Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
Burnt out, over the hill autistic IT nerd and longtime SSC lurker
User ID: 3219
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
9hr ago
It's been a fascinating rabbit hole for me personally, both because I am well aware that Science™ advances one funeral at a time, and so had been looking at alternative hypotheses for Alz/dementia, and also because out of the blue my dental hygienist started discussing the topic on her own as she had recently gotten the infodump hereself.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
10hr ago
No, neither of them ever were. Ironically, my wife's maternal side of the family has a history of Alzheimer's, but thus far her mother's siblings seem to be dodging the proverbial bullet.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
10hr ago
It's still a relatively understudied potential cause/risk factor, due mainly to a preoccupation with the amyloid tangles and plaques in the brain, but it's gaining momentum and mainstream interest, especially as said focus has yet to produce effective treatment.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
11hr ago
It does indeed, for the both of them, and I appreciate your well wishes. The scary part is that my family had no previous history of dementia or Alzheimer's, so now I'm pretty freaked out about my own chances. That said, dad did have bad sleep apnea, and taking care of a spouse with dementia makes for a massive risk of dementia in its own right, though watching them both go through it one after the other has definitely increased my receptivity to the brain infection hypothesis...
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
11hr ago
I come from the Before Times, when Autism wasn't a Thing at all, and then it was Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, but when I was told that I was probably autistic by a licensed mental health professional a few years back, I just laughed and laughed. My own mental model of myself was that I didn't have any wetware that ran human social skills, and had to learn by trial and error how to emulate these things, which could be pretty painful and also seemed to involve way too much of the, "oh yes, the Emperor's fine and gaudy new clothes look especially extravagant today," style of discourse for my taste. When Asperger's became a Thing, it seemed trendy and I never paid too much attention to it, although I did identify strongly with the idea of neurodiversity because I knew damn well I was not normal and never had been. Discussing what autism actually was with her, and subsequently doing my own deep dive into the actual condition and diagnosis, was revelatory to say the least.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
11hr ago
Almost finished with A Parade of Horribles (Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8) by Matt Dinniman. It's definitely delivering the expected goods, and the only reason that I haven't already finished with it and moved on is because despite being somewhat ridiculous from a strictly gaming standpoint, The system of Nil series that I was reading turned out to have enough meta-level commentary that I ended up finishing that out first.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
11hr ago
It was my late thirties when this became a Thing for me. Dad was in his early seventies and starting to exhibit signs of cognitive decline, and mom started exhibiting signs of her own several more years down the road.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
11hr ago
I've talked about it here several times in the past, but yeah, I've been there. My own particular realization didn't hit until my mid-forties and took some seriously and pervasively bad behavior on the part of my mother to illuminate the reality of the situation (BPD Queen), so if you're catching it at the age of 18, you're way ahead of the game on that front. For me, the revelation as as dramatic as my first pair of glasses in terms of finally being able to see fuzzy things clearly. The one thing that I want to add to all of the good advice below is that the deconstructing what you've learned from them is going to take a long time, but will also probably be the best possible thing you can do for yourself in the long run. It's taken me years to start bringing my life and my personal relationships into some sort of better balance, and a lot of the time my honest answer to what I want or what I think is best for me is still an, "I don't know," but one of the things that I do know is that if I pay enough attention to what I'm experiencing, as opposed to just stuffing it into the closet and hyperfocusing on $Thing_In_Front_Of_Me, I can have enough of a sense to understand what's generally good for me versus what's generally draining and exhausting. And if it's the latter, then I have to ask myself why I'm in a situation that's draining and exhausting, and whether or not I'm setting myself on fire so that I can keep a loved one warm for a time, which is to say that at least I no longer give until it hurts and then some purely out of habit based on previous expectations.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
12hr ago
It is to my great shame that I have to admit that I'm out of beans at the moment and need to roast more. If things go exceedingly well for me in the work/play department today (details to follow), I might just roast up one of several Ethiopians that I seem to have over-ordered recently, but we shall see how the day goes. Anyway, I'm glad to hear that you've been able to cut your expenses and that you're enjoying your recent bean! If I actually achieve my ambitious goals, I should be able to post a coffee hater's club thread later this week.
To be fair to myself and my lack of roasting, I just got home from a trip and my intention to roast has been complicated by both an issue with my VPN setup that was down to an outdated key in my original downloaded configuration that needed to be updated (doh!) as well as what has proved to be an irresistible urge to start playing in the deep end of technology again, however expensive and ill-advised said urge might be. The latter has involved trying out Bazzite, which will be my first Fedora-based distro in over a decade (and how different even is Red Hat land these days, anyway?), and will probably involve installing gpt-oss-20b today to kick the tires and play around with because I've been hanging around here for too long now now that my work responsibilities are more right-sized, I've recovered enough from burnout to start to be interested in tech again, though not quite enough to write any one of several effortposts that have been kicking around in my mind, including one about said burnout. Hmm, maybe I should poll our fellow Mottizens to find out which subject would be most interesting...
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
8d ago
In our case, we've kept our finances largely separate for our entire marriage, and it continues to work relatively well for the two of us. When we first started dating, my wife had a sizable inheritance that I was conscientious about leaving in her hands and not accessing, so we just split the bills and evolved into each of us paying for certain things and not questioning the other's spending habits too awful much, excepting some big ticket changes, of course. If we had managed to have kids, that probably would have changed things, but here we all are.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
8d ago
A mundane example would be something like identity theft. Freezing/closing compromised/fraudulent accounts can be time consuming, and paper currency can bridge the gap until new accounts can safely be established.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
8d ago
Currently, we have two male cats, both around six years of age.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
9d ago
I have a few thousand, which might be too much, but zero feels like too little.
Same, and my brain won't shut up about how it would make much more sense for me to add it to my mad money brokerage account and reap the extra GAAAAINZ. But then, it's emergency money, it's doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
15d ago
About to start Shatterdark: System of Nil book 2 by Tim Paulson. Still would rate the first as 3/5, but want to see what the author does with the world and the characters he created. Of course, I had to devour Out Law: A Dresden Files novella by Jim Butcher, since it just dropped, and I'm happy to recommend it to fans of the series.
Finally, shout-out to @FtttG, who let me beta read the book they'd been working on. Fun!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
19d ago
Have I got a link for you!
I mean, the Irish are the blacks of Europe, and the Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland, so...
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
21d ago
Baneslayer: System of Nil Book 1 by Tim Paulson. 3/5, mostly because the MC is progressing unbelievably fast by defeating mobs that are much higher than his own level. Normally I'd probably dip out on reading the larger series but alas, I bought 5 of them on Kindle Countdown Deals so as long as it stays decent, I'll probably continue to read it. Alas.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
23d ago
It reminds me of all those show runners that end season 1 on this show altering cliff hanger/climax, and then completely chicken out and backtrack in the first episode of season 2.
Preach!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
28d ago
I remember back during the war on terror, one right wing blog or another, maybe Little Green Footballs (whatever happened to that guy?)
He ultimately went back to hugging his television and deciding never to fight again.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
28d ago
The Pilgrims of the Damned: The Assembly Book 3 by Steve McHugh. Book 1 never did get too political, and the writing is still pretty snappy, so we're going with it. MC is looking more and more like an expy of his previous MC as time goes by, but it's been long enough since I've read the Hellequin chronicles that this isn't an issue for me.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
1mo ago
The Commitments
"It's roid, Sally, roid, not roy-id, Sally, roy-id!"
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
1mo ago
Humans like to feel like we are at the top of the chain when it comes to the complexity and depth of our emotions, but it’s possible that God sees our grief, our suffering, our deaths, the same we see the pain and death of animals. We have pets we love and want only the best for, but from their perspective, we do unexplainable actions that cause them pain, like taking them to a bad place where a stranger pokes them with sharp painful objects.
I can't help but be reminded of my favorite formulation of this general viewpoint and quote it directly here, where a believer is directly addressing the doubts of a doubter:
Seems to me that you assuming something you shouldn't assume. That God sees the world like you do. One thing at a time. From just one spot. Seems to me that He is supposed to be everywhere, know everything. Think about that. He knows what you're feeling, how you're hurting. Feels my pain, your pain, like it was His own. Hell, son. Question isn't how could God care about just one person. Question is, how could he not.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
1mo ago
What kind of novel is it? I'm not an editor or anything, but I read voraciously in general and 5k doesn't sound like a huge lift to read, especially by Motte standards...
Those Who Dwell in Darkness: The Assembly Book 1 by Steve McHugh. Well written and engaging thus far, though it also seems to be flirting with the, "does this remind you of anything," trope just enough to consistently ping my awareness while not actually veering into thinly disguised political commentary.
Yeah, I expect that pretty much comes with the territory, but I've got it up and running and I'm still interested in kicking the tires and playing around a bit!
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