ConalFisher's recent activity
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Comment on Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (April 2025) in ~health.mental
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Where do you all get your news from? How do you work to avoid echo chambers and propaganda?
I've been thinking a lot lately about the prevalence of echo chambers in basically every corner of the internet, and how they manipulate our opinions of things in both obvious and incredibly...
I've been thinking a lot lately about the prevalence of echo chambers in basically every corner of the internet, and how they manipulate our opinions of things in both obvious and incredibly subtle ways.
Having spent a lot of time on Reddit, it's really easy after a while to see all the different echo chambers that different folks live in. Obviously the big conservative subs just have a completely different news cycle compared to the liberal ones, but even the liberal ones all form obvious biases and fairly large blind spots. All sides have the problem of just reading the headline and coming to a conclusion, regardless of the content of the article or who the authors are; the number of times I've seen the Irish Star, well known in Ireland as being a complete fucking rag notable only for celebrity gossip and nude photos on page 3, being posted to big subreddits as if it's real news, is absurd.
And when you pay attention you can easily spot when the propaganda machines start to accelerate, especially during and after election season. I'll always remember before the 2020 US election primaries when all of Reddit was supportive of Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, while deriding Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren as being centrist career politician dinosaurs, and the second that Biden was chosen as the Democratic nominee the entire site opinion shifted to "Biden is the best candidate and we all support him 100%". And then the moment the election finishes and all the botnets go back into hibernation, it's right back to "should have been Bernie". And that was just the first time I noticed it. Once you notice it happening in your own circles, it's impossible to miss afterward because it happens for every single political discussion. It was the exact same thing in the 2024 election too with Harris. I'm sure some of it is just people showing solidarity when it matters, but so much of it is clearly artificial too, and I don't like that.
The thing that worries me the most is all the propaganda and manipulation I don't see, the stuff that's subtle enough to fly under my radar and successfully manipulate me as a result. I'd be an idiot to pretend like I'm 100% capable of spotting it all.
Anyways, with all that stated, I wanted to see where the users of Tildes get their news from. It's really difficult to find unbiased news, that much is a given, so I'd rather not rely on any one source.
Personally I try to get my news from the Associated Press as much as I can. Don't think much needs to be said about AP that hasn't already been said, it's kinda just the gold standard for journalism.
The Guardian is a reputable news site in the UK (and fairly popular outside of the UK too from what I've seen online), though one that has a definite left-wing bias. All news is biased news of course, and there is an argument to be made that reality itself has a left-wing bias, so I think it's fine overall for my use case. But I do worry that I'm only making that call because I myself am somewhat left-wing, and having news that reinforces my existing opinions is comforting and rewarding. And I don't think that's at all how we should be choosing which news to read and believe.
Have been considering a subscription to the New York Times as well, more for the cooking, puzzles, and classical music discussion than the news itself honestly. But I've seen a fair amount of discourse around the NYT; how much of that is reactionary Redditors reacting I am not certain of however. Their Wikipedia list of controversies is pretty long whatever the case. Plus there's that whole Boycott USA, buy EU movement going on that I should probably consider as a European (sorry yanks I know you guys are cool but you know how it is). I don't know honestly, anyone more media-literate than I am is welcome to weigh in.
There are probably loads of smaller, independent, and less Anglosphere-centric options I should be considering also, but I'm no expert in this stuff. If anyone has suggestions I'd very much appreciate them.
Generally I try to not read too much news since so much of it amounts to "everything is fucked and your life is going to get worse and worse forever because of things outside of your control good luck", which is generally not good for, y'know, trying to be happy. But I also think it's the duty of a citizen in a democratic society to not just have opinions of things, but to have informed opinions. Who am I to vote for X politician because they're pro-Palestine if I have never done my own research on the Israel-Palestine conflict outside of things I've seen on Instagram, and have hardly even researched the politician in the first place? I think far too many people are comfortable forming opinions based on vibes and news they find comfortable that already conforms to their pre-existing opinions.
Anyways, that's my big wall of text for the day. If anyone has recommendations for places to find news and/or sites worthy of my subscription money, or just general tips on how to stay properly informed in the disinformation world, please post them below.
EDIT: Just stumbled upon this post by DefinitelyNotAFae a few hours ago asking a very similar question as what I'm asking here, so sorry if there's some repetition!
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
ConalFisher LinkHave been learning C for about 6 months now, maybe 5-6 hours a week when I can fit it in, mostly just working through exercises in a textbook. It's fun, but it's a lot of stuff to internalise....Have been learning C for about 6 months now, maybe 5-6 hours a week when I can fit it in, mostly just working through exercises in a textbook. It's fun, but it's a lot of stuff to internalise. Haven't even gotten to pointers yet. The end goal is to make some kind of GUI music notation application, probably switching over to C++ eventually but you never know! Going to be a long road before I can reach that kind of programming expertise though.
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Comment on What keeps you up at night? in ~talk
ConalFisher LinkNormally it's a tossup between climate anxiety, health anxiety, what-am-i-doing-with-my-life anxiety, financial anxiety, social anxiety, feeling like the world is so shit that there's no point in...Normally it's a tossup between climate anxiety, health anxiety, what-am-i-doing-with-my-life anxiety, financial anxiety, social anxiety, feeling like the world is so shit that there's no point in thinking long term because why bother paying into a pension if there's going to be no society to spend it in in 50 years, etc, etc. These days the health anxiety is winning out most of the time though, it being a more tangible issue than the others. I live a fairly healthy lifestyle and try to be health-conscious as much as I can, but for months now I keep getting weird symptoms that suggest scary things and stress me out. Going through the UK healthcare system is a Kafkaesque trial where it's taken nearly 6 full months just to get a basic blood test done because every time you get to a step where you think you're done they come back with "we just need to do this one last thing, are you free for ten minutes at 8:13am on this random date 5 weeks from now?" So I have a lot of time to ruminate on it all while waiting and waiting and waiting. Never struggled with health anxiety before these past few months so trying to discern which things are anxiety brain worrying and which things are actual worrisome things is a chore. It's just annoying how constant it all is. Every time I think "okay I'm probably fine" a new weird thing pops up and sends me right back into worrying.
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Comment on Light Phone III begins shipping on March 27th in ~tech
ConalFisher LinkThere are a ton of really cool smartphone startups out there making things like this, or fully modular phones, phones running entirely FOSS, and so on. Unfortunately they seem to exclusively be...There are a ton of really cool smartphone startups out there making things like this, or fully modular phones, phones running entirely FOSS, and so on. Unfortunately they seem to exclusively be built upon shitty hardware and sold at an unreasonable price. I'm sure top-of-the-line smartphone components aren't exactly the sort of thing you can just buy outright and throw into your phone à la PC parts, but it makes any of these phones a really difficult purchase to justify when you're realistically only going to get 2-3 years out of them before they're unusably slow. And that's not even taking into account security updates and such.
From a consumer standpoint I just can't see any reason why you should get this phone over something like a Pixel 8 with GrapheneOS/LineageOS and a whole dumbphone suite installed. You can make basically any modern smartphone into a dumbphone entirely through software these days. Getting it for ideological reasons and aesthetic are valid if you can afford to of course, but for most people I think they're better off buying a mainstream phone second hand, nuking it of all apps except essentials, and using one of the many dumbphone-type launchers out there.
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Comment on Enough with the bullshit (a letter to fellow bullshit sufferers) in ~tech
ConalFisher Link ParentThe only reason I've not nuked mine is that I used to do a ton of moderation stuff along with long-form posts/comments about interesting topics, and while I don't necessarily care about my Reddit...The only reason I've not nuked mine is that I used to do a ton of moderation stuff along with long-form posts/comments about interesting topics, and while I don't necessarily care about my Reddit presence anymore I'd like to keep them up just so they're not lost to time on the off chance someone ever wants to read them again. I've done a few passes with Power Delete Suite to get rid of the least important stuff, but some day I'll probably need to just sit down and go through the whole account manually.
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Comment on Enough with the bullshit (a letter to fellow bullshit sufferers) in ~tech
ConalFisher LinkI've been on the anti-bullshit path for a while now. Made this post a while back talking specifically about online bullshit and how I've been getting out. It's a peaceful life. I'm happy to see...I've been on the anti-bullshit path for a while now. Made this post a while back talking specifically about online bullshit and how I've been getting out. It's a peaceful life. I'm happy to see that opting out of this stuff is becoming more and more of a mainstream opinion rather than something restricted to a niche within nerdy tech circles.
Ultimately I think the most important part of it is being able to stick by your principles. It's real easy to just scroll even when you know it's bad. I'm still not off Reddit. I'm working on it, I've cut my use time down by a lot, but I'm still there, and I don't want to be anymore. But I've switched over mostly to FOSS (excluding some work software I really can't get off unfortunately), have nuked 90% of my social media presence for good. I've honestly been surprised at how many of my friends and family have done the same or have at least understood my reasonings for doing so - My metric for when a trend has become mainstream is when my mom is thinking about doing it; we hit that point about 2 months ago. It's not easy to fully get out of the tech bullshit ecosystem, but I think it's a lot less painful than one might initially expect. Personally I find it enjoyable researching this stuff and actively working toward building a better tech workspace, though I know most people would be bored senseless by it. But if the day ever comes when office desktops start shipping with Alpine or Mint preinstalled I think that's the tipping point where even the normies will realise it's not all that bad over here in Freesoftwareland.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
ConalFisher LinkI got recommended Mistborn a while back, never read any Brandon Sanderson before so I figured I'd give it a shot. It's good! I'm about 2/3 of the way through the first book and I like the...I got recommended Mistborn a while back, never read any Brandon Sanderson before so I figured I'd give it a shot. It's good! I'm about 2/3 of the way through the first book and I like the characters, the plot is moving steadily, the world is interesting and I'm left with lots of questions that keep me reading looking for answers. I do feel like it's perhaps getting a little bit cluttered but I'm hoping it'll reign itself in a bit as it progresses to the Big Plot Moments (no spoilers plz thx). I'm also left with that sorta meta-analytical feeling of "okay the character's prep is like 30% of the way there but I'm 70% through the book and there's no way they're reaching a good stable milestone by the end of the book so that means everything's gonna get fucked up oh no oh god what's going to happen". But that's just me trying to ruin the fun for myself. It's a good book so far. Hoping it'll stay good for the rest of the ride.
My biggest issue is not with the text itself but with the physical book: It's really badly made. There are random dots of ink on nearly every page. Some of the text is faded despite the book being printed only a couple of years ago. None of the pages have come loose but some are... Shaky. This Angela Collier video made the rounds a few months back discussing how the quality of physical books are getting worse and worse, and I think it's interesting that one of her main examples in the video of a book with terrible print quality is another Brandon Sanderson novel. Now I bought my copy in the UK while hers was presumably from the US so I don't know if it'd be the same publishing house but whatever the case it seems like Sanderson books have had consistent print quality issues for a while, and for a guy who spends so much time interacting with fans I'm surprised he's never made mention of it on his Reddit or podcast or whatnot, because from a quick search it seems like this is a common issue with his novels.
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Comment on Tips on attending a metal fest in Europe in ~travel
ConalFisher Link ParentI'm fortunate in that mines is fairly minor, I only really notice it when lying in bed and my hearing is otherwise completely fine. But I haven't experienced true silence in years and I get the...I'm fortunate in that mines is fairly minor, I only really notice it when lying in bed and my hearing is otherwise completely fine. But I haven't experienced true silence in years and I get the feeling I never will again. And that really gets to me sometimes. It's easy to identify in hindsight all the times when I was younger where I noticed that the environment I was in was far too loud and just... Didn't do anything about it, and now I get to kick myself about it all. I get the sense that's a common feeling amongst the 10% of the population with tinnitus.
It's insane how little it's talked about really; I went through 4 years of music school and I don't think they brought up hearing protection a single time outside of one random percussion seminar I happened to attend. They did provide free foam earplugs in the main concert hall for performers, which was nice, but that was it; nobody used them anyways. I think it should be one of the very first things they drill into anyone working in loud environments, whether it be musicians or people working with machinery or anything else. Like, everyone kinda knows that loud noise is bad for your ears, but we think of it in the same way that we think sugar is bad for us, which is "I know it's bad but I'm young and it'll be fine" and that's just not how it works.
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Comment on Moritz Moszkowski - Ballade in G-Minor for Violin and Orchestra Op. 16 No. 1 (1878) in ~music
ConalFisher LinkMoszkowski is an incredibly underrated composer and I really don't know why. His best works are easily on par with other late Romantic composers; stylistically I'd describe him as something like...Moszkowski is an incredibly underrated composer and I really don't know why. His best works are easily on par with other late Romantic composers; stylistically I'd describe him as something like Poland's answer to Tchaikovsky. His first Piano Concerto found popularity online a few years back and for good reason, it's easily one of the best piano concerti of the late 1800's.
Haven't heard this piece before but it's brilliantly expressive, thank you for posting it.
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Comment on Tips on attending a metal fest in Europe in ~travel
ConalFisher LinkYou probably already know this but I'll always scream this from the rooftops anyways incase someone needs the memo - HEARING PROTECTION. WEAR IT. Holy fuck people don't realise how incredibly...- Exemplary
You probably already know this but I'll always scream this from the rooftops anyways incase someone needs the memo - HEARING PROTECTION. WEAR IT.
Holy fuck people don't realise how incredibly fragile their ears are. They don't give warning before they break. It can literally be one single loud event and you have lifelong damage. Doesn't even have to be particularly loud, I know people who've gotten permanent tinnitus after vacuuming their house for a bit too long. It just happens sometimes. It's not an age thing, I got mine when I was 20 and that was just from occasionally playing in symphony orchestras, I didn't attend anything louder than that. The best thing you can do is be proactive. Drop €40 on a pair of quality earplugs, Eargasm is a good brand, Loop are pretty popular these days too. I have a pair of custom molded earplugs from an audiologist because I play in a lot of bands and orchestras, they're worth getting if you'll use them a ton but if you don't have €200 to drop on them then the €40-50 ones are perfectly fine. Even the cheap foam earplugs are fine in a pinch (they protect your ears just as well but they muffle the sound quite a bit whereas the more expensive ones will just lower the volume).
The way I see it hearing protection isn't optional; it is as essential to a concertgoer as the ticket for entry is. Take a survey of every single person with hearing loss or tinnitus and I guarantee that they will all say that they wish they had worn hearing protection more. If you can afford to go to a concert you can afford hearing protection.
I'm writing this from the waiting room of my audiology department. This shit fucking sucks. Don't be the guy who thinks they'll be fine without HP for whatever reason, because you won't be.
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Comment on Anyone interested in trying out Kagi? (trial giveaway: round #2) in ~tech
ConalFisher LinkI'd be down to give it a try! 90% of my searches are for academic papers and stuff (and questionably sourced PDFs of sheet music shh) so I'd be curious how a non-Google SE performs in that fairly...I'd be down to give it a try! 90% of my searches are for academic papers and stuff (and questionably sourced PDFs of sheet music shh) so I'd be curious how a non-Google SE performs in that fairly niche category. Am trying to degoogle everything right now and would be more than happy to pay for better alternatives. As a wise scholar in ancient China once said: "Fuck Google."
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Comment on What are your personal reading "rules?" in ~books
ConalFisher LinkI read every night before bed. One chapter per night unless they're particularly short. I hate stopping mid-chapter and will frequently stay up far too late reading a 40-page chapter and hating...I read every night before bed. One chapter per night unless they're particularly short. I hate stopping mid-chapter and will frequently stay up far too late reading a 40-page chapter and hating every part of it, even when it's well-written, just because I need to sit through the whole thing.
I have a lot of books but these days I try to only read ones that are fairly uplifting or happy; I see Orwell every time I open the news, I don't need him in my dreams too. Mostly I read fantasy these days, but I vibe with the classics too.
I'd say I finish about 75% of the books I pick up. I do find myself just getting discouraged partway through if I start feeling like I want to read another book in my collection, and I don't like reading multiple books at a time (fiction books at least; I'm normally working through a textbook during work breaks and such).
I reread books fairly frequently, but normally it's the same 4-5 books I reread once every year or two alongside all of the new reads.
On average I probably read 6-8 books a year. I'm hoping to up that number as I decrease my phone usage but I don't normally have all that much time for reading outside of the evenings. I have a lot of downtime at work but it's normally just a lot of 4-5 minute rests interspersed throughout my shifts and I really struggle to get into a book in that short a time.
I have a fairly large book collection, I'd estimate it's currently sitting aroung 200 or so, mostly well-known classics and fantasy, some sci-fi. Maybe 35 of those books are J.R.R. Tolkien, I seem to accumulate those en masse. Nearly every book I own was obtained second-hand or as a gift, I rarely see the point in buying a book brand new. I don't really care for ebooks much, perhaps if I got an actual E-Reader I'd be happier with them but I just don't like reading books on a screen, I find myself getting distracted way easier without a physical book in my hands.
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Comment on Ship carrying highly toxic chemical hit tanker transporting jet fuel for US military in ~enviro
ConalFisher LinkAin't that an allegory and a half.Ain't that an allegory and a half.
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Comment on What are the best truly unbeatable E2EE, presumably P2P messaging apps? in ~tech
ConalFisher LinkI'd imagine the simplest form would be to encrypt your messages manually with a PGP key pair, and manually encrypt/decrypt on either end. You could even just use email for this purposes - I seem...I'd imagine the simplest form would be to encrypt your messages manually with a PGP key pair, and manually encrypt/decrypt on either end. You could even just use email for this purposes - I seem to recall Thunderbird and Proton Mail having built-in PGP systems but it's not difficult to do manually. You could just send PGP encrypted messages via Whatsapp if you'd like (I get the feeling you'd be banned for doing it on most social media though).
Of course this doesn't solve the issue of someone on the other end reading the decrypted message, but nothing does really. You can attach a password to the encryption key that the user has to type in manually (IIRC, haven't used PGP in a while), which does help, but again if someone knows the password or reads it after decryption then it's not much help either.
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Comment on In 2025, the mundane can still be sacred in ~life
ConalFisher LinkBefore enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
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Comment on What works do you think should be added to the literary canon? in ~books
ConalFisher LinkAt the risk of becoming the LotR guy (feels like I talk about it weekly here at this point), I think Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is one of the most influential texts of the whole 20th century,...At the risk of becoming the LotR guy (feels like I talk about it weekly here at this point), I think Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is one of the most influential texts of the whole 20th century, completely revolutionising the fantasy genre and I would argue the fiction genre as a whole. It's a book I think everyone should read at some point, even if it's not everyone's cup of tea (the elf-songs aren't that bad and you can just skip them it's fine). I'd put it on the same level as Moby Dick in terms of lasting influence in the literary world.
Though one could argue that The Hobbit was perhaps more immediately influential; personally I think Rings just has much more substance, which matters when talking about matters of "Canon" in literature.
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Comment on Digg is relaunching under Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian in ~tech
ConalFisher Link ParentI've moderated subs as large as 18m and some as small as a few thousand; at the higher sub counts clearing the unmoderated queue simply stops being something feasible, and pretty much all focus is...I've moderated subs as large as 18m and some as small as a few thousand; at the higher sub counts clearing the unmoderated queue simply stops being something feasible, and pretty much all focus is pointed towards the modqueue instead. The theory being that good posts generally won't get reported, most bad posts will be, and if any bad posts don't get reported it's probably because they're sitting at 1 downvote and 0 comments and will stay that way forever. I don't know of any subs above maybe 200k which actively clear the unmoderated queue so I'm actually quite surprised that you're able to keep on top of it for a sub with nearly 2 million subscribers.
The effort involved in clearing modqueue varies depending on the sub, but in general for my larger subs, with a dozen or so active mods each mod might expect to do a page of reports or so (1 page being 25 posts/comments, on old.reddit at least). Maybe 10 or so minutes a day per sub. Automod can help a great deal in a lot of circumstances too; in most big subs I mod the automod does more monthly actions than the rest of the team combined, which is a double-edged sword for sure. I think if any mod is having to actively work their ass off to keep the sub afloat, it's a strong indicator that the sub needs a lot more mods. This moderating thing isn't supposed to be strenuous, not as a volunteer hobby. At my most active I was maybe hitting an hour a day on moderating and was able to keep up with ~50 subreddits with over 10k subscribers apiece. But I digress.
All that being said, my main point here would be that I simply don't think any of that should impede a modteam's ability to do other interesting things with their subs. Ultimately queue-cleaning isn't difficult, it's just busywork, and I've always found that I'm just as able to come up with cool ideas for events and such after the busywork is done. And my broader point is that I don't think getting rid of that busywork would necessarily translate to mods being able to make their subs more interesting, or going further with that, making them higher quality. Perhaps I'm simply a bit jaded from having to spend so much time in dysfunctional mod teams, but most big subs I've been in have ended up with a divide between the queue-cleaning mods and the "old guard" who largely steer clear of queues in favour of high-level decisions. Sometimes that's not a bad thing, sometimes it is, but in either case one might expect that old guard, now with their hands free of having to do queue work, to be able to take charge and work on bettering their communities through "vibes" or whatnot. But that doesn't usually happen. Subs stagnate more due to their userbases and less because of the mods in my experiences. I've had subs absolutely blow up and gain hundreds of thousands of subscribers in a month, with me being the sole mod and without even having an actual written ruleset. And I've had subs with the most passionate mods you can imagine working their asses off each day for months making quality content, only for said content to get noticed by less than 0.1% of the subscriber base. A moderator's job is to curate, not to control absolutely. If there's nothing good to curate, then there's not much the mod can do to fix things.
I'm not against implementing AI into modtools. I think it's one of the few wholly positive ways that AI could be used, provided it's not substituting real human review in serious situations (which meme forums certainly do not qualify as). But I don't think it's something that'll fundamentally change the face of social media, nor do I think it's something worth centering an entire tech startup around. Reddit has been testing out AI modtools for months now, along with all sorts of new non-AI ones, and feedback from mods has been very positive overall (I've honestly not used them myself, I was auto-enrolled in a bunch of beta tests for some reason but I sorta just ignore all their messages because I don't give a shit). Now if the Digg people have other ideas in store also then perhaps they have a shot, and I really hope they do something. But the fact that they spent so much of their PR talking about AI and... Not really anything else, doesn't give me much hope. If that's all they have then I think they're going to get outdone by others without much trouble. But still, kn0thing is a cool guy from all I've seen from him. Maybe I'll be wrong.
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Comment on Digg is relaunching under Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian in ~tech
ConalFisher LinkI'm hopeful, but not optimistic. It really just seems like they want to do "Reddit but AI" and I don't think they'll get anywhere with that unless Reddit increases the shoot-self-in-foot per...I'm hopeful, but not optimistic. It really just seems like they want to do "Reddit but AI" and I don't think they'll get anywhere with that unless Reddit increases the shoot-self-in-foot per second speed even more drastically than they have been these past few years. And even if they do succeed I can't see a venture capital-funded techbro startup social media panning out in a way that ends up being pro-user.
Rose says he and Ohanian are both convinced — and both learned the hard way — that the real trick, the thing nobody has yet done properly, is to give the communities the tools they actually need to operate. This is where AI comes in. So much of a moderator’s job, Rose says, is just grunt work: fighting spam, reviewing obvious policy violations, litigating pointless fights. “How can we remove the janitorial work of moderators and community managers,” he says, “and convert what they do every day into more of a kind of ‘director of vibes, culture and community’ than someone that is just sitting there doing the laborious crappy stuff that comes in through the front door?”
This take confuses me. As someone who's done a lot of internet moderating I really don't think there's anything wrong with the system Reddit uses, outside of the inherently hierarchical modteam structure which AI doesn't do anything to rectify. And I certainly don't think that insufficient mod tools affect the end user in any meaningful way. Mods are perfectly capable of being ‘directors of vibes, culture and community’ with whatever tools are given as long as they have the freedom to choose content, which again, AI doesn't really affect much. I'm skeptical that this pitch has any more substance than what they needed to sell to investors.
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Comment on A daily tea routine partially protects people from heavy metals, study finds in ~food
ConalFisher Link ParentTrue, but now I get to feel superior to all the non-tea drinking lead poisoned plebs out there as I sip on my prohibitively expensive Japanese green tea with its superior nutritional value...True, but now I get to feel superior to all the non-tea drinking lead poisoned plebs out there as I sip on my prohibitively expensive Japanese green tea with its superior nutritional value cleansing all of my chakras! Thank you science.
Got a blood test result on Monday showing that my liver isn't working properly, they don't know why, and now I have to go in and get a bunch of tests done. Have spent the week in perpetual crippling anxiety unable to do or think of anything else, and will likely be in perpetual anxiety until the tests next month; the UK healthcare system moves at an unbelievably glacial pace, I first went to the doctor about all of this in December and at every single step it's been "we just need to do this one thing, are you free at 8:13am on this random weekday in 5 weeks?", over, and over, and over, and over. Desperately trying not to spiral, but fuck, I can't deal with the waiting anymore. It's literally been nonstop for 6 months now and at this rate I'm expecting it to go on for at least 3-4 months more.