exasperation

@exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨WaPo IRL⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  And the Washington Post has had multiple advice columnists for decades. It’s just a typical division of different sections: national news, national politics, local news, local politics, sports, business, lifestyle, food, arts and culture, advice, editorials/opinion, comics, obituaries.

  They did shut down a lot of those sections, including what used to be a really good sports section, but that’s because they’re in a death spiral. If the advice columns still get clicks they’ll still keep running them. And if that means they have to run advice to clickbait problems, that’s probably what they’ll do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cheapest sandwiches⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Peanut butter is one of the cheapest shelf stable foods, either per calorie or per gram of protein. It’s obviously delicious with some sort of fruit jelly/jam. And the protein in peanuts complements the protein in bread, covers all the essential amino acids.

  Spreadable or meltable cheeses are pretty delicious on toast, and can be supplemented with seasonings. I put cream cheese and everything bagel seasoning on my sourdough slices most mornings.

  There are also a ton of delicious toppings for open face “sandwiches” or toast:

  1. Avocado is a classic for a reason. If avocados are cheap near you, that can be an option.
  2. Fresh tomatoes on toast are a classic in Spain for a reason, too.
  3. Sardines or other canned fish/seafood, if you like that.
  4. Mediterranean spreads like hummus, baba ganoush, muhammara, harissa, etc.
  5. Shrimp, like gambas al ajillo or something similar, go really well on toast.
  6. Roasted mushrooms

  If you’re baking your own bread, you can also try to shape some little bread bowls and fill them with soup. French onion soup takes some time but the ingredients are pretty cheap.

  Not all of these options are ultra cheap, but many are flavorful enough that even small portions can work out to be really affordable on a per calorie basis, for stretching that budget with bread.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨True love⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m basically the same age and I would have trouble even wanting to become friends with a 25 year old. Can’t imagine dating or marriage or co-parenting with someone with that level of life experience. Make it 19 and it seems like a completely absurd proposition.

  But it depends on what you want out of relationships. If you’re not looking for an equal partnership, a connection at an emotional and an intellectual level, then maybe what I’m talking about wouldn’t deter you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Move over powered milk, it onion time⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  My personal prices for each:

  Live grub: $50

  Large raw onion: $25

  Carolina Reaper: $100

  Century egg: $10

  None of these are even $1000 foods, much less $1,000,000 foods.

  If you offered me $1 million to eat all four, I’d do it without thinking twice about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Desk jobs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Deskjobs are usually mental health problems.

  But still, usually, less than the mental health issues that blue collar jobs tend to present.

  Blue collar/service work gets the worst of both worlds. Shitty people, office politics, and high stress, just like with white collar, but then adding on more physical strain and discomfort, less economic security, and the mental health burden of being less physically safe (including the mental health impact of watching people get hurt or age poorly), and having less social respect.

  It’s not even close, in my opinion. Blue collar workers have it shittier, and we should be doing more to improve their working conditions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon discovers books⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  as I believe humans to be social and compassionate by nature

  It’s best read as part of the broader debate about whether human nature pushes people into being cruel or generous or noble or something else, in the absence of social structure.

  It’s not even necessarily commentary on the average person, but whether a power vacuum would enable the worst among us to be even worse than they can be in a highly structured society. Bad people taking power can still happen in a group that is 90% good, if the cruel or evil or narcissistic will take control for their own ends, and the good aren’t successful (or don’t try) in maintaining social control for good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do millennials keep looking significantly more youthful than previous generations?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  generational terms like millenial are BS, grouping people by imaginary immutable characteristics in a manner similar to racism.

  It’s absolutely valid to analyze generational cohorts for statistical differences and similarities. We want to know these things for public health whether we’re talking about disease (age-adjusted rates of cancer, obesity, etc.) or other health outcomes (car accidents, homicides) or even broad social statistics (smoking rates, marriage rates, divorce rates, living arrangements, migration patterns), economic statistics (income, wealth, unemployment), and even soft statistics like preferences (fashion, taste in television/movies, consumer behavior, etc.). These indicators can often raise clues that something is worth looking into, and whether there is an epidemiological, sociological, or economic trend that requires a response.

  So yeah, I think it’s fine to talk about generational differences, especially in age adjusted terms.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do millennials keep looking significantly more youthful than previous generations?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Your age group tends to look younger than expected, younger groups look like perpetual babies, and older generations look like perpetual adults/old timers.

  I think plenty of Gen Z kids look really old for their age. For celebrities, Sabrina Carpenter and Millie Bobby Brown look older than I think most Millennial celebrities did at the same age.

  And with regular people who I work with, the twenty-somethings don’t look that young to me. Fashion and style might be part of it, but even skin and hair and overall appearance seem older to me than many millennials I know. Maybe it’s rates of smoking/vaping, maybe it’s other substances, maybe it’s sleep or sunlight or obesity.

  But my unscientific observation is that I think people born around 1990 have always appeared younger, longer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mmm, roasted apples.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Can you truly love one type of apple if you aren’t furious at lesser apples that come up short?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon watches The Office⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I did have a torrid love affair with a pretzel once.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon watches The Office⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know where my wife fits into this equation, but I find Stanley to be the best match for who I am, and is definitely the most relatable character on the show for me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mmm, roasted apples.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Is it still a thing? I thought they moved most of the existing red delicious rootstock over to cosmic crisp branches. And I also think the transition takes time, so there might still be stragglers. Cosmic crisp is less than a decade old.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon tries being social⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I live in the United States. This is true of urban dog parks I’ve lived near in the East Coast, the West Coast, Texas, and the Midwest. I didn’t have a dog when I lived in rural or small town America, so I don’t have direct experience with that, but my impression of stranger openness in rural areas wasn’t that different.

  For communal spaces, striking up conversations with people near you is also pretty natural. Sitting next to someone at a bar or counter, especially in hotels and airports, is an easy way to talk to someone to pass a little bit of time, and then just disappear back into anonymity whenever you feel like it. The training wheels version is talking to your bartender, and then leaving to talking to other people who are talking to the bartender.

  At this point I also have kids, so anywhere there are other parents is also an easy way to talk to strangers. Parks and playgrounds. School and extracurriculars and summer camps and stuff like that have plenty of opportunities to run into semi regular faces that become familiar.

  I also know several of my neighbors’ names (and basically all of their dogs’ names). When I lived in apartment buildings I tended to get to know a few other people who lived in the building, who I’d regularly see in the elevators or lobby or mail room or common areas/amenities.

  Probably the most important skill is being able to say something as part of a fleeting moment. Even using the description of “approaching strangers” sounds far more intentional than what I’m talking about, rather than just saying something to someone who is already physically close enough to hear.

  And no, nowhere I’ve lived or regularly worked in the US (around 10 cities and 7 states) would it be considered rude to say to a stranger “ooh, I like your shirt.” People like to be complimented, especially on their choices. Same with “can I say hi to your dog?” or “hey where did you buy that coffee, is it anywhere near here?” It’s easiest when not every interaction is expected to escalate, and fostering a particular openness is how extroverts meet others, and occasionally step up to the next level (turning a one-off question to a stop-and-chat, having a good enough small talk that you exchange contact information, grabbing a meal or drink together, doing another activity together, etc.). I get that it’s harder for people who don’t already do all these things to start, but I’m asking people to look for small ways to start, if that’s what they actually want in life.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon tries being social⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  there’s no real way to practice social interactions in a safe setting

  There are small talk opportunities if you know where to look.

  Dog parks are my favorite. Bring your dog, make small talk with the other owners, get to know some of them. It’s a low stakes environment that doesn’t cost any money, allows you to exit at any time, guarantees at least one shared interest or commonality with people who live near you. You don’t even have to talk to people the first few times you go, and can build up comfort/familiarity in the specific place before you take the next step of striking up a conversation with another regular you see a lot.

  Another option is where unrelated parties might mingle in shared space: communal tables or bar seating at coffee shops or bars or parks or even restaurants. These fleeting interactions might help practice the skills of small talk, enough to where it’s easy to have conversations with strangers.

  And sometimes you can outsource the actual cold approach to the extrovert strangers you might encounter, by giving them something to talk about. A baseball cap with your university, a T-shirt with your favorite band from a tour you saw live, a tattoo of something fun, other items of clothing or accessories that might attract positive attention. Sometimes people will say something about it, and then you can talk about a shared interest or background at that point.

  Lines and waiting rooms are also sometimes good places to pass the time with conversations. It’s a little harder now than 20 years ago, with the rise of smartphones, but it’s still a place where people might be bored and appreciate a little conversation to mix things up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let us end the stovetop war with the real chanp⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s like EVs. A great paradigm shift in the underlying base technology, accompanied by puzzling interface and control designs that really detract from the enjoyability of the transition.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You've Just Been Hit By The Front Burner Gang⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve lived in enough places, with enough different kitchens and stoves, that it really depends on the layout. Some stoves have bigger burners on the right or the left (whether electric or gas). Some have the stove too close on one side to an inconvenient wall or the outlet you have a countertop appliance plugged into, and that determines preference.

  I prefer the center, on my current setup. It’s tied for the biggest burner with front right, but the center gets the best ventilation, I like for the handles not to hang over the edge, and I use either hand to hold the handle (flip with my right, or stir with my right while holding with my left). Two handled pots benefit from the symmetry, too.

  But that’s my current setup. I’ve had preferences for different sides with different stoves.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Those are Canadian dollars, too!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pfft⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If you were to take the list of all professional basketball players, and sort them by the number of free throws missed per game, you’d see the top of the list is dominated by Hall of famers.

  That’s not because missing free throws makes for a good basketball player. Or even that it isn’t important in basketball to be able to make free throws. It still remains important at every level of the game! But some of the people who miss a lot of free throws were just so utterly dominant at other parts of the game that they had long successful basketball careers despite being bad at an important skill for basketball players.

  Cormac McCarthy and James Joyce have a signature style, yes, but I’d argue that they’re successful despite that, rather than because of that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I learned in my 20’s that when I strike up conversations with strangers, it’s a lot better to ensure everyone (including yourself) has an easy physical exit. People are more responsive to someone else making a comment as they’re passing by, rather than cornering them in a confined space, or requiring someone to physically change their direction of movement or step aside to let the other leave. It should feel graceful, where someone who doesn’t want to talk can exit the conversation at very little perceived cost to anyone. It doesn’t have to feel like rejection, and that often starts with the physical arrangement of the people involved, in the setting where it happens.

  I’ve been with my wife for over 10 years, so it’s been a while since I’ve approached a woman with the specific intention of seeing if there was potential for a romantic/sexual connection, but I still talk to strangers and build new friendships. Not everyone is open to talking to strangers, but plenty of people enjoy a little bit of low cost social connection, even if it’s intended to be ephemeral. Or if you really hit it off and become friends. But every approach should be assumed to be a fleeting moment, rather than a “I’m going to talk to this person until they tell me to stop” kind of commitment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If someone I don’t know rings my doorbell trying to make a sale on something, I assume it’s a scam. It’s not because everyone who rings a doorbell is a scammer, but because there are enough of them that I’d rather shut off that entire avenue of approach.

  That doesn’t mean I don’t buy anything. I just don’t buy things in that way.

  It also doesn’t mean that I don’t open the door for strangers. Plenty of people are delivering packages or things someone in my house has specifically ordered. Or people need to do work on or around my property (utility pole, buried lines/pipes, neighbors’ trees/fences, etc.).

  Understanding the generational shifts in social expectations is important. Bemoaning the loss of a particular type of interaction just because it’s the type you happened to experience before doesn’t actually say anything about the state of society.

  Cold approaches by men to women sitting by themselves have basically gone away. There are a lot of reasons for this, including that we as a society have stopped being bored, to where the prospect of small talk with a stranger has changed from “better than nothing” to “worse than nothing” in just 20 years. But it has happened, and people need to adjust.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon hates new slang⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s all related, though. Liver disease often causes cardiovascular issues, or vice versa. It’s most pronounced in skinny people with fatty liver disease, who have a significantly elevated risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. Either way, the liver is immensely important for a whole bunch of metabolic functions, and cardiovascular health depends on all those metabolic functions working properly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Never understood the whole bobbing for apples thing⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Uwe know what he said.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sounds Pretty Cool Honestly⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Promises and rugs

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Recession indicator, what do you call this dish?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  it’s an up-charged box of ingredients that you can buy separately in probably that same aisle for much cheaper.

  Yeah, this product is an awful choice for the budget conscious.

  Pasta is like $1.20/lb. There are many different ways to dress up pasta with other ingredients, whether saucy or cheesy or creamy or oily or even relatively dry seasoning. You can add a cheap protein source. You can add vegetables. In many forms, pasta is still a one-pan dish that can be made in about 20 minutes, where you prep ingredients as the water boils. Or you can put in a lot of effort (all-day sauces, hand-pounded pesto, etc.).

  My favorite low effort, cheap and nutritionally complete meal is boiling a package of pasta, dumping in a can of beans, dumping in a can of premade chili, and shredding a bunch of cheddar over it. The macros are good, even for athletes, it’s cheap, and it’s easy.

  As you mention, rice is between $1 to $2 per pound, based on quantity and type. There are a ton of options around that, too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Never clean⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Oil plus alkali = soap.

  The oil/lipid that is included in the soap itself is a fatty acid. But the actual cleaning action comes from the alkaline reaction with oils (including the oils you’re trying to clean off).

  All of this is also separate from the general point that dishwashing detergents tend not to be soaps at all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Never clean⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I find that it’s more effective to put detergent on the dish, scrub with wet sponge, rinse. That keeps the detergent at high concentration at the surface, where the action happens. Detergent on the sponge, on the other hand, tends to migrate away towards the center of the sponge.

  I switched from soaping the sponge to soaping the dish like 10 years ago and never looked back.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sacre blu⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  How many kilo grahams is that?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sacre blu⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  American white gravy is just bechamel/besciamella with lots of black pepper.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Toby dummy thicc⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Goblin Deez Nuts

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can cartilage be replaced? And if not, Why can't they just inject something like silicone into a joint?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  1100 --> 11 cancer grants.

  Where are you seeing this?

  This tracker shows that funding is down very slightly this year

  Spending looks the same, but it’s being stolen.

  As the article you’ve linked explains, Trump keeps trying to reduce NIH spending, and failing, because even a Republican-controlled Congress won’t go along. This new agreement to shift funds from NIH to the military next year is probably going to fail, too, and now that it’s on the radar I would press Congress to prohibit that when they pass a budget or continuing resolution to fund NIH next year.