Must have been first day of the season if they were sharp enough to cut.

Obfuscated vpn seems to work if your vpn service supports it. I'm on nord.

I actually had trouble with that without a vpn as well. Very annoying.

I'm unaware of any dangerous varieties to it's just a nasty nip.

Kissing bugs are a type of assassin bug and carry Chagas. A pretty awful parasite. Though I don't recognize this bug as the vector I'm more familiar with.

I find maintaining text conversations quite difficult. If text conversations happened as straightforward back and forths the way speech conversations do, it would be fine. But through text I have to maintain multiple conversations more or less continuously. The whole exchange can take days with long gaps in between as each person gets to the texts when they get to them. For something that could have been settled in 5 minutes on the phone while driving back from work.

And I have to go back, remind myself what we were talking about, remind myself what I need to know and what they need to know, then agonize over the wording for a while. Often ill see the notification, say ill deal with it later, then forget.

In addition, I have to stop everything else to text. For a phone call I just throw in an earbud and keep washing the dishes or whatever the hell else im doing.

I have adhd. So perhaps that is a factor. I have trouble switching between and engaging in tasks. Texts are a constant source of distraction. Often after dealing with a text, it'll take just as long to switch back to what I was doing previously as it would have to have the whole conversation as a phone call.

Texting definitely has its place. Don't get me wrong. But remember that while a phone call may annoy you for a few minutes, the constant stream of texts are annoying to me constantly.

Chile and peru. I would call it Chilisimo.

It would certainly resolve those water rights issues.

Edit: india and Pakistan would also be... interesting.

A lot of places are apparently using more sensitive tests that can detect longer and with far more specificity. (Like not just "its positive" but like a line chart showing a time line of consumption for a week or more.

TBF... grammar and spelling are way more important in public social media posts than in private, internal correspondence. That really doesn't sound like micromanaging to me. Though it does sound like possibly bad management.

1st of all, no reason to include everyone on that. That should be a private conversation/message between boss and SMM.

2nd, the boss needs to sit down with SMM and try to discuss why the company is being publicly represented with bad grammar and spelling mistakes. That is not a minor quibble. It is a core job duty. You shouldn't be seeing it all the time in the chat because it shouldn't be happening all the time. Clear expectations need to be set and subsequently followed.

If you are aiming to test intelligence and design a test that deliberately obfuscates the role of socioeconomic factors on cognitive development, you end up with a test that seperates people based on socioeconomic status the same way it currently seperates based on age.

Variation in results between socioeconomic groups can indicate biased testing procedures. But it can also indicate systemic social issues. Or something else. And if it is the latter rather than the former, then what you are not protecting oppressed groups from unfair testing. But are instead dismissing evidence of oppression because you don't like it.

You score like 30% higher on average if you're white, wealthy or western.

That doesn't inherently undermine the validity of the test. Environmental factors have tremendous effects on cognitive development. Nutrition, education, socialization/engagement, support, etc.

Pretending for a moment that IQ wasn't completely meaningless at face value, one should expect privileged groups to score better on a well designed test. Simply due to having greater means to control said environmental factors.

Society is inherently biased in favor of privileged groups. It's literally axiomatic. Why would test results not reflect that?

Understandable. I had bad experiences with antidepressants as well in the past and similarly swore off them. Ketamine therapy did work wonders for me though. The nice thing about it is that there are no withdrawals or anything like that. You take it, feel wooby for a bit, then for some reason afterwards some people feel much better. Probably doesn't work for everyone. And sometimes requires multiple sessions. But it works fundamentally differently and the specific issues you likely had with antidepressants in the past are unlikely to be an issue with it.

I am not a doctor. Just a random stranger hoping for the best for you. Not telling you what to do. I know it feels pretty shit having others act like they know your life better than you. Alls I'm suggesting is not to just completely write off the possibility of things getting better. Our brains can be lying sons of bitches.

Don't give up on treatment. I know how daunting and unpleasant it can be. But the alternative is worse. And even if it doesn't work, attempting front line treatments that don't work can be a necessary step to trying other treatments that might.

In the time since you gave up on therapy and meds, the FDA approved the first new class of antidepressants since Prozac hit the market in 1988. (Esketamine) I can say anecdotally that it can work wonders for at least one otherwise treatment resistant depressed individual. But getting it requires proof of having tried other options first typically unless you are about to pay out of pocket. (Assuming US here)

The only time I cheated in a relationship was when I went on a once in a lifetime sort of trip abroad and the moment I landed I received a call that if I didn't turn around immediately she was going to unalive herself. The relationship was fairly short (maybe 3 months) and already quite... rocky. (Borderline, bipolar, and a host of other psych issues) But for me that was the final straw. In that moment the relationship was over. I just had to get home to let her know in person. Called her family to let them know what she said and to keep an eye on her. And checked out. (Mentally. I checked in physically to the hotel)

Didn't seek anything out. But when the opportunity presented itself, I didn't turn away.

In general, I would agree that cheating is a terrible thing to do. But I'm not sure in that specific situation I would have done anything differently.

My sex ed teacher started out with "I am not just here to teach you how to have safe sex. I am also here to teach you how to have great sex."

And she fuckin did. We had a full lesson on the importance of foreplay. On techniques. She even went into the details of proper anal play.

And she also was really good about talking about enthusiastic consent (before that was a commonly used term) and on maintaining healthy relationships outside the bedroom. (Or car... or random shack in the woods... or whatever. Teens be crazy)

It was kinda weird having a middle age woman enthusiastically describing the alphabet technique to a coed class of 16 year olds. But TBH it was really great.

When she stressed the important of safety on something we all took her seriously. Because we knew she wasn't just telling us because God says so or whatever.

Agreed. As a person with a dick, I call bullshit. It ain't that hard to rearrange things down there.

My issue is my hips seem to want my legs apart. It requires active effort to keep them from splaying. L Don't know if that is typical for women as well. Our hips are generally different. But I don't know if that contributes to the issue. Regardless, it isn't a friggin 45⁰ angle.

Report to nobody. That should be left to the lawyer.

CSAM (CP) laws do not necessarily have a mechanism for safe self reporting. The report itself skirts far too close to the line as an admission of guilt to risk. It is one of those situations where the potential consequences are simply too high not to consult an attorney before acting.

Creepy Google searches aren't illegal themselves anyway. But regardless, the point remains the same. Speak to no one but legal counsel.

I am not saying it was a good law. Just that it isn't really on par with literal treason extending an evil war for personal gain. More of a shitty thing that might have seemed to make sense during the oil crisis. The effects have been bad. But on the scale of evil laws, it seems more like a bad law than an evil one.

Also it gave us the song and subsequent film convoy. So id call it a wash. (/s of course)

Unless are you suggesting that the deliberate intention of passing that law was to benefit the war on drugs? Amidst the oil crisis, with gas lines piling up, Nixon saw people with odd numbered lisence plates lined around the block. He looked at this and said to himself, "I bet we can use this to sent more people to prison."

Certainly not on par with... gestures around... all the other shit.

National maximum speed limit law of 1974. In effect until 1995. Effectively banned speed limits in excess of 55mph. Official speed limits exceeding that were basically nonexistent during that time. Though the defacto speed limits were much higher.

Not really sure why it was mentioned here. It was one of those laws that probably seemed sensible at the time. And honestly could seem sensible today.. Certainly not evil. The stated goals were reasonable. Increase safety and reduce fuel usage.

Just really, really annoying and inconvenient. And hated for obvious reasons. And wildly ineffective. Overall just meh.

Hmm. I will have to look into it more. I've got a few historian and anthropology friends as well that I've talked about this with. They seemed pretty confident that beer was a significant source of nutrition historically. But I don't actually remember them talking about the people themselves recognizing that. They spoke more in terms of beer as compensation for work and the estimated beer consumption per capita and the nutritional content of that beer. So it wasn't so much a "they said it was important nutrition" as "it was a significant source of nutrition".

I do find it extremely difficult to believe that they wouldn't have realized that beer had the same effect as bread with regards to hunger. At least in a bind. They didn't have the same scope of knowledge as us but they weren't stupid.

But perhaps somehow, despite it being such a significant part of society, they were unaware that the solid thing they made of grain, water, and yeast was more or less the same as the liquid thing they made out of grain, water, and yeast.

The nutritional benefit was most certainly understood. That's crazy pants. Do you think people 100, 1000, or even 10,000 years ago were unaware that starvation sucks? They didn't need to understand the ins and outs of metabolic pathways, vitamins, and minerals to understand that grains make the hunger go away.

Small beer was basically a shelf stable nutrition shake for the masses. And likely just pleasant and refreshing. But most people drank plenty of water.

I read it in high school on a plane. No idea what I was getting into. Just some random book I found. It was not the best choice for reading in a confined space surrounded by strangers.

Ensuring potability was probably a factor in some instances. But harmful pathogens can generally be killed via boiling. And any issues with water or food contamination that cannot be handled by boiling aren't going to be handled by fermentation either. Probably not always the case. I'm sure there are specific situations where the yeast eat toxins not handled by boiling. Microbiology be crazy.

But the real benefit was the nutritional content. Beer contains grain and other things. It lasts a long time and is relatively easy to digest. So low ABV beer was used as basically an old timey nutrition shake. Nutrients and hydration in one convenient package. No preparation required.

My dad was jewish. Never really experienced it growing up in a very jewish community. (I was shook when i found out Jews didn't make up half the population. I was way too old for that revelation)

But I've moved out to the boonies and work blue collar now and yeah. Don't really know how to respond to it. To some extent its just part of the culture. Lots of joking back and forth about each other. And no one takes it personally. Stuff I wouldnt personally say at all. But to them it's just banter. And it almost feels like it would be worse to be the odd man out on it.

I've mostly taken to responding in kind to the intent.