its_me_xiphos @ its_me_xiphos @beehaw.org

Posts

4

Comments

89

Joined

2 yr. ago

Dragon Age: Origins

I'll need to learn to swim better than a dead fish, but yes, I should look into doing this.

A long long time ago I had two serious knee injuries on the same knee. They warned me after injury and surgery 2 that the day would come when running just would became impossible and I should do everything I could to keep my muscles and health good. I was a runner my whole life, the injuries were not running related, but I could go on a 10 mile run like it was nothing and was pushing 60 miles a week for most of my adult life.

I started noticing some pain issues and swelling and had to stop running cold turkey two years ago. I got some training and hired an expert to craft a program to support my leg. Personal best in squats and deadlifts, it was incredible, looked and felt great for two years. But then, just like that, I went down on one knee to do a pallof press and HOLY MOTHER OF ALL THE GODS OLD AND NEW the pain.

I lost what remained of the cartilage. The muscle atrophy as I've gone through the systems to get a treatment plan and learn what's going on has been brutal. I'm looking at major life changes to hold onto the knee until I'm old enough to warrant one replacement I can die with. And it absolutely devastated me. I drove home and saw a jogger and just got so insanely depressed. I want to go and start doing the exercises I know can help me regain some strength, and support that joint, but I also know an f'up will make it way worse. So I wait for PT and am just getting depressed AF.

It's only Monday and I'm already falling asleep from exhaustion. Must. Turn. This. Week. Around!

I respectfully offer that the Better Business Bureau is not a reputable source. They rate companies and charities in the same way Yelp rates businesses. They offer fees for ratings and the complaint process does absolutely nothing. I'll let you do the google sleuthing on it, but please, do not use them for anything.

Charity Navigator, Candid, and ProPublica offer far better tools for assessing charity. If you're paywalled from navigating some of the tools provided by Candid or other big entities, you can try your local library as they'll sometimes have access.

Finally, the "best" charity in my line of work (I research these things) depends on three things:

1. % of contributions spent on administrative overhead
2. % of revenue spent on ED/CEO compensation
3. Measured program effectiveness in the service area

And you should absolutely read what @frog@beehaw.org has contributed. Clear mission/value/goal/program alignment, transparency, and accountability to the public are, generally, praise worthy organizations. Those that do not provide annual reports, 990s, and other important information on their websites are, in my research/experience, generally doing something questionable if not illegal.

I suggest you go to your local library and check out, or request via inter library loan - William Connolly - Capitalism and Christianity American Style. It builds on Max Webers work on the early Puritan influence into economics (The Protestant Work Ethic). Connolly incorporates much of his contemporary philosophy to try and explain the bootstrap mentality, cruelty politics, and the modern religious nationalist movement. Plus the book cover is metal.

What a great game and great memories for me. I remember, as a kid, building this huge coastal city and putting signs down to buildings I thought my grandmother would like and showing her. She loved architecture so it was always a nice experience for me.

Enshrouded and Valheim.

I want to go on an OG RPG run with KOTOR, KOTOR 2(I admit, never played 2), then DA:Origins. But I need time to loose since I get too lost in the story.

Except the Fade in DA:O. Skip the Fade mod all day every day.

First. Thanks for your kind words! Needed that.

Second, I think I'll own it and do a "so you watched me break stuff live, let's debug so I can show you how I go about it"

I have this unsubstantiated theory but hear me out. I challenge an economist to look into this. Anyways, shareholder focus has replaced capitalism, even late stage capitalism, with something else. I'm not sure what it is, but it's whatever this subscription milk every penny movement is now built to support. It's like revenue maximization on steroids, like we must seek revenue maximization while remaining 100% efficient in revenue pursuit.

And it's killing everything in the way. There's no give.

Economist, get your nobel prize. What is this phenomena?

501 is not that easy. Sure, getting nonprofit recognition can be fast. But you are now buried in reporting requirements that put a heavy admin burden on you.

Very broad and simple but: You must register in a state and abide by their rules. Then apply for tax exempt status in that state. Then ask the IRS for your 501c3. Boom. Now what?

You need to setup systems to maintain a balance sheet to complete your 990 or 990ez, keep minutes on record, have a board, board manual, whistle lower and harassment policies....it gets paper heavy fast.

Why? States and the Feds trust you to provide a public service or good, and thus determine you shouldn't pay taxes in exchange. They will absolutely bury you if they find you are violating that trust.

I actually trust you all (like everyone here) to do the right thing and find a solution. My two cents:

-Find another fiscal sponsor as a stop gap to more stable roots. -501c3 can be faster than you expect. But you get complicated with your board governance, required reporting and records keeping, etc. -There are many types 501c orgs (c4, c6, c3) maybe this fits in a 3 or somewhere else. -Incorporation, in any sense, can lead to governance, legal, and fiscal issues that may be beyond volunteer capacity to deal with. -Shit happens, thanks for being transparent.

Wall-E. Well done.

Had a rough lecture the other day and the imposter syndrome smacked me hard. I was teaching students in a skills lab, a sort of optional space where if they are struggling they can join me and learn basic items their prior courses didn't prepare them for. For context, a budgeting class where they never opened a spreadsheet before.

So I walk them through the basics, how to use formulas and functions, simple stuff like SUM and using conditional formatting to make negatives red. I must have clicked it typed something and missed it and f'ed the last 10 minutes. Pie charts broke. Wouldn't filter or sort my data by color. Man. It was a cluster fuck.

I woke up this morning, huge headache, and realized I'm just damn tired and drained. And it's resulting in cracks in how effective I can be in the classroom. Really need this term to end, I've got too many classes and too many students to teach in top of my own research, family balance, etc.

"Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're" checks notes "Drinking really nice scotch!"

Ok folks telling me to just get a Linux Distro.

PC Gaming - Enshrouded, Valheim, BG3, Dragon Age: Origins, and No Man's Sky, generally Steam platform. Classics like Caesar III, TIE Fighter.

Work - Data Analysis, Lots of word documents, spreadsheets

Internet - Light browsing, podcast listening, music streaming

What distro and why?

That was brilliant.

This week is rough. We're in midterms and everyone around is just in pain. Physical. Mental. I've been putting in 12 hour days trying to send feedback (I'm in the un-grading camp, which can be pain with a lot of students) prepare lectures, cover every imaginable student related problem, and it's overwhelming.

It's here where I really see where my class falls. Did I effectively get information across in a meaningful way? Yes. Are there a few students who are beyond helping? Always, and that pains me. You can do everything from outreach, to contacting student help offices, and they still miss assignments and stay on their phone during class. It's 20-30k a year. Gone. And it hurts me that I can't do more for them. The students who care are amazing and do incredible work. But knowing how much is at stake here, debt, knowledge, future, and how lucky they all are to have this opportunity...totally wasted. Hits hard every semester.

Ah yes Taxes. The things I don't mind paying but wish the rich kids would pay too. :-(

Hang, in, there. I can't understand nor relate to your situation, but you'll find with time and reflection that things, did in fact, stabilize. Just know there are people that care about you and that you generate meaning and joy for people in your life.