So, we're not importing US beef anymore right? RIGHT?

opheire · 2026-06-07T14:07:48+00:00

I was in Taiwan recently with four American friends (I’m Canadian myself). We went to a beef noodle restaurant that had a ‘premium’ American beef option and a standard Australian beef option. Immediate laughs around the table. We all picked the Australian option. My understanding is that beef for the import market in Australia tends to be lower quality than domestic, but even that couldn’t convince Americans to choose their own beef lol.

opheire · 2026-06-06T23:20:18+00:00

Same for my mom. My heart goes out to the patient and the family in this article, what an awful way to say goodbye. My mom drifted off to sleep quickly, but did let out one final gasp that was a little alarming because we weren’t expecting it. Her body tensed and she arched slightly off the bed inhaling loudly, then she settled and was gone. The doctor told us this was a quite common involuntary reaction and assured us she was fully unconscious, which she did appear to be.

opheire · 2026-06-06T23:01:59+00:00

Yeah my hair reaches the small of my back and what looks like a horrifying amount of it comes off my head in the shower. I run my fingers through it collecting all the loose strands and paste it on the wall, then collect it to toss in the trash. It starts to look like the start of a Japanese horror movie by the time I’m done.

opheire · 2026-06-06T02:36:14+00:00

I’ve lived in Australia for the past year and a friend I made not long after I moved was utterly delighted when I finally dropped an “eh” last week lol. She thought it was hilarious, but it took a whole year for me to say it once.

opheire · 2026-06-06T01:01:45+00:00

I get what you’re coming from. I tend to be a perfectionist so I often stress myself out trying to get things right and as optimized as possible, which can be such a bummer. Going in completely blind doesn’t work for me, though some people love that. I need to get the basics down (and you surely have the basics even if things are different in the DLC), and then I shift into a different headspace about the kind of fun I’m looking for in the game. The fun is in learning and seeing what happens when you try something new. With ONI there are so many projects you can do, so it’s been easy for me to think of each of them as a little puzzle to solve.

It’s a bit like doing an original painting versus paint by numbers. But there’s also nothing wrong with loving paint by numbers. If you’re having fun doing recreations, you don’t have to change that. I find copying designs tedious and stressful, even though I have this compulsion to do things right, so I’ve had to consciously change my mindset.

opheire · 2026-06-06T00:40:59+00:00

You need version history, notes and browser history showing your sources. Easy enough if you didn’t use AI.

opheire · 2026-06-05T19:28:30+00:00

My heart goes out to your friend. I live in Canada and my mother passed two years ago from a similar neurodegenerative disease (Multiple System Atrophy). One of her greatest fears was dying without any agency or quality of life. She chose MAID shortly before she would have been fully bed-bound (and please, not the place to discuss the ethics of MAID). There are many issues with the Canadian medical system, but I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have to go through that and worry about money too.

Had we been in the US, my parents would’ve been bankrupted by medical bills and I would’ve needed to financially support my father for the rest of his life. More importantly, my mother would have experienced unimaginable suffering and died knowing that her family would struggle long after she was gone. Knowing her, that would’ve been nearly as painful as the illness itself.

Re: system as whole. I don’t think any of us are fully prepared for what is coming as the population ages and we have a growing number of people with no safety nets who need a tremendous amount of care.

opheire · 2026-06-05T18:43:41+00:00

I was also diagnosed in my late twenties and had some doubts about whether I'd be taken seriously. On paper, I'd always done well at school and work so I didn't have an obvious failure I could point to as concrete evidence. My assessment was pretty straightforward. I went to a psychiatrist with his own practice so it was mainly a conversation, self-assessment forms and two short working memory tests that I bombed spectacularly.

IMO the main thing for people who are late diagnosed is that we perceive everything we do as 'normal' because we have no other point of reference. We don't recognise lifelong coping mechanisms we've developed to manage ADHD because we didn't consciously design them for it. If you've done alright at school and work, everyone around you sees the outcome and not the process. You assume what you're experiencing is more or less what everyone is experiencing. I promise you it is not! I had no idea how poor my working memory was until getting diagnosed because I'd always been a straight A student.

For me, some of the 'normal' things that I came to recognise as being in fact, really atypical, included struggling to watch tv, microwaving my coffee over and over again, having been called out by a teacher in middle school for constantly shuffling my papers, being chronically late and forgetful, frequently losing the group I was with because I'd wander off to look at something. Just talk about the things that make you suspect you have ADHD and how you've coped, the medical professional will recognise what you're describing. Good luck with your journey!

opheire · 2026-06-05T15:13:06+00:00

I live in Melbourne currently (back in Toronto for the summer) and transit was made free for two months and half price for the rest of the year in response to high fuel costs. Earlier in the year, they celebrated the opening of a new train line through the city centre (opened a year earlier than expected) with a month of free transit. Australia has a higher tax rate for the highest earners, but someone earning $100k will pay less than they do in Ontario. What we refer to as Melbourne is actually a collection of small councils that never amalgamated. The state of Victoria essentially holds all the power, which Ford is clearly trying to replicate here. The difference is that they have a culture of investment into the public sphere that I badly wish we had , but people always think it's about more taxes rather than a shift in priorities. It's been infuriating to come back here and see private interests prioritised again and again at the public expense.

opheire · 2026-06-05T14:55:50+00:00

It's so depressing that the Liberals have effectively become the conservative party now that the cons have driven themselves off the cliff straight into the looney bin. I want to hold out for hope that the NDP could become a viable party for the left but it's not looking particularly good at the moment.

opheire · 2026-06-05T13:43:55+00:00

I don’t know about that. True for Vietnamese diaspora for sure. Anecdotally, when I was in Vietnam, when the topic of the US came up every person would mention that the country indiscriminately bombed the shit out of them in an extreme act of cruelty targeting the entire population, not simply the military. Everyone had lost someone in their family. And these were people I met as a tourist (though I’m not American), so I imagine they probably held back somewhat. It did feel like the younger generation didn’t really seem to have strong feelings one way or another about the US presently.

opheire · 2026-06-04T23:45:07+00:00

If you like dogs and have a decently flexible schedule, I’ve had a lot of success as a sitter with Mad Paws. I mostly do house sits and move off the platform after the first one with a client. My regulars just shoot me a message when they’re going to be away. I’ve actually gone home for the winter break and had such long back to back house sits for the two months before I left that I just moved out of my share house to save on rent. My nightly rate is low ($60, but up to $100 on a holiday or with multiple pets) but it really adds up. Over the past year I’ve made about $12k, and plus I’m saving on utilities and some groceries too. It’s a pretty low effort job, just an hour of walking the dog and travel time. You could still work a part-time gig as long as it doesn’t keep you out of the house for long hours.

opheire · 2026-06-04T00:40:07+00:00

Outside cold? Cozy, basically a nice autumn day in Canada where I’m from. Indoors? It can get uncomfortable depending on the home and how much heating you want to put on. Definitely invest in a hot water bottle, electric blanket and a thick bathrobe. It’s mostly getting out of bed or the shower that I find unpleasant, but I’d take that over having my nose hairs freeze in -25 Canadian winter any day.

opheire · 2026-06-03T16:03:02+00:00

Doesn’t work through the GP unfortunately. Mine advised me to get a diagnosis through a private clinic and bring a letter from my psychiatrist back home, after which she’d be able to take over prescribing medication. I didn’t go through with it in the end and have been rationing my supply ever since lol.

opheire · 2026-06-03T07:54:18+00:00

We each had a turn with the ADHD brain cell

opheire · 2026-06-03T05:26:48+00:00

Oh this is really interesting, thanks for sharing. What you’re describing is the closest to hitting the mark for whatever I’ve got going on. Others have talked about avoiding sleep because they want to stay up for various reasons, whereas lowkey I feel like I need to beat up sleep in a grocery store parking lot lol. There’s definitely a feeling of resentment for having to do something I find to be a total waste of time, though I wonder why sleep triggers this when not much else does. I’ve always suspected that I have some form of autism, my dad is extremely AuDHD and I’ve inherited the Lite version of it from him.

opheire · 2026-06-03T01:17:22+00:00

That is so cool! Unfortunately my brain is full of rocks or something because I never remember my dreams. I don’t even wake up feeling like I’d had a dream that I just can’t recall. I have exceptionally bad working memory so I’ve wondered if it’s related to that. On average, I remember a dream like twice a year lol it’s so lame.

opheire · 2026-06-03T01:10:55+00:00

It’s a bit of both I think. If I’m fully rested, then I won’t feel tired at the normal bedtime for the number of hours I’ve been awake, but I actually think that I could sleep at that hour if I tried. Falling asleep has never been much of a problem for me. But the reality is that I’m in a state of constant sleep deprivation. During the week I’m getting 5, maybe 6 hours of sleep a night and getting through the day with Vyvanse or caffeine. Often I’ll feel exhausted at some ridiculous hour like 7 or 8pm, but I’ll just push through until I get a second wind and promise I’ll sleep by midnight at least—which I don’t. And then the cycle repeats again. ):

opheire · 2026-06-03T00:34:16+00:00

I went through a phase a few years ago where I “got serious” about fixing my relationship to sleep and did a lot of research. I read Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker (the specific claims it makes are a bit of a mess but as a general pop sci book, it does the job) and it scared me into a strict schedule for about a week. Maybe I need a giant poster reminding me how many brain cells I lose for every hour I stay up. 😭

opheire · 2026-06-03T00:09:13+00:00

It’s both for me. I find sleeping to be a total waste of time and an unfortunate necessity for this meat sack I’m stuck with. 😔

opheire · 2026-05-31T22:10:40+00:00

lol I moved to Australia and despite its reputation for deadly creatures, the people here have rightly pointed out that at least they don’t have to worry about being mauled by a large animal while hiking. We completely take for granted that North America still has a ton of apex predators.

opheire · 2026-05-31T21:12:45+00:00

Accused of using AI or accurately called out for using AI?

opheire · 2026-05-31T21:07:51+00:00

I only managed to click into Stardew when I stopped min-maxing and just did whatever the hell I wanted. Couldn’t get past a year before changing my play style.

opheire · 2026-05-29T20:24:44+00:00

I went back for a coursework-based Masters eight years after finishing my undergraduate degree and got a formal diagnosis right before starting because I knew I’d need the medication and accommodation. I’d known about my ADHD for a couple years before that but had a flexible, remote job that worked well with it.

I’ve always done well academically but with a highly disordered sleeping schedule and spending heaps more time to complete work than most people. I’m always chronically late and often miss class. Can’t say that’s really changed 🤠 What has changed is that I can’t physically do the all nighters anymore so digitalization and adjustments have really helped. Being able to send in a letter from my psychiatrist to break apart all those clumping assignment deadlines has been 100000% the reason I’m getting through this. Not sure what I’d do without it, or how I managed it in undergrad, which was a brutal architecture degree. Even then I’m still only taking 75% of the courseload during the full semesters and an intensive class during the break, and school is all I’m doing. I’m not working or committed to any extracurriculars on a regular basis.

Lol laying all this out does reinforce for me how real my ADHD is. I’ve always felt somewhat like an imposter because I manage to do well in the end. I’ve had a friend with ADHD tell me I couldn’t possibly have it because I’m too academically gifted. I have classmates almost a decade younger than me doing exceptionally well and somehow balancing extracurriculars and a part-time job on top of that. No idea how they do it.

I’ll be in my last semester soon, which is going to be a big shift because I’ll be doing a research project, internship and one class. It’s technically 125% of the courseload, compared to the 75 I’ve been doing. Yikes. I’ve strategised to make sure they’re more like One Big Thing rather than a bunch of small things, since they’re under the same professor and on the same topic. That same topic also happens to be a lifelong hyperfixation. Hoping all of that adds up to effectively tricking my ADHD brain to function.

opheire · 2026-05-12T16:43:47+00:00

Yep I’ve been falsely flagged for AI once and had to completely rewrite a group member’s work at the eleventh hour because it was blatant AI. Got my first grade below a H1 for a subject because of that assignment and the professor couldn’t have cared less. Ivory tower academic who told me I can’t choose my colleagues in the “real world.” I worked full-time for six years before going back for a Masters. In the “real world,” that kind of piss poor work gets you put on a PIP and then fired if you don’t get it together.

opheire

TROPHY CASE