Finding another cloud storage provider with good pricing and getting Google services off my phone would be an ordeal. DuckDuckGo is an okay replacement for Google Search though.

4. Amazon. I buy a huge amount of stuff on Amazon. Most of it would cost at least 50% more at a brick and mortar store, assuming I can even find it locally. Financially, I'm not sure I could afford a switch to local stores. I also use Prime's video collection as my primary streaming source, and Amazon is where I rent my textbooks.

5. Apple. At this time, I don't actually use any Apple products. But I don't find them as abhorrent as the other four, and it wouldn't be a big deal to me to use a Mac or an iPhone.

What news program are you running in the dirty screenshot?

It's more saying than doing but:

My friend in South Africa told me she was off school because it was Youth Day. I made a joke about it, because she seems to always be off school for silly-sounding government holidays (Family Day, Freedom Day). Turns out Youth Day is about remembrance of some sort of Apartheid school massacre...

729 days ago :D

If you mean specifically posts (not comments), I've only posted one, and it was 610 days ago:

Language learning - I've been interested in languages for my whole life but I was usually too lazy or pessimistic to get into it. About six months ago I started learning French and I wish I had started sooner.

Reading - I was a voracious reader in elementary school but then depression happened and I couldn't focus on books at all. In early 2014 someone from the Random Acts of Amazon subreddit gifted me Heart of Darkness and I felt obligated to read it. So I forced myself through it (I also forced myself to understand it), and the feeling of victory I got when I finally finished it led me to start another book. Now I'm an avid reader again. It was kind of an odd approach though, and I wouldn't recommend Heart of Darkness as an introduction to books :P

I posted to Reddit quite a bit and got really good at it. I quit when I realized Reddit basically shaped everything about me - my views, my interests, my humor, even my friends. I also realized I wasn't being myself on Reddit and that was a problem. Now I have a secure anonymous account that I use for personal things and that's all the Reddit I do.

I have the BBC News app installed, for the major/basic stories. I also follow a lot of journalists, pundits, and bloggers from all over the place on Twitter. It gives me a good perspective of what's going on in the world. I realized a long time ago that looking for entirely neutral news only leads to disappointment (although the BBC does a pretty good job) - it's much better to follow a well-balanced group of biased people from across the spectrum.

Haha, I was 12 when both of those things happened.

The only thing on that site that really made me feel old was learning that Hurricane Katrina was over half my life ago. All that media coverage feels like yesterday.

I don't think it can. There are things that can be done to slow it or negate it (i.e. not having downvotes), but in the end that's just the way people are.

The Doors - Riders on the Storm

And any of the slower Muse songs.

I found it in a similar way a long time ago. I haven't been as active here as I should be because I've started moderating some subreddits. I've improved my Reddit experience a lot by being extremely picky about the subreddits I participate in. I think eventually I'll even get sick of those and move on to Hubski full-time.

Cincinnati, Ohio