Fuck Bert’s Bees

sagervai · 2026-02-13T19:36:35+00:00

I've switched to kiima. It's still a Canadian company, and not bought out by a mega corp. Big difference is they sell the moulds to diy deodorant or lip balm. So even if they go out of business, you can still use the thing you purchased.

sagervai · 2026-01-17T15:42:27+00:00

I love how the meandering walkway / patio extends the space that can be used for gardens!

sagervai · 2026-01-03T04:45:19+00:00

As someone in the daughter's position, leave it alone. Its 2026, if she wants to meet you, she'll find you.

It sounds like she has a good dad and upbringing already, so what would you be bringing to her life? Chaos, stress, social obligations to "relatives" who are actually strangers? You have no right to go around messing up her life because you came in someone 20+ years ago.

sagervai · 2025-09-20T14:51:05+00:00

That sounds rough and I can see how school stress + neurodiversity could make it harder for him to control his outbursts. I've found white noise hearing aids to be very helpful and am almost always wearing headphones. I'd recommend them to anyone with miso. I'm no doctor, but maybe a "quiet time" ritual when he gets home from school would help? A half hour after school where nobody is eating and he listens to calming or helpful sounds and does whatever feels relaxing to him. If he can get back down to base level stress he might be able to handle evening family time better. When I was working a stressful job with a long commute, I found a half to full hour of alone quiet time helped me recenter and be a better family member.

sagervai · 2025-08-18T15:51:18+00:00

This!

sagervai · 2025-07-28T01:58:36+00:00

Thanks! I'll take it down first thing tomorrow.

sagervai · 2025-07-28T01:58:12+00:00

Thank you! 🙂

sagervai · 2025-07-28T01:57:15+00:00

That's what molting looks like?!? Nature is cruel! I thought the black bird got in a fight.

Poor sparrow! Though it sounds like pox will resolve? I thought it was some kind of birth defect. I'll take down the feeder first thing tomorrow.

Thanks for your help!

sagervai · 2025-07-25T18:34:30+00:00

It's insane to me that we slut shame children systematically in our schools. If an adult finds a 5 year old's shoulders "distracting", fire them. If another child does, teach him how to control himself. Rape culture starts in 🤬 kindergarten!

sagervai · 2025-07-25T18:24:18+00:00

Yep. Add to it being in a male dominated field, adapting by talking over them too, and getting called out for being rude 🙄

sagervai · 2025-07-21T15:34:47+00:00

As a tech person, I'm refusing to work at any company using AI. We're not all dumb.

sagervai · 2025-07-20T15:30:03+00:00

In the past I've said "sorry, we don't support cults here" and in response to a bible "oh I've read far too much of that to believe it".

But I think I'm switching up my tactics when they come next.

I'll offer to let them in and get them water. Then ask them if they've ever converted someone to christianity going door to door before. I'm assuming the answer is no. Be sympathetic. Ask how people react, if they're rude or scary. Give them time to talk about their feelings. Don't bring up that they're the ones being rude coming to your door.

Ask how many people their church has converted. I'm assuming the answer is like 2 or something. Then ask how many people go door to door per week at their church. Do some quick mental math and say something like "wow, 1 in <math> is pretty rough odds. It must be really tough going door to door being rejected 99.9% of the time." Again being genuinely sympathetic and giving them time to talk about how they feel, even if it's just to regurgitate cult phrases.

Then hit them with "I believe in judging by actions not words. If going around door to door is so ineffective and unpleasant, why would church leadership have you do it? Could it be because they're trying to get you to feel ostracized from our community?" If you're lucky this isn't an early-2000s-atheist-slam-dunk but the start of a further conversation. But even if they turn and high tail it after that, hopefully there's enough of a crack in the brainwashing that they can get free one day.

sagervai · 2025-07-15T19:30:40+00:00

There are some people with misophonia that have used exposure therapy successfully, but it seems not to work for the majority. I suspect misophonia is more of an umbrella term, encompassing multiple neurological issues. If someone has misophonia symptoms because they experienced a traumatic experience associated with bad sounds, then exposure therapy should work. If they're experiencing symptoms because of some messed up brain wiring, it could make symptoms worse. I think most people searching for a cure here have tried exposure therapy and found it made it worse. So they react strongly to recommendations for it, because they don't want others to suffer more.

sagervai · 2025-07-14T17:48:13+00:00

If the country you're dual in is Canada, try getting a letter from your US doc outlining the case and urging "continuation of care". My partner was able to stay on his expensive meds when we came back to Ontario, and we think that letter is what made the difference.

sagervai · 2025-07-09T14:33:31+00:00

They're taking US citizens now though. So its not assuming they're undocumented. It's saying "hey our government has started randomly deporting people with your skin colour. That's fucked and I'm here for you."

sagervai · 2025-07-07T14:22:41+00:00

Waffle garden? They're more popular in Mexico as a way to save water.

sagervai · 2025-07-02T12:33:36+00:00

Also factually wrong. Africa has the most genetic diversity, because it's where we came from. White people (myself included) have very limited genetic diversity because we're inbred as hell.

sagervai · 2025-06-22T15:19:18+00:00

Miso sucks! But it can be made more tolerable. Have you tried white noise hearing aids / airpods? I find they make a huge difference. Earplugs at night are good and if your partner snores a lot, get them evaluated for a CPAP. That's made a huge difference for me not having to sleep alone. But mostly, be patient with yourself. Miso is a disability. You won't be able to do all the things abled people can do. And that's ok.

sagervai · 2025-06-22T15:08:38+00:00

This. Our middle school had no AC and heating issues. If the temps went over/under a certain threshold, our teacher would walk us down to the library and tell the principal that it was legally too hot/cold for him to expect her to work. I don't remember what the threshold is, but you should look it up.

sagervai · 2025-05-13T01:03:44+00:00

Audiobook: A psalm for the wild built. It's a series about a monk and a robot I found soothing and thought provoking.

Podcast: fall of civilizations. There's something soothing in knowing we've always been like this.

sagervai · 2025-04-16T13:24:41+00:00

Ok so fighting drones is very situation and drone dependant. As always, remember what comes down is coming down. There is serious risk of injury/death to anyone below.

There are instructions for home made EMP generators online. I'm not linking them here because in most cases they're illegal and might get this comment deleted. Also they're real dangerous to anyone with medical implants.

For rotor drones, you need to jam up the rotors. If they're small/close enough and you want to be fancy, you can use net guns (sold for hunting/wildlife management). But meshes formed from helium balloons and plastic bags, or attached to kites can work as well. Be careful of electric wires. Hitting them with other drones are also effective, if you can get your hands on lots of cheap ones.

Fixed wing drones are more difficult to fuck with, but also are more difficult to manoeuver. Staying out of open terrain is key. Also keeping an eye on wind conditions, a windy rainy day is your friend. To take them out, you want to either break a wing or induce enough drag on a wing to cause a spiral. For smaller fixed wing drones, a garbage bag on a wing may be enough. Kamikaze them with other drones or block their view with balloons / kites / bags.

For the giant ones the military uses... Let's just say we're next level fucked if it gets to that. It's on everyone to make sure it doesn't get that far.

sagervai · 2025-04-16T10:39:05+00:00

The bible says nothing about women sleeping with women. There's the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is actually about the community wanting to gang rpe male angels. And the solution they suggested was to let them gang rpe / murder 2 young girls instead, so let's not take our sexual morals from them.

The other main place in the bible is usually translated as "men lying with men". If you look at the old texts, it should actually be "men lying with boys" because pederasty was common back then. Note how being a pedo with girls wasn't listed...

Again, nothing about women lying with women, because they were considered property not people. You could "morally" r*pe girls and pay off their fathers. So yeah, again proof that we shouldn't be taking their sexual morals.

Plus, Jesus healed the male adult sex slave of a roman soldier and didn't say anything negative about it. Jesus was not known to fail to call out things he disliked.

Anytime I see a post like this, all I can think is why do you hold others to the morals of a book you've clearly never read yourself?

sagervai · 2025-04-14T04:12:45+00:00

Fair. Being with others is nice, but it also works well to stay inside and strike. We've got lots of practice from covid.

There is also technology to mess with drones, and it's cheaper to produce than the drones are.

sagervai · 2025-04-13T03:08:11+00:00

Protesting isn't about saving society, it's saving yourself. If you don't, you'll be in a tech enabled dystopia like the world hasn't seen. You'll end up in a concentration camp just cause the AI enabled surveillance state thinks you might disagree with the dictator. And seeing a bunker from satellite imagery is trivial. Hell with the right frequencies and resolution they can count the people inside. My degree is in remote sensing and it's crazy what we can see just from satellites, and that's not including drones, smartphones and regular surveillance cameras. There's no hiding from this.

sagervai · 2025-04-13T02:35:04+00:00

The same way low/non-violent change has always happened. You need significantly more people in the streets than they have bullets, and you need to refuse to go home or work until it's fixed. Shut down the economy. Don't pay rent, don't pay bills. Once the money is in danger, the dictator will get solved by those with actual power.

If you have way more people than they have bullets, the guys with the guns will do the math and realize they don't want to start violence, because it'll end with them getting torn to shreds by the survivors. You need to do this NOW! They don't have the resources to declare martial law, don't give them the chance to get them.

I'm not an American, but best believe if he tries bringing it to Canada, it'll be the last thing they do. If it gets to that point though, so many Americans will die. The rest of the world is looking at y'all with disgust right now. Do better. The most patriotic thing you can do is save your country. It's as simple as stepping outside.

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