Loquat
2hr ago
My sister has several books by Jeff VanderMeer, and I've borrowed and/or read-while-visiting multiple times, and always regretted it. I think my most recent encounter, with the story "The Third Bear", crystallized for me the idea that I really don't enjoy the way basically every character in a VanderMeer story is guaranteed some sort of horrible fate, and I hope to start actually remembering this going forward.
Loquat
6d ago
Ooooh, the original version without the extra CGI Lucas added in decades later? I'm already sold.
Loquat
13d ago
Oh, there were several pardons that covered "any offenses against the United States" committed from Jan 1, 2014 up to the date the pardon was issued. Hunter Biden got one of those, and so did Anthony Fauci and Mark Milley.
Loquat
13d ago
Skiing, particularly the downhill variety. My husband loved it in his youth, and has recently gotten back into it, but I never touched a ski until middle age, and I was never a particularly athletic person to begin with. I got to the point where I could successfully do the bunny slope from top to bottom without falling down, but I just don't enjoy it at all. My husband likes to compare it to going down a water slide, which I do enjoy, but a water slide demands no special skill or equipment to have fun, whereas skiing really does.
He went ahead and bought me cross-country skis and boots anyway, though. At least that type I can practice in the back yard, and potentially even use in a winter emergency situation.
Loquat
18d ago
I'm sure there's some inside-baseball explanation for why it makes sense; semaglutide has the same thing going on, where it's Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss.
Loquat
19d ago
That's not correct, tirzepatide is approved for diabetes under the brand name Mounjaro. My husband's been on it for about a year, officially to treat his type 2 diabetes, but he's been so successful with weight loss that his doctor has lowered his dose and warned him against developing an eating disorder.
Loquat
21d ago
I believe Ta-Nehisi Coates has an anecdote from when he was a young man, new to the white-collar world, where basically he was ready to physically fight some guy who was arguing with him, and an older guy had to step in to talk him down and also explain to him that starting a fight in that situation would have almost certainly wrecked his budding career.
Loquat
27d ago
Many of us prefer the improved airflow and sense of space that comes from leaving internal doors open, though, that's why we're all criticizing your plan.
Loquat
27d ago
I'm with you. My house has this in the master bedroom, where the hallway door opens into the walk-in closet door, and with a closet it's not quite annoying enough to want to do something about, but I can tell I'd hate it with a more high-traffic intersection like a bathroom.
Loquat
28d ago
It helps that they set up a romanization system, Pinyin, so you can read/write at a basic level even without learning any Hanzi.
IMO the Chinese grammar structure isn't too hard for a native English speaker, and there's no verb conjugation whatsoever, so there are some upsides.
I've been doing Chinese on Duolingo for a couple of years now, only because my husband (who's doing Spanish) bought a family membership. It's only been tolerable because I studied Chinese in a classroom setting several years earlier, and retained a lot of the basic grammar; I would absolutely not recommend Duolingo for a newbie. HelloChinese seemed good, although you do hit a hard paywall before too long.
Loquat
1mo ago
I attempted to have a gentler and simpler version of the "trans ideology is actually misogynistic" conversation with a woman I know recently. (Results inconclusive - at least she hasn't dropped me as a friend.) As best as I can tell, this is one of those issues where my pro-trans feminist mom friends are genuinely unaware there's a conflict of interest because the problems are simply not reported on by mainstream outlets, and most people aren't inclined to sit down and think through the full implications of, e.g. what happens when you abolish psychiatric gatekeeping and let anyone who says the magic words, "I identify as a woman" have full access to all women's facilities.
Loquat
1mo ago
I'm a big fan of Blue Lions myself, though you could probably chalk most of that up to Dimitri being chick-bait. One of these days I should really go back and finish that game, lol.
Loquat
1mo ago
I saw that interview, and I saw her with Colbert, and also with some other journalist whose name escapes me now, and man oh man this lady does not want to acknowledge that anyone could have any legitimate concerns about Biden. It's like watching the Monty Python sketch about the dead parrot - Biden's just resting, see, he's pining for the fjords!
Loquat
1mo ago
I would argue that whether society should protect people from their own bad judgement depends in large part on whether said bad judgement can profit others, who then have an incentive to encourage more of it. I see there's already a discussion of the newly widespread advertising for sports betting in this thread, and I've certainly seen other people publicly worry about the potential for gambling apps to ruin a lot more lives than casino gambling ever did. Idiots starting fights and getting killed doesn't seem to make money for anyone, and nobody runs ads extolling the benefits of waving a gun around in petty disputes.
Loquat
1mo ago
The college application thing not really hurting him, I'd chalk up to a loose combination of:
- People don't really care all that much about a one-time mistake from several years back.
- The application box said "African American", not "Black", leaving some wiggle room for non-black Africans to claim confusion, and for others to believe it.
- Brown Muslim is still generally regarded as a somewhat oppressed class, so it's not the same level of "stolen valor" that a white guy in his place would be guilty of.
Loquat
1mo ago
Generally baggy, or are you talking about the new "barrel cut" trend, which can range from just looking baggy to making the wearer's legs look like those of Yosemite Sam? Because apparently that's the new hotness, and it's at the point where even Target has barrel-cut jeans on display.
Loquat
1mo ago
In my youth I was once fortunate enough to be sent to a summer camp with an international clientele, where I encountered a saying held to be true by many other students: "American girls look like they do, but they don't. British girls look like they don't, but they do."
Loquat
2mo ago
Recently, I've been giving some thought to the question of what I would do if an intermediate amount of shit hit the fan, such that I couldn't just drive as much as I want but grocery stores were still available. The solution I hit on was the adult-sized cargo tricycle, which is an actual thing that multiple companies offer, and it seems like a decent option for transporting stuff in a degrowth future. Of course, then we're back to the problem of having a big bulky vehicle that needs parking space while you're shopping, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Loquat
2mo ago
I knew the songs were big online, but I was still surprised to hear one of the other neighborhood moms singing "Golden" to herself while we were cleaning up after a recent block party.
Loquat
2mo ago
I do believe there's some space in between, "dog is trained enough to respect the invisi-fence" and "dog is trained so well it can be trusted to stay in an open yard regardless of how many squirrels, kids, etc may come running by".
Loquat
2mo ago
Anecdotal evidence, of course, but in my neighborhood multiple houses have them and they work quite well. Maybe this is one of those situations where you really need to teach the dog about the invisi-fence rather than just installing it and assuming the dog will react the way you want, so it'll work well for the conscientious owner and poorly for the lazy owner.
Loquat
2mo ago
I'm afraid I have to admit, we don't preheat or presoak at all. Room-temp Chemex, dry filter, add coffee grounds and slightly-less-than-boiling water. The coffee's still good.
Loquat
3mo ago
If you like a chocolatey mocha flavor, Yemeni coffee beans (at least, the ones Sweet Maria's sells) tend to just naturally taste like that. The name mocha even comes from Yemen's main port city, Mokha.
Also, our kettle doesn't have a goose-neck and it works fine with our Chemex.
Not the only only place to have a rule like that - my brother- and sister-in-law had to get their septic tank replaced several years ago, inquired whether they should get a different size, and were told that the existing size/capacity was correct for the number of closets in the house.
Also on the topic of septic systems, my own house did not come with a map of the extent of the leach field, which is an important piece of information when you want to put in fruit trees and a vegetable garden. The county website claimed they had such records on file for all houses constructed after the 1960's, and my house was built in the 80's, but long story short they couldn't find any record of my house having a septic system. I ended up relying on a location estimate from my elderly neighbor who moved in back when the development was newly built.
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