If you’re sick of talking about That Man, talk about anything other than him here. And enjoy the weirdest pic I could rustle up on short notice.
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Open Thread to boycott the inauguration and talk about anything but Trump
A thing that is helping me lose weight right now is just the promise of no more ready-made food. Wasn’t even the reason I promised myself to cut that out; was just to be healthier, but I dropped three kilos already.
That of course doesn’t work for everybody, as cooking takes time. But I am unemployed, so if there is one thing I have it is time. 🙂
@Kupo
Definitely no for ume, momo/peach is slightly open since it has so many cultivars.
Now looking at “fruits originating from Asia” category…
@Skiriki
I tried looking for a list of all varieties of stone fruit and that’s surprisingly hard to find. You’d think there would be a list like that somewhere.
@ImaginaryPetal
As someone who was abused as a child, I relate to feeling detached in many ways to it. I know it has affected me but I’m not sure how to deal so I just don’t.
I think it was brave to share and just want you to know I hear your voice. I’m sorry I’m not very eloquent on the subject.
I lost partial sight in one eye due to it. I didn’t inherit chronic pain but partial blindness and it makes me pretty angry.
I can’t imagine how frustrating chronic pain must be. Please take care of yourself.
I just realized I had intended to reply to Petal but did not. Thank you for sharing with us, Petal. I’m glad you don’t feel traumatized at this point.
@kupo:
I think I found it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loquat
And in retrospect, I think the fuzz was on the underside, not the topside; then again, it was 35 years ago… 😀
I have to ask the source for that shark image. Is it from a live action version of Gyo?
@Victorious Parasol
Hugs on the loss of your dad. My dad died 8 years ago on my birthday, and last year was the first birthday I got through almost the entire day before I remembered. It takes time.
@Alan Robertshaw
Thanks, the Imperial War Museum is indeed great. I’m only familiar with the main London IWM location…never been to the Manchester site….as for the present issue, though, the overall “division of labour”, so to speak, in terms of the British army’s History is (or at least traditonally has been) that generally the Imperial War Museum has the twentieth-century and twenty-first century stuff while anything earlier (army-wise anyway) tends to be at the National Army Museum. (They used to be in Little Chelsea, not sure where the new refurbished site is.) There’s still overlap, of course, particularly in the larger IWM archival and manuscript collections especially where some twentieth-century person collected older stuff and it stayed with his or her personal papers when the IWM got it. But for this class we have to rely on published accounts anyway. Fortunately the Army Records Society published this excellent edited version of the journal of a Seven Year’s War era British soldier William Todd. (Todd’s sister contributed content to the original eighteenth-century manuscript near or shortly after his death, but she’s not mentioned on catalog records of the modern published version….grrrr….)
I made more progress in Japanese with Anki and Tae Kim. Honestly out of my hobbies of learning accounting online, gaming, math and this, learning Japanese seems to be the one I struggle with but am having the most fun with.
Speaking of struggles, I decided several weeks ago instead of bashing my head against a textbook to understand college level calculus, I’d go through the entirety of Khan Academy’s math courses. Right now I’m slowing down a bit as I forgot an embarrassing amount of things in Algebra 1-2, but strangely after completing a bunch of previous course lessons I feel more confident that I’ll be able to do a better job this time.
@IP, Schnookums
Ohlmann’s advice about removing/limiting soda is a good one. It might help the transition to keep a pitcher of cold mint tea or similar in the fridge, to add a little ‘oomph’ to the water
@Vicki P, IP
*hugs*
@WWTH
I’ll keep looking. Leaving aside the possible complications, the degree to which it actually works appears to be a bit iffy.
@OoglyBoggles
My brother’s recommendation is to get hold of some of your favorite media (movies, tv, books, etc.) in Japanese translation; since you already have a very good idea of what’s being said, you can parse it our easier.
@Dalillama
Thanks to potential Diabetes concerns I’ve actually almost completely eliminated soda (I have one once in a while but I now consider drinking sugary soda to be a treat rather then a matter of course). I haven’t had a chance to weigh myself but it’s been about a month and a half now and I’m pretty sure I’ve already lost some weight.
@Ooglyboggles
Japanese and English are about as different as languages get. Everyone struggles with going from one to the other. But it’s still fun. 🙂 I agree with the suggestion to watch/read media in the language. Rosetta Stone is good if you can afford it; I learned more Kanji in just a few sessions of that than I did from hours of memorization.
As for math, I had the same problem with having forgotten a lot of algebra, but I did fine in all my college calculus classes once I’d gone back and taken pre-calc. I’m sure you’ll do fine. 🙂
@ pavlov’s house
Ah, that’s interesting. I didn’t know that so thanks. Must confess although I like some historical documents (especially the Vindolanda letter) I’m a bit of a Philistine, so at the military museums I’m usually “Ooh, tanks”. I particularly love Bovington. They have tanks and across the road is a monkey sanctuary. Unfortunately they’ve missed the opportunity to mix the two (I don’t know why they even bother having a suggestions box).
I wonder if the national archive has anything relevant. I know they have some private papers, although that tends to be more ‘famous’ people rather than ordinary folks. Might be worth an email though.
@Nequam
Oooo! That’s so cool! :O
I’m waiting for the livestream preview of the new vampire GP coming out for Sims 4. I’m also looking up pic of French Baroque architecture of a build I’m doing.
I’ve been Simming a lot lately.
Partially inspired by the recent Games Done Quick 2017 marathon (which raised over $2.2 million for cancer prevention) I’ve taken up speed-running Super Mario World.
I’m starting with the “11 Exit” run, which is basically the shortest full path to Bowser (I’m also doing the “glitchless” variant because I am not near practiced enough yet to start pulling off glitch tricks). This run is appealing because 1) it only required learning the routes to 11 levels (plus Bowser’s castle) so it didn’t take forever to start logging full runs, and 2) even a relative newbie can complete the run in under 20 minutes with a bit of practice, so it’s easy to squeeze in a quick run or two when I’ve got some time.
Unfortunately, also for those same reasons, it’s a very competitive category. I don’t hold much hope of ever making a top 10 run, but it’s still fun to practice and compete against myself, and set goals that I know I can reach with practice. For example, my current best time is 13:35 but the sum of my best attempts at each level is down to 11:49, so I know a “sub 12” time is definitely within my ability, and I’d be very very happy to hit that.
@dlouwe
I hear speed running is mostly done on instinct, that they’ve played the game so much they could do it with their eyes closed. You’ve got to practice everyday to get to that. I wish you luck!
@chesselwitt
Thank you. There are moments that are pretty rough at times.
@Alan Robertshaw
I’m actually interested in tanks beyond just ‘Ooh Tanks!’, but what’s Bovington like? I’ve never actually been there, although I have been to Panzermuseum Munster, which is an excellent place for tank enthusiasts (only surviving Sturmtiger! Yay!). If you are interested in the early development of tank design and usage from ca. 1916 to 1933, allow me to recommend the following book to you: ‘The Fighting Tanks since 1916’ from Ralph E. Jones, George H. Rarey and Robert J. Icks.
On a more general note, has anyone else here ever read the Long Earth series from Pratchet/Baxter? If not, I highly recommend checking the series out at some point, as it is truly fantastic.
@Imaginary Petal
I am also trying to lose weight, possibly in preparation for gastric sleeve surgery down the road (although I am hoping it won’t be necessary, still, for me it is an option my insurance may pay for).
I don’t know what you envision by collaboration, but I do have a few things that have helped me. I, too, have chronic pain issues that keep me from exercising.
Enlist the support of your doctor. This has been REALLY valuable to me because she treats my other issues (depression, anxiety disorder, smoking cessation) and is a kind of cheerleader for me who keeps me motivated. It somehow helps me stay on track if I know I have to report to her in 6 weeks and I want her to be proud of me (doing it for my own pride doesn’t seem to work as well).
Secondly, I have found myfitnesspal app (also available online, for free) to be hugely useful in both determining my caloric intake and tracking it. When I track everything the weight really does just kind of fall off.
Thirdly, I’m also meeting with a behavioral therapist to learn some skills in coping with my relationship with food and overeating.
Anytime you need moral support, you just holler. I’m not here as much as some of the other regulars but I do care about the commentariat here.
I also want to congratulate you on telling your wife about your past sexual abuse. I don’t have a lot of advice for you but I will just say that I was married for many years to a man who had also been sexually abused (although with different circumstances). He told me before we were married but he has told me that it was the beginning of him getting help for himself – he eventually did go to therapy and has made peace with it since. Maybe this will be a start of something for you, too, or maybe you’ll find you’re okay.
There was a terrible event in my city yesterday when a man with a history of domestic violence, among other things, and who was on the run from police for allegedly stabbing a man, and who is thought to have kidnapped a woman unrelated to him during his rampage through the city (she got away on top of one of the busiest and largest bridges in the city where there’s no pedestrian walkway – I can only imagine what she went through), this man finally did burnouts in the busiest cbd intersection before police again pursued him, ploughing up two pedestrian malls, hitting at least 20 people and killing four, including a child. Police only stopped his killing spree by shooting him in his car, in a crowded mall, which must have been one of the hardest decisions to make.
We’re all a little shell-shocked this morning. I know people who witnessed it from their office windows. Melbourne is usually a very peaceful city – we’ve had gangland shootings, and a couple of massacres, but this is a new feeling of terror. (It’s not a terrorism related incident, btw.)
Sorry – I just had to unload that. I have to go back into the cbd today for a course (I’m learning how to make coffee) and I’m dreading seeing the change in my beloved city. I managed to avoid the troubled area yesterday when I left work.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jan/20/car-pedestrians-bourke-street-melbourne?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I managed to burn off some social tension. I’m nearly finished with a first draft of a long term creative goal, a symbolic model of social conflict in comment sections. There were pieces that it’s taken a while to fit together but now it’s all finding the best representation. .
Persons interact in different dispositions and kinds of actions in a field of social context and social objects. Advance and withdraw takes place along axes like Direct/Indirect, explicit/implicit, overt/covert and a general “positive attractant/negative repellant”. Movements are relative to objects and person’s specified by comments, and opinions/arguments/characteristics they contain.
The requirements to confirm what a de facto combatant presents are measured against what they offer. From this compare/contrast social manipulations are outlined in a manner that is as group-neutral as possible in description if structure. Rhetoric seperated from content on a level that respects the fact that nature made us socially manipulative primates and that it had good expression too.
That’s what I’m hoping anyway. I’m in the middle of precisely representing the back and forth over object and feeling between comments to effectively represent changes to things like precise object/subject of communication/criticism, changes in requirements for claims about reality, and the way humor and other phenomena manipulate where attention is directed.
I feel strange. Minecraft is fun again too. I’m building glass tunnels in the nether.
I’d like to thank the WHtM community for responding in such a kind, calming and considerate way when I was freaking out a few days prior because of someone threatening suicide and ”blaming” (sorry, not a native speaker) me for it. I was being completely off topic and it was a panic attack, but yeah, thank you for the kindness and patience.
The person is ”fine” now, the next day he was being all happy suddenly and does appear that way as well in his interactions with others. To me, he’s remained passive-aggresive and clingy/nice at the same time. Reason enough after everything else to assume that him and I will never get along well; he cost me tremendous amounts of energy (literally still tired) and I cannot deal with this type of behaviour/issues very well. The unstable, radically changing moods and extremes, (in both feelings and words) to the point of suicide and self-harm by starvation are more than I can deal with, especially if it’s all changing so rapidly and nothing stays the same. (as in, highly unpredictable, yet very extreme, *especially* if he relates it to ME, and expects me to behave in certain ways or gets angry if I don’t act a certain way and then says how I torture him)
I have Asperger’s myself and I need to remain stable for my own well-being (I can’t deal with stress very well and if I’m too much out of balance I get all kinds of issues) and people like him, whatever his issues are, are bad for my mental stability.
In a way I see the whole thing (there was much more) as a learning experience, I learned my own boundaries better, and to trust my gut feeling/judgement more about certain behaviours and situations.
Anyway, thank you for the listening ear when I suddenly needed it and thanks for thinking with me/offering suggestions. That’s very nice of you and I appreciate it.
@Lucrece: wow, that sounds like a nightmare, that is so horrible. I hope that the people who need it, have access to help.
@Lucrece, Vicky, IP, Margot, everyone, much love and hugs from here. Rough stuff lately for a number of us. I’m glad that we’re all pushing through and improving, even if it’s just in small ways. Best wishes for Melbourne, too. That’s horrible.
@Brony, I’m glad to hear from you! I can’t wait to read your analysis. It sounds like it’ll be something I’ll refer to a lot.
@IP, I’ve gone through almost identical circumstances, though I’ve never told anyone, and he’s now a next-door neighbour again. It’s behind me, but I have a hard time looking across the street without thinking about it. I’m glad you’ve found a little bit of peace with it, and bravo for telling your wife.