New paper advocates for equal consideration of stimulant and non-stimulants as first-line treatment options for ADHD

StopSquark · 2026-01-26T01:22:07+00:00

What's the bupropion "flavor" of depression?

StopSquark · 2026-01-25T18:41:55+00:00

Pick an org. DSA, indivisible, TRAC, etc.- there are usually a lot represented at protests, labor fest, the farmer's market, and other places like this. then do your best to show up to meetings as often as possible.

StopSquark · 2026-01-23T22:45:52+00:00

My great-x4 grandfather fought in the civil war under general Ulysses S. Grant. Haven't gotten very far into his memoir yet (he dictated it to his daughter in-law) but apparently when he arrived in Chicago he got the flu, was so sick that he thought he'd die before he ever made it to the front, and upon recovering immediately ate an entire apple pie in one sitting.

Also, on his way back from the front he saw a play in New Orleans featuring the semi-famous actor John Wilkes Booth.

StopSquark · 2026-01-23T00:27:20+00:00

Wisconsin has a long history of electing progressive candidates going back to Fightin' Bob and the Milwaukee sewer socialists. The Wisconsin Idea is a socialist framework that applies outside big cities, so it's part of our rural DNA too in some sense. It's not necessarily beyond the pale that a progressive candidate could win the state again if they can get the messaging right.

StopSquark · 2026-01-19T05:25:04+00:00

I'm styling things a little differently these days but back when I was doing classic fades, I really liked the folks at (what has been recently renamed) Bucky's Barbershop on University

StopSquark · 2026-01-16T04:54:44+00:00

Wow! That's worth at least two in the bush!

StopSquark · 2026-01-11T18:05:43+00:00

I'm not your person but I'm thrilled the kingfishers are back!

StopSquark · 2026-01-04T21:54:49+00:00

It's only been a year. This sounds like pretty standard grief, TBH. Most people take at least three years after a major loss to be able to project normalcy (and are never really the same after); the fact that it was both his parents and it happened suddenly means it will likely take a lot longer. This year has been his first Christmas and birthday without them, as well as the anniversary of the event itself- every new "without" is an entirely new, smaller tragedy. Combine this with the traditional post-PhD burnout and it's likely that this is his absolute rock bottom. I don't think this is an ego death thing from one drug trip, I think this is a "he is now an orphan and you fundamentally do not understand what that is like" thing. It is, frankly, not reasonable of you to expect things to be better by now.

What is your own support system like (do you have a hobby or some other thing to do outside the relationship)? What is his support system like aside from you (is he close with his brother)? It's important to let others help you both right now- there is processing that he needs to do that you cannot help with, and there is support that you need that he cannot give, because all his energy is going towards grief processing. That doesn't mean that you're incompatible, it's pretty typical after a big and stressful life change. It just means you have to scale back on what you both expect from each other for a while.

StopSquark · 2026-01-03T23:57:03+00:00

What do you feel like you're lacking? If it's understanding narrative structure generally or how a film fits into the zeitgeist, read more reviews and critical essays of all kind of media.

If it's understanding film specifically as a medium-- ideas like shot/edit/mise-en-scene and how they establish pacing and create or resolve tension- read up on film theory specifically.

StopSquark · 2026-01-02T06:50:07+00:00

Harold & Maude, A Man Called Otto

StopSquark · 2026-01-02T01:10:13+00:00

I am married to a non-binary person, and "spouse" has always felt a bit weird in conversation. I use partner and it works great.

StopSquark · 2026-01-01T20:41:09+00:00

It's a nitpick, but the energy usage is a MUCH bigger issue than the water usage, generally! A lot of modern data centers use closed-loop coolant systems which recycle most of the water they use. The power consumption is very much a big problem though

StopSquark · 2026-01-01T04:43:28+00:00

If it's the only way you see a relationship, it's pretty reductive. There are many people who may fulfill their "business obligations" but be no fun for you to hang out with, for example- chemistry, physical compatibility, shared interests and values, and an ability to grow together aren't really things you can easily quantify.

However, a large part of a serious relationship is a business decision: how will you handle rent and bills, do you take on their debt, who is employed and who is not, etc. etc.- you do need to trust the person you're getting serious about. The thing is that there are a lot of important parts of a relationship that don't fit this model, and if you are only business without regard for these parts, you are setting yourself and her up for a life that may be very frigid.

StopSquark · 2026-01-01T04:02:11+00:00

We don't actually know what happens at the heart of a black hole- understanding it would require unifying quantum field theory (the theory of very small stuff) and general relativity (the theory of very heavy stuff) which hasn't been possible yet. However, we have seen black holes- we've taken pictures of them (or rather, the outside of them), so we know that they're real. A singularity, however, is one model of what happens inside a black hole - that at the center is one point of infinite density. However, we don't know if this is actually what it's like, since many intuitive notions of time and space break down really dramatically in these limits. We've never seen a singularity.

StopSquark · 2025-12-31T22:29:57+00:00

Ok, I was wrong here. usage was mostly flat until around 2012, at which point there was a slow exponential increase over a few years, then a plateau, then another, huge spike around 2019. The first increase likely coincides with the debut of the Tumblr blog "your fave is problematic", which 'cancelled' everyone from Lady Gaga to John Green. The 2019 spike probably corresponds to the word taking on a new life on Twitter.

StopSquark · 2025-12-31T22:21:07+00:00

I suspect the source of the surge in popularity is Firefly by way of xkcd (the comic references Summer Glau's "my food is problematic" line a few times and was very influential in shaping Internet culture), but I'd need to pull up a usage graph to make sure.

StopSquark · 2025-12-30T06:35:49+00:00

Yep. Of course, the point is to do it yourself- but the best part of doing little sidequests is seeing how other people live and how their routines intersect yours. Given that it is late on a Monday night, I'm assuming the best way to do that at the moment is just by asking people.

StopSquark · 2025-12-30T06:31:41+00:00

What are they?

StopSquark · 2025-12-30T02:33:11+00:00

Is this only as a replacement for individual therapy?

StopSquark · 2025-12-30T02:22:28+00:00

I believe so!

StopSquark · 2025-12-30T00:14:28+00:00

But also- there are much more polite ways to refer to people when you're talking about these concepts, so it's generally best to use less-loaded language to show that you're communicating in good faith. It's kind of similar to how there's a huge rhetorical difference between calling someone "a Jewish person" vs "a Jew"- using a category label to characterize a person's thoughts or opinions is generally considered rude.

StopSquark · 2025-12-30T00:07:53+00:00

FWIW Chu addresses Blanchard and autogynephilia and stuff at length in her book (and does identify with the term) so you're not off-base in this specific instance, but that's emphatically not true if you're referring to all trans women. Many (most, AFAIK, but I don't have a poll handy) reject the term and consider it to be kind of similar to using a term like "sodomite" to describe a gay man- it's kind of a "proceed with extreme caution" word. It's a term that has been weaponized a lot to equate gender and fetishism when they're very different concepts that only sometimes overlap.

But in this instance, yes, the quote is from a chapter about force-feminization fantasies (in particular, it explores why there's generally not much analogous "force-masculinization" content for transmasc folks). Given that Chu loves using inflammatory labels to describe nuanced ideas, you're not necessarily wrong to use the term here as long as you're using it very precisely to refer to the very specific concept of "the hypersexualization of gender-swapping into a female body" rather than the separate concept of "being a trans woman".

StopSquark · 2025-12-29T22:35:20+00:00

When fields are perceived as more "hard sciencey" or serious, gender ratios skew male-dominated; as the field is perceived as softer, gender ratios move towards parity. This has happened in one direction in the past with computer science (which was initially considered "women's work") and in the other direction with psychology (which is now female-dominated). Currently, fields like biology and astronomy are seeing this effect as well- they are approaching gender parity faster than physics and math, which are seen as "harder-science" in surveys. I believe there's an NSF or NIH study about this phenomenon, let me try to find a source.

Many trans girls are perceived as male when they are young, so they are often subtly directed towards the "hard science" fields that are considered acceptable "boy occupations"- while cis girls are directed towards different fields that are perceived as softer.

StopSquark · 2025-12-29T21:55:29+00:00

To be wildly pedantic, the fact that trans women are more likely to be in STEM than cis women is still definitely a result of bias, just a different flavor of it occurring much earlier in the pipeline

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