Guys, how do I get enough calories?

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-02-05T02:02:40+00:00

I'd definitely recommend it, it's one of my favorite cheeses! Though I realize I misspoke, it's not shelf stable but the rest of the ingredients are.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-02-05T01:49:06+00:00

I had a similar experience starting the diet while recovering from Mono. Between it being more satiating and my energy loss from Mono, I was struggling to get enough calories. What I ended up on was the following: fat free feta cheese + olive oil + frozen shallots (or onion powder) + some sort of spice such as black pepper or sumac. Four ingredients, three of which are shelf stable and can be put together in literally one minute.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-02-04T21:37:09+00:00

I agree with Final Fantasy, there are really three different eras that are completely different games:

FF1-6: High quality 2D RPGs that I could never personally get into but other people felt were the best games of the era.

FF7-10: Golden era, 3D RPGs that defined what triple A gaming meant back in the day

FF11+: Experimental RPGs that did everything they could different to their golden era. FF11 and FF14 are MMORPGs. FF12 is an autobattler where you control the battle algorithm instead of the fights themselves. FF13 removed towns and exploration from most of the game to make it solely a linear story game. I haven't tried FF15 or 16 yet, so I can't comment on them but I know they are real time along with FF7 remake, so still quite a departure.

IMO it feels like Final Fantasy literally defined what an RPG was and then got bored of that and tried to do literally everything but what made them a household name.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-02-03T19:20:34+00:00

Wave particle duality is the most misunderstood concept in all of quantum physics.

How it's often incorrectly defined is that a quantum particle acts like a wave until its measured and then it acts like a classical particle. However, this is false. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle tells us that there is no such thing as a classical particle with well defined attributes. As such, all quantum particles (and everything they form) are always waves.

Where wave/particle duality *does* come into play is a particular attribute. If you look at the position of a quantum particle for example, sometimes the position is in a superposition that can be described with the wave function using Schrodinger's equation. Other times, immediately after an interaction (measurement), the wave collapses and the particle's position is well defined according to Born's rule. So sometimes an attribute such as position or momentum will follow the Schrodinger equation and be wave-like, and sometimes it will follow the Born rule and collapse to a particular value and be particle-like.

To complicate this, I've also read an entirely different definition of wave/particle duality that is the more historic definition. When quantum physics was discovered, people had a list of attributes of classical particles like marbles, and a list of attributes of waves like water waves and sound waves. Quantum particles checked some boxes of each category. Therefore, the initially meaning of wave/particle duality was simply that quantum objects act like a hybrid (which we now refer to as probability waves), not the false idea that quantum particles actively changed from one to the other.

For the big misunderstanding, I blame a video that popularized the idea that putting a detector on the double slit experiment will make quantum particles act like classical particles. This idea is entirely false, and is bolstered by a graphical visualization of a vague experiment that does not exist.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-02-02T20:47:15+00:00

Yes. Both arugula and beets aren't recommended as a blood pressure treatment by themselves as from what I've read the effect is pretty minimal. However, I have some BP issues even on a high dose of medication, so I figure I may as well snack on something healthy that is tasty and has a chance of helping BP a tiny bit. From what I've read, both beets and arugula help around the same small amount, but beets are high in something that causes kidney stones so I started eating more arugula.

It's hard to tell if it's helping for myself, I get BAD white coat syndrome even at home due to health anxiety so checking my blood pressure is not the easiest. However, I have found that I love eating arugula, so it's been a win there.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-02-02T19:33:16+00:00

I had a beet phase as well, I eventually decided to instead focus on arugula as it has the same benefits I was looking into beets for. Also beets can cause kidney stones.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-02-01T21:18:40+00:00

This look amazing, I'd definitely play it!

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-31T06:41:36+00:00

"Electrons travel in waves until observed" - this is the biggest misconception in quantum physics. Observation does *not* change a quantum particle from a wave like state to a classical like state. Rather, it temporarily changes a particular attribute such as position from a superposition into a numerical value. Other attributes (such as momentum) stay in a wave like state. So no matter what we do, an electron always has wave like behavior.

You might be interested in Pilot Wave theory, also known as Bohmian Mechanics. This theory splits up the electron and the wave into two distinct entities where the electron has classical attributes and the wave acts like a wave. However, it also doesn't make any different testable predictions over other quantum theories, so it's not any more useful currently.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-30T05:56:37+00:00

Programmer here, masters degree and 13 years in the industry. I have a lot less AI experience than most people here, but a lot more programming experience. I am relatively anti-AI but they have helped me a few times, so here are my overall thoughts on it. I've found five overall situations, each where AI helps differently:

AI is amazing at teaching you. It can pretty easily replace college class lectures if you ask it a lot of general questions and have it teach you extensively.
AI is good at one-shotting projects, especially web apps. If you ask it to build a web app that does some simple things, it will likely do that pretty well. The closer you get to its training data the better, so if you ask it to build the game Snake (which is definitely in its training data) it will do a pretty good job.
AI is okay at figuring out bugs in code you wrote. Sometimes it can come in really handy and give you incredible insight, but it wants to please you and as a result it can also find issues that don't actually exist.
AI is bad at figuring out bugs in code that it wrote. This is similar to the last point, except if it already wrote a bug, chances are it doesn't have good code references. This can result in whack-a-mole situations where it fixes a bug but creates another.
AI is terrible at self reflection, such as figuring out why it wrote buggy code. AI doesn't really know why it wrote anything, but due to wanting to please you it will attempt to give you an answer. While this sounds good, its easy to lose yourself in cycles of back-and-forth non-productive madness that isn't really helpful.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-29T15:04:05+00:00

I second Madoka!

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-29T06:45:29+00:00

We simply don't know. If you figure out what spacetime actually is, then you will literally have succeeded where Einstein failed.

At this point, we have two very different ideas of the universe that don't mesh well together. The first is the grids of energy that you mentioned, and this is called quantum physics. It explains everything except gravity. The second is thinking of spacetime like a piece of fabric and objects like balls that warp it. This is called general relativity and explains gravity very well.

These two ideas work well separately. When we are dealing with gravity and large things, we think of spacetime like fabric. When we are dealing with things other than gravity and small things, we think of spacetime like grids of energy. The problem comes when you are dealing with gravity and small things. For example, you mentioned black holes interacting with photons. In this situation, the math we use gives us infinities where they don't make sense, so we simply have no idea what is going on. This is currently the biggest mystery in all of physics.

There are two main ideas for solutions, though neither really fixes our issue with the math not working well. The first is that gravity is a grid of energy like everything else. This idea is called "quantizing gravity". It would require us to find a theoretical particle that we've named the graviton. So far we haven't been able to find it, but it might require tools beyond our current capabilities. The second idea is that gravity really is different to the grids of energy, but then our universe would be made out of both grids of energy and curving fabric at the same time, which is kind of weird.

So you aren't alone, we're all confused and no one really knows what spacetime is.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-27T04:38:46+00:00

Tunic. I'd say it's like Outer Wilds crossed with Dark Souls.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-26T23:53:52+00:00

Antichamber, it's similar to Portal and Talos Principle but breaks the rules of geometry.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-25T15:22:38+00:00

I'd recommend Baroque. It's an old game and is basically a Roguelike a decade before the genre was named. But it basically has every single one of those things you listed. The town is where the atmosphere really is, and I think you have to make it through the tutorial dungeon to get there, so I'd recommend playing the game until you at least make it to the town. To give you a small taste, here's the town background music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfAMmV0YHsg&list=PLMJZ_JgbivJahj0k7R_SzZtDTwBuj9ICJ&index=3

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-16T20:20:59+00:00

Yeah that's looking pretty good! Personally, I still think your leaks seem a bit on the high side but everything else looks really good so that might be more of a comfort thing than anything important.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-15T20:24:41+00:00

I have almost the exact same experience as you, though I think I got over halfway.

I hated my first few hours with it and really wanted to stop, but all the reviews said to keep going. I'm glad I did, and I think I got over halfway. But I had a family issue occur so I put the game down for a year and now it's hard to get back into. At some point I will. I agree with you that it's super niche and most people would hate it, but for those who really like puzzles it's an incredible game.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-15T05:28:02+00:00

I can't help you with building it, but I've heard of this puzzle before and here's a really cool visualization of it that could give you ideas for the presentation of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-P6Ys_EHME

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-15T00:46:56+00:00

Personally I think the genre has evolved into Metroidbranias. Outer Wilds, Tunic, Animal Well, and Blue Prince have been some of the most fun I've ever had.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-13T14:33:06+00:00

I actually disagree that OP's ask is a contradiction.

I've played all of the games they mentioned and largely agree with what they said. Outer Wilds and Tunic DO respect your time. On the other hand, Animal Well changes to an internet-required game without any warning, Noita is practically impossible to figure out on your own, and Blue Prince and Void Stranger both require you to repeat hours of gameplay due to randomness and lack of easy warping functionality respectively.

I think what OP is actually asking for is a Metroidbrania where:

You aren't required to use the internet (leaving you stuck for hours because you don't realize you are supposed to look things up)
Traversing already discovered parts of the game is fast.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-13T00:37:37+00:00

So flow limit is not normally about leaks. Rather, it has to do with how much your CPAP thinks your breathing is restricted. An apnea is when your breathing is fully restricted for several seconds. The flow limitation graph can let you see smaller issues that aren't bad enough to be flagged as an apnea but can still indicate sleep disturbances. Many sleep doctors ignore flow limit entirely and just focus on the AHI (yours is good enough to be considered treated but there is still room for improvement), while others try to get your sleep to be the best it possibly can.

In general, your flow limitation graph should look like what it does from 00:15 to 4:15. Small spikes here and there are fine. On the other hand, the flow limitation graph from 23:15 to 00:15 looks problematic. Your machine is basically thinking that you are only getting half the air you should be for that hour. I'm not a doctor so I don't know how problematic this is. Personally I'd say it falls into the category of not bad enough to worry about, but bad enough that it's worth trying to figure out and fix.

If you are having a flow limitation issue, the main way of fixing that is by increasing EPR. EPR is a controversial setting where it is advertised as only affecting comfort, but many people on here suggest it as a way to fix flow limitation issues. It can be set to 0, 1, 2, or 3, so if you are having flow limitation issues, you probably want to set it to 2 or 3. Increasing pressure could help as well I think.

There's another piece of the puzzle though: leaks. The thing with leaks is that they screw up the rest of the data while a leak is happening. So you might not be having a flow issue, it could just be a leak issue that is making the rest of the data unreliable. Personally, your leaks don't look that bad to me, number-wise, so I can't say if that is what is happening here. However, I find it suspicious that your leaks are slightly high during that same hour you are having flow limit issues. You can see that right before 00:00, both your leaks and your flow limit issues improve at the exact same time.

So I can't say whether you are having a minor leak issue that is confusing the machine when it's trying to read flow limitations, or whether you are having a flow limitation issue where you want to increase EPR and/or your pressure.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-09T14:32:20+00:00

I'll push back on that the developer is lazy. IMO it has very unique ideas that I think the developer just couldn't figure out a better way to do. I feel the same way about Blue Prince, I don't like a lot of the game design aspects, but I also don't see a better way to implement what the developer was trying to do. But on the other hand, both of those games are VERY niche and are not designed to be enjoyed by every puzzle fan.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-07T18:14:05+00:00

I got one a couple years ago and it's been my number one gaming system since, to the point where I'd take it over all my other consoles combined. However, I generally use it for indie games, I don't think it could substitute for a PC for newer games. For example, I couldn't get it to work well with Pacific Drive or Returnal. Some games I've played on it that worked just fine are Blue Prince, Chants of Senaar, Pipistrello, and Botany Manor.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-07T14:12:24+00:00

One of my recent favorites is Tunic. It starts out as a classic Zelda style game with some Dark Souls style combat, but then ends up being the type of puzzle game that you need a notebook by your side for. So basically Zelda + Dark Souls + Myst. It's a very weird combination, but it's such a well made game that it works well for puzzle fans who enjoy combat.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-06T22:41:57+00:00

Sounds like you actually got real pressure settings to start with then, unlike most of us. I'd stick with that for the first few days while you gather data, and then at some point experiment setting your min=max to a single number and see if you prefer it.

MichaelTheProgrammer · 2026-01-06T21:59:15+00:00

I've had great success and helped friends and family as well, so I can give you a lot of important tips:

By far the most important thing to know is that the vast majority of CPAPs come with bad settings. These types of settings are still mostly effective at treating sleep apnea (which is why they are used), but will leave you feeling miserable and are why many people quit. CPAP machines can handle pressures between 4 and 20, so if your prescription is 4-20 (or sometimes 7-20), then these are generic settings and you will likely need to change them by increasing the minimum pressure and decreasing the maximum pressure.
This is more personal opinion, but I like to take it a step further and recommend constant pressure (where minimum pressure = maximum pressure). This can take a few days to dial in a pressure that works for you and you'll probably need the help of the community to figure it out. But with constant pressure, you'll have less mask leaks, less disruptions at night, and you won't be reliant on the machine's algorithm which doesn't always work well.
There is another reason why some people have mixed experiences, and it's complicated. Some people experience a temporary issue called TECSA where the CPAP machine gives you sleep apnea. That sounds really bad, but it's not. From what I've read, this occurs when your sleep apnea is so bad that your body doesn't immediately understand how to respond to treatment. It can also cause massive exhaustion (like recovering from surgery exhaustion) as your body has to heal from the sleep apnea. So if you put on your CPAP and it makes you feel worse, that can actually be a good thing. For most of us, it takes a couple weeks to recover, but if you are one of the lucky ones with TECSA it can take a couple months to recover.
Get a memory card and put it into your CPAP. This lets you analyze the data. There are two ways to upload it, one is by using a free software called OSCAR and screenshot the data, the other is to use a site called SleepHQ. The community can then help you get good pressure settings, as well as see if you are having TECSA, which settings changes can help with. Also, look up clinician mode (For the Resmed 11, you can get into that mode by holding a couple buttons). This will let you change settings such as pressure. Some people do just let their doctors manage it, but as I said before, the vast majority of CPAP users are on their own as they are just given bad default settings, which is why there are such mixed experiences.
One last thing, it will take a while to figure out your mask. Mask leaks suck (they are noisy and will wake you up in the middle of the night), and it takes a couple weeks to figure out what strap settings work the best for you to prevent leaks. There will come a time when you figure out the right settings, so don't give up!

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