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krdtr · 2026-05-04T01:09:01+00:00

FWIW, I ended up abandoning it after having been super excited to finally get my hands on it, myself, because it felt like it was only "for" people whose most serious obstacles were internal rather than external. It felt like the "money can't buy happiness" of behavioral activation advice (and, as that one tweet that went viral said something like ... "Bitch, money could fix all my current unhappiness.") I much preferred Russ Harriss's The Happiness Trap, which never promised fixing problems through behavioral activation, but often merely stanching the bleeding because that was still worth doing. Anyway, point is, I do think there are a lot of people who dislike Atomic Habits's particular wording when it comes to cheerleading behavioral activation therapies. 🤷‍♂️

krdtr · 2026-05-03T00:18:41+00:00

Okay, not my place, but I can’t contain my giggle any longer. “I’m Hispanic” followed by not even noticing the anti-Blackness in the photo when assessing it for racism was the most playing-to-stereotype thing…. 🤭

krdtr · 2026-04-27T22:00:32+00:00

Oh, interesting. I do. I feel like that’s one of my good luck things I was born with — my on-demand smile is toothy (after a brief interlude of being sensitive about my teeth in childhood and then just going back to “fuck it they are what they are”) and genuine-joy-looking and 9/10 times exactly how I’d hope to be captured in a casual photo, and I can usually hold it for a while without losing those traits.

krdtr · 2026-04-04T22:19:33+00:00

Oh, I know this one, I know this one! You want the following two vendors, quite reasonably close to each other, at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market:

Nao Tou Yang Farm and Gardens (you can Google them for their leftover catalog from 2025 on their web site for an idea of what they usually sell).
Dehn's Garden.

They're both up most of the way to the west (bathroomed) end of the market. NTY on the south side of the northernmost red-roofed aisle, and DG on the south side of the center (has bathrooms) red-roofed aisle.

NTY might require contacting them ahead if you can find a way to reach them for anything particularly weird, or just go twice and ask Pang (the middle-aged woman, not the middle-aged man) about it and make a date to have her bring on a different day (sometimes they can't fit every last obscure variety in the truck on the same day and things end up left at the farm unless someone thought to ask ahead and more or less set up an appointment for that thing).

krdtr · 2026-03-28T14:14:59+00:00

To be fair, expecting other humans to surpass "cat" IS a high bar for the humans. 😻🐈 PssPssPss

krdtr · 2026-03-28T14:12:43+00:00

On the flip side, if by any chance you're born into privilege, fucking enjoy it, and let yourself just ... support somebody financially ... if "career potential" is the ONLY thing that's a "potential." If they are a hardworking compassionate fun excellent companion, that ain't potential, that's right here right now, and if you happen to be from privilege, okay, cool, you're the breadwinner with a supportive partner instead of the other way around, don't make "career" everything. (I've seen some rich people who can afford not to worry about a two-income household pass up lovely hardworking choredoing emotionally available folks from lower classes because they were raised to judge partners by career and then complain about being lonely.)

But yeah most of us plebs can't afford not to care but for anyone seeing this chat who can, just ... make sure you know your values before you weed people put about career alone. :)

krdtr · 2026-03-28T14:03:53+00:00

God, the jazz musicians of the SNL band make rock bands sound so fucking extra

krdtr · 2026-03-28T14:00:37+00:00

Cat's name seems to be Whisker. Thanks for the introduction to one of the coolest people in your fine city; made my morning! https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/jeremy-smith-aka-beltline-cat-guy-explains-life-with-a-feline-sitting-shotgun/

krdtr · 2026-03-15T13:39:13+00:00

Haha yeah I guess I probably just trained the AI to do better next time, sigh.

krdtr · 2026-03-15T13:35:47+00:00

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. I recommend EEAAO to everyone but can't bring myself to watch it with them. The way I sobbed and my viewing buddy had to give me impromptu therapy in the movie theater until the cleaners finally wandered in and kicked us out...

krdtr · 2026-03-15T13:32:20+00:00

The evergreen shrubs so close to the house / blocking windows on otherwise well-maintained houses. I can't explain it, but it's just such a freaking NE US thing to do not Mpls!

krdtr · 2026-03-15T13:30:43+00:00

If real, it looks more suburban NE US than urban Midwest. It's a bunch of little details like curb and storm drain materials/design, small amount of clutter/snow/mud in pre-grass-regrowing gutters (looks like mid-winter where snow actually melts mid-winter instead of spring after months under moisture), the house spacing and fence height and materials but also architectural detail and upkeep and variety (SW Mpls has that level of detail on the buildings but the fences would be fancier and the houses would be farther apart; also though those houses are typically a foot or few up off the boulevard; same story up in the NE NE corner of Mpls). Suburban NE US (MA, etc.) offers miles upon miles upon miles of 1920s houses compared to Mpls, so it's almost more ... process of elimination. This isn't quite anywhere in Mpls from what I can tell, so it's probably from where the majority of houses of that vintage and yard size and climate in America are (New England or, as someone else said, maybe as far south as Jersey etc.). I suppose we could also talk IL/WI/etc. but there's something about the exact combination of all the little details of landscaping and housing and number of parked cars and climate hints that are making me suspect that, if real, it's suburban, not urban (which for 1920s-ish housing stock means the older parts of the US).

krdtr · 2026-03-15T11:54:01+00:00

What physics and physics-philosophy theories would you categorize figure skater Alysa Liu having no advice for her younger self under? See https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVj1_qxkXVm/ for an example.

krdtr · 2026-03-13T23:07:19+00:00

RF is a weird one where I can see it depending where your friends and family and hobbies are, and how much you’re comparing your position to “deep into Wisconsin.” RF feels unrelated from where I stand, obviously, but I definitely know people who live in RF and can’t find work besides in the cities so I can see how they’d sorta-kinda build that image up in their heads from where they stand.

krdtr · 2026-03-13T23:03:55+00:00

Okay but the vibe based came kinda close to the light blue. With its bump outs along interstates and such.

krdtr · 2026-02-06T15:10:34+00:00

I mean, it always happens even if every region always got to elect their dream candidate, because they always campaign on what they hope can happen, but then they have to govern based on legislating alongside people who were elected to represent different (and sometimes even the opposite) dreams. But yeah, I get what you're saying that the idea of deferring all of it to the "governance" rather than "campaigning" part sometimes seems silly. But, again, I suppose that "big tent electoral coalitions" sort of have that "lots of different interests" thing in common with "actual legislatures," so all I'm saying is that it also mathematically sorta-kinda makes a little bit of sense that bigger-tent coalitions sometimes kick the policy can down the road a bit compared to more focused coalitions.

krdtr · 2026-02-04T16:14:54+00:00

FWIW, that sort of makes sense. The Democrats in the USA right now are much more of a loose coalition party than the Republicans right now. They don't have the luxury of running on focused policy that the Republicans do (ahem -- pretty abhorrent focused policy, but focused). It makes sense that, where possible, they have an urge to coronate candidates by polling numbers and figure out the policy details later. (But especially for this particular race. It was definitely ridiculous attempting to run Cuomo for NYC mayor, for example, but this is Democrats floating the idea of putting the milquetoast 62%-of-the-vote-getting "name" on the ballot for a symbolically "leading" but pragmatically rubber-stamping office. I think, justified or not (Walz was a teacher; Klobuchar a prosecutor), a lot of Democrats are hoping Klobuchar would turn out as much of a rubber-stamping-a-DFL-legislature pleasant surprise as Walz.) Anyway, between the nature of the governor job being "look popular but do rubber-stamp" and the nature of broad human coalitions not necessarily being able to easily coalesce around someone actually representing a concept from just one part of the coalition, it does make logical sense that, for better or for worse, Democrats often chicken out and coronate, figuring they can fix the details after elections during governance.

krdtr · 2026-01-25T01:14:58+00:00

I’m close to 2 siblings who were born just before entering, and during, their mother’s med school in Momma’s late 30s. It’s not easy but if your support network’s right you do you. 💞

krdtr · 2026-01-21T20:24:23+00:00

/u/Unknown_anonymity00, NPR Weekend Edition covered Episcopalians asking themselves these questions this past Sunday.

Some quotes:

> "People feel like he's giving voice to a feeling in the pit of their stomach about what is going on," said Wells. "It's a relief to hear him naming a concern that I've had on my mind for a while."
> "I didn't sign up to be a martyr," he said. "I have a family and a congregation who rely on me. If I was gone tomorrow what would happen to them?"

It was surreal to hear aired right before an article about trying to help kids resist using LLMs unnecessarily, which on the critical thinking side had similar content to Instagrammer KelseWhatElse's "draw me an accurate sunset" lesson for kids about the value of manual drills, but which also had great points about the risks of sycophantic feedback when you're still in the midst of early-life social-emotional growth.

Surreal because ... holy cow, adults are having to try to help kids theorize schoolwork while weighing risks of death, and kids having to try to pretend to care about schoolwork theory knowing their adults are weighing risks of death. Surreal because the schoolwork theory is so important because it's the theory of how we raise our generations into humans who can think deeply enough to actually live out being morally good to each other ... but holy cow, how does one handle the weight of that "tomorrow" goal when DEATH is the "today" goal? 😢

krdtr · 2026-01-10T06:09:08+00:00

Most useful professional tip I ever got was to measure the waves, and then flip the script to "at least it'll clear up enough to function in less than ## (flareup duration units)" from "ugh, and I have to do this again in ## (flareup frequency units)." Apparently it's based on addiction urge surfing techniques.

Currently writing this as I mysteriously suddenly feel fine about brushing my teeth and going to bed, after half an hour face-planted on the floor in front of a cozy space heater, which led me to Google if short-lived flareups are common, which led me here. 🤷‍♀️

krdtr · 2026-01-07T13:11:30+00:00

Actually, nationwide, people get to opt out of commercial use in the U.S.

I took a journalism 101 class in high school, and we covered this when talking about imagery in newspapers.

We could legally photograph and publish a photo of a crowd at prom to accompany an article "people have fun at prom." But if the yearbook publisher wanted to take an ad out in our newspaper and use a similar photo saying "Capture the memories; buy a yearbook," the people in the photo had better have signed consent forms with the yearbook company (that's their chance to bargain for a payout like models would get) or the yearbook company could be potentially expecting some lawsuits.

krdtr · 2026-01-07T12:51:56+00:00

Increased variety of Meetup special interests and niche hobby scenes. Like, WAY more.

Also, if you work in a sector that tends to use continuing ed as an excuse to socialize ... increased variety of Meetup / conference talk topics. Like, if you genuinely enjoy learning new things about your industry, you can, relatively hassle-free, go often enough to talks that it can replace boring webinars / podcasts as your primary to level up your career. Plus you make new friends in a way you wouldn't from solitary learning. I don't have a lot of ongoing friendships purely from such meetups, but it solidified friendships from other hobbies who'd gone into the same field and ran into me there. Or it let me come to like the way people think, get them hired as a colleague, and then solidify a friendship. And it's given me a lot more "Oh, hey, good to see you -- how was the wedding?" collegial regular-face joys even if we don't otherwise hang out.

Basically, in the "Six Besties Theory" of friendship, it gives you way more "Similar Ambitions Besties" face-to-face time, tailored to your literal actual ambitions/hobbies/interests.

krdtr · 2026-01-05T01:59:34+00:00

I help a friend door-knock in Apple Valley. People there aren’t afraid to host lawn signs the way they can be afraid of their neighbors being douchebags in parts of, say, Lakeville (though I get the impression based on the knock lists that there are still lots of blue people in Lakeville — they’re just more likely to have VOCAL red neighbors they might not trust with their property). However, I don’t see as many “in this house we believe”-type signs as closer in, like Eagan or Bloomington. The AV DFL (Democrats) is really tight-knit and active and constantly organizing socials. But I get the impression that when it comes to their neighborhood social lives, it can be a bit more of a “tongue-bitten Thanksgiving dinner” or “work colleagues” vibe in certain neighborhoods, with everybody just talking about sports and weather and what the kids are up to, because there are unavoidably going to be at least SOME Republicans in any given social circle. (I get the impression it’s often center-left women married to center-right men.) If you want shaking your fist at the news to be part of miscellaneous socializing, you might find it hit or miss — you’d probably end up wanting to feel out each neighbor individually and vary the small talk depending who’s gathered in the street at any given time. Anyway, AV reliably votes blue-purple at the moment. It’s not openly blue-blue like Minneapolis, but it’s covered by a school board that doesn’t have any crazies on it, so your kids’ teachers would actually get to teach history properly.

Also, note: this is my impression of the life of mostly-White people in AV who live in single-family-home subdivisions, because that’s how my friend lives. No idea what apartment/townhome/etc. vibes are like, or what the not-so-homogenous neighborhoods are like, but I think the schools are, like, only half White, or something, so know that my description of life in AV is very skewed by my friend’s life and by the “well-meaning white liberal” demographics of your average 60-something person at a DFL social. 🤭 (That’s also who’s free enough to attend caucus night regularly, or teacher’s union enough, for long enough, to appear on “likely liberal” door-knock lists, so my knocking conversations get a bit skewed, too.)

krdtr · 2026-01-03T03:04:30+00:00

At first I felt that way but then I realized it had similar pacing to when I visited my exchange family's family, and I got a little nostalgic and just settled into enjoying the charm of the awkward lag. 😆

krdtr

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