Going on a trip in February/March somewhere warm and sunny helps a fuck ton. It’s honestly worth the few grand to go to an all inclusive resort and have nothing to think about and have all your needs met while you take a dip in the sea.
That or cannabis. I’ve started taking CBD+THC oils before bed and it helps mellow me out and stabilize me.
I stayed at an all inclusive in Varadero, Cuba and I really liked it. The beaches are absolutely gorgeous there. The resorts are pretty nice with lots of activities. You can also do some sightseeing around Cuba with organized tours. There’s lots of good rum and great cigars. However, you don’t eat well in Cuba. They don’t have a lot of food and whatever good food they have, they serve at the resorts which says a lot about what they have. The people are poor and if you have any degree of sympathy, you’ll feel bad for them the whole time you’re there. And they remind you how poor they are all the time.
In Cancun, Mexico you have to pick the right place or you’ll get a beach full of rocks. I stayed in the hotel zone at Sandos and the beach was gorgeous. The food was great! Lots of activities and animation and shows. There’s less sightseeing though. And the food on site is pretty American in flavor. If you’re a bit more adventurous, you can take the public bus for super cheap to go into Cancun city in the evening and they have a park, the Parque de las palapas, where they have tons of street food. You’ll eat amazing Mexican Street food for amazingly cheap. Even if they charge you the gringo price. There’s also a shopping mall in the hotel zone which is huge if you want to do any shopping. Honestly this was my best experience in an all inclusive resort.
Martinique is a French territory. If you don’t speak French, you’ll have a difficult time there. Otherwise, Martinique is a god damn jewel. I’ve never seen beaches as gorgeous as what’s there. It’s a real life paradise. I spent time there doing a bit of a road trip across the island. We visited multiple beaches and stayed in hotels and Airbnbs with hosts. They have the best rum I’ve ever tasted and there are plenty of distilleries you can visit. There are a lot of boats you can take with a group to more remote locations to do some snorkeling, but many of the beaches in general are already great. The food there is fucking fantastic! The French being big on cuisine really had a big influence there. The Creole food and seafood is out of this world. Accompanied with great wine and rum to boot. This was one of my best trips honestly.
This year we’ll be going to Panama. I haven’t found a good resort yet that has a good beach. And they’re all far from any airport or city so not very accessible. I don’t really know what to expect there. I’m going with an open mind and we’ll see what happens.
I’m not sure, I wasn’t really paying attention since I was brand new lol.
But the doctor wasn’t worried. In fact she told my parents that within a few months it would be impossible to tell my collarbone was ever broken.
The Internet says children typically wear a sling for 3 to 6 weeks for a broken collarbone. I’d assume my parents just swaddled me or something. I’ll ask them.
I like Vesper (2022) as one of the few I know of that focuses on biological technology, and it is part of the story as opposed to a backdrop.
There’s a lot of body horrror/Cronenburg stuff I like that gets close. Stuff like The Fly, Testuo the Iron Man, Videodrome, etc. But that’s focused more on the “wouldn’t this be fucked up?” than the exploration of biotech.
Repo Men (2010) and Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) have a strong focus on the commoditization of the human body and organs especially. Gattaca (1997) is a little similar in that genetic therapy is important to society. And The Island (2005) is centered on cloning. Of these four, I like Repo! the most, but for other reasons than its take on Biopunk.
eXistenZ (1999) is probably Cronenburg’s most straight forward take of biology as technology, as opposed to just a source of horror, but I haven’t actually watched this one yet.
District 9 (2009) and Akira (1988) have situations that cause massive biological change, but not centered on Biopunk in my opinion.
The Blade Runner films, despite being the posterboys of Cyberpunk film, have a lot of potential considering that at the end of the day Replicants are biological. Splice (2009) at least focuses on the actual development of new biological technology, but winds up being more of a Frankenstein tale than anything.
The Alien universe has hints of this with the Space Jockeys, xenomorphs, and androids. But it’s not ubiquitous.
13 year old heat pump owner here. It sounds like a normal AC running outside. It gets a bit loud in certain moments when it runs some exhaust cycle - not sure of the term for it - but that just happen sporadically here and there and lasts no longer than a few seconds.
The “exhaust cycle” is defrost. When running in winter heat pump mode the outside coils will freeze over and must be periodically defrosted by warming them back up, else the system will stop moving heat effectively.
Varies by heat pump but some simply have a valve that self recirculates the refrigerant without entering the house, as all the compressor power turns into heat work to melt the ice, and is also why they get noisier.
Not the same person but where I am there are shelters and community centers that offer these things for free. The facilities are not in as good condition as a gym membership though.
We have tons of shelters in the US too. Talk to any homeless person though and they’ll tell you they don’t use the shelter because it either: forces them to not use drugs, splits up a family, has lots of sexual assaults going on, or has more health related problems than it’s worth.
last time i took a shower at a homeless shelter:
you have to hand all your stuff to a guy at a window, he puts it in a bag, then you go to a medium sized room with several shower heads spraying towards the middle…
so you don’t just get your shower, you get the water bouncing off a dozen naked homeless guys…
the water is a tepid, narrow, painful jet…
i caught scabies and athletes foot…
…
i’ve taken one other one at a shelter in another city and state and it was identical…
…
gym is way better, otherwise i’d rather take a bird bath in a random bathroom sink…
To add to @garbagebagel’s point I am not sure that a homeless person with a car is very common in Eurasia.
But come to think of it, this depends on how much people are willing to move around and at what point are they considered homeless, e.g. if they can’t afford to sleep anywhere except for the car but have a room in a next town etc.
Also, I am now not sure what is the statistics of ownership of things like cars in a group of homeless people in different places. Could be wrong about the idea that most homeless own close to nothing but don’t know if such a statistic exists.
Not American. BasicFit and similar chains allow you access to all their gyms across Europe. Obviously, the car will be a problem here. If you can afford it, something like the citroen berlingo will do. They're everywhere, relatively affordable, and not super noticeable. If that's not an option, there's the library or public transport, combined with the occasional hostel. Not ideal, but better than sleeping on the street and not being able to wash at all.
A lot of those countries are just tax havens where companies like to “headquarter” their businesses and where rich people hide their money. Some have a low official population, and rely on exploiting foreign workers for much of the labor done (non-citizens don’t count towards “capita”).
My partner and I got scratch ticket packs for eachother for $38 total. I lost every ticket she won 20 dollar so we are starting the year 18 dollars short.
I was in line at a convenience store the other day, when the person in front of me bought a dozen or so scratch tickets. Normally, I wouldn’t have gave it a second thought, people gamble. But what made it stand out to me was that the person made the cashier just immediately scratch the QR code square and scan the ticket. Like, the person didn’t even touch the tickets. Just handed over the money, and made the cashier do the work. Not only that, but the cashier didn’t even bat an eye; as this seemed like a normal occurrence to them. And the person in front of me didn’t win anything, they just walked away with nothing.
So not only was it extremely sad to see this person, who is clearly addicted to gambling, waste their money. But, seeing how the industry has made it so easy and fast for someone to piss their money away was quite disgusting. These people don’t even play the game on the cards now. They just scratch off the code and scan it. Just sad all around.
Why not? They’re fun and benefit numerous good causes, such as services for elderly citizens and low-cost prescription medication programs. No one of stable mind really thinks they’ll get rich, but it’s nice to win a few bucks here and there.
Even though some of the money goes to good causes, taking advantage of people who are addicted to gambling is not cool.
Now, that’s not to say that every single person who has ever bought a scratch ticket is an addict, but the whole thing is designed to take advantage of those who are not in their right mind.
I’m so happy to be in a wealthy community with very few gambling addicts these days.
I sold lottery tickets in a very very poor community and I swear they’d blow everything they had and then try to bum the clerk to keep going.
The difference is absurd too. I would sell 3-4k (that’s low too) in lottery tickets every day in a poor community. In a wealthy community I rarely sell 100 dollars in tickets in a day.
I know a man who would be living like a king if he wasn’t addicted. He retired from a pretty high position in the military and then the post office. Every time he gets his money he spends the first 4 days of the month spending at least 4k on tickets. His wife makes him keep just enough to live in their tiny beat up house and take care of the terribly mentally ill adult children (all in their 40s).
Gambling addiction is so crazy to me, I could never tell if anyone was addicted though at the counter. I used to work at a pharmacy with a lotto machine so that probably determined customers a bit. The older retired ladies coming in with their pouches was kind of charming and they weren’t very big spenders overall, they seemed to just enjoy organizing and managing it all.
Slot machines in casinos really affect me in a depressing way though, seeing rows of people just pressing buttons over and over while they stare at the machine I find disturbing.
I’m in Virginia and about 6 months ago I had some guys pop on here trying to get me to install those slot machines. They told me how much money the store could bring in, blah blah blah. I told them I’d rather die than sit here with people drooling and throwing their lives away. I’d feel like shit for every penny it brought in. Funny thing is, not long after they came in with the big pitch, the machines were outlawed haha. They were trying to do a quick dump before the law changed, the assholes.
Fortunately my uncle (the owner) is very religious and principled about such things.
He sells the tickets, but he has little things in place these days that keep the hardcore gambler away. No purchases on credit or debit cards, standing and scratching is considered loitering.
We call them a “stupid tax” but infrequently buying them is pretty harmless. I don’t mind group lotto either it can be fun to buy in and run the numbers out over a course of a few months. There’s some charity lottos I’ve done before.
When I was 18, I worked in a convenience store. I was behind the counter with my manager and some lady decided to throw a few bucks at some dollar scratch tickets. I was behind silly and put my finger on the middle one and said it would get her at least five dollars. She laughed and took them out to her car. A few minutes later she came in looking like she saw a ghost. She asked how I knew and I just told her that I guessed. She won exactly five dollars on the ticket I pointed out.
As someone working in my family’s gas stations for the last two decades, this is something that happens at least a few times a month for me.
9 times out of 10 the big winners have sat and played on a roll until it hits something and they move on to the next making it nearly impossible for an average, non addicted customer to get anything. The gambling addicts will spend 200k to win 10k and jump up and down like the 10k winner is going to change they life.
Customers who always share their winnings, I point them to the ticket that hasn’t hit in awhile. Customers who aggravate me and bounce in front of people like someone pissing themselves at a slot machine, I lie and tell them a ticket hasn’t hit even if it has. It’s probably wrong, but my thinking goes that the longer a particular ticket has gone without hitting, the closer it is to a winner. Someone smarter than me can probably call me an idiot on that one.
Pointing people to winners (which is a total freak thing every time I do) has paid me probably 6k in the last 20 years. If decent folks think you assisted them in their luck, they always want to share in the luck.
I’m sorry I’ve pretty much just sat and typed nothing here. Too far in to back out now. :p
his election came out of treasonous interference overseas, his policy was to bailout people who made too many bets oil prices would never rise, his tax policy was to shift the burdens to the middle class and away from the rich, the current real estate laws that favor investors were created then, he illegally funded south american genocides, he oversaw a domestic crackdown on unions that is ongoing, his administration was run by the ghouls who later invaded iraq under false pretenses, and the guy was was also a huge piece of shit.
The Fairness Doctrine only applies to network television, which Fox News need not abide by.
The report by the Congressional Research Service notes that broadcast is "distinct from cable, satellite, and the Internet, which are all services for which consumers must pay.
“It does not appear that the Fairness Doctrine may be applied constitutionally to cable or satellite service providers,” it continues.
Don’t forget that he deliberately slow-walked any response to the AIDS crisis…until his friend Rock Hudson contracted it. Then it was all-hands-on-deck.
Bho ko - a spicy Vietnamese beef stew - immediately comes to mind for me. It’s savory, hearty, fragrant. Has a touch of sweet. Great mix of eastern and western ingredients so it’s familiar and comforting on many levels. A Vietnamese friend of mine made it for a dinner party a few years back and it set off the cravings.
I like mine without noodles, and instead with toasted french bread for dipping.
This question could easily be a college thesis, if not an entire course. I think anyone asking this question and learning more about Reagan is on the right track to better understanding… I really want to say ‘everything’. Politics, human nature, consumerism, economics, negotiation, propaganda, cover ups, racism, homophobia, the fallacy of Democracy, and so so much more.
If you’re any more interested in the subject than reading through a handful of comments on the internet, I recommend the book “The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America”.
The podcast, “Behind the Bastards” did an excellent series on Reagan and the damage he did. I believe they referenced this book quite a few times in their research.
Reoccurring nightmares are not you. They are someone else, like you, but a different you, in a different universe/timeline (think Jet Li in The One).
For some reason, our brains sometimes connect with these others while we sleep. Maybe it has something to do with a perfect alignment of brain waves or something, but this is also why time is often so screwy in dreams, or the facts of the dream change. You are like an old analog radio tuning in a faraway station while driving through the mountains. Sometimes the signal is strong, sometimes it is barely there, and sometimes you cross over a hill and suddenly you are listening to something completely different.
The next time you wake from a particular nightmare, stop and think about what you can do to help your other self. Make sure you take the physics of their reality into account… they are somehow falling to their deaths because they jumped too high? Then they must have the strength or low gravity needed to make that happen. So maybe it is only scary because you are applying your physics, but in their world they just need to brace for landing, or prepare to tuck and roll… Did they get attacked by a nightmare creature? Well you just need to make sure that when you reconnect with them the next time, you reconnect earlier in the timeline, and firmly hold the idea they need to show up ready to fuck that creature up. Don’t know how to fuck up a 30ft, fire breathing, strap on dildo wearing, pigeon? You don’t need to. They live in that reality, I’m sure they know how to deal with it, they just need to know to be prepared. And even if they don’t know, one of the other yous will. It’s a pest that other other you deals with daily on the way to work. You just need to connect with one of them first, get the information, and then reconnect with the other you… odds are that the solution is a fire extinguisher, an even bigger strap on, and a bag of bird seed, and boom, you’ve turned their hell into a way to shorten their daily commute by a factor of ten (once they get a saddle for it of course, safety first).
Once you have your plan, you go back in with the intent to purposely reconnect to the nightmare and give the other you the tools they need fix their situation. And don’t forget, time is not linear between universes. Your nightmare is reoccurring because you repeatedly keep reconnecting to this particular moment. So that also means, that with a little effort, you should be able to connect earlier in the timeline too.
Remember, it’s not you, but you can help. You have all the time in the world to think it through and formulate a plan. And you can keep trying until you get it right.
Is this referring to lucid dreaming or are you more suggesting some kind of mental rehearsal to prime yourself to hopefully reflexively respond next time you’re in a similar dream-predicament?
Not exactly, this is about changing your entire perspective on how you view dreams, how you respond to them, and how you feel about what happens to the characters within them.
You are not a helpless victim of your dreams. You are an unintentional 3rd party witness, much like watching someone else play a video game. You may be experiencing the same visuals and sounds as the user, but you are not actually at the controls. You don’t have to feel guilty or helpless, it’s not your game. But much like watching someone else play, you can make suggestions, or possibly even take the controls for a moment. You have time to look up tips and watch other play-throughs.
Also, you don’t have to fear going back to sleep, especially if it is a recurring dream. In fact, you can be excited to have the dream again, because this time you have a plan.
Like, yo, tummy: I have not failed to feed you in over 30 years. Maybe don’t cause me physical pain and nausea? A simple grumble is fine until it gets actually serious, ok?
A simple grumble would be perfect. Sometimes I get really hungry annoyingly quickly, and other times I don’t get hungry and go way too long before remembering to eat. It’d be really great if I could just program my body to just give me a lil popup reminder after a certain number of hours.
I will tell you, it’s not that hard to train your body to treat hunger differently. You just need to fast now and then, most religions have guidelines for this. It doesn’t take much to give you hunger resistance, and it makes a huge difference… You become less affected by low blood sugar and able to ignore hunger when you need to
After your body adjusts, hunger becomes cyclical - you feel hungry, maybe even nauseous, but then it goes away after a couple minutes. If you’re doing something, it’s so easy to ignore you forget about it
Sometimes strokes can destroy the area of the brain that controls hunger. They require alarms to consistently eat, sleep, etc. I remember one story about a guy who put all these alarms on his watch. One day, his watch runs out of batteries, so his alarms stop completely. A couple days later, he calls the hospital because he couldn’t get out of bed. Turns out he hadn’t eaten anything the whole time. In short, you’ll probably forget to eat without any signal you have to.
Like if I want to grow my hair out, I need to actively concentrate on it for a year? Or can I grunt out a moustache like a cartoon? Both are problematic.
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