Decided not to post a single link as there are tons of different articles about different aspects of it on Wikipedia. It's a whole thing!

• Exclusive mandate - Republic of China (Taiwan) and People's Republic of China

• Administrative divisions of Taiwan

• Kuomintang

• Kuomintang's retreat to Taiwain

• 1992 consensus which established semi-official dialogue between ROC and PRC

It seems like this is a leftover from the Chinese civil war and/or Chiang Kai-shek's authoritarian and murderous rule because one of the above articles does mention that these territorial hopes haven't been worked towards for many years:

Originally placing high priority on reclaiming the Chinese mainland through Project National Glory, the KMT now favors a closer relation with the PRC and seeks to maintain Taiwan's status quo under the Constitution of the Republic of China. The party also accepts the 1992 Consensus, which defines both sides of the Taiwan Strait as "one China" but maintains its ambiguity to different interpretations.

It goes further back than that though, probably to 1966 when Project National Glory was abandoned:

[invasion of mainland China] as the initial stage of reunification was effectively abandoned after 1966, although the Guoguang planning organization was not abolished until 1972. The ROC did not abandon the policy of using force for reunification until 1990.

Thought this was all quite interesting, so I wanted to share! It is not exactly light reading though so I also wanted to ask for documentary recommendations about this, and of the Chinese civil war in general, if anybody knows of any good ones?

Don't mind me, just finding myself going into a lot of Wikipedia rabbit holes lately 😊

I find that while romantic relationships are quite specifically defined in our society, friendships don't seem to have the same universally understood characteristics or “road maps” for their development, so I find them interesting to discuss, especially considering the modern epidemic of loneliness many people are experiencing. Most people share the same understanding of what makes someone your romantic partner, but when does someone become your friend, vs. just an acquaintance? What makes someone a good friend or a bad friend - essentially, what can we expect from our friends, and what should we give in return?

I remember a scene from the show “Love on the Spectrum” (a reality show about people with autism in the dating world) that stuck with me. One of the people on the show explained that because he didn't understand socialization very well naturally, he had taken it upon himself to study the psychology behind it for many years, to the point where he became quite a charming and socially capable guy. I'm not autistic, but I was homeschooled up to age 14. I believe it made me quite socially stunted, and I didn't really learn how to maintain friendships until my mid 20s. Instead of learning social skills naturally over building blocks in preschool, I was reading books and journaling about it as an adult. Looking back, I no longer resent it, because being forced to work on it like a skill seems to have benefited me in the long run, and after a very lonely early life, I now have many dear friends who bring me joy.

I have a “system” of sorts that seems to work very well for me. There are three elements: consistency, vulnerability, and adaptability.

#1. Consistency

When people talk about their struggles with making or keeping friendships, this aspect is usually mentioned the most often. People are busy, schedules can get tight, and we all have a lot of things that get in the way of spending time with the people in our lives. Commonly, people aren't sure how often they should reach out to their friends, or worry that they are bothering someone who isn't interested in spending time with them. (Usually friends don't break up, after all, they just fade.) I think a lot of friendships are lost or missed because both people simply stop reaching out.

I never take it personally when I ask someone to hang out once or twice and they don't respond, or it doesn't work out. I just give it some time and try again later, at least a few times. Also, I try to reach out without requiring much time or effort from the other person, like just messaging to tell them something that reminded me of them, without scheduling anything at the moment. It also helps to learn people’s preferred communication styles - some people might never respond to texts, but enjoy casual phone calls, or visa versa. Sometimes I miss my friends but I'm way too busy to do more socializing at the time, so I schedule something weeks or months in advance.

Consistency can come in different forms, some people I see for short amounts of time each week, and others I only see a few times a year for quality time on a vacation. Both are good! Another part of consistency is making an effort to follow through on commitments - it's okay to cancel on friends a certain amount, but it's important to give notice and reschedule promptly.

#2. Vulnerability

A friendship needs consistency as a foundation, especially new ones. However, if you see someone every week and don't eventually learn personal things about each other, it can only go so far. And once you have introduced vulnerability, it can be difficult to find a balance. Many people worry about over sharing, and others struggle to recognize when they might be sharing too much. I try to match the energy of the person I'm interacting with. I don't come out swinging by mentioning my difficult religious upbringing and relationship with my parents (obviously,) instead, I ask people casual questions about their family, for example, and see what they're comfortable with sharing. When someone does share something vulnerable with me, I take note of it, and later on I tell them something of a similar nature about myself. Vulnerability is like a ladder - a ladder that is best climbed gradually.

I find that men tend to struggle with vulnerability the most (perhaps to no one's surprise,) particularly in friendships between two men. A few months ago my husband found out that his mother had relapsed, and he mentioned that he wished he had a friend to talk to whose parent was also an addict. I told him that actually, one of our friends had a father who passed away from addiction, something I knew about him despite being friends with the guy for a shorter period of time, and I said maybe he should talk to him about it. Of course, this is a sensitive topic that some friends simply don't always share with each other, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But it got me curious about the likelihood of men sharing that information with each other, compared to a man sharing it with a woman, or to a woman sharing with another woman. Men and women alike have much to gain when we share vulnerable information with each other in a healthy way.

(side note: I struggle with friendships with people who are very private, or are more likely to share after being prodded a bit. I ask questions, but I'm not likely to push someone who isn't giving a lot of information, so with shy people I sometimes struggle to bring the friendship to a closer place. Most of my closest friends are all extroverts, and I would like to figure out how to get to know my shy, quiet friends a bit better, without being invasive or too intense.)

#3. Adaptability

Where consistency is most important at the beginning of a new friendship, adaptability becomes more important later on, for the longevity of a friendship. An adaptive friendship can survive when people's interests, schedules, and circumstances change. If you know you can have a good time with someone in different environments, a friendship is more likely to survive when people move, change careers, have kids, generally grow older and more mature, etc.

A good example is the fact that I had a lot of surface-level “festival friends” or “concert friends” in my mid 20s, and despite hanging out with them consistently for years, I'm not friends with most of them anymore. This is mostly because our tastes in music or hangout spots changed, and there was nothing else tethering or deepening our friendship, so when those things changed, it ended. On the flipside, most of my closest friends today actually are people who I met at festivals or parties, but it's because I've invested in those relationships and expanded them to exist beyond the circumstances that we met under. I can lose interest in going to electronic music festivals and not worry about losing the friends that I camp with there, because I make sure to pull those friends into my normal day to day life, by going hiking, cooking dinner, getting coffee, etc. I also try to do new things with friends, so we have a shared new experience together.

Another example of adaptability is which social contexts you are in when you spend time together, as in, hanging out in group settings only, or getting together only when a mutual friend is there, vs. spending time 1:1. When I invite a friend of a friend to hang out with me without the original mutual friend, that's taking a step into a relationship that exists independently. I keep this in mind whenever one of my friends starts dating someone that I really get along with and make it a point to form my own friendship with that person, so if the relationship doesn't last, I have the opportunity to keep that person in my life.

Maybe some of these things seem like common sense or human nature, but it certainly took me a while to recognize some of them. Whenever I meet someone I really get along with, I make sure to keep these principles in mind. And when I feel myself drifting away from a good friend, I think about which of the three elements could use some attention.

What are your thoughts on cultivating quality friendships? Does it come naturally to you? Anything you struggle with in particular?

Hello all and welcome to the weekend! We made it. Or if your weekend doesn't begin until later, you'll make it yet!

Let's talk cozy games! You know the ones I'm talking about, Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon. Games we used to call something else before the collective zeitgeist of the Internet decided to lump them all together under (which I'm personally fine with, I mean what do you call Animal Crossing anyway?)

In a stark contrast to my younger and more vulnerable years, I've become much more of "casual" gamer, and I find myself enjoying shorter bouts of play rather than becoming engrossed in the same world or story for hours on end. Games like Animal Crossing are perfect for this, in that I can just pick it up, talk to some villagers and go fishing or whatever, and put it down whenever I please. Not just that though, but I just absolutely love the warm and well, cozy vibe games like these offer. I've best heard them described as a warm mug of tea by a window as it rains outside.

Enough about me, let's talk about you! What "cozy" games do you enjoy? Feel free to lump them all together, who cares, it doesn't matter! We are all cozy games on this day.

11PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World

Hi all, our 13 yo, 50-60 pound (25 kg) and mutt dog has been with us for his entire life. A happy and socially anxious friend. A pleasure to have him around. Many times spoiled.
Since a year ago, he started with mobility issues (besides cataracts and partial progressive deafness that do not seem to bother him much). Initially was difficulties jumping on the couch and now it is serious difficulties and some times impossibility to just stand up or go up a few steps on a short stair. Sometimes he has gave up, four legs wide open, belly on floor, even not calling for help, like peacefully defeated. It has becoming more frequent that I have to carry him up and stairs.
Most week days, he stays by himself from morning to late afternoon. He does not help himself inside the house.
He does not seem to be suffering right now. I am not sure but it is not evident to me.
My question is, when would be the best time to put him down? I want to be prepared and plan this properly.
Should I wait until I see him suffering, with pain, soiled? Should I just proceed and prevent any suffering at all? Should I act when I feel uncomfortable assisting him.
Thanks for any advice or comment.

Minor Starfield lore spoiler's ahead

Originally written for /r/games, but the last discussion thread of Starfield in that place saw many user who said they personally like the game downvoted and replied to by mentally-questionable individuals that said not-so-nice things.

As I pass 170 hours in Bethesda newest, hottest, controversial game. I am happy because it is just as fun as I had hoped it to be.
Yet as I explore the cities it has to offer there is always a small detail that I keep failing to ignore (whenever I'm not busy thinking of new ship designs that is).

200,000 units are ready with a million more on the way

So say the slender being that has been tasked with creating an army to defend a galactic spanning government of countless worlds. At this point Montgomery, Zhukov, MacArthur, Jodl, or any-other-WW2-command-figure-of-your-choosing are rolling on the ground clapping each other's backs laughing their socks off. Because 1.2 million is an absolutely puny and pathetic number of troops for a galactic war.
I'm no Star Wars deep lore fan, I understand that fans and later authors has since tried to 'fix it' by making the Clone War more that just the clones. And yet those 1.2M clones was all there was when episode 2 released to theatres.
Most Sci-fi writings has similar a problem with scaling to their subject. It is not news. It even has a tv tropes page (the page is more about distances, but it's in the same ballpark).

Quest for the Peoplefield

So where does Starfield go wrong in this? The ships are puny. The wars and the numbers stated are puny.
Certainty more ways than one, but the one that I wish to focus on is this: where the hell are all the people?
A brief summary of the lore. Humanity has invented FTL and has seemingly solved all energy problems. They had to evacuate Earth, but this was successful and so the starfield should be absolutely teeming with tens of billions of human souls spreading to all corners of the galaxy and its many already habitable worlds.
And yet, Starfield feels so barren. I see no grand interstellar civilizations. Only dirt huts on a hill surrounded by walls that support barely a thousand people. Yet this dirt hill is supposed to be a capital or an interstellar superpower. Heck, they are even scared shitless of their own fauna.
The opposites capital is no dirt hill, yet still smaller than a modern earth country town.
And it's not like the main population centers are just outside player-accessible areas. All the NPCs ever talk about are Akila, New Atlantis, and Neon. These tiny puny cities.
It doesn't feel like the evacuation of Earth was a success. It feels like it was a catastrophe, and all that remains are scattered remnants playing civilization.

And yet... The Starfield is actually lively, just not where it should be. There is a scale imbalance, because spread across nearly every world in the settled systems are countless research stations, outposts, deserted or populated, you name it.
Yes, those procedually-generated buildings that spawn nearly everywhere you land in the settled systems.
Where did these come from? Surely the UC couldn't have built them. Manning just the ones that I have come across in my playthrough would empty New Atlantis 10 times over!

Bethesda built their open-world game style upon Fallout and Elder Scrolls. For both it makes sense that the worlds are sparely populated. One being post-apocalyptic wasteland, and the other a medieval society.
But now they have built something in a completely different realm. But they way in which Bethesda built the scale at which the game is presented remains the same.
So why did they go with this approach? I don't know. Maybe they just like making "small" worlds and didn't want to fit the new universe. Maybe the idea of 'climbing any mountain you can see' is a very hard rule and they didn't want to limit player movement in metropolises, that would undoubtedly be unfeasible to make fully traversable.

But lets pretend they actually tried. And perhaps it can be done without really changing how the game is designed or played.

So you can do it better huh?

A Microsoft executive plays the game as it's nearing launch. He feels there is something missing with the scale of the Starfield universe.
So he does the only rational thing he can think of and storms into the street and picks the first rando he can find, puts the Bethesda crown upon his head, and orders him to fix Starfield's problem of scale.
The exec is later found to be mentally ill and fired, but it does not matter for I am now king of Bethesda and my words are design directives.

Tell, don't show

The simple solution that requires no real work but some change in lore. New Atlantis is no longer a capital, just a administrative and diplomatic outpost. Akila is now just a small border city. The real population centers are now on entirely different worlds. Inaccessible to the player.
Why can't players go there? Well it shouldn't take much suspension of disbelief to acknowledge that governments might not want any random idiot, in a flying hunk of metal capable of tearing space-time at it seams, to go anywhere near their main population centers without considerable control.
NPCs should no longer talk of sprawling New Atlantis, Neon, or Akila, but rather these other places that you can see on the map but are not allowed to go to.

Show enough

The population planets are now accessible, but restricted in where you can land freely. On the map it should show big cities. And just like how you cannot land in water, you can neither land anywhere in cities or its surroundings.
Just like with New Atlantis and Akila, you can land at a designated spot. The difference is when you look into the horizon, because rather than a procedurally generated landscape you will instead see a sprawling metropolis that tells you "Yes here! Here are all the people!".
The other change would be that, unlike the landscape, if you try to go beyond the player-area of the city you will hit a wall. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
New Atlantis and Akila can stay, but like the other solution they would change status.

All in all the scale issue is no big problem and the game is fine as it is. This was just something that has been on mind for some time and I wanted to put it to writing. So do you agree that Starfield has a scale problem? If yes, how would you fix it? Or maybe I missed some crucial info-dump and the entire premise of this writing is wrong?

Title says it all. I'm only in my late 20s and I've been his primary care taker for most of my adult life. There isn't any other person I've spent more time with in my entire life. I'm trying to prepare myself for when the moment he's gone and I know it's going crush me all the same.

This will be my greatest loss in life so far. I know everyone goes through something like this. What did you do when a moment like this came? What did you do when it felt like you couldn't get up? I have know idea how I'm going to get through this, I just have to believe I will.

EDIT: Thank you for all your kind words and we'll wishes. My dad passed away September 23, 3:30 PM local time with his boys by his side. I'll love him and miss him every single day.

For context I did not grow up reading books, came to it in my early twenties and found I preferred historical, academic or social books. Therefore reading really felt like a chore and I struggled.

Read what I would consider my first novel/story book last year which was The Iliad and found that I quite enjoyed it, decided I was going to try something else. The Lord of the rings came to mind as I have rewatched the movies countless times, I researched recommendations on editions and how to read, therefore I started with the Hobbit back in June.

I just finished reading the last book of the trilogy today, which compared to my previous reading habits is lightening fast. And I am a little sad, I will read the appendices but am uncertain what to do next. I'm thinking unfinished tales and then the silmarillion.

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions, also about any other series or universe to read about after these, preferably with movies that I can watch before hand as it helps me with imagining what I'm reading.

Edit:
First of all I wanted to thank everyone for sharing your ideas, it has been immensely insightful and I feel like there are a lot of possibilities for me to pursue even if not immediately but in the near future.

I've decided I'm not quite ready to leave middle earth yet and so I will be persuing the silmarillion, and then unfinished tales. Any thoughts on tom bombadil?

After this the following quite interested me:

• prince of nothing
• the resurrection OST
• dune

I feel like I might actually start with dune as it will be a foot in the door into sci-fi but let's see

I haven't really messed with printers in probably 15 years or more, but it felt like any time they were brought up, there were two flavors:

• Older printers, which decided if they wanted to work or not based on absolutely nothing at all
• Newer printers, which are covered in DRM and mostly a nickel-and-diming scam

Now, for the former I remember having some issues, but generally just clearing the printer's cache (or whatever it was called) would fix most of the problems. I think the bigger issue is that I always helped people set up cheap Walmart-sold inkjet printers that had more hardware issues than software, along with ink that would go to shit instantly.

But I was out today at a thrift store and they had a Brother for $25, with an entire extra unopened toner cartridge (I think that's what it's called?). I asked them if it worked, they said it did, but if it didn't I could return it by tomorrow.

So I brought it home, assuming something would be wrong with it, but in about 10 minutes I had it plugged in, connected to my wifi network, and connected to my computer. I tried scanning-- it worked fine. I tried copying-- it does that no problem. It took longer to install the drivers on my PC than set up the printer itself.

So are printers really as straight-forward as I experienced with this cheap used one, or am I just lucky?

I'm making an effort to declutter and trying to get rid of my old electronics. I have a bunch of old Oculus hardware, my old gaming PC with a Ryzen and a RX480, an old Xbox console and other things around the house. Do you recommend going through eBay, or Swappa or another specialty website, or if there may be a hobby shop willing to take things off of hands, or just go to Goodwill and accept the resale value as sunk cost?

I am faced with an unusually busy year this year between work and school. I have one window for a vacation between December 27 and January 7. My planned travel companion can no longer come along. My ticket can be changed to most destinations worldwide.

Before I choose to go alone or to not travel this year, I decided to ask this community the following question. Is there anyone who lives on a continent I consider less risky to visit alone, who would be open to a meetup and provide some local travel advice? I understand that many people fiercely protect their anonymity and I am not trying to convince anyone. If no one responds, that is fine.

I also don't need or want handholding or babysitting. I am a middle aged, american married woman with some health issues. I am a moderately experienced traveler.

If you are open to discussing this possibility, please feel free to reply or message.

Apologies to my friends in South and Central America and in Africa. I need this trip to be relatively easy and to feel 99 percent safe while traveling alone.

Hi all - I need some help troubleshooting my internet and really don't feel like dealing w/ customer service reps. I don't consider myself a tech savvy person, so I'm wondering what this community might know..

I've been having issues with my internet for a while. we have xfinity with a plan that promises up to 1000mbps. I'm lucky if i get up to 250 on a good day. beyond that, we constantly lose connection, or get very slow connectivity. i'm using a Netgear c7000v2 as my modem/wifi router combo paired with a Google Nest Mesh router. My home is roughly 1000 sqft footprint split level. my computer is in a different room, but there's no doors between and about 600 ft from the modem/mesh routers.

i called xfinity to talk about the issue, they said that my modem likely needed to be replaced. the initial modem was also a Netgear c7000v2, but i figured maybe the hardware just burnt out(?) they sent me an xfinity modem, and everything seemed to work great (still not 1000mbps, but definitely better). when I realized they were charging me more than I was willing to pay monthly for a rental fee on the modem, i decided i'd go back out and buy a new modem. i bought a Netgear c7000v2 again, because it should be able to handle those speeds, and to my understanding is a decent enough modem. i also bought a new coaxial cable to double check. but after replacing, my internet is still spotty and constantly goes in and out.

i don't have any device to plug directly into the ethernet cable (because it's 2023...), so i can't pinpoint the issue through that. i haven't had an xfinity tech come out yet, because apparently that takes anywhere from 6-8 weeks to get a visit...

any ideas on what i should do? part of me is convinced that xfinity is throttling my internet because I'm not using their modem and paying them a rental fee, but i don't want to give into conspiratorial thinking...i'm about to file an FTC complaint on them because I'm just fed-up at this point.

Author's note: I'm mostly typing this up for myself as a writing exercise to sum up my situation, so that I can present it to a doctor one day if I can find one who will listen. It's a long read, and I don't expect anyone to seriously read it? But, if you happen to make it through and have any advice, or recommendations for specialists I could seek out, I would really appreciate that.

I work remotely as an open source maintainer for a university research lab, so I spend a lot of time at my computer. Throughout my adult life, I've found that I work best when sitting in my bed with my laptop. Yet, I figure sitting in my bed isn't the best for my body, so I've tried hard over the years to make a desk setup that's as accommodating as possible:

• I have a big corner desk with lots of tabletop space and overhead cabinets.
• I've set up cozy under-cabinet 2700K LED strip lightning.
• I've decorated the space with nice sentimental things.
• I've got a foot-warmer under the desk (since I have chronic ice-cold feet for reasons I don't yet understand).
• I own a (secondhand) Steelcase Leap v1 that I've meticulously adjusted to my body, making sure all of the heights and distances are within typical ergonomic recommendations.
• I have an ergonomic keyboard with a sliding under-desk tray
• I've gotten dual monitors, with one being a modern 1024*1280 monitor to avoid whiplash from an extra-wide double-1080p monitor setup.

Despite all of the above, every time I go to use my setup, I feel a big sense of revulsion and a big urge to just curl up in bed with my laptop.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about why I react this way, and I attribute it to a whole bunch of underlying factors:

1. I'm autistic+anxious (ASD/GAD diagnoses), and I was previously diagnosed with ADHD, too.
2. I struggle a lot with pain/physical discomfort:
   • One of my brain quirks is that I have big sensory sensitivities surrounding my body. I'm hyperaware of any uncomfortable sensations in my body, and pain/discomfort can completely derail my ability to focus and be present in the moment. For example, if I eat too much and feel overfull, the sensation of my stomach pressing against my other internal organs drives me crazy, to the point where I can hardly even watch a show or listen to music. The same goes for when I'm constipated or have an upset stomach. When I get like this, it's like I can't feel any emotions. The discomfort/pain are the only physical sensations I can take in, because they crowd everything else out. I can't feel warmth or happiness or fullness in my heart. All I feel is discomfort.
   • My anxiety results in a near-constant state of tension. I'm often very aware of the booming of my heartbeat, or tightness in my chest. I fall into a negative feedback loop, as it makes it very difficult to relax, which further triggers anxiety and tension. (Side note: Beta blockers are the most effective anti-anxiety medications I've ever been prescribed for exactly this reason. They target the physical sensations, and helped me feel an overall sense of calm. I haven't been prescribed them in 7+ years, though, because every new GP/psych I visit automatically discounts them as off-label/not-first-line approaches, even though I've had direct success with them when other approaches have failed. I wish doctors would listen to me. Would weed help?)
   • When I get anxious/depressed, I find that my posture suffers a lot. My body sort of curls in on itself, as though it were attempting the fetal position. It takes an exceedingly difficult amount of effort to preserve good posture the more fatigued I get. But, in such a state, I don't have the spoons to exert this effort -- it gets harder and harder until I inevitably curl up in bed.
   • Wouldn't you know it, I have chronic pain, too. Multiple times a week, it manifests as this combo of upper-back/shoulder/neck/sinus/behind-the-eyes pain. It typically happens only on one side of my body (though which side it happens on is not consistent). The sinus pain is curious, too: I regularly have a "cold nose" (similar to my cold feet), and breathing in feels icy and sharp, with a tingle like I'm about to sneeze. I find myself reflexively picking or prodding at my nose just to distract from the painful sensations. I often cover my nose with my shirt so that I can breathe in my warm, moist, exhaled breath. It doesn't really warm up my nose, but it provides some in the moment relief.
   • You can imagine what this chronic pain does to my ability to feel emotions or focus on tasks... I rely a LOT on Aleve. ;;
   • I'm also sensitive to temperature: I really dislike being too cold or too hot. I often change clothes multiple times a day, from shirts to sweaters and back + shorts to sweatpants and back, because I'm constantly adjusting my temperature.
   • I also am particular about pressure and textures on my skin. I don't really like having my skin exposed? I like big comfy sweaters and a specific kind of sweatpants that Uniqlo used to sell. I also really adore this specific duvet I got from IKEA, because it's big and fluffy and weighty. It's like a semi-weighted blanket without being so densely concentrated (I have a glass bead weighted blanket I hardly use because of how icky it feels).
   • Because of all of this, my ideal state of being is one where my body just kind of... disappears from my consciousness? I strongly wish I could exist without being aware of my physical form, because I'd say at least 90% of my waking hours I'm feeling some form of discomfort or another, and thus 90% of the time any happiness is blocked by the discomfort.
3. As far as working on a computer, I find that I'm most productive when I can sink into a state of hyperfocus/flow and attack a task for hours at a time in a single sitting. I'll lose track of time, come out of the state wondering where the day went, yet be insanely productive during that period.
   • Naturally, this goes against conventional advice for computer-based WFH, since in this state I don't take stretching breaks, don't adjust my posture, don't rest my eyes, etc. But, I find forced breaks tend to rip me out of my focus, and it takes a lot of self-regulation/spoons to get back on track after a break.
   • Despite the terrible ergonomics of hyperfocus, it counterintuitively acts as a needed respite from the pain/discomfort. Being hyperfocused is one of the only states that supersedes the sensory sensitivity I have. I'll often be so focused that I don't notice the state my body is in, which is pretty much my ideal! (Side note: Because of this dynamic, I often lean on rhythm video games as a respite for pain, too. They're easy for me to hyperfocus on, which makes passing the time a lot more bearable for me when I'm in pain.)
4. And, the environment most conducive for sparking a state of hyperfocus is my bed, rather than a desk.
   • Even with all my adjustments, my desk feels very finicky and dynamic. The chair rolls, the keyboard tray slides, the chair back reclines, my foot warmer slides around. Rarely do I feel anchored, and rarely does everything feel "just right". I can't really find a "locked in" position for hyperfocus, as my body is always interacting with its environment via subtle little tics and adjustments.
   • I also find that sitting at a desk leaves me feeling rather exposed? Even with clothes on, I just... don't have enough weight on my legs to feel fully comfortable.
   • When I do try to sit at a desk, I may be somewhat comfortable at first, but as time goes on I get more and more uncomfortable. Maybe a tricky task temporarily spikes my anxiety, which causes tension and pain, which makes me focus on the pain, which makes it harder to think clearly about the task at hand, which makes me more anxious, which begins to affect my posture, which makes it harder to properly sit in my ergonomic chair. I'll fidget and shift, and start to lean on one arm. It often escalates to the point where it feels like torture to hold my own body up, because I feel like a ragdoll in my chair.
   • My bed, by comparison, doesn't ask any effort of me at all. I'm fully enveloped by the mattress and my pillows, so if I end up in "ragdoll anxiety/depression" mode, I'm supported in exactly the same way I would be if I was in "full spoons" mode. I also get the comfort of my duvet, with fluffy warmth and weight on every part of my body, and very little of me being exposed.
   • This means that I can somewhat ignore my body when I'm in my bed. Even if I'm in pain, even if I'm anxious, I don't really have to... DO anything about it? I don't have to physically move my body in a specific way in order to keep hacking away at a task. The pain will still be there, but the hyperfocus state can win out, and I can work away while feeling like my laptop is an extension of my body.

Surely this isn't good for me, right? Surely I should be attacking the root of the problem so that I don't devolve into a ragdoll mess of pain every time I try and use a desk? Surely lying in bed for hours at a time isn't good for my body, right? But, with this multi-layered set of factors, with many of them being inherent anxious/autistic traits, I don't know how to create an environment that's any better for me than my bed is.

What do?

Spoiler warning for Dawnshard and previous Stormlight Archive books (Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Edgedancer, & Oathbringer).

I'd seen mentions of the sleepless and Dawnshards when browsing the Arcanum and so was primarily hoping to learn more about these in this book. But in a short period of time I was surprised with how attached I grew to Rysn! In particular at the end of the book when the captain appreciates Rysn's role as Rebsk and allow here to steer the ship (showing their trust) for a few minutes, I let out an audible cheer. (Also when I noticed that she gained perfect pitch and perfect color recognition) Rysn and Vstim's interludes in the previous stormlight books were some of my favourite interludes and I'm so glad that we got to see more of them here.

The other thing I was surprised by was the set up for the two Winderunners swearing their third ideal here. Lopen says quite clearly that the third ideal is saying that you will protect even those you hate. And then a few chapters later we see Huio swear the third ideal in order to protect Lopen. I honestly thought this was just going to be played off as a joke since they have a fair bit of banter early in the book. But I was heart warmed to see that realisation that Lopen has that his jokes and teasing hurt people, and him swearing his own version of the ideal to protect other people from himself. It reminded me of some of the similar (but not same) character development moments we get with Wayne in Mistborn.

I'd love to hear what other people who read this book thought about it as well. Once I can get my hands on Yumi and the Nightmare Painter in paperback form, I hope to discuss that too with all you Cosmerenauts!

Whizy Kim

The Rejuvenation Olympics, an online leaderboard launched by tech millionaire Bryan Johnson earlier this year, takes the rivalry of the rich to the next level. The game? “Reversing” your age

Link to the article

Participants compete not on physical abilities but on how quickly and by how much they can slow their “biological age.”

Competitors do this mostly by adjusting their diets (like which macronutrients and supplements they consume), being physically active, and retesting their “age” regularly. They’re not actually reverting to a more youthful version of themselves — that’s not biologically possible. Rather, these competitors are racing to see who can age the slowest; as the Rejuvenation Olympics website quips, “You win by never crossing the finish line.”

The point isn’t merely being healthy. It’s laser-precision optimization of his health.

Johnson, for example, never eats pizza or drinks alcohol. It’s simply not a part of his algorithm. “I was just a slave to myself and my passions and my emotions and my next desire,” he said in an interview with Vice Motherboard. That doesn’t mean he never stumbles, but when he does, he calls it an “infraction,” as though he has committed a minor crime.

Leaderboard

Johnson tops the Rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard; he created the game along with Oliver Zolman — who leads Johnson’s team of 30-plus doctors and other health experts — and TruDiagnostic, an epigenetics lab based in Kentucky that provides the biological age test kits that participants in the Olympics must submit. The cheaper version costs $229. The more expensive one, at $499, provides more data on your results, including how habits like smoking or drinking alcohol have impacted a person’s aging speed.

Ultramarathon

It’s a contest that participants hope never ends — the most ultra of ultramarathons. The most dedicated members in the longevity community are, in essence, spending their lives obsessing over living. Says Lustgarten: “I plan on doing this for at least the next 70-plus years.”

I have a very long history of mental illness from age 10, and though I've cycled through a lot of explanations the diagnoses that best match my symptoms currently are currently ADHD and CPTSD. I am medicated for both, and although I am not in active therapy I have also done therapy. I consider my mental health relatively well-managed currently: at least, I am not in any urgent danger of hurting myself and it has been a very long time since I have been. Certainly things could be better but I'm usually functional.

But sometimes I go through these phases, generally 1-3 months long, where my ability to function on a normal level slips dramatically. It never gets to the nightmarish state I was in when I was a teenager, but it becomes hard to... oh, make appointments, do the dishes, walk the dog, just generally deal with the obligations of being an adult. My house is never in GREAT shape but it becomes a disaster. Work performance suffers a lot, my relationships suffer. I also start experiencing emotional PMS symptoms (or perhaps I just lose the ability to suppress them), and while I'm not the type to have "emotional outbursts" I do experience deep and irrational sadness or anger on those days. I also tend to end up dealing with insomnia, which is like a force multiplier on feeling overwhelmed.

It sucks especially because it's like I'm watching myself do it, and I feel as though I don't have enough control over myself to nip it in the bud, and sometimes the damage I do during these times is not fixable at all. It's almost like an unplaceable craving, like there's some thing I'm missing and my subconscious and my body are trying to send me signals, and I just can't interpret them right and figure out what I need.

How I generally get out of these phases is -- well, it's a bit chicken-egg, because the turmoil makes it difficult for me to reach out for help or even do anything to help myself, so to me it seems like sometimes the wave just passes. I'll say, "ok, this time I'll get my shit together", download some new app or whatever, organize my time or tasks via some new fascinating system, and that'll work... but it feels like it's only because I'm "ready" for it to work.

I think it's unlikely I'll find a solution that will work indefinitely to prevent these slips (hooray, novelty-obsessed brain). And anyway - as though it even needs to be said - I'm sulking in the midst of one now, so prevention or reduction tips might be helpful later, but for this moment I'm mostly concerned with getting out once I'm in.

If you have "swingy" mental health, or phases, or waves - what do YOU do about it, if anything? Therapy? Do you change your medication? Do you take a vacation? Commiserate on your favourite internet forums? What works for you?

One time I asked someone what they thought about the phrase "people are temporary" and it ended with them telling me:

I don't like saying goodbye to people because I don't know if it's going to be the last time.

That just stuck with me and really got me thinking how precious our time is.

I was scrolling through Tildes a while ago when I can across a comment talking about how employers fed data into a credit-bureau-esque application that they could check to see things like your past salary data. Unfortunately, I can’t find that comment anymore. Does anyone know what it was, or where to find it?

I find the concept to be incredibly worrying, especially as it seems like unregulated technology or at the very least operating in a gray area carved out by existing credit reporting.

(Please let me know if this should go in ~misc or somewhere else. Wasn’t sure where to put it!)

I've run similar weekly discussions in the past elsewhere to varying degrees of success. I've been really happy with how Fresh Album Fridays has been going so far, so thought there might be some interest in centering discussion around one certain album each week.

There's a few ways of doing this that come to mind - if anyone has any other suggestions let me know

• It's entirely random from the top 2k-10k albums on RYM. You tend to get a very interesting spread of albums this way.

• In the past I've done a 'time travel' version where each week is a year ahead from the last, with each album being chosen randomly from that year's top 20 or so albums. It's a fun novelty, but decades can get a little samey for 10 weeks.

• Albums are user nominated, hopefully with a write up from that user. I'm least keen on this idea - I like how random albums keep things on an even playing field. A personal touch is nice, but requires some organization and consistent interest (might end up being the same few people).

Also there's timing the discussion. There's a couple options I can think of

• Each week the new album is declared, and the thread remains the place to discuss that album until the next album is posted.

• A new discussion thread is created a week after the album is declared, while also declaring next week's album. This gives people time to hear the next album, and acts as a reminder for anyone behind, but maybe sours any chance for immediate impressions - folks might feel less inclined to write their thoughts a week after hearing something.

Eager to hear any and all thoughts.

Not too long ago, I came across a book that changed my life, or at the very least, my writing. While I have some trouble remembering specifics, I do remember it going deep into the world of philosophy and psychology, exploring the intricacies of what makes a book, and what our writing really means. The book analyzed the craft of writing, discussing how humans perceive the differences between good and bad writing, the difference between a good speech and a dull monologue, and how good writing becomes great. This, as well as the nuances of human perception on language in general. Alas, I have since lost the book's title and author, but the captivating writing style and genre remains with me, and I’d really enjoy some recommendations of similar works. I don’t expect to ever find it, as my search has led me to other good books about this sort of writing.

*Please forgive me if this is not the method I should be following when I post, this is my first post here. *

Hello... looking to hang a 100lbs heavy bag in my basement (with regular wood-stud walls). I've researched various options and have gone down all sorts of engineering rabbit holes, including pull-out strengths of various sized lag bolts, horizontal load maximums of different kinds of wood, etc. I've perused various marketplaces for various types of mounting solutions and such. The problem with standard DIY wall mounting is that it doesn't come off the wall far enough.

I'm wondering though -- and it seems simple enough of a solution -- why the following wouldn't work:

An 8-foot span of 2x6, turned "vertically" so that the top and bottom faces are the 2" edge, affixed 45 degrees to the studs. ASCII art not-withstanding, it's just an isosceles triangle, where the 8-foot hypotenuse is the lumber, and the "height" of the triangle is 4-feet. It would seem 2 brackets (the kind used in making decks) on each end, screwed into the studs would be suitably strong.

The "Sagulator" (google it!) seems to think that such a setup would only experience a total 0.01in sag in the center of the span.

The heavy bag would just hang from this with a strap that loops over the beam.

An 8-foot span basically means I have a lot of clearance on either side.

I suppose I could just go right into the ceiling joists, but with my proposed setup I can slide the bag to one end or the other and create a bit more of a dynamic setup (albeit it looks a bit more unsightly).

Thoughts or suggestions? Or am I crazy?

I'm a long time Tildes user but I've created this separate account because I'd like to avoid connecting this topic to my normal username.

I am going through a divorce that will take about a year to finalize and I am struggling with the stress. If it were a short term thing, I would grit my teeth and bear it, but I have a full year ahead and I'm afraid I need some help in order to make it through with my physical and mental health intact.

My wife has a personality that includes "kill mode" for anyone she deems as an opponent -- whether it is another driver on the road, a customer service agent who doesn't give her what she wants, or anyone at all who she perceives as having slighted her. This is one of the reasons why we're getting divorced. I have nearly the opposite approach to conflict, and I can't handle seeing people get attacked so fiercely or so often. Now that we're getting divorced, I am the target of these attacks. For clarity, they're only verbal attacks, not physical -- there is no physical abuse in this case.

I could stiffen up and fight back whenever she starts arguing with me, but we have kids and I want to commit myself to preventing their exposure to hostilities as much as possible. But this means I have to do my best to brush off my wife's verbal abuse and maintain composure so they can have a stable dad to rely on.

Right now I'm having trouble sleeping and I am constantly anxious throughout the day. It gets worse whenever I have to interact with my wife; and unfortunately we have to interact frequently every day to coordinate childcare and logistics of the divorce. I have a tightness in my chest from being so anxious (not heart attack) and I am struggling to maintain focus on work or any tasks I have to complete. I can hold back the tears, but I really do want to cry many, many times a day.

What can I do to wade through this time period? I know there are breathing exercises to help calm down. What else can you recommend? I am trying to make sure I do eat well enough and that I drink enough water. I avoid alcohol entirely and don't take any kind of medication.

Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated. And I'm sorry if this is not an appropriate forum for this question. I will delete if so.

I just finished the Starfield main quest! Everything else will be in the Spoilerbox text but if you haven't, consider yourself warned! I would try and go through the main quest as much as you can and maybe a couple of temples before you finish the main story if you havent.

Cities: Skylines II is an upcoming city-building game developed by Colossal Order and published by Paradox Interactive. It is a sequel to Cities: Skylines, and expands upon many of the simulation factors such as simulated city and population sizes, and improved traffic AI and management schemes. The game is scheduled for release on 24 October 2023 for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.

Source: Wikipedia

As we near the release date of Cities: Skylines II, more and more media and articles both substantial and fluff-esque are going to be popping up everywhere. Inspired by the release of Two Dollars Twenty's YouTube gameplay video (linked below), this thread is a repository for any morsel of news regarding the much anticipated city-building sequel. Utilise the tags to see previously posted content on Tildes.

Just coming back into the rental market after owning a home for a short time. I found a place that would be great. Then, I got the lease.

This thing is a nightmare. Here are a few of the greatest hits:

• The lease lists my rent and then says they can charge "additional rent" which is "all added charges, costs, and fees for the duration of this lease." So, sounds like they can just make up a number and add it to the rent and I have to pay it?
• The landlord will make a "good faith effort" to make the apartment available to me when my lease starts. Shouldn't the landlord actually do that, not just make any sort of "effort" to do it, "good faith" or otherwise?
• If the unit is damaged such that I cannot live there while repairs are being made, the landlord "may" issue me a credit for the days I can't live there. What criteria will the landlord use? If they decide not to, that means I'll be paying rent for an apartment I cannot occupy?

This is a short lease — I've seen much longer in my time renting — but even so, I could come up with a dozen more examples like this. What is going on here? I've read the law in the area, and I suspect some of the clauses in here are actually unenforceable. For example, the lease allows for automatic rent increases at lease renewal without notification while the law requires 60 days notification, and it requires me to notify 14 days after notification of a rent increase if I do not accept where the law says I have 30 days to do so.

But how did we get here? I just want to pay a specified amount every month in order to be able to live in a space someone else owns. This should be relatively simple, but it's turned into this weird whack-a-mole game where every lease is a document of all that landlord's past tenant grievances they are trying to now avoid in the future, along with any other unreasonable terms they think they can get away with. Regardless of what the law is, the lease can say anything. If I read it and decline to sign, the next person will probably just sign it and hope for the best.

For those of you who are renting, how do you deal with this sort of stuff? Are there reasonable landlords still out there? Is the right way to buy a home just to escape from unreasonable lease terms, even if you don't really want to own?

Update: Possibly important context- This property is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

So, this won't be like the usual posts on Tildes. This will be on the long side and rambly, so I apologize for that in advance. Maybe this would fit better on a blog, but I don't have one so I'll post here instead. But while this post is definitely meant to be cathartic for me, I think maybe this will help some people too. Especially those who haven't experienced a super close or sudden loss yet.

I want to talk about neurodivergence and grief.

To start, I'm a 28-year-old woman. Higher end of the autism spectrum (diagnosed with Asperger's, though that term is out of favor now) and ADHD, and my parents managed to get me diagnosed by first grade. I've always known I perceived the world a bit differently from others, and this is further impacted by the fact I'm a writer. I often say one strange silver lining to being a writer is that everything is experience for writing. I've always been able to "detach" myself from reality pretty easily and view it from an almost outsider's point of view. Not full-blown disassociation, but I can step back more easily than most and start analyzing myself and others' actions. That definitely came into play here.

Two weeks ago on Wednesday, August 23, my dad died at the age of 68. Heart attack while golfing, stemming from a lifelong heart defect (structural issue, discovered when he had a heart attack at the age of 17). He had no other health issues, he went to regular checkups every six months or so and his heart checked out as fine as it could at the last one. There was zero warning, he was in perfect health that morning and everything was totally fine and normal up until the attack. The autopsy confirmed there were no external factors like the heat at play, just his heart suddenly giving out.

Just, one minute he was fine, and then less than 24 hours later my mom and I were sitting in a funeral home talking about packages and then to the cemetery to buy grave plots. It's the definition of a sudden death.

They say that everyone grieves differently, but I've been aware for a while that my grief is different from others. Until now, my experience with loss has been limited to three grandparents and pets. No aunts or uncles died during my lifetime, no cousins, no friends barring a former classmate who I didn't know too well but who committed suicide. With my grandparents, I definitely noticed I reacted differently. For example, I ended up checking out caskets during my grandmother's wake and talking to the workers about things like cremation jewelry. I still feel a bit bad for my dad who patiently followed me in there during his mother's wake. With my maternal grandfather, I remember thinking about a book I gave my grandmother while at their house, and I'm pretty sure I mentioned it to my cousins. Keep in mind, this would be like two hours tops since he died.

So, yeah. I've been aware for a while that my reactions to death and grief thus far aren't really "typical". I sometimes felt a bit guilty with how easily I felt okay after my grandparents died while seeing everyone around me nearly break. And more than that, I've been concerned about how I might react to other deaths. Particularly my parents.

So what I'm saying is that my dad was my first brush with super close and sudden loss.

So, now that you have the facts, I'll just start explaining my experiences with grief.

The Initial Reaction

My very first reaction: shock. Not even numbness, just shock.

My mom came home, and said she had bad news. I immediately thought it must be my grandmother, who's currently 97 and whose health has been on a steady decline. Instead, she told me my dad had a heart attack at the golf course (oh my gosh, is he okay?) and was pronounced dead at the hospital. For the first time in my life, I found myself asking if it was a dream and genuinely wishing it was. I hugged my mom and whispered "please be a dream", just like I often read and wrote in emotional scenes, and I meant it.

Almost right after she said that, the garage door opened and my first thought was that it was my dad, but instead it was my aunt.

That's around when my "writer-brain" kicked in. I looked at her and said "(Aunt), Dad's..." I couldn't finish the sentence—or maybe it wasn't a matter of could not but did not, because my writer-brain pulled upon all the similar scenes I'd read and written. My aunt pulled me in for a hug, followed by my two uncles, and I cried into their shoulders. I repeated this when my dad's brothers and their wives showed up, and pretty much everyone else who visited in the coming days.

Writer-brain led me to making a couple of docs on my phone: the first titled "Feelings of Grief", the second titled "Dad". "Feelings of Grief" was a bullet-point list of observations of my feelings and reactions. My arms felt heavy and kind of numb. Lifting my phone could be hard, every time I'd set it down or lower my arms in general my arms would just flop down to my side. I'd randomly start to cry and tear up. My chest hurt a bit. I felt empty. It was stronger when alone, maybe because I could distract myself with other people. Noted later in the evening that my arms were still kinda limp, and I didn't have many photos of dad on my phone, and please please PLEASE let mom's phone be synced to the cloud and the photos she had still there.

One interesting note I left: it wasn't the same hollow feeling as the former classmate who committed suicide. Writer-brain had kicked in similarly back then. I remember noting to myself how my jaw just naturally fell open of its own accord, I even closed it and it automatically went slack. When our vice principal first mentioned he'd died, my first thought was "oh no, it must be a car accident". But when he revealed it was suicide, it was a gut punch and the feeling was just... hollow. I reaffirmed this the next day while talking to my mom that there's a difference between "hollow" and "empty", not one I can put into words, but a difference nonetheless.

The second document on my phone, "Dad", started on Wednesday night as an obituary. When my grandfather died, my dad had told me how sad he always found those short obituaries, so I knew we'd have a long one. I'm a writer, so it felt natural that I start on it to take some of the burden off mom. The next day, I read it to mom and we ended up using it with minimal changes.

What I didn't tell her was that the rest of the document was basically me journaling. I don't journal, but I know writing helps me process things and organize thoughts, so I just wrote. Starting with the words "Dad, I love you." I wrote out all my thoughts, a letter he'd never get to read. I wrote about checking the Ring camera and it automatically pulling up the video of him getting the paper with the dog that morning. I made my bed and cried, put away dishes and cried, couldn't finish folding the laundry because I realized some of it was his. At that point it clicked in my head that the format was poem-like, and I wrote lines with questions that could fit a poem structure. I'm not even a poet, I've always preferred prose, but that's where my brain went.

And I also wrote about how I knew I'd be okay, because I already knew my grief was different. And how awful that made me feel. How I felt guilty that I wasn't there when mom was downstairs. She got the call while doing laundry, and I think I came downstairs right after she left. She went there alone, my uncle meeting her at the hospital, and had to wait until the doctor came out, while I was at home totally oblivious to the fact the most important man in my life was gone.

So, I never saw my dad in the hospital. Never saw how awful he looked after the attempts to revive him, only saw him on Monday at his calling when he'd been cleaned up. Both docs had me wondering if maybe the fact I hadn't seen him let my brain detach more, let me distance myself from his absence and the situation, and if seeing him on Monday would be when it really felt real.

Day 3 and Onwards: Weirdly Okay

On Friday, Day 3 after my dad died, everything felt... weirdly normal.

I think on Thursday, my brain was already starting to push me out of heavy-grief mode. Every time I hugged people on Wednesday I'd automatically cry, but I think towards the end of Thursday that reaction was dwindling. I think on Friday itself, it stopped entirely. I'd hug people but tears wouldn't automatically spring like the previous two days. I could even already tell, "Oh, I'm gonna get kinda tired of all these hugs, aren't I?" On Thursday I randomly cried a couple times, had to run upstairs to hug my mom as it crashed into me once again, but that didn't happen as much on Friday.

I'd already joked about "literal Covid flashbacks", because I got Covid this year and my primary symptom was an eternally runny nose. I went through at least one tissue box on my own and by the end my nose was just sore from blowing and wiping it so much, so I joked my brain didn't want a repeat of that soreness.

Inwardly though, I was reflecting on my previous experiences with grief. I knew I'd enter an "okay" state sooner than others, but I didn't expect it to happen so fast after my dad died. I still felt sad, but I wasn't randomly crying anymore. I live at home, never moved out and even attended a commuter college, we've always been an incredibly close family, so his death should be more... I guess devastating? Heart-breaking? It felt bizarre to me, to already feel like I was edging back towards okay.

My theory: it's an evolutionary trait promoted in neurodivergence, to ensure that at least one member of the "pack" won't be vulnerable. Make sure someone can be functional enough to identify potential threats and such, maybe go out for supplies. I mentioned this theory to a few people in the coming days. My mom said it was almost like a superpower when I explained it.

And as the child in the situation, it sucks. I don't have the experience or knowledge to do all these arrangements. All the financial stuff is on my mom since she has the accounts, she knows who to inform and could estimate how many people to expect, she had all the contacts who could help arrange and set up a reception at our house, etc. And even besides that, as the child in the situation, it wasn't exactly "my place" to do a bunch of that stuff. I couldn't directly help with anything but the obituary, provide tech support for getting the photos for the calling, and providing emotional support.

So, yeah. That sucked for me because I knew I felt much better than mom did, but couldn't really do much to ease her burden. So it felt like I was largely leaving her on her own to navigate the funeral process. We had my aunts and some of her friends present to help, including some who'd experienced similar abrupt loss and could help guide and advise her, but there's still a lot of stuff she needed to do herself. She didn't have much time to really process it on her own because she was just so busy, I don't think she really got a chance to relax until Wednesday after everything was over. So for most of the process, I was much more cognizant of my mom's grief than my own.

And I was honestly quite open with this. I didn't flaunt that I was weirdly okay, but people would ask how I was feeling and I'd be honest: "I think my neurodivergent brain is helping." By Sunday, I was still weirdly okay. The calling was the next day. I helped mom submit the pictures to the funeral home's website. We had a small horde of friends and aunts help move stuff to the backyard to prepare for the post-funeral reception at our house on Tuesday. We got through the day, and picked out dresses to wear.

The Calling

At the calling on Monday, I got to see my dad for the first and last time.

My mom originally wanted a closed-casket calling, but agreed to open-casket because we knew some people needed it. Including my uncle, who'd been present at the hospital and who my mom described as even worse off than her.

It turns out, my mom needed it too, more than she realized.

My dad had an autopsy for a few reasons. I kind of expected one given his heart defect, but there was also the fact it was an incredibly hot day and he hit his head when he fell, so the coroner wanted to confirm what exactly the cause was. And as I said near the start, it was just his heart. As far as I'm aware, he most likely died instantly from the heart attack itself, but they tried to revive him for a while before calling his death, maybe half an hour. The doctor at the hospital said he'd tried everything he could to bring him back. Surgery, intubation, etc.

To sum it up, he didn't look too good in the hospital. When I expressed regret I hadn't been with mom, she said she was glad I hadn't been there. I still wonder if that might have helped me get "okay" so quickly, since I didn't have the traumatic memory. He died away from home, so there's no traumatic memories associated with his body in our house. My first and only time seeing him post-mortem was at the funeral home, after he'd been cleaned up and dressed.

My dad in the casket looked peaceful. I don't know if I'd say he looked like he was sleeping, but he looked so much better than I had feared. At one of the last funerals I attended, I felt like their body hadn't looked like them (and my mom also felt that way when I mentioned it to her later), so I'd worried that might happen here. It was a relief that dad still looked like dad. Later, one of the morticians commented about the nasty bruise on his head from the fall, and I know that bruises can be particularly stark on corpses, so. Big kudos to the mortician. I think seeing him like that, instead of her last memory being at the hospital, was a big help to my mom.

Mom and I hugged in front of him and cried. We talked to dad a bit, and then people poured in. Relatives first, and then friends started coming, both friends of my dad and my mom. My mom is a social butterfly and has a MASSIVE social network in the local branch of her industry, to the point there's an actual joke about "Six degrees of separation from (Mom)", so there were a LOT of visitors just to support her. So my mom was in her element talking to people, while I floated around a bit talking to people I knew, hanging out with my cousins, helping introduce one of my dad's friends to other specific people he wanted to meet, etc.

I myself had four friends visit during the calling. And this is what inspired me to make this post.

Neurodivergence and Grief

One of my friends also abruptly lost her dad a few years ago. It's been a while so I can't remember the exact cause, but I think he'd died of a heart attack too. And like me, she's also neurodivergent. So of everyone I know, she's the one person who could relate to me the most.

So naturally, I told her about how I felt weirdly okay. I'd mentioned to others about how my neurodivergent brain seemed to be helping, mentioned my theory about it being an evolutionary advantage, but I went into more detail with her. I opened up a bit more than I did with everyone else, because I knew she'd gone through the same loss.

And she'd had the same thing happen.

I won't try to summarize everything we talked about. Some of it is personal and I reached some internal conclusions about her own experience she might not want me to share, but one thing that stuck out was that she told me not to let others act as if I was grieving wrong. She assured me that everyone grieves in their own way, and while everyone says that, hearing it from someone who went through the same experience as me just gave it so much more weight.

I'd been aware my reactions to loss would be different since my grandparents died. I've had years to think on it, and by the calling I already accepted that it was a quirk of my brain. It didn't mean something was "wrong" with me, that I didn't love my dad any less. It's just my brain being kinda weird and helping me adapt faster. I'd once read a theory years ago that autistic people don't struggle with feeling emotions at all, they struggle with feeling too much, and their brains get overloaded and just shut down the emotion. I don't know how true that is, but at times like this, I think that might be true.

But despite knowing and accepting this, hearing that I wasn't alone, that it wasn't just my brain and someone else had experienced this weird "okay-ness", helped more than I expected.

And that's why I'm writing this.

Neurodivergent brains don't process things the same as "normal" people. Anyone who's ND knows that, and every person's experiences with it is different. Even if you, the person reading this right now, also have ADHD and autism, you probably don't have a "writer-brain" analyzing events and your own emotions for writing reference the way I do. I got lucky to be born to two amazing, loving parents who never made me feel like I was wrong or broken for my differences, and to help me adapt to the world instead of trying to suppress those. They helped me accept it as part of myself.

But while I've always known and accepted this, it doesn't change the fact that knowing others feel the same way can be a relief. Confirming that it's not just you, that there are others—it can mean so much.

It's why I proudly identify myself as asexual to people I meet, to help educate others that it's a thing that exists and they're not broken. It's why I was so ecstatic to learn immersive and maladaptive daydreaming are things, to discover that my lifelong game of pretend isn't just some quirk of my autism and ADHD but something thousands of other people do, including full-grown adults. It's why people find pride and comfort in having labels at all, why even diagnoses can be a reason to celebrate: just being able to know you're not alone.

I got lucky with my parents, who have loved and supported me throughout my whole life. I don't even like referring to ADHD and autism as disabilities, because to me, they're just different forms of cognition. Nothing to be ashamed of, they're just a part of who I am. I've spent years thinking and reflecting over myself, and managed to understand the core pieces of myself as a person fairly early on. And I'm happy to say I like who I am.

Unfortunately, my story isn't nearly as common as I'd like though. Many neurodivergent people grow up thinking something is inherently wrong with them, either due to not knowing about their conditions, or because their own families tell them as much. Far too many people think they're awful people, stupid because of learning disabilities, or even just broken. Our "normal meters" are off by default compared to neurotypical people, and if you don't know why, it can really bother you.

This strange okay-ness and quick recovery from grief seems like one of those things that would haunt people, lead to all sorts of guilt for not feeling grief strongly enough when you "should". The words "everyone grieves differently" feels like a kind of hollow platitude in the face of those feelings. It's one of those sayings that everyone spouts, like "time heals all wounds", but there's a huge difference between saying something and experiencing it. It's just one of those things that people say, regardless of experience with it. Especially when it's "normal" people saying it.

So, take it from me now, someone who's neurodivergent and has just experienced close and sudden loss: You might feel okay sooner than you expect, and that's perfectly fine. It's just our brains being weird, and it says nothing about how we feel about the person we lost.

Maybe the circumstances of the death will make it easier or harder for you to adjust. Maybe it will hit you harder when you're alone. Maybe you'll find comfort in surprising details. Or maybe it will hit you in bits and pieces, in the smaller things you notice as time passes.

There are so many ways you can react. It really is true that everyone grieves differently. No matter how you react though, it doesn't automatically mean you're a bad person or don't miss them enough. It just means your brain processes things differently, and might be trying to shield you from the full brunt of the pain.

And besides, even if you feel like you’re recovering too quickly, I think there’s a good chance you feel that loss more strongly than you actually realize.

Nighttime Talks with Dad

The last time I saw my dad was Tuesday, August 22, before he went to bed.

I don’t remember our exact final conversation. We had a nightly ritual though where we’d either try to get our dog Zoey on the porch, or step out there ourselves. Zoey hates people hugging and kissing. For some reason at nighttime, just standing near each other can set her off. Every night when dad would come upstairs from the basement, the second one of us spoke, she’d start barking because she knew that was a precursor to physical contact. (Also, yes, this DID make the initial hug-fest after the news broke a bit frustrating since she barked constantly.) I like to say that she’s brought our family closer together than ever, and she hates it. Dad would go out of his way to give extra hugs and kisses just to set her off, laughing while she’d go crazy. Usually we’d try to get her on the porch so she couldn’t jump up on us while barking, but even after letting her back in he’d still sometimes give an extra hug and kiss just to mess with her.

If she wouldn’t go on the porch, we’d just go out there ourselves. And in more recent months, we’d step outside on the deck to look at the night sky. Dad would usually go out there in the summer before going to bed, so I just started joining him. I think the only constellation either of us can identify is the Big Dipper, but it was still nice to look at the stars and moon.

On Tuesday, August 22, we went outside as part of that ritual.

The next night before going to bed, I stepped outside to talk to dad again.

And I’ve done that most nights since then.

I just step outside and talk to him. I don’t know if he can hear me. I’m not particularly religious and honestly terrified of the unknown eternity that is the afterlife, and I told him that. But I want to believe he can. I tried talking to him from the porch one night, but it felt wrong so I stepped outside to do it. So maybe it’s just psychological and in my head, or maybe it actually means something.

And when I do, I usually end up crying a bit.

That’s one thing I’ve noticed: while I stopped randomly crying throughout the day by like Friday or Saturday, I still cry at night when I talk to him. I think that little note I made on night one that I might feel the grief more strongly when I was alone was right. I’ve even said as much out loud, just asked, “Dang it, why do I only do this at night?” It’s the kind of time where I’d want to hug someone like mom, but by that point she’s in bed.

I’ve probably weirded out Zoey with the near-nightly hugs after these talks. I doubt she understands dad is gone for good, and I don’t think she fully gets we’re sad. That dog lives in her own world and isn’t the brightest. At least she’s finally made the connection that water helps with thirst (no, I’m not joking. We genuinely questioned if she realizes water helps with thirst, and now that she’s drinking regularly we’re pretty sure the answer was “no”).

Right now, I think during the day I can function fine. I think I am mostly fine already, wrong as that feels. I know that it will be the little things I’ll miss the most. Like him making my bed every day, or being able to suggest watching a show, or messing with the dog together, or coming home from visiting friends to see him and mom slow-dancing in the living room.

But at night, when I step outside to talk to dad... Well, I think that’s when I allow myself to really process it. To process his absence on a subconscious level that I just can’t do consciously. Maybe it’s because it’s too much to process, like that theory about autism I mentioned earlier. I don’t know.

One thing I do know: everything still feels surreal.

My mom and I went to my cousins’ lake house over the weekend. We had already planned to go before, and last Wednesday my mom said “Screw it, let’s go up anyway.” We needed the change of scenery and time to decompress after the funeral. She later said it’s basically us avoiding the situation for just a little longer, and I think she was right about that. Being away from the house made it a little easier to act as if it was just a normal vacation, almost like a "girls' trip".

I didn’t talk to dad while up there, maybe due to avoidance, or maybe due to my brain suddenly deciding it doesn’t like being surrounded by water in the dark. It was never an issue on previous visits. Last time we were up there, dad and I sat on the dock staring up at the stars and just being in awe. We’ve been reminiscing about it all summer long. I planned to talk to him, but the first night on the dock I turned off the flashlight on my phone and my brain basically went “nopenopenope, water everywhere verybad runrunrun get to land runrunrun”. So that's a thing now, good to know I guess?

So, yeah. We got back on Tuesday, and were exhausted from a seven-hour car trip. And then I talked to him again last night. Cried a bit, because that’s just how those talks tend to go, and then I went inside to hug the dog before sitting on the couch to resume my usual quasi-nocturnal routine. (I got upstairs and into bed before 4 am though, so I'm getting better! Little victories.)

Closing Thoughts

There’s a lot more I could say, but I don’t know what. Usually I like to edit these sorts of rambles to heck and back, but this time I’m doing minimal editing. (Editing note: I apparently lied, just went back to reread and edited it as I went along, dang it.) For now, I want to focus on some more closing thoughts and miscellaneous details. Things I couldn’t fit above too well, but think need to be said and shared. Maybe it can help you, maybe it won’t.

The benefits of how my neurodivergence is impacting my grief: I can help my mom more. I’ve already decided I’ll take on the task of figuring out all the account transfers (e.g. Netflix, Ring, etc.). I was also able to go through my dad’s laptop to find photos, just quickly page through them and look for any photos with him. I’m not sure my mom could have done that herself without getting sucked into each memory they held.

I will say that, as a writer, I like to think I understand emotions better than most people. I like putting myself in people’s shoes to figure out why they feel a certain way, understand their mindsets and how it influences their thought processes and actions. I’m definitely incredibly empathetic compared to the average person. That said, just because I understand their feelings, it doesn’t mean I know how the heck to handle it. My brain tends to freeze up. Happened when my aunt burst out crying and hugged me when my grandfather died years ago, and it will probably happen again now.

So I’m still out of my element if mom suddenly breaks down sobbing and crying. I think this will apply to many of us. So uh. Sorry guys, I don’t have much advice for comforting people other than “just hug them as needed and let them vent”. Hugs can REALLY help though, I think some people these past two needed the hugs more than I did.

On that note, feel free to reject the parade of hugs. I know a lot of ND folks don’t like physical contact or hugs anyway, but neurotypical folks can get over-hugged during these times too. One of my mom’s friends who lost her husband told us that we might get sick of hugs. So don’t feel obligated to accept them just because of the occasion. You're the one grieving, so they can't judge you for refusing. If they judge you anyway, they're assholes and don't deserve to have their opinions considered.

One of my main coping mechanisms is humor. I try to be mindful of it and keep some of them to myself, but I might've made some jokes that are "too soon". For example, our dog is the only thing now standing between my mom and I from becoming crazy cat ladies. Previously it was my dad's allergies, so yeah. If you also cope with humor, just be careful about telling the jokes. The pain can be more raw for some than others, and some jokes might be too much. Some people are really good at putting up a strong front, so you can't always be sure how they'll actually take it. So be careful.

I mentioned earlier that when my mom told me the news, I first thought it was about my grandmother. At the time, part of me wished it had been my grandmother, which made me feel guilty. But I later found out pretty much everyone had this exact reaction, including my aunt (her daughter) and I think even my grandmother herself. We've all been sort of mentally bracing for her death, and she's 97 so she’s lived a long and good life. It would still be sad of course, but, well, we’re expecting it. No one was expecting my dad to die though. So if you find yourself with similar thoughts, don’t feel like that makes you an awful person.

One of the biggest benefits of my neurodivergence though: I was able to give a eulogy for my dad.

I honestly expected I’d give one from day one, but apparently no one else did until I talked to the minister right before the service. Originally we said I’d go second, between my dad’s best friend and his brother. After his best friend’s speech though, I realized I should definitely go last. I could tell they’d be telling more lighthearted stories, and mine would set a different tone that served better for the end.

I wanted to talk about dad’s love, his most defining trait and the most important thing he passed on to me. He was the kind of man who’d sacrifice for the people he loved, who’d go out of his way to find a specific restaurant despite wanting to go home just because we mentioned wanting milkshakes from there. Heck, last Christmas we all agreed to buy just three gifts each, and guess who didn't stick to that rule? I swore I'd buy a blu-ray player sometime this year instead, our DVD player doesn't work with the new TV we got in the basement so just needed to run to a store together. (I still might, but it's a lower priority now.)

Besides all that, I wanted to share a story he told me, that I’ll also tell you now.

When my grandfather was a little boy, one day at school a classmate came in raging mad about a fight with his own father. They’d had some argument, and this kid was ranting about how he hated his father. Petty, empty words because he was still mad at his dad over whatever they'd fought before.

Well, his father died at work that day. Car accident, I think. And the boy grew up knowing his last memory with his father was that awful fight.

Yeah, that sounds like an awful story to tell a kid, huh? I must have been five or six when he told me, and it was probably because I was pretty angry at my mom for some stupid petty reason. Just a kid throwing a tantrum, you know how it goes. Maybe it was a true story, maybe he just made it up on the spot to show me that being mad at my mom over petty little things was wrong. Either way, it worked. And I think it worked better than my dad ever knew. Thanks to that story, I grew up aware in the back of my head that death can happen suddenly and without warning. Maybe that’s a bit of a bad thing, but I’m grateful I got to understand that so early on without experiencing that sort of sudden loss myself. And it stuck with me, just how awful it would feel to have your last memory be such a bitter one.

So, I made a point to always say “I love you” to my parents and any others I care about. They go to bed, “Good night, I love you.” They're going on a trip, “Have fun, love you!” when they leave and at the end of every phone call. They’re just running to the grocery store five minutes away, I open the garage door to stick out my head to say “I love you” just to make absolutely sure it’s the last thing I said to them, just in case.

I don’t remember my exact last words with my dad. But I know that it was almost certainly “Good night, I love you” just like countless other nights. And I am so damn grateful I can say that.

So I passed on that story at his funeral. And afterwards, I got countless compliments about how strong I was for speaking at all, and how I didn’t stutter or need notes (someone asked if I had public speaking experience, and I don't, so I guess I might have a natural knack for speeches??), but... I think that was most definitely because of my neurodivergence. I think I’ve already made it quite clear over the course of this post, but by the time of his funeral, I was, weirdly, okay. Sad and empty, but not devastated. So I could deliver my message clearly, the same one I'll pass to you:

My dad was a wonderful, loving man, and everyone should remember that you never know which goodbye will be the last one. So make sure you always punctuate your farewells with an “I love you”, and try not to ever part on a bad note. Not even when you’re just going to sleep.

If you’ve read all of this, thanks. And I hope maybe this ramble of mine can help people a bit too, especially those who have yet to experience such a loss themselves.

Remember, everyone experiences grief differently. Maybe it will devastate you and you won't be able to function for a while, or maybe you'll be able to largely go back to "normal" a bit faster than you expect like I did. Brains are weird, even without throwing neurodivergence into the mix, and there's so many factors in grief that makes every experience truly unique. I'm not sure I'd be nearly as composed if I'd seen my dad at the hospital, or if he'd died in pain or of heatstroke. The inevitability and quickness of his death, the fact we could have done nothing to prevent it, has been a surprising comfort to both me and my mom because there are no agonizing "what ifs" to haunt us. We're not sure how we'd feel if it was something preventable, that's a "what if" I don't want to consider.

Just remember that no matter how you respond, somewhere out there, there's likely someone else who's had the same feelings and reactions as you. You're not broken, you're not an awful person. You're just you. Your reaction won't diminish whatever feelings you have for the person—and note that I said have and not had: just because they're gone doesn't mean those feelings are gone too. He's still my father, I'm still his daughter. Death doesn't change that, it just means I can't hug him and tell him that directly anymore. The same applies for every other loss we'll experience. There's a reason some people refuse to date widows and widowers.

Today, my aunt left. She’s been staying here since he died, she flew in from out of state. Tonight will be the first night with just me and mom at our house. This is the first night of our new “normal”. I don’t think we’ll have anyone over tomorrow besides the cleaning lady (who last came the day after he died—felt kinda bad for her to visit that day knowing what happened), so tomorrow will be the first day it’s really just us. The first day we won't have any real distractions from his absence.

I don’t know how we’ll feel in the coming days, how things will go from here. Maybe his death will finally really hit us now that we’re not in funeral-preparation or vacation mode, and can sit and breathe in our own house. Maybe I’ll have a delayed grief reaction. Maybe my mom will break down sobbing in her bed tonight or tomorrow. I don’t know. Everything feels almost dream-like, like we’re in a weird limbo but also not. The world’s still moving without us, and we’re slowly moving with it.

All we can do is take it one hour at a time.

I'm interested to know how often people shower or bathe - but I'd also be interested on your thoughts about other people's frequency. Do you feel strongly about how often one should be cleaning themselves, and what factors go into this? I would certainly hope it's reasonably frequent for warm-climate athletes, for example.

I'm asking this as a genuine question, not as a hot take.

Where I'm coming from:

My husband and I went to dinner the other night -- apologies from the waitress on being shortstaffed. A sign on a local store asks for patience with the lack of staff. The people staffing order pickup at a nearby department store aren't enough to keep up with orders. At my most recent doctor's appointment I spent almost 45 minutes in the exam room waiting to be seen (for an appointment I had to make over a year ago). A few hours after the appointment I went to pick up a prescription, and it hadn't even begun to be processed yet. There was only one cashier working, and she was having to jump between the in-person line and the drive-thru lane. At my job we don't have enough substitute teachers, so we're dependent on regular teachers covering classes during their "prep" periods.

This is merely a recent snapshot from my own life that I'm using as a sort of representative sample, but it feels like something that's been building for a while -- like something that was going to be temporary due to COVID but has stuck around and is now just what we're supposed to get used to. I remember that I used to keep thinking that understaffing would eventually go away over time, but it seems like it's just standard practice now?

Is this something specific to my experiences or my local area (I'm in the US, for context)? Are other people seeing the same thing?

Assuming it isn't just me, is there anything out there besides anecdotes that addresses this phenomenon? I don't want to lean solely on gut reactions, but I also can't deny that nearly every business I go to seems visibly short-staffed all of the time.

How old were they and how long did it take you to get to a place where you were confident enough in their recall to let your dog(s) run around off-leash at the park or in a field?

My boy is 6 months old now and we've had him with us for 3 months. He's loose/ off-leash at home and his recall/ general engagement at home is very good but obviously there are still lots of exciting distractions out in the wider world. We still do plenty of recall games with him every week to build on it.

At the park we switch to a 15m long leash clipped to his harness and let him trot out in front of us and have a good sniff around. When we find a clear space to have a game of fetch, we'll let go of the leash but leave it attached to the harness just in case we need to stomp on it and retrieve him quickly.

Recall still seems decent at the park but I don't trust him enough to take that leash off completely yet - I don't think he'd come back straight away if there was a football or another dog that he could run to and play with. What have your experiences been like?

Edit: starting to realise this might be a very Europe-centric question, the laws for keeping dogs on a leash/ lead are very different in the UK

I really like pickled jalapenos, but my go to recipes are nachos and jalapeno poppers wrapped in bacon. I'm trying to eat healthier, but I seem to be lacking some good recipes or ideas. I found a potato salad recipe which sounds really tasty, but still not terribly healthy.

My tomato and pepper harvest this year is going to be negligible (thanks, deer!), but I have tomatillos coming out of my ears. My favorite Salsa Verde recipe freezes well.

To the extent that everyone who grows tomatoes will have lots of green ones, here's a good chutney recipe that works well for water-bath canning:

Green Tomato Chutney

Servings: 3 pints

Ingredients:

2 1/2 lbs green tomatoes (a few ripe or partially ripe are fine to be included)
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
1 cup chopped red onion
1 cup golden raisin
1 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped candied ginger
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
1 teaspoon chili pepper flakes
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1/16 teaspoon ground nutmeg
(***For my taste, I'll mince in a couple of whatever fresh hot peppers I have in the garden, and increase other spices to taste, and add a chopped large knob of fresh ginger.)

Directions:

Place all of the ingredients in a medium sized (about 4 qt) thick-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove lid and simmer uncovered for an additional 15 minutes to thicken.

Notes:

Note: If desired, this recipe can be canned by processing filled (sterilized!) jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Recipe will fill six 8-oz jars or three 16-oz jars. Otherwise, chutney will keep in the refrigerator for a few months.

The other garden success story this year, heavy rain, weird weather, bugs, and pestiferous ungulates notwithstanding, is basil. Freaking huge bushes of every variety I planted: Italian Mountain, Genovese, Persian, Thai Kaprow, Thai Holy, and Purple Opal.

I'll be processing fresh Italian basil with olive oil and freezing it in silicone trays. Internet rumor has it that freezing doesn't treat fresh garlic well, and you're better off making pesto from frozen basil as needed.

I may do the same thing with neutral oil for the Persian basil, and peanut oil for the Thai, unless someone else has suggestions.

We'll also have about 50 lbs. of apples from a single tree. They're a little too organic for eating out of hand, unless you're comfortable with inadvertent insect protein ingestion. But drying, pies, and cake are definitely in the picture. This is a simple, reliable apple cake recipe that's easy to share around. I'm still digging for my old bakery Caramel Apple Torte recipe.

I recently started classes again a little over a week ago. One of the classes I am taking is Computer science 2. One of the things it includes is openGL based graphics programming. They have us using glut, which is not bad in it self. However what they do is provide us a wrapper library for glut. In the form of a header named "graph1.h" and a precompiled library. Which goes by various names, such as "graphLib1.lib", "graphLib2010.lib", "graphLib2022.lib", "graphicLib2015.lib", etc. It's provided in the form of Windows flavored x86, Macos flavored x86_64 and arm. However, no forms for Linux. While I have been using Windows and VS Studio for classes so far, I strongly prefer my current Linux based tool chain. (text editor, build system, debugger). I have tried cross compiling with mingw-w64, but it fails when I try to link it. I would very much like to use it natively. To do this I would need either the library or the sources to compile it myself. That is what I would really like to find.

Here is more about the library it self. It is based off of BMPLoader, a small library for loading bitmaps as openGL textures. It also inherits its license from BMPLoader too, because it is a derivative of BMPLoader. (GPLv2; and has been distributed). When you unpack the library there are 3 object files, BMPLoader.o, loadPNG.o, and example2.o. (.o/.obj) I have found traces of it online, however they all link back to my University, University of Central Arkansas. I have also found evidence of it being used at GSU too, but it is from one of the professors that is now here at UCA. (They even provided a pdf on using it, I hashed them and they were the same). Here is a copy of the header graph1.h.

/*BMPLoader - loads Microsoft .bmp format
    Copyright (C) 2006  Chris Backhouse

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
    with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
    51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.


  cjbackhouse@hotmail.com 		www.backhouse.tk
  
  I would appreciate it if anyone using this in something cool would tell me
  so I can see where it ends up.

  Takes a filename, returns an array of RGB pixel data
  Loads:
  24bit bitmaps
  256 colour bitmaps
  16 colour bitmaps
  2 colour bitmaps  (Thanks to Charles Rabier)

  This code is designed for use in openGL programs, so bitmaps not correctly padded will not
  load properly, I believe this only applies to: 
  256cols if width is not a multiple of 4
  16cols if width is not a multiple of 8
  2cols if width is not a multiple of 32

  Sample code:

	BMPClass bmp;
	BMPLoad(fname,bmp);
	glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,3,bmp.width,bmp.height,0,GL_RGB,GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE,bmp.bytes);
*/
#include <windows.h>
#include <gl/glut.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
#include <string>
#define endg "_endg_"


#ifndef BMPLOADER_H
#define BMPLOADER_H

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>

using namespace std;

typedef unsigned char BYTE;

class BMPClass
{
public:
	BMPClass();
	~BMPClass();
	BYTE& pixel(int x,int y,int c);
	void allocateMem();
	int width,height;
	BYTE* bytes;			//OpenGL formatted pixels
};

#define BMPError char
#define BMPNOTABITMAP 'b'	//Possible error flags
#define BMPNOOPEN 'o'
#define BMPFILEERROR 'f'
#define BMPBADINT 'i'
#define BMPNOERROR '\0'
#define BMPUNKNOWNFORMAT 'u'

//Loads the bmp in fname, and puts the data in bmp
BMPError BMPLoad(string fname,BMPClass& bmp);

//Translates my error codes into English	
std::string TranslateBMPError(BMPError err);	

//Load and select in OpenGL
BMPError BMPLoadGL(string fname);

struct Precision
{
  int precision;
  bool precisionFlag;
};

struct GraphColor
{
  int r;
  int g;
  int b;
};

class Gout
{
  private:
    int x;
    int y;
    int r;
    int g;
    int b;
    int precision;
    bool precisionFlag;


  public:
    Gout() { r= 0; g=255; b= 0; precisionFlag = false; };
    void setX(int x) { this->x = x;}
    void setY(int y) { this->y = y;}
    int getX() { return x;}
    int getY() { return y;}
    void setR(int r) {this->r = r;}
    void setG(int g) {this->g = g;}
    void setB(int b) {this->b = b;}
    int getR() {return r;}
    int getG() { return g;}
    int getB() {return b;}
    void setPrecisionFlag(bool flag) { precisionFlag = flag;}
    bool getPrecisionFlag() {return precisionFlag;}
    void setPrecision(int precision) {this->precision = precision;}
    int  getPrecision() {return precision;}
    friend Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, int int_val);
    friend Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, double int_val);
    friend Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, char* char_val);
    friend Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, string string_val);
   
};

extern Gout gout;

struct Point
{
  int x;
  int y;
};



struct GraphObject
{
  char* str;
  int id;
  int no_points;
  Point* points;
  double* colors;
  int radius;
  int no_objects;
  BMPClass* bmp;
  int remove;
  int width;
  int height;
  int del;
  BYTE* bytes; //PNG BYTES
};

void reshape(int w, int h);
void display(void);
void init(char* title);
int drawPoint(int x, int y);
int drawCircle(int radius, int x, int y);
void drawMyCircle( int Radius, int numPoints, int x, int y );
int drawLine(int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2, int width);
int drawRect(int x1, int y1, int width, int height);
void displayGraphics();
int displayBMP(char* fn,int x, int y);
int displayBMP(string fn, int x, int y);
int displayPNG(string fn, int x, int y);
int displayPNG(char* fn, int x, int y);
int displayText(char* str, int x, int y, int r, int g, int b);
void clearGraphics();
void setColor(int obj_no, int r, int g, int b);
GraphColor setColor(int r, int g, int b);
void timerColor(int value);
void moveObject(int obj_no, int x, int y);
void processSpecialKeys(int key, int x, int y);
DWORD WINAPI display1(LPVOID lpParam);
void processMouse(int button, int state, int x, int y);
void removeObject(int id);
void clearText();
void GRAPH_SS();
bool up();
bool down();
bool left();
bool right();
bool leftMouse(int&x, int&y);
bool rightMouse(int&x, int&y);
bool middleMouse(int&x, int&y);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, int int_val);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, double int_val);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, char* char_val);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, char char_val);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Gout&(*pt2Func)(int x, int y));
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Gout&(*pt2Func)(int r, int g, int b));
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Point a);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, GraphColor gc);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Precision p);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Gout&(*pt2Func)(int precision));
Precision setPrecision(int precision);
Point setPos(int x, int y);
void getPos(int obj_no, Point points[], int& no_points);
bool mouseDragged(int& x, int& y);
void processMouseDragged(int x, int y);
void replaceObject(int orig_obj, int new_obj);
void closeGraphics();

#endif

Right now I am of the opinion that it is a in-house "hackjob". That is how it feels with the GPLed BMPLoader glued together with other graphics functions. In an attempt to not have to use new literature or new style libraries with the new ".net 2008" style ide, as they were likely transitioning out of a codewarrior environment, and before that a borland environment.

So far, I have asked our computer science club about it. The main thing I was told was that the professor just wants us to use windows. That I can understand, but I still want to see how far I can go. I have also tried sending an email about it to the professor, but all I got sent was a link to the glut downloads. I did reply back asking about the graphlib sources too, but I haven't heard anything back yet. I don't want to push too hard, I still have a whole semester ahead of me. So now I am asking here on tildes. I understand if nothing can be found, but at least information and experiences can be collected.

Minor hoarder here. Can't seem to let go of small items like pencil stubs and erasers from childhood, and other small seemingly insignificant things. Im a full blown adult but every time i move, those things come with me, and get stored away in the closet or under the bed.

Anyone else do this? What are some things you are forever attached to?

Said to my friend while we were minding our own business yesterday when walking from A to B in the city. For this old bigoted man that we happened to walk past, simply (gasp) looking at a trans person was too much for him. How dare she go outside while being transgender? Nope, gotta call that out! Gotta tell this stranger that I find her disgusting! That's super important and I am doing the right thing..!

At least, that's what I imagine his train of thought was like. Who knows.

Blows my mind that people can't just keep homophobia/transphobia to themselves. For reference, there was no pride event or anything, like we weren't dressed in kinky outfits, we weren't waving dildos around or something. Not that being dressed a certain way would have excused his behavior, but it's just to say we were wearing very normal clothing and looked decidedly ordinary and neutral. The only thing that revealed to this guy that my friend is trans is that she hasn't done voice training. She passes perfectly fine outside of that, and so do I - we've both been on hormones and transitioning for 3-4 years.

So perhaps the crime we committed was to make him think we weren't transgender? And then he heard her voice, and felt fooled? I suppose to him, it's the end of the world if he was accidentally attracted to a trans woman if even for a second.

My friend thankfully doesn't let this kind of stuff get to her. She grew up extremely conservative (her family still has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for example) so she's always had nerves of steel to deal with everything, and I'm glad for her that she can shut this kind of stuff out. I really admire her for how strong she is and how she's able to always persevere. She's probably already forgotten about it but for me, I need to work on similarly not letting this stuff get to me. The man wasn't even talking to/about me but I think the reason I'm so upset about it is that it may just as well have been said to me.

I'm trying to focus on the good, and to not let one vile person ruin it. Because me and my friend had such a nice day together.

Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner. My wife and I usually host a small gathering for my wife’s immediate (mom, dad, sister, and grandparents) family at my house. Last year my sister-in-law asked whether she could bring her fiancé, which we were absolutely happy to have him over.

This year however, things are weird. They just got married within the last month, and I got a text from my SIL letting me know that she invited her mother-in-law to my house. I don’t have any problems with the woman, but I found it to be really rude for her to invite someone over to my house without even asking if it was okay.

My SIL is very self-centred most of the time. She expects people to just do whatever she wants to do, and rarely contributes anything. Usually for Thanksgiving I will cook the turkey and a couple of sides, and everyone else is responsible for bringing something (sides, dessert, buns, appies… anything they feel like bringing). She never brings anything except a container to bring leftovers home with her. She is like this with many other things. She has come camping with us and not brought any food for herself, because she is just assuming that we are going to feed her.

I love my wife’s family, but my SIL drives me insane. I find it incredibly rude that she just decided to invite someone to my house without asking. I don’t know what to do though. I feel like I need to call her out on it, but I also don’t want to ruin Thanksgiving.

I guess I have two questions:

Am I wrong to be upset about this?

If I’m not wrong, then what do I do about it?

I'm currently working on a research paper (low-threat undergrad coursework), and I keep alternating between Lofi hip-hop and gentle acoustic pop covers to keep me motivated and on task. I've tried to get into a variety of classical music for this purpose, but I always end up rolling back to my Samuel Barber playlist and end up burning out on it. What's your go-to for productivity enhancement?

I feel like I'm the only one noticing this and it's driving me crazy. With everyone transitioning away from incandescent, it seems like anywhere you go now there are these blindingly bright and high color temperature LED lights. Of course, if LEDs are better and more energy efficient we should use them. But whenever I've tried buying LED bulbs, they've been consistently brighter and higher color temperature than the stated lumens and Kelvin. And a lot of times, it's just extremely difficult to find LED bulbs for certain shapes at a reasonable luminosity. Like our house uses a lot of BR30 bulbs that are supposed to be around ~400 lumens, but the lowest you can possibly find is 650.

I'm genuinely concerned what effect this is going to have on our shared spaces and even potentially our psychology/circadian rhythm. There's an especially egregious example on an important cultural street in the city, where there's this truly blinding light in a parking lot about a third the way from the edge to the center of the district that makes the entire immediate area extremely unpleasant to be in. Someone tell me I'm not crazy.

I've only thought about series, but here are the top five that are seared into my mind.

#5 Katanagatari

Having been pretty skeptical of watching this in the first place, I made it that far and did not see this coming at all. I was totally dumbstruck. I'm thankful that I didn't see this when it originally aired, because there was no way I would have been able to wait a month for the next episode.

#4 Mononoke

The exorcism sequences.

I would link the first scene, but the only high-quality sources I can find are on YouTube, and their video compression simply cannot do it justice. If you are interested in this show at all (and you definitely should be, it's truly a work of art!), don't try to find out too much, just go in blind.

This just blew me away when I first saw it. I still think of this anime as the benchmark for art direction, and any of those scenes could probably qualify as the best-looking clip I've seen in the animated visual medium, period.

#3 Shigurui: Death Frenzy

Irako Seigen vs. Iwamoto Kogan fight

Even without knowing how the details of this scene fit into the wider context of this near-masterpiece of a show, this video speaks for itself.

#2 Aku no Hana

The classroom scene.

This show is SO good at building tension, and this scene was almost as cathartic a release for me as it was the characters. At the end of this episode, I was just stunned. Lovely cinematography as well.

#1 Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig

The Tachikoma are one of the best examples of character development I've seen in anime, if not the best. By the time this played out, I couldn't believe those silly little spider tank robots managed to make me shed a tear..

So, what are yours, and why? Please tag spoilers as necessary!