MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown

  • 0 Posts
  • 54 Comments
Joined 6 months ago
cake
Cake day: March 7th, 2024

help-circle





  • Just to piggyback on this. The simple truth is that lot of things are just called things because they resemble other things, either in form or function.

    Coffee is not a bean; beans come from legumes, coffee fruit seeds are roughly bean sized and shaped.

    Cacao and vanilla are also not legumes.

    The peanut is a legume like beans and peas, but the it’s fruit treated like a culinary nut.

    Cashews are not true nuts. They Grow outside the actual fruit.

    Nut milk and butter do not come from mammary glands.

    Tea is made for the leaves of the tea plant (Camellia sinensis), which is a shrub or small tree, but many infusions of dried plant matter are often referred to as teas. The Tea Tree (Melaleuca) of oil fame is a different plant entirely. It got its name because some sailors made a ‘tea’ from its leaves after they ran out of real tea leaves.

    Currants (genus Ribes) are actually named after raisins. Raisins of Corinth were small raisins that were produced and exported from… well… Corinth. Over time ‘Corinth’ morphed into ‘currant’, they dropped the ‘raisins of’, and the local small dryable fruit started being referred to as a currants too. Eventually, production of the tiny raisins migrated to other parts of Greece and some smart guy thought “Hey! Let’s market these fancy tiny raisins that we are importing from Zante (the greek island Zakynthos) by calling them Zante Currants to distinguish them from the common local currants.



  • I don’t know whether it’s available in Germany but the Oreck XL is a reliable bagged upright. No fancy tubes or attachments. No adjusting for carpet height or bare floors. Just a simple straightforward light, reliable vacuum.

    My folks have had one for years, they have a dog. My sibling got one that had been used daily in a small business for years, works great for their pets. I picked one up at an estate sale, replaced the brush roller and it works like new. We have a long haired cat that leaves tumbleweeds in its wake.








  • nobody actually pays those bills. They’re just some elaborate dance between insurance companies and hospitals.

    Sometimes there is an elaborate dance between the two on pricing. Sometimes the insurance company dances on its own to determine why the service is not covered.

    If you don’t have insurance, the cost is lower

    Depends what you mean by cost. insurance is always out to make money, that means paying less, and negotiating lower prices with providers. However, there are some situations where it benefits both the service provider and the insurance provider to inflate the initial price, and negotiate a steep “discount” to a final price (a portion of which the patient pays) that is higher than the non-insurance price. But I don’t remember the exact details, and I may be conflating this with some other healthcare industry scheme.

    or removed entirely. Supposedly.

    If a hospital is nonprofit, I believe they are required to have a (self determined) charity care policy that they must follow. If you make below a certain amount, you can apply for relief, but that also applies for to after-insurance costs, not just no-insurance costs. For-profit hospitals will rake you over the coals and send collections after you. Part of the problem with charity care, is that you may have to ask for it, and few people know enough about it to do so. And you may have to ask for it in the right way. If you aren’t specific enough, they may offer you “financial assistance” which is just a payment plan. Then they’ll treat you the same as a for-profit hospital would.

    If you’re interested in a deeper dive, the Arm and a Leg podcast is a great show about healthcare costs in the US.





  • You don’t need religion to be a moral person, and you don’t have to reject religion to act amorally. But there is no perfect, universal, scientific morality. Cultures, communities, individuals will vary on what they consider a moral act, and morality can change with circumstance. When different moralities interact, there will be conflict. And the amoral (or rather those, who do not subscribe to the same morality as those around them) will always use others’ morality as a tool to manipulate, a curtain to hide behind, a weapon to wield, and a shield to defend with.

    Religion helps communities to build a common morality in order to reduce tensions and foster fellowship within the group. But there will always be communities. There will always be disagreements, confusion, frustration, pride, loyalty, forgetfulness, honor, greed, hunger, struggle, disease, countervailing needs and desires, and mercy. The absence of religion would not stop people from seeking safe harbor and kinship in others, whether that is social clubs, fandoms, sports teams, political parties, activist organizations, etc. And when that kinship is endangered or perceived to be endangered, the absence of religion will not stop people from seeking to obstruct, forestall, eliminate, or revenge against whatever or whomever is perceived to be the cause.


  • I have a few observations

    1. Body temperature > room temperature. Lukewarm/tepid kinda occupies the space between. It is technically warmer than its surroundings, but does not provide a substantial warming effect to the body.

    2. Lukewarm is used almost exclusively for water, whereas room temperature is a reference to air temperature (either the current or a desirable one) Water and air exchange heat with the human body in different ways and at different rates. Room temperature air is fairly neutral to the body, but a 68F/20C swimming pool is rather chilly, and a 90F/32C room is not what I would call lukewarm.

    3. Warm & cool both have an implication of comfort whereas hot & cold have more an implication of danger or discomfort. Maybe there is something to thinking about these on more than one axis: relative temperature vs desirability or pleasantness.

    4. Context is weird. For things that are supposed to be “hot”, either “cool” or “cold could mean room temperature, above room temperature but also not quite “warm”, or hotter than “warm” but below a target, expected, or usable temperature.