Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
Burnt out, over the hill autistic IT nerd and longtime SSC lurker
User ID: 3219
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
3d ago
What is your advice for getting to know the ins and outs of a local community? We just bought a house and are joining an HOA for the first time.
Umm, abandon all hope ye who enter here? (Kinda sorta but not really) Kidding!
I've had the misfortune pleasure of living in two separate places with different flavors of homeowners organizations. The first community in question was a relatively large community of several hundred houses and the second was a much smaller community of ~50 houses. Both communities provided water and road maintenance for the respective homes. The first had some pretty restrictive covenants, was well run, and expensive AF while the second was almost completely unrestricted, cheap AF, and still trying to live in the close knit community days where everyone knew everyone and households pitched in together to fix community problems, which to me does not seem to work in the 21st century. Regardless, my experience has been tons of dramatically unreal expectations and soul sucking low stakes drama, which greatly inhibits the ability of the HOA to do meaningful things. This was, IME, especially true of the smaller community, which did not have enough of a homeowner base to really afford the type of service and reliability that the homeowners desired and expected. Both communities were big on getting new homeowners involved in the HOA. DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE ROPED INTO THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Leave the complainers and the power trippers to each other--your sanity will thank you.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
4d ago
Ministry: The Lost Gospels According To Al Jourgensen by Al Jourgensen and Jon Wiederhorn.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
6d ago
INTJ, every damn time. I found the whole bit about extroverted sensing being my inferior function quite interesting, as it explained a few of my RW peccadilloes like driving fun cars.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
7d ago
Hard agree, I actually got two separate false positives not too terribly long ago when trying to fix up a copy of Civ 3: Complete that I had bought from GOG. The first false positive was because the original Civ 3: Conquests disc that had the missing scenario that I wanted to be able to play had Gamespy on it, which was unsigned code and the second was that I was attempting to install command-line software that would allow me to unpack the .CAB file to grab the single scenario file from the CD that was missing in my install of Civ 3.
GUH.
Damn, I'm sad to hear this. This is one of those times when I had really hoped that I was wrong about what was going on.
The problem, at least as I see it, is that even with this realization it's been hard for her to break her habits. We go out to brunch and she still eats her little vegan salads. I tell her she should add some chicken or other protein to the salads and she declines. She still consults the app on her phone that counts all her calories for the day. It's hard for me to figure out what the line is between pushing her to be healthier for her own sake, and being outright controlling over her lifestyle. Do I just put my foot down and confront her, pushing her to be serious about her health?
Here's the thing about all of this. You can't really control her behavior, and trying to do so is just going to be crazymaking for the both of you. It's her problem to deal with, and hardcore eating disorders are things that have to be managed, not problems that can be solved. It seems like you're really worried about her (and rightly so!) but the last thing you want to do in this situation is to behave in a pushy, controlling, or confrontational way. The most likely result of that kind of behavior is further withdrawal and further entrenchment of the eating disordered thinking--it just feeds the disease. Instead, I'd encourage you to see yourself as her ally, her first line of love and support, and think about your relationship with her on those same terms, which is to say that the more you can love, accept, and support her as she is, the more she'll be able to positively use her own strength constructively in her own life. You can still express your concerns or worry when she asks for feedback (which I'd recommend that you do as gently as you possibly can!) but otherwise those feelings are yours to deal with as well as you possibly can. You can check out The Secret Language of Eating Disorders by Peggy Claude-Pierre, it offers great insight into the minds of the eating disordered.
I said in my earlier reply that it's a long road, she needs a lot of people in her corner, and she needs to choose to work on this herself, yadda yadda yadda, and I'm afraid all of that is still true. Is that something you can live with? Think about what's best for you in this situation without any regard for whether or not she's going to be able to change her eating habits. Can you still love this girl and be happy even if she's always going to be controlling about her eating and even if she stays underweight? If the answer to those questions is a yes, then I'd encourage you to start with accepting that this is likely to be a chronic issue for the duration of your relationship with her, and I'd also encourage you to seek out and find support for those of us that love our eating disordered partners and spouses. There's bound to be lots of heartache and many bumps in the road, and the better you can do with keeping your own metaphorical oxygen mask secure, the better your relationship with her will fare.
Regardless, I still wish you well!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
10d ago
You're right! I had to refresh my own memory on this some more and the additional detail that my brain was fuzzy on in the intervening years is the whole disaccharide vs. monosaccharide bit, meaning that because regular sugar is a disaccharide, the bond between glucose and fructose has to be broken, whereas HFCS contains free monosaccharides. I kinda remembered that sucrose took a bit more work by the body to digest, but I was misattributing that to the balance of sugars, which as you're pointing out, isn't really much different than regular table sugar. So to be clear, it's not the amount of glucose vs. fructose itself, the idea is that the free monosaccharides of fructose in HFCS are uniquely taxing to the liver in a way that regular sugar is not because the bonds on sucrose have to be broken before the fructose in regular sugar can be processed by the liver. That's... even more hair-splitting than I remembered it to be!
IIRC, the basis for the argument that high fructose corn syrup being worse than cane sugar comes down to fructose needing to be converted to glucose in the liver, as opposed to glucose, which does not. Sucrose is essentially a molecule of fructose and a molecule of glucose, so the liver only has to do about half of the work, comparatively speaking.
edit: I didn't remember correctly after all. Apologies! Sucrose is a disaccharide, essentially a molecule of fructose and a molecule of glucose bonded together. Enzymes in the mouth partially break down some of the sugar but most of the breakdown occurs in the small intestine, where the glucose and fructose are then absorbed into the bloodstream. High Fructose Corn Syrup contains free monosaccharides that can be immediately absorbed into the bloodstream from the small intestine. Once in the bloodstream, glucose can be directly utilized, assuming the presence of insulin, production of which the free glucose will stimulate. Fructose, OTOH has to be processed by the liver, and doesn't stimulate the production of insulin or enhance the production of leptin. As @sarker has helpfully pointed out in reply, HFCS actually contains similar amounts of glucose and fructose, so the key difference there is that regular sugar still needs to be broken down in the small intestine before it can be metabolized. Rest of original post follows.
Proponents allege that too much HFCS in the diet leads to more visceral fat and even metabolic syndrome and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The counterargument is that the difference in metabolic pathways is relatively minor, that if caloric sweeteners are that much a part of any diet, metabolic syndrome and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease can result, and that the bigger issue is a diet heavy in processed foods in general.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
11d ago
White Witch, Black Curse (The Hollows, Book 7), by Kim Harrison. Book 11 of He Who Fights With Monsters was fine, and it wrapped up all of its major plot arcs, but I don't feel the need to run out and read book 12 right now.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
17d ago
Fair enough, for whatever reason the .ph link flat-out wasn't working for me.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
17d ago
Think you mean https://archive.is/QiXfh for your link...
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
18d ago
Despite my plans to the contrary, it's He Who Fights With Monsters 11, by Shirtaloon, as book ten ended up being a massive setup for a boss battle book. Stupid cliffhanger endings! :/
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
20d ago
Nvm, faceh said what I was going to say below. Still totally understand where you're coming from though.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
24d ago
Is anyone else test driving the Cosmic desktop experience from Pop! OS and if so, how do you like it? I've been using it for a couple of weeks now and as expected (being an alpha and all), it's been a mixed bag overall but it looks like they're moving in the right direction and it does fix some of the things that annoyed me about GNOME while introducing other minor annoyances, which goes back to the whole mixed bag, alpha release thing. Overall, I've been finding that while the look and feel of Cosmic is quite GNOME-like for the most part, the performance does seem snappier and it has some welcome additions as well. I look forward to seeing how it shapes up! Ironically, it also seems to be showing some long-term performance issues that I never saw with GNOME--my current desktop has session has been live for a little over a week and I'm starting to experience significant lag and stuttering, which was never a problem with GNOME.
Background: I bought a Beelink ultra-SFF a couple of years back and installed Pop! on it to run some old games that I told myself I'd try and play through at the time. The latter has turned out to be more like, I get the game running in Wine/Dosbox and then move on to another because I'm having more fun making them work than I am replaying them but still, Pop! turned out to be "good enough" for a DD for me to keep it.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
24d ago
Oof, sorry to hear that you're not enjoying Dungeon Slayer, and I'm afraid this is where my "cheap date" reader self doesn't necessarily do me any favors when I talk about series that I've enjoyed. It's a low bar! It's been maybe a couple of years now since I read the first few books and what I remember really liking about it was, in fact, the fight scenes and also the world-building, not just
On the 12 Miles front, yeah, developing To'Wrathh's character was annoying AF to me, too, though I understand the major plot points that revolve around her character making that necessary to a certain extent. A lot of her early stuff was just bloody annoying to me, though it did get better over time. To me, 12 Miles is at its best when it's exploring its world, particularly the underground sections, and at its dreariest when it's doing its developmental/consolidation bits. I can tell you that book 5 to me was largely one of those so I'd say there's no need to rush in picking up the audiobook when it becomes available. Regardless, I'm glad you're enjoying that one!
I appreciate the Seth Ring recommendation, Kindle pimps out his Battle Mage Farmer stuff to me semi-regularly because of a similar series that I read in the past. I have another series or three that I bought to make me immune to wanting to read another one of those but I might check out Iron Tyrant--it sounds interesting and more up my alley (that whole what will he do with the premise thing) than another "exploit the farmer class" style of LitRPG.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
25d ago
He Who Fights With Monsters, Book 10 By Shirtaloon. I appreciate that it's (finally) become self-aware enough to subvert some of its tropes, but I'll probably have to give the series some time before reading 11 as I've been reading too much LitRPG lately.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
27d ago
On the other hand, I think it’s a crime against human dignity to throw ashes around in any place.
I think my wife would agree with you. She has flat out told me that if I go first, she's not putting my ashes in the 39 oz Folger's can (complete with blue lid!) that I have painstakingly procured for this purpose because she sees it as beneath my dignity. To which I say:
That's, just like, your opinion, man.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
27d ago
I mean, that's a bog-standard way to look like Important Things are being done. In my far too many years at $current_employer, I have seen it countless times and when my previous boss said that we were no longer playing musical offices reorganizing our workspaces my reaction was ROFLMFAO, GLWT and also to make sure to give him shit every time he brought up the next move we had to do after a several month grace period as well, which I know he appreciated. In fact, I have watched said employer literally move different offices to the other side of the building and then back again less than two years later and that has happened two separate times with different sets of offices even! And it's not just my employer. Behold, Azure has become Entra! Azure Purview and Compliance have merged into the new Purview! Use the new-and-improved Exchange Online Admin (except for all of these things that live in the old Exchange Online Admin that still lives several years later). It never ceases. SMDH.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
28d ago
Copper IUDs have side effects too
Can confirm, my wife suffered from terrible unofficial but internet recognized symptoms from Paragard for years. She finally got the damn thing removed after a couple of bouts of intense, labor-like pains that landed her in the ER and surprise, surprise, no more of those or any of her other symptoms.
I have to allow myself some skimming on the CW threads, but I read most of the normal weekly threads as well as any other thread that catches my interest, which is most of them.
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