I see this every day. I try to stop and just take in the moment. But I can’t. I can’t stop. I can’t take in the moment. And it was only for a moment, now it’s gone. And now that it’s gone, I can’t stop thinking about it. I try to stop. I can’t stop stopping. But I also can’t not stop stopping. It’s my struggle. It’s what I struggle with the most. Stopping.

Big Mistakes. It was … stressful for me. I wasn’t really in the mood to be anxious, but I stuck with it because it was at least, entertaining.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. I keep meaning to do some more research on that one. It struck me as something Black Mirror adjacent. I liked it, first half of the movie was fun, second half didn’t quite hold up as well as I’d hoped. I like time loops / time travel stuff, and there’s not a ton of content in this same vein, so I give it some extra grace.

The latest Avatar blue sea monkeys movie. I know it’s hip to hate on this franchise, but I’m so conflicted. Like watching it in the moment, I appreciated it. But because the previous movies didn’t really stick with me, I’m sure a lot of stuff went over my head. As soon as the movie started, I was like, wait there’s a human guy in the group now? Where the fuck did that dude come from? Obviously the movie revisits that topic as it was a major plotline in the prior film(s), but that’s kind of what I’m getting at, I don’t have strong connections / memories with the last ones so, I’ll leave it there.

If you’re so smart Mr. Smarty Pants then tell me this: Who invented snow, then? If you say Thomas Jefferson, then you’re wrong, he invented traffic lights, doofus.

Whenever I see a comment on social media that I think is wrong, I feel the need to correct it.

That’s not necessarily arguing, unless you’re continuing to engage repeatedly. This is really where you stop, if you even choose to engage at all. Have your say, make it count, move along.

If you genuinely care about a subject/topic/opinion, that first reply counts for 99% of your reach/impact. The second time you reply, it counts for 0.99%, the third time you reply, it’s like 0.099% ROI and so on.

After that first one, the juice is not worth the squeeze and the young folks are saying these days.

If your social media outlets of favor are anything like Lemmy, most of the people you see with edgy content or making edgy comments, they aren’t serious people. They aren’t here for serious discussion or open minds, even if it is a serious topic.

It’s easy to say, I realize, but you have to learn to let it go. Literally nobody cares. Probably even the person you’re “arguing” with doesn’t care, other than it gives them sexual pleasure to get attention from a rando online.

Also, don’t fall into the fallacy that the one who speaks last wins. If the person you’re debating is just serving up leftovers from the overly salty stale dinner with no substance that they prepared last night, it’s okay to leave the table. You literally are winning, no matter what, by not eating that same slop that you already know is bad.

That’s not the face I make. Usually there’s more eyebrow commotion going on as I try to figure out why it’s taking so long to load the video or why I’m getting some random error message that means nothing to a rando trying to watch a video on their phone.

Inevitably someone will disagree because someone is always right and someone is always wrong and the devil is in the details.

BMI is a general guideline that offers a reasonable approximation of body mass at the population level. That it also offers a reasonable estimate on the individual level, when all other factors are taken into account, is a plus.

Medical practitioners aren’t out there widely telling otherwise obese people with missing limbs that they’re a perfectly healthy weight or that all mass is fat.

When you read unverifiable anecdotes about a dumb doctor telling a power lifter that they are obese, don’t take it as gospel. When your doctor tells you that you’re a perfectly healthy weight because you’re missing a leg, even though you don’t exercise, eat like shit, and have a 50 inch / 125 cm waist, that’s when you start asking questions and find a new doctor. Most of them aren’t like that.

Two big reasons: Times have changed (somewhat and with caveats) and rape changes people.

For these high profile cases, these perpetrators are people who choose vulnerable victims and there’s typically a large power imbalance, along with various social aspects that make victims feel powerless (along with the shame and fear that come with pretty much any sexual violence). And often, the victims do “come out with it” to their friends and family, medical practitioners, and even police. But every rape is different, circumstances vary, and outcomes / decisions run the gamut. These folks eventually try to move on with their lives, put the past behind them. Then suddenly, their rapist shows up on TV and online all over the place. Their name comes up constantly. All those emotions and trauma come back up. And I don’t blame these victims for wanting to take another swing and make a big show of the fact that they were victimized by powerful people.

My situation, not rape but being taken advantage of, gave me a little taste of this. I don’t feel like sharing a lot of traumatic personal details and definitely don’t want to give anything away that could identify me personally. But it gives me a little bit of insight into situations that can occur.

As I said, I was taken advantage of by a well-connected and popular person decades ago. As this was happening, I did tell friends and family. They all gave me support and guidance, and I did my best to get out of the situation as fast as I could. Calling the police wasn’t really an option, and I was in a very vulnerable place in life, didn’t have money for a lawyer, and I was basically stuck. Not only that, the person taking advantage of me was very good at playing on my weaknesses, convincing me that by hurting him, I’d be hurting other people and that everybody believed he was a good person so they wouldn’t believe me anyway. That actually he wasn’t taking advantage of me, it was me taking advantage of him. You name the psychological weapon, he probably used it against me.

Eventually I did manage to break completely free of that situation. I was just so happy that it was over and done with, I really didn’t want to look back. I wanted it out of my life and behind me. As I said, it’s not like I had the money to sue and it wasn’t a situation where police would get involved. I moved on, just lucky that I managed to make it out alive and in a position where I could recover.

Time eventually faded a lot of the trauma and I probably hadn’t thought of my abuser for years. And then suddenly, I find out that they are running for office in my area. And worse, they are presenting themselves as the moral alternative, called upon by God, and a force for good. I see their signs all over and their name on a regular basis. I’m traumatized all over again. And the worst part is, about 90% of the time when I tell people what my abuser did to me, their response is “why didn’t you sue them?” or “why did you let them do that to you?”. As though I’m the one with the moral failing in this situation.

So, I know my situation isn’t exactly the same as a rape victim, but I get it.

And finally, this topic is not one where you’re going to have a gotcha moment with your mom. It’s far too complicated and nuanced for that.

A lot of people think colorblindness is an on-off switch, if you’re colorblind you only see in black/white/gray or that you can’t tell the difference between red and green but you can see the other colors. But that’s just not how it works.

Colorblindness comes in varying degrees of deficiency and a lot of people fall into that category where it doesn’t affect them in any noticeable way. In fact, for most cases, it may be more accurate to call it color vision deficiency rather than colorblindness. Like they can easily tell the difference between a red traffic light versus a green one, or a red apple versus a green apple. Plus, there are many types of color blindness beyond the well-known red-green type.

So, for someone who can clearly see the difference between a red light and a green light, if they didn’t know any better, they’d assume they aren’t color blind. So unless they happen to connect the dots (pun) after seeing an Ishihara test or just noticing lots of little situations where they’d identified something as the wrong color, it’s very possible to not know. Lots of people have good vision through their young adult life, so never get tested. And most of the time when people are discussing colors, they aren’t getting super specific so you might not notice there’s a difference between Buff Slate Gray and Milky Seawater.

4 - Because that equipment is pretty gross, 4 real.

Why would t it matter? Does age not matter when it comes to how an electronic is expected to perform? I don’t expect to get more than 10 years Of perfect play out of any controller.

You do know that not everybody who owns a PS4 controller bought them on day 1 when they were originally released, right? That it’s possible people like myself bought them much later than in 2016, correct? And you also realize that the problems I’m talking about – those didn’t start yesterday.

How often do you even see miniUSB cables?

Literally daily.

There are generic drugs made or prescribed for cats and dogs in my part of the world (USA).

In fact, out of all the meds my pets have been prescribed over the years, most of them have been generic. The majority of the time, it’s actually the same medications given to humans (ex: insulin, antibiotics, heart meds, anxiety meds) and some of them I even purchased through a standard pharmacy like Walgreens.

From my experience, the main medications that don’t tend to have generics are drugs that are meant for veterinary purpose only. Flea and tick meds are an example. For those, the situation isn’t all that much different from human medications. They usually start off getting patented, which gives them the exclusive right to make and sell the active ingredient for some period of time. Eventually, though, that protection expires, and then if it’s profitable enough, other manufacturers can make a generic version.

With flea and tick meds specifically, there’s been a steady slate of newer / improved products over the years. I remember a time when a product called Frontline was introduced. It was almost revolutionary, just a small bit of product between the shoulder blades kept the fleas away for a month. Then there was a pill that kills fleas in less than 24 hours. Then they made pill/treats with longer lasting products. Then they combined flea and tick with heartworm meds. Now there’s an injection that lasts months (or maybe it’s a whole year, I can’t recall). Each of these is a new product, so it gets patented and then there’s only a name brand version for whatever the exclusivity period is.

Maybe it’s similar in your country?

The chaos that comes with a Trump presidency is probably the hardest part for working class people to mitigate. What I mean by that is even with bad federal policies, people/businesses can often adapt reasonably well if they’re given enough time and accurate information to plan ahead.

During Trump’s last term, there was one year where his / Republican policies devastated the soybean market. It was bad around here. Only the very luckiest soybean growers managed to break even. The rest took heavy losses, some even left their soybeans unharvested that year. Those farmers plan months in advance before even planting a single seed. Only for policies to change underneath them after the plants are already well on their way to maturity.

This time around it’s far more chaotic than his first term, which is saying A LOT. Last time he at least had somewhat of an excuse because of the COVID pandemic. This time around, it’s 100% due to his own making.

I only met the guy after he was released from prison. His violent act was murder, but he plead guilty to manslaughter so he got a shorter sentence and possibility of parole.

Anyway, before the incident, he was part of the friends group that I had more recently joined. So when he got out, he started hanging with us. From the very first time I met him, his behavior concerned me. I wrote it off thinking I was judging him unfairly or irrationally since I knew he’d murdered someone. It was like he was only pretending to be friendly, just enough to fool the people who knew him, but it was a thin veneer covering over unhinged emotions.

Problem was, initially the off putting behavior was all inconspicuous and easy enough to rationalize, so I held back saying anything to my other friends. They didn’t seem to notice, or if they did, they weren’t saying anything. So, it felt isolating.

In the end, that isolation was the opportunity this guy used to target me. Turns out his shtick (and psychopathic gift) was to manufacture drama between people and pit them against each other. He started with me, or at least it seems like he started with me – probably because I seemed like an easy target.

The first incident I remember is when someone’s favorite lighter went missing, we tore the house apart looking for it, and the murderer miraculously found it in my bedroom. I’d never even left the room until we started searching, so fortunately I was given the benefit of the doubt. But stupid shit like that kept happening, but only when he was around.

Where he really messed up is that he started pulling this same shit on others, and eventually enough of us did the math.

I see it every day and I’ve been there.

It wouldn’t be surprising to find out that this is skewed towards young adults and seniors.

I was the young person with next to no savings and facing a nearly impossible situation of “saving” anything. Lots of us leave home in our teens with nothing or close to it. Then it’s a struggle just to get all the pieces in order, and all the while, the pieces you already managed to get in place break down, get stolen, need fixing, need replacing, and so on. That first step of just keeping your head above the water is not easy, especially without support.

And then towards the later years, peoples’ health fails them. They find it harder to keep a job and harder to make the same money they did when they were younger. Healthcare is expensive, even with insurance. Husbands and wives pass away, leaving you with the financial fallout. Even if you saved, the true costs of inflation come when you go to buy food and medicine and even when you need to pay someone to fix your car – regardless of what the official numbers are.

Granted, “cash savings” means even people who are otherwise relatively well off in terms of assets fall into this category. So, it’s also not a great assumption to assume that all these people are in difficult/dire situations.

Pumpkin, it’s not just any gay nudes of yourself. It’s gay nudes with very specific asks. The kinds of asks you might expect from a patron of your OnlyFans account. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Gobble gobble.

This is WEIRD, right?

I mean I know there are professions and hobbies where cutting the penis off an animal carcass is just another Tuesday. I assume there are (or have been) cultures where this sort of thing tracks. But, this isn’t a normal thing for people to think about doing, let alone do, right? Or am I the weirdo and literally it’s super common to play with the penis of dead animals?

Like, I’m not intentionally being ablest or anything, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

And in all fairness, I haven’t read the private journals to know the details of this “absurd scenario” and given the subject matter, I don’t think it’s anything I’d want to read, the headline is more than enough to be off putting. So, there is that.

I’m not sure when they came out. Why would it matter, though?

Yay. My Playstation controller is at the point where it needs to be replaced. It’s got both battery capacity issues and charging issues. I’m hoping that the Steam controller lasts longer than the PS4 Pro controller b/c for the price that Sony charges, I’d expect those to last longer than mine has, especially given how little time I spend playing / using it.

I’ve been looking forward to the Steam controller. I was starting to think I should give up and just go get another PS controller. Granted, I’m sure I won’t get a first release Steam controller. They’ll have a limited quantity and wouldn’t surprise me if they’re gone by the time that the steam store has recovered from the outage and bugs that crop up every time a new product goes on sale.