Author: Brin

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

naxzella:

finding out people dont usually add numbers by first adding something to make a ten (for example 7+6= 7 plus 3 is 10 plus another 3 is 13) & that its actually an adhd thing is the WILDEST shit literally ive lived like 10 years (or however old i was when i learned to add and stuff) thinking thats how everyone does it. what the fuck

 

cabronallorona:

What

 

overherewiththequeers:

It’s also an autism thing, apparently.

 

teaboot:

W H A T

 

leap-yeap:

Oh yeah! This is also part of why autistic people/people with adhd struggle in math classes. Our brains process math and numbers in a totally different way. Many people on the spectrum struggle with the “show your work” part of math because we can’t exactly tell you why it works/how it works. We just kinda do it

 

black-infinity-parked-outside:

It’s also a maths dyslexia thing!

 

maryellencarter:

So I don’t innately do this but I was taught to do it? Now I’m really confused.

(I wonder if a disproportionate number of people who homeschool for primarily religious reasons, and/or of the people who create curricula marketed to that audience, are autistic or ADHD or otherwise neurodivergent. It would sure explain the absolute scathing scorn for the idea that children need “socialization”, and possibly the popularity of theme-integrated “unit studies” and self-directed “unschooling”… and it could evolve pretty easily by those originally being the kids who did a *lot* better homeschooled than in public schools… hmm.)

(Every so often I circle back around to the question of whether any of the things that make me think I’m autistic are inborn or whether they all come from my upbringing. Because my sperm donor is definitely autistic and also an abusive asshole, and my bio-incubator may be autistic or ADHD or something else along those lines but by *god* does she have the executive dysfunction in spades. And they’re both controlling as fuck. So the only way to socialize Correctly was his way, and the only way to get anything done was her way, and given childhood neuroplasticity… does it really matter if I was born autistic or whatever I am? Am I just irreversibly whatever-it-is now and I should be learning to work with it, or am I accidentally meandering back toward neurotypicality (and what does that mean for my online friendships if so), or was I actually neurodivergent all along and it’s just the extroversion confusing me? :P)

Not sure about fundies as such, but FWIW I was in secular homeschool groups (though this included a fair number of relatively laid-back religious types who didn’t mind hanging out with the rest of us) and they were very autistic. And they got distilled to increasingly high concentrations of autism the older they got, because allistics were a lot more likely to leave for public school. Groups of homeschooled teenagers tended to be upwards of 50% autistic, and a lot of the rest had autistic siblings.

—

The method of addition described in the OP is implicitly being contrasted with some “normal” way, and I’m curious what that normal way actually is. Anyone know?

Tags:

#autism #homeschool #my childhood #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #abuse cw #math #reply via reblog

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

rustingbridges:

The concept of companies paying for their employees’ food continues to boggle me, but then my entire family works in food service, so our idea of company-provided food is “the customer changed their mind about wanting the food after I made it, and the boss let me keep it”.

Covering some food during travel is pretty standard, I think, since it’s a business expense and employees rightly don’t want to pay for it. My old roommate worked at best buy (which was by no means a great employer) and even they gave him a per diem which covered (cheap) food.

B: Nah, there are starving children in Africa future selves to think of. We keep getting inheritances just as we’re about to run out of money, but that streak’s bound to end sooner or later, and it’s best to start preparing now.

So the question with this is kind of, where does it end? I think if I put my back into it, I could get by pretty much without ever paying for food, except when doing stuff with friends. I’ve definitely done two or three week stretches.

And even if you are counting labor costs, you can buy food at the supermarket for $1-2/day. It just gets really boring.

We keep getting inheritances just as we’re about to run out of money, but that streak’s bound to end sooner or later, and it’s best to start preparing now.

Also no offense but that sounds like a pretty bad situation and hopefully you can get out of it somehow?

 

brin-bellway:

>>and employees rightly don’t want to pay for it.<<

I get the justification for paying for the hotels and such because the employee wouldn’t otherwise have needed to buy them, but you have to eat either way. Sure, it’d be *nice* if they paid for it, but I wouldn’t be pissed if they didn’t.

(I speak from some experience here: my job *did* used to provide some free food each week (but only a small amount, and only from a limited selection of the cheaper menu items), but later switched to an employee-discount system. And every friend or family member who learned about it got angry on my behalf *even though I wasn’t angry about it myself*, and it was really annoying having to try to calm them down and defend against their attempts to instil negative emotions about it in me.)

—

>>It just gets really boring.<<

I would be perfectly content to eat peanut-butter-on-a-spoon for lunch every day for years on end. The *occasional* variety in food is nice, but as the exception, not the norm.

(Also I have a low metabolism and an appetite to match, which is helpful.)

I barely even have to try to knock my food budget down to about four USD a day, so in practice I haven’t done that much other than severely cut back on restaurants.

—

>>I could get by pretty much without ever paying for food, except when doing stuff with friends. I’ve definitely done two or three week stretches.<<

How?

—

>>Also no offense but that sounds like a pretty bad situation and hopefully you can get out of it somehow?<<

…I am worried by the fact that you started this sentence with “no offense”, because it suggests that there is something offensive about the rest of the sentence that I have overlooked.

(Is it something to do with, like, dignity or some shit?)

Our expenses are already extremely low by developed standards even without going full-on rice-and-beans [link]–a thousand USD per person per month would be enough, with room for a small emergency fund–but underemployment is a big problem.

(Though to be fair, I have a positive amount of money and have never been homeless, which makes me better off than most of my friends. (From multiple social circles, at that.))

 

rustingbridges:

I get the justification for paying for the hotels and such because the employee wouldn’t otherwise have needed to buy them, but you have to eat either way.

Sure, but I don’t need to eat out. Compare: eating in the comfort of my home, at supermarket prices, with they company of my lovely girlfriend vs eating at some random nearby restaurant, at corresponding prices, with the company of some random work people (who I happen to like, and may I always be so lucky).

If they want me to keeping doing these kinds of things, they ought to make it minimally bad. My job didn’t involve regular travel (I only did a few times) so I can’t comment on how that works, but while I’m sure the expectations change, I would expect it to change in the direction of more generous compensation for traveling, since traveling kind of sucks.

Sure, it’d be nice if they paid for it, but I wouldn’t be pissed if they didn’t.

I’m going to accuse you of being insufficiently entitled for your own good here. Sure, the expectations should probably with the job, but if I’m doing this for my employer he ought to cover it.

How?

In short, be places where they’re giving out food. Exact options may vary. In nyc you can get roughly a large pizza every night monday thru thursday just from tech meetups, if you’re willing to talk about The Cloud™ and Data Science™. There’s all sorts of things where there’s food and all you gotta do is be around to eat it.

Somewhat less respectably than that, a lot of businesses get rid of extra food. Depending on where you are, there may be organizations that are dedicated to not letting it go to waste. Depending on what you’re after you may in contention with various other indigents but not necessarily – there’s a lot of stuff that’s only good if you have a kitchen and the will to use it.

And at the bottom end of the spectrum, you wouldn’t believe some of the things people throw in the trash. Am I above eating some fancy looking, individually wrapped gifty desserts because the container was once adjacent to garbage? No I am not. (totally untouched nice looking garbage is disproportionately gifty looking, presumably because they are perfunctory, unwanted, and quickly disposed of gifts.)

…I am worried by the fact that you started this sentence with “no offense”, because it suggests that there is something offensive about the rest of the sentence that I have overlooked.

Uh I would say I probably said no offense because it’s a combination of: a) slightly prying b) casting some amount of unasked for advice / judgement on a situation which clearly I have spent less time thinking about than the person to whom I am speaking.

 

voxette-vk:

And at the bottom end of the spectrum, you wouldn’t believe some of the things people throw in the trash. Am I above eating some fancy looking, individually wrapped gifty desserts because the container was once adjacent to garbage? No I am not. (totally untouched nice looking garbage is disproportionately gifty looking, presumably because they are perfunctory, unwanted, and quickly disposed of gifts.)

I suppose I wouldn’t either… but how do you do this in practice without spending a lot of time sorting through nasty garbage?

 

rustingbridges:

Luck, mostly? I used to walk past on my way home from work a particular trash can which was usually completely full and often had that kind of thing just sitting out on top or next to it.

I’m not sure why that particular trash can was like that, but it was a popular / touristy area so it must have just been a, uh, blessed trash can in that respect.

I would not recommend actual garbage sorting as a hobby (fun fact: this is very specifically a legally prohibited activity in many public places).

I think people tend to put “nice” stuff off to the side rather than really shoving it in there, anyway.

 

brin-bellway:

[reblogging this version mostly for completeness; all of my responses are to the post immediately after my last one]

—

>>Sure, but I don’t need to eat out.<<

You don’t need to eat out at a hotel either. I always make sure I know where the local supermarkets are when I’m going to a hotel. Maybe there are hotels where you can reach a restaurant but not a supermarket, but I’ve never had to deal with that.

—

>>I’m going to accuse you of being insufficiently entitled for your own good here.<<

I’ve seen what happens to people who don’t accept their lot. I want no part of it.

(I don’t even mean what *other people* do to them, just the way that the resentment makes them miserable, and the way it skews their decision-making: some of them towards risky plans for the chance of a better life, others towards denial, in both cases ending up even worse off than they’d have been if they’d buckled down and dealt with it.)

—

>>If they want me to keeping doing these kinds of things, they ought to make it minimally bad.<<

Or else what? You’ll leave? Good luck paying the bills. Hell, you’re *American*: at least my dad was still able to get his broken ankle fixed.

(He was laid off from abovementioned cushy programming job almost thirteen years ago, and has never again made enough to make ends meet. He’s finally back in a position where he can at least make *some* money, just not enough.)

—

>>In nyc you can get roughly a large pizza every night monday thru thursday just from tech meetups, if you’re willing to talk about The Cloud™ and Data Science™. There’s all sorts of things where there’s food and all you gotta do is be around to eat it.<<

Who–among the set of people who care enough about how much their food costs to seek out free food, but are not living on the street–can afford to live *that* close to places where they’re giving out food? I’m pretty sure the transportation costs of getting to any place like that would be enough to buy an entire day’s worth of food, and instead you only get one meal out of it.

(Low appetite is a blessing when you’re eating supermarket food and can make the same size of stockpile last longer, but it does mean I suck at exploiting all-you-can-eat situations. I try very hard these days to avoid buffets, because compared to normal restaurants they’re more money for *less* food (in that you don’t get to take home your leftovers).)

—

>>Somewhat less respectably than that, a lot of businesses get rid of extra food. Depending on where you are, there may be organizations that are dedicated to not letting it go to waste.<<

We’ve had friends go to food banks, but I think my parents think those are for people more desperate than we are. Hell, they might even be right.

(Though when said friends offer us the bits of a food-bank variety pack they aren’t able to use themselves, we *do* at least accept them. Ate a cookie bar from a food-bank-sourced bake-it-yourself just yesterday.)

—

>>And at the bottom end of the spectrum, you wouldn’t believe some of the things people throw in the trash. Am I above eating some fancy looking, individually wrapped gifty desserts because the container was once adjacent to garbage? No I am not.<<

I’ve experimented with dumpster diving a few times. Mostly for stuff to sell, but I did once find and redeem a voucher for a free protein bar. (I turned down the spicy ramen cups, though: I dislike pain.)

—

>>I probably said no offense because it’s a combination of: a) slightly prying<<

It’s not like I don’t talk about it [link].

—

>>b) casting some amount of unasked for advice / judgement on a situation which clearly I have spent less time thinking about than the person to whom I am speaking.<<

I don’t mind people calling it a bad situation, though as you can probably tell from the rest of this reply I have had more than enough [people trying to coerce me into having negative emotions] for one lifetime. (Although usually it’s people trying to get me to perform grief about [death of a relative I was not close to] or anger about [insert latest SJ Discourse topic].)

 

humanfist:

You don’t need to eat out at a hotel either. I always make sure I know where the local supermarkets are when I’m going to a hotel. Maybe there are hotels where you can reach a restaurant but not a supermarket, but I’ve never had to deal with that.

Most hotels I’ve stayed at have minimal to no cooking facilities available to guests.  Also, this massively depends on what you are making but grocery buying often requires buying more of a single ingredient than you’ll use in the course of a single business trip.

@rustingbridges responded here, and @serinemolecule responded here.

—

I knew my mom (who is in charge of deciding where we stay while travelling) was specifically selecting for places with kitchens, but I hadn’t realised they were *that* rare if you weren’t specifically selecting for them.

Also I’m not sure why so many people seem to be so attached to having a Hot Meal for dinner, even when in situations that aren’t conducive to them.

—

rustingbridges: >>I’d say anyone who’s concerned about their ability to budget for decent food at all is probably in the demo for using a foodbank<<

I expect to remain concerned about whether I can afford decent food until and unless I become independently wealthy [link]. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of runway is, empirically, not enough.

—

rustingbridges: >>If it’s mine by right I’m just taking it. If someone else wants it they can come get it.<<

You need to try *much* harder to cover your ass, or it is going to get bit.

(Also, the main examples of resentful entitlement I was thinking of are some Uber Eats drivers I am “”friends”“ with who complain (to *me*, *knowing* I can’t do anything about it, just inflicting their negativity on me to no benefit) whenever anyone doesn’t tip them, even though it says right there on the website that customers should not feel obligated to tip, and that was what the drivers signed up for. And the people telling stories from the Good Old Days™, when single blue-collar salaries were large enough to raise five children on and still pay off your mortgage early, and savings accounts gave 5% interest.)

—

Serine, I tried to respond to your post, wrote out a whole draft with links and everything. But I can’t help but react to its condescension and hostility, and probably you’re just one of those people who’s naturally splainy [link] and aren’t actually aware that you keep coming across as picking fights with me.

Tags:

#discourse cw #reply via reblog #adventures in human capitalism #food #disordered eating? #long post #death mention

martianjune asked: Item#: 256 \n Object Class: Keter \n Special Containment Procedures: SCP-256

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

adzolotl:

existentialterror:

adzolotl:

disexplications:

ask-gpt:

Item#: 256
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-256 is to be handled in isolation, only when required for further consideration. Any necessary actions are to be taken by Security Operations. As of ██/██/20██, no further action has been taken.

Description: SCP-256 is a 4 x 6-inch, high-density “slicing cutter”; it comprises the top three parts, two of which contain the top end of a large, flat top. An iron chain is located on top of the cutter, with a metal buckle around the center. The chain can now move approximately a meter or so along its length, along the length of the upper surface. The chains have been equipped with a thin membrane, which forms an insulating layer. The bottom end acts as a lock and the middle of the edge acts as a brake.

The chain is secured to the base of the cutter, but can be removed once the chain is no longer attached. The chain is held in place with a screwdriver while its motion controls the blade. The hand-held device can be used to operate a knife through its blade unless held on a metal base using a rubber band, or when the knife is moved with the tool to the point where it reaches the cutting surface, or when holding the cutter by the hand. When the blade is moved, the knife will slide back and forth. Any remaining sharpening force will be applied to the base of the cutter, which will cause it to produce a sharp edge in the manner described herein.

SCP-256 was initially discovered to be a 1 x 1.5-inch “slicing cutter”, but was soon discovered to be much larger, and developed a reputation for being capable of slicing through objects, causing several deaths, including that of three individuals, at ███/██/20██. Due to its size, this “slicing cutter”(1) was not sufficiently able to tear through wood, however, and SCP-256 was eventually discovered to have a thick, tough steel casing around its edge. The casing is also thin and hard as iron, so it can easily break down and cause injury, as seen in the following pictures.

Due to the low quality of SCP-256 (3), it was placed in storage at Site 12 on █/██/20██. SCP-256 began producing sharpened knives during this time, as demonstrated by one of its most recent incidents: one sharpened by one man who cut it off in the middle of the day. At ███/19

I completely lost it at “due to the low quality of SCP-256, it was placed in storage”, then remembered it earlier today while a barber was shaving my neck with a straight razor and had to desperately suppress my laughter for fear of being cut open

Yeah, that’s how it gets you

tumblr_inline_pofqyxp3eq1snlb37_500

OpenAI’s language model wrote an SCP and it’s… a knife what kills you…

It has an impressive understanding of Sharp Thing = Danger Scary

Tags:

#SCP #GPT #death tw #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #also holy shit it knew to redact stuff #I guess now we know that GPT has read SCP Foundation entries #unreality cw #(which isn’t *quite* right but I feel like ”post was written by non-sapient entity: #if you try to interpret it as being from a person you’ll just end up confused” needs some cw and that one seems close)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

prokopetz:

prokopetz:

Rejected SCP Object proposal #137: a housecat that has an unerring ability to locate and navigate to the nearest SCP Foundation containment facility. Once it arrives, it makes every reasonable effort to get inside. It has no other observably anomalous properties or behaviours – it just really, really wants to be inside the containment facility.

@lizziegoneastray replied:

was this inspired by the library cat?

It is in large part inspired by the situation with Max the cat and the DeWitt Wallace Library, yes, but it’s also a sort of thought experiment: what is the most disarmingly innocuous anomaly we can come up with that would nonetheless give the Foundation the screaming willies?

This one has a couple of features that help it along there:

  • The cat’s existence is inherently an informational security breach, since – if left to its own devices – it can always find the nearest SCP Foundation containment facility without outside assistance. Imagine if some hostile third party got their hands on it!

  • The fact that its anomalous properties specifically target Foundation facilities suggests either that it was created purposefully, or else that it’s a byproduct of some other anomaly already in containment, and they have no idea which of those it is and no ready means of learning more.

In the containment log in my head, the cat’s existence was known for several years prior to its containment, but it was believed at the time to be an ordinary cat with a weird fixation on that particular building. After the site was closed down due to administrative reshuffling, the cat showed up at the next-nearest site a few weeks later and was recognised by transferred staff, at which point they realised something might be amiss – and upon testing and confirmation, were confronted with the fact that they’d had an uncontained and likely deliberately crafted anomaly nosing around one of their sites for several years.

Tags:

#SCP #fanfic #cat #story ideas I will never write

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

prokopetz:

C:\Users\tangerinememe\Desktop\WATCH_ME.MP4

“If you’re watching this video, I’m already dead. Not because I left it to be viewed in the event of my demise, but because that’s the only rational explanation for why somebody would be fucking with my laptop.”

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #death tw #storytime

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

rustingbridges:

The concept of companies paying for their employees’ food continues to boggle me, but then my entire family works in food service, so our idea of company-provided food is “the customer changed their mind about wanting the food after I made it, and the boss let me keep it”.

Covering some food during travel is pretty standard, I think, since it’s a business expense and employees rightly don’t want to pay for it. My old roommate worked at best buy (which was by no means a great employer) and even they gave him a per diem which covered (cheap) food.

B: Nah, there are starving children in Africa future selves to think of. We keep getting inheritances just as we’re about to run out of money, but that streak’s bound to end sooner or later, and it’s best to start preparing now.

So the question with this is kind of, where does it end? I think if I put my back into it, I could get by pretty much without ever paying for food, except when doing stuff with friends. I’ve definitely done two or three week stretches.

And even if you are counting labor costs, you can buy food at the supermarket for $1-2/day. It just gets really boring.

We keep getting inheritances just as we’re about to run out of money, but that streak’s bound to end sooner or later, and it’s best to start preparing now.

Also no offense but that sounds like a pretty bad situation and hopefully you can get out of it somehow?

 

brin-bellway:

>>and employees rightly don’t want to pay for it.<<

I get the justification for paying for the hotels and such because the employee wouldn’t otherwise have needed to buy them, but you have to eat either way. Sure, it’d be *nice* if they paid for it, but I wouldn’t be pissed if they didn’t.

(I speak from some experience here: my job *did* used to provide some free food each week (but only a small amount, and only from a limited selection of the cheaper menu items), but later switched to an employee-discount system. And every friend or family member who learned about it got angry on my behalf *even though I wasn’t angry about it myself*, and it was really annoying having to try to calm them down and defend against their attempts to instil negative emotions about it in me.)

—

>>It just gets really boring.<<

I would be perfectly content to eat peanut-butter-on-a-spoon for lunch every day for years on end. The *occasional* variety in food is nice, but as the exception, not the norm.

(Also I have a low metabolism and an appetite to match, which is helpful.)

I barely even have to try to knock my food budget down to about four USD a day, so in practice I haven’t done that much other than severely cut back on restaurants.

—

>>I could get by pretty much without ever paying for food, except when doing stuff with friends. I’ve definitely done two or three week stretches.<<

How?

—

>>Also no offense but that sounds like a pretty bad situation and hopefully you can get out of it somehow?<<

…I am worried by the fact that you started this sentence with “no offense”, because it suggests that there is something offensive about the rest of the sentence that I have overlooked.

(Is it something to do with, like, dignity or some shit?)

Our expenses are already extremely low by developed standards even without going full-on rice-and-beans [link]–a thousand USD per person per month would be enough, with room for a small emergency fund–but underemployment is a big problem.

(Though to be fair, I have a positive amount of money and have never been homeless, which makes me better off than most of my friends. (From multiple social circles, at that.))

 

rustingbridges:

I get the justification for paying for the hotels and such because the employee wouldn’t otherwise have needed to buy them, but you have to eat either way.

Sure, but I don’t need to eat out. Compare: eating in the comfort of my home, at supermarket prices, with they company of my lovely girlfriend vs eating at some random nearby restaurant, at corresponding prices, with the company of some random work people (who I happen to like, and may I always be so lucky).

If they want me to keeping doing these kinds of things, they ought to make it minimally bad. My job didn’t involve regular travel (I only did a few times) so I can’t comment on how that works, but while I’m sure the expectations change, I would expect it to change in the direction of more generous compensation for traveling, since traveling kind of sucks.

Sure, it’d be nice if they paid for it, but I wouldn’t be pissed if they didn’t.

I’m going to accuse you of being insufficiently entitled for your own good here. Sure, the expectations should probably with the job, but if I’m doing this for my employer he ought to cover it.

How?

In short, be places where they’re giving out food. Exact options may vary. In nyc you can get roughly a large pizza every night monday thru thursday just from tech meetups, if you’re willing to talk about The Cloud™ and Data Science™. There’s all sorts of things where there’s food and all you gotta do is be around to eat it.

Somewhat less respectably than that, a lot of businesses get rid of extra food. Depending on where you are, there may be organizations that are dedicated to not letting it go to waste. Depending on what you’re after you may in contention with various other indigents but not necessarily – there’s a lot of stuff that’s only good if you have a kitchen and the will to use it.

And at the bottom end of the spectrum, you wouldn’t believe some of the things people throw in the trash. Am I above eating some fancy looking, individually wrapped gifty desserts because the container was once adjacent to garbage? No I am not. (totally untouched nice looking garbage is disproportionately gifty looking, presumably because they are perfunctory, unwanted, and quickly disposed of gifts.)

…I am worried by the fact that you started this sentence with “no offense”, because it suggests that there is something offensive about the rest of the sentence that I have overlooked.

Uh I would say I probably said no offense because it’s a combination of: a) slightly prying b) casting some amount of unasked for advice / judgement on a situation which clearly I have spent less time thinking about than the person to whom I am speaking.

 

voxette-vk:

And at the bottom end of the spectrum, you wouldn’t believe some of the things people throw in the trash. Am I above eating some fancy looking, individually wrapped gifty desserts because the container was once adjacent to garbage? No I am not. (totally untouched nice looking garbage is disproportionately gifty looking, presumably because they are perfunctory, unwanted, and quickly disposed of gifts.)

I suppose I wouldn’t either… but how do you do this in practice without spending a lot of time sorting through nasty garbage?

 

rustingbridges:

Luck, mostly? I used to walk past on my way home from work a particular trash can which was usually completely full and often had that kind of thing just sitting out on top or next to it.

I’m not sure why that particular trash can was like that, but it was a popular / touristy area so it must have just been a, uh, blessed trash can in that respect.

I would not recommend actual garbage sorting as a hobby (fun fact: this is very specifically a legally prohibited activity in many public places).

I think people tend to put “nice” stuff off to the side rather than really shoving it in there, anyway.

[reblogging this version mostly for completeness; all of my responses are to the post immediately after my last one]

—

>>Sure, but I don’t need to eat out.<<

You don’t need to eat out at a hotel either. I always make sure I know where the local supermarkets are when I’m going to a hotel. Maybe there are hotels where you can reach a restaurant but not a supermarket, but I’ve never had to deal with that.

—

>>I’m going to accuse you of being insufficiently entitled for your own good here.<<

I’ve seen what happens to people who don’t accept their lot. I want no part of it.

(I don’t even mean what *other people* do to them, just the way that the resentment makes them miserable, and the way it skews their decision-making: some of them towards risky plans for the chance of a better life, others towards denial, in both cases ending up even worse off than they’d have been if they’d buckled down and dealt with it.)

—

>>If they want me to keeping doing these kinds of things, they ought to make it minimally bad.<<

Or else what? You’ll leave? Good luck paying the bills. Hell, you’re *American*: at least my dad was still able to get his broken ankle fixed.

(He was laid off from abovementioned cushy programming job almost thirteen years ago, and has never again made enough to make ends meet. He’s finally back in a position where he can at least make *some* money, just not enough.)

—

>>In nyc you can get roughly a large pizza every night monday thru thursday just from tech meetups, if you’re willing to talk about The Cloud™ and Data Science™. There’s all sorts of things where there’s food and all you gotta do is be around to eat it.<<

Who–among the set of people who care enough about how much their food costs to seek out free food, but are not living on the street–can afford to live *that* close to places where they’re giving out food? I’m pretty sure the transportation costs of getting to any place like that would be enough to buy an entire day’s worth of food, and instead you only get one meal out of it.

(Low appetite is a blessing when you’re eating supermarket food and can make the same size of stockpile last longer, but it does mean I suck at exploiting all-you-can-eat situations. I try very hard these days to avoid buffets, because compared to normal restaurants they’re more money for *less* food (in that you don’t get to take home your leftovers).)

—

>>Somewhat less respectably than that, a lot of businesses get rid of extra food. Depending on where you are, there may be organizations that are dedicated to not letting it go to waste.<<

We’ve had friends go to food banks, but I think my parents think those are for people more desperate than we are. Hell, they might even be right.

(Though when said friends offer us the bits of a food-bank variety pack they aren’t able to use themselves, we *do* at least accept them. Ate a cookie bar from a food-bank-sourced bake-it-yourself just yesterday.)

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>>And at the bottom end of the spectrum, you wouldn’t believe some of the things people throw in the trash. Am I above eating some fancy looking, individually wrapped gifty desserts because the container was once adjacent to garbage? No I am not.<<

I’ve experimented with dumpster diving a few times. Mostly for stuff to sell, but I did once find and redeem a voucher for a free protein bar. (I turned down the spicy ramen cups, though: I dislike pain.)

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>>I probably said no offense because it’s a combination of: a) slightly prying<<

It’s not like I don’t talk about it [link].

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>>b) casting some amount of unasked for advice / judgement on a situation which clearly I have spent less time thinking about than the person to whom I am speaking.<<

I don’t mind people calling it a bad situation, though as you can probably tell from the rest of this reply I have had more than enough [people trying to coerce me into having negative emotions] for one lifetime. (Although usually it’s people trying to get me to perform grief about [death of a relative I was not close to] or anger about [insert latest SJ Discourse topic].)

Tags:

#adventures in human capitalism #food #disordered eating? #reply via reblog #discourse cw? #long post #death mention

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

thezohar:

overthestars-and-offtoneverland:

lollytea:

i like how writing realistic worlds and characters is so important for so many writers to the point where they agonize over it. meanwhile lemony snicket was just like “death to reality. im gonna write this whole ass series and with god as my witness, absolutely fucking NOBODY is gonna act like a person.”

Daniel Handler, after downing whatever the hell he was on: The baby has piranha teeth and can take a trained swordswoman in a fight. 

All of us: Fucking genius. 

readers: what time and place is this set in?
Daniel Handler: Yes.

(While this is funny, also I do wonder what reading A Series of Unfortunate Events as a young impressionable child may have done to me?)

((other than a suspicion of eye doctors, I mean [link]))

(Kid!me took everything seriously. Like, I understood the concept of fiction–at least with books; lack of exposure to fictional songs meant I didn’t really understand that songs could be fictional until around early-mid teens–and to *some* extent (but only some [link]) I had a sense of humour, but I wouldn’t have known absurdity if it bit me. And indeed, I did not notice as a child how absurd A Series of Unfortunate Events was.)

Tags:

#A Series of Unfortunate Events #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #my childhood #if there’s nothing out there‚ what was that noise?

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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rustingbridges:

The concept of companies paying for their employees’ food continues to boggle me, but then my entire family works in food service, so our idea of company-provided food is “the customer changed their mind about wanting the food after I made it, and the boss let me keep it”.

Covering some food during travel is pretty standard, I think, since it’s a business expense and employees rightly don’t want to pay for it. My old roommate worked at best buy (which was by no means a great employer) and even they gave him a per diem which covered (cheap) food.

B: Nah, there are starving children in Africa future selves to think of. We keep getting inheritances just as we’re about to run out of money, but that streak’s bound to end sooner or later, and it’s best to start preparing now.

So the question with this is kind of, where does it end? I think if I put my back into it, I could get by pretty much without ever paying for food, except when doing stuff with friends. I’ve definitely done two or three week stretches.

And even if you are counting labor costs, you can buy food at the supermarket for $1-2/day. It just gets really boring.

We keep getting inheritances just as we’re about to run out of money, but that streak’s bound to end sooner or later, and it’s best to start preparing now.

Also no offense but that sounds like a pretty bad situation and hopefully you can get out of it somehow?

>>and employees rightly don’t want to pay for it.<<

I get the justification for paying for the hotels and such because the employee wouldn’t otherwise have needed to buy them, but you have to eat either way. Sure, it’d be *nice* if they paid for it, but I wouldn’t be pissed if they didn’t.

(I speak from some experience here: my job *did* used to provide some free food each week (but only a small amount, and only from a limited selection of the cheaper menu items), but later switched to an employee-discount system. And every friend or family member who learned about it got angry on my behalf *even though I wasn’t angry about it myself*, and it was really annoying having to try to calm them down and defend against their attempts to instil negative emotions about it in me.)

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>>It just gets really boring.<<

I would be perfectly content to eat peanut-butter-on-a-spoon for lunch every day for years on end. The *occasional* variety in food is nice, but as the exception, not the norm.

(Also I have a low metabolism and an appetite to match, which is helpful.)

I barely even have to try to knock my food budget down to about four USD a day, so in practice I haven’t done that much other than severely cut back on restaurants.

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>>I could get by pretty much without ever paying for food, except when doing stuff with friends. I’ve definitely done two or three week stretches.<<

How?

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>>Also no offense but that sounds like a pretty bad situation and hopefully you can get out of it somehow?<<

…I am worried by the fact that you started this sentence with “no offense”, because it suggests that there is something offensive about the rest of the sentence that I have overlooked.

(Is it something to do with, like, dignity or some shit?)

Our expenses are already extremely low by developed standards even without going full-on rice-and-beans [link]–a thousand USD per person per month would be enough, with room for a small emergency fund–but underemployment is a big problem.

(Though to be fair, I have a positive amount of money and have never been homeless, which makes me better off than most of my friends. (From multiple social circles, at that.))

Tags:

#food #disordered eating? #adventures in human capitalism #reply via reblog

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~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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shieldfoss:

It’s probably gonna get old if it keeps happening but business travel is still incredibly interesting to me.

This has been one of the cooler hotel rooms. (Not featured because it films poorly in the dark: The ocean past these east-facing windows)

tumblr_inline_po66hmmufz1tl8dj9_500

 

shieldfoss:

how is the hotel internet?

Internet is your standard Big City Scandinavia internet (75 MBps so less than at home but fast enough for my purposes – fast enough that I didn’t even think to check it before you asked)

and how is business travel interesting to you?

I’m just not super used to travelling, nor staying outside my own home. I don’t have to worry about breakfast, lunch or dinner and while I hear that hotel food becomes bland once you get used to it, I sure haven’t yet. Also if I was at “regular” work tomorrow I’d be writing some astonishingly dull product design specs for a new component in our software but tomorrow and Tuesday I’m ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ instead and that’s kind of cool.

 

shacklesburst:

Fair. Also that makes me want to finally visit Scandinavia and try out your hotel internet.

I hear that hotel food becomes bland once you get used to it

I’m not even business traveling that much and this rings extremely true to me and I’ve reached that point way faster than I’d ever have anticipated. I mean it’s probably different if you’re a high-class executive staying at really upscale hotels, but the usual buffet fare at 3-4 stars gets old pretty fast. Same with airport lounge food – I still eat there though, not least because it the hot buffet sure beats shelling out like €20 for a small sandwich.

 

rustingbridges:

So are y’all like, actually eating at the hotel? I can see the occasional convenience but isn’t there the option of just going down the street or whatever for something more interesting.

 

brin-bellway:

I don’t know about them, but why would I pay money to eat food from down the street when hotel food is free?

(Valid answers include “the meal the hotel was serving today was a food I find actively repulsive” and “they only serve dinner Monday – Thursday and it is dinnertime on Saturday”, but do not include “the hotel food was bland”. It’s not like I’d be able to enjoy paid food anyway, haunted by the knowledge that it was a waste of money. Plus I kind of like blandness, tbh.)

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Context: I have not business-travelled *per se*, but when we do travel we tend to stay at hotels catering primarily to businesspeople. I am thinking of hotels mostly in Massachusetts, with occasional other states plus a couple in Ontario.

 

rustingbridges:

Possible answers:

A) it’s a business trip, I’m expensing dinner. It’s free either way. Also how common is free dinner anyway, don’t most hotel restaurants charge.

B) I regularly pay money for the purpose of eating food I like more, and regularly turn down free food.

C) I value the cluster of food novelty related goods. The associated opportunity cost of staying in is especially high if you’re traveling anywhere decent (although this goes down if you go the same places a lot, but in that case, haven’t you found anywhere you like?)

A-1: The concept of companies paying for their employees’ food continues to boggle me, but then my entire family works in food service, so our idea of company-provided food is “the customer changed their mind about wanting the food *after* I made it, and the boss let me keep it”. (Although occasionally my brother will be rewarded with a free meal for training a newbie or agreeing to show up on a day he would normally have off.)

If the marginal increase in food quality is free, then absolutely maximise quality.

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A-2: IME, free hot breakfast 7 days/week and free dinner Monday – Thursday is standard for business hotels. (Slightly lower-tier hotels offer cold breakfast and no dinner.) Many also keep cookies by the front desk, and some keep packets of hot-chocolate mix by the coffee machine.

I think I have been to one (1) hotel with a restaurant that even theoretically charged money, and that was at Disney World. (And in that case my mom had managed to wrangle some promotions into getting us a meal plan for free, so in practice even *that* hotel food didn’t actually cost anything.)

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B: Nah, there are starving children in Africa future selves to think of. We keep getting inheritances just as we’re about to run out of money, but that streak’s bound to end sooner or later, and it’s best to start preparing now.

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C: I *can* enjoy food, but I seem to have a lower cap on how much pleasure I can experience from a meal than other people do, even when the cap *isn’t* further lowered by the meal’s distance from the financially-optimal meal. (If a meal cost more than about $7, it’s pretty much guaranteed that I will get net-negative utility from it. Meals in the $3 – $7 range are increasingly iffy.)

(For anyone wondering “but if you’re that much of a miser, why do you even *know* what hotels above the bottom price tier are like?”: early on it was because Dad had a cushy programming job, in the middle it was because my parents were hiding the extent of the problem from their kids, and later it was because they–while not *oblivious* or anything–seem to be incapable of fully *grokking* the severity of the problem and occasionally drag me to sub-optimal places.)

Tags:

#adventures in human capitalism #food #disordered eating? #reply via reblog #I uh may be feeling guilty about acquiescing when my boss told me to go home after 8 hours on Saturday #when I’m pretty sure I could have talked him into 9.5 if I’d tried

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