HelixDab2

@HelixDab2@lemm.ee

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What was your worst relationship and when did you realise it had to end⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know for certain, but I believe that my ex-spouse told people I knew that I was abusive to them. My ex- didn’t want me to tell people what was going on–they said that it wasn’t anyone else’s business–and I found that over a very short period of time a large number of people that I knew had suddenly blocked me from contacting them. At this point, I only have a single mutual friend from that time period. I’ve never asked him to make a choice, nor have I asked him what my ex- said or did, because I don’t want to put him in the middle of that shit, even though it’s been nearly ten years now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What was your worst relationship and when did you realise it had to end⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  My first marriage.

  I realized it had to end after I had failed to complete suicide, and was in mandatory intensive outpatient therapy. I was listening to everyone in group therapy talking about how awful their relationships were, and how miserable their partners made them, and the really, really obvious answer was, well, just fuckin’ leave.

  And it hit me that this was true for me also.

  My spouse had been resisting going to marriage counseling for over a decade, controlled all the finances even though I made most of the money, had largely cut me off from the few friends that I had, was verbally, emotionally, and sometimes physically abusive, had been rejecting any attempts at intimacy for over a year (to ‘punish’ me, I guess?), and then blamed me for all the problems. I’d started spiraling when they threatened to leave me, had a couple really bad days at work, and then gotten fired for my “bad attitude”. And from there, I got forced to a hospital.

  The divorce was… Unpleasant. They lied to all of our friends about what was going on, and I ended up losing all of the friends I had remaining. The only positive was that I got the house and car.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Corinne Busche, director of Dragon Ave: The Veilguard, departs BioWare⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree; the game itself is very enjoyable. But DA largely felt darker than this game does. And the animations are… Unpleasantly cartoonish. Again: it’s fun. It just doesn’t fit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trust the process!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Just be warned that not all bacteria and parasites can be killed with a hard (0F) freeze. IIRC, there are a few parasites found in feral pigs and bear that are very freeze resistant. I think some variety of trichinella? I don’t think that poultry is susceptible to trichinella infestations, but most chickens aren’t kept or slaughtered in very sanitary conditions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trust the process!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Keep in mind that the temperatures refer to the coldest part; until all internal temperatures are at least 120, you can’t start your timer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trust the process!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  You can safely cook chicken to be medium rare, buuuuuuuuut only via sous vide. You would need to get it up to at least 140F, and then keep it there for between 30 and 360 minutes, depending on how thick the piece of chicken is.

  Personally, I would not want to. I enjoy beef carpaccio and steak tartare, i enjoy some sushi and sashimi, but poultry and pork, IMO, should be cooked.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would you do Onlyfans if needed the money?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  If I thought I would actually make money? Sure. But most people that do OF aren’t really making more than pocket change.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There was a time when everyone had common sense⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As a whole, they def. do last longer. I can look on FB Marketplace right now and find cars that are in fairly good, operational condition with 250,000 miles. The issues you’re talking about aren’t the kind of major mechanical things that become improbably expensive to repair, e.g., a broken timing chain with high interference valves & cylinders. Although yeah, replacing a main wiring harness on a car is a PITA and very expensive unless you can find a functional used one on eBay.

  Also, there’s not great empirical evidence that the soy-based insulation is significantly worse than its petroleum based counterpart. There’s a ton of anecdotal claims about it attracting rodents, but no direct evidence AFAIK. The class-action lawsuits over rodent damage have been dismissed. And, TBF, I’ve had older cars that had wiring chewed by mice. Part of the difference with newer cars seems to be that there’s just more wiring packed into smaller areas, areas that look like great nests for rodents; you didn’t see that kind of wiring density 20 years ago.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨what exercises work for you to avoid back pain?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hit up exrx.net and look for weight lifting exercises that target back muscles specifically. For lower back (erector spinae), thing like weighted hyperextensions are going to target it specifically. I would suggest doing about 12 weeks where you start you back workout with basic compound lifts–deadlifts, squats, bent over barbell rows–and progress to more isolating lifts like hyperextensions at the end of the workout. I would suggest doing that 12 weeks with just 1-2 sets of 12-15 reps for each exercise, with rests of 30-90 seconds between sets and exercises; that will get your body ready to progress to more sets at higher weight and reduced repetitions. And yes, you need to change you workout every 3-4 months or so; that’s a basic principle of periodization. Changing your workout will mean more or fewer sets, with lower or higher numbers of repetitions, and different weight. In general, you’ll do a few sets of high repetitions with lower weights, and more sets of low repetitions with higher weights.

  Also, don’t forget to do abdominals; those are important stabilizing your back.

  For cardio, rowing is going to be your go-to choice for a strong back.

  I would strongly suggest getting a personal trainer for a few sessions specifically to work on your form for squats, deadlifts, etc. If you do that though, be very, very firm with them that the only thing you want is direction on form; PTs will have a strong tendency to try and sign you up for months or years of training that may or may not help with your specific goals. Look for trainers with ACSM or NSCA certifications only (most other certs are barely worth the paper they’re printed on), ans a BS in kinesiology or exercise science.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mildly McInfuriating⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s one of the major issues that I have with corporations; there’s very little interest in sustainable profitability, and a laser-like focus on growth for the sake of growth. And sometimes the product that a company makes isn’t even “sustainable” per se. That is, if you make certain durable goods, eventually you should be reaching a point where demand will slow to a trickle as the market becomes saturated, and that’s okay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There was a time when everyone had common sense⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  ::sigh:: Old cars had instructions on adjusting valves because you needed to. Improvements in manufacturing processes means that valves and valve seats simply don’t wear the way that they use to. You may still need to change valve shims if your clearance is out of tolerance, but on most cars that’s going to be well over 100,000 miles before service is needed. It’s also a really tedious, long job, and takes tools that most people aren’t going to have. (I have done it multiple times on a motorcycle; that’s a 10,000 miles service interval b/c the engines on the bikes I ride redlines at 18,000rpm, which means significantly more wear on engines, and higher chances of thing like valve flutter.) Cars are vastly more complicated than they used to be, because they’re also far, far more efficient, and last far longer; it used to be a big deal if a car made it to 100,000 miles, and now a car that dies at 100k is considered an unreliable lemon.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There was a time when everyone had common sense⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Indeed. The service manual for my VW GTI isn’t a manual at all, it’s accessed electronically, and it’s thousands for a single license. OTOH, I’ve watched videos on timing chain replacement–my model year had recalls due to a faulty tensioner–and it’s easily a 3-4 hour job for a professional VW mechanic in a full shop.

  The flip side is that having it online makes it easier to show things that you would have a hard time seeing in a single thumbnail sized B&W photo in the old-style of service manual.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There was a time when everyone had common sense⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You totally can. It’s just usually not cost effective. Buying the tools you need to do major mechanical work is a few thousand dollars, a full service manual runs 400+ pages (if available; i think that the manual for my GTI is only on-line, and is a subscription from VW; IIRC it’s several thousand pages), diagnostic electronics are $200-2000, and so on. Plus, you need a good place to work, like an enclosed garage. I’ve replaced an engine in a Civic after bending valves (timing chain failure), and yeah, a k-swap is def. in the realm of something you can do on you own if you want to spend more than the value of your car getting a shop set up for yourself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Teamsters President: H-1B Visa Program 'Displaces' Americans from Their Jobs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  …And you are just now discovering that the interests of workers–regardless of whether or not they are in tech, medicine, skilled trades, or any other field–do not align with the interests of the business owners? My dudes, this is what the left has been trying to tell you for over a century (literally!) now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the deal with male loneliness?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  IDK; my partner has met ppl that have become very close friends at their workplace. I’ve become more and more isolated as I’ve worked as an adult, to the point where I have zero close friends.

  I hope to fix that this year though; I’ll be trying to get my handgun and rifle instructor cert so I can work with the Pink Pistols and Operation Blazing Sword, and connect with my local SRA chapter. E.g., try to do something good in my community, and also meet people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mildly McInfuriating⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  IMO, it might be a good idea to compare those prices against relative purchasing power of a dollar. I don’t know how those prices stack up to the overall rate of inflation or CPI, or even the cost of the specific ingredients. I would have less of an issue with price increases if a) McDonald’s profit margin–as a percentage of cost–remained steady, and b) the cost held steady against the relative value of the dollar overall. If it’s just arbitrarily raising prices because they can, then that’s bullshit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Go into debt if you have to⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I remember the 80s when high sulphur coal was the norm, and we had problem with the sulphur emissions causing acid rain; I def. don’t want to return to that…

  Related - I saw a science alert that speculated that we could buy time to cut carbon emissions by seeding the atmosphere with superfine diamond dust; it would both block and reflect solar radiation. The downside? About $250T in cost.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Go into debt if you have to⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Eh. Methane is worse when it’s released as a gas than when it’s burned and released as carbon dioxide. If you drive by oil refineries in Beaumont, TX, you’ll see them burning off methane–flaring–because it’s a byproduct of oil refining. Is any of this great, or even good? No; any way you slice it, it’s all greenhouse gasses. OTOH, there are far fewer other pollutants with LNG than there are from coal-fired plants, and we don’t yet have the capacity to generate sufficient power using renewables or nuclear. (Meanwhile, a lot of hydro power is at risk because climate change has shifted rain and snow patterns so that rivers and reservoirs are drying up so that we’re losing that source of renewable power.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨is feeling disrespected reason good enough to change jobs?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  people do not quit jobs

  Bullshit. I’ve quit jobs before. like the job I had at a veneer mill. It was boring me to tears, was so loud that ear-pro was mandatory–about 110dB, IIRC–and I was spending about an hour each day digging splinters out of my hands. (Couldn’t wear gloves b/c they didn’t have the dexterity needed for picking up a single sheet of veneer without breaking it.) I don’t think I even saw my manager more than a few times in the brief period i worked there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨And because you deserve it, here's one from the top shelf⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ethanol is also a medication. It’s used to treat both methanol and ethylene glycol poisoning, as well as the withdrawal symptoms from severe alcoholism (…which are able to kill a patient, unlike opiate/opioid withdrawal).

  Hell, oxycodone is a medication; I got enough to kill a horse (which really isn’t saying a lot; horses are surprisingly delicate animals) after a major surgery. But guess what? It’s still addictive, and will kill you.

  The fact that something might have a medical use doesn’t preclude addiction.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Video Games Can’t Afford to Look This Good⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Agreed; Veilguard has pretty okay graphics. Not great, but acceptable - the high mark for me is BG3. But moving back to the earlier entries, they may have had stories that felt more ‘real’ (e.g., the setting felt more internally consistent) and gave more options, but the graphics and gameplay haven’t aged well.

  Similarly, Fallout: New Vegas hasn’t aged so well. It was a great game, but it looks pretty rough now, unless you load it down with hi-res mods.

  I don’t demand photorealism, but I’d like better visuals than PS3-level graphics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TW: suicide⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re aiming for the medulla oblongata, the part of the brain that controls all the autonomic function like respiration and cardiac function. It’s right at the top of the spinal column. Hit that, and it’s lights out instantly. The easiest way to thin about the location is by putting a stick in your mouth and trying to touch you uvula, and then angled very slightly up from there, basically right through the soft palette.

  That’s why a gun in the mouth is so often used in films and TV; it’s essentially correct.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you want the murderer of the UnitHealthcare CEO prosecuted?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  We know that cops can break encryption on your phone

  Depends on the phone. Cops have not managed to break the latest iPhone encryption yet, and I believe that some of the more recent Android is also currently unbroken. Regardless - if you don’t use a smartphone for doing questionable shit, there’s nothing to break. This is why burner handsets exist.

  get everything from your social media account

  Not if you don’t have one. And even if you do–a smart assassin isn’t going to post anything that’s remotely close to linking your real life to committing a murder.

  track your payment methods for your ebike get away

  Not if you steal it. Which is reportedly what happened. An even easier trick is to buy a used bicycle with cash off at your destination; you’ve already spent $1000 on a pistol with a threaded barrel, and about $2000 on the printer to print a silencer (because you sure as fuck aren’t buying a Dead Air Sandman and getting on an ATF list, right?, the printed silencer won’t last long, but it doesn’t have to), so what’s another $500 for a used bike, and $200 for a good lock and chain so that it doesn’t get ripped off while you’re whacking a CEO?

  Pro-tip: .45ACP is always subsonic, although a silencer will never make a gunshot silent by any stretch of the imagination. Best case scenario for anything other than .22LR is that it’s going to be quiet enough that you won’t destroy your hearing if you pop off a shot in a small room.

  to the CVS you bought your prepaid card with cash at

  …Which is 500 miles from where you live.

  they can use gait identification to ID you

  Easy to fool just by putting a rock in a shoe. Also an exceptionally questionable (e.g. psuedoscience) method of identification, much like bite analysis.

  use thermal vision drones to find you in some field.

  First, they have to know who and where you are in order to even be searching for you in that field. Second, thermal is not nearly as useful as you’d think. A piece of carboard, a mylar blanket, even a sheet of glass will entirely block it. It’s not even going to be able to see through moderately heavy brush or tree cover.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you want the murderer of the UnitHealthcare CEO prosecuted?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ll buck the trend here.

  Yes, I want him prosecuted. I want every single piece of evidence the cops have put out in public, and I want the public to see exactly how they traced him and caught him. I want people to see just how insidious the surveillance state is, and I want them to understand what kind of lengths they’ll need to go to in order to avoid getting caught the next time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Taylor Lorenz Says 'We Want These Executives Dead' Hours After Health Insurance CEO Murdered⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  the US decided that the left is too extreme for them?

  Er. No. That’s not what happened. When you look at vote totals from 2020, you can see that Biden got 81M votes to Trump’s 74M. Looking at vote totals from 2024, Harris got 74M votes–the same as Trump in 2020–and Trump eked out a slightly improved performance at 77m. This isn’t a ‘mandate’; this is fewer people showing up to the polls. If the same number of people had voted in 2024 as voted in 2020, it’s probable that Trump would have lost again. That isn’t people saying the left is “too extreme”, that’s apathy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Taylor Lorenz Says 'We Want These Executives Dead' Hours After Health Insurance CEO Murdered⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Okay?

  I don’t see a problem here. Right wing personalities encourage harming and killing LGBTQ+ people and liberals, far-right people bomb abortion clinics and kill doctors, but now it’s suddenly bad to say that oh, yeah, some people deserve a good killin’?

  Seems like crocodile tears to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When putting bullets in a gun does it not leave a fingerprint on the casing? If so why do criminals where gloves before loading their gun?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  To build on this - casings and bullets are more likely to be useful because the marks left on them by the lands/grooves (for the bullet) or the chamber, extractor, and bolt face (for the casing) are likely to be consistent with the criminal’s firearm. However, this assumes that the criminal is caught first, and the gun they used was both recovered, and can be linked to them. (either circumstantially or by forensic evidence).

  I suspect that, if you replaced the barrel and extractor immediately after committing a murder, it would be very difficult to link the firearm to the murder, particularly if it was an exceptionally common firearm. Although you’d want to buy the parts with cash, so that the purchase couldn’t be linked to you…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do Americans always presume that everyone speaks English⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s been years since I had glög; I should make that again since it’s starting to get chilly.

  Unfortunately, part of living in the US is that most people aren’t exposed to other languages to any significant degree. If you are a native American English speaker, and grow up in a large city, you might hear enough Spanish to learn it, but that’s about it. I learned Spanish in school, but there was no opportunity to practice until I moved to a large city close to the Mexican border.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do Americans always presume that everyone speaks English⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I watch one season of some show in a language I don’t understand

  I wish my brain worked that way; I’d be watching Finnish television and movies all day, every day.

  I watch a fair number of shows in Swedish or Norwegian, and I’ve never picked up anything from what they’re saying. I always have to have subtitles.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Joe 3:16⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The gun charge was a sham. Yes, lying on form 4473 (firearm transaction record) is a federal crime. It’s also one that has historically never been prosecuted on it’s own; it’s always used as part of another prosecution, such as bank robbery, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and so on. You can count the number of times where that’s been prosecuted on it’s own on the fingers of one hand, in part because it really doesn’t come to light unless you’re caught committing another crime while also possessing a firearm that you can’t legally have. The justice dept. was originally going to drop that charge altogether, until pressure was applied from the political right. (Also, maybe don’t write a memoir where you admit to crimes, unless you’re past the statute of limitation on those crimes.)

  The tax charges were pretty legit though. Depending on sentencing guidelines–which are quite complicated–the odds are pretty good that he would have ended up with large fines and penalties, in addition to having to pay the back taxes with interest that he owed.