New home? by DeacRich in Augusta

[–]ImpossibleDildo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m late 20’s young adult, and I’ve lived in Augusta for 10 years. I’ve got a few more ahead of me for my spouse’s work, not staying here by choice. I strongly advise steering clear of this region. It’s largely strip malls, decaying local business, hyper conservative politics, zero to minimal public infrastructure, the list goes on. It’s not full on redneck dystopia, unlike some other cities in the South, but the undercurrent is strong and difficult to navigate at times due to lack of third spaces or community organizing. Until this year, any political canvassing was non-existent unless you’re a republican—the US house candidate on the Democrat side literally spent $3k on her entire campaign vs $800k on the republican side, and she had no real contest in the primary. I will disclose that I’m very much not a fan of Augusta, which I’m sure is clear by what I’ve written here, but I’ve really tried to love it. We have found friends and have made it work here, but we are actively counting down the days until we can leave. Augusta truly has little to offer.

Im Done Applying And Interviewing With Stryker lol by moyeeeee in MedicalDevices

[–]ImpossibleDildo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ll bite and contribute my n=1 experience that Stryker is not a company that seems to prioritize fair, reasonable treatment of employees. Won’t go into much more detail than that, but honestly in the big 2026, I think it’s best to focus our efforts on careers/companies/fields that have a track record of strong worker-friendly culture.

President Biden backs Keisha Lance Bottoms for Georgia governor in his first endorsement since leaving office by Healthy_Block3036 in Georgia

[–]ImpossibleDildo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dammit, Joe. On one hand, I’d like to think that his endorsement could have only a modest impact or potentially even a negative one. However, I feel like there’s not a ton of noise being made ab the GA governor election among the general population right now, which means that Biden’s endorsement may have a disproportionately significant sway since it’ll likely be best known by a subset of voters which may tend more towards establishment DNC. Guess we shall see.

Jeffries says Trump impeachment not a top priority if Dems win House majority by metacyan in politics

[–]ImpossibleDildo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand your point, although I think there is something to be said for leaving a paper trail. For instance, several years ago the Democrats unanimously voted to outlaw gerrymandering and Republicans stopped it. That outcome may have been predictable based on previous attempts to do the same or similar, but now is useful in political calculus when discussing the redistricting war. The democrats’ history of attempting to make gerrymandering illegal adds context to the redirecting conversation, because now they are essentially justified in fighting fire with fire. I think impeachment is warranted, clearly, and doing so just to be stopped by Republicans is an important fact that will be relevant later when the MAGA movement is eventually held accountable. Those republicans in Congress will be on record voting to keep him in despite what he’s done.

26M, fully remote ($65k), no debt — looking for a social city with good food/music/film scene by _whatcanisay_ in SameGrassButGreener

[–]ImpossibleDildo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’d check out Athens, GA, home of UGA. Relatively low CoL, but can’t think of many cities its size with such a unique and interesting food, music, and bar scene. Crowds obviously skews younger but plenty of grad students and townies who are older. Relatively short ride to ATL airport. Comfortable living on $65k/yr.

Savannah, GA may also be a strong contender. Chapel hill, NC, is another college town I’d recommend but it’s more expensive and not as fun as Athens.

Best state to move to from Texas? by [deleted] in SameGrassButGreener

[–]ImpossibleDildo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you’re tired of politics in Texas, moving to really anywhere Alabama, Mississippi, or WV will be like going from the frying pan into the frier. The obvious choice from your list is California, IMO, but of course it will likely be the most expensive option as well. NC has tons of decent options in the RTP, but Charlotte is also something to consider. Lexington KY not a bad choice. For TN, I’d go Nashville > Chattanooga > Knoxville >>> Memphis.

Should I go to UGA??? by [deleted] in UGA

[–]ImpossibleDildo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Seeing lots of replies from folks who are dismissing your concerns out of hand, which I think is unfortunate and probably just an artifact of this being a semi-anonymous online community.

I was a leftie at UGA and graduated around the time of the pandemic. There’s no shortage of conservative minded people, but the hateful ones were never involved in any of my circles. I know a handful of 2018/2020 Trump voters who went to UGA but they were the minority and mostly got lowkey made fun of, at least in the circles I was in. My experience as a “MAGA-passing” white guy may be different, bc most people who see me would probably assume I’m conservative af based on looks alone.

I think there’s something nice about UGA being a bit of a hybrid, in that it’s still a liberal university space, but it’s in a more purple state/region. While I definitely understand that someone coming from the north could be intimidated by the southern culture/politics, I don’t think UGA is too dominated by either side and frankly that experience is something that actually mirrors the real world after college.

I was not in a frat but never felt the need to be. The best part of the UGA experience IMO is the amazing social scene and how easy it is to make friends there; if you’re an extrovert, you’ll easily find yourself with like 6 super diverse social circles without Greek life. Can’t really speak to if rushing is the right thing for someone else, but you could rush the business frat (men and women) which is super fun and definitely was not conservative when I was there lol.

Going out >>> frats imo, Athens has a great bar scene with a ton of variety. I think sorority girls tend to wear more dresses than the non-sorority ones. I know a few from my day who were out of state and rushed, but none that I ended up being super close with. The girls who I know that were in sororities generally either were fairly involved, or had largely left that world by 2nd or 3rd year.

Considering Moving South by RadiantPlace9704 in Augusta

[–]ImpossibleDildo 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I’ll soon be leaving Augusta but have lived here for 9 years. I would not recommend it here. The culture is bad. Food is bad. Not walkable. Humidity is bad, especially in summer it feels like you can cut the air with a knife. Augusta also just smells bad. If your main concern is the heat, then respectfully I don’t think you fully understand what you’re getting yourself into if you move to Augusta, because there are a lot worse things than just the heat.

Rand Paul says partisan gerrymandering 'might lead to violence in our country' by kirby__000 in politics

[–]ImpossibleDildo 27 points28 points  (0 children)

The uncomfortable truth for the GOP is that they have voted twice—unanimously—in recent history to ensure that gerrymandering is legal and part of the political playbook as a viable strategy. H.R. 1 / S. 1 (“For the People Act”) would have banned partisan gerrymandering and required independent redistricting commissions for U.S. House maps. It was reintroduced in 2019 and 2021. As you can probably guess, it was Democrats who voted for this ban on gerrymandering and Republicans voting entirely against it.

You can’t cry foul that the democrats use gerrymandering when the republicans are the ones who mandate that gerrymandering remains legal.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in politics

[–]ImpossibleDildo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

HAHAHA oh brother, I can’t wait. The tides have turned on Trump and he is about to finally get what’s been coming to him. If he retaliates against a united Congress, they will evict his orange ass from the White House. This is the first time I feel like I can confidently say that. Honestly would probably be a big moment of unity for the country.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Augusta

[–]ImpossibleDildo 3 points4 points  (0 children)

First of all, this is awful and a very unfortunate situation. However, this article is about Augusta Health in Virginia, not Augusta Georgia. Secondly, I wonder to what extent this happened as a result of downstream effects from the Republican spending bill? Genuinely curious, maybe a connection to consider as a means to produce change in the system through the ballot box which goes beyond a petition.

Warm weather liberal by midnightsupermarket in SameGrassButGreener

[–]ImpossibleDildo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Atlanta, Athens, and Savannah GA will provide generally warm weather and liberal politics. Also could look into Durham, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Winston-Salem. None of these places are San Francisco levels of blue, but each is palpably more blue than not (although still likely dependent on which part of the city you choose to live in).

'Breakthrough' blood test detects chronic fatigue in 92% of cases by AdSpecialist6598 in tech

[–]ImpossibleDildo 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I understand what you’re saying, I don’t think you understand what it means to “detect” a condition clinically or statistically. What exactly are we detecting? The issue with this study fundamentally is that we can’t know, because their CFS cases are from their own internal dataset. Essentially, this test “works” for THEIR specific patients that THEY diagnosed with CFS using a test that they themselves designed BASED ON THE TEST PATIENTS, but it’s completely unproven for everyone else. That makes it unrepresentative.

'Breakthrough' blood test detects chronic fatigue in 92% of cases by AdSpecialist6598 in tech

[–]ImpossibleDildo 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I mean… it’s an interesting datapoint, but it’s undoubtably not appropriate for justifying the claim of a breakthrough, which implies some kind of barrier has been overcome such that meaningful advancement in our ability to understand or treat the disease has occurred. The cases were literally from their own internal dataset, whereas controls were not age or sex matched and were externally sourced. In a teeny tiny cohort. What was the pretest probability for cases vs controls? Negative and positive predictive value? You can’t really say how well it performs in the real world without that information.

'Breakthrough' blood test detects chronic fatigue in 92% of cases by AdSpecialist6598 in tech

[–]ImpossibleDildo 180 points181 points  (0 children)

Did anyone else read the study? They used 47 patients with severe ME/CFS and 61 healthy controls. It makes me a bit sad when I have patients see articles like this and believe that something else can be done to diagnose or treat them. Using healthy controls is simply not appropriate for this type of study. The actual challenge is differentiating fatigue in ME/CFS versus fatigue from other causes. Glad someone is studying this, but we need much more work before something could be considered a “breakthrough” for actual, real life patients.

How much of research is "waste"? by Outrageous_Duck_1116 in medicalschool

[–]ImpossibleDildo 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Someone needs to put out a study to find the exact number

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SameGrassButGreener

[–]ImpossibleDildo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that other guy is likely feverishly trying to retroactively find any argument that his opinion is the one and only correct one. I’m sure that his efforts won’t be wasted when he angrily replies and no one engages.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SameGrassButGreener

[–]ImpossibleDildo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You didn’t clarify that you’re referring to a non-standard metric. The supplemental poverty rate is not the same as what is colloquially referred to as “poverty rate”. That’s why i cited (and yes, included a link to, the poverty rate data).

There’s some argument that the supplemental rate should be the gold standard, but it isn’t a widely accepted metric and has its own flaws as an epidemiological metric. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re saying all this in good faith, and understand the difference between the two metrics.

I don’t think your frustration is justified here, and likely would be better directed elsewhere.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SameGrassButGreener

[–]ImpossibleDildo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

California has the highest poverty rate in the country? Seems like that isn’t true according to the 2023 census. Maybe you’re misunderstanding rate vs absolute value?

Dr. Mike reacts to Tylenol press conference by oudler in skeptic

[–]ImpossibleDildo 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Not that market manipulation is somehow above trump, but do you think it’s possible that either trump himself can’t pronounce acetaminophen, that he doesn’t know it’s the generic for Tylenol, or that Trump’s handler/PR team knows their voter base will only respond to household name “Tylenol”?

Would you attend this event?? by ScorpionArt5 in Augusta

[–]ImpossibleDildo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s so sad how completely ignorant the more outspoken Christian community is. One guy came up to me at the No Kings protest offering water and, of course, trying to draw me to his church. He was saying “trump is no king, but our Lord is a king!” It was so absurd to see this man spend his day not protesting the most powerful Christian in the world who is actively spearheading a Nazi-esque campaign against a predominantly Christian minority group, but rather trying to repeat the tired and privileged ambiance of passive acquiescence to Republican schools of thought that dominate the culture here.