I guess whether this protocol should be abandoned, rather than iterated on to improve its chances of success, to me, depends on the effect the coma has on the patient’s quality of life while the protocol is attempted. It’s arguably more humane to put someone in a medically induced coma while they’re still sane. If the protocol fails, the patient is at least not conscious while their brain is deteriorating.

I’m gonna go watch House.

I enjoyed the original songs on the jukebox in Lego Island 1. Ran at 1fps on the old family computer back in the day. Good times

I wonder how folks like this feel about student loan forgiveness.

Haha, I’ll have to check it out. I’ve heard this channel is fun but have never watched any of their vids.

My dad and I used to debate who would win in a fight between Goku and Superman back in the day. Fun times

What a tragedy. I don’t even have the words. I was just posting in another thread about how I thought Dragon Ball had stood the test of time and the new content was still good, even sometimes better than the old stuff.

RIP Toriyama. You were a titan

I did keto 2 years ago to lose some weight and found some very good substitutes. The low carb bread I got at the market tasted just like regular bread. Almond butter was a fine substitute for peanut butter. Pork rinds made for decent croutons in a salad. Stuff like that. Worked for me, anyway.

I’ve had some pretty tasty vegan cheeses before. I’m not a vegan or vegetarian, but I like trying new things. The vegan cheeses made with fermented coconut were really good substitutes imo (and I hate coconut)

I’ve had some vegan cheeses that were made with fermented coconut and they were pretty darn good. And I hate regular coconut.

For me, it’s Dragon Ball. Across 3 mangas, 4 shows, and like 25 movies, the latest content is still enjoyable. Dragon Ball Super, both the anime and manga, are just super fun successors to the originals. It’s the only comic book I actually read when a new issue comes out.

Glad you made it out relatively unscathed. My old man got killed when a negligent driver crashed into him while he was riding his bike at night. Motorcycles are death traps and I’m always uncomfortable when I’m on the road and one gets near my car.

I like that they’re more fuel efficient than cars, and they’re a thrill for the rider, but the inevitable incompetence of other drivers, or just plain bad luck like blowing a tire, has such a high mortality rate for bikers.

One of my dad’s old biker buddies got hit by a teenage driver who’d just gotten their license. I’m not gonna harp on the kid too badly cause when you’re a new driver, you’re gonna make mistakes. Just sucks that one little mistake can cost someone so dearly. Dad’s friend survived, but he’s never been the same due to brain damage sustained in the crash. He wasn’t wearing a DoT approved helmet at the time, though, so it’s partially on him. His fake helmet snapped in half like a twig.

Biker culture (at least in the US) also has the unfortunate undercurrent of macho shit like “I don’t wanna wear a helmet cause that’s for sissies. I’ll just die like a man.” Helmets are mandatory in my state, but it’s seldom enforced.

That’s one of the more depressing aspects. Whenever I see people say, “I can’t wait for McConnell to die” I’m like, “It’s not like Kentucky is suddenly going to vote in someone who isn’t horrible to replace him.” Just trading out one shitty politician for a younger one.

Sure, but you also said not to shame people for how they vote. I responded specifically to that statement and not the others because I understand wanting to vote for a candidate you actually want in office.

Unfortunately, strategic voting has to occur in order for things to get better in the USA. Until we massively overhaul the voting system, voters need to understand that you either vote for the lesser of two evils, or are (albeit passively) contributing to the greater of two evils’ ascent to power.

Even far-left progressives like Bernie Sanders or Noam Chomsky were like, “Dude, you gotta vote for the Democratic candidate or else these crazy far-right candidates are gonna push the country further to the right. At least if the Democratic candidate wins we either stay where we are, or maybe get to move a bit further left during their tenure.”

It’s a deeply flawed system, but in the general election, it’s a simple calculus. There’s nothing Biden could do to lose my vote in November because I owe it to our society (and our allies worldwide) to prevent another Trump term.

Let people vote for who they believe in without shaming them.

Voting is like freedom of speech. Everyone is free to vote for whoever they want, but they aren’t immune from criticism for how they vote. If someone votes for a guy who says he’ll “be a dictator on day one” and encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want”, I’m gonna shame that person for supporting such an insupportable candidate who espouses such insane ideas.

where’s the pleasure in watching a story you’ve just created with prompts?

I imagine (some of) the fanfic/fanvid community might love something like this for making fanvids. Some of my friends are big into the fanfic/fanvid scene and would probably love writing/directing their own videos to share with fellow fans in the community.

If I hadn’t gotten a home right before the housing market went to shit, I’d be discouraged too.

Same. My family hit the lottery when we decided to buy a house when the covid pandemic was tanking the market. Locked in a mortgage at around 2.25% and feel so privileged every day for it. The apartment we lived in at the time said they were upping the rent nearly 30% when we were due to renew, so we started looking at houses. We were incredibly lucky that we met someone entirely by chance who was planning on selling their home around the same time our apartment lease was due to renew. They never even listed their house on the market so we didn’t have to deal with getting into a bidding war. And it was within our budget. And I got a raise at work right before we signed the papers (we were already gonna be able to afford it, but just barely). The stars aligned in so many ways at such an uncertain time in our lives.

It’s one of the few things that gives me comfort in trying times. So many things could go wrong, but we’ve got a house with a fixed mortgage and a very low interest rate and a half acre of land for our kid to run around and play in. I’d say my general anxiety levels have been lower since buying a house cause it just passively comforts me to have gotten so lucky. Even though maintaining a home is a big responsibility compared to renting an apartment, it’s totally worth it, and I’ve enjoyed becoming more handy over the years as things have needed fixing.

With any luck, we’ll never move again. It’s a nice place about 15 minutes from the nearest town, which is already a rural area, so there’s little light pollution so the stargazing opportunities are nice. Hoping to eventually add some solar panels to the roof to lower the energy bill one of these days.

If we were still living in a basic apartment and paying effectively the same amount in rent that we’re currently paying in mortgage for a 3 bed 2 bath house with a garage, I’d be depressed as fuck about it every day.

I’d actually be curious to see the comparison between the power consumption/ecological impact of physical money and digital banking systems vs crypto. I assume the latter is way worse because the proof-of-work model is painfully inefficient and literally just a waste of energy (proof-of-stake is better but still wasteful), but I’d be interested to see actual numbers for comparison. Is crypto twice as bad? Or ten times? Or even worse?

Just thinking of all the things traditional money and banks require (just for the US):

• Growing and harvesting cotton and flax for paper bills (and manufacturing linen from the flax plant)
• Physical buildings need to be constructed to hold money, so all the materials required to build a bank need to be manufactured and then constructed in many places all over the country
• Mining and then refining and forging gold and silver bars for places like Fort Knox
• Power consumption from all the banks’ servers that handle all of the digital wiring of money all over the world
• Mining copper/nickel/zinc/manganese for minting coins, and then the manufacturing process to mint them
• Fuel consumption moving physical money from place to place

Prolly more stuff I’m not thinking of. I wonder if any studies have been done to add it all up. At least a lot of the stuff traditional money requires creates jobs, too. Farmers, construction workers, miners, etc.

Ah, no worries. It’s all good.

I agree the situation is oppressive and untenable, but the plant manager isn’t the same as a King. We don’t know if the plant manager had the actual power to fix anything, given the corruption and embezzling going on behind the scenes. A King is the top of the pyramid, this guy wasn’t necessarily, so I don’t condone his murder based on pure speculation. The French people didn’t have to speculate that the King and Queen were directly responsible for the peoples’ misery and oppression.

We just don’t know enough.

I would say that’s a good reason not to condone mob violence, not a reason to support it.

A few of my favorites that I follow:

Open Culture - https://toot.community/@openculture
George Takei - https://universeodon.com/@georgetakei
Endless Screaming - https://botsin.space/@scream
The New Oil - https://mastodon.thenewoil.org/@thenewoil
Space Telescope Science Institute - https://astrodon.social/@spacetelescope
Linux on Mobile - https://fosstodon.org/@linmob