patience_limited's recent activity
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Comment on US Department of Government Efficiency plans to rebuild Social Security administration codebase in months, risking benefits and system collapse in ~society
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentThank you! I've tried Daiya and like you, wasn't impressed. I've browsed some recipes based on /u/Akir's suggestion as well, and might give macadamia nut-based homemade cheese a try. There's got...Thank you! I've tried Daiya and like you, wasn't impressed.
I've browsed some recipes based on /u/Akir's suggestion as well, and might give macadamia nut-based homemade cheese a try. There's got to be some combination of fat, protein, and lower starch content in a nut or seed that makes a good vegan cheese.
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentMany food plants and fruits concentrate toxic (or at least, unappealingly bitter) substances in their skin and seeds (apples), which is why there are traditional methods of preparing them. I used...Many food plants and fruits concentrate toxic (or at least, unappealingly bitter) substances in their skin and seeds (apples), which is why there are traditional methods of preparing them. I used to eat mangoes skin and all, too, but eventually discovered the hard way that the skin and seeds are where most of the allergenic urushiol is concentrated. YMMV.
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentI'd be delighted to try more vegan cheeses, but the recommended ones are all based on cashews, the one nut I'm horribly allergic to. Anyone have non-cashew recommendations?I'd be delighted to try more vegan cheeses, but the recommended ones are all based on cashews, the one nut I'm horribly allergic to. Anyone have non-cashew recommendations?
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentGribenes are Jewish soul food that I grew up with, in the same way that pork rinds are Southern soul food. And candied bacon is a thing, so I just applied the same technique.Gribenes are Jewish soul food that I grew up with, in the same way that pork rinds are Southern soul food. And candied bacon is a thing, so I just applied the same technique.
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentHear me out - grainy Dijon mustard on ham and pineapple pizza. So good...Hear me out - grainy Dijon mustard on ham and pineapple pizza. So good...
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentMalört isn't really more horrible than salted licorice, so I can kinda see it as a decent accompaniment to something as strongly flavored as peaches, especially frozen.Malört isn't really more horrible than salted licorice, so I can kinda see it as a decent accompaniment to something as strongly flavored as peaches, especially frozen.
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentIf you don't like greasy hands, try eating your pizza slices rolled with the point inside - you're just touching crust. If the toppings are too liquid, use a paper towel (environmentally unsound,...If you don't like greasy hands, try eating your pizza slices rolled with the point inside - you're just touching crust. If the toppings are too liquid, use a paper towel (environmentally unsound, I know...) to hold the roll-up.
In public, I'm the person eating ribs and wings with a knife and fork, so...
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentFurikake makes nearly all fish, dairy, egg, or vegan dishes better - try it on your next lox bagel, bowl of pasta, omelette, mushroom risotto, or cheese sandwich. Also, stir a dollop of cream...Furikake makes nearly all fish, dairy, egg, or vegan dishes better - try it on your next lox bagel, bowl of pasta, omelette, mushroom risotto, or cheese sandwich.
Also, stir a dollop of cream cheese into ramen for a treat - adds richness without grease.
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited (edited )LinkBrown rice with soy sauce, butter, a dash of maple syrup, and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. It's an umami mouth orgasm when you're desperately hungry but too tired to cook. Japanese soy sauce on...Brown rice with soy sauce, butter, a dash of maple syrup, and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. It's an umami mouth orgasm when you're desperately hungry but too tired to cook.
Japanese soy sauce on vanilla ice cream.
Ramen with canned tuna fish and poached egg. It's a power-up when consumed for dinner the day before weightlifting.
Macaroni and cheese with gochujang, bacon, and sliced green onions.
Vegan pizza with garlic hummus instead of cheese.
Carrot and celery sticks dipped in Thai peanut sauce.
Balsamic vinegar, blue cheese crumbles, and a pinch of cayenne pepper on diced cantaloupe.
Candied rendered chicken skin.
Spaghetti noodles with peanut butter, cinnamon, and banana.
Dark chocolate truffles with ghost pepper powder.
I have eaten pastries with chopsticks.
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Comment on Confess your food crimes in ~food
patience_limited Link ParentSo many wonderfully blasphemous ideas!So many wonderfully blasphemous ideas!
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Comment on What are your goto cocktails? in ~food
patience_limited LinkSpouse got into cocktails. I'm more of a wine drinker and don't really care for sweet in my beverages, but here's his Negroni-variant recipe that changed my mind: The Belle Epoque 2 oz gin 1 oz...Spouse got into cocktails. I'm more of a wine drinker and don't really care for sweet in my beverages, but here's his Negroni-variant recipe that changed my mind:
The Belle Epoque
2 oz gin
1 oz Amaro Nonino
5 shakes black walnut bittersServe in an Old Fashioned glass with one large ice cube and either a strip of orange peel or a dried orange slice.
It's aromatic, complex, and perfectly balances sweet and bitter. It stays interesting and the flavor keeps evolving as the ice melts. Good to the last drop.
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Comment on What does a newcomer moving to your town/city/state/country need to know? in ~life
patience_limited (edited )LinkCity: This is a tourist destination in what's still one of the loveliest places on Earth. Gorgeous vistas of the Great Lakes. Picturesque vineyards, orchards, forests, and fields, with...City: This is a tourist destination in what's still one of the loveliest places on Earth. Gorgeous vistas of the Great Lakes. Picturesque vineyards, orchards, forests, and fields, with well-maintained city, state and Federal parks. There are clean beaches, and excellent hiking, biking, and cross-country skiing trails.
Aquatic sports - lots of power boating, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, water-skiing, lake swimming, even surfing! [Though ice-fishing is less available due to warming.]
The area is hilly but not mountainous, so everything is relatively accessible for people in fair condition. Family and childrens' activities abound. It's also a high-end golf and horseriding area for people who can afford those amenities.
Local farm operations are mostly transitioning to organic, heirloom, and sustainable, with commensurately elevated prices. There are nationally recognized farm-to-table restaurants, but don't bother trying to get in during the tourist season - they're booked months in advance. Service is often spotty due to the worker "shortage", i.e. most of the workforce can't afford to live on the pay scales on offer, as below... Affordable eating options are mostly pizza and burgers.
Alcohol and weed industries are significant local employers. There are 40 wineries (many internationally awarded) within an hour of the city, big-name and small craft breweries, and spirits distillers. There are a dozen recreational marijuana outlets within city limits and more in surrounding small towns (too many for the demand, and some are folding).
For locals, housing and pay are a mess. 45 minute - 1 hour commutes are typical for service workers. A 1-bedroom apartment in town would consume 80 - 100% of typical hourly wages, if you could find it. It's difficult for service workers to find year-round employment in any case - the drop in tourist volume means having savings for the dead winter months. Shops and restaurants go to very short open hours from January to May, despite good winter road maintenance.
The GINI for the area is outrageous. There are billionaires who summer here, and remote professional workers have driven house prices to unbelievable levels. Farms that have been family operations for generations are being sold and ripped up for McMansion subdivisions - forget anything with a water view. The only upside is that property taxes pay for moderately good schools and a phenomenal (beloved) library system.
Homelessness and addiction are major problems, with a large encampment on the grounds of a major tourist stop. You will see panhandlers on the roads, though not street sleepers. City and non-profit social services are strained and about to become worse with Federal funding changes.
To say the region is not very diverse is an understatement, though there are significant populations of First Nations and Hispanic people in the area. Best-tasting affordable family restaurant food is Mexican cuisine, hands-down.
Aside from the tourism and agriculture (I count the alcohol industry as part of agriculture) economies, there are a few significant year-round manufacturing and services employers in the region. The hospital in the city provides advanced medical services for the entirety of Northwestern Michigan and most of the thinly populated northern parts of the state. Specialist and primary medical services are scarce - prepare for months-long waiting lists. Pay scales are very Midwestern - that is, decent benefits left over from a history of unionization, but relatively low salaries.
Transit is mostly personal car dependent. The city isn't built for the summer tourist traffic, so getting anywhere requires two or three times the usual driving time around town. Forget parking - use the commuter lots and take the (free) downtown shuttles. There is a city-wide bus network, and a subsidized on-demand shuttle service with coverage up to 50 miles out from the city. However, routes, hours of service, and availability mean public transit is not reliable as a get-to-work option unless you're willing to spend hours walking to stops, waiting, and riding. Bike transit involves dangerous 45 - 55 mph stroads and parked car doors. I've seen winter bikers, but snow clearance on streets and sidewalks is unpredictable. Road construction is also a constant during the frost-free months - prepare to spend a lot of time rerouting or stuck in one-lane waiting.
Government in the city is responsible, competent, and responsive. Politically, it's a very blue dot surrounded by deep red. In U.S. terms, that means leftish and LGBTQ+ friendly. In the outlying areas, at the county level, it's dominated by corrupt right-wing loonies, but it's getting better.
State: About as Midwestern and "mid" as you can get, with some particularities specific to its history and geography. The entire state and surrounding waters are "U.S. border" subject to Customs and Border Patrol search due to 721 miles of shared land border with Canada and four official points of entry to the U.S. [A lot of us (including me) have Canadian heritage or dual citizenship, and would probably fight on behalf of Canada if it came to it. Go Maple Leafs!]
Thanks to the historic industrialization around automobiles, chemicals, timbering/furniture-making, and iron/copper mining, there are regions of uncommon diversity, framed by areas of intense Christian nationalism and white supremacy. The western half of the state has monied Dutch Calvinist roots, which gave rise to some of the worst of present-day American Republican reactionary ideology.
The state has a mostly suburban/mostly rural dividing line at the Interstate 96 east/west highway. Everything south of that line is relatively developed; everything north is more thinly populated and tends agricultural/forested. The Detroit metropolitan area is fully suburbanized in four counties around the city proper. Detroit and its surrounds have all the cultural amenities you could ask for - world-class museums and universities, libraries, symphonies, local music, widely varying ethnic cuisines, competitive professional sports teams, etc. On a national scale, housing is relatively affordable and available due to declining state population.
However, mass transit is almost non-existent. Car ownership is mandatory. Commutes tend to be long because of historical zoning separations between residential and industrial/commercial areas. The roads take a pounding due to harsh winters and decades of underinvestment. The first sign of spring is a bloom of bright orange construction cones and road closures for maintenance.
Michigan schools are often extremely segregated thanks to historical redlining and development patterns, even more so than the national trend. School quality is wildly uneven thanks to funding based on property taxation and charter school policies. [Detroit students have had to sue for a right to literacy, for example.]
Despite the history of unionization, Michigan Republicans managed to enact a state-wide Right to Work law (repealed last year), which drastically weakened union power. Pay scales and benefits in the state reflect this - Michigan is 38th in the U.S. for median income. State employment rates still haven't recovered from the precipitous decline in auto industry jobs in the 1970's and '80's, though the industrial and services base has diversified.
For all the negatives, it's still gorgeous and one of the environmentally richest places in the world. 67,800 lakes, give or take a few, including some big ones. ☺️ Every kind of agriculture except the most tropical is possible here, with deep, rich soils and unmatched water resources. Many places are rewinding and reforesting; rare animals like pumas and pine martens are returning.
Michigan nice is a variant of Minnesota nice - we will talk about you behind your back, but expect kindness and smiles to your face.
Weather is extremely variable - anything from 95°F muggy summers to bitter winters of months-long darkness with feet of snow and Arctic wind chills. You'll experience all the seasons, and it's a common saying that "if you don't like the weather, wait an hour". No hurricanes; droughts and tornadoes are rare.
Country: Tired of apologizing, starting to fight back.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of March 17 in ~society
patience_limited Link ParentAdam Serwer, writing in The Atlantic, puts this in perspective: The Great Resegregation - The Trump administration’s attacks on DEI are aimed at reversing the civil-rights movement.Adam Serwer, writing in The Atlantic, puts this in perspective: The Great Resegregation -
The Trump administration’s attacks on DEI are aimed at reversing the civil-rights movement. -
Comment on How do you feel about your PTO? in ~life
patience_limited (edited )LinkUS employee, salaried. 16 PTO days, combined vacation/sick time, accrued at the rate of 1.5 days/month. 7 paid holidays The only reason I have 16 days after five years is that I was granted credit...US employee, salaried.
16 PTO days, combined vacation/sick time, accrued at the rate of 1.5 days/month.
7 paid holidaysThe only reason I have 16 days after five years is that I was granted credit for time at my previous job; otherwise, I'd only have 10 PTO days per year. No rollover from one year to the next.
It's a Midwestern non-union private company. The marginal PTO benefits are typical of the region, though pay and other compensation (bonuses, 401k match, profit-sharing) are substantially better than average.
As /u/slade mentioned, I find it personally difficult to take time off. Our office had 50% layoffs last year. Most of the projects are now handled by a single technical professional, so even temporary handoffs are painful. We often work on tight contractually driven timelines. Squeezing vacation in around drop-dead dates is more stressful to me than working through, particularly when work travel and personal travel would just blur together. I do get comp time for time over 45 hours/week, but usually take it as shorter days here and there.
Unfortunately, it's the U.S., and the only things really keeping me in this job are relatively decent health insurance benefits and the difficulty of finding another comparable position at age 50+. I've thought about kicking off business as an independent consultant. However, the Midwestern U.S. isn't an ideal geographic location for the customers who'd be interested in my services, and I'm not interested in relocating.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of March 10 in ~society
patience_limited LinkNot news per se, but McSweeney's weighs in on our current situation.Not news per se, but McSweeney's weighs in on our current situation.
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Comment on Virologists are still bringing dangerous, novel pathogens in from the wild in ~health
patience_limited Link ParentI don't think you're taking into account the scale of human ecosystem encroachment, global trade (including legal or illegal wildlife export), human migration and warfare, and other considerations...I don't think you're taking into account the scale of human ecosystem encroachment, global trade (including legal or illegal wildlife export), human migration and warfare, and other considerations in the spread of zoonoses.
At this point, if a pathogen exists in the wild somewhere, humans will probably have to worry about it eventually, whether as a direct disease risk, a threat to the agricultural species we depend on for food, or an affliction of our companion animals. There are cultures and places where bushmeat (including bats and monkeys) is a necessary dietary protein source, where there's constant migratory animal traffic, and where there's little barrier between rapid human expansion and uncontacted wildlife. All of these places are now connected by an extensive web of human travel and commerce.
We absolutely need information on emerging threats as fast as we can get it, or we go back to isolated, xenophobic armed camps.
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Comment on Heritage Foundation and allies discuss dismantling the EU in ~enviro
patience_limited Link ParentI wouldn't underestimate these thugs. Given an almost unlimited lobbying and propaganda budget, they've captured the conservative and far-right political blocs in Germany, France, the Czech...I wouldn't underestimate these thugs. Given an almost unlimited lobbying and propaganda budget, they've captured the conservative and far-right political blocs in Germany, France, the Czech Republic, most of Eastern Europe, Greece... All in the name of "restoring sovereignty", "traditional values", restricting immigration, and so on. There's a coordinated international strategy unlike anything liberal states have had to contend with before. It's the reactionary ideological equivalent of the old threat of Communism, but using modern communication tools against populations that have little or no immunity.
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Comment on Heritage Foundation and allies discuss dismantling the EU in ~enviro
patience_limited (edited )LinkI'm posting in ~enviro because the clear underlying motive and financing for these authoritarian maneuvers is to remove any chance of controlling Big Carbon. It doesn't require particular...I'm posting in ~enviro because the clear underlying motive and financing for these authoritarian maneuvers is to remove any chance of controlling Big Carbon. It doesn't require particular conspiracy-mindedness to understand the Trump administration's newfound "drill, baby, drill" coziness with Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other fossil fuel-dependent states.
Excerpts from the article:
The Polish investigative outlet VSquare revealed that the Heritage Foundation gathered hardline conservative groups on 11 March to hear how they would overhaul the current structures of the EU.
The “closed-door workshop” featured a debate on a new paper produced by the lobby groups MCC and Ordo Iuris entitled: “The Great Reset: Restoring Member State Sovereignty in the 21st Century”.
The paper proposes dismantling the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. It claims that the “EU is evolving into a quasi-federal state, limiting national decision-making power” and is imposing “ideologically motivated policies on member states, without any mandate”. Under the plan, the EU would cease to function in its current guise, and would instead be renamed the European Community of Nations (ECN).
Kenneth Haar, a researcher and campaigner at the transparency watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory, said it was “quite simply terrifying” to see the Heritage Foundation moving its attention to Europe.”
“Most of the attacks made by the Trump presidency in recent weeks on civil rights, on migrants, on LGBTQ+ rights and more, can be traced back to Project 2025,” he said. “We should be worried about them building up ambitions and strength in Europe.”
DeSmog can also reveal that the Heritage Foundation has been holding private meetings with European politicians in recent months, as the group attempts to forge new alliances on the continent.
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The Heritage Foundation led the way in creating Project 2025, the 922-page guide to radically retrenching the U.S. government. The blueprint urged Trump to “dismantle the administrative state”, reverse policies on climate action, slash restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, scrap state investment in renewable energy, and gut the Environmental Protection Agency.
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MCC, which helps to spread Orbán’s ideologies at home and abroad, is funded heavily by fossil fuel finance.In 2020, Orbán’s administration gave MCC a 10 percent stake in Hungarian oil company MOL, a 10 percent stake in the pharmaceutical firm Gedeon Richter, plus $462 million in cash, and $9 million in property. In 2023, MCC received €50 million in dividends from MOL, a firm that receives 65 percent of its oil from Russia, according to an investigation by German broadcaster ZDF.
The group’s Brussels arm has called on the EU to “ditch the net zero madness” and has helped to convene anti-green groups from across Europe over the past year. It recently stated that one of its key campaigning objectives in 2025 was to help create “a Europe unshackled from environmentalism”, and has called for the introduction of an EU DOGE.
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“What we see in the European Parliament at the moment, is a love affair between traditional conservatives and the far-right,” said Kenneth Haar from Corporate Europe Observatory.“They command a majority, and they have already shown to be willing to use it to roll back democracy, climate policies, and environmental protection. They could change the face of the EU decisively in the coming years.”
Edit: More on the "Alliance for Responsible Citizenship" if you can stomach it, investigative journalism also from DeSmog and Canada's National Observer.
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Heritage Foundation and allies discuss dismantling the EU
40 votes
Okay, I'm not a professional programmer, but I've done a few hundred systems migrations by this point in my career.
/u/Mendanbar nailed it. Whether you port the code line by line or rewrite around existing modules in whatever language, you always stand new platforms up in dev/test/QA environments side-by-side with existing legacy production ones.
Nothing is done to change the legacy reference system.
You do a careful data migration or replication to the new database architecture after confirming that you have the fields mapped correctly. [Database field mapping, transforms, and migration won't be trivial for the Social Security database for the entire United States population, AI tools notwithstanding.]
Once the data migration is done, you replicate new incoming data to both systems in parallel, and validate that the software on the new system is producing the exact same outputs as the legacy system. You run endless test queries, confirm that any clients can connect and produce reliable responses, updating or writing new clients (or web interfaces, etc.) as needed. You can always improve UI/UX, but the data displayed has to meet consistency, availability, replicability, and performance tests.
You make damn sure you've got reliable backup, failover redundancies and scalability as needed for critical services, and disaster recovery for the new system.
You provide training to end users for any changes, because the people who interact with the system are part of it and critical to its reliability.
Then you schedule a cutover, with planning to ensure you can roll back to the legacy system if there are problems with the new system that can't be mitigated quickly.
You have a continuing validation period (some predetermined length of time) with both systems still running in parallel.
If validation checks pass (and issues recorded are solely due to user unfamiliarity with the new system), then you can retire the old system and archive any legacy data.
But this is how grown-ups handle reasonably standardized healthcare systems. Purpose-built government systems with decades of proprietary optimizations and vast scale should daunt reasonable professionals.
The DOGE jacknoggins aren't grown-ups. The overweening arrogance (after sidelining and firing the experts first) in what they're proposing (or already attempting) begs for descriptions more vehement and vibrant than "clusterfuck". "Omnishambles"comes to mind.