Ahh, probably the one that gave visuals of bloat and skin slippage.
I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies (did some hospice work, ran across a suicide in the woods, and a few accidents), but I’d never seen that segment of decomp.
It’s both worse than I expected, and somehow not as bad.
Depends on your weird.
I write, so there’s a ton of stuff on decomposition, forensics, and related subject matter that are weird by some standards.
I’ve got stuff on niche mythology too, for the same reason. Along with that is stuff on modern paganism, syncretic religions, and related subjects. Again, weird by some standards.
But I tend to think the morbid stuff is what would catch most people by surprise.
Nah, it’s one of those things where I know everyone has their own way of managing relationship decisions.
It isn’t abusive, it isn’t an out of line way of responding, and it’s a reasonable boundary for a monogamous marriage. It may or may not be a boundary that everyone has, but it isn’t unreasonable.
Now, me? I’m fine with the concept. Me and my wife sometimes travel without each other, and with friends of the “opposite” sex. To us it wouldn’t be an issue. If we didn’t trust each other, we wouldn’t be married.
I might or might not be comfortable with where the resort is though. Some places just aren’t reliably safe for any tourist, much less a naked female tourist, though I doubt a reputable resort is going to be any more unsafe than any hotel in that regard. Those places tend to have decent security.
But, nah, no red flags here. Just a married couple making a decision together.
The only thing one person can do is get armed, get trained, and get ready.
Problem with that kind of stuff is having it not be currently available. You can’t just up and sell a bunch of superconducting cable without someone wondering how you got it. With precious metals, selling off small amounts won’t draw as much attention.
You can, possibly, keep your stash of platinum secret for the rest of your life, claim you made a trade or whatever. Superconducting materials take a lot more backstory to explain not only how you got any, but how you keep getting it. Unless you sell it all at once, which is still going to cause attention, and you end up with the possibility of the funds being frozen or seized.
Since nobody else even has superconducting cable at all (afaik, anyway), you could even end up in deep shit with people wanting the secret bad enough to fuck you up.
Well, the obvious and practical answer is a giant block of some kind of precious metal. Whichever one has enough value per unit of weight that it’s essentially an insane amount of wealth that can fit in a fairly small space. That way, you can have a big brick of whatever it is in your closet, chip off bits and sell them off after a little work shaping them. Gold is the obvious pick, but maybe platinum would be easier to work with in terms of turning into a sellable form.
It partially bypasses the whole thing where you have to figure out how to nicer launder big amounts at once, or worry about flooding a market. You just causing use it to supplement whatever income you have, and have that safety net as needed.
However! This ain’t a practical situation.
Let’s get a little more interesting. Ignore any of the the tricks to try and get infinite uses, that’s no fun.
I think the most fun thing would be a personal flight device that never needs fuel, and protects you from the effects of the flight. Magic carpet, jetpack, not really too hung up on the exact form as long as it’s usable without drawbacks. Like, if it’s a flying carpet, it needs something so bugs and weather aren’t messing up the flight. If it’s a flying car, it would need to be essentially radar proof unless it came with freedom to go anywhere, and could still avoid other flying things
I think what I would want the most is something that can heal though. Just fix any disease, any injury, like that. Not necessarily aging, I don’t want to live forever. I just want to be healthy while I live.
If the object could also extend the life of animals, that would be perfect. To be healthy again, and never lose another companion? That’s worth selling your soul for.
It really is a great thing. Not just for the advice, or even having people that understand intimately what you’re going though. It’s also having a space where you don’t have to pretend.
Check around. We’re up here in the Appalachians, in a rural area, so our group is essentially a tri-county thing because there’s just not enough people to maintain a group in a single county. So if someone is looking for a group, it helps to not only check for their town or county, but nearby places too.
Yeah, it’s printed out en masse. Everyone in my disability support group gets one. It basically says something along the lines of the case having been evaluated, and benefits will continue.
I gotta wonder if people that propose this kind of thing have only interacted with older people in nursing homes or something.
If you think that age is some kind of limit to long term thinking, you definitely have little or no contact with older people that aren’t impaired.
If anything, the older people I’ve been around, even the ones in nursing homes, are better at long term thinking and planning. Comparing that to coworkers, fellow students in college, you know, the 25 to 50 range of people, I’d say that increasing age gives more perspective on what long term thinking really means because they’ve already seen the consequences of previous choices.
You think age removes a vested interest in the future? Nah. Capitalism does, greed does, but age means you are more likely to have kids, and grandkids, and great grandkids. That’s the future older folks start worrying about.
You don’t have to be a narcissist just because you’re old. Why the fuck do you think that someone hitting an arbitrary age means they don’t have a concern for the future? That’s a serious question, not rhetorical. What kind of people are in your life that you think that way?
People talk shit about boomers, but I’ve sat with people of that generation, and the two before them. Sometimes on their death beds. Usually when they’re facing the specter of their mortality, even if it isn’t that close. You have no idea how rare it is for them to not worry about the world they’re leaving behind.
The whole idea of their kids having a better life was so damn central a thread of the literal boomers that it might as well be their motto. The bad, short term decision-making they did wasn’t in their sixties or seventies, it was in their twenties and thirties.
This whole concept of generation warfare, and ageist bullshit is nothing more than a smoke screen blinding us from working together in constructive ways.
Like, I get that you think this is some kind of great idea, but it shows exactly how little perspective you have. We need the experience and considered decision making that’s the hallmark of the typical “senior citizen”, just as much as we need the energy and out of the box of the young. And we need the direct, hands on per perspective of the ages in the middle that are finally seeing what their decisions have led to, and know how things are working currently to help implement the new ideas and guide the long term ideas into the future.
Seriously my homie, don’t buy into the bullshit that the politicians are actually good examples of their generations. They aren’t. They’re the power chasers, the ones that hold the system as a goal in and of itself. They’re gaining their power in a system that rewards narcissism and sociopathy with more power.
You want to change who can hold positions of power? You gotta break free of the idea that those positions are the positions we need. The more power that is vested in the people, the more checks we have on the bigger picture, the better. Just limiting the ages of the people in office only means we get younger power mongers and sociopaths tearing things apart.
Go look at the young right wing. You think they’re going to be better than the older right wing? I mean, c’mon. They aren’t any more forward thinking than their older counterparts at all. If anything they’re worse because they rush shit along and do shit so they can gain power faster.
This is just such bad thinking.
Afaik, and you can’t use crowd sourced info like this as some kind of realistic guide, it should be handled by his case worker. I’m not very familiar with cali state stuff, only what I’ve picked up talking to online support groups. But, iirc, he should get something in the mail every year telling him what, if anything, he needs to do.
My yearly letter is just a “you all set” kind of thing, but I’m east coast, so it isn’t a guarantee of anything for his state.
Best bet is to contact his case worker and ask. If he doesn’t know who that is, contact the local dss office and they’ll be able to help to some degree or another.
Ahhh, I’ve won a goodly number of things.
Back in school, me and this one girl spent years going back and forth as spelling bee winners.
Won a watermelon seed spitting contest.
Jr high, I didn’t win shit except some bad memories, but that’s off topic lol.
High school, I took a couple of weightlifting wins.
After that, as an adult, it was more hit or miss. Never anything worth money, or not enough to matter.
I am still absurdly proud of winning a biscuit cookoff at the county fair. Not even joking, I was up against old southern ladies that had been making biscuits longer than my dad had been alive. I had been working on perfecting my recipe at that point for about ten years. I won that fucking ribbon twice. It’s all about technique, how you handle the dough.
While it was kinda low key, no prizes, no ribbons, nothing physical, I won a cross school sparring session at the dojo I went to. We cross trained with several other dojos of various arts. But the guy that owned our dojo got five of those to all get together and do this big session.
Basically, you go in and you spar. Light contact only, you have to protect your training partner. But you get in the circle and you go until you tap, or someone scores a hit that would be a KO. Next person steps in when that happens. I was taking classes in both Japanese jujutsu and American kempo. This was maybe a year into things, so I was still raw as hell.
We were in three groups, beginners, intermediate and advanced. I was thrown into intermediate. I can’t recall how many of us were there total. I wanna say it was a little over a dozen in that group, plus maybe twenty in the beginners, and a handful in advanced.
Anyway, I was third in. I did the full group. Got damn close to an actual KO when an axe kick was faster than I thought. Was damn near choked or otherwise close to tapping more than I can recall. I was breathing fire and eating bitter. Like, my throat was in more pain than anything else because it doesn’t matter how well you hydrate, you’re panting and struggling so hard it gets dry in seconds. And I had to pause twice to vomit, hence eating bitter lol. I can’t recall the japanese phrase for it.
Anyway, the first two guys cycled back in, and I managed to scrape out an arm bar and a leg lock. The circle starts again, and I’m wiped. Like, my arms are rubber, I’m dizzy and can’t see straight, I’m wobbling all over the place. I don’t even remember the last two guys. But the last one got me. Basically just pushed me over lol. I had nothing left in the tank. But I was the only one in any of the groups to go a full circle.
I have no clue where it came from. I’m not exactly Mr stamina. I was a power lifter, I wasn’t built for that kind of sustained effort. I damn sure didn’t manage the feat the next meetup lol. Did well, but not running the circle well.
But! I did get my dinner and drinks paid for out of it.
Later on, as a bouncer, I got into some real fights and some of those were way less of a “win” in my mind.
About the only thing I’ve ever won that came with enough money to amount to anything was a chili cookoff. Prize was a hundred for the winner. So, you know, not a big prize or anything. This was small time stuff. I did do some other cooking stuff at a state level, but never got wins. I spent that hundred on my nephew. He wanted a guitar, and had been saving. He had found one he liked at a pawn shop, and was short something like fifty bucks. So I gave him the hundred to finish it off and get some strings or whatever.
Southern Appalachians
The damn yankees don’t realize that snow is different here. We tend to get mixed precipitation more, and even when the roads are prepared for cold weather, or can get stymied by the way we melt and freeze over time.
Snow ain’t the same everywhere, and in this neck of the woods, it tends to hide shit you can’t plan for.
If they’re established, yeah. But you have to wait until you’re contacted because it isn’t something that you’ll have an easy time finding a buyer for.
I have, however, been offered a few grand for my oldest account there, as well as one of my niche subs that was private long before they decided to be assholes.
That, apparently, is valuable. It’s not as easy to make a sub private now, so one of the older ones is attractive for some reason. The person that contacted me wouldn’t explain what/why, which is part of the reason I told them to fuck off, but they had offered two grand for it.
Neither.
IDGAF if anyone remembers, and I ain’t reminding anyone.
About the only thing I care about regarding my birthday is being allowed to nap without interruption lol.
It’s inevitable.
It also serves to give new users a stable instance that they can learn on. Then they’ll either switch instances, stay with the biggest, start their own, or abandon federated social media entirely.
But that initial stability gives the best chances of people staying. I started on the big, obvious ones for lemmy and Mastodon. On lemmy, I abandoned my .world account pretty quick for this one because it offered what I need. It ended up being one of the bigger ones, but I don’t plan on switching. But when someone in my life wants to try lemmy, I tend to recommend one of the less annoying instances lol.
Mastodon, it was similar; .social didn’t fill my needs, so I migrated. Twice so far.
There’s always going to be a “biggest” instance. It’s going to be the one that’s easiest to find. You could plug in the smallest instance for Mastodon, and it would decentralize more. But it might also overwhelm that instance. Mastodon in particular has an organization that can maintain a solid instance with massive numbers. Letting it serve as a gateway just makes sense.
Dammit. Now I gotta do this to fuck with my kid
Well, it turns out that I’m particularly good at explaining maths, up to algebra. I’ve helped family go from bad grades to good ones via tutoring, eventually to the point that they no longer needed me to be able to get good grades on their own.
Same with english, usually. The caveat to that one being literature not always working out right because a teacher wanting specific answers rather than the students showing their comprehension and analysis. But, if I was teaching, that wouldn’t be an issue.
Sure as hell couldn’t take anyone past high school levels in either, though I could likely teach creative writing at intro levels (which really isn’t that hard at all)
The real issue is the stuff you have to do to be a teacher. It isn’t as easy as understanding the subject, or being good at conveying that subject. There’s a lot of planning involved, you’ve got tight time limits, there’s paperwork and administrative tasks. That’s not even covering the stuff for special needs students, or being able to match expectations of language and discipline.
So, while it turns out I’m a damn good tutor, I’d make a lousy teacher in a structured environment. Most of us would, even (and sometimes especially) the full on experts in a subject.
I will say though, teaching can be incredibly fun. I’m not talking the rewarding part, where you see someone getting better, or the pride in taking part in that. It’s the process itself, of taking an idea, breaking it down, and then translating it to someone else in a way that works for them. That’s not just a school subject thing, I’ve taught martial arts stuff here and there over the years, along with other things that were more piecemeal (like shading when drawing, but not necessarily other techniques). The process itself is just fun.
Groups are harder, obviously, and I’ve never liked time limits on things. If it takes an entire week to transfer the knowledge, or a month, or whatever, the important part is the learning to me. The bigger the group, the less realistic time you have per lesson, so it can end up being much harder to convey something to the point of retention the way you can do it with 1 on 1 instruction. It’s one of those things where the longer your have between lessons, the less likely you are to transfer the skill because the student forgets.
I’m still butthurt that I wasn’t able to teach in my field of work. If I had been able to, it would have added years, maybe a decade to my working life. But they don’t allow it anywhere that I’m aware of, so meh.
Chowchow is a southern thing mostly.
There’s a brand called Mrs Campbell’s that’s almost as good as some homemade. Runs a little sweeter than most homemade, but not horribly so.
It’s kind of like sauerkraut and kimchi had a baby.
A lot of folks will have it on everything they eat, even stuff like steak that shouldn’t have much on it at all. It is versatile though. Burgers, beans, fried fish, salads, sandwiches, soups, you name it and it tends to go well.
Oh, my fucking gods!
I’m taking a break from shoving a biscuit with cheese and the branston into my maw to say thank you.
This stuff is bonkers. Sweet, salty, tangy, hints of bitterness, and plenty of umami. It’s like the perfect flavor bomb.
This stuff could remove chowchow from its throne as the most versatile pickled product. It’s different from chowchow, and those differences are (I think) going to let it enhance more things as well as being amazing on its own.
Thank you so much for suggesting it!
It used to be Google scholar. It was pretty easy to find good stuff when I was digging into it. Not sure if it’s still a reliable place though