5434a
2yr ago
Agreed that it's difficult to properly judge a comment without its context. @ZorbaTHut can the janitor page posts be tweaked to include their parent comment?
5434a
2yr ago
I don't understand the relation to sublimation so I'll just give you the last two times I can remember shedding tears that weren't due to cutting onions.
-The one line comment on /r/4chan "foot fags unite and take over" hit me with enough mounting waves of laughter to tip me over the edge.
-For something more sombre, watching the group stage of the world cup reminded me of the Danish player basically dropping dead on the pitch last year at the Euros. Awful.
5434a
2yr ago
You accuse me of word games and then game my words. Explain how a man can become a transman.
5434a
2yr ago
For the first one, the classic dark wool topcoat. Peacoat if you want shorter, overcoat if you want longer. It probably won't be adequate for -18 but on comparatively warmer days you can supplement it with hats, gloves and scarves (and more underlayers) which allow you to dress it up or down. Mine has been adequate for -10 with the extras while being comfortable up to +15 with only a t-shirt underneath. For -18 I'd be looking at Scandinavian military surplus parkas or something along those lines.
5434a
2yr ago
Despite my preference for understatement I love the look of https://mrjoneswatches.com. Realistically if I were shopping for a watch I'd probably go to a high street clothes shop and choose something that costs £20 and looks like a Swiss railway clock but more muted.
5434a
2yr ago
If there are people here who believe trans men aren't actually men, I kindly ask that they also provide the criteria for distinguishing men from non-men.
Here's some shared foundational rationality. No matter what a man is or does he cannot - in the logic of transexuality too - be or become a transman. And vice versa for the complementary sex and gender presentation. It's paradoxical. Therefore a transman cannot be a man, and a transwoman cannot be a woman. Only a woman can become a transman. Only a man can become a transwoman. Therefore transwomen aren't women, transmen aren't men, and this accords with the logic of transexuality. They are, charitably, transexual men and transexual women for which I can accept the novel and less ambiguous labels of transwomen and transmen respectively.
Winning, or even arguing the trans-are-actually terminology war for the trans side serves to void its own logos and, if you'll forgive the irony, to argue against it is to bravely support transexuals.
To be explicit, if a transwoman can be a woman then it must subsequently render either the word transwoman or the word woman empty of any meaningful significance. With only net negative meaning to be attained the struggle to claim membership of the pre-existing categories is not only moot but actively counterproductive. If womanhood is meaningless there's no rationale for pursuing it.
Please note, I am not anti-trans actions. I am anti-trans rationale. Adults have been free to change their name, their wardrobe and undergo any elective medical procedures they can afford for decades and while I might not endorse those choices I have no issue tolerating them on the basis that my own choices are tolerated. What I cannot tolerate is being expected to unquestioningly accept a glaringly unignorable contradiction. After that's acknowledged we could get into any broader concerns that may be more based in prejudice than reason.
You sound like you're getting "don't be irritating" muddled up with "talk to anyone and make them feel comfortable" and given your ruminations it appears the result is something that achieves neither.
Know why you're there. It's not for chitchat. Your grandfather might have been amiable and personable but that's no good if he's occupying the staff with rambling stories, holding up the queue and never getting to the point. A basic "hello, how are you, I'm fine too thanks" are all you need before you get down to business, whether that's stating your problem, placing your order, paying your bill or packing your shopping. If you feel rude not chatting then keep any chitchat superficial and connected to your purpose, eg "thought I'd try making [recipe] for a change" or "hopefully this choice will [achieve task]", not "hey haven't seen you here in a couple of weeks, where did you disappear to?". Also don't wait until you're at the front to get your shit together. You're at the bank to pay a bill, did you bring the bill and the money? You're on the phone to cancel your card, did you collect your account details before calling? You're at the bar to order, do you know what you want? Leaving aside blatant troublemakers like drunks and thieves the annoying customers are the ones who manage to both act over-familiar or over-confident while also performing as if they've never done this transaction before.
In the special circumstances where I've had a need to be charming (like phoning a call centre to ask for an anticipated but entirely justified fee to be waived) I stay polite, organised/timely, non-demanding (I'll phrase it as requesting a rare favour, not as a demand I'll escalate to their manager or as a threat that they'll lose a customer) and gracious.
One small tip for charming workers is to let them be the expert. It's like the opposite of mansplaining. Ask for their input on a product/service. If you're not sure about something own up to it, it gives them the opportunity to demonstrate their own expertise and value.
All this might be different in USA where depending on the context you might have the unspoken threat/promise of tips altering the dynamic. I've never worked a tip job so I can't speak about that.
Edit: I think you've fallen into the binary thinking that if you fail to create a rapport the only other possible perception is that you were irritating. So you end up trying to force a rapport, which in turn serves to be awkward and counterproductive. The solution is to stop worrying about being special and memorable (whether good or bad) and accept being normal and unremarkable. TLDR reduce your ego to the appropriate scale.
5434a
2yr ago
I'd like to read your write up of the geothermal material that you had to leave out. Any chance of a supplementary post?
5434a
2yr ago
Wasn't he supposed to be under close observation on account of that very foreseeable risk? The guards being bribed to turn a blind eye, conveniently forget to confiscate potential makeshift ligatures, and loudly announce they're taking a sudoku puzzle to the bathroom doesn't look too dissimilar to corrupt officials ending his life. If you can accept that his lawyers bribed the guards then you can accept that the guards were amenable to bribes from anyone else. From his POV he can kill himself at any time, he's not going anywhere, so why the urgency? With billions of dollars and a black book of high level connections I'd think he could take a punt on mitigating his punishment to tolerable levels - IIRC he'd done so before. He wasn't a penniless benzo addict in withdrawal facing life in a Siberian labour camp.
5434a
2yr ago
Early 40s here. My friends don't have any divorces that I'm aware of but not many marriages either. There's a broad spread of wife'n'kids, stable long term'n'kids, "blended" families, DINK, field players, single with benefits (<-- I'm here)/dissatisfied daters, and the occasional jaded MGHisOW or resigned celibate.
Looking around I'd say, barring one or two outliers, we're mostly where we deserve to be. The responsible and personable people are mostly in stable LTRs and the irresponsible or unpersonable people are either biding time waiting for a better offer that they don't want to acknowledge probably isn't going to come along, or don't care enough to adapt just to fulfill external expectations, or both (<-).
5434a
2yr ago
All those algorithms and they don't have voice print registration? Seems like it should be a simple update.
5434a
2yr ago
Microsoft dependence is a drawback for sure but since I'm using the OS already it's a minor negative. Where it shows up the most for me is the disparity between integration with Edge and the Office suite vs Firefox.
Did you export straight into Obsidian? Or was it more involved than that? Is there anything major that you miss beyond little QoL features like calculation? I might start a new page of notes in preparation for adding it to my to-do list.
5434a
2yr ago
Is there any neuro/psychological significance to habitual and unaffected non-symmetrical facial expressions? I don't mean stroke symptoms, I mean things like smirks instead of smiles, single eyebrow raises, sneers, head tilts etc.
Asking because it occured to me that I find it an engaging and attractive characteristic while on the other hand finding symmetrical expressions more open and genuine, or at least less nuanced. Wondering if there's something like a left brain right brain factor or if it's just learned behaviour and unconscious imitation.
5434a
2yr ago
I don't find much use in longform private emotional introspection but I do find it helpful to keep a record of any significant actions I've taken. It's useful for reference and for finding any patterns that could provide a benefit in making plans and adapting routines, whether it's charting exercise or recording work I've done around my home.
It's all kept in OneNote along with a plethora of other notes, drafts, saved documents, cuttings and the like. Before I started using OneNote I used various handwritten to-do lists for actions combined with minimally organised digital files for anything more demanding. Having everything available in a single trivially editable digital format is significantly more versatile so now I only use paper to-do lists for short term items and information.
5434a
2yr ago
A one-off action that I would strongly suggest and which shouldn't take much effort to do is to minimise the potential for mess to develop. A sink full of dirty dishes is a lot easier to tackle if you only have 4 dishes available instead of 12. If the bin is always overflowing get a smaller bin. If you have 6 dirty tea towels get rid of half of them. Don't have open shelves brimming with knickknacks.
Beyond hiring a cleaner or living alone there's either conflict with no guarantee of resolution, or accepting a choice between coming to terms with doing the chores or coming to terms with the chores going undone. Right now you're getting the worst outcome by doing the chores while bristling that they're going undone. You can either enforce your expectations or adjust them, whichever path you take you'll have to trade something away.
I believe there are a number of software devs here. Are there any Linux / C / embedded devs here that would be willing to mentor or offer some signposting for a (near) total beginner on writing what ought to be a simple single function program? By which I don't mean "make a mobile app", I mean "read this one function call from a piece of hardware and print the value to the terminal".
I've gathered a few of the concepts but I don't have enough knowledge to grasp whether they're the right way to approach the matter and whether I'm focusing on the relevant level of abstraction.
Edit: Help is being provided. Thank you Motters.
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