You overestimate how much nature we step in on a given day. It’s usually basically cement everywhere

I played Borderlands with my brother online once. He was ahead of me but we wanted to have fun together so we tried to play together.

I was on a mission to get the best gun for my current level. He was kind enough to just drop a gun that was as good or better for my level than what I was seeking. I no longer had to do that quest.

In fact, he dropped all the best guns he had through all the levels. I no longer had to do any extra quests.

I quit the game. It was suddenly boring. It was the need for the next new thing that had been making it exciting, and now that was gone.

I think about that sometimes for rich people. Why does it never get boring?

US didn’t really ban it because they didn’t like it. While there was a women’s group protesting against the alcoholism in the country, I don’t think it would have had any traction were it not for the anti union push.

Saloons were a great meetup spot to make unions. Everyone from work was already there. If companies could make saloons illegal, it would make it harder to make unions. But there was a problem. The US got a lot of its tax revenue from alcohol taxes.

So they pitched the idea of replacing alcohol tax with income tax, making the budget balance (in fact much improve!). So it got passed to benefit the US government budget, and help the union situation for companies.

It was not prohibited for long. As you stated, it quickly went awry. But it didn’t matter. The US government now gets its income tax, plus alcohol tax now. Saloons became less popular since they were gone long enough for habits to change.

My watch pointed out my HRV suffers if I eat right before bed. It shows how “restful” my sleep is and if I eat in the last two hours before bed, the sleep barely gets into “rest” levels. Like equivalent to sitting down in a chair instead of sleeping for the first couple hours.

I know it sucks but maybe consider a larger lunch and just a light protein shake or something before bed if you really need calories then. I’m still figuring all this out too, but that really makes a big difference for me

I feel like when I do a good workout I need about an hour MORE sleep to recover. If you are getting less, I feel like that will cause a significant struggle.

Try the Wendler 5/3/1 weightlifting stuff. Someone on reddit made it into a spreadsheet somewhere.

Basically, don’t try so hard lifting weights. You go in the first day and put an estimate in for your 1 rep max, then that day it gives you a workout and the last set you do as many as you can until failure, then you record the number.

From there, the spreadsheet calculates all the rest of your workouts with a gentle progression. His philosophy is basically, leave one rep in you (besides that testing day) for the heavy sets. Then with the BBB variation you do a ton of reps of a really light weight to build a strong foundation. He suggests a “training max” of 85-90%. Meaning there will never be a time the spreadsheet asks you to lift your entire max.

Since I’ve used that I haven’t had any injuries at all, and I don’t get super sore (just lightly sore, which I kind of like). Progression is slower, but I think that has to happen because muscles seem to develop faster than tendons adapt to the extra strain, which leads to injuries.

I’m not against gun ownership. I’m against zero gun ownership regulation. Requiring background checks seems like a no brainer but we cannot even get to that part. The next I would suggest is a weekend long course on the proper use, safety, cleaning, and storage of your weapon before you are allowed to buy one. Finally, I think we should have that class reupped every 2 years to keep your license to own the firearm. It’s a dangerous thing to have around and most good gun owners would support some of this, even if it is a hassle. It could be made fun too though. Free ammo for some range practice or something. Maybe a few for the class covers that, I don’t know. Consider it a meetup with other people with similar interests.

First person, and an interesting note. I was experimenting with lucid dreaming for awhile, with some very minor success. One thing that ALWAYS woke me up though, was doing something I had never done in real life. I was unable to breathe underwater. The mere attempt would wake me.

Then I got scuba certified in real life, and like magic, I was suddenly able to breathe underwater in my dreams.

It makes me wonder how you think about yourself in real life.

I mostly buy ingredients and cook bulk batches of food. Before, we were splurging on instacart, but they got crazy expensive with their upcharges (MINIMUM 15% increase in item cost, + service charge, +delivery fee (or the annual delivery fee), +tip (it started to feel like 15% was too low, on top of the 15% grocery upcharge).

We stopped that and we actually spend less now even after this inflation.

We found awesome people at our local gymnastics place that did adult classes

But… those places all price gouge too :(.

Eh ski goggles are cool. A lot better than the competition’s VR look!

For some reason I was remembering my brother spending like $700 for his original iPhone, whereas I waited for the iPhone 3g and spent like half. Mine was plasticky vs his solid feeling phone, but mine technically did more with the 3g network and even a compass! I was hoping this scenario would happen but maybe it’s wishful thinking and incorrect memory.

The first iPhone was unreasonably expensive for really not much usability. Edge network only. No webapps designed yet. No app store. Not even a compass.

The first one of these will be like that, then if it catches on at all there will be a “worse” model that doesn’t have as nice of a casing but is more usable and maybe comes with some sort of phone plan or something. I’m hoping this actually does catch on because VR is already so cool, but is waiting for that “connection” with others to happen.

For an example, the best connection experience I have had in VR was the zero gravity sports game Echo Arena, specifically in the lobby. They did such a good job with the 3d sound it actually felt like there was someone above me talking. But since there is no eye tracking, eye contact cannot be a thing. If they nail that though, work meetings in a virtual environment COULD be a thing. Spending time with family from hundreds of miles away COULD possibly work okay. Not as good as in person but a reasonable substitute.

But they have to nail it. Right now that one or two experiences is the best I have had. The rest just felt like halo on the Xbox 360 over Live. Cool, but not like they were sitting in the room with me.

Eink is so much nicer to stare at long term though

You pretty much nailed it. The teachings of Jesus are pretty great. Most important law there is? Love God and your Neighbor (okay I combined them but that’s what Jesus meant anyways). Jesus lived that way. You’d find him hanging out with the rejects of society, the ill, the prostitutes, etc. He wanted to raise the floor of society. He also was for separation of church and state. “Hey Jesus, you’ve got this new kingdom thing going on, do we have to pay taxes to the king anymore?” “Yes, give your king what’s his, and give to God what’s his.”

But somehow these days it’s all about how you can word the Bible to help further your hatred. “Hey this one passage says if a man lays with a guy (boy? We aren’t 100% on that translation), he should be stoned, so that means we should hate the gays!”. Nope. Go back and read what Jesus was all about. Love your neighbor. Most important thing!

I can’t really proudly call myself Christian, because I don’t really fit the current model of that. I barely attend church, I don’t hate any group. In fact I find all lifestyles fascinating and valuable. I accept all religions too. Your Buddhist? Cool. Tell me about it. Muslim? Awesome. You guys have some cool thoughts on giving to the poor (2% of your assets! Imagine if billionaires did that!). If Christianity is the correct religion, and Jesus is the only way into heaven, why can’t he talk to these people after death and decide then? I find it hard to say the Jesus recorded in the Bible would be like “you were good to everyone and a light in this world, but… You were Jewish so off to hell with you for all eternity!”

It’s nice to live this way accepting everyone. I think the only reason I accept that I am still Christian is because I think this is how Christians should be anyways. It’s not about hate, despite what the current thinking is. I guess historically it’s always been used that way though.

Haha I’ve thought of that. Maybe they can add that to a Deadpool movie or something with a super strong character ripping up a car finding the lift points.

Eh I don’t think this is meant to say it’s actually x-rays. Wouldn’t that require a receiving end on the other side of the person?

I know you didn’t ask about things that could be wrong, but I just want to make sure you have tried everything before you give up. The US healthcare system (and most healthcare systems, really) are not good at diagnosis for uncommon things. You got something that 20% of the world has? They’ve got you. But if you have an oddly presenting issue, there isn’t really a Dr. House to figure it out.

So I want to make sure you’ve checked the things you can. By the way the lurching going to sleep thing isn’t super uncommon. I twitch dramatically when drifting off to sleep if I have something or someone snuggled up against me, or even if I am on a small couch and my feet touch the ends. Seems like a response to an unfamiliar potential danger the body reacts to.

Anyways, have you moved in the last few years? Maybe there is mold or a small gas leak.

Have you tried dramatically changing your diet? It’s possible you picked up some horrible GI bacteria that your immune system attacks its waste or something. You could try high dose probiotics too. Many people with unrelated seeming symptoms like brain fog see improvements, and it’s an area that is totally understudied.

Did these symptoms start with a covid infection? Long Covid is still very poorly understood and seems to range from post exertion tiredness, to brain fog, and other neurological disorders.

I assume they drew labs to make sure your blood wasn’t high or low in anything. If not, ask what labs they can draw.

I feel like it’s even possible your water supply could be contaminated by something, so maybe switch to bottled water for a bit if you have a suspicion your building you live in may have bad pipes.

I suspect I would die trying all of these things, but if not, and I knew the end was coming, I would seek out and spend as much time as I could doing what was important to me. Before, I would have said hiking the PCT. Now that I am married and have a child I would spend everything I had to make as memorable a trip as I could to spend my last days with them. I might even steal a page from Violet Evergarden and write letters to be delivered to my daughter through various years of her childhood, and of course love letters for my wife.

Ugh now I’m all sad thinking about this. Hope everything turns out okay for you. There’s always things to try. It’s not over till it’s over.

If you liked Super Metroid and emulate games, look into Hyper Metroid. Someone modded the game and remade it entirely and it’s great!