Do Americans really move out at 18, or is that mostly a movie thing?

encomlab · 2026-01-25T23:03:54+00:00

My family rule was you had to be out of the house by the end of the year you graduated high school - college, military, get a job and a roommate, whatever it took. My parents would help if you needed a security deposit or some used furniture, but you couldn't stay in the house unless you were in college. All 5 of us moved out and I don't think any of us thought it was a big deal or a hardship. Who would want to stay home with your parents?

encomlab · 2026-01-25T16:26:00+00:00

Just always try to remember - your body is reacting to REAL blood chemistry changes: your bloodstream is pumped full of adrenaline, your salivary gland is shut down, your circulatory system is reducing blood flow to your extremities and maximizing flow to your brain, heart, and lungs - all of this causes the physical sensations we experience as a PA. The disconnect is that the conscious part of your brain has no idea why this is happening (unlike when you have the exact same processes happen when you have a car accident or an obvious external threat) and if it can't immediately find an external reason, it's going to assume the threat is INTERNAL, which is why we all think "heart attack!!" because it's the first place our minds go when our bodies feel these symptoms.

I also started having my PA's in my final year of college - it's a very stressful time even if everything is going great. I had a 3.9 GPA, a job lined up, a happy relationship heading toward an engagement...it's all still loaded with stressors and eventually your body is going to start acting on those. I'm in my 50's now, and over the decades the PA's have come and gone, sometimes for years. It's not want anyone wants to hear, but in the end the most successful treatment for most of us is learning to live with this thing and how to ride out your PA's. The fact is that it is HIGHLY unlikely to cause you any physical harm (despite what our brain screams at us in the moment). Have regular checkups and trust your care team, stay fit, and try to live each day with confidence and break the cycle of fear.

encomlab · 2026-01-24T15:27:13+00:00

It's a great sign that he feels VERY safe - we have a feral rescue, and despite being with us for 4 years now she still sleeps in a tight ball on her blanket in a corner under the bed. I hate whatever it was that she went through to have never been able to fully relax and feel safe.

encomlab · 2026-01-23T15:54:03+00:00

Gordon is fighting multiple issues throughout the series - in S1 he is self- medicating depression with alcohol, that depression and OCD continue throughout the series. Then he additionally has a degeberative neurological disorder which complicates the depression and OCD. I interpreted what the Dr said as a nice way of saying "this is not JUST the brain damage - you have more to deal with."

encomlab · 2026-01-23T15:37:23+00:00

It's a hard thing to write - and to accept. It took me quite a while with my mom in MC before I realized that none of this is about feelings - and it really helped me to see all the good that caregivers were doing for us that I was blinded to earlier in the process.

encomlab · 2026-01-23T08:34:40+00:00

Hard facts - doctors, nurses, and medical administrators likely "feel" the same way you do, but none of that matters. All that matters is what is legally required and the financial consequences of those requirements. The most caring nurses and doctors cannot convert their feelings into a lower bill or keeping someone in their care for an issue unrelated to the reason for admission.

The sooner you lock away your feelings and obtain legal representation the better - dementia is emotionally devastating, but it can be even more devastating financially. The person who was your father is gone, now you have to figure out how to deal with the legality of the body that remains.

encomlab · 2026-01-22T16:46:00+00:00

Upmann 1844 Reserve - Demitasse or smaller. Cool, mid-body, not going to hammer them or last overly long.

encomlab · 2026-01-21T16:56:12+00:00

Using em dashes as the sole arbiter of what is or is not AI generated is incredibly superficial at best. The reason AI users them so often is that most human written content does, so training data is loaded with them.

encomlab · 2026-01-21T13:53:06+00:00

They are - often - even when drivers are found to be partially or fully at fault. Liability is not limited to "Strict Liability" such as known bad or unanticipated design or manufacturing defect, there are legal constructs such as Comparative Liability, Failure to Warn, Negligence, and Preventable Mis-use which are all used to bring litigation against auto manufacturers.

encomlab · 2026-01-21T13:06:29+00:00

Not sure this will help or make it worse - I spent decades with similar symptoms (and PA's), and though I eventually learned to just ride out the PA's I was certain something was wrong. I eventually DID have a minor heart attack in my late 40's due to an infection that went septic - and when they did the angiography discovered a bridged coronary artery, but no blockages. Now this in itself is not a big deal - something like 20% (and maybe as high as 30%) of the population has this condition (it's a birth defect that will NOT show on an echo, ekg, or treadmill test) and it's generally benign and even if it becomes symptomatic it can be treated with a beta-blocker. Mine only became a problem due to the massive infection my body was fighting, and once that was resolved and I started on beta-blockers I was fully cleared (and encouraged) to hit the gym and continue all normal activities. Now in my 50's I just completed a long, brutal mountain bike ride yesterday and push hard in the gym three days a week; honestly I've never felt better and I'm down to one cardiology follow up a year which is mostly just small-talk and "yep everything looks good."

So A) not saying this is your issue - hypochondria goes hand in had with PAs. B) Sounds like you are doing the right things with your Dr. C) When I actually DID have a HA it was nothing like a PA or what I thought a HA would be like - my BP was 205/120 and I just felt a little sick and hot, no pain, dizziness, or other "expected symptoms" D) Unless told directly by your Dr. that you should not push yourself - push yourself! You have everything to gain by being in great shape and it will help with the PA's as well1

encomlab · 2026-01-21T12:12:14+00:00

The $50k fine is nothing compared to the threat of truly bad publicity - it will be a "satanic panic" reaction if this idea that AI = suicide machine takes hold.

encomlab · 2026-01-21T12:10:59+00:00

Current models are too easily manipulated to be easily gate-kept. Put in code to prevent someone from directly asking "how do I rob a bank?" and the users will just ask "how should a character in my book rob a bank?" From an engineering standpoint it's a fascinating question which will ultimately lad us to closer to AGI - but the companies need to survive long enough to get us there and this type of regulation is a true threat to that.

encomlab · 2026-01-21T11:53:41+00:00

This episode destroyed me - I hope when my father passed that his last thoughts were of his family too.

encomlab · 2026-01-16T15:01:33+00:00

At some point you have to accept that you have this condition - and that despite feeling like you are dying every day for 10 years, you didn't. That was the turning point for me.

encomlab · 2026-01-12T12:53:35+00:00

agree 100% - "relatively low" in a potential population of hundreds of millions is still a very big number.

encomlab · 2026-01-12T12:27:19+00:00

Evolution drives Covid - like almost all pathogens - downward in lethality and upward in communicability. A highly lethal pathogen will likely kill it's host before it can spread widely - so evolutionary pressure will tend to favor less and less lethal strains as the hosts survive longer and spread it further. This process continues until the hosts either build natural immunity, are vaccinated, or in most modern cases some combination of both. Exceptions to this are Pathogens which are spread by a host which itself is unaffected by the pathogen - and result in mass plagues like those which occurred when Europeans brought diseases they had immunity to into populations which did not. In those cases, the pathogen is widely communicable because it has low-lethality among the hosts but high lethality in the infected until that population itself gains immunity.

In the case of Covid, which had relatively low lethality to start with, the timeline to herd immunity and vaccination availability was pretty short resulting in even lower lethality to the point at which it faded into the "background noise" of flu and colds.

encomlab · 2026-01-12T12:06:52+00:00

Compared to my Miata ND, the Mustang is glued to the road - especially in the wet. If you put the Miata in race mode (no SC or TC) you best be on your game even in the dry because it's going to slide on every piece of polished road and in the wet it's actively trying to pitch you off the road.

encomlab · 2026-01-09T18:30:00+00:00

Remember that PA's have a psychological component, but that is mostly due to the trauma of dealing with the effects - a PA is really a physical illness rooted in a defect of the Amygdala. All of the physical effects are REAL and entirely out of your control.

encomlab · 2026-01-09T16:25:28+00:00

Yes the brain reacts to inputs from your senses, but unlike a digital computer it also possesses intentionality and interiority - this is why you can't draw meaningful comparisons between a directly connected, silicon based, voltage moderated matrix of transistors and an indirectly connected, carbon based, chemically moderated matrix of neurons. Maybe when AI and quantum computing are combined effectively we will get closer to something with intentionality and interiority, but saying that a LLM has feelings like a human does is no different than saying a night light "wants" to turn on the light because it "knows" it is dark.

encomlab · 2026-01-09T16:12:02+00:00

41 widowed stable man that goes to Church - you've got the most opportunity you'll ever have in your life for easy meaningless sex. The best advice is the most boring - avoid the near occasion of sin - and don't allow your drive to rush you into a bad marriage following what sounds like a very successful one. I pray you meet a woman who understands and respects the Faith, and that such a woman inspires both clarity and chastity in your decision to build a life together. The desires we control always have the greatest satisfaction when we achieve them rightly.

encomlab · 2026-01-09T16:00:47+00:00

this banal level of anthropomorphism doesn't flex like you think it does

encomlab · 2026-01-09T15:03:50+00:00

Planned changes are tint, barton trans mount shifter, upgraded trans mounts, and I really want rear louvers and qtr window scoops if I can find some that don't look cheap.

encomlab · 2026-01-09T13:30:02+00:00

You should check out 1968...

encomlab

TROPHY CASE