Fondots @ Fondots @lemmy.world

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3 yr. ago

Without pay? No. But I do fortunately have some pretty generous PTO at my work, and a bit of a weird work schedule that helps me stretch it even firther if I plan my vacations right.

My wife and I manage to get a bigger trip in every couple years. We're not staying at fancy hotels or anything, but we can go somewhere cool and do some cool stuff, splurge on a couple nice meals, etc.

And usually one or two smaller trips a year, a couple camping trips, or a weekend away or something.

Would like to travel a lot more, but the travel expenses are what prevent it- food, lodging, plane tickets/gas/etc.

You know, it's now occuring to me that I have absolutely no clue what Roblox actually is. It's been around forever, I've been seeing gift cards for it in stores for I'm pretty sure well over a decade, I hear lots of talk about all of the dangers and how addictive it is for kids, etc.

But I haven't the foggiest idea what the game is actually like. To the best of my knowledge I don't think I've ever even seen a single screenshot of it, at least not one that was clearly labeled as being from Roblox.

And while I'm a childfree curmudgeon in my 30s, I do have a few friends with kids that I see with some regularity, and I've never heard any of them mention Roblox even in passing.

I feel like I'm in a really weird bubble of roblox-ignorance, I'm not exactly mad about it, but it feels weird that for as big as Roblox is supposed to be that I've never seen anyone talk about the actual game, just how big of a problem it is.

Well now there's one more thing I can't unsee

My wife has this big painting that hangs above our fireplace. It's abstract, just some colored squares and rectangles, kind of blotchy.

One of those blotches looks a hell of a lot like a frog though. Almost like a frog hopped onto the canvas while the paint was still wet.

Can you find the frog?

Or "His Dudeness" or "Duder" or "El Duderino" if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

He did eventually sober up, I think he did a little bit of time in jail or prison along the way. As far as I know he is generally doing pretty well now, is married, has a kid.

But he's still an idiot. I remember seeing I'm parroting some bullshit about Trump being better for the middle class maybe about a year ago.

He did message me a bit after the election saying something about how he felt bad, but I was still pissed off myself and in no mood to hear him out and blocked him. I was within days of deleting my Facebook anyway so I was about to lose contact with him anyway since I've never had his phone number.

It wasn't much, but back in high school I basically worked as sort of a personal savings account for a couple weeks.

There was one dude I wasn't exactly friends with but we were friendly, never hung out or really talked outside of school, but otherwise were on pretty good terms. We often sat at the same lunch tables, had some mutual friends and such, talked and joked around between classes, etc.

He was also kind of an irresponsible druggie. Nice guy, wasn't out committing crimes or anything besides drug possession, just made a lot of dumb choices, came to school drunk, high or tripping balls a lot.

I kind of looked the part of a stoner back in high school- long hair, sort of a grungy style, listened to a lot of classic rock and metal, etc. so I was in a lot of the same circles as him, but I didn't drink or do drugs and it was also pretty well known that I was a reasonably smart, responsible, and honest dude.

So a few weeks out from senior prom, he realizes that he's going to need some money for whatever his post-prom plans were (I didn't ask, I figured it was probably better that I didn't know.) He also knew that he couldn't be trusted with his own money, he'd blow it on drugs or something else stupid.

So he asks if he can just give me money to hold onto, and I agreed. He'd hand me a few bucks here or there over the next couple weeks, whatever he didn't use from his lunch money or allowance or whatever, and I just held onto it.

But at the end of it, it added up to a pretty decent bit of money (by "high school kids 20 years ago" standards anyway, it was maybe around $100)

And the day before prom I gave it back to him and he let me keep I think $10 or $20 for my troubles.

I don't think growth is a determining factor for imprisonment. If someone is sent to actual prison and is successfully reformed and rehabilitated and able turn their life around, does that mean they were any less a prisoner than someone who didn't learn and grow from the experience?

I don't think so, though you may certainly feel differently. I think the defining characteristic is the lack of agency. You are the product of countless choices that you had no say in during your childhood, you are a prisoner to those choices, nothing you can ever do will undo those choices, you can work around them, overcome them, and make the most of them, but ultimately you are who you are because of them.

How much of that is still a reaction to their upbringing though?

Say someone is raised in an abusive situation, and because of that they decide to be nothing like their parents when they grow up and become the epitome of a loving, nurturing parent, or maybe decide to not have kids at all to make sure they break the cycle.

Would that same person make those same choices if they were raised in a more "normal" household?

We can't really know for sure, but I suspect in a lot of cases the answer would be no.

And of course there's all kinds of little butterfly effects.

For example, I've known one of my best friends since preschool. We attended the same public school from kindergarten through graduation, but after pre school I never had a class with him again until 10th grade. If my parents had decided to send me to a different preschool, it's very likely I'd have a different best friend, and who knows how that might have affected my life?

Or later in life, when my grandfather was no longer able to drive, my parents ended up with his truck, they could have sold it but instead they held onto it and when I started driving it sort of unofficially became "my" car that I used to commute to community college. If they hadn't kept that truck, or just didn't let me use it, I probably would have had to take the bus and would have had to arrange my class schedule differently and never sat next to a guy in a history class who would eventually introduce me to the woman who is now my wife.

So those two little decisions made in my upbringing had big effects on the trajectory of my life. I'm quite happy with where I've ended up, but I had no say in either case, so I think you could definitely argue that I'm a "prisoner" to those decisions they made. I'll never know what twists and turns my life might have taken if they'd chosen differently. Maybe there's an alternate timeline where my best friend from a different preschool convinced me to buy a bunch of Bitcoin in 2009 and I could be a retired multimillionaire right now.

Richard Attenborough

Is it actually a dedicated gay nudist beach, or is it a nude beach that the gay community frequents?

There's a nude beach not too far from me, and it's pretty well-known that the one end of the beach is the "gay" end. There's no official demarcation, it's just a regular public beach where nudity happens to be allowed, and the one end of it is where the gay people tend to congregate, if you're not already in the loop about the local nudist community, you'd have no real way of knowing that until you found yourself there and maybe noticed a lot of rainbow flags and same-sex couples holding hands or something.

But that end of the beach does also sometimes get a bit raunchy, which isn't really legal though usually police turn a blind eye to it as long as they stay down that end, it wouldn't bother me too much personally if I stumbled onto it without knowing, but it probably would a lot of other people, and I'd still generally consider it trashy and inappropriate at best.

If you were actually at some sort of private gay club where public sex is allowed, all good, but I feel like you probably wouldn't be questioning and trying to justify it if that was the case.

Not trying to be contrary, but I've gone down this rabbit hole a lot over the years

As far as the donation goes, the argument I keep running up against is usually that they want me to "have something to unwrap" that isn't just cash or a gift card (no matter how many times I tell them that I don't care about that) I feel like a little "a donation has been made in your name" note would probably feel like even less of a present to them

maybe point out that it is tax deductible.

Unfortunately I don't think any of my family are itemizing their deductions.

And as far as vouchers and gift cards go, I hate those things enough that in retrospect they probably should have been point 10. I never remember to use them, I have probably over $200 in various gift cards sitting around in my house right now that I'll probably never think to grab when I'm running out to the store or making an order online. And I hate being forced to shop at specific places. And of course the amount always ends up not being exactly what I need, so either I'm left with like $2.37 left on a card that I'm really never going to bother using, or I still have to pay something out of pocket in which case I'd really rather I be able to shop around to get the best deal possible but can't if I want to use the gift card.

Cash would be great, but again they want to give me something besides cash or a gift card.

And as far as personal vouchers go, my home/family life is mercifully pretty harmonious. Except for Christmas I don't have many complaints, I see everyone pretty much exactly as much as I want to, get to do the things I enjoy doing, etc.. About the only thing I would want there is a "get out of Christmas free card" which feels like a weird Christmas present.

And we're sort of the cooks in the family, so I am the source of good bread and cookies and such, and I don't really go through a lot of snack foods. I just recently threw out a bunch of candies and such from last Christmas to make room for what I surely have incoming this year, and my soap and such needs are pretty minimal, my preferred brand comes in gallon jugs that lasts me a good long time, and other consumables tend to last me a long time and I never seem to run low around the holidays, nor do I have the storage space to really stockpile a bunch of extras.

And my family is already really good at moving around stuff we're not using, my brother in law (sisters husband) was kind of astonished at how often we end up moving furniture from one relatives house to another and handing off random things to people who can use them. We could maybe save some of that for Christmas, but then it becomes a problem of "where do we store this second couch we bought in August until we can give the old one away in December"

And handmade stuff I don't need is still stuff I don't need.

I think we're going to need a little more context on who he is and how he's using the word "goy"

It comes from Hebrew/Yiddish, so it's a word used predominantly by Jewish people, and so not inherently antisemitic. It basically means non-jew, it's roughly synonymous with the term "gentile" that you might be more familiar with if you've had a Christian upbringing.

How Jews use it of course varies a lot, plenty just use it without any particular deeper meaning, just a matter-of-fact statement that the person they're referring to isn't Jewish.

Some of course do use it with a bit of Malice if they value non-jews less highly than their fellow Jews.

I've also heard it used, usually somewhat jokingly, by Jews to refer to other Jews who aren't acting in a way that they think is in accordance with Jewish customs. I remember one time my one Jewish friend who keeps kosher (kind of, he definitely bends the rules more than a bit) was teasing another Jewish friend who had ordered a bacon cheeseburger or something while we were out grabbing lunch, calling him a goy and lumping him in with the rest of the non-jews sitting around the table. It was all in good fun, just a bunch of guys joking around over a couple beers.

Again, I'm sure there's some Jews out there who would do something like that and mean it as an actual insult.

If the person saying it isn't Jewish themselves, that's where you might have a case for their use being antisemitic.

I'm not Jewish, I could definitely see myself using goy or a handful handful of other jewish words and phrases I've picked up when I'm joking around with my Jewish friends. I might even call one of them a goy jokingly like in that bacon cheeseburger situation. Mostly though I'd probably use it to refer to myself, like if they were talking about, let's say a Chanukah celebration, and I didn't understand what they were talking about, I might tell them to need to explain it again in "goy" for me.

But if I'm not with friends that I have a good rapport with, I probably wouldn't joke like that, I don't want to give the wrong impression that I'm genuinely criticizing them for not being Jewish "enough," as a non Jew I really don't think it's my place to be making that kind of judgement.

And I certainly wouldn't be using it seriously to criticize Jews. I wouldn't call Israeli Zionists goys (goyim I believe is actually the proper pluralization) based on their Zionist beliefs, there's plenty of totally secular terms I can come up with to criticize them.

I could also see an antisemite using Jewish terms like goy in a mocking fashion, which, yeah that's pretty antisemitic, basically the same thing as a white supremacist making fun of a black person for using AAVE.

And of course, depending on the person, the tone, how they're using it, their target audience, etc. it could be totally non-problematic.

1. Deep down I'm still an edgy militant atheist, and really want nothing to do with religious celebrations.
2. The only things I really want are things I'm not realistically going to be gifted. No one's going to buy and install a new heater/windows/deck for me for Christmas, or pay down my credit card, etc. I have too much junk already, I have all the clothes I need, I don't really need more snacks in the house, and I'm pretty much set up with everything I need/want for my hobbies. I don't need gifts. Inevitably I'm going to get a bunch of junk I don't need or want, and I'm gonna take it straight home and throw it out or donate it or otherwise I'm going to spend the next eternity shuffling around my house because I don't have anywhere to put it.
3. I'm probably a bit autistic or maybe just a bit dead inside, so even on the rare occasion I get a gift I'm really excited about I don't really have much of a reaction to it, which I feel is disappointing to the people giving it to me.
4. I really hate decorating and then having to take it all down a month or so later, having to haul all this crap down from the attic and then back up again is a real drag. It's part of the reason I get a real tree, it's easier to just strap it back onto my roof and haul it to my friend's house to burn in their fire pit (which is very cathartic) than to try to wrestle it back up the ladder. My wife likes it, so I suffer through it, I just wish she'd do more of the work.
5. I don't want to spend money. I have things I want to save for and dropping a couple hundred bucks on presents isn't helping that. I don't mind getting people gifts if it's something I think they really need or wound like, but thats usually not why I'm buying them stuff for Christmas, I'm getting them stuff because I feel obligated to get them something.
6. Family gatherings suck. As far as families go mine isn't too bad, I'd even say I kind of like most of them, but getting all of them in the room together and having to spend most of the day with them is too much. There's too many people, it's too loud, and while they're generally all good people, I don't really have enough in common with most of them to make it worth the aggravation, they're best enjoyed in small doses. My wife's family is smaller and quieter, which would be great, except they want the gathering to go on all day, my wife is bringing stuff over to make breakfast and it sounds like they plan to keep things going until at least dinner, so thats probably gonna be a 12+ hour ordeal when you figure in the time it takes to go over the river and through the woods to grandmothers house. Also, most of our family just aren't great cooks, and even if they were there are some picky eaters in the family, so family meals are pretty lackluster. I think my wife's family's dinner plans are a stouffers lasagna. Luckily I have to work this year so I have a good excuse not to go.
7. Christmas music can be good, but not the stuff that's been piped into every single fucking store I've had to go to for the last month, and I'm sick of it.
8. This is mostly just a me-problem, but I have way too much shit going on this time of year. My anniversary is in November, then thanksgiving which we usually do with my father in law who's about an hour away, my wife's birthday, my mom's birthday, christmas even which is usually with my family, usually about 45 minutes away depending on who's hosting, Christmas day is usually with my mother in law about an hour away, and then after that I usually host a new years eve party and between work and holiday obligations it's kind of crazy trying to get my house ready for that.
9. I work in 911 dispatch, we always get some really crazy/sad calls around this time of year. I deal with it just fine personally, but it doesn't exactly put me in a holly jolly mood.
10. I don't know, I made it this far and just kind of wanted to leave it on a nice round number I guess... Maybe I find tinsel distracting?

Occasional nudist/naturist here

Depends a bit on the beach you're at, but generally yeah, that's pretty inappropriate and would get you thrown out of or even arrested at any of the places I go to. Nudism isn't about sex, it's just about not wearing clothes, there are people with kids who enjoy nudism as a family, etc.

The resort I normally go to has a very lively swinger community, sometimes it almost seems like my wife and I are the only couple there not part of the lifestyle, but even still any sort of sexual activity stays out of the open, you go back to your room/tent/RV for that.

There are definitely some places that will turn more of a blind eye to it, but in general unless you're specifically at some sort of a lifestyle resort where that sort of thing is officially condoned you shouldn't be doing it in the open.

Personally, I wouldn't be too bothered by it, I'd think it's trashy as fuck and would judge you pretty harshly for it but it wouldn't ruin my day. I can't speak for everyone else in the nudist community though, and if you search around you can find a lot of horror stories of someone finally convincing their friend to try out nudism only to have the bad luck of that friend immediately encountering some creep or someone having sex out in the open and being immediately turned off by the experience never wanting to try it again

I work in 911 dispatch, so getting people to calm down, stop what they're doing, and listen to me is kind of a big part of my job. Things are of course a bit different in-person than over the phone, but here's generally how I'd approach something like this.

If you know their name, use it. A lot. People respond to their name, that's kind of the whole reason names exist. It will get their attention which is half the battle.

Getting them to calm down from there is the other half, and it's not easy, especially if you don't speak their language. Body language and tone of voice goes a long way though.

Not that they're going to understand you in this situation anyway, but remember that no one in the entire history of calming down has anyone ever actually calmed down after being told to calm down. Don't even bother trying that.

Try to get them to take some deep breaths, use some gestures.

Your hospital really should have access to some sort of translation service, either humans on location there in the room with you who speak the language, or some kind of service like languageline (not plugging them specifically, I have a lot of complaints about some of their interpreters, they just happen to be who we use at work) that you can call up and get on speakerphone. Google translate and such are wonderful tools, but they're not perfect and sometimes you really want that bit of a human touch. I've also occasionally had some great interpretors who will chime in with some helpful bits like "they're saying'this' but in our culture that usually really means 'this'"

If you can find an excuse to hand them something, maybe some paperwork, that can also sometimes kind of create a little bit of a break in whatever they're doing for you to work with. They'll probably stop screaming for a second to look at what was just handed to them, and then you can try to work on something.

It's funny that you specifically mentioned the '60s, because back then they were pretty routinely administering the oral polio vaccine on a sugar cube for school children

That's how my dad got it back then

Looks like other have covered the issues with a bull pup revolver well enough, don't think I have anything to add there

Handgun hunting is a thing, I don't really understand the appeal myself, but AFAIK .45 colt is a reasonably popular choice in that field, and with the right ammo and a reasonably short range can even be used for bear

.410 out of a revolver is probably pretty useless for hunting though. Since the barrel is rifled, that shot is going to start spinning and make it spread out a lot faster and farther than out of a smoothbore barrel, you don't have that much shot in a .410 shell to begin with so there's gonna be a whole lot of space between them when it gets to your target. You're gonna need a big target at close range and a lot of luck to make sure that shot is hitting somewhere vital, and at that point you're probably better off trying to hit it with a regular rifle or handgun.

It's possible I missed it, but I didn't see where it said how they came up with this strain of yeast. I was kind of assuming they used CRISPR or some other kind of gene editing to make it.

Regardless of if it was edited or selective breeding and random mutation, I do share those same concerns about how fast it might mutate and lose its effectiveness.

As far as it mutating into something harmful, sure it's a possibility, but the same possibility technically exists with any strain of yeast out there in the world, untold millions of generations of yeast have lived, mutated, reproduced, and died in breweries, bakeries, and vineyards since humans first started brewing beer and baking bread, and it hasn't gone horribly wrong yet. It's certainly worth being cautious about, and I'm certainly no geneticist to make an educated statement about it, but I suspect it's probably a pretty low likelihood.

I'm kind of wondering if the plan here isn't to goad trump into retaliating by blurting out where our own missiles are pointed at.

They threw some obvious ones out there like the Pentagon (duh of course they have missiles pointed there)

And then padded out the list with some defunct sites to make the list longer because someone like Trump is going to want to one-up them by listing at least that many of our targets. Russia probably doesn't actually have missiles aimed at most of those places, but this way they don't actually have to give up any of their actual targets.

And trump will probably take the bait to beef up missile defences around those defunct sites, wasting money, time, manpower, and resources that could be better used anywhere else.