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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)DI
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2 yr. ago

  • No one said that we're buying processed garbage instead of vegetables.

    If vegetables, beans and rice is the core foundation of your diet, then any money you spend on processed snacks is a splurge, because it's not necessary but you enjoy it.

  • Depending on the time of year, produce is what I splurge on.

    In winter, I get sick of apples and satsumas, I could spend $4 on a highly processed snack that is tasty but doesn't offer much else, I could $8 on a relatively "healthy" sweet snack (compared to the cheap snack), or I could spend $8 on small scale greenhouse grown strawberries.

    Given my options, if I've got money, I'm going to buy the strawberries, which is a splurge considering apples were $3 and there's nothing wrong with apples other than "I'm bored of them"

  • A beautiful day launching the new kids club at our neighbourhood house. We had almost 40 families join us and all the snags got eaten.

    This was the first event I took a back seat on and I initially felt really guilty "leaving everyone else to do all the work" (even though my stepping back was planned and carefully negotiated, as I'm still dealing with mystery health issues) but the entire team remarked that it all came together easily as "many hands make light work" and for once we had enough funding to bring on the appropriate number of staff for the project!

    The weather held out and I met so many amazing locals, I couldn't have asked for a better day.

    And the timing worked out perfectly with the MRI I'd been scheduled for. Packed up after the event jumped on the bus, and got there at the exact right time.

    Am I the only one who finds getting an MRI relaxing? It's an excuse to lie down and be still while zoning out and pretending I'm being faxed somewhere. The technician tried playing me some Muzak over the headphones and laughed when I asked her to stop because it was messing with my ability to enjoy the magnetic dubstep.

  • Tonight is the night I asked my partner "wait, when did the clock stop working?" and he responded "huh? We have a clock?"

    Who knows when it stopped working, neither of us have looked at it for 2 years 😂

    And knowing us, neither of us will bother taking it down to fix or chuck for another 2 years. It's just wall decor now.

  • This is why they are also tell you the license plate number.

    I don't need to know what a Honda Whatever looks like to know that if the licence plate and my app both say "ABC123", that's my uber.

    My uber is a white Toyota camry? So helpful, there definitely aren't 7 of them parked outside the club each waiting for their uber rider and or kidnap victim.

  • I'm certain you understand, you are intoxicated, departing from the entertainment establishment before it closes, and you are responsible so you take it's upon yourself to secure safe, sober transport home. The application you use to order the ride informs you that your designated driver will arrive in a "Kia Chevy Juke". Despite being absolutely incapable of clear thought, you, or another member of your party is trying very hard to ensure you all enter the correct vehicle to avoid potential danger from nefarious individuals. Also, you have chosen to partake in this activity in a cold time of year, and as it is 4 o'clock in the morning, you are all quite cold.

  • "body type" has always been a general term to express the entire shape, size and proportions of a person, including excess weight and obesity.

    When I was obese I couldn't pull off crop tops because of my body size, it was incredibly unflattering, and now that I'm a healthy weight I still can't pull off crop tops because of my body proportions, I have a short torso.

    Body type encompasses both scenarios, so it's often thought of as a polite way to tell someone something is unflattering without singling out specific "flaws" in their body.

  • Oh definitely, he knows, but I also know and understand his perspective. For him, masking and unmasking when texting his boss then texting his family is exhausting and incredibly emotionally taxing. While I don't meet the clinical criteria for an autism diagnosis, I do struggle with a few of the same things my brother and dad struggle with, particularly around processing, emotional regulation, and burn out, so I've been in his shoes where I know I'm doing something the hard way, or I know we'd all be happier with another method, but changing the task or changing the routine or process is even harder, even though the process I'd be changing to would be easier and better, initiating that change feels like an insurmountable climb.

    Besides, my dad had to try and put up with my hyperlexia when I was growing up - before I had the emotional maturity to understand my dad's needs, I can't even imagine how much he suffered from my frustrating communication style being imposed on him. Now he's older, it's my turn to suffer 😂 (that is, it's my turn to let him explore the ways he wants to communicate, even if it's not what I want.)

  • Sounds like Dr Gunther von Hagen's, he invented a the plastination method of tissue preservation that's used in countless medical and anatomy training schools across the globe.

    He had a series on BBC/Chanel 4 as part of his "Body Worlds" exhibits and that's all over YouTube, as part of promotion for the new technique that let him preserve entire intact body systems. Fascinating stuff if you're into general anatomical studies, or just body horror

    The source of some of his older anatomical specimens is.... Controversial

    BBC 4 has a bunch of autopsy videos floating around on YouTube. I vaguely remember the one with the blonde doctor from supersize vs superskinny dissecting a smokers lungs and a morbidly obese heart, and an alcoholics liver.

  • My dad now uses AI to write all his texts to me.

    He's autistic and dyslexic and texting was always a massive struggle for him, so he'd leave voice messages, or just call me, and they'd be rambling and non linear, but it was my dad and his voice, his personality.

    A few years ago he'd use dictation to send texts, and it was pretty funny because he hadn't no way of proof reading them and dictation is never great for people with accents or speech problems.... but now he will just use the microphone to ask whatever AI assistant is built into his phone the same rambling question he would have previously just voice messaged me.

    And Copilot re-writes his rambling question and spits out a message that sounds like some formal business email. So now there's an extra level of misinterpretation, an extra level of being removed from communicating with the human being.

    I've asked my dad if he finds AI easier than just leaving a voice message (because I personally think sending a voice memo is easier) and he says he likes it because it makes him feel like he's "normal" and can do the things everyone else has always been able to do with ease, even though he knows its not perfect.

    I can definitely see the value in AI as an accommodation tool, and it has helped my dad a lot in his professional life where previous accommodation tools haven't been adequate to "keep up".

    But I do miss hearing my dad, or reading his personality come through in the poorly dictated texts. My brother has gotten really annoyed at dad for this because my brother it's also autistic and it's actually harder for him to communicate with dad with an AI middle man, they've lived together for almost 30 years and they basically have their own language, so the AI texts my brother gets from my dad drive him nuts, when he and my dad have never had issues communicating.

    I'm also worried that it's effecting the limited literacy skills he does have, he's getting rusty because he no longer has to try at all most days.

  • If you've been using weed pretty heavily for a while, I'd give it a month T break.

    For me the first week is insomnia, muscle pain and brain fog worse than when I'm actually stoned, the second week is depressive symptoms and feeling "dopamine withdrawal" (ie: nothing is fun, nothing is motivating, everything is empty), hyperemesis/diarrhoea, and hypersomia.

    It's not until the third or fourth week of a T break that I feel human and begin to think "this is fine, I don't need weed, it's nice, but so is having some time off to be sober"

  • Better than the system being used by the department of human services in Australia. If the servers and service centres are overloaded, you basically just get told "tough shit, try again later, hope you're not desperately trying to get out of a DV situation or protect an elder from abuse, cause we're not paying for more servers"

    At least with a digital queue system there's a sliver of hope that you might get through.

  • I do understand your point, but as a layperson there is no real way to single out your protest impact to only effect those directly responsible, especially when, in most cases, those directly responsible are removed from the community to a degree that there is little you could do to impact them without also impacting their innocent underpaid intern who's just trying to do their job.

    Yes, protesting impacts a bunch of people that can't individually do anything and are therefore being inconvenienced (mildly or substantially, depending on the individual) for something they have no control over that is someone else's fault.

    But I think part of the reason you see it this way is due to a general a lack of solidarity. If I'm inconvenienced because my bus is stuck behind a protest, that sucks, but I'm not going to blame the protesters (unless I genuinely disagree with their requests/what they're protesting) I'm going to blame the very same people the protesters are trying to reach, because they are the reason that petitions, inquires, public outcry and lobbying hasn't worked and now we're at a stage of protest.

    It might push a few of us to get off the bus and join the protest because what else can we do. It might prompt someone to write into their local representatives to push them to hurry up and sign negotiations so the protest can end because they're sick of the slow bus.

    There's no such thing as someone that has "nothing to do with the issue" when the issue impacts us as a society. If you feel like a social issue has nothing to do with you, but the protests around it are impacting you, you have to ask yourself what you're gaining from the current system, and what stands to be gained from the changes demanded by the protesters. If you genuinely think you have nothing to do with it, you might be a true hermit.

  • But what if your message is "can we all get along together please?" the other persons message is litteraly "you don't deserve a vote, you don't deserve equal rights, you don't even deserve to drink the same water as me, you are not even legally a person, this is the law, get out of my face nigge* before the lynch mob arrives, because I won't stop them"

    How are you supposed to remove yourself from that situation when that situation is brought onto you, and there's no way to simply negotiate or compromise because the two "opinions" are diametrically opposed.

    If someone's boot is on another person's throat, I honestly don't care if I sound like an asshole as I tell them to move their fucking boot. I'd rather be an asshole on the right side of history than a coward who was just following orders.

  • Or just broadly financially literate people. I only make $34k AUD.

    I'm incredibly fortunate that my parents were able to teach me financial literacy. I'm also incredibly lucky that I have the personality type to be happy "slumming it", almost taking a sick pride in how far I can make a 50c bar of soap stretch to clean my entire body, house and laundry, so living within my means has been possible even when my means is a couch in a 4 bedroom share house with 10 roommates. (some of the best years of my life, which is far from the usual sharehouse experience)

    Because of a congenial illness, my start in the work force was delayed and is still partly inhibited. But I made a point to put a bare minimum of $20 from every pay cheque straight into a term deposit that I couldn't touch. When it hit $1000, it moved into a more accessible emergency account, and began saving up the term deposit again. When things are easy I bump that savings contribution up as much as I can. The emergency fund is now a comfortable 5k, with another 10k in the term deposit, that's 15 years years of savings. The only reason it's as much as it is, is because I've been incredibly lucky to have very few genuine emergencies that require immediate payment. If I can put an unexpected expense on a payment plan, I do.

    There are "emergencies" I have ignored because the cost wasn't worth it. I've had 9 teeth extracted, I probably could have saved them all if I forked out a few thousand for a root canal, but it made more financial sense to just let them get bad enough that I could get them extracted for free at the dental school, since now I will never have to worry about those teeth them (I'll only have to worry about jaw bone loss).

    I'm lucky that I never had to get involved with credit card debt. I didn't have "the bank of mum and dad", but between my 60 cousins and 20 friends, I can borrow $10-20 from everyone to cover something big, and pay it back slowly interest free, and I make sure I do the same for them, it's only $20 after all. I relied on that a lot when I was young and still building my emergency fund, and that's certainly a privilege not everyone has.

    I'm privileged to be financially educated and have a social safety net, but by the living standards set by my country, I'm far from wealthy.

  • The frustrating thing is that I know this, but because the voice in my head is my voice and has my accent, "of" and "have" sound basically the same so when I'm speed typing I accidentally write "of" and when I'm proof reading it, either out loud or in my head, it sounds the exact same to read "could of" or "could have".

    I've gotten around this in my professional writing by proof reading everything out loud while doing a silly accent. Or getting a screen reader to read it back in a robot voice.

    But for random comments on the internet, I don't bother, so I'll occasionally get a helpful person explaining the mistake, and they're always polite and I appreciate it. I just wish I knew how to make it stick when I'm actually writing.

  • It's been my music streaming service of choice for several years after moving over from Spotify.

    But I'm starting to move back to physical/owned media because of the way YouTube interprets COPA.

    You can't save music to a custom playlist if it's "for children", you can't play it in the mini player.

    I'm a teacher, making curated playlists with children's music is important for me, as I imagine it's equally important for parents who want to put all their skills kids favourite songs in a private family playlist to keep car rides sane. It's baffling that YouTube won't let me do this.

    And because my algorithm is so fucked up if I start a "radio" from something like Aladdin or the Lion King (you know, show tunes that are appropriate for kids) it will start playing Beetlejuice right afterwards, because I listen to that album in my own free time, and the algorithm recognises them both as soundtracks, and doesn't understand how that might not be appropriate for me to have as background music in my classroom.

    I've set up a children's profile to avoid this radio issue, but then it limits music that is children appropriate but not marketed as such, songs like the Carpenters "Sing" or even Beetles here comes the sun, are "not for kids" so I can't play them on a kids profile.

  • also, huge calorie load compared to my normal meals.

    You mean you don't usually cook all your meals with 8 Tablespoons of olive oil?

    (seriously, why do all the meal kits insist on cooking with soooo much olive oil!)