Random Thread

[Travis B.]

And yes, psych meds that work are a godsend.

I have very little patience for the people who are ideologically or philosophically opposed to them. If they don't want to use them, that's their choice, but asserting that it's somehow universally bad or wrong to take them? Your fucking philosophical musings are pretty weak tea compared to the raw experience of unmedicated depression.

Agreed completely. Those who think that psych meds are somehow ideologically or philosophically bad don't understand how bad unmedicated major mental illness really is much of the time and negate the experiences of those who really have to deal with such based on their own ignorance and petty biases.

[Raphael]

Today I learned that there's a sport named pickleball.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickleball

[linguistcat]

Today I learned that there's a sport named pickleball.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickleball

Yeah, it's pretty popular where I live near the Utah-Idaho border, but I rarely heard about it before I moved out here and didn't really know what it was.

[WeepingElf]

And yes, psych meds that work are a godsend.

I have very little patience for the people who are ideologically or philosophically opposed to them. If they don't want to use them, that's their choice, but asserting that it's somehow universally bad or wrong to take them? Your fucking philosophical musings are pretty weak tea compared to the raw experience of unmedicated depression.

Agreed completely. Those who think that psych meds are somehow ideologically or philosophically bad don't understand how bad unmedicated major mental illness really is much of the time and negate the experiences of those who really have to deal with such based on their own ignorance and petty biases.

And I concur with that, too. I have been on psych meds for years, and they do dampen my mood swings that were pretty bad before, and have not done harm to me.

[alice]

I have very little patience for the people who are ideologically or philosophically opposed to them. If they don't want to use them, that's their choice, but asserting that it's somehow universally bad or wrong to take them? Your fucking philosophical musings are pretty weak tea compared to the raw experience of unmedicated depression.

Agreed completely. Those who think that psych meds are somehow ideologically or philosophically bad don't understand how bad unmedicated major mental illness really is much of the time and negate the experiences of those who really have to deal with such based on their own ignorance and petty biases.

And I concur with that, too. I have been on psych meds for years, and they do dampen my mood swings that were pretty bad before, and have not done harm to me.

What WeepingElf said. Mine were stopped at my doctor's suggestion last year, and a few months ago I suffered a very unpleasant recurrence of an old problen I thought had buggered off for good.

[Travis B.]

What WeepingElf said. Mine were stopped at my doctor's suggestion last year, and a few months ago I suffered a very unpleasant recurrence of an old problen I thought had buggered off for good.

If I forget mine more than about one day in a row, my mood promptly gets wonky.

[Man in Space]

What WeepingElf said. Mine were stopped at my doctor's suggestion last year, and a few months ago I suffered a very unpleasant recurrence of an old problen I thought had buggered off for good.

If I forget mine more than about one day in a row, my mood promptly gets wonky.

I had a scheduling hiccup where I missed a single dose and my sleep schedule was messed up for about a month.

[Man in Space]

A while back, I was so dissatisfied with my former employer and lack of job prospects that I gave serious thought to starting a record label (and this in the sense of you-can-hold-it-in-your-hands vinyl). I would call it *h₂stḗr Records, and there would be two sub-imprints: *h₂ŕ̥tḱos for everything metal and *h₃érō for everything else. The first release would of course be King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard's Polygondwanaland (the boys literally said "We don't own this record. You do." when they announced it, helpfully reducing the cost of securing the permissions), but part of me thinks that's basically clickbait but with music rights.

[MacAnDàil]

A while back, I was so dissatisfied with my former employer and lack of job prospects that I gave serious thought to starting a record label (and this in the sense of you-can-hold-it-in-your-hands vinyl). I would call it *h₂stḗr Records, and there would be two sub-imprints: *h₂ŕ̥tḱos for everything metal and *h₃érō for everything else. The first release would of course be King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard's Polygondwanaland (the boys literally said "We don't own this record. You do." when they announced it, helpfully reducing the cost of securing the permissions), but part of me thinks that's basically clickbait but with music rights.

That sounds cool. How would you go about it?

PS Are you still in Seven Kill Steel? And is this the grindcore band you successfully joined?

[Raphael]

Trivial note: It's a bit weird which physical length of ribbon you need for a fairly small gift package.

[Man in Space]

That sounds cool. How would you go about it?

I am not actually sure. It’s still in the pipe-dream stage and I haven’t actually done anything with it lately.

Are you still in Seven Kill Steel?

Yes. It goes in fits and starts because everybody except Ben has health issues and/or children.

And is this the grindcore band you successfully joined?

No, for them I quickly learned I was a contingency because nobody else wanted to join up with them and they were planning on getting rid of me as soon as somebody else did. If that had been made clear to me at the beginning I wouldn’t have had a problem with it, but with the subterfuge going on there I decided to show myself out.

[Moose-tache]

[doctor shark]

Random: I just got back from a combined conference/vacation trip in southern Italy, going from a heatwave to a quite cold late July here in the Netherlands. My last time in Italy was 21 years ago, so it was quite strange to be back there as an adult and more with a fully "Italian" experience rather than the one-foot-in, one-foot-out that I had with my parents and access to the military facilities, but a good strange. Traffic was still anarchic, Naples and Palermo were really full of too many tourist traps, the timetables for most things (especially at the conference) were hopeful guidelines, at best, and the weather was too hot to really spend long periods outside, but the food was great (especially the gelato, necessary in the heatwave!), the sights and culture were wonderful (I loved visiting Ercolano/Herculaneum), and I definitely got a lot of nice things, scientifically and in terms of food and souvenirs.

It's also a bit strange revisiting places after so long. I remember also visiting Paris as an adult after being there as a kid, and that was a bit surreal in terms of what was familiar and what I remembered versus (re-)discovering new stuff, and same with visiting London. I think now I'm at a point also where I want to revisit more places rather than just saying "I've been there before; no need to go back when I can see a new thing!".

[chris_notts]

This seems like sparkling glottochronology, but still interesting. I guess it explains the divergence of Anatolian languages: they just went in the opposite direction to everyone else right at the beginning.

New language database narrows search for first speakers of Indo-European

https://www.science.org/content/article ... o-european

[foxcatdog]

reddit is abysmal

[WeepingElf]

This seems like sparkling glottochronology, but still interesting. I guess it explains the divergence of Anatolian languages: they just went in the opposite direction to everyone else right at the beginning.

New language database narrows search for first speakers of Indo-European

https://www.science.org/content/article ... o-european

It is indeed sparkling glottochronology, and worthless. It is also nothing new - those misguided scientists (they are not even linguists, let alone Indo-Europeanists!) have been abusing their academic credentials to peddle this nonsense for many years.

[bradrn]

This seems like sparkling glottochronology, but still interesting. I guess it explains the divergence of Anatolian languages: they just went in the opposite direction to everyone else right at the beginning.

New language database narrows search for first speakers of Indo-European

https://www.science.org/content/article ... o-european

It is indeed sparkling glottochronology, and worthless. It is also nothing new - those misguided scientists (they are not even linguists, let alone Indo-Europeanists!) have been abusing their academic credentials to peddle this nonsense for many years.

At least their database their database sounds useful, though.

EDIT: seems to be this one — https://iecor.clld.org/

[rotting bones]

I hear different groups are fighting to take credit for the latest superconductor paper. This is apparently a sign it might be real. If it's real, then fusion power will eventually be solved. If fusion power is solved, then the world can finally tell Saudi Arabia to fuck off.

[keenir]

I hear different groups are fighting to take credit for the latest superconductor paper. This is apparently a sign it might be real. If it's real, then fusion power will eventually be solved. If fusion power is solved, then the world can finally tell Saudi Arabia to fuck off.

only if superconductivity-related energy is easy and cheap; til then (and maybe even then, if the power plants are expensive), can't tell them that any more than "the world" can do it now.

[bradrn]

I hear different groups are fighting to take credit for the latest superconductor paper. This is apparently a sign it might be real. If it's real, then fusion power will eventually be solved. If fusion power is solved, then the world can finally tell Saudi Arabia to fuck off.

Fusion power is hardly a cure-all, superconductors or no superconductors. Perhaps a room-temperature superconductor would make it easier, but that’s a relative term: plasma is a difficult substance to control, and in any case the energy density is abysmal. It’s far better to focus on solar and wind, with fission as a distant third — there’s plenty enough of those to go around.