I love bridges. If I see a cool looking bridge, I want to cross it, especially if it goes somewhere that I’m not familiar with. Same with stairs outdoors. They feel like an adventure to me.
i was gonna say 6 at the first pic, but the second pic makes me think it’s an 8! nice taper, nice size, i like how the little nubs add visual interest.
Eighty national public health groups, including the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Preventative Medicine, placed a full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post in support of a federal ban on menthol in cigarettes and all...
It’s like people in this thread don’t realize how massively addictive caffeine is? I see addicts all the time try to excuse their addictions with every excuse in the book. I was addicted once. It took every part of my soul to quit that shit. caffeine is a mistake many make and don’t come back from and pretend it their choice shit should be band. Just did to it’s addictive nature. Banned for the same reason lotterys are generat only owned by the state. Shits is a a great investment. People will kill themselves or others to give you money
my sibling in christ. where are you getting this stuff? you sound like you’re parroting something you were told but have little actual scientific or experiential understanding.
the evangelical christians think this war means the second coming of jesus is imminent. so they are a little horrified but mostly all excited about it.
edit - and in case anyone thinks i’m making this shit up, i’m surrounded by these people and have been my whole life. i talk to them and i see their media and social media. their eyes light up.
i mean, yeah, i have to FORCE myself to get every one, the side effects are so awful. but i figure two days of that has got to be better than actually getting covid.
btw, some of the federal funding that public schools receive is tied to attendance. so in addition to whatever cultural pressures are in operation in schools, they REALLY want students there every day for financial reasons as well.
i mean… i would like to go to europe, but where on earth do i find the time off work and the money to do it?
that americans are not better traveled is not entirely the fault of their attitudes. it’s easier for your average european to travel internationally for a number if reasons, both practical and systemic.
edit - for many americans, international travel is a privilege.
(edit - i live in the us) i can purchase extra insurance for short-term and for long-term sick leave.
right now, i have ten days of paid time off for whatever reason per year (no explicit sick leave) and i pay about $650 a month for insurance which covers very little for myself and my kids until i have spent at least $6000 on any one of us or $15000 for all of us together. i make about $50k a year before tax and insurance.
and our compensation package (paid time off and insurance) is considered pretty good for my area.
i could buy better insurance and short and long term leave, but this would cost about half of what i make. unfortunately, half of what i make already goes to rent.
i think a lot of us feel the problems are so entrenched, and any lower bar to change so inaccessible, nothing short of violence will create any significant change.
given how difficult it would be to (for example) change our constitution or end corporate political contributions through non-violent means, what’s left? every part of our current system is self-reinforcing on the national level.
it doesn’t help that the sentimental commitment to “our founding fathers” is equivalent to something like religious faith (see - christofascism, american nationalism) and/or national identity (because we don’t have any other).
the american population, however, is deadlocked in their opposed visions of what progress looks like, and leadership is not strong enough to do much more than continue to consolidate and protect their own power and authority.
again, change at the lower bars you have proposed is very difficult indeed, and requires shared vision that is very hard to come by here. it doesn’t help people to feel change can be obtained through current systems or non-violent strikes that a) financial constraints are so much harder to overcome than in previous decades (i.e. trying to strike could mean inability to feed or house yourself or to afford needed medical care) and b) what change we managed in recent decades has been rolled back (roe v. wade) or is under attack (civil rights).
i hate that my comment is so negative and i don’t want to discourage any fellow americans from trying to create positive change. i’m just sharing my own voice and why it’s hard to imagine success short of revolution. i feel like advocacy and voting are all i can really do right now, and they are honestly not very effective.
i never really thought of it a code switching, but that’s an apt description. there’s definitely “professional” me and “hometown-accent-in-full-force” me.
A Staten Island woman buying pot from a local deli got into a misunderstanding with the cashier — who ended up macing her, dragging her outside by her hair, kicking her in the head and mistakenly calling her trans.
look, it’s a word most american women don’t hear directed at themselves outside of really hateful or abusive contexts. i have been called “bitch” in the grocery store. i was called “cunt” by my abuser, and only by him.
the person who challenged you has a good point - the use of that word in american culture is intended to be particularly dehumanizing and degrading to women.
compare - if you had used “n…” you would have likely been challenged there as well, regardless of your intent in using that word or your own identity.
Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled....
Workers in California will soon receive a minimum of five days of paid sick leave annually, instead of three, under a new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Wednesday....
so if we were the player characters right now, who the heck picked me, why would they play me this way? what kind of person would want to play this out - someone very like me or very different? couldn’t they have rolled again for better hair? i dunno, interesting thought experiment. 🤔
well, the particular manifestation of his psychosis isn’t common (eating people), but psychotic disorders aren’t super uncommon and they still aren’t as well understood as we might like. unfortunately, not everyone responds well to treatment - it can take some effort to figure out which meds are effective and for some minority of patients, nothing really helps at all.
in this case, it sounds like he responded very well and perhaps (haven’t read more than what’s posted above) had not been treated before. at the very least, treated insufficiently well, clearly. it doesn’t hurt that he was forced to receive treatment and supervision for a long period of time, and given his high profile case, maybe got the best psychiatric care available to him. i’m happy he was able to get some help.
maybe not… a high profile case like this may well have attracted the attention of more competent psychiatrists, or motivated his care team/state to seek it out. it also seems possible to me that his psychosis was very treatable with the right meds, but that he had not been able to access that care previously.
so yeah. mental health care is health care, and in this case it’s important not only to the well-being of Mr. Smith but to his community as well. i agree with you that, for the american “justice” system, most cases are treated as it punishment is the correct response.
it’s a complicated issue, and we need to get society on board with the idea of treating mental health (to both a sufficient and humane degree) in addition to physical health. moving away from the institutionalization model was intended to ensure people weren’t just locked away to rot at the state hospital under the “supervision” of indifferent or hostile caretakers.
without community support and with the move toward profit-driven healthcare, people aren’t going to get what they need. now our institutions are just literal prisons instead of asylums.
but anyway, i know you know most of this already (the shortcomings of the profit-driven model), as someone working in healthcare.
In the post shared by Musk, the account lamented the presence of humanitarian groups in the Mediterranean Sea that rescue migrants from distressed vessels....
supposedly. not at the local grocery chain, according to them. at the pharmacy chain i can get one, but my teens will only get them if they are covered by state health insurance, which they aren’t. my income from my new job stopped that instantly, but my coverage doesn’t start until november. they’re in limbo.
edit - so i’m just waiting. i guess i could get mine at least.
A YouTube prankster who was shot by one his targets told jurors Tuesday he had no inkling he had scared or angered the man who fired on him as the prank was recorded....
okay, i was with you for the first couple of paragraphs. but it’s worth pointing out
a) people with access to guns are significantly more likely to find success in suicide attempts, and reducing access to lethal means does make a difference.
b) even big cities are, on the whole, safer than a lot of people imagine. i say this as an american in a massive city, in a state with very liberal gun laws. but when you have millions of people in one place, statistically speaking you are going to have more crime. i don’t think most american cities are some kind of purge-like shithole, they’re mostly comprised of ordinary people doing their thing.
that we’re talking about suicidal people is not irrelevant in considering that guns contribute to elevated rates of death. most people who make a suicide attempt do so within a relatively short time of the impulse to act. the accessibility of something which is likely to be very effective and quick in enabling them to complete the act with lower likelihood that they will be able to seek help if they have second thoughts means more success for those attempts. and while i’m not necessarily a “ban all guns” type it’s worth understanding that guns contribute measurably to mortality in this way.
as for rest, i’m a big fan of nuance, but data can illuminate our understanding of complex issues and things we might keep in mind when looking for solutions.
you’re putting words in my mouth. i didn’t say i am fully pro- or anti-gun (much less fully pro- or anti-alcohol). i was challenging your comment that suicides can be disregarded when examining lethality in connection to gun access.
yes, the tool matters. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34953923/“Results: Of 10,708 studies screened, 34 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Based on the suicide acts that resulted in death or hospitalization, firearms were found to be the most lethal method (CFR:89.7%), followed by hanging/suffocation (84.5%), drowning (80.4%), gas poisoning (56.6%), jumping (46.7%), drug/liquid poisoning (8.0%) and cutting (4.0%). The rank of the lethality for different methods remained relatively stable across study setting, sex and age group. Method-specific CFRs for males and females were similar for most suicide methods, while method-CFRs were specifically higher in older adults.”
yes, we have a sense of what contributes to more or less successful suicide attempts. (lethal means being a big one). we can study what leads to suicide and to successful versus non-successful attempts by studying not only those who died, but those who attempted and survived, as well as those who are actively suicidal but who ultimately don’t act.
when i speak of impulse, i’m referencing the moment of decision. people can have suicidal ideation for a long time without choosing to act, as you implied - some people face depression for decades. but some just lost everything in a bad business decision or a freak accident. either one may act, and if they act with a gun they are more likely to end up dead than if they take a long drive to the nearest high bridge and walk out onto it.
i’m willing to talk about mental health. i work in mental health professionally.
this particular slippery slope argument is ridiculous to me. no, i don’t think considering suicide-by-gun a part of a larger conversation about gun lethality means i’m going to lose my driver’s license.
lol
to be clear, my only agenda in this conversation was pointing out that widespread access to firearms does, in fact, contribute to more deaths (via suicide) than there would be otherwise, even considering that other means of suicide would remain without gun access. that’s it. whatever agenda you’re on? well, i don’t think you’re much interested in considering data, so i will leave it there.
An Oklahoma judge was arrested in Austin, Texas, last week after authorities say he opened fire on parked vehicles while out driving, striking at least one of them, and intentionally crashed into a woman’s vehicle, telling officers later that she had cut him off....
Back on Christmas Eve of last year there were some reports that Elon Musk was in the process of shutting down Twitter’s Sacramento data center. In that article, a number of ex-Twitter employees wer…
i mean, he may very well not have paid. this is the guy who refused to pay rent on headquarters, and two different people quit/were fired because they wouldn’t just… not pay rent on his orders.
has he paid rent since? as far as i can tell, he just gets away with this shit. edit - looks like an eviction notice was issued this summer, so i’m guess he still hasn’t paid.
i’m with you. late x’er here. my boomer parents’ promises never panned out, my retirement plan is work until i die or check out early if i can’t manage it.
getting lumped in with boomers when i have been served the same shit as the younger generations gets old, but the minds of people who never didn’t have internet is still a bit of a mystery to me.
funny how appropriate the x nomer and all it implies about our generation turned out to be.
i’m late gen x (78), that’s more comfortable to me than being lumped with millennials. (the caveat being, i suppose, that we’re dissimilar in some respects from early gen x.)
internet was not widely available until about the time i started college, and gen x media defined popular culture at that time. i also relate to the notion of being the child of two working parents - the first generation of latchkey kids.
i tend to see millennials as people who were kids when i was in school - and they grew up with the internet.
i just got a job with insurance for the first time in my life, now covering myself and two kids - pay is just enough to take them off state insurance. the high deductable plan still REALLY hurts to pay the premiums. but not having had insurance in my adult life, i can’t tell if it’s worth it or not - i have never gone to doctors i couldn’t pay for out of pocket at the time of service (so almost never).
if you never take loans or use credit cards, your score won’t be very good. you have to prove that you can take on debt and repay it, not just that you can be responsible with your money (by, for example, never taking debt).
i mean, yeah. i agree. but those are rules of the game for plebs in the US. (i’m sure things are different for the super-rich.) you wanna rent an apartment or buy a new car? you have to show good credit or have someone with good credit co-sign any agreement/loan. you might do it on your own if you can show enough income (for rent) or can purchase a car outright (pay the total amount).
you can do these things with bad credit, but you will pay a higher interest rate or settle for something sketchy.
i can’t speak to house-buying (looooool, add me to the list of americans in this thread who will never own a house), but i’m pretty sure it’s the same.
this is what i thought and did not use credit cards for years. i was only able to buy a car with a co-signer. since then, i pay for everything with credit and pay it off all the time to build a credit history. i will need another car at some point.
I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before....
at this point, i’m not sure where to buy most things and not get garbage. every online platform is trying to emulate amazon and become a “marketplace” filled with unvetted cheap shit; stores often have little stock and no one with expertise.
i need a lamp for my office. where do i buy something i can ensure is safe and well made? i have no idea.
i realize this is a small concern relative to the larger failures of capitalism, but free market competition isn’t even successful at providing basic goods and services.
i’m pretty new here (came with the exodus), and it seemed like it would be better for a bit. but i just told a family member a couple hours ago that it seems like the worst of reddit is starting to show up.
As an adult, what seemingly childish things do you get excited about?
I love bridges. If I see a cool looking bridge, I want to cross it, especially if it goes somewhere that I’m not familiar with. Same with stairs outdoors. They feel like an adventure to me.
Removed due to bickering rule (lemmy.world)
How would you rate my stick? (lemmy.world)
1-10. How good of a stick is this? I quite like it....
Dozens of health organizations pledge ‘full support’ for federal ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars (www.cnn.com)
Eighty national public health groups, including the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Preventative Medicine, placed a full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post in support of a federal ban on menthol in cigarettes and all...
CNN Host Left Stunned As IDF Confirms Israel Hit Refugee Camp With Airstrike (newrepublic.com)
NewRepublic.com
Vaccine data shows rates for latest COVID-19 booster is 'abysmal', only 7 percent of U.S. adults with shot (www.pbs.org)
Redditor when women (i.imgur.com)
Wall Street Journal complains about workers using their sick days (boingboing.net)
In the US, there's a good chance you haven't even left your state either (startrek.website)
Woman buying pot from NYC deli maced, dragged by hair, kicked in head by cashier who mistook her for trans (www.nydailynews.com)
A Staten Island woman buying pot from a local deli got into a misunderstanding with the cashier — who ended up macing her, dragging her outside by her hair, kicking her in the head and mistakenly calling her trans.
This (rule)s (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Yes we do
America's nonreligious are a growing, diverse phenomenon. They really don't like organized religion (apnews.com)
Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled....
California workers will get five sick days instead of three under law signed by Gov. Newsom (apnews.com)
Workers in California will soon receive a minimum of five days of paid sick leave annually, instead of three, under a new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Wednesday....
Muahaha! (lemmy.ml)
Microsoft Needs So Much Power to Train AI That It's Considering Small Nuclear Reactors (futurism.com)
Brain-eating cannibal back in public life after 10 years (www.the-express.com)
A man who killed and ate a man has been released back into public life after ten years....
Elon Musk attacked German support for migrants and promoted a call to support the AfD, a far-right extremist political party (www.businessinsider.com)
In the post shared by Musk, the account lamented the presence of humanitarian groups in the Mediterranean Sea that rescue migrants from distressed vessels....
I should buy a lottery ticket (startrek.website)
Night owls and early birds (lemmy.ml)
YouTube prankster says he had no idea he was scaring man who shot him (www.nbcwashington.com)
A YouTube prankster who was shot by one his targets told jurors Tuesday he had no inkling he had scared or angered the man who fired on him as the prank was recorded....
Oklahoma judge opened fire while driving and intentionally crashed his car, police say (www.nbcnews.com)
An Oklahoma judge was arrested in Austin, Texas, last week after authorities say he opened fire on parked vehicles while out driving, striking at least one of them, and intentionally crashed into a woman’s vehicle, telling officers later that she had cut him off....
And I am the Avatar (startrek.website)
The Batshit Crazy Story Of The Day Elon Musk Decided To Personally Rip Servers Out Of A Sacramento Data Center (www.techdirt.com)
Back on Christmas Eve of last year there were some reports that Elon Musk was in the process of shutting down Twitter’s Sacramento data center. In that article, a number of ex-Twitter employees wer…
I’ll fight anyone who shits on Gen Z (i.imgur.com)
Health insurance (lemmy.world)
I'm going to buy a House! (file.coffee)
Credit: Pervis (@PervisTime) - Twitter...
Why must we be done this way? (lemmy.ml)
What's a current or growing trend only you seem to have concerns about?
I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before....
please stay there (feddit.de)