Also got pressured in the sub…

(I’m sorry. That was terrible. I also feel for the kid but I couldn’t pass on the pun.)

I haven’t seen this meme in a couple years but I referenced it to my partner just yesterday but didn’t feel like looking it up. So big surprise when I opened Lemmy and it was the second thing in my feed. Thank you!

Even without attribution or ever reading this quote before, I just knew it had to be Sir Terry Pratchett and I was right.

That man was unmatchable in his wit and wisdom and how he packaged life lessons on simply being good people into entertaining stories. The world is lesser without him.

My cat and my cell phone

Congrats!

I’m sorry you’re dealing with so many stressful things at once.

I just recently learned about some causes of vertigo along with a super quick thing to try to relieve it, and I thought I would share it under the chance it might provide some relief to at least one of the awful things. It came from a newsletter by a chiropractor I saw who many years ago. I know some chiropractors are quacks, but this one was incredible at recognizing patterns and was able to provide me extreme pain relief mostly just from simple stretches he taught me, so I have high respect for what he shares.

What are the causes I find that trigger vertigo?

1. Tight suboccipital muscles at the base of the skull.
2. Blocked sinus cavities not draining, backing up mucous and fluid into the middle ear cavity.
3. Fluid imbalances in the inner ear due to NSAIDS and antihistamines being used in excess.
4. Tight jaw muscles causing abnormal tracking of the jaw when opening and closing the mouth.
5. Very rotated fixated first cervical vertebrate pinching off the eustachian tube of the middle ear that is responsible for allowing drainage to occur to the back of the throat.

Then he provides this 1m video with a tapping technique that tracks 20 seconds.

Doesn’t speak to the sleeplessness and I’m not a medical professional. I’m just a concerned stranger who recently gained knowledge that could maybe be helpful to you?

I mean there’s all this *gestures vaguely*, but if I zoom into just my personal life, it’s been pretty good?

I adopted an amazing kitty on Jan 4. I’m still grieving the loss of my soul cat last year but the new girl has been a great gift in my life.

My job is very seasonal and 2025 was the most calm season of all 8 seasons I’ve done it. I work on software creation and support season, so most calm = the best season ever.

Then I went on medical leave to yeet my uterus and confirmed that I had adenomyosis, so pretty psyched to see how much this reduces my pain after I finish recovering.

So even with the shit show going on in the world, life goes on at the micro level and so far 2025 is shaking out better than ‘24.

Silicosis is typically caused by years of breathing in silica dust at work, and can worsen even after work exposures stop. In recent years, after decades of inaction, the federal government finally took several important steps to reduce the incidence of this ancient and debilitating disease. Under the Trump administration, all that progress is going away, in but one example of the widespread destruction now taking place across the federal government.

Silicosis first caught the attention of the federal government in the early 1930s, when hundreds of workers hired by the chemical company Union Carbide and its subsidiary to drill a tunnel through a mountain of almost pure silica died of silicosis. Most of the workers were Black, and many were buried in unmarked graves. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, issued a report on the widespread problem across factories and mines, informing businesses that control measures, “if conscientiously adopted and applied,” could prevent silicosis.

Weird as in unusual? Sure

Weird in a bad way? Definitely not

It makes sense to feel uncomfortable about this because it’s probably something you haven’t seen other people do. But it’s awesome and would bring many people joy to see someone doing it. Go for it!

Ooooof

Awwww, my childhood family cat, Boots, did this.

Oh man, that makes me think back to college when I got an eyebrow piercing. I did it because I liked the looks but also as a social experiment, wondering how people’s reactions to me might change.

I expected the worst, but I found that it actually seemed to make most people approach me easier.

I think the lesson is that doing things that are highly visible draw attention. Some will be good, some might be bad, but it’s a conversation starter either way!

Ah, so there is a subscription for guided workout sessions through Apple Fitness. I have that as a part of my subscription and it doesn’t have any kind of recommendation feature though; it’s just a subscription to watch guided workout sessions if you want to go seek them out.

The watch still has all of the health and workout tracking features available without it. Garmin is slated as more of a fitness-based watch so it doesn’t surprise me they might have different features than the Apple Watch does.

I’m trying to think of what Apple Watch features are paywalled and other than buying apps that aren’t necessary or a part of the core device, I’m not thinking of anything. Are there particular features you’re thinking of?

Or how God supposedly created all people in his image, but wait, no, not those people 🙄

Adding onto this, there are way more jobs than you likely even realize or will learn about. Figuring out what you enjoy and are good at might help you figure that out, but sometimes you just need to get out there and start trying things. You may still not know just from college.

I had never heard of one of the jobs I ended up getting (Business Analyst) and it introduced me to the career I’m in now: Product Management.

Product Management requires me to communicate with folks of wildly different backgrounds (end users, software developers, designers, business execs, etc.) and I need to both understand their needs plus help them understand the same things as each other. To do so, I need to understand people and context and basically translate information through a those lenses. I also look at data and a wide array of opportunities then evaluate their priority. It’s a job that uses my natural talents and it’s genuinely fun for me.

But I had no idea the role even existed until I was two years out of college and into the workforce, and still had little clue what the role actually did for two years after that.

Anecdotal observation I received from a doctor’s office indicates there may be some change in the insurance industry…

Last month I saw a surgeon who does not take insurance, but her office helps people get all the pre-authorizations done to file an out-of-network claim. They told me that of the codes they bill, there’s one that used to have a 50/50 chance of getting approved. But after 12/6/24 they see it come back approved every time.

Without more data to back this up I recognize it’s not enough to say anything for sure, but this does point to insurance companies more broadly approving claims.

I used to use em dashes all the time and now I find myself rethinking my writing styles because of people like you and it’s obnoxious.

Yeah… definitely could be the slippery slope we both see. Especially since comics and gym/workout/nutrition type videos likely target a more male demographic.

I mentioned my partner got those, then he actually subscribed to The Dadvocate. Now that I’m thinking about it I think he’s mentioned occasionally seeing Jordan Peterson pop up in his Shorts feed when he watches a ton in a row. He gives them a thumbs down and says not to show him that content, so maybe he’s the one keeping the worse content at bay.

The worst thing though is that when those do pop up in his feed, they are some of Peterson’s few normal or even good takes (which we hate to admit that anything Jordan Peterson has to say might be good. But even a broken clock…). My partner still shuts that shit down because he knows there isn’t a good ending to that path.

Yeah, they started showing up for my (male) partner a while back. I got really nervous that they were going to be the start of a slippery slope into some serious misogynistic content, and I’ve been monitoring that for probably a year now. Thankfully that doesn’t seem to have been the case so far!

There are many women out there who have gone so far as to be on the misandry side of things, and at least the two content creators we’ve named are calling that out. It’s valid and many of their points are solid. But it still seems like the algorithm would use them as a first step towards misogynistic content so it’s had me a little on edge.