When my dad was diagnosed with myeloma I told him I didn't know what to say. He said there's nothing to say about it.

Rather than talk about our feelings, which my family never really did, we just continued shooting the shit and joking and sending each other the equivalent of cat pics for old people.

Despite myeloma being incurable, it's treatable and some people last a long time and you kind of cling to the hope that this case will be one of those. Despite the statistics.

When the melonomas appeared though, every conversation became incredibly weird and difficult because we both basically assumed we were just waiting for him to die, which he did quite soon.

Sorry for making this about me and again, I'm not really sure what to say to you. The death in life sucks. Not sure about your relationship with your mom is like, but I hope you can avoid my situation of being weirded out talking to each other.

I think it’s easy for people sufficiently interested in this issue to write, or even read, an article like this to overestimate the interest that other people have in the subject.

The argument by privacy advocates going back to the DMCA has always been that people lack interest because they lack understanding. When Disney said "you can't tape football games" the country said 'the fuck you say' and everybody knew. On the other hand, when Sony said "we can sue you for millions if you make a perfect copy of your CD" things were much better hidden. "You wouldn't steal a car LOL" became the reaction of the world seven years after there was any discussion about it; this is one of the reasons everyone publicized the hell out of Net Neutrality despite the fact that it had very little effect on anyone in the moment.

Consider how often the first button is “OK” and muscle memory says it’s the one you click to make the thing you just requested happen.

That makes it "dark design", not choice.

Consider how many apps and services are already interlinked, and how hard it might be to figure out what might break if you opt out.

It's not hard to figure out what's broken. Try it. Does it work? Then it's not broken. Is it broken? Then it's broken. I switched back to iPhone about a month ago. I was delighted to discover I could delete Apple Maps. I was more delighted to discover that not only can I use Google Maps in Apple Carplay, but that it's radically more useful than Google Maps in Android Auto. Now - if I try to get Siri to look up an address, she refuses to talk to Google Maps. Apple helpfully asks me if I want to reinstall Apple Maps for that functionality and I cheerfully do not because the dumpster fire that was Apple Maps the last time I used it will never not be fresh on my memory, and having compared Google to Apple with my wife out driving around two weeks ago even a cursory glance at the AIs' chosen behavior reveals Apple to continue to suck.

Apple is making it a lot more inconvenient for me to subvert their native app. They are, however, allowing me to choose to do so. Thus, I continue to work around the lack of Apple Maps.

Surely at least 99% of ads are ignored. That means all businesses have to spend a lot more to reach their next customer.

Let's hear it for choice! Simon calls me up two or three times a month to honor me with the opportunity to advertise on kiosks at the mall. They can hook me up for a mere thousand dollars a month. "Sure," I say, "lemme see your demographic breakdown and visibility figures for those kiosks." There is generally a pained silence on the other end of the line, followed by a variation of "no one's ever asked for that before" or "why do you need to see that" or "what's a CPM." I then patiently explain that I have an advertising budget that I'm attempting to maximize the utility of and I'm not going to commit to an ad buy whose effectiveness I can't predict. The conversation goes sideways at that point.

Conversely, I have a double-sided jumbotron at a busy intersection. It's dying; it was installed in 2004 and hit end-of-life in 2018 so we're looking at dropping between $30k and $50k to replace it. Now here's the thing: when I told the company to give me a CPM breakdown on that sign, THEY DID. They divided the cost of the sign by the number of vehicles that encountered it daily times the occupancy rate (both figures available from DOT) over the cost of the lease and revealed that spending $50k on a sign is 20 times cheaper than Google AdWords. More than that, our intake surveys ask "how did you hear about us" which is how I know that 20% of our customers come to us through online search, 20% through insurance website search, 20% word-of-mouth and 40% drove by and saw the sign.

As a business owner, I don't feel compelled to spend "a lot more to reach their next customer." I will spend as little as possible for maximum effect. As a savvy business owner I will research that relationship until I'm satisfied. if an advertising platform wishes for me to "spend a lot more" they need only give me compelling evidence that my spend will be efficacious. Simon Outdoor fails. Daktronics wins. It's just numbers.

I recognize you're talking about targeted advertising and I'm revealing that my means-tested, tracked, and researched most-efficient ad buy is "fuckin' 4'x10' LED sign on a street corner." I think that's telling. We presume that because something is super-invasive it must be super-effective and it's simply not so. I made the point to the guy who literally runs the Internet for Warner Brothers that with all the cookies and stuff Warner has in my browser it's kind of astounding that they give me the exact same ad three times over six times an hour. He responded that while the cookies and such are clearly and obviously available, the advertisers aren't interested because when you're trying to move product, microtargeting is utterly ineffective. He didn't say it was offensive; wasn't his wheelhouse.

And look. I think we're spending $100/mo on adwords right now. We're also organically the second or third search result for any term that matters to me within the isochrones I care about. That's in a market where my nearest competition literally owns "birthcenter.com" (they're two or three links below us). As far as sponsored ads? We're number two of two because any term we care to spend money on we're automatically outbid by a major hospital conglomerate.

Which, really, goes to show how ineffective online advertising is. We're basically pissing away that $100. Our business comes from being in the directories patients expect to look at, and in making the community aware of us through outdoor signage.

Which, once more, is probably why these discussions are so contentious. There's no there there. Nielsen ratings exist because the advertising industry demanded it of broadcasters; online advertising exists because it isn't tracked by Nielsen. As soon as there are auditable metrics for online advertising of any kind the whole thing will collapse.

The stock market clearly indicates that they bought Teslas instead.

i think hubski was a great idea and i respect you for creating it as an experiment. its failures, however they might be defined by any of the users who have quit in disgust over the years, or by me, or whomever, i believe are mostly inherent in the medium.

that said, i still encounter new, interesting ideas on the internet fairly often, and none of them come from here (anymore).

I tear people down, because I'm sad on the inside

Here's the elastics shelf at JoAnn. JoAnn Fabrics is an essential business according to the State of WA so it's open under shelter-in-place. This is what it looked like last week.

I asked the green-haired guy cutting my cloth where the elastic was and he said "the aisle behind me, although I don't think you'll find anything!" So I went back. It wasn't far enough away from him not to hear him turn to his coworker and say "I'm so sick of people asking 'where's the elastic? Where's the elastic? How do I make a mask? How do I make a mask? Waah!'" So when I came back to get more fabric cut I told him "Look - I get that you're stressed and all? But I've got a clinic with seven employees that's been compelled to stay open through this thing and the only protective equipment we're going to see from now until the end of it is what's in this basket so I get it? But maybe keep it to yourself."

Cooking everything under UV for half an hour, then flipping, then cooking some more. The big box is my daughter's "beat on a block of plaster with a hammer and chisel to find rocks" toy; she bought it with her own money.

That's a MERV13 furnace filter. There were three left at Home Depot. I bought two. They contain two layers of synthetic felt with a layer of aluminum mesh in between. It's sharp as a mutherfucker.

If you savage the shit out of an MERV13 furnace filter you will find yourself bleeding from fingers and arms. You will also find yourself with approximately six yards of synthetic felt that's eminently breathable. Pictured here is one half of a savaged furnace filter. The wad in the corner is one half of a savaged furnace filter's accoutrement of razor wire.

Mask insert pattern. Masks by my wife, who sews about as well as I mix music. Therefore there's no point in doing any of the sewing.

Half a furnace filter yields approximately 70 mask inserts, which must be doubled up in order to equal the equivalent of about n65. N95 it ain't but "better than straight cloth" it is. It looks like I have the ability to produce about 120 masks if need be. Which is good because the nearest L&D department has closed its doors and the other nearest L&D is actively discouraging maternity patients from having babies in the hospital. Meanwhile CDC guidelines recommend separating newborns from COVID-19 mothers for two weeks, which as anyone who has ever studied early childhood development can tell you is a developmental nightmare of epic proportions so to no one's suprise it's going over like a lead balloon with the pregnant moms' contingent (and every other health organization who are actively asking the CDC 'WTF is wrong with you').

Fuckin' sunshine and rainbows over here in Seattle.

A meteor shower+picnic sort of date is in my back pocket

A+ idea. That's how I proposed to my wife.

exhales

Haven't shared what was going with me in a while here. I seem to mainly find time to do it when I am on holidays at home. So, out of my childhood room, I give you my last 6 months of living.

health

I was doing good, really good. Found my way back to Karate, was climbing in between, staying active as a way to manage the stress that is building up in my last year of PhD. And then it happened, I misplaced my foot during sparring, my ankle twisted, and then my knee followed. I heard it. I never thought that I would hear it. The pain was instant. Fast forward by a week of swollen joints and not knowing what is up, my ACL ripped. And that just before summer/festival season. It felt like this started a process of extreme ups and downs that went on until last wednesday. I decided to still go to the burn I wanted to do go. Twisted my unstable knee twice there, didn't care, had surgery in august. Felt like a vegetable for 3-4 weeks. Been recovering well. Twisted my knee again, worried that it ripped again, still don't know if it is fine but doctor says it feels okay, probably not ripped. I figure, either case, I need to get my muscles back, focus on physio and training my legs with the hope that all is fine.

Apart from my knee. I have had stomach troubles for a while and I couldn't quite figure it out. I still don't know exactly, but it seems to be connected with milk products. When I leave them out, reduce my meat/fat intake, eat more salad, my stomach is more happy. Maybe I should listen to my body. Chances are I became lactose intolerant with age? Wasn't sure this could happen. Heard some anecdotes from people where it happened to them during some stressful periods.

PhD

Its the last sprint, my friends. After having my last thesis advisory committee meeting I was told to wrap it up until June next year. Problem is, the main results of the thesis are just being uncovered now. Hypothesis that I have been following for the past year (and my boss believing/betting on for at least that long) are turning out to be false. I am accepting it and looking for other solutions, my boss is not. This lead to one of my hardest progress reports last week. It felt like going into cognitive war with someone who was waaaay too lucky in his career. I felt sick and even more disillusioned by scientists afterwards. How can you claim that you are doing hypothesis driven science and then no accept the results of all the experiments that have been done? Bottom line, he wants to have a look at my raw data of two years of experiments because he doesn'T understand my simple analysis of calcium signals. Funny thing is, all that happened just 30 minutes after he declared in front of the whole group that he is giving me a 1000€ bonus for all the things I do for the lab. Not exactly "carrot and stick" but it felt like it, somehow.

Anyway, it seems like its time to fire the engines up to 120% and bulldoze through the next months. I am not sure what I am going to do afterwards. I promised myself that I won't stay in science unless I am going something that I am really passionate about. So I have been looking for labs that work on the claustrum as I am still obsessed with the neuroscience of psychedelics. I have made positive contact with one PI in the UK where I have a feeling that I could learn something. There is another one in Jerusalem that I have to yet contact...

Family

On the 12.10., is my fathers birthday. On the 12.10.2019, at 10 in the morning, while frying some breakfast eggs, my father had a sudden cardiac death. Luckily, my mother and grandma were home. They heard a noise in the kitchen, found him, and my mother started to reanimate while my grandma ran out to the street to catch the ambulance that was on its way (because we don't have addresses). After 10 minutes of reanimation, a guy on a motorcycle arrived with a defibrillator kit. They introduced those mobile units because of the crazy traffic situation in Israel. The streets are always packed and people don't know how to open up a rescue alley. He gave my father a shock, got his pulse back. Lost it again, shocked him again. Went like this for another 3 times. 10 minutes after the mobile unit, the ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital. Overall, it took 45 minutes from the moment my mother called until he was at the hospital.

When my mother called, around 12 am, I was having late breakfast and planning to call my father to wish him a happy birthday. I was surprised to be called by my mother and sister at the same time, instead. I instantly felt something was wrong. I picked up and listened to my crying mother. My mind went cold and analytic. I remember asking he for the details and time it took for things to evolve. My medical studies popped up again, remembering that 3 minutes without air could already start the brain damage. In my head, I thought him dead. And then the sadness kicked in and I was in agony. She told me that they had to do two stents and put him in hypothermia to help reduce the damage. So he was in a coma, without us able to say whether he will wake up, or not.

There was only one reflex, find a flight and head back home. This is also when I realised that I am not prepared for such an emergency. Dishing out 1000€ for a flight ticket is not something my PhD finances could handle so lightly. But that is another issue. I found a flight for next day in the morning. Already at the german airport, my mom called me to tell me that he woke up. Completely confused, but seems to still have many of his normal function.

Fast forward a few hours. I am standing in his room in the hospital, in shock. My father had a memory span of 3 minutes. I had no clue what to feel in that moment. Relief that he is alive and survived? Worry for how his life will continue if this is how he states? My irrational mind was in control and it seemed to block out all the things I learned about post-operative symptoms and delirium because boy, the next week was one hell of a ride.

During the following week, he had to do another two stents (correct a previous one, and open another one). This was all too surprising to us. My father is a thin and rather healthy-looking guy. How could it be that 2/3 of his heart wasn't being perfused? Simple answer, 35 years of cigarettes. Delirium does weird things with you. You can't really sleep as you wake up every 5-10 minutes throughout the night. You forget all kinds of shit which leads to repeating all kind of stuff. You do weird things like ordering 3 skinned rabbits from 3 people at 6 A.M. which I had to drive around town to collect. Or, broadcast funny pictures of your 75-year old sister (who lost her husband a year ago) you took with your newly discovered gender swap filter on snapchat, with the purpose to find her a new husband (why did we give him his phone back???).

This was of course all also mixed with blaming us. We, my sister, my mother, and I are the reason this happened to him. Because we are not close to him and studying in Germany. Because my mother is "driving me crazy", which means, translated, she does not follow his orders. And that after her being the only reason he is still alive.

It was a hard week. And a hard month afterwards (specially for my mom). But now, just 2 months afterwards, he seems fine. He had to get another stent to open up that last missing branch. He is taking his meds. He quit smoking. He is less aggressive (seems like it at least). He hasn't been to work yet, which is good. But something changed. We are all scared that this could happen at any instant now, again.

relationship

I realise, now that I wrote that word above, that my stomach starts to hurt and I am hitting a mental roadblock in my head that is trying to stop me from writing or dealing with what happened. Do I listen to my body/mind or are the misaligned?

Anyway. In July, just before the ACL surgery and the burn, I met a cool girl. She was fun, shared many of my hobbies, is an Imogen Heap fan, liked raving, eating, and binging TV shows. I got interested. It felt nice. So things developed. And we got to know each other better. Our good corners, our weird corners. All of that in parallel to me being strapped to a bed most of the time without the ability to do much because of my leg. But it was a nice time. However, at some points past the first month or 1.5 months since we started dating, I started to get weird thoughts. I caught myself worrying about the problems the future will bring more often than enjoying the current time with her. My plans were to finish the PhD and leave. And now I am heading towards a relationship with a 34 year old woman (5 years older than me) that is feeling good but I know that if I commit full on to this, I will not be able to leave. I talked to her and told her what was in my mind. She said we should stay in the present and not worry about the future. This silenced the voices in my head for a little. But rather, it made them quieter for a while, because they came back, and started to get louder and louder.

The following two months, I caught myself constantly switching between the worry about the future and questioning the relationship and enjoying the time with her. She was caring and lowing. She showered me with love and I could feel it in everything she did. And it felt good to be loved like this. But I also realised, that I am not giving her or will probably never hive her that love back. In any form. There was a moment where I "snapped out" of it and know that I am not in love. Not in the way that she is looking at me and it made me feel very guilty. To cut a long process short, at one evening, where I was again trapped in the "being here and being there" feeling, I decided to let loose of all the thoughts I had jumbled up in my head, with the hope that some clarity will crystallise out of it. It ended up to be the night we broke up. And that was not my plan. But it was inevitable, at least in my view. This was 3 weeks ago. And it was hard. It was hard seeing her hurt. Hard letting go of someone that loved me this much. But I saw no other way. Doubt and sadness mixed with feelings of relief. Did I do the right thing? Did I just throw away something that I will regret in the future? Was I chasing something that doesn't exist?

The thing is. I know how I feel when I am madly in love. I had that same thing happen to me a year ago. Back then, the situation was switched. But I remember, that in that state of mind, nothing was impossible. Whenever I looked into the future, I saw solutions. Whether it was the "jew dating arab" problem, or, the geographical situation, or, money... Nothing was a problem. But now, I only saw the problems. Which hinted me that I am in no way close to feeling the same way I felt last year.

Even though I went a long way from being emotional popsicle that I made myself become in highschool, I am no way close to being emotionally open or understanding my emotions. And this whole story is again an example of that. Whenever I have a hand-written letter in my mailbox, it is never a nice one. This time it was also no exception. One day before my flight home, I get a looong letter from her and all I read was pain and sadness. And it hurt me a lot. It pains me to see the damage I did, again. And I wonder if there will be a time where I will not do this damage anymore...

But then, I've been having online debates since before you were born. My first "internet" experience was using an acoustic coupler to dial into the University of Colorado to play a MUD on a terminal whose only output was a daisywheel printer. I missed being OG "eternal September" by a year. And what I've noticed over the past ten years (but not the past twenty, and not the past 25) is the retreat of anyone over 30. It didn't used to be this way. It started when GenZ hit college.

So those of us who remember? Those of us who know? We're left with a choice - figure out how to tell you that you're wrong in such a way that your feelings aren't hurt... or find something better to do.

Thank you for putting into words what I have been going through personally in regards to the internet over the last at least 5-6 years. Funny, now that you mention it, where are all the old farts on the internet? Where did they go? How is it that a whole class of people can just stop interacting and nobody noticed? Suddenly, I don't feel like the grumpy old codger of an asshole I have been dealing with as I walk away from the toxic swirling drain of garbage that is the Internet. Nothing in the online space is really worth the bullshit any more and I have better stuff to do that is actually worth spending my time on.

Your words have helped me and for that I will be eternally grateful. Be well.

like that has ever stopped ME

https://www.discogs.com/user/broganator/collection?sort_by=median&facets=folder%255D%253A%255BThe%2520Rolling%2520Stones%2520Collection

I've had a kickass year.

Tomorrow I have 3 back-to-back interviews for a position I really want and have been encouraged to apply for from almost every angle.

I'll find out if I get it within another week.

Sounds like a number of people have applied. Sounds like, regardless of my encouragement, that competition will be real -- even if I am the favorite of the hiring manager(s) (which is an IF, not a CERTAIN) I can't fuck around on this; I gotta keep bringing it.

I had a good long talk with my sister last night. One thing we touched on was how I've been trying to change my life over the past year. She told me, "it's like you went to a therapist, except you just did it yourself." I showed her my gratitude journal and talked about how making minimal steps, minimal requirements to achievement, got me so far it was perceivable with a year's distance.

29, and nearly 30, and I think finally basically have come to terms with the last serious break-up. It took two years of thought and effort besides. I'm going on dates now. I have one I'm really excited about on Sunday, actually. Even my sister thinks he's cute. We don't have each other's numbers -- I told him I'd meet him to watch the Dallas/Eagles rivalry game go down, at the same pub where we met earlier this week when a friend of mine turned wingman. I found him on facebook, though, and I know his full name. I know how he feels about guns (when asked if he was carrying in the bar, he reacted with the very appropriate and appreciated shocked face -- yes, we have confirmed, it appears this one is sane). And various random other stuff besides.

There's a temptation to only reward oneself when there's a tangible success you can pin on it. "I can buy whatever I want with my bonus" or "I got a raise so I deserve a big fancy dinner" or "I'm promoted so I can really party wild" or "I lost 20 pounds so I can buy whatever clothes I want" or etc etc. While in the big picture I support the idea that rewards should be merited...

I f*n love the Rolling Stones. And I've wanted to see them for years. And pretty soon, at least one of them is going to die. And regardless of whether I get that job or not, of whether I get that promotion this year or not, of whether I lose those last 5 pounds before 2019 or not...I have worked hard this year. I have changed so much, most importantly my mentality. I've grown a sense of ownership and accountability and responsibility for myself, like I finally understand I can control my actions. Most if not all of them.

I don't need to achieve a specific, not-entirely-within-my-control goalpost to deserve these tickets. I deserve to treat myself with love and kindness and I deserve this crazy, ridiculous, over-the-top, once in a lifetime reward. I've got two tickets that cost more than discogs appraises my whole Stones collections at (well, on average at least). I don't need to know who's coming with me. All I need to know is, whoever I ask, they're out of their goddamn fucking mind if they don't feed blessed and immediately agree to accompany me.

Fuck yeah, rolling stones. When else am I going to see them. They ain't getting any goddamn younger.

You do forget that Europe, in general, doesn't know AC is a thing. Plus, humidity. I'd take hot LA over lukewarm London any day.

"don't report on it, it encourages them" is the "just ignore it and they'll stop bullying you" of the gun control world, and it's a reddit comments section-tier analysis of the situation

i wish i could spit on an opinion