AnEarlyMartyr's recent activity

  1. Comment on How would I meet you outside of Tildes? In the flesh, so to speak. in ~life

    AnEarlyMartyr
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    I live full time at a Buddhist monastery so you could meet me there or at a related teaching event. I meet a lot of people and regularly swap contact info with the ones that I connect with....

    I live full time at a Buddhist monastery so you could meet me there or at a related teaching event. I meet a lot of people and regularly swap contact info with the ones that I connect with.

    Whatever you may feel about religion writ large, there tends to be a lot of in person community there. And there are few other places in the modern world where it is so easy to arrive as a stranger with no money and be likely to be welcomed in and find ready made community. I guess maybe 12 step meetings but they’re right on the border of religious spaces anyways.

    Of course not everyone is interested in or feels comfortable spending time in those spaces. But if you’re at all interested you might be amazed at how diverse your options are. Whether it’s traditional Chinese Buddhist temples where you might be one of the only native English speakers or a Christian church that doesn’t even care if you believe in God to just about anything in between.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on How would I meet you outside of Tildes? In the flesh, so to speak. in ~life

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link Parent
    Just chiming in in support of reading books at bars. Something I’ve long been a fan of.

    Just chiming in in support of reading books at bars. Something I’ve long been a fan of.

  3. Comment on How many languages do you speak? in ~humanities.languages

    AnEarlyMartyr
    (edited )
    Link
    English: Native French: Spent several years learning it while living in France. When I left I was around high B2 or C1. However, it’s been some years since I left and I don’t get much opportunity...

    English: Native

    French: Spent several years learning it while living in France. When I left I was around high B2 or C1. However, it’s been some years since I left and I don’t get much opportunity to speak it. I read or listen to things occasionally but it’s not enough to stop it from degrading. I think that if I went back to being in a francophone country or if I had a francophone partner it would come back though.

    German: Studied a bit in highschool and lived in Berlin for a few months. At one time I could get around in it okay enough. These days I can say a sentence or two and occasionally read a word or two.

    Spanish: Grew up in an area where it’s common, plus the time studying French kinda helps. Can’t really speak it. Can kinda read and understand some basics.

    Polish: Can tell you I can’t speak it and say “you’re beautiful” and “thank you”.

    Danish: Can say “lamp/light”.

    Mandarin: Had one year worth of classes in middle school. Can barely remember how to ask how you’re doing.

    Latin: Had a semester when I was 12. Remember absolutely nothing.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on How do I improve at interviews? in ~life

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link
    I don't have a lot of interviewing experience but it sounds like you have a good idea of where your weaknesses are. You just need to practice. So what about getting friends to mock interview you?...

    I don't have a lot of interviewing experience but it sounds like you have a good idea of where your weaknesses are. You just need to practice. So what about getting friends to mock interview you? Or even just recording yourself answering some mock interview questions and then listening back to try and strategize what you could do differently? With ingrained patterns, like rambling, I think there's no help for it but to just try and practice being more mindful of it and doing things differently and that just takes time and repetition.

    4 votes

  5. Comment on What’s something you’re personally proud of from this year? in ~life

    AnEarlyMartyr
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    "At almost every turn, I had the help of family, friends, you name it..." Not to take away from anything you wrote or the amazing amount of positive changes it sounds like you've made. Just to...

    "At almost every turn, I had the help of family, friends, you name it..."

    Not to take away from anything you wrote or the amazing amount of positive changes it sounds like you've made. Just to point out that no one gets anywhere just on their own, and that's okay. Being able to maintain and cultivate relationships that you can rely on to help find new opportunities and look to for support in hard times is incredibly important and a worthwhile skill in and of itself. Community is an important aspect of building resiliency for all of us and many people that I know who are capable competent people and great at their jobs wouldn't have ended up where they are without some kind of help/connection. Now, that shouldn't be an excuse for putting in none of your own effort but it also isn't something to feel bad about. So I hope you're not too hard on yourself about it. It does sound like you've been putting in a lot of work that's really paid off and I definitely don't want to sound like I'm discouraging that, it's important too. Just felt valuable to point out.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Is it possible to get short term health insurance in California? in ~health

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link Parent
    Thanks for sharing your expertise. I’ve been hoping to avoid escalating to any sort of hearing for the simple reason that it sounds like a pain to deal with. But it does seem like that’s the next...

    Thanks for sharing your expertise. I’ve been hoping to avoid escalating to any sort of hearing for the simple reason that it sounds like a pain to deal with. But it does seem like that’s the next logical step so I’ll start examining that and look at pairing that with my new application.

    I have managed to track down the office where I’m pretty sure this decision came from. It’s not the normal investigations division but the specialized fraud investigations division of the intake unit. Which is a state agency and out of the county’s hands. The problem is that they don’t really have contact info. The phone number only accepts tip offs and and the email and PO Box are both for tip offs too. I’ve emailed them several times anyways and did finally hear back with a pro forma email acknowledging receipt of my complaint.

    I’ll start looking in to some sort of public benefits legal aid though.

    3 votes

  7. Comment on Is it possible to get short term health insurance in California? in ~health

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link Parent
    That’s a great idea, sadly it looks like they can’t cover US residents. But I’ll look and see if that’s a regulatory issue or a company policy.

    That’s a great idea, sadly it looks like they can’t cover US residents. But I’ll look and see if that’s a regulatory issue or a company policy.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on Is it possible to get short term health insurance in California? in ~health

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link Parent
    Yeah no problems there thankfully and I have almost no living expenses. Total I’ve probably spent something less than a grand over the last year.

    Yeah no problems there thankfully and I have almost no living expenses. Total I’ve probably spent something less than a grand over the last year.

    3 votes

  9. Is it possible to get short term health insurance in California?

    ~health Ask (advice)
    I was recently removed from medi-cal due to “potential fraud”. Long story short, I didn’t commit fraud. I have had zero income in over a year, have something like $1500 total, and receive no other...

    I was recently removed from medi-cal due to “potential fraud”. Long story short, I didn’t commit fraud. I have had zero income in over a year, have something like $1500 total, and receive no other benefits.

    However, I’m currently dealing with bureaucratic confusion as the trail of who is responsible has dead ended and no one seems to be clear on what happened or why.

    The medi-cal coordinator at the county social services office thinks it’s best if I just reapply but while I wait for my new application to be processed I am uninsured. Of course, if it goes through then I should have coverage dating back to the 1st of April.

    Yet, given that there’s no good reason for it to have been canceled in the first place I’m wary of placing all my eggs in that basket. And would prefer to have some sort of catastrophe insurance if at all possible.

    Is this even possible in California? It seems like short term health insurance might be banned here? Any ideas would be welcome. The whole situation is frustrating to say the least.

    18 votes

  10. Comment on What to snack on (other than slices of parmesan) in ~food

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link
    How about popcorn with brewers yeast/nutritional yeast and maybe some butter or salt and tamari/soy sauce? Should be possible to at least order a bag of nutritional yeast to Germany and that’s...

    How about popcorn with brewers yeast/nutritional yeast and maybe some butter or salt and tamari/soy sauce? Should be possible to at least order a bag of nutritional yeast to Germany and that’s gonna be an easy umami heavy snack.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on What to snack on (other than slices of parmesan) in ~food

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link Parent
    To add: a quick bit of googling pulls up a news article about the popularity of Kerrygold products in Germany, including Kerrygold cheddar. Their aged cheddar or a similar product would be exactly...

    To add: a quick bit of googling pulls up a news article about the popularity of Kerrygold products in Germany, including Kerrygold cheddar. Their aged cheddar or a similar product would be exactly what I was thinking of. Though how it compares price wise to Parmesan I don’t know.

    4 votes

  12. Comment on What to snack on (other than slices of parmesan) in ~food

    AnEarlyMartyr
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I was thinking there was likely to be some sort of aged English cheddar hanging around somewhere. I think I used to get a Monoprix store brand that was pretty good when I lived in France.

    I was thinking there was likely to be some sort of aged English cheddar hanging around somewhere. I think I used to get a Monoprix store brand that was pretty good when I lived in France.

    2 votes

  13. Comment on What to snack on (other than slices of parmesan) in ~food

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link
    Aged cheddars are pretty similar in a salty umami kind of way and should probably be available at a local store and (probably?) cheaper than parmesan.

    Aged cheddars are pretty similar in a salty umami kind of way and should probably be available at a local store and (probably?) cheaper than parmesan.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Looking for a clean, simple phone in ~tech

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link
    Honestly what comes to mind is the iPhone SE. the camera won’t be absolutely stellar but more than serviceable. For all Apple’s flaws they still do simple to setup, clean, and reliable well. It...

    Honestly what comes to mind is the iPhone SE. the camera won’t be absolutely stellar but more than serviceable. For all Apple’s flaws they still do simple to setup, clean, and reliable well. It still has a home button which is nice, especially for older people. It’s not too big and I’m pretty sure you can get one new for less than $500.

    17 votes

  15. Comment on Kamala Harris's speech killed any hope she would end the Gaza genocide in ~society

    AnEarlyMartyr
    (edited )
    Link
    Everyone seems to be talking as if she even has the option. Obama could barely manage to pull official US forces out of Iraq within 3 years. You really think Kamala or the US is gonna manage to...

    Everyone seems to be talking as if she even has the option. Obama could barely manage to pull official US forces out of Iraq within 3 years. You really think Kamala or the US is gonna manage to get Netahnyahu to stop killing Palestinians? Bibi is in the midst of destroying Gaza while provoking Hezbollah/threatening war with Lebanon and assassinating targets in Iran. It’ll be lucky if there’s even a ceasefire before Gaza is completely flattened and we manage to avoid some spiraling conflict with Iran that sucks in a whole bunch of players into a wide scale regional war. There is very little the US President can really do about this. Israel is still a sovereign country and it doesn’t just jump at the president’s beck and call. Even if there wasn’t all the internal US political stuff that comes up around this issue. Not to mention the internal Israeli political stuff.

    Now, Kamala could try betting her career on trying to get Israel to stop killing Palestinians. She would lose her career and Israel would continue on.

    I’m not trying to excuse the mass murder of hundreds of thousands by a modern day apartheid state. Nor do I love a Bay Area prosecutor. But people way overestimate how much Kamala could accomplish here, even if she wanted to.

    33 votes

  16. Comment on Which content-recommending algorithms are actually good? in ~tech

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link
    I can’t answer the actual question. Just share that I have the same problem with the almighty algorithms. I want a nice level of diversity in my options whereas they seem to want to just feed me...

    I can’t answer the actual question. Just share that I have the same problem with the almighty algorithms. I want a nice level of diversity in my options whereas they seem to want to just feed me basically the exact same thing.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on Why do people believe true things? in ~humanities

    AnEarlyMartyr
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I think the author seems to be best classified as Liberal but more in a classical European philosophy kinda sense than in a colloquial US politics usage kinda sense.

    I think the author seems to be best classified as Liberal but more in a classical European philosophy kinda sense than in a colloquial US politics usage kinda sense.

  18. Comment on Why do people believe true things? in ~humanities

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link Parent
    For what it’s worth, I got a similar vibe from the article. Reading through a bit more of the site, it turns out he’s a lecturer in philosophy at a university in the UK. Which I think helps...

    For what it’s worth, I got a similar vibe from the article. Reading through a bit more of the site, it turns out he’s a lecturer in philosophy at a university in the UK. Which I think helps explain some of it. Reading through just this article left me a bit on edge as to how straightforward I should take some of these arguments and how intellectually honest he was being as a writer. The rest of the site helps contextualize it a bit. There’s some interesting and nuanced stuff there but I also think we have some underlying disagreements.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on Californian police can’t stop sideshows. Solution: Make the streets more annoying. in ~transport

    AnEarlyMartyr
    Link Parent
    Is it still a problem in Australia though? That wiki article seems to indicate there’s been a rise in hoon groups in the 2010s so after laws confiscating vehicles were put into effect.

    Is it still a problem in Australia though? That wiki article seems to indicate there’s been a rise in hoon groups in the 2010s so after laws confiscating vehicles were put into effect.

    6 votes

  20. Comment on Kamala Harris lacks charisma and time in ~society

    AnEarlyMartyr
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    If you’re explicitly disallowing feedback from people in the spaces you’re spending time/online forums and you don’t seem to have much experience yourself with life on the ground in Europe then...

    If you’re explicitly disallowing feedback from people in the spaces you’re spending time/online forums and you don’t seem to have much experience yourself with life on the ground in Europe then that seems to just create a space where your vague assumption never gets challenged in a way you have to listen to.

    For what it’s worth there is a very noticeable difference in my personal experience having lived multiple places in the US both moderate and low income, urban and rural and having lived in and spent time in multiple cities and countries in Europe. This is also true of the experiences of other people I’ve talked to and spent time with, both women and men and pulling from a wide range of lifestyles and incomes.

    While Europe is hardly a utopia and obviously experiences can differ greatly even within countries much less between them. So for example the experience of being out in Marseille is quite different from Copenhagen.

    However, on the whole and in general, public spaces and being out in public at all hours of the day tends to feel safer. There also tends to be less homelessness and the likelihood of having an unpleasant encounter with someone experiencing a mental health crisis is lower. Also, the crime that one is likely to encounter is much more likely to be petty theft or property crime instead of violent crime.

    11 votes