I think it was around the time of the Lord of the Rings movies, and my grandma had a similar freak out when I mentioned my crush on Elijah Wood. She said, “I don’t want any black grandbabies!” She just assumed he was black and that her young grandchild somehow had any chance of making babies with a much older movie star. Joke’s on her though, I’m not giving her any grandbabies.

Ahh, going to the Google news webpage on my phone does give me quite different results compared to when I swipe left from my phone’s home screen.

Interesting. I mindlessly swipe over to the news feed on my Pixel more than I’d like to admit, and it only gives me horoscope type stuff very rarely… Definitely not frequently enough for me to bother trying to block it. I wonder why you’re seeing so much more of it?

I use shampoo maybe once per month, usually only when necessary to remove products such as bleach/dye. Just rinsing it with water is usually enough, but when my hair starts feeling more greasy (maybe once per week), I just use conditioner to help loosen up the dirt. If you’re curious, look up “cowashing” and “no poo” for more information.

Ugh! I’m so sorry, that’s so frustrating! I’m dealing with something kinda similar, and I can’t help but feel like they’re just trying to set me up to “fail”. I’ve been on dextroamphetamine XR for over 10 years, and with my current doctor for 4 years. I recently got a phone call saying that I’ll have to provide a urine sample before they authorize any more refills. When I asked why, all they would say is “it’s policy.”

I’m also in a state with legal recreational marijuana and partake intermittently (probably similar amount as you), and have been very honest with my doctor about that. Additionally, I end up skipping doses sometimes when the side effects (jaw clenching/pain) outweigh the benefits, which is another thing that I’ve discussed with my doctor.

I was planning to switch insurance plans (and therefore doctors) in the new year, so this just gave me one more reason to follow through with that plan.

Whoa! Checking out street view, I’m so impressed by the bike/scooter shares all being parked relatively neatly in designated areas at either end of the block where they aren’t blocking the pedestrian paths!

But the comment says it would apply to buildings with over 10 units. So, for a building with 11 units, that gives 132 unit-months per year. With a maximum unoccupied rate, that’s 6.6 unit-months per year.

As the renter, I’d really appreciate my landlord wait until I’ve actually moved out to start showing my unit, although they don’t always do that. Assume all 11 units decide to move at the end of their leases, that means the owner has a little about 3 weeks per unit to clean, do any maintenance and repairs, and find a new tenant. If the unit needs extensive repairs/cleaning, the owner probably doesn’t want to even start showing it until the repairs are completed. Hopefully most tenants renew their leases and stay longer than 1 year, but the owner can’t count on that. Even on a larger building, the numbers still average out to 3 weeks per unit, but at least the effect of a few extra non-renewals is smaller.

I think a 90% occupancy rate would be a little more realistic, but would probably still need some room for exceptions.

Sorry, lol, that was definitely not my intention! I’ve definitely heard about the “no tattoos” thing before, especially for those following Judaism, but I’d never read the relevant text before, so it definitely surprised me. I may have to ask my sister about it, since that’s definitely her area of study.

Reading through various translations, the first part seems to say "don’t cut/gash your body in honor/memory/mourning of the dead, but most of the translations leave it somewhat ambiguous (at least to me) as to whether it means “don’t tattoo yourself in honor/memory/mourning of the dead” or just, “don’t tattoo yourself at all”. Also, it sounds as though cutting/gashing yourself for other reasons is isn’t breaking any rules.

its why you want a headboard behind your bed.

I don’t understand… possibly because I’ve skipped the headboard for many, many years of my life. Could you please explain?

That’s actually something that varies from country to country.

the American style places commas and periods inside the quotation marks, even if they are not in the original material. British style (more sensibly) places unquoted periods and commas outside the quotation marks. For all other punctuation, the British and American styles are in agreement: unless the punctuation is part of the quoted material, it goes outside the quotation marks.

https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/british-versus-american-style.html

Yes, when I used to order grocery delivery via Amazon Fresh, they always came in paper bags. And I was living in a pretty rainy city at the time, but never had any issues with the bags.

Yeah, um, those look pretty beat. I’ve heard 300-500 miles (~500-800km) for running shoes. I don’t own a car, so I walk a lot, and had been replacing my shoes every 3-4 months since I was wearing a single pair for almost everything. I recently decided to buy one pair for walking and just casual use, and a second pair that’s just for running.

I have definitely had times in the past where I began to notice some minor aches when running, so I bought a new pair of the same shoes, and the aches disappeared!

Maaaan. I’ve tried both the X10’s and the X20’s, and I really liked that they have soft, flexible ear hooks and physical buttons. Some of the other ones I’ve tried had stiffer hooks that would hurt my ears after a while, and/or the controls were via touch, not an actual, clickable button.

But both the X10’s and the X20’s had this weird skipping/stuttering issue whenever I was out and about (walking, running, etc.), but were just fine if I was stationary. I think it must’ve been some sort of interference issue, but I just don’t understand. I have some older bluetooth Soundcore earbuds that don’t have that issue, but they’re on their last legs, so I’ve been trying to find a replacement.

Can you direct me to any sort of source on that? I did a brief search, and I see some information about toxins found in tomato plants in general, (mostly stems, leaves, and green/unripe tomatoes), but nothing that specifically discusses a higher concentration in the “belly button” (I assume you mean the core/where the stem connects?) vs. the rest of the fruit.

On Thunder, you can also long press on a comment or post, and it will bring up an action menu. If you click the “Instance” option there, you should see a “Block Instance” option.

Have you talked to a doctor about it? Would you be able to get up and just go sit on your couch?

One of the things that has really helped me get (back) into habits is to break it into tiny, achievable steps, and once I master the first step, I build on it. For example, I was trying to rebuild my early morning gym routine, so my first step was just walking to the gym everyday, but not actually going inside. Once waking up with enough time to walk there and back was easy, I started getting up a little earlier so that I’d have time to go inside for a bit.

On a slightly separate note, I dug into a bunch of “sleep hacking” stuff a long time ago. A lot of it isn’t really useful to someone trying to live a relatively typical 9-5 type life, but one thing that I did find useful was understanding the basic sleep phases/cycle. One full sleep cycle typically lasts about 90 minutes, although this can vary from person to person, and also from day to day. If your alarm is going off in the middle of a sleep cycle, you’re probably going to feel like crap, but if your alarm is waking you up at the end of a cycle, you’ll probably feel more refreshed.

There’s apps for your phone (and probably for wearables) that can utilize various sensors to help wake you at the ideal stage. The one I used to use was called “Sleep as Android”. I would tell it what time I needed to be awake, plus a buffer of how much earlier it was allowed to wake me up, then leave the phone on my mattress. It would detect my movements to determine my sleep phase so that it could try to wake me up while in the ideal phase. It also had a variety of options so that you couldn’t accidentally turn off the alarm. For example, it could ask you to solve some math questions, or to scan a particular bar/QR code that you’d set up in advance. At one point, I set it so I’d have to scan my shampoo bottle to turn off the alarm.

Sure, but in the context of the post where waking up early may have desirable benefits, there are ways to make it easier on yourself while still getting a good night’s rest.

Honestly, I love that everyone else is still asleep when I get up. I enjoy the peaceful quiet of the early morning gym or an outdoor run at dawn, and if everyone actually took my advice, it would absolutely ruin it for me.

The trick is forcing yourself to get up early. It will be a rough couple of days, but pretty soon, you’ll be exhausted enough to go to sleep earlier. You can also try moving your alarm up in 15 minute increments to achieve the same idea in a slightly less painful way. But, you do have to actually get up when the alarm goes off for the plan to work.

I also find that smart lights really help. Mine gradually dim off in the evenings, and gradually dim on in the mornings, and I usually don’t need a traditional alarm. The dimming should be slow enough that it feels like sunrise/sunset. I usually have mine start dimming on about 15 minutes before I want to get up, and they’re fully off 15 minutes before I’m supposed to be asleep.

I’ve gotten sick less often since masks & WFH, but when I do get sick now, it feels much, much worse. These days, if I think I might be sick, I stay home as much as possible, and wear a good mask when I do have to be near other people, but if I’m feeling well, haven’t knowingly been around anyone sick, and am going somewhere that masks aren’t expected, I just don’t want to wear a steam room on my face.

Also, I live in an area where masking is still very acceptable. I know there’s many other areas where masking is either illegal or just very frowned upon, so I’d probably be pretty hesitant to mask up there, even if I was sick.