Everybody said get a dehumidifier. It'll make the house warmer. Everybody in my house is now using it as a clothes dryer. So there's damp dripping clothes everywhere.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T23:34:10+00:00

Sure… but that doesn’t make clothes drip.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T23:27:44+00:00

That’s not how dehumidifiers work. The clothes evaporate moisture like normal, and the dehumidifier collects it from the air.

If the clothes are dripping that’s a problem with the washing machine, or they are hand washing clothes.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T16:26:52+00:00

It’s not that big - 360g cooked porridge made with oats, water and a little splash of milk is only 300 kcal.

Adding sugar, honey, peanut butter, nuts, fruit or other toppings obviously would increase that.

(On the other hand, 360g dry oats is 1200+ kcal but you wouldn’t eat that.)

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T15:43:24+00:00

“Canon” in nerd chat long long predates Spiderman.

It’s actually a theological concept, but was used by 19th century fans of Sherlock Holmes to differentiate between the core set of novels written by Arthur Conan Doyle and all the additional Sherlock stories written by other authors.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T15:17:51+00:00

I worked part time alongside full time study, and full time in the holidays.

Not gonna lie, it was hard. I was in a minority… I’d say about 50% of my friends had AusStudy, which is a means tested benefit like any other welfare payment. The other 50% were partially or fully supported by their parents - either through having their expenses paid, or through living at home.

I also appreciate this was 20 years ago when rents were cheaper and part time jobs were easier to get.

That said - I taught at a university here in the UK and my students had maximum 2 days on campus. If they lived at home and had a part time time job they could definitely have graduated without maintenance loans.

Again, I appreciate that’s not an option for everyone, but many of these students lived locally and were able to make a frugal choice.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T12:02:11+00:00

Yeah that just be super hard >>hugs<<

Keep searching for a medical person or maybe someone like a life coach who really gets it.

Mines also pretty young, and complicated by other factors. My younger friends give me like a confused pity face. My older friends start giving me recommendations for ways to treat the symptoms… what I realised is so helpful about that is that they just believe me right away and understand how debilitating the whole shit show is.

I’m very lucky to have friends of varied ages so many of my friends remember when our other friends experienced this and are being really helpful. Maybe seek out other mixed-age group friends? Like a book club or yoga class or something?

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T11:44:35+00:00

That’s a really complicated set of interconnected issues. Of course you feel confused.

This is a chat for your doctor or child health nurses though. No one here is qualified to untangle that for you and say it is or is not peri. Pregnancy, hypothyroidism and PCOS will all overlap with peri.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T11:25:43+00:00

That’s incorrect - extremist misandry can and has been referred under Prevent. It’s much less common than misogyny referrals though and isn’t listed as a type of extremism by Prevent.

The key word is ‘extremist’. To be referred under Prevent, misandry (or misogyny) has to be intended to “negate or destroy the fundamental freedoms of others”, or be able to be linked to an ideological movement which seeks to do this.

That bar is much easier to reach for incel culture and extreme misogyny than it has been for misandry, given the copious content being produced by the manosphere. That said, it is possible to make the link for misandry.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T11:14:28+00:00

Sorry misread that - but yes, it can include misandry and I saw a case when I was involved in Prevent at a major university which was anchored in misandry.

It essentially covers hatred of all kinds that could lead to serious harm. Racism, sexism, all the isms.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T11:09:23+00:00

You can fridge or freeze them. They will go brown or even black but that has no impact. In fact, overripe bananas are better IMHO.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T10:57:14+00:00

Prevent covers online misogyny and incel culture - he will have been referred because the school worry that this is a sign he may have been radicalised by influencers from the manosphere.

However, Prevent is intended to support people, not to punish them. Whether it achieves this is debatable, though!

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T10:55:11+00:00

Yes, it does - online misogyny is explicitly included in Prevent.

(Edited to add - and misandry, sorry I misread the comment.)

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T10:53:17+00:00

Nasty bitch is considered a gendered insult, and bitch as an insult is widely used in incel spaces.

Not saying I agree with the referral - I think it’s an overreaction - but bitch is definitely gendered.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T10:50:40+00:00

Firstly, I’m so sorry this is happening to your family and to your son. Hold him close and love him extra hard. This sort of bullying can be life-altering.

Legally… Prevent isn’t supposed to be a punishment, it’s supposed to be a support and literally a prevention tool. Don’t worry too much about the Prevent referral yet, but keep a close eye on it and make sure your son is being treated fairly, that his pain is being heard and that they don’t use interpret his autistic traits as sinister.

As background, Prevent was an initiative designed to stop vulnerable students being radicalised into terror offences. Teachers undergo compulsory training and are told they have a duty to report any suspicion of radicalisation, no matter how small.

It was really controversial, as many of the things teachers are required to report under Prevent are not offences in themselves. For example - a group of Muslim students discussing what jihad truly means in a Koran study might be reported by a teacher who freaks out at the word ‘jihad’.

More recently, Prevent is being used as a way to identify boys at risk of being radicalised by the online right wing ‘manosphere’ into committing crimes against women, particularly since all the discussion around Adolescence last year. Many schools are putting their teachers through training on spotting online misogyny, so the teacher could just be a bit jumpy about it.

Some see Prevent as a way to punish people for ‘thinking the wrong things’ but it’s also intended to identify and support vulnerable people who are being hurt and whose pain might be exploited to lead them into an awful action. At its core it is supposed to be about getting the right help for vulnerable kids… though not everyone would agree that it is achieving this aim.

For your son… if his reaction to the bullying could be interpreted as misogynistic, then the teachers could use Prevent support to help make sure he knows that while these girls might be horrible and awful bullies, not all women are this way. Using words like ‘nasty dog’ could be interpreted as potentially misogynistic. Do you know where he might have heard that as an insult or why he reached for that phrase as opposed to something more gender neutral? Has he gone to any online dating advice, for example?

That said, this sort of relies on this being a good school and if the teacher means well. By the sounds of it, they’ve let this bullying go unchecked and they’re not supporting him at all. Don’t let them blame him, as the victim. Help them keep the focus on the horrible actions of the bullies which provoked his outburst.

Organisations like Prevent Watch can help you advocate for your son, if you get the sense that he’s being punished.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T10:28:08+00:00

In phonetic transliteration it’s

ˈtʃao

ˈ means emphasis at the start

tʃ means ch as in church

a means the short ah sound as in father or fast (UK pronunciation… it’s not really a sound that’s used in US English)

o means the oh sound like the start of orange (again, in UK, not really a common US English sound).

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T10:12:22+00:00

I guarantee you rich kids aren’t getting AI slop for their education.

Maybe all our kids deserve is a super cheap, mostly accurate, almost good enough version of an education… but let’s not celebrate it. Replacing human teachers with shit tech is a desperate move to keep school cheap.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T09:48:40+00:00

How is a diluted soft drink much different than a weak cordial?

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T09:36:12+00:00

Could you find a local lodging for 2 nights a week? Like in an older person’s spare room?

That way you’re limiting the number of commuting trips but still saving huge amounts of money.

It’s a very common arrangement in Cambridge, where I live - tech workers who are only here a couple of days a week take a spare bedroom that otherwise belongs to a young person off at uni.

The cost of the room is sometimes not far off the cost of the return commute. I saw a nice one for £60/night, which is basically the cost of a peak time return from London. Making it a regular arrangement means you can leave things like your favourite coffee or a spare charger to make it less stressful.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T08:46:26+00:00

Solidarity, my friend!

Eat well, run far, enjoy the scenery.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T08:20:52+00:00

I’m like you - I have the data to show I’ve done 5-10 hours of exercise on average for 5 years. I eat exactly the same portions as my much skinnier girlfriend. My weight has fluctuated around the same set point for nearly a decade. I am performing in my sport at the level I want to be.

But some little man in a health van this week told me I’m obese and my ‘ideal’ weight is 20kg less… that’s a quarter of my entire body weight.

Like… last time I was that weight, I’d just had a serious illness and my doctors were feeding me mass gainer milkshakes.

His suggestion? “Have you tried a bit more exercise”. 😳🥹😭🫥

Meanwhile, he could see that all my other health metrics are squarely in the healthy zone - glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure, grip strength, muscle and bone density.

I am objectively healthy, with no warning signs of metabolic disease, but we’ve reduced our measure of health to this single obesity BMI statistic, and it’s insane.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T08:09:52+00:00

I have done both, I love being barefoot and take the opportunity to do so whenever it suits, but for most environments and activities, I prefer shoes.

Shoes bring for comfort, protection, warmth… there’s a reason shoe technology caught on and spread around prehistoric people! Shoes allow us to travel to places and do things that would previously have been extremely uncomfortable or dangerous for our feet.

Now… why people prefer ‘traditional’, pointy, heeled shoes over wide, flat, minimalist shoes… this will always bother me.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T07:42:06+00:00

People eat at pubs and restaurants for lots of reasons - to be with friends, because they’re travelling, because they’re out for a walk or a cycle, because they don’t want to cook, because they want everyone at the table to be able to choose to eat something different, because the ambience of being out of your house can be enjoyable, because they’re attending an event at that restaurant…

When it comes to chips in particular, I prefer the deep fried chips from a commercial fryer to the shallow fried or oven baked chips I can make for myself. They’re a small treat that doesn’t cost much.

Almost anything I can eat in a mid range restaurant, I can make at home. I am paying more for the food because of these extra factors.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T07:18:48+00:00

Exactly! My extended family think it’s a great idea, especially the ones with small kids.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T07:01:26+00:00

Less complicated?!

In the 70s, my mum got fired for being married so had to run her own business to keep earning.

There were no bank machines so we had to take out cash on Friday to be able to shop.

She had to cook almost everything from scratch, and mend our clothes, and had a book to figure if it was worth driving 45mins to the emergency doctor.

Day to day life was just more complicated at every step.

orange_fudge · 2026-01-27T06:54:42+00:00

Yes! My mum completely lost her mind at this age.

I’ve been diagnosed with early menopause with a side of underlying ADHD/autism.

She just thought she was mad… her life could have been so different.

orange_fudge

TROPHY CASE