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I absolutely love this idea
  • We once did something really amazing along these lines. Only once, it was a crap ton of work.

    We were fighting this giant demon wall thing. We made it out of Graham crackers and chocolate decorations, which we attached with melted chocolate as glue, basically. It was super creepy - I made demon eyes, oozing blood stuff, it's was great.

    As we damaged the wall, we would rip parts of and eat it. It was like a solid 2-3 freaking pounds of chocolate and other assorted things. It was glorious to devour the enemy like that!

  • What is your opinion?
  • It’s annoying when monogamous people act like we’re all lying about experiencing compersion.

    Man, do I feel this. Why is it so hard to believe that people can feel differently about things?

    No, I'm not jealous and afraid my wife is going to leave me if she has sex with someone else. She isn't when I do that, either.

    We'll eagerly discuss all the juicy details. She loves hearing about my adventures. She's more shy, so I hear more about who she'd like to be with rather than actual adventures. We both giggle and discuss people we'd totally bang and there really actually isn't an undercurrent of anxiety about it.

    If I found someone that I started to fall in love with, isn't that an awesome thing? Love is wonderful! And the sort of person that I could love would be someone that my wife would, at the very least, like. How does this not sound like a wonderful situation to people?

    Monogamy doesn't make sense to me, though I respect people's right to feel the way they do. If they feel jealousy, that's allowed. If they think it's better to have jealousy, then I'm confused, but whatever.

    It's just weird that feeling differently gets such negative reactions and accusations of lying.

  • wat
  • The way I think of it, there is no subtraction, and there is no division. Or square roots.

    There is the singular layer of operations (the adding/subtracting layer which I think of as counting, multiplying/dividing layer which I think of as grouping, etc).

    Everything within that layer is fundamentally the same thing. But we just have multiple ways of saying it.

    Partly because teaching kids negative numbers is harder than subtraction, and thinking of fractions is hard enough without thinking of it as a representative process of relationships via multiplication.

    Again, just how my brain does things. I'm not a mathematician or anything, but I'm pretty decent at regular math.

  • If given a new life would you choose to be born the same sex that you were?
  • Totally makes sense. I mean, it's surely more than that, but that's definitely a frustration.

    I'm a woman who's into video games, science stuff, tech things, tabletop roleplaying games (like DnD), etc, among other things. It's not as bad as it used to be, but I definitely wasn't properly welcome.

    I was rarely told that I wasn't welcome as a woman, but if, for example, I mention that I've been playing DnD for 10 years, it doesn't exactly feel welcoming to have them try to take my dice to explain them to me.

    Men practically never have to put up with that kind of bullshit, as I understand.

  • If given a new life would you choose to be born the same sex that you were?
  • 100% this.

    I consider myself a woman, but I'm pretty apathetic about gender all told. I think I'd adjust to being male pretty well? It'd be weird and uncomfortable for a while and I'm sure I'd find things I'd miss about being a woman.

    But between the male privilege and biological advantages (no periods, easier strength, etc), it sounds like a deal to me.

  • Awful Book
  • Yes, omg! And the world building idiocy drove me absolutely insane.

    Like, this one part where the were-something (might have been a werewolf?) was like, "only the first born of any pair of weres will also be a were" or something, and the immediate reaction... was to wonder why the were population wasn't taking over the whole country or whatever. And the were took that seriously, saying the only reason their population wasn't huge was a large number of stillbirths and such.

    They try to backtrack that a few books later, and deal with the actual consequences of the fact that they literally can't increase their population without polyamory - clearly someone informed the author of how stupid that was - but still, that initial response was some of the most obviously not-thought-out world building I've seen.

    ... okay, maybe that's not true, but some of the worst I've ever seen in a book I continued to read, anyway.

  • Pick One: Which is your favorite way to read books?
  • I used to love physical books, but I just can't do them anymore. It's eBooks all the way - on my phone, namely.

    I love to read so much and the ability to have my book on me at all times is irresistible. Going to the bathroom? Waiting at the doctor's office? A few minutes break at work? Snuggling in bed at night and I don't want to turn on a light and disturb my partner?

    I've tried a few times to read physical books in the last few years, and having gotten addicted to the pleasure of reading whenever the hell I want, I just can't anymore.

    Audiobooks are great for long car drives, but I rarely do those, so they're a very occasional treat for me.

  • degree in bamf
  • Oh, no denying that at all. It is a problem, especially in aggregate.

    When looking at the big picture, those rotten apples really do spoil the bunch and it can be depressing.

    But also people can take that big picture awareness of problems and hate on people a little universally. Saying things like humanity is awful and a plague on the earth and maybe shouldn't exist. There's absolutely reason to see things that way.

    But we are also a species that dolphins can approach for help when they're injured. Or that will fight tooth and nail to help a wild creature. Or who will sacrifice their own well-being, not just for friends and family, but for strangers. Who will take other creatures, like dogs, into our homes and hearts and love them with all we have.

    We can suck as a species, absolutely. We need to fix it. But it's important to remember the joys of humanity, and not just the failures. Both are extreme, for we are a rather extreme species!

  • degree in bamf
  • It really is a matter of perspective.

    You're saying that 10% of the population being awful means that a "huge number" are deeply broken.

    So then 90% are being good! Mind, it doesn't take too many assholes to wreck things for everyone, but it is nice that the majority of folks really are trying to do their best. A sizeable majority, even!

  • Removed
    Turning Men Down In Public
  • None of this is saying don't hit on women.

    It's saying that some men are complete assholes when they're rejected, and so it's not a simple and straightforward thing to reject men.

    Don't invalidate the experiences of women who have had reason to have trouble. Don't say stupid shit like "just say no, why do women gotta do things like ghost people," etc.

    And if you do hit on women, don't give them a hard time for rejecting you! They're allowed to say no, for any reason, and they aren't required to justify themselves to you.

    But absolutely continue to pursue women - respectfully.

  • Why Florida might sue Maine over abortion, transgender health care shield law. What to know
  • Thank you very much!

    Yeah, I've run into that plenty myself. Hell, I'm a woman and I have a wife, and I was once accused of being homophobic... as I was trying to explain why I was happy about living thousands of kilometers from my family.

    It really bugs me when people accuse people like my grandparents of being "hateful." If my grandparents see that, they'll just see more "proof" that left wingers have no idea what they're talking about.

    I can't do anything to fix the issues on the conservative side of the fence - I really wish I could - but I can hopefully help on my side of the fence, with fostering better understanding and communication.

    My break from conservative thinking was... uh... perhaps best described as a violent psychological event. I went from thinking we were the good guys, to maybe getting some things wrong, to suddenly realizing I'd been unknowingly on the side of evil my whole life. Meeting someone who was gay and hearing his story, about the abuse he took from people who acted exactly as I'd been taught to... Stars above, that ripped out my heart.

    And if I hadn't already had my beliefs cracking and under pressure, I'd have blown off his story as pure manipulation.

    It's a whole thing, for me. I can only hope for reconciliation of some kind. My family members aren't really evil people - they mean well, even if they only consider people who are straight, white, and Christian to be fully people.

    But calling them things they aren't won't ever get them to listen.

    Not that I know what would get them to listen, beyond convincing their pastor of things...

  • Why Florida might sue Maine over abortion, transgender health care shield law. What to know
  • I get where you're coming from and why, I really do, but I think saying stuff like that is really unhelpful.

    I'm about as left wing as they come, but I grew up in rural Florida. All the bullshit you see about the place? That's my family. None of them specifically have shown up on the news, but still, it's them - their beliefs, attitudes, etc.

    The issue isn't deception or manipulation from regular conservatives. When my grandparents / cousins spit out that sort of bullshit, that's not what's going on.

    The issue, rather, is a complex one that is, among other things, a thing of trust.

    They believe, honestly and truly, in Fox News. They believe in their preachers. They believe that homosexuality is a demon that possesses people, and by interacting with "the gays," you "open the door" to demonic influence in your life.

    That last bit is an example of something I was outright taught.

    When my grandparents talk about how it'd be good for America to round up all the gays and put them in concentration camps, what they're feeling is protectiveness. They want to protect people from Satan's influence, and if someone has accepted the enemy to the point of being proudly gay, then why should people be sympathetic to them? Get rid of them all, obviously.

    Yes, it's insane and hurtful and stupid and so frustrating that I haven't spoken to my extended family in a few years.

    But they're not trying to trick people. They don't need to think about what they believed before, they don't need to second guess what's right, they know what's right. What's right is believing in the authority figures they've been trained to believe in. What is right is to listen, to obey, to fight as they are directed to fight, for the good of all.

    It's horrifying from the outside, but from the inside, it's a safe little bubble where you don't have to wonder and worry about what is the right thing to do. It's easy - the only hard part is acting on it. Do what's right, and everything else will fall into place. It's simple and feels good.

    To challenge that way of thinking, to suggest that they have to figure it out themselves - that's a huge ask. Going against what they've been taught their whole lives, and for what? To have to deal with moral uncertainty and unsolvable moral dilemmas? That's hardly a reason to change.

  • Stuck
  • That is an excellent point. Yeah, PSI would totally read as pounds times square inches which would be something else entirely. Adding in the extra P would fix it, too. PPSI. Suppose it's another thing that people just have to get used to, haha.

  • Stuck
  • Because in^2 is generally said "square inches."

    So it's "pounds per square inch."

    Sometimes "per" will get its own letter, like in PPM - parts per million - and sometimes it's left off, as in PSI.

  • Learn the rules, then break them!
  • I've explicitly taught this concept in my English classes, actually.

    A run on sentence, for example, is a fantastic tool for expressing overly excited rambling from a character.

    It only works for that purpose if the rest of the writing isn't full of run on sentences.

    You have to know the rules and follow them well in order to break them for effect. I told my kids that if they obviously broke a rule for effect in their writing, I wouldn't hold it against them, but it'd only work if they were otherwise near perfect with that rule.

    I had one take me up on it! It was cool. She also wrote a postscript explaining what she did and why, which was hilarious, because it was pretty obvious. She'd used sentence fragments to show incredulity. It was great.

  • Lego Sashimi (stop motion)
  • This was really cool and honestly fascinating, but I am deeply confused by the music choice.

    Why are they using this gentle music (His Theme / Memory) from the game Undertale as background for cutting apart a Lego fish?

  • The lethal doses of 55 substances
  • It's complicated. Short version, over a small amount of time.

    In the case of water, how it kills you is by diluting your blood, basically. Your kidneys will be working extremely hard (and quickly) to empty out the excess water, so for the most part, you've got to drink much faster than your kidneys can work.

    That said, it's not just speed - other stuff gets cleaned out with your urine, like certain vitamins and such. Drinking excess water over a long time, but significantly more than what's on the chart, will drain you of certain nutrients / electrolytes, and that'll screw you, too.

    Drinking sports drinks in that quantity could actually sidestep that particular problem, drastically raising the amount of water you can take in.

    One way or another, though, while it's possible to hurt or kill yourself from drinking too much water, you have to bring it to some serious extremes and your body should be vehemently complaining during this process.

    If ever you think you're doing something extreme and might possibly be slightly risky in this regard, just drink some electrolyte heavy stuff instead for a while - Gatorade, Powerade, etc. Then your only risk is basically outrunning your kidneys and your stomach should really be making you throw up if you try that.

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    Wandering_Uncertainty @lemmy.world
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