Grant_us_eyes
No bio...
User ID: 1156
Grant_us_eyes
6d ago
I'm curious what you mean by 'low-level', here. I've heard Obsidian described many ways, but I don't think I've heard 'low-level' before.
Grant_us_eyes
7d ago
Over the years, I've begun to develop a moderate interest in leather shoes - the idea of a long-term solution for footwear that, if properly maintained, could provide good use for potentially decades appealed to me a great deal. This appeal, I suspect, was likely driven by being soured over shoe makers turning out very nice shoes that did an excellent job while only lasting a year, tops - only to find that the newer incarnations of the model were far worse than the originals(I'm looking at you, Merrel).
Red Wing came up while researching the matter - how could it not? - and I, being curious, snatched up weird, mystery pair of used Red Wing Irish Setter Moc Toes that served me disturbingly well over two years of hard use doing damn near everything.
Sadly, this wasn't to last - they finally gave up the ghost, and will require submission to a cobbler and a resole(if possible) to continue their use for years to come, which I plan to do so in the future, likely next month, once I've made my choice of cobbler and sole.
But, given all the walking I do, I found myself in a weird situation where I didn't have a pair of walking shoe/boot to really use. Work, sure - I have another pair of actual Red Wings that are wonderful for some of the heavier stuff I do outside, but not good for walking(they're used, and developed an odd stick in the leather that's rubbing at the ankle that I'm seeing if I can correct through useful of neetsfoot oil and a shoe tree).
So. Off to ebay I go once more. And stumbled across a pair of red wing boots for a measly thirty bucks. The pictures were... something else, but a part of me couldn't hold back the idea of a challenge. The description of said boots called them 'distressed', and once I got them in my hot little hands, well... yeah, I'd have to call that distressed.
Thankfully, after the judicious use of saddle soap and Saphir(with a medium brown dye, to restore color), they're looking far better off. I don't know how they work on my foot while walking, but I'll find out over the next day or so. Hopefully they'll work well enough and last atleast a few months so I can sort out the rest of my footwear situation.
As an aside, if anyone knows of any good online cobblers aside from KW Shoe Repair or Potters and Sons, feel free to toss them out.
Grant_us_eyes
7d ago
I prefer Obsidian for general organization and note-taking. It would serve well as a way to organize an electronic journal with little fuss.
Grant_us_eyes
8d ago
No, you stumbled into a weird little internet site that cleaves more closely with old-style forums, with old-style rules that aren't explicitly defined, and the expectation that you at least lurk quietly to adapt to the overall local culture before making yourself known.
If you've been exposed to nothing but reddit and/or twitter for most of your online life, of course this place is going to look weird. You came in expecting an industrial rave and instead got an English Gentlemen's Club.
Stay around a bit. You'll be fine.
Grant_us_eyes
11d ago
I would think the answer is fairly simple - someone who could pull such a solo operation off would need almost polymath-levels of knowledge and skill - be capable of writing and directing and sound management and storyboarding AND managing CGI and and and-
That isn't to say it doesn't happen - Astartes comes to mind as the Ur example of the crazy stuff a single person can pull off nowadays - but even then it takes places in a well-established sandbox of a creative universe.
Grant_us_eyes
13d ago
I've never experienced this directly, but it was depressing as hell watching a friend of mine trying to find someone to marry; here was a guy extremely fit, handsome, very well off, retired before 40, with a hobby list as long as my arm, and he still struggled to find a long-term partner.
I couldn't help but watch all this in action and left helplessly thinking, 'Christ, if HE'S having problems, what chance do I have?'
He did eventually get married to a wonderful woman, however, but he's still had to make a number of quiet sacrifices. Nothing technically major, but still...
Grant_us_eyes
13d ago
Or, if you wanted to meet in public with other people, you basically had to do a voluntary pledge of allegiance to specific political policies.
I don't think I'll ever forgive some people for that.
Grant_us_eyes
14d ago
Alright, kids. It's time to talk about safe AISex. Remember, never get emotionally and physically invested in your girlfriend unless you have complete authority over her hardware and software.
Yeah. This is what I've been waiting for. I'll confess that I've been more than a little skeptical about AGI/ASI coming anytime soon - no, this is the societal nuclear bomb that just got fired off without a care that's more than likely going to have decades-long repercussions on multiple levels.
Personal AI/Vtuber girlfriends. What a time to be alive.
Grant_us_eyes
18d ago
If you're exercising/working out while taking it, you should be fine. I'm on 21 weeks of semaglutide and haven't noticed any lack of physical capability while training martial arts. If anything, I seem more capable, and I'm beginning to wonder if semaglutide has a side-effect of blocking soreness, but this might just be psychosomatic on my part.
Grant_us_eyes
18d ago
You went wrong a single sentence later
...do you not equate the phrase 'it's just that many people don't do it.' to 'not wanting to put in the effort'? I would think them rather similar.
Grant_us_eyes
18d ago
I don't think you have accurately captured my attitude. In fact, I think you have gotten it completely wrong.
So educate me, then. Because the phrase 'Changing your lifestyle does actually work; it's just that many people don't do it.' falls pretty well in line with what my attitude would have been a year or more ago.
Nevertheless, that is not an argument against the measurable physiological benefits of certain lifestyle changes.
It isn't meant to be. My point isn't 'lifestyle changes don't work' it's that 'lifestyle changes can sometimes only work to a point'.
You, like many others, go too far. Changing your lifestyle does actually work; it's just that many people don't do it.
As much as I hate to intrude on another's discussion, I'm simply going to point at my own experience in terms of weight loss and shrug helplessly.
Like you, I was of a similar attitude. Like you, I felt the majority of weight-gain and weight-loss issues was a matter of people simply not wanting to put in the effort. I still do, to a point - too many people think a diet is like an on-off switch, when I've found it really boils down to actively changing how and what you eat - it's a lifestyle shift, not something you do for a month to fit into your summer bikini. And why not? I did exactly that. I lost 70 pounds from strict CICO and modifying my diet.
However.
I'm not going to go more indepth into my own history of weight loss and weight gain. Instead, I'm going to point to my brother, who has also done the entire weight-loss via keto. And while he was able to lose the weight, there was a plateau, a wall in terms of weight loss he was unable to get past before he simply gave up - the juice wasn't worth the squeeze in terms of the effort he was putting in.
Full disclaimer, he's never been an obese-looking butterball or as heavy as I am, though I'm sure if you put in his BMI stats he'd be labeled as obese.
On semaglutide, he blew through that wall in a few short months and is still loosing weight. He's currently at the weight he was in high school, and hasn't hit a plateau. If things continue as is, both he and I will be at weights we've never been before, ever, and have no idea what we will look like.
I'm no doctor, no medical expert or scientist. I am but a dabbling amateur, stumbling around and trying to piece together a picture of the world. And as time has gone by, I'm becoming more and more convinced that our modern diet has done extreme damage to our bodies, damage that some can adapt to and overcome, and others can't. That we are subject to the cruel tyranny of the flesh that our minds are unable to overcome, even when we fervently wish otherwise. We've learned our lesson, burned our fingers and become wise, but we still carry the scars that we can't fix by ourselves no matter how we wish otherwise.
So we use drugs. Problem solved.
...now, on the gripping hand, I also have experience similar to self_made_human where getting people to loose weight forces you to do the equivalent of making a recalcitrant dog take their medicine, no matter how much they hate it, cause, y'know, they'll die otherwise, but such is life.
Grant_us_eyes
19d ago
Yup. I've been taking it for 21 weeks by this point, still on the same dosage(Most plans slowly increase the dosage over time) and haven't hit a plateau yet. Averaging around 10 pounds of weight loss a month.
Now, as I mentioned elsewhere, a caveat - my brother is also taking semaglutide after I nagged him enough, and he went all in down the peptide rabbit hole, and it's entirely possible that both he and I just react very well to them. Our experience is very much a contrast to some of the horror stories he's stumbled across where they're taking four to six times our dosage just to see any effects, or much more expensive GLP1 blockers.
So I again run into the depressing issue that even when it worked really well for me, there's still an annoying chance it won't work this well for everyone.
I'd still endorse giving it a shot, however. Pun not intended.
Grant_us_eyes
19d ago
That's the part that freaks me out the most - there are no negatives for me.
The first few weeks I was taking it, I felt like I was stumbling around in a daze, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not only was a loosing weight, but I feeling better, less anxiety, better sleep, less brain fog, more energy. And I couldn't help but think 'What the hell? Drugs aren't supposed to be like this. Where's the negatives here? Where are the downsides!?'
I haven't run into any yet. I know people who are very much high-energy, driven people, whom I've known for a very long time, seen thier eating habits, seen what they do in day to day life, and all of a sudden I find myself thinking 'Wait, I'm doing the exact same thing they are. Huh.'
Now, with caveats - my brother is also taking semaglutide after I nagged him enough, and he went all in down the peptide rabbit hole, and it's entirely possible that both he and I just react very well to them - neither of us have increased our weekly dosage and we haven't hit a plateau yet. Which is a contrast to some of the horror stories he's stumbled across where they're taking 4 to six times our dosage just to see any effects, or much more expensive GLP1 blockers.
Still. Drugs. Man, they're awesome.
Grant_us_eyes
19d ago
As someone who's taking semaglutide, been on both sides of the fence of loosing alot of weight(in terms of using straight CICO and now using drugs) - yes, it's different. Radically so - it's very much given me a shift in attitude of what's necessary to loose weight nowadays, and the disturbing and sad revelation that people's bodies are infuriatingly different on a multitude of fundamental levels.
You ever hear stories about people whom can literally ignore hunger while focusing until they get near to pass out? Yeah. I can do that, now. Couldn't before. Or about that typical loosing weight advise about drinking water to stifle hunger? That never worked before - it does now. Hell, I was always confused about those strict dieting plans that called for snacks, as I've never had the urge to snack between meals. Guess what? I've begun to get dizzy and lightheaded at certain points during the day, because I lack fuel, and a small snack clears that right up.
But - and this is the part that drives me up the wall and makes me want to chew the scenery - despite eating less, I have so much more goddamn energy now. I'm able to push myself further and harder in training, and I'm alot more active in getting tasks done without even tiring. It's as if I can finally, finally use all the fuel in the tank for the first time in my life.
The frustrating element is that there is no diet, no food plan, nothing that I could feasibly do that could replicate that. I don't know whether it's genetic, developmental, or a side-effect of having your body fried growing up sucking down sugars and carbohydrates - even after pushing myself to eat healthy and exercise for years by this point, I still wouldn't be able to get that amount of energy without taking semaglutide. It's to the point that even if I wasn't loosing weight, I'd still be taking it because I want that level of energy.
Having been on the drug for a few months, now, I've begun to describe it as if I've been issued a new body and now have to re-adjust all my prior expectations. It's that much of a radical change.
From my experience, you can't compare exercise to dieting. It's two different things, two different categories of discipline. Despite training in martial arts for years, no amount of willpower was going to fix and/or change the damage my body has experienced over years of bad dieting - or maybe I'm trying to blame an external source, and maybe the fault was my body itself, a flawed meat-machine that needs drugs to perform at it's optimum. I don't know.
What I do know is, if you want to fix the issue, take drugs. They're fucking awesome, and will cure what ails you.
Grant_us_eyes
25d ago
The reaction from some quarters of the online 2a community has been... eyebrow-raising, to put it politely.
It's getting to the point where I unironically suspect there's a fair number of bots and shills coming out of the wood-work to paint this as a loss and demoralize 2a advocates when it's clearly a win. Not the best win, mind you, but still a win.
Grant_us_eyes
26d ago
I'm suddenly struggling to find a proper term to describe posters like Turok - I understand that, presumably, there's a plethora of posters on the Motte that would identify as left-leaning that don't act in the way Turok and others like him do, but I can't quite find a good way to describe them.
Anyways, the point I'm trying to make - in my experience, posters like him tend to flame out badly when they interact with forums that are neutral and/or lightly-conservative-leaning. It's far from a Motte-only problem.
Grant_us_eyes
26d ago
Prop 8 in California passed just 17 years ago, banning gay marriage - it was struck down by a judge.
I would volunteer that gay marriage has never been as popular as people have claimed, and support has either been driven by wide-spread media-driven propaganda, the social pressure to 'be nice', gays are very much a minority in the wider population(hence, lack of exposure), or a mix of all of the above.
But now that we've had 17 years of exposure to how all this works out, people have become more negative toward it.
Grant_us_eyes
28d ago
The problem with sheetrock(which 99.99% of new homes built nowadays use) when exposed to water is that it creeps. Even if you get a small amount of water in your home, you're probably going to have to rip out atleast 2 feet, if not more.
When I install wainscoting, what I'll do is put in water-resistant plywood, then ontop I'll use 1/8th plywood stained/painted the color I want, with the appropriate baseboard/edging that I chose. All screwed in. This does multi-duty - it looks nice, I can swap out the 1/8th plywood/trim later if I want to change the color up, and if I need quick access for whatever reason to the wall interior behind it, said access is fairly painless - just unscrew and do your work.
As a plus, you now don't have to worry about anything running into said wall and making dents in the sheetrock(it's solid wood), and you can screw in hooks/hangers/shelving as needed, should you choose to do so. And installing the sheetrock on the remaining 4 feet of wall is now piss-easy - you just put the sheetrock ontop of the plywood and screw it in.
From the sound of things, you probably won't have to worry about the above installation, hiring others to do the work, but this is just my experience doing all the above myself.
Why minimal backsplash for the kitchen sink?
This is just my particular pet-peeve with the kitchen my father had installed in the family house - it's just small enough that when using it to clean dishes, water back-splashes everywhere, including behind the facet, making cleanup a pain. I'm not sure if there's a way around it in terms of sink/faucet combo, but when I finally get around to building my own kitchen, I fully intend to find out.
Build or buy
Generator system should be around... 16,000 or so? for propane, which I would suggest, given you'll be in the South. Foam installation - trust me, it's worth it. Just make sure you get someone you can trust to install it. Never priced shutters - that's just a wishlist item of mine that I've wanted to have on-hand SEVERAL times in the past.
The wainscoting above I did all myself when it was done, so I couldn't tell you off-hand what it would cost. Most builders nowadays would proably look at you funny if you request it, or do a 'faux' wainscot that's just pure looks/appearance. Any future home I build I plan on doing the interior myself, so I don't consider it to be something weird to do.
Grant_us_eyes
29d ago
Things I'd want when building my home;
Storm shutters you can lock from inside. You'll have to deal with both Hurricanes and severe weather. Thank me later. They can also act as a way to block out direct sunlight and cut down on heat reaching your interiors.
Propane generator wired into your electrical system.
Extensive foam insulation to save on cooling and heating.
If you want any sound-deadening put into interior walls, think about it now.
Personal preference, but I'd be installing wainscoting on the interior walls to help with potential issues with flooding(you have checked the flood maps before hand, right?), and they look neat.
Be very critical when picking your kitchen sink and outlet. Make sure you pick one with minimal back-splash, or just say 'fuck it' and get one that looks more apt in an industrial kitchen. (A friend of mine has a family that did catering and they did this. It's wonderful.)
Consider putting up wood/plywood on walls that may have drainage and/or seweage pipes for easy, later access as needed, rather than having to rip down sheetrock.
Grant_us_eyes
1mo ago
Nerds/Geeks used to have the term 'Queen Bee' to describe a woman whom would intrude on a social setting typically outside her venue with the intent of socially dominating it because it was safe for her to do so(no social competition, so men could exclusively focus on her).
As the gate has been lowered, and the activists intruded, said term was actively shamed and harassed - 'Girls can be gamers to!' they cried, refusing to engage with the idea that woman could be socially manipulative in such a manner.
So it's not exactly something unique to the Rationalist social sphere. Aella just has an advantage in that she's honestly, well, nuerodivergent? on top of being hypersexual due to her childhood abuse. But I think the social dynamics are similar.
Grant_us_eyes
1mo ago
And if you're not willing to listen to roughly 2 minutes of said video, it basically disproves everything what you're stating. Sorry, no one's buying your entire 'everything was worse in the past' claim any longer.
Grant_us_eyes
1mo ago
You can't blame them that much, as the South, politically, was weird. You had cases in the South where the governorship and local politics as a whole were deep Blue, as you said, well into the 90s, but the presidency would go Red.
It certainly made me raise an eyebrow or two when I stumbled across that knowledge.
Grant_us_eyes
1mo ago
No one has a credible plan for that. Because the solution to the problem of 'We need to make young men rich and successful so they can have families and children' is a multi-facet plan that needed to be implemented 20 years ago, not today.
Personal antecedent; A friend of mine(who eventually married) confided to me part of the issue with dating he had was potential gold-diggers who were more interested in his and his family's wealth than an honest relationship.
Another personal antecedent; The same friend finally married a nice brain surgeon who's the only one I've seen capable of keeping up with said friend in all areas, and once she got settled into her job, her paycheck meant they could indulge in all their hobbies.
I think there's a hidden factor not accounted for; that rich, successful men don't have options - not really. That if they're trying to build a family, that their options are actually very limited - someone with a similar outlook, ideas for the lifestyle they want to lead, with a pleasant(or at least compatible) personality. So, while the data is interesting(and I'm not disagreeing with it), I think the host of assumptions are off and thus make things skewed when trying to apply it to the real world.
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