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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • I used to hang out on the dph subreddit and it was one of my favorite drug subs. A little bit depressing because of the side effects and how many of them had already suffered significant brain damage though.

    I miss the drug subs like /dph or /heroin. I read them for years since these very much interest me— there’s so much of the human experience I will never try— but I fear permanent side effects and am not much of the drug type anymore. If only I could try it and rewind time with the memories intact.

    Plus the dph memes are great.


  • Mobile apps, no ads, and no widespread astroturfing. I still use Reddit for product recommendations, but even that has become mostly advertising (oftentimes the link will redirect several times so they get their money).

    I don’t like contributing ad revenue or engagement to a company I dislike. I find Reddit leadership morally reprehensible, and for the free market to work, I must avoid giving them money. Searching up products on ad-free RDX Reddit viewer contributes a view, but no engagement or ad revenue while coming at a very small cost to the company which I’ll accept.

    And honestly, as a person who finds some of Lemmy’s community to be a bit much, it’s still way better than the bottom of the barrel half AI trash Reddit is now. Lemmy reminds me of old Reddit, occasional insufferable behavior and all, and that’s way better than new Reddit. You miss a lot of the personal stories, but in turn you also read less made up or AI generated garbage.


  • Hm the only one I can find on the Costco site is 110 cals per serving + about 190 for the peanut butter, making for a pretty light breakfast. If the peanut butter is curbing appetite and this is the whole breakfast, it doesn’t necessarily need to be removed.

    And yeah, definitely account for butter and oil. I was advised by a dietician to add tablespoons of oil into food (I use olive oil or avocado oil) for additional calories, which I do sometimes. It often makes the difference.

    Are you losing any weight? I’m seeing a TDEE (calories per day to maintain) of 3300~3700 depending on much you work out on the five days a week I think I saw earlier. The formulas aren’t always accurate but they’re rarely that far off, and I think it’s somewhat unlikely that your count is off by 1500+ calories a day. It definitely is possible, I’ve read weight management stories like that, but if you start weighing your food and adding calories from oil + butter and see no weight loss I’d consider asking a doctor.

    Feel free to ask if you have any questions, I’ve been counting calories and measuring my weight every day for a very long time now. I have my weight management down, and while my experiences may not be applicable for you, I’m happy to elaborate on anything. Weight management is difficult and sometimes a truly long term commitment.


  • Hi, I must agree with others that you’re eating more than what you think. I was underweight for over 20 years, so the opposite problem, and I’m one of the few people here who read “I struggle to meet 1500 calories” and nodded. For the vast majority of humans, weight loss is entirely based on energy deficit, so something must be up.

    Calories are deceptive. Two days ago I had one sub sandwich (the bread I use, Schär ciabatta, comes in half sized so two of them make up one sub). It was 850 calories, far more than I expected the first time I had one— it’s not even large. That plus an Arizona tea made for 1040 calories in a single pretty volumetrically small meal.

    I track the calories of every single thing I eat. I use an accurate to 0.1g scale to measure every ingredient I use in meals and to track serving size for snacks. I pour drinks into a measuring cup. It was some work at first but by now it’s basically second nature. You don’t need to go that far, but I’d highly recommend doing something. Every ingredient must be considered: are you accounting for butter or oils in pasta or even steak? Those add hundreds of calories.

    The fruit smoothie sounds almost like bulking food to me. Peanut butter in a smoothie is great for weight gain. How much is two scoops? What’s in the smoothie itself? If you have vague measurements of ingredients and amount, I’d be happy to calculate a caloric estimate. It won’t be exact, but would be a good start.


  • Yeah, extremely saddening. I watch his father’s videos sometimes and they can be difficult.

    Techno’s death was a lot harder to hear about than I expected. I heard about it from a friend that I’d shared a video with and felt genuinely sad. I didn’t even know the guy or watch that many of his videos. I’ve watched dozens of them in the time since when I have nothing else to do and honestly, it’s the celebrity death I’ve cared about most.

    He was so young too. Probably younger than 90+% of this site. Such a tragic death.


  • I’m not a YouTube guy; I only follow one channel I found during the Covid lockdowns, this kid called Technoblade who was low key while being really good at the game Minecraft. They worked together sometimes. Didn’t make Mr Beast seem very cool.

    From what I’ve seen, he just inserts his loud personality into things by throwing money at people. It was never “hanging out with Mr Beast”, but “Mr Beast is giving out money”. Those guys are generally bad people, I cannot think of an exception.


  • Huh. I’ve been to all of those but Yokosuka, some as recently as a few months ago but also pre 2023, and I’ve found that almost everything I go to took card. I wonder if we somehow happen to only go to places that do/don’t take card and thus have totally different experiences with cash only.

    And yeah the toilets are great. Toto sells them in the US if you’re based here. A little expensive, but if you’re gonna live at your current place for a long time, it’s probably worth it.

    The bar sounds awesome, sheesh. That’s the cheapest tab of that size I’ve ever heard of. I buy most of my things while I’m there due to pricing, and even then I’m shocked at how damn cheap that is haha




  • I have to say I am too. She’s had a few incidents of odd speech patterns; if not this, the poor soundbites like weirdly explaining things (“Russia is a country” or “do not come”). Trump’s word salad is so normalized that he won’t be scrutinized for it. There will probably be sexist comments on it as well.

    I hope she gets new speechwriters and a bit of training on what to say instead. It’s probably a lot to hope that she can quickly override this pattern, given it’s likely something she’s done all her life, but her duties as VP are relatively minimal and the campaign can afford speech training. She’s better than Trump either way, but being consistently on point would be useful


  • I have long trusted, alongside polls, Professor Allan Lichtman’s system of keys to the White House. The system uses thirteen true/false questions and asserts that American voters vote for president based on the governing performance of the incumbent party. It has been right 11 times in a row, if you believe that the Supreme Court allowed Bush to win even if recounts were going to turn it in Gore’s favor. It correctly predicted Trump’s 2016 victory along a number of other upsets.

    Per this system, Harris has a less lenient board but is still probably favored at this point. She has lost incumbency and unfortunately does not bring charisma (defined as broad appeal past their party). Nonetheless, if the remaining undecided keys fall as they stand now, she would win in October.

    In my opinion, her candidacy could be better than Biden’s if this allows Biden to focus on securing a ceasefire in Gaza instead of campaigning. This would allow a foreign military success, making up for the loss of incumbency. She may also hurt RFK’s campaign if there are a good deal of protest voters who are simply tired of two elderly men (and thus picked a slightly younger elderly man).

    Because of this system, I was very very worried about Harris replacing Biden. Professor Lichtman’s streak is unparalleled and he has little skin in the game since he is not a pollster doing this for a living. Thus it’s difficult to see it as pure luck. Lichtman himself believes it’s still winnable though, and that has been relieving to hear.

    Outside of the system, I can see how Harris could win. She polls better. She’s younger and can be a reasonably decent speaker. She’s certainly more exciting than Biden, and has more energy and time to campaign. With the media focused on her now, she could get her message out quickly and powerfully. I can see her winning by a significant margin.

    If I’m honest, I’m not totally optimistic, but there are many factors in her favor. I would’ve felt better if she had the charismatic appeal of Kelly or Whitmer. It’s fine though. Her strengths of being a coherent non-fascist that has never been found legally liable for rape should help separate her from her opponent, and she’ll demolish him in a debate if he develops the courage to show up.


  • Genuinely great scene. So is the phone call with Aurelio (“I heard you hit my son”), another excellent setup and play on expectations. And Perkins’ death which is one of the most memorable ways to kill off a powerful antagonist.

    The concept worked best when we as the audience expected the world to function familiarly, and it could playfully subvert those expectations in small ways.

    This is exactly it. By 4, the world is so nonsensical that it barely resembles the first. I view the first in a vacuum because the others actually harm it— why did the police even bother showing up in the circus world of the sequels where shootouts happen in the open? They also stopped with the playful subversions and I think tried to rely on the nonsense world to keep it light. I hadn’t actually seen the playfulness put to words, but you nailed it.

    I’m glad the filmmakers probably had fun but the sequels can’t capture the almost believable action, genuinely decent plot, and emotional payoff. That and the general tone was totally discarded. I still watch 2 and 3 sometimes for the choreography, but damn if they don’t pale compared to the first.


  • I have to rant a little, this will add nothing to your day and you should skip it. John Wick is one of my favorite movies ever, but every expansion pokes holes into the universe, and reduces the realism of the choreography. I love the first, and the character, but I think it’s past time the series end.

    And look, I’m not saying it needs to be or ever was realistic. But the armor is so comical that it feels like a bad video game. In the fourth, enemies would visibly be staggered, act out a flailing animation, then recover right when it was time for them to be hit with a flashy execution move. I’m not a movie snob— I can even enjoy Transformers 2— but I kept getting distracted by background enemies doing nothing but biding time until their cue to die. Not unlike the Praetorians in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The choreography was still masterful in that the stuntmen were immaculate, but the predictable dizziness animations made me feel some sense of real sadness remembering JW1 and even 2.

    The story also got offensively stupid. The Osaka Continental staff felt like vaguely racist caricatures, bringing swords to a gunfight. The manager forcing Donnie Yen to kill him (effectively suicide by duel) purely for “honor” and making his daughter watch was particularly unimpressive. Really, every region felt like they took the most marketable bits with nearly no real culture; even the assassin society solely portrays the cool bits. I’m not the type to usually care about cultural respect in movies but it felt like distasteful stereotype. These plus the extremely disappointing choice to keep working with sexual predator Taran Butler make me wish it ended at the second.

    So it doesn’t terribly surprise me that the spinoff is bad too. I can’t see any movie in this universe of barely-inhibitive juggernaut armor and nonsense worldbuilding being good again. I’d expect less than respectful portrayals of ballet, poorly thought out heavy handed commentary on female assassins, and bullet sponges conveniently dying because they were hit in a place that made them flounder. Every Wick installment has only made worse the problem, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see that here too. Hopefully I’m wrong and will eat these words, but ehhhhhhh. Probably not.

    No hate to those who liked JW4, I understand the video game aesthetic can be appealing. I don’t even think the series should end purely because I didn’t like it, it’s great that there’s an audience walking away satisfied. Just wasn’t for me and I miss the older movies.