memfree
@memfree@lemmy.ml
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
The point about a 4 year old is a rhetorical device. No answer is expected. I constructed it to illustrate on the biological reality that you are not grown at 4, just as you are not grown at 16.
We agree that helicopter parents are bad, and we agree that parents should prepare their offspring for life, then let them fly free. Our only disagreement is on how much freedom should occur at what age. I ask you to do some research and cite some sources before opining as if your random thoughts should get the same weight as documentation from people who devoted years of study to the subject.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
Would you let a 4 year old live alone or would you call that abuse? At 16 we might survive, but are more likely to flourish and less likely to die when under the care of a guardian. At 16, we want independence, but make bad choices. We can not help it. A guardian can structure increasing independence by first assigning life-tasks under supervision: check the adolescent’s study habits and school work, allow the teen to cook, clean, shop, and budget – but be there to help and advise if/when needed.
There are cases where the parent or guardian is so selfish, awful, or abusive that a teen is better off without the damage caused by their home situation, but in general, these are dangerous years to be unsupervised and countless studies prove it.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
Do not do this. His brain is not fully developed and does not process risk/reward as it will. This is a dangerous age that highly benefits from immediate adult feedback to help mitigate… let’s just say ‘bad ideas’ before they fester or are acted upon.
The brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s. The part of the brain behind the forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature. This area is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions. source
Risk-taking declines between adolescence and adulthood because of changes in the brain’s cognitive control system – changes which improve individuals’ capacity for self-regulation. These changes occur across adolescence and young adulthood and are seen in structural and functional changes within the prefrontal cortex and its connections to other brain regions. The differing timetables of these changes make mid-adolescence a time of heightened vulnerability to risky and reckless behavior. source | more | more
- Comment on Why do people give their unwaivering support to autocrats? 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, that was true for the primary nomination, but for the last election, it was “an old man in clear, public cognitive decline” versus a somewhat younger black lady who said no to two billionaires who wanted her to fire FTC Chair Lina Khan, but also spent too much time with the likes of Oprah and other boomer celebs.
America had a choice to NOT vote for a mentally failing old white guy, but did it anyway.
- Comment on Where did the word and concept of "derpy" come from and where is it going? 2 weeks ago:
Know Your Meme credits the movie Baseketball.
The first known instance of the word “derp” comes from the 1998 comedy film Baseketball by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. During a scene where they are caught smelling underwear taken from a woman’s private drawer, Matt runs out of the room and says “Derp.”
- Comment on Is Mexican food uniquely good with alcohol or have I just been conditioned? 1 month ago:
Try weisswurst & sauerkraut paired with a Hefeweizen (mild white sausage and wheat beer).
- Comment on What is the difference between a platonic and a romantic relationship? 1 month ago:
The absence of sex is part of the definition for platonic (unless you’re referencing how Plato himself had sex which would have to be Platonic, but it’s a different word when capitalized).
platonic: Neither sexual nor romantic in nature; being or exhibiting platonic love.
platonic love: Intimate but non-sexual affection.
Attested 1636 in Platonic Lovers by William Davenant. Earlier coined in Latin in the 15th century as amor platonicus by Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino (originally in 1476 letter to Alamanno Donati, later expounded in De amore (1484)), based on his interpretation of the Symposium by Plato, specifically the speech by Socrates, relating the thoughts of Diotima of Mantinea.
- Comment on Why democrats under Biden administration didn't release Epstein files? 1 month ago:
Why didn’t Republicans under Trump’s first term release them? See reply by @Nollij@sopuli.xyz
Sample coverage from back then: cnbc.com/…/trump-not-a-fan-of-jeffrey-epstein-acc…
- Comment on 1 month ago:
If you like tuna casserole, it is basically the same thing with different noodles. I would add an extra can of tuna. Sample recipe: www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cheesy-tuna-lasagna/#…
- Comment on Solar powered personal umbrella with battery? 1 month ago:
Looks like this guy couldn’t get financed to make something similar: www.homecrux.com/…/74666/
– but my search did turn up alibaba results for similar stuff, so they probably just stole the idea from him.
Nitpick: You want a parasol or sunshade, not an umbrella. Umbrellas are for rain (latin origins aside). It is cloudy when it rains.
- Comment on Is it sexist to say "I've never worn a wet dress before" 1 month ago:
You’re probably focusing on the wrong thing. My guess is that while you think she was reacting to what you said, she was probably reacting to something else. For example, if you have boys who wore wet clothes without comment, or if you yourself have worn wet clothes without complaint, she might think it sexist to presume a female is required to be more modest than a male. She might have thought you were acting as if your immature child was vamping like she was in a wet t-shirt contest rather than a squirmy toddler (no idea what age your girl is, tho) and that your reaction was too embarrassed. It could have been a number of things, but you’d have to ask her to find out.
- Comment on Who's the most ridiculed POTUS of history? 1 month ago:
Has to be the current POTUS simply because there are more people with more access to more places to post ridicule. Add to that the whole marketing drive for ‘engagement’ (especially ragebait) and AI, and you end up with a volume of ridicule greater than ever before possible in human history. In the future, perhaps we can get the bots to shout at one another somewhere easy for humans to ignore.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
A relative got billed thousands of dollars for post-medical transport back home. Insurance covered the cost to fly him to the hospital, but not the trip back. This guy has spent decades enjoying his home in the middle of nowhere, but everything has gotten harder as he’s grown older. He knew he was getting short of breath more easily, but didn’t realize his lungs were severely deteriorating – until his wife found him passed out on the ground instead of doing yard work.
Now he has to use oxygen (5l/min) all the time, is mostly stuck in the house, and lives too far from most services to do anything. His wife can drive to town to get groceries and the like, but he has to calculate if he’ll have enough oxygen to make a trip, and his wife doesn’t want him driving at all lest he get dizzy and cause an accident. Airlines won’t let him fly.
The couple are having a hard time finding people to drive all the way out to their place to help take care of things. They are pretty much stuck out there with a lot of chores they can’t do and very little entertainment. They did finally manage to get someone to install a generator so when the power goes out (which happens often enough), they can keep recharging the oxygen.
Prior to this, he’d been making long trips to see doctors for back and neck pain because there weren’t any close providers, but those docs somehow missed his breathing issues. I don’t know if he was seeing a GP as well, but his choices were limited. Family had urged him to move somewhere more … well, if not urban, at least suburban for over a decade because his medical care never seemed very good. Now it is nearly impossible.
Does that answer the question? The guy went from doing yard work one day to incapacitated the next. I’m sure the change is usually less instantaneous for most people, but there are cases like his where healthy to ‘not’ is fast.
- Comment on Movies not starting when they are scheduled. 2 months ago:
They just announced they were upping the ad content. You are seeing it in real time.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
It sounds like your mom did you wrong. You can’t change that. You CAN change what you do now.
Look, I’ve known more than a couple people who heard the same and worse from their mothers. One girl knew their dad had been abusive and their mom had to step in and take punches to keep the then-toddler girl from getting hit. A guy who’s dad ran off had a young mom who really never meant to be a mom, was bad at it, and couldn’t afford to feed her kids. I don’t know the full stories for all my acquaintances, but those are two who both heard their moms say things like, “I wish you were never born.” and “You ruined my life.”
It sucks to hear that, but moms are not perfect, have their own stresses to deal with, and sometimes too much heart break can get a person to say things they should not.
Maybe life IS meaningless, but there’s a bunch of us fuckers stuck here who are all struggling to make a go of it despite the circumstances, and while we can acknowledge that everything sucks, you probably don’t know we think that because we’re not in the worst of depression at the moment and try to fill the emptiness with small pleasantries rather than slip back into the well of sorrow, saying a mindless patter of things like, “It’s a beautiful day” or “We needed the rain”, or “Great game last night.”
You are not alone. You can get through this. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Try to do something – anything – for yourself, or for someone else, or for everyone.
- Comment on I'm leaving the US for good, anything I should do before I leave? 5 months ago:
This surely varies by state, but in Alaska, for example, I’m told Japanese vacationers LOVE to try out guns. So, if you can rent a gun on a range, shooting off weapons is the most American thing I can think to do before you leave.
- Comment on Is it possible to eat a toxic amount of culinary herbs/spices? 5 months ago:
en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_herbs_with_known_adver…
The list itself says it is incomplete and I immediately thought of a couple items not listed that have known toxicity issues:
- Comment on Is cops being evil/lazy/incompetent a USA specific thing, or is it the same everywhere in the world? 6 months ago:
I think Germany is known for serious police. In fact, I half remember a joke about that… something about the perfection of a British Cop, a German car, and an French Chef – compared to the misery of a German Cop, a French car, and a British Chef.
Obviously not funny in the mangling, but the joke wasn’t that German cops were bad, just not the generally pleasant ‘fair cop’ stereotype of Brits.
Personally,. the stereotypes that have stuck in my head are: that low-level officials in India (including cops) can be bribed to look the other way for minor things, Nordic cops are well trained in de-escalation and restraint techniques where no one gets injured, Brit cops might be fair or might be racist, but the laws give better protection to citizens, and that German cops are stern, and will rigidly follow and enforce all laws and rules… generally. Not sure if it is true or not, but I’ve also heard that German cops will fuck you up if you give them reason, but you’d really have to give them reason.
- Comment on When and why did democrats begin supporting fracking? 11 months ago:
I believe the main issue is that it doesn’t get ‘clicks’ these days because everyone already knows about it. “Dog bites man” doesn’t get as many clicks as “Man bites dog” and all that. Still, a quick search brought up a couple articles from the last 12 months that weren’t stifled:
- houstonchronicle.com/…/produced-water-midland-pol…
- texastribune.org/…/texas-oil-gas-fracking-wastewa…
- cleveland.com/…/fracking-waste-wells-owned-by-an-…
- ohiocapitaljournal.com/…/athens-co-fracking-leak-…
- denver7.com/…/an-erie-oil-well-surrounded-by-home…
- alleghenyfront.org/rager-mountain-equitrans-gas-l…
tangential: …npr.org/…/methane-emissions-much-higher-than-gas…
- Comment on When and why did democrats begin supporting fracking? 11 months ago:
Are you trying to greenwash fracking??? Industry never cleans up. There’s no profit in it. You would hear them advertise their ‘commitment to nature’ if they rescued one tree or bunny from their own contamination. When you hear nothing, they are continuing to wreak havoc.
- Comment on When and why did democrats begin supporting fracking? 11 months ago:
It’s because of the electoral college. Most states give all their electoral college votes to whomever wins the state rather than dividing the votes equitably. This means Pennsylvania – a swing state – will go either all-red or all-blue. The state has a lot of fracking, and a lot of people making money off it, so Democrats are trying to appease pro-fracking to get votes.
The people getting harmed by fracking are stuck without anyone on their ‘side’, but will presumably be more likely to vote blue because that side favors more regulation and pro-environment stuff. Note that all Harris said was she wouldn’t ban fracking. She didn’t say she wouldn’t make it difficult to do. My guess is any attempts to make it cleaner will get crushed by Congress and the Corrupted Supreme Court that has sided against Unions, workers, citizens, and the planet – all to favor of their sugar daddies. So even if the next President wants to do something about fracking, it would be a hard to actually do anything.
- Comment on Amazon Bans Its Drivers From Moving Their Own Lips Too Much At Work 11 months ago:
Well, yeah, but that’d take a government not captured by Corporations.
- Comment on Amazon Bans Its Drivers From Moving Their Own Lips Too Much At Work 11 months ago:
This should be addressed by fixing the software, but it seems to be easier or cheaper to instead further burden the workers.
- Comment on Amazon Contractors can't even sing in their cars now. Unions protect against this micromanagement. 1 year ago:
Exactly! In fact ENCOURAGE singing to get a better data set for fixing the software!
- Comment on Amazon Contractors can't even sing in their cars now. Unions protect against this micromanagement. 1 year ago:
No, it isn’t. If it was just for liability, they wouldn’t have to care what the driver did until someone filed an accident report or other complaint.
This is about crappy software that COULD be improved, but it is cheaper to threaten thousands of people with punishment for singing than it is to pay programmers to refine their ‘distracted’-pattern recognition.
- Comment on Why do they refer to vintage erotica models as Cheesecake? 1 year ago:
Alternate story from www.etymonline.com/word/cheesecake
The modern slang meaning dates from 1933; a “Time” magazine article from 1934 defined it as “leg-pictures of sporty females.”
- Comment on When a medicine asks you to "take with food" how much food is enough? 1 year ago:
Nah, that’s all about getting the dog to actually swallow the pill.
For us, it is about buffering the concentration. Even aspirin can upset your stomach (well, SOME people’s stomachs) such that making “Bufferin” was once a big deal. It was just aspirin with a buffering agent, but having a buffer really mattered for some people.
- Comment on When a medicine asks you to "take with food" how much food is enough? 1 year ago:
I’m not a doctor, so don’t take my word for it, but I’ve heard the same as robolemmy. To be a bit less abstract, my understanding is you eat enough so that your stomach will digest normally instead of just handling the medicine as a tiny bit of something caustic. A granola bar should be fine, but you might do better with a slice of bread or something a tad easier to digest. Then again, I don’t think it matters all that much.
- Comment on If I live in a red state, would it be better to vote for rfk to take votes away from trump? 1 year ago:
Why not vote (D)? The Rs plan on contesting the voting everywhere all the time, and if the last round was any indicator, they will even contest in places the win, so… IF the goal is to take votes from Trump, it would probably be better to show that even in fire red areas, there are still some cool blues.
- Comment on What do to if I survive a nuclear blast in my city? 1 year ago:
My understanding is the thing you most need is community. No one is likely to make it on their own, but if you can band together, your chances increase.