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Joined 5 months ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2024

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  • Sounds like you eat trash. Most of what I buy from the grocery store is fresh or frozen, pretty much everything else is a slow boring flavorless heavy salted death. I haven’t found a service that can automate my grocery shopping to my satisfaction and frankly I wouldn’t want to. My weekly meal planning happens in the vegetable department based on what in season, available locally, looks appetizing, etc.

    It also sounds like you live alone, not having to contend with other people’s changing schedules and laundry needs.

    You’re automated “easy” life sounds like an empty void. I’m not convinced you’re “living” your life at all, just killing time.


  • Nah, let the computers do the things that they’re good at, like calculating time differentials. And let people reference something real, like the sunrise and sunset. The whole daylight savings time vs. standard time is dumb, and political timezones are unfortunate, but any time system becomes meaningless when it becomes too decoupled from the way people actually experience time. I don’t care when noon is in Europe, noon will always be roughly midday for me. I don’t expect that’s an unpopular opinion for anyone that spends any significant portion of their time outside.







  • Chopsticks. Use them. It takes a little practice, but they are perfect for snacking, especially popcorn. Cheetos are easiest of the chips, but others are possible. No more residue on your finger tips, or the backs of your hands from reaching into the bag. I also switched to chopsticks for things like salads (fruit or vege variety), noodles, and getting olives and such out of jars. Even a good stew or chili can be eaten with chopsticks and a spoon. Now I just need to get better at using chopsticks with my nondominant hand.



  • Brussel sprouts used to be truly awful, made me literally wretch. Now I eagerly make and order them as a bar snack.

    To be fair there are two reasons beyond my changing tastes for this. First, my mom liked to steam brussel sprouts whole and serve them with margarine, salt, and pepper, now I generally cold sear them or roast them in the oven with much better seasoning. Maybe even some bacon pieces and blue cheese mixed in. Second, brussel sprouts did actually change over time to get less bitter and awful since I was a kid.



  • Some people get a lot out of sitting very still and clearing their minds completely. Some people get more clarity in motion, while running, rowing, cycling, or walking. There is another way on meditation that involves almost the opposite of a clear mind, where you focus on experiencing and really noticing absolutely everything around you; every breath, birdsong, machine noise, footstep, squirrel chittering, and insect buzzing. Sometimes while focusing on a puzzle or game like Tetris, Sodoku, or a Rubik’s cube, it feels meditative to me. I don’t know if that’s real meditation. But my point is that everyone’s built differently, find what works for you and stop worrying about failing. If you’re trying, you’re not failing.


  • One thing that the movies miss from the books, which seems like it would be hard to pull off, is that NOBODY in Dune just has a normal conversation with each other. Literally everytime there is dialogue in the book, at least one of the characters is psycho-analyzing every word for some sort of ulterior motive, or some hidden meaning within a meaning or something, it’s actually kind of annoying and I’m glad they didn’t attempt to work that into the movie.

    Did we read the same book, because my impression was that it was almost entirely written from the perspective of main characters that were looking for conspiracies everywhere. Paul and his mother in particular were literally constantly attempting to detect the machinations and plots of others in order to either manipulate their allegiances or literally predict the future. The were the center of an ulterior motive tornado for the Fremen. The mythos they exploited to grab power was built on the foundations of other Bene Gesserit missionaries before them, an army of ulterior motives. The entire theme of the book was secret manipulation of the masses in order to maintain and grow political power. You don’t survive in the Dune Universe without psychoanalysis of every interact for ulterior motives.