I really needed this today. Thank you.

EEE is Eastern Equine Encephalitis should anyone else be out of the loop on acronyms like me.

The top is the percentage of people while the bottom is the total incidence. This is an apples and oranges comparison. In this case the bottom map is functionally a population map as others have pointed out. Most stats are best in “#/thousand people” or equivalent, but should always in the same unit if compared.

Facts, reasoning, ethics, ect. are outside the scope of an LLM. Expecting otherwise is like expecting a stand mixer to bake a cake. It is helpful for a decent part of the process, but typically is lacking in the using heat to process batter into a tasty desert area. An AI like one from the movies would require many more pieces than an LLM can provide and saying otherwise is a a category mistake*.

That isn’t to say that something won’t be developed eventually, but it would be FAR beyond an LLM if it is even possible.

(* See also: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/category-mistakes/)

I’ve not been on that one in quite some time, but I’ll try to remember what I can and pull from experience with other meds. Psych meds like that one can take a few weeks to get used to / reach full efficacy. I can’t remember what the specific timeframe for that med is, but in general it takes at least 6-8 weeks at a specific dose to give a med a fair trial. The initial symptoms when starting a med often resolve in that time, but if they don’t you may need to try a new med. If the symptoms are bearable for until you’ve made it that far, it can be nice to know that you can check it off as helping or not with some certainty. For me, this med just made me a bit out of it and I believe made my anxiety a bit worse. Trialling meds with alexithymia can be a real pain in the ass…doubly so when you have the wrong diagnosis and or doctors who don’t believe in yours.

Since this med is typically prescribed for ADHD, I’m going to assume that is what you are taking it for, if not the following probably won’t be relevant: I’ve read that meds that act on norepinephrine (like this one) tend to work better for people with hyperactive or combined ADHD, while inattentive ADHD tends to (but definately doesn’t always) respond better to meds that work on dopamine. If this med doesn’t end up helping this is some info you can talk to your doctor about and if stimulants are not an option other meds like DNRIs (like bupropion/wellbutrin) may be a path to consider with them. Additionally, clonidine and guanfacine are two blood pressure meds that have been shown to have some benefit, especially with reguard to anxiety around starting tasks. I’m not a doctor so don’t take any of this as medical advice. It is just some info you can bring up with your doctor if this med doesn’t pan out for you.

As another note, this is something I’ve found useful a a reference for people who are skeptical on ADHD related topics:

The World Federation of ADHD International Consensus Statement: 208 Evidence-based Conclusions about the Disorder

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8328933/

Finding the right treatment/meds can seem daunting and hopeless at times, but it is worth it. Meds are also not magic fixes and often are better in combination with therapy or other steps to improve your situation. If you are looking for a therapist, I generally recommend looking for one who practices trauma informed therapy AND works with neurodivergent clients. Finding a good therapist for you, which is not the same as a good therapist in general, can be a lot of work and take a few tries, but it is worth it. If therapy isn’t something that is an option, there are free resources online. I’ve found a lecture series by the American Psychological Association on trauma on YouTube that was pretty good and there are quite a few therapists who put content on that site as well. Healthy Gamer is a channel that I’ve found good content on that may be worth looking into.

Sorry for rambling on for so long.

Zionism is a nationalist movement for the support of a Jewish state. Throughout history different people have had different justifications for the need for a Jewish state, some of them antisemitic. It is worth noting that not all Jews are Zionists and non Jews can be considered Zionists since the desire for a Jewish ethno-state does not require one be a Jew.

As the stated goal is the creation of an ethno-state and thus the exclusion of other groups, racism tends to be implicit for many. Since the creation of an ethno-state likely requires the removal of of the current inhabitants, some pretty despicable actions get justified.

It is important to note that many of the most outspoken anti-Zionists have always been Jews. It’s from these that I have often heard the argument that conflating all Jews with Zionism/the state of Israel puts Jews everywhere at risk of getting blamed/punished for the actions of the state of Israel.

Many extremist Christians support the Zionist movement out of either the desire to remove Jews from their country or because they want all of them to return to Israel so that the rapture/end of the word can be realized. Some extremist Christian groups are literally doomsday cults kinda explaining their lack of care for the future…I mean why worry when the end times are nigh.

The US, and much of the west, show unyielding support for the state of Israel and by extension Zionism for several reasons, chiefly geopolitical in nature (oil). Other reasons include racism towards the other peoples of the region, the antisemitism described above, shame over the Holocaust (the Allies all showed some compliancy with it at least in the beginning…antisemitism has deep roots in western culture), and the fact that confronting the wrong of the colonial project of Israel means confronting their own colonial pasts…and often presents.

Edit to add: Belief that all Jews deserve to be safe and not have to fear hatred in no way requires the establishment of a pure ethno-state, the displacement/killing of whole peoples, or the support of those who push for these. The book “On Palestine” by Chomsky and Ilan Pappe argues for a one state solution with freedom for Jews, Christians, Muslims, and other groups all having the right to self determination. As well as pointing out evidence that much of the two state discourse is explicitly vavout preventing peace in the region. Both Chomsky and Ilan are Jews.

I’m not op, but these are some things that I appriciate about Vivaldi:

• Mouse gestures that work anywhere in the window with different options based on what I start the gesture on (eg. Right clicking on a link and dragging down opens the link in a new foreground tab {dragging down then up opens it in the background} but doing so on empty space opens a new tab)
• A scrollable side bar for tabs instead of the horizontal one that is standard (not in addition to or requiring hacky workarounds)
• The ability to minimize tabs or send them to the bottom of the cycle order (this needs to be able to be done with mouse gestures)
• The ability to easily highlight parts of a link so that I can copy part of the text (Vivaldi highlights with a click and drag and drags the link on a click, hold and drag; Firefox doesn’t appear to do either)
• Not having to worry about third party extensions security issues or having this core functionality stop working because the extension maintainer has to update it for the new browser version.
• The fact that it just works with minimal configuration

Unfortunately I am looking for alternatives to Vivaldi since Google has decided to kill quality web browsing on Chromium browsers. Much of the web is virtually unusable to me without a tool like ublock quieting things down to work past my sensory processing issues. At times it is hard to think that the majority of web devs have anything but distain for disabled people.

I do use Fennic on Android (with ublock and darkreader) because Mozilla decided to block access to about:config in the mobile version and I have yet to find another way to always force pages to load the desktop version. (Mobile versions of sites disable most of the built in accessibility options like the ability to zoom)

The settings I set in fennic if anyone is curious:

• browser.viewport.defaultZoom (set a sane default zoom)
• browser.viewport desktopWidth (say that the screen is large enough to not trigger CSS mobille layouts)
• general.useragent.override (work around browser sniffing; I’ve yet to find an extension that actually works for this)

Thanks.

I guess I must be out of the loop. What us up with ground news?

So maybe a binary system causing the signal to only periodically wobble into earth’s path wile missing for mist of it?

Personally, the “just asking questions” transphobes being called on their bigotry doesn’t really seem the same as medical researchers getting harrased for trying to find treatments for deadly diseases…but maybe that is just me.

Well congress has already authorized “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court”… So I’m inclined to agree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Protection_Act

If we are going to use binary, I vote for IEEE 754. The precision, accuracy, and lack of ambiguity of floating points is what we need for something with the simplicity of gender. /s

I relate to this quite a bit. The best I can figure is that I am a sapphic aligned ace transfem. It has been quite the journey figuring that much out and I am still uncertain about where I will end up in the end, though I do know transitioning was literally life saving for me.

I think reading into the split attraction model might help. Aesthetic, romantic, sensual, sexual, and plutonic attraction are different and don’t have to line up. AVEN (asexuality.org) is one place you can find info on this.

Finding a good therapist can do quite a bit of good. This can be incredibly difficult at times since a good therapist is one you feel comfortable and safe working with, and that can be different for everyone. Some things to look for are ones that practice trauma informed care (Trauma informed care is a different approach to therapy that can make a big difference… And also means they are more likely to have modern/less toxic views on the topic) and ones who specialize in LGBT issues (It can be unhelpful to have to educate your therapist)…preferably both. If you are in the States, Psychology Today has a therapist search that can be very helpful. Not everyone finds a good match the first time, do don’t give up if the first one is a poor fit.

Most of Brandon Sanderson’s works. His magic systems are widely varied and well thought out.
A couple of examples of worlds:

-The Stormlight Archive is a world styled after a tidepool with anemone like plants.

-Tress of the Emerald Sea takes place aboard ships sailing on a sea of deadly spores. Liquefaction due to decay at the bottom of the “seas” is the mechanism used to allow the ships to sail on what is funtionally sand/dust.

Riding? I hope not. The cat is supposed to be piloting and if it isn’t who is?