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fireweed

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For the first time in my life, I have hit my deductible AND reached my out-of-pocket maximum. I now have three months of actual free healthcare, which is unheard of in the US. What should I get done?

Biologically male procedures only. EDIT: If the two people who downvoted this question could explain their reasoning, I would be super interested. No judgements. This is a safe space!

fireweed ,

To your “edit” point: Don’t take a handful of downvotes personally; it’s pretty easy to do accidentally on mobile so they may have been unintentional

fireweed ,

Red states are not okay, because all they have left in their value system is cruelty toward people they see as not “pulling their weight,” as if we still live in some resource-scarce era of yore where if you don’t work, you don’t eat (and even if you do work, eating is not guaranteed, better work harder!).

Blue states are increasingly providing lunches, and sometimes even breakfast, for all students free of charge. It used to be income-based (you’d get free or half-priced lunch based on your family’s income), but even that system is getting ditched because of the associated stigma and the problem of some needy students falling between the cracks.

fireweed ,

Minnesota is probably the most famous example at the moment, but they’re far from alone!

nycfoodpolicy.org/states-with-universal-free-scho…

Is it really just ageing/ getting older? How is this supposed to work? How is everyone else doing this?

Edit: thank you all very much for your time, thoughts and effort to reply to this. I really appreciate it and I try to find a new doctor. Your questions and encouragement were very helpful and made me realise that my symptoms are too strong, considering my lifestyle. For those who asked questions, here are the answers: I eat...

fireweed ,

Agree with everyone else that this isn’t normal for someone your age and get a second opinion.

However addressing your other questions: you’re at an age where lifestyle starts to really matter. Diet, exercise, ergonomics, environmental exposure to pollution/toxins, alcohol/drug use, sleep habits: these are all things that many healthy young adults can avoid having to worry about… until suddenly they can’t anymore. It is common, especially starting around age 30, to find there’s unhealthy behaviors from your teens and 20s that you just can’t do or do to excess anymore. It’s different for everyone; for some people it’s that they can’t sleep on a crappy mattress anymore, or drink certain types of liquor, or pull all nighters, or eat garbage, etc etc.

So while it sounds like you have some personal health issues outside of what’s “normal,” you still are at an age where the cumulative effects of a poor lifestyle can start to catch up to you. I think a lot of people greatly underestimate how sedentary their lifestyles are in particular, and of all the behaviors to change for the better as you age, going from sedentary to active is probably the hardest, given that our world is built to keep us sitting: sitting in our cars, sitting at our desks, sitting on our couches, basically sitting from the moment we wake until we go to sleep. Humans never lived like this until very recently: basically every decade since the personal automobile became the standard mode of transportation it’s steadily gotten worse. So yes, definitely do some doctor shopping, but now is also a great age to take stock in your lifestyle and how you’re treating your body. Because yes, it does get a little harder each year, but the speed of which it gets harder is at least partially up to you.

fireweed ,

I think all mowers except non-motorized push mowers should be illegal for home use. You want a big, manicured lawn? Well then you gotta work for it, buddy.

Most properties where I live have huge grass lawns, but I almost never see anyone actually using them. The only time anyone is out on their lawn is to mow it, and they all use these low-effort riding mowers. Every single nice day (and I live in the maritime Pacific Northwest, so warm and sunny days are precious things) is always filled with the din of mowers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, and other gas-powered tools of ornamental landscaping. And for what? An ecologically-devoid patch of land that even the landowner isn’t utilizing.

fireweed ,

There are vegan blood meal alternatives out there to resolve this exact conundrum.

But the reality is, unless your plants are being grown hydroponically in a sealed warehouse or similar, chances are real good that they are feeding on decaying animals (either directly or indirectly) whether you like it or not. They’re mostly insects and annelids and such, but still animals.

I think the issue for vegans is more about whether animal slaughter was involved in making their fertilizer. Dead pillbugs in the soil is just nature doing its cycle of life thing.

fireweed ,

Lemmy (or at least lemmy.world) was bonkers levels of buggy last summer during the reddit blackout. Like, literally unusable levels of buggy. Getting the word out that it’s (mostly) bug-free now would probably be good, because I’m sure there were many redditors who tried it and quickly swore it off as a pile of shit.

Otherwise I’m in agreement that the instance-selection part of sign-up is a huge barrier, because what instance you choose is actually really important but it’s overwhelming when you’re just getting started. Plus not being able to migrate your account/communities/posts to another instance if yours goes to shit/shuts down/turns out to not fit your needs makes the fediverse feel really unstable.

fireweed ,

The difference is if the primary (sometimes only) admin of your instance loses interest, goes to jail, or gets hit by a truck, your entire instance could be dead in the water, whereas there are way more safeguards to “established” social media like Reddit and Twitter. Plus the issue of “well shit my instance got defederated from most of the fediverse because it turns out the admin is an asshat” is completely nonsensical on platforms without instances. Example: before I knew that Lemmy had a tankie problem, I almost signed up on lemmygrad because I thought it was just a witty pun…

Plus when you say “point them to lem.ee” what scenario are you imagining? Because “you should join reddit” or “our business is on Facebook” or “Twitter is a great resource for artists” are all straightforward and easy pieces of information to convey and pick up. “Join Lemmy, a subset of the fediverse, I signed up via lemmy.world although I hear lem.ee is also good, but don’t let that stop you from picking another instance” is like… Dude, people just want to go to [site].com, click on “sign up”, enter a username and password (and maybe email) and that’s it. Just having to explain to people that “lemmy.com” isn’t a thing is already too complicated for most folks.

fireweed ,

Not a paleontologist, but these renditions seem shockingly consistent for a dinosaur. T-Rex for example went from full upright to balanced to covered in feathers in half this timeframe. And let’s not even talk about poor iguanodon…

fireweed , (edited )

Feeders are okay, but the real joy comes from watching hummingbirds feed at flowers. In my experience they’re big fans of fuchsias, and I’ve also seen them at fireweed.

Edit: dropped an h, misplaced an s

fireweed ,

Also dependent on the state. Some states mandate minimum sick leave, others don’t. Then there’s the issue of paid vs unpaid: if you’re living paycheck to paycheck it doesn’t matter if you have all the unpaid sick leave in the world, you’re not going to use it because you literally can’t afford to.

fireweed , (edited )

Sooo are centipedes like fruit flies and not engage in any real form of sexual selection, or is the female going around judging the fuck out of every jizz pile she encounters?

“Mmm-mm, look at that poor viscosity, obviously from a low-quality male. This one on the other hand: deep color, firm texture, nice and sticky… clearly produced by a male with the superior genes I want to pass along to my offspring.”

fireweed ,

My cat gets both with every meal. My understanding is that wet food is much more nutritious, if for no other reason than the moisture content. Fortunately my cat is pretty good about drinking water, but getting enough hydration can be a problem for some individuals. My cat will usually eat the wet food first, then snack on the dry food over the next few hours.

I’ve watched family cats rack up huge vet bills and cause much heartache because they received improper nutrition; wet food may be way more expensive and inconvenient, but it’s a worthwhile investment (same as with humans!)

fireweed ,

There is plenty of grain-free food out there; it’s even a search option on chewy. The problem is the grain filler is often replaced by something else that’s either not nutritious for cats or possibly even harmful (like potato and peas), and that still doesn’t resolve the moisture content issue.

fireweed ,

Okay but if Arizona and New Mexico’s mountain regions get forest cutouts, central Washington needs a grasslands cutout to represent its shrub-steppe habitat.

fireweed ,

Obligatory “wet food is much better for cats if for no other reason than the moisture content”

Cats are apparently one of those species that’s used to getting most of their fluids via their prey, and can be bad at drinking enough water when fed a dry food diet (in my experience this is highly dependent on the individual cat: some are “picky drinkers”).

I need new glasses. The only insurance-approved place I can shop online will cost $250 with my needs. I went to a "cheap" glasses website that doesn't accept insurance: $250. Yay, America.

The optometrist recommended seamless bifocals. I have a very painful nerve condition in my face (atypical trigeminal neuralgia), so this is what I need with glasses: the lightest weight frames possible- known as ultra light- with the lightest weight lenses possible and automatically darkening lenses so I don’t need the weight...

fireweed ,

I think Costco glasses are a good deal, even if you have to buy a one-year membership to get them. Don’t know if they’re available online, but don’t you want to try glasses on in person to make sure they fit and are comfortable?

‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ smashes R-rated record with $205 million debut, 8th biggest opening ever (apnews.com)

Marvel is back on top with “Deadpool & Wolverine.” The comic-book movie made a staggering $205 million in its first weekend in North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday. It shattered the opening record for R-rated films previously held by the first “Deadpool” ($132 million) and notched a spot in the...

fireweed ,

Audiences aren’t sick of superhero movies, they’re sick of BAD superhero movies.

fireweed ,

Societal pressure to have children is a huge factor for sure. I’ve heard from previous generations in my family that during the baby boom era, rumors would circulate in their community if you didn’t have enough children, like “something must be wrong with the Johnsons down the street because they only ever had two kids” (and this was in upper-middle class WASP America).

Obviously this attitude continues today in certain communities (Mormons, small rural towns, etc), but it’s no longer as prevalent.

Why sex bias in labs means women are the losers in research into ageing (www.theguardian.com)

Extending the human lifespan is a multibillion-pound industry and has been hailed as the most fascinating scientific challenge in modern history. But if a drug to achieve longevity is ever discovered, one thing looks certain: it is highly unlikely to work on women – and almost inconceivable that it will work on mothers....

fireweed , (edited )

Why sex bias in labs means women are the losers in research into ageing virtually all medical issues

FTFY

Apparently menstrual cycles (and the resulting fluctuating hormones) make the female body tOo CoMpLiCaTeD for researchers and they’d rather stick to the “default human model.” Bitch study some fetal developmental science: female is the default model!

fireweed ,

That just puts an insane value premium on older housing stock

fireweed , (edited )

No, property tax is basically the only direct motivation in place for home owners to vote for politicians and policies that will keep housing affordable for future generations and people who don’t already own a home. Otherwise why wouldn’t home owners want to see housing prices skyrocket in value if there’s no financial downside for them (and a giant payout when they do sell)? As mentioned in other comments, some states have tried property tax caps, and the result is creating a system of haves and have nots based entirely around who was lucky enough to buy into the market before it shot to the moon.

Papal arch enemy Archbishop Vigano found guilty of schism and excommunicated (www.reuters.com)

Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a fierce ultra-conservative critic of Pope Francis, has been found guilty of schism and excommunicated, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said on Friday. Vigano, the papal envoy in Washington from 2011-2016, went into hiding in 2018 after alleging that the pope knew for years about sexual...

fireweed ,

Vigano referred to the pope only by his surname, “Bergoglio”, and accused him of representing an “inclusive, immigrationist, eco-sustainable, and gay-friendly” Church

First time I’ve ever heard the words “inclusive” and “eco-sustainable” used with the intent of condemnation.

fireweed ,

This is actually discussed on the live-action animated film Wikipedia page.

Since the late 1990s, some films have included large amounts of photorealistic computer animation alongside live-action filmmaking, such as the Star Wars prequels, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Avatar franchise. These films are generally not considered animated due to the realism of the animation and the use of motion-capture performances, which are extensively based on live-action performances by implementing actors’ movements and facial expressions into their characters. Roger Ebert said that “in my mind, it isn’t animation, unless it looks like animation.”

Related note: I’m quite nostalgic for the mid-20th century live-action animation trend (even more so than the late-20th century puppet trend). If the characters are going to look fake regardless, the animated ones are way more expressive and, well, animated.

fireweed ,

Millennial here. My impression is we’re the largest generation on this platform, but I could be wrong.

fireweed ,

A major turning point in one’s academic journey is when you go from struggling to compose a lengthy and impressive essay to struggling to compose a concise and accessible essay (otherwise known as the “too-short-and-basic to too-long-and-pompous shift”). Sometimes this takes leaving academia and realizing that your masterpiece work doesn’t mean shit if no one bothered to read it.

fireweed ,

The alternatives for tortillas would be purchase from a bakery (made fresh so no preservatives), purchase frozen (so no need for added preservatives), or make at home (surprisingly easy to do).

fireweed ,

Yeah I kinda suspect these anti-mask laws are going to be a disability lawsuit bonanza

fireweed ,

Once upon a time you could entice youngsters to the countryside with promises of low cost of living, but then rural housing got super fucking expensive super fucking fast during the covid years. Like sure, maybe rural housing is still cheaper than suburban/urban housing (although this is HIGHLY location-specific), but gone are the days where you could buy a pretty nice house (or an iffy house on a sizable chunk of land) for less than the down payment on a house in a “desirable” area. You might be able to convince a middle-class 30- or 40-something American to live in the middle of nowhere in exchange for a good house they’re able to pay for in cash with change to spare (and with it the opportunity to retire a decade or so early). But once rural housing started needing mortgages to afford and buyers still had to deal with crap like bidding wars and sparse inventory, where’s the draw? At least in my state (Washington) rural housing inventory is finally going up and prices are starting to come down (although monthly payments are still at near-record highs if you need a mortgage), but it’s going to either be many years of incremental decline or a very sharp, very painful crash to return rural housing affordability to how it was.

Shower thoughts are wasting water.

My city is in the middle of the worst drought in recorded history. My showers are typically under 2 minutes and I have to shower with a bucket to catch otherwise wasted water to use to flush the toilet. I also shut the water down when I am wet enough so I can scrub myself without having unneeded water flowing then start it back...

fireweed ,

You might want to consider a priest for the damned lakes (which were presumably corrupted by the damned rain?)

fireweed ,

Well, it’s extremely unfortunate then that the last half-century of zoning and building policies have put us two million homes in the hole. Where y’all plan on putting millions of surplus people, broken down RVs in the Walmart parking lot? (Except now it’s also illegal to be homeless in many places… It’s hard to pay into social security when you’ve been fired for your job after getting arrested for “loitering”!)

fireweed ,

You’re completely correct on the exposed demand issue. I would also add that in most cities (in the United States anyway) hotels can only exist in very specific corners of the city due to zoning, often in just three places: downtown (expensive!), the suburbs (so not even in city limits), and “motel alley” (which is usually an old highway in askeevy part of town lined with mid-20th century fleabag accommodations that are slowly being abandoned/bulldozed). For some cities this isn’t an issue, but in others it’s a problem for accessing the tourist attractions, especially if the tourists in question don’t have a rental car. Then there are the non-tourist visitors to consider: if you’re in a city to visit family, you’re probably going to want to stay as close to them as possible. Same with a lot of business travelers. This is a bit of a conundrum when the nearest hotel (or affordable/decent hotel) is a 30 minute drive away.

fireweed ,

All I want to know is: will this push companies to rethink infinite scroll? Like, even to make it a toggleable option.

I really appreciate that Lemmy still has distinct pages. “I’ll stop at the end of this page” is the easiest way to quit a social media session, which is why most companies have eliminated it.

fireweed ,

I just want the communities that already exist to have more engagement. It’s pretty demoralizing making a high-effort post and getting only a handful of upvotes and no comments. And it’s like watching a hospice patient visiting a neat-sounding community and realizing all the posts are by the single moderator (and are getting less and less frequent).

I think one of the best ways for folks to contribute to the health of Lemmy would be for everyone to spend some time on “all - new” (or even “all - top hour”) on occasion. “New” on Lemmy is not the cesspool of reposts and garbage that it was on Reddit (although there is a LOT of porn if you don’t have NSFW toggled off), and the quality of the first few pages of “top hour” is usually pretty good (except again for the porn, which it turns out gets pretty decent engagement). I visit “top hour” pretty regularly, and nearly all posts that are stuck in zero-engagement/minimal-engagement pergatory are simply niche content rather than bad content.

fireweed ,

I’ll check it out, thanks!

fireweed OP ,

I don’t see why not

fireweed OP ,

Make a post about it and let’s find out!

fireweed ,

This is one reason why I love my native lupine plants. They occasionally get honeybee visitors, but I’ve noticed honeybees struggle with getting the flowers open to access the nectar. Bumblebee lands and his big fat body causes the flower to open right up. Gee it’s almost like they co-evolved!

fireweed ,

Yeah but people don’t make a big deal about “save the deer!” and then start a cattle ranch

Don’t Call It an ‘Ethnic’ Grocery Store: As Asian groceries like H Mart, Patel Brothers and 99 Ranch expand, they are reshaping American eating habits, and the American grocery market (www.nytimes.com)

Last year, Americans bought half a billion packets of Shin Ramyun, the spicy, beefy Korean instant noodle. The bold red-and-black packaging feels inescapable: It’s a staple of college dorm rooms, bodegas, middle-of-the-country Walmarts and viral TikTok videos....

fireweed ,

The H-Mart in Federal Way (south of Seattle) is about 2/3 Asian food aisles, 1/3 Hispanic food aisles. Of the handful of H-Marts I’ve been to it’s the only one like that.

fireweed ,

In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations […] What’s gone wrong?

Answer: Shit’s bad and getting worse (especially for younger generations) while the old & rich people in charge twiddle their thumbs because “I got mine, fuck you.” Any other questions?

I definitely wouldn’t conclude that anything the mental health industry did or didn’t do has anything to do with the mental health of youth today; given current circumstances the kids who are alright are the abnormal ones.

Don't you all get tired of the constant negativity?

Despite not subscribing to political communities and having a large number of content filters based on keywords, my feed here is still for a large part all negative articles and ragebait. Elon Musk this and Israel that. Microsoft ruining windows, AI ruining internet, right wingers and capitalism ruining the world, police being...

fireweed ,

I think it’s because a lot of things are bad (and many are getting worse) yet the only power most people have to do anything about them is to raise awareness of the issues, which means engaging with negative news. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what’s real news and what’s rage bait; sometimes non-news can seem like news when it’s part of an ongoing pattern (such as “Elon’s dumb take of the day”). I think there’s also some degree of trying to maintain one’s sense of reality. To the previous example, despite being a massive fuckwit, Elon is still among the wealthiest people in the world, is incredibly influential, and has maintained some degree of fanboy army; posting/reading/discussing/upvoting an article about what dumb thing he said today is grounding for some folks because it reinforces reality by demonstrating that yes, he is still a fuckwit, even though somehow everything still hasn’t come crashing down around him like it karmically should.

fireweed ,

Agreed. I tried to adjust to Celsius when I moved abroad from the US, and my biggest issue with it was actually in temperature control. I lived in a tiny studio apartment with an in-wall A/C unit, so I had really accurate, nearly instantaneous control of the room temperature except that often it would be too hot at one temperature setting but too cold if I reduced it by a single degree (Celsius). Had the system been in fahrenheit I would have had around three times as much sensitivity to control, which would have been perfect.

fireweed ,

Skimming through the photos, they completely neglected to connect any of the sidewalks in the new dystopian refugee village. Whole community went from 100% car free to 100% car-reliant.

fireweed ,

Arcane, the animated Netflix show that was based on League of Legends.

fireweed ,

I thought this was going to be about turmeric’s lead contamination problem…

I hate leaf blowers with the passion of 1000 suns.

Everywhere I am there is a guy running a leaf blower. At my house, leaf blowers everywhere all day long. At work, of course, leaf blowers blowing dirt and allergens into the air. It’s such a special noise, it goes through walls and headphones so effectively. They are the most pervasive, annoying things on the planet. I hate...

fireweed ,

That would be great IF you could convince the city that thoroughly-entrenched tools like leaf blowers and lawn mowers and motorized vehicles fell under nuisance laws. Chances are the mayor and most of city council use these things (or pay someone who uses them). The problem is that most people either love these things or don’t find them obnoxious enough to warrant action. Even if you somehow could get them to fall under nuisance laws, enforcement would be complaint-based, and who’s going to risk pissing off their neighbor for being a snitch Karen?

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