Libra
@Libra@lemmy.ml
- Comment on What is your age range for dating? 🤔 😮 6 days ago:
None, but I’m asexual/aromantic, so…
- Comment on How would I pop a bag of popcorn on the microwave? 1 week ago:
Don’t buy microwave popcorn. You can buy popcorn kernels that you can just pop in a covered skillet with some oil.
- Comment on Spicy food never affects my gut and everyone thinks it's really weird. How unusual is this and what could be happening to explain why spicy food doesn't affect me? 1 week ago:
I used to live in New Mexico for a while and there was a common joke: how do you tell if someone is a native New Mexican? They keep a fire extinguisher in the bathroom.
It’s not so much that you taste it on the way out, it’s that there’s undigested capsaicin that burns, uh, other mucus membranes on the way out. Fortunately not something that bothers me much either, but I get hints of it sometimes when my niece makes what I call her nuclear fire curry.
- Comment on Why do some people hate drinking water? 1 week ago:
I don’t like drinking water. Obviously I can and do, but even then only filtered water with ice. But my main complaint is that it has no flavor, it’s not very satisfying. Maybe it’s because I was raised on soda, but I like something a little sweet and with a little flavor, so I drink slightly-sweetened iced tea.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
It’s like anything else, it will take time to get comfortable with it. During that period you should probably focus on getting practice in out-of-the-way places where you’re less likely to be overwhelmed or distracted and can potentially cause problems. As someone who has never been able to drive and lives in country whose general opinion of public transportation is ‘Hahaha no’, not being able to drive can suck pretty bad. I’m always relying on others, beholden to their schedules, their bad planning, their poor time-management skills, etc, and the only alternative is taking a cab which gets expensive quick. Being able to drive, even if you don’t do it a lot, is a valuable skill and something you will get more comfortable with the more you do (and doing it regularly is key to build that familiarity and level of confidence.)
- Comment on Why can countries recognise both... 1 week ago:
Because China’s assertions about Taiwan carry considerably more weight than the DPRK because China has a lot more economic and military power to lean on people with.
- Comment on Are foldable phones as good/bad as they say? 1 week ago:
My nephew has a Pixel Fold and it’s kinda neat and all, but he barely uses the unfold feature cause he just doesn’t need a big screen most of the time so it’s mostly just a really thick-ass phone. It’s not even great for watching movies because it’s a weird aspect ratio so you have big black bars on the top and/or sides.
Also we tried folding phones before, we called them flip phones, and the hinges were always the first thing to break.
- Comment on What would happen if the Earth was sucked into a black hole? 1 week ago:
It would suck for a while. Then it wouldn’t.
- Comment on How bad is it that Israel has attacked Iran? 1 week ago:
I just mean I have strictly a layperson’s understanding, wanted to make it clear I’m not claiming to have any insider information or any ability to actually predict what’s likely to happen. I just read a lot of news.
- Comment on How bad is it that Israel has attacked Iran? 1 week ago:
Be sure to remember that I don’t really know what I’m talking about and any predictions I make are likely to be wildly inaccurate, but otherwise I’m happy to help explain the situation a little bit.
- Comment on How bad is it that Israel has attacked Iran? 1 week ago:
Israel will definitely retaliate (for the strikes that are retaliating against its strikes, it just goes round and round.) The US is moving naval assets into the region so they’re apparently taking the threat seriously. It was a combination of the US, UK, France, Germany, and ~50 other nations that voted to declare Iran in violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty so they likely have a vested interest as well, but Europe isn’t nearly as gung-ho about this sort of thing as the US is so they’re likely to let us take the lead if it goes that far. Iran’s neighbors have been trying to normalize relations with Israel for a while now but Israel doesn’t have puppet strings on them like we have on Israel so they likely won’t get involved. This is probably going to stay an Israel-Iran(-US) thing for a bit, but again it depends on how serious Iran wants to take this. I expect their losses in enrichment facilities were something baked into the cost of the program so they’re probably not too stuffed over that, but they’ve lost at least two high-ranking military commanders that I’ve heard of so far and that thing does tend to get their panties in a bunch.
It’s all speculation at this point, and wild-assed, largely-uninformed speculation especially on my part, so I’m not going to try to lay odds on it. But there is definitely the potential for more trouble coming down the pike.
- Comment on What are some good places/activities where a middle-aged man can new make friends? 1 week ago:
You can play with online friends with a virtual tabletop like Roll20 or Foundry and voice chat like Discord. I’m in 4 games a week and all of them are online. I mentioned in another comment, but Roll20 has an LFG section taht lets you search by game systems, time, whether or not they welcome new players, etc. I’ve met tons of people this way.
- Comment on What are some good places/activities where a middle-aged man can new make friends? 1 week ago:
It really depends, but mostly yes because people always want more people to play stuff with. You don’t need to go to a games store to find tabletop games though, hit up roll20 and search their LFG section, they’ve got a filter on their LFG search for games that welcome new players, you can sort by what time you want to play, etc. It’s mostly D&D, but there’s a ton of other stuff in there too if you know what you want to play.
- Comment on What are some good places/activities where a middle-aged man can new make friends? 1 week ago:
Find a discord community that you share a hobby with. I found a small (<300 people) gaming community discord and have been hanging out there for a couple years now, made tons of friends, always have people to play games with, etc. But it doesn’t have to be gaming, I’m also in 2 movie clubs and a book club on a couple other discord servers, plus I play tabletop roleplaying games online with strangers and make new friends that way, etc. Iono if there’s a place you can physically go to meet people other than a bar or something, but there are lots of places online to meet people. Find yourself a knitting club or a biking club or a hiking group or whatever… tons of those communities exist online, and most of them are on discord.
- Comment on How bad is it that Israel has attacked Iran? 1 week ago:
Potentially very bad. Iran has previously vowed to retaliate with full force against any attack, including ‘targeting all US military bases “within our reach”.’ If they launch attacks at Israel that will escalate, but if they make good on that last part it could get very bad very quick.
But right now i have no way to gauge how serious Iran was about those claims or if it intends to make good on them, so the ball’s in their court.
- Comment on Did YouTube just disable video playback for people using adblockers or is it just me? 1 week ago:
It’s just you. I’m using Firefox 138.0.4 64-bit (linux) and uBO 1.64.0 and youtube works fine for me.
- Comment on Why are you here and not on Reddit? 2 weeks ago:
The reddit admins got a little fashy for my taste. i got a 7-day ban for saying Luigi probably didn’t deserve to go to prison for what he did, they called it inciting violence. The ban was lifted on appeal of course, because it was bullshit, but not before I was then given a permanent ban for circumventing the temp ban with another account. It, too, was liftedo on appeal because it, too, was bullshit (I was on reddit for 14 years and never even made a throwaway, much less other accounts in general), but by that point I’d had enough.
Also it’s very not the same, as you will learn if you spend some time here. I find people are generally friendlier and a lot less hostile here.
- Comment on Is it normal that I have this inner conflict of not knowing where I belong? 2 weeks ago:
I’m happy to help, and I wish you the best!
- Comment on Is it normal that I have this inner conflict of not knowing where I belong? 2 weeks ago:
As someone who used to have a bad case of wanderlust for the same reasons, let me just say: the place where you belong is not a place out in the world that you find, it’s a place that you make inside of yourself from your satisfaction with your life, your connections to others, etc. What you seek can be found anywhere, but nowhere will make you happy until you do. Travel is a heck of an adventure and I have a lot of great stories from that time so I’m not saying don’t travel. Just don’t expect to find what you’re looking for wherever you go or you’ll never be satisfied with the experience in itself.
- Comment on What did Musk and Trump fall out over? 2 weeks ago:
Musk feels like he bought a president and should own him outright, Trump feels like he’s renting a timeshare on the oval office and Musk is taking up too much of his ‘allotted’ time.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
Alright, I’m curious - why do you care what some crazy backwards rednecks in another country think about you?
- Comment on why does alcohol stop my back pain but medicine doesn't? 2 weeks ago:
Except I was doing what’s called ‘speaking from experience’, which means I was speaking about my experience. Which you then decided to weigh in on as if you know a damned thing about it, or me, or even pain in general compared to the four specialist doctors I’ve seen on the subject. So yeah, when you start slinging vague opinions and generalizations about something I have lived for 20 years I’m gonna have some shit to say and you’re just going to have to accept that I speak in absolutes because I am the authority on my situation. If you have any actual experience or expertise to share on the subject then I’m all ears, but if all you want to do is whine because somebody knows more than you do about the nonsense you’re talking than you do then I’m gonna go do something more productive with my day.
- Comment on why does alcohol stop my back pain but medicine doesn't? 2 weeks ago:
I take it you have some better approach than relying on medication when my back pain becomes incapacitating? Cause it’s not fixable, I’ve seen numerous doctors about it over the years, not to mention chiropractors, physical therapists, etc. My choice is to take pain meds when things get bad or to just be incapacitated for the rest of the day whenever it flares up. So if you have a better approach I’m all ears, but just saying ‘drugs are bad mkay?’ isn’t terribly convincing because so far my experience has been that not relying on drugs is all downside.
- Comment on why does alcohol stop my back pain but medicine doesn't? 2 weeks ago:
Oh, yeah, probably. I only used it regularly for like a month or two, 3 pills a day, so it wasn’t so bad for me.
- Comment on why does alcohol stop my back pain but medicine doesn't? 2 weeks ago:
Depends on the back, and the pain, and the meds. No, they don’t fix the underlying issue, but for circumstances where the underlying issue can’t be fixed they make it a lot more tolerable.
- Comment on why does alcohol stop my back pain but medicine doesn't? 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, tramadol is weird because it makes you not care about stuff. Which is kinda good because it makes you not care about pain, but also, ya know, the other stuff too. But it was quite easy for me to come off of honestly; I didn’t shit for a week and that was more than enough to make me stop taking it regularly. Now I take it maybe once or twice a month at the outside.
- Comment on why does alcohol stop my back pain but medicine doesn't? 2 weeks ago:
Because you’re not taking the good pain meds.
I’ve lived with chronic back pain for 20 years, and I have 3 stages of medication I go through (though mine is alignment-related, so muscle relaxers help): aleve (the only OTC painkiller that touches my back pain), tramadol (moderate-strength opioid, can’t take it for long or it causes plumbing problems), and tizanadine (the serious industrial-strength muscle relaxers; knocks me out for 8 hours and usually fixes my back the first time.)
If you’re looking for alternatives, THC helps somewhat with my back pain, but I dunno what’s legal where you are.
- Comment on There's a noticable influx of trans kids in my job. Are there any topics I should avoid or considerations I should take into account when training them? 3 weeks ago:
Respect them for who they are, and listen to them if they tell you you’re fucking it up, just like you would with anyone else. It’s almost as if trans people are just people. ;)
- Comment on Why do people care so much that their friend or family member’s partner is attractive and not just loving? 3 weeks ago:
Because some people are just shallow.
- Comment on Do you think a story that mixes magic with super advanced technology can work? 4 weeks ago:
Guy’s over here talking about a story involving tech and magic and you’re talking about how sci-fi works? I think you’re confused about how genres work.