bolt.
-
Posts
6,291 -
Joined
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by bolt.
-
-
9 minutes ago, freesia said:
Well I just had two more kids come home and the house keeping load has greatly increased. So, if they did not do their share, it would make a difference.
That's interesting. It suggests, maybe, that we might all feel a little less frustrated about adult kids at home if they were guided to focus primarily on lessening their negative impact on shared spaces as a first step.
It probably also has something to do with privilege in the first place, because it's easier to ignore other people's messes 'in their own space' if there's lots of space to go around. It definitely helps (a ton!) me that my pair of teen and adult kids each have a solo bathroom, and also each have some living space that I think of as theirs (in addition to a bedroom each). I don't occupy myself with thinking about or cleaning those spaces myself.
The only impact on my chore routine with the return of my adult daughter has been a slightly more frequent need to empty/fill the dishwasher, and a few extra items on the kitchen counters sometimes, for me to clear up when I'm already clearing counters, and a few extra items at the grocery store that I'm already shopping at. That's a change of maybe 2 to 5 minutes of work per day for me. The floors have been really normal, their laundry is their own, and their clutter is confined to their own space, or boxed if it's left in shared spaces.
-
2
-
-
15 minutes ago, Scarlett said:
Well I mean the language of ‘kicking them out’ is pretty ugly. But how long would you tolerate an adult living in your home who doesn’t share their part of the domestic labor?
For me, if having my young adult living in my home is about the same amount of work for me as having them live elsewhere -- once I get over the initial sense that I wish I could work less due to their presence, I don't think I'd set a time limit for them to move out just so I could work the same amount without the pleasure of having them nearby.
Now, if they were *also* not a pleasure to have nearby, then I might be more inclined to limit their time. Also, if they were making noticably more work for me with their presence, I'd be thinking different thoughts.
But not just because they weren't doing their share of domestic labour.
What I mean by this is: say if two adults share a home, and they magically both do exactly the same amount of domestic labour in shared spaces, then "I" do "x" (the total amount of shared-space housekeeping that exists) divided by two. Similarly if three adults share the same home, which, in spite of being extra-inhabited still has the same amount of shared space and generally the same cleaning schedule for those spaces, if it was mathematically fair, then "I" would be doing "x" divided by three.
x/3 is less work than x/2. Therefore sharing space with an additional adult, in a fair world, should lead to a decrease in "my" responsibilities. In an unfair world, if the third adult does no shared work, my workload remains x/2. Which is exactly what it was before they moved in, and exactly what it will be when they move out. I don't like that it's not fair, because one of us isn't sharing in the work, but I am not actually working harder.
Therefore my decision is emotional and relational in nature: would I rather do x/2 work with the company of an adult child at home, or would I rather do x/2 work without the company of my adult child in the home. Does my sense of the pleasure of their company decrease when I feel that I am being bearing an unfair portion of the chores? For sure it does. Does that mean I would prefer the same workload without the kid there to make me feel bad about it? Maybe! That's definitely a crummy feeling. But if them leaving or staying has no actual impact on my chore load... I'll need to analyze what impacts it actually has, and base my decision on those factors: not the chore factors.
-
1
-
-
I think that, if it's a family business, and multiple adults (spouses, adult children) regularly and reliably work for it -- either they should each/all have a job title and a salary, or they should both be legal co-owners either 50/50 (most spouses) or maybe with defined percentages of ownership.
Sometimes, like a farm, everybody works and everybody lives off the 'profits' as well as they can: and that's fine if everybody is a legal co-owner. It's not fine if everybody works, but only one person owns things. In that case any non-owners should get wages.
I can't imagine working for a 'family business' for free if it was really a sole proprietorship of my spouse and I had no legally defensible stake in the fruit of my own labour.
In my jurisdiction, even the money that results from the paid labour of an employed spouse is considered 50/50 co-owned by an at-home supporting spouse (unless it was not consentual). This is because the at-home contribution to the earning potential of the employed spouse is acknowledged under the law.
-
7
-
1
-
-
And yet, an alcohol swab is a flat rectangle. Funny language we have!
-
4
-
-
I think some of the confusion might be around the definition of "talent". In the original setting, "a talent" was simply an amount of money. It was never a personal attribute of any kind.
It was people/cultures that decided that the 'talent' in the parable must stand for some kind of naturally occurring personal attribute, skill, or affinity -- that we started using a money word from the ancient word as if it actually held the cultural meaning that we ourselves assigned it.
In reality none of our human 'talents' are at all related to Biblical 'talents' -- except under a certain very humanistic interpretive lens.
Coming from Jesus, the talent story is very similar to other 'harvest' stories: a thing is planted and it multiples. Therefore it's probably a kingdom story, and it's the kingdom that multiples. Therefore we ought to ask ourselves what 'deposit of the kingdom' is growing and multiplying in our lives right now. And, maybe, in what ways might our fears hinder this natural function (seeds grow naturally, and deposits grow naturally -- unless they are stopped).
And no, God is probably not the master either. The master stands as the 'reasonable observer' who knows that money tends to grow proportionally unless it is stopped from doing so. (And so he is surprised and angered in a human manner that the normal growth of money was disrupted in one case.) You are being encouraged to also be a 'reasonable observer' who knows that the kingdom is a thing that tends to grow and spread, and to be the kind of observer who can see and appreciate the fruit of the kingdom.
(By "grow and spread" I mean that it has an increasing influence within people's lives, making them more virtuous and Christlike, and within their sphere in the way they treat others and help goodness flourish in the world, and also by holding space for others to enter the kingdom -- not just by 'ministries' having larger attendance numbers.)
I don't think Jesus really cares if everybody who has a musical sense goes ahead to develop that to a performance level. I don't think he cares at all about 'talented' athletes. I don't even think he cares about our designation of certain 'talents' of intellect and IQ -- except that he would want them are able to grow in virtue and contribute actual good works. In my interpretation, those things aren't the 'talents' he's talking about.
-
4
-
1
-
-
4 hours ago, Laura Corin said:
To Say Nothing of the Dog includes this - Connie Willis.
That's the author I was thinking of too. She did Blackout and All Clear (WW2 time travel) too, with not insignificant mentions of the challenges of the costume department.
-
1
-
-
49 minutes ago, Rosla said:
Do you believe AI will replace people in most spheres?
How could it possibly do that? It can only generate output. No matter how good the output is, people are still actual beings in the actual universe. We live, we learn, we have relationships. People can't be replaced.
Plus it only generates output based on data it collects. The data has to be generated by people first, before AI can do anything with it.
-
2
-
1
-
-
This whole thing seems sketchy -- but I don't love the part where people are cast as guilty based on the ability to smile and laugh after the death of a loved one. I think enough of us have been through the life experience of losing a loved one to know that it's really normal to be able to smile warmly and share a laugh even during grief.
Lots of what's going on here *is* problematic.
But chatting and laughing after a loss is by no means part of the problem.
-
4
-
1
-
-
To me, it seems really unlikely that a student can do much more learning in 2h with "AI" assistance (and no qualified teachers) than they can with 2h of focused learning in other ways.
In younger grades perhaps 2h/day of 'book learning' and the rest 'enrichment' (I'd like to see the definitions) is both sufficient and normal. Little learners already do lots of things during their school days. As kids progress to higher grades, 2h of focused academics daily is not at all reasonable for their learning, even if it is AI-assisted (whatever that means).
To me this seems like a gimmick school that is simply supervised online learning combined with supervised semi-educational activity time. I don't think that it's anything like what "homeschoolers get" from an individual teaching and learning environment, with a dedicated and intelligent parent and a customized curriculum. Good education tends to be very labour intensive! (As is the Montessori educational philosophy.)
This type of classroom doesn't sound at all self-based or tailored, and the only feedback is likely to be whether you picked the correct answer on a screen or used the right keywords in a response. That model of learning is very much limited to the domains of either concrete mathematical calculations or vocabulary acquisition in all other fields.
I'm not a fan. I wouldn't pay to send my kid to a school with no teachers, screen-based learning, and plenty of playtime -- unless I had a seriously good reason to choose that option. (If I really thought 2h of AI learning apps per day was valuable, I would just give them a tablet for 2h at home after going to a school with a teacher for the day!)
(Note: I understand that I am writing from Canada, where public school boards do not reflect the income disparities of various communities, and where one can generally expect an adequate-to-good education most years in most places. If one's 'other options' are failing schools, where 2h of focused and supervised screen learning would be an upgrade, maybe it meets a need. I don't know what I would do in that situation.)
-
10
-
-
My parents are retired and they manage quite easily without a cell phone -- but they have never had one, so they aren't used to doing anything that way and wouldn't have to adjust to not having one. They just never got used to doing anything with one. They do have: a home computer, a tablet, and a landline and are quite savvy with those tools. Occasionally they have to work around something that a person would do most naturally with a cell phone, but it has been fine so far.
-
2
-
-
2 hours ago, Laura Corin said:
It's hard though when you know that the poor choices they make will increase your labour.
I'm really sorry to put this in such a macabre way... but logic tells me that most elderly folks' "poor choices" with diet aren't going to increase the labour they need from family. It's just going to promote the same amount (or less) labour into earlier/sooner years.
I mean, doing the final decline and end of life care: this year, next year, in 5 years, or in 10 years -- it will still be generally the same amount of work for that type of decline. If it happens sooner it will be less work (overall, total) than if it happens later.
Now, making chaos in the house, or generating other work other than simply having needs because of ill health -- that's a different kettle of fish. But longevity itself is not labour-saving. If anything a quick decline is labour-saving: but I know none of us genuinely want that for our loved ones.
-
3
-
-
7 minutes ago, MercyA said:
The main ingredient in Impossible burgers is soy protein. Soy makes it possible for each patty to have *19 grams* of protein per serving, compared to 17 grams in the same amount of ground beef. Impossible burgers are not a "fake" food. They contain real protein from real plants.
Also, I love to be able to get a delicious vegan sandwich when my family feels like Burger King. 🙂
I agree: just because something is a soy patty doesn't mean it isn't food. It just means that it's a way of eating legumes, not a way of eating foods from other food groups.
And while we have to question: "Is it a *healthy* way of eating legumes?" We don't have to declare unfamiliar food formats to be some other non-food thing entirely. Questioning the implicit marketing of "It's not meat therefore it's better" by asking "Better in what ways?" and finding out that an Impossible Burger legume patty (like most 'burgers') is a pretty fatty food -- that's okay. It's definitely not a health food.
Sometimes some people want a fatty soy round with nice toppings that you can get at a fast food place and not feel deprived. Indulgent vegetarian food is allowed to exist.
Some people wouldn't want that in a million years -- and that's okay too.
-
3
-
-
2 hours ago, Arcadia said:
@bolt. This. In fact most of my kids acceptance letters have come in brightly colored envelopes bearing the school logo. It is a great but simple marketing gesture to make the recipients happy. Getting an acceptance letter in a normal plain white envelope on typical 70g printer paper doesn’t look appealing.
Where I used to work, the paper was 80g or more often 100g with the company logo as a watermark. We had a department printer dedicated for printing letters to clients. When I was in college (90s), resumes were sent in conqueror 100gsm paper (https://conqueror-paper.co.uk/High-White-Wove-100gsm-Bespoke-250)
Wow. My kid got "acceptance" emails that were basically nothing more than links to student portal software -- where all the info on becoming a student was.
-
1
-
-
If it's the numbers, make it a little simpler by saying: "500mg per meal -- Anything more means you have to do less next meal."
Maybe make a large-print short list of the foods they eat often (especially breakfast) with "mg - per - whatever makes actual sense" rounded to 10s or 5s. You can also do the calculations for some of their favorite combinations.
Another shorthand is that they should watch out for: "1. Cans, 2. All the parts of sandwiches, including bread, 3. Things where the flavour comes from a powder, and 4. Anything you buy hot (or ready to heat)."
-
2
-
1
-
-
Is this even a thing yet? Lab grown 'meat'?
Can the 'global elite' even make this stuff yet, much less distribute it and force people to consume it?
Doesn't he need to at least be able to define the product before he can ban it? Like what if it's a lab grown 'meat substitute'? Or a 'savory protein supplement food' -- is it still banned?
-
As someone who did my best to lower my sodium intake while trying to live a normal life, enjoy my food, and have at least some low-effort cooking options... I really wasn't able to do a great job. My doctor was fine with that and it seems like they always ask people to try to change things with diet before they offer them a prescription. I accepted the prescription with great relief.
I don't mean to imply that your GMiL's problems could be fixed with a simple prescription. It seems to me that if that was the case, it would probably have been offered already. (But it might be worth asking anyways.)
What I'm trying to emphasize more, is that it's really hard to willingly give up such a *huge* component of taste and enjoyment in your life. It's a sacrifice that's hard to describe. You get kind of used to having some pleasure from eating a few times every day. When eating becomes a chore, you really can start to feel like life sucks. It's not something you just get used to.
It's also worth wondering: "What's low sodium?" -- Do you have her recommendation in mg? Do you know if it has to be adhered to daily, or if it can be balanced weekly?
From your reaction to pancakes at 480mg per serving, I'm concerned that you might be misinformed as to how much sodium she can safely have, and even possibly how much she minimally needs. Anything below 2000mg per day is considered lower sodium, with 1500mg per day being a common recommendation. That's 500mg per meal, if you spread it evenly -- or more for some meals if other meals are less. (Even if she is down to 1000mg per day, the lowest recommendation I've seen, that's still around 330mg per meal. So the pancakes, if she had liked them, did not need to be off the table if she did something to compensate in her other meals.)
So, some actual recommendations:
- Encourage a sweet tooth: I would say get her hooked on a number of treats that are low in sodium because they are full of sugar. Start buying her these kinds of snacks and making them available in her fridge and pantry. Be careful because not all sweets are actually lacking in salt -- but if it's on you, you can choose what to try to get her hooked on.
- Buy MSG: Usually under the brand name 'Accent' the flavour enhancer MSG has less considerably less sodium than table salt, and it's probably behind a lot of what draws her to fast food. Put it liberally in your own offerings, and encourage her to keep a shaker on the table.
- Let her have what matters most to her: Don't touch the things that are really important, but do things like get the products that she is more passive about out of her pantry. For example, shrink or remove her supply of crackers -- if she wants cheese, encourage her to have it, but no crackers. If she loves chips, buy her an individual serving size, but only one bag. She's right about not getting fries at fast food: see if you can move her towards a 'junior' burger too.
- Find some low or no sodium meals that can compensate for indulgence: Design at least one of each type of meal for her that works that way. Then, if she does have a whopper, she can make a good choice like having a yogurt and fruit breakfast to 'make up for it'.
- Blame the doctor, not her, and not you. Say things like, "The doctor won't let you have that." -- without saying it's your opinion too, and without adding how she should or shouldn't respond to her doctor's instructions.-
8
-
1
-
-
15 hours ago, Arcadia said:
Whoever prints the acceptance letters that get mailed out has letterhead paper.
Really? Is letterhead paper even still a thing? What stops people from just having a 'letterhead' graphic that they add to documents before they print them -- if that's what they need. Letterhead seems extremely inconvenient... unless a company just has hundreds of bundles of it that they've already pre-bought.
-
8 hours ago, HomeAgain said:
Is it ridiculous, though? There is a LOT of material out there, both secular and religious, that lets women know that their needs are second to that of their husband's. That submission is part of the expectation and willingness is not part of the equation. Much has changed in the secular materials over the past few decades, but the thoughts and ideas are still there.
So yes, women DO know, because they've been conditioned to consider their needs/wants as less important and that imbalanced relationships are normal. It's just their brains are not equating violent assault with what assault can actually look like. When the question is asked differently the answer is clearer.
Yes, I can agree that women know that they "should" consider their needs/wants as less important and that they "should" consider imbalanced relationships normal. I'm not making the connection though, that 50% to 90% of women reasonably anticipate -- at least not between when they become engaged and when they get married -- experiencing assault or coercion (that meets a legal definition of coercion) in their marriage, from their beloved.
Maybe my brain is not good at equating violent assault with 'what assault can actually look like'. To me, things can be similar without being identical. Even murder and manslaughter have all kinds of differentiation of degrees, etc.
When questions are asked differently, the answer isn't necessarily 'clearer' -- it's just different. Asking women whether they expect to ever be pestered for sex, or have to say 'no' twice, or maybe choose to say 'yes' despite being unenthusiastic, or if their spouse might mistakenly consider her open to beginning foreplay while she is asleep: Yes, that question might get more women saying "yes" they anticipate a possibility of those scenarios showing up in their bedroom. Maybe that's an understanding that those things happen sometimes, that marriage is a long thing, and it may contain men putting themselves first and applying pressure when they shouldn't. So I guess some things are "known".
But this guy in the video seems to think that something well beyond such "knowledge" applies to all women, entering every marriage: we don't actually get married expecting that it's likely our husband will assault us. It's like none of us get married anticipating that our husbands will cheat on us, or become criminals, or other adverse outcomes. We do know that it happens in some marriages. We also fully believe that the marriage we are currently selecting won't contain those features.
-
I think the world would be a better place if every job, skilled or unskilled (even an apprenticeship or internship) paid a living wage for wherever it was located, if they work full time. And by 'living wage' I mean sufficient for a single earner to live alone, with a partner, with a child, or both in a space that is safe, wholesome, and free of pests.
Sure, coffee out would cost what it was worth to pay a human to waste/sell their time to do that task for you, and so would a burger, or a t-shirt, or whatever. So we'd pack lunches, drink our own beverages, and stop being tempted into the role of idiot overconsumes just because poopy products are cheap as dirt.
Yeah. Let's put businesses that exploit their employees and mess with their customers. Let there be fewer businesses. Let them make us products and charge us what they are actually worth, and *then* we'll decide if we really want those things or not.
And if there aren't so many bad jobs available to desperate workers any more -- well, maybe if they don't all need 3 of them, there will still be enough jobs. And if there aren't -- let's talk about a legitimate social safety net.
-
5
-
-
14 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:
"50% of women are raped by their husbands and that's only those that are reported, it's probably closer to 90%. They know when they marry us they're going to get raped" is the biggest hogwash pile of garbage I've heard in a while, and that's about the nicest thing I can say to that.
Yes:
1. Even if the statistic was "50% raped or coerced" -- it would be very much dependent on the definition of "coerced" and I would still ask him to provide a legitimate source and a description of the study for a statistic like that. It's definitely not "50% raped" but I could see if "coerced" meant "any sense of being pressured" that maybe 50% of husbands might have said, "Come on, honey, are you sure?" maybe once in their marriage.
2. Upping the numbers (possibly due to the general understanding that many sexual assaults go unreported) is unwarranted, since there is no data that would identify that the alleged wives in the alleged study had ever *reported* anything.
3. The suggestion that women 'know' is ridiculous. It would require all the women in the world to be aware of the results of whatever alleged study he is referring to in the first place. Then it would also require that they believe their intended spouse to be more likely to be in 'the bad half of men' not 'the good half' -- and who would be marrying a man they believed to be below the 50% mark of all men in the world? Most women, at least on their wedding day, genuinely believe their man to be the actual very best man in the whole world -- so even if she did believe that 50% of married men engage in coercion or marital rape, she wouldn't believe that her man was one of them.
ETA: I'm glad he's trying to understand the adversities women face, and it's true that marital rape and coercion are problems that face a lot more women than they should (and usually not of the "Come on, honey" variety) and I don't want to minimize that. But he's got to do this thing with facts and logic. Idiotic exaggeration helps no one.
-
3
-
-
8 minutes ago, wathe said:
Part of the problem here is that there was no separation. No stands or really separate spectator space. Spectators sat in a double row of chairs immediately courtside (spectators had to careful about how to place their feet and bags so as not to be physically on the court), x 24 courts in a big open space, with youth and adults all milling around together in the spaces between courts.
If there were reasonable separation, I would be less concerned.
That makes sense. It might also make sense that some adults might have thought stepping away and/or turning their backs was enough 'separation' in their own judgement.
-
I kind of think that she doesn't need help with this.
"Our world" with judgement of professional competency being attached to trivial things like the quality of one's handwriting and the size of one's envelopes is very much fading away. Your concern reads a lot like a baby boomer asking how a person could possibly get a good job if they choose to have a tattoo. The answer is that the person doing the hiring is very likely to also have a tattoo and not care in the slightest. Similarly, while a law office may well contain a number of people of our generation who might respond negatively to "snail mail under-competence" -- it's not likely that those people are front-desk or mailroom people. The people who actually handle her envelope probably have poor handwriting and are missing data about business-mail social clues too.
A cold letter campaign was a long shot to begin with.
Also, anyone who hires your child, will thereafter be the people who employ her. It's not in anyone's best interests if her approaches to getting a job, generating first impressions etc. are based on 'teamwork' (with mom) if she's going to have to do the job thereafter on her own steam. They deserve to understand the strengths and weaknesses she brings to the table. She deserves an employer who hasn't had their expectations raised above a level that she can maintain. If they need their employees to do business mail, they will either ask if she has that skill or train her -- the same as any other skill.
It's okay for her to work hard to get jobs through transparency and genuine qualification. Beyond support and a few tips and reminders -- you don't need to go further and help her make herself out to be someone she's not. Her best jobs will be the ones that hire her for who she is.
-
11
-
-
It seems to me that many adults who signed that code of conduct may have compromised it, and also that the provision of alcohol for sale by the venue may have normalized those compromises and made them seem acceptable.
However, it would also be entirely possible for adults to have separated their actual acts of drinking from the direct presence of minors (ie drinking up in the stands, away from the players) and from the direct execution of their volunteer roles (ie drinking before or after, but not during the execution of their duties, and not being seriously intoxicated in a way that prevented them from being responsible in those roles).
It does very much depend on a person's good-faith interpretation of phrases like minors being "present" and "while participating" in an "event".
It's easy to take an all-or-nothing approach and say that the whole building (and the lack of meaningful separation) makes the minors "present" and the whole weekend is an "event" and that even simply watching from a spectators' space is "participating". But it's also true that perfectly reasonable people may have interpreted it another way.
Because it's an honour code, the organization is asking people to take these things from a perspective of honour and ethics -- a lens that means that their execution of those things is going to be both thoughtful and personal. (If they wanted to generate regulations, which would be applied according to terms and specifics, I think they could have done that.) So, to me, it's not as clear as it is to some of the other posters above.
And, while the organization definitely should have had some consideration for not making consuming alcohol openly at this event quite as attractive and normal-feeling of an option for parents -- it's ultimately a person who signs an honour code's responsibility to remember that they have done that, and to either adhere to their interpretation of it, or not. (Regardless of the provisions of the venue.)
-
3
-
-
I very much appreciated the Crown's portrayal of Charles as someone who very humanly yielded to the weakness of being very much in love with someone who really suited who he truly was -- while also trying reasonably hard (at least at first) to build a relationship with someone 'suitable' for his career, his future, and his social status (which were all things that legitimately mattered much more in those days than they do for us).
It's also worth remembering that in the many decades before at-will divorce becoming the norm -- it was quite normal for married people who weren't satisfied in their spouse to have lovers, affairs, and mistresses: often quite openly. While it was a significantly out of date practice in the 1980s in N. America, that royal family lived in quite a bubble! Eventually they caught on that 'now' when spouses become unhappy, they can split instead of choosing hostility and unfaithfulness.
-
2
-
19 yo doesn’t think he needs to help around the house this summer
in The Chat Board
Posted · Edited by bolt.
I don't think it's unreasonable to ask adult kids to pitch in during a home stay -- but if the situation is really that serious, I'm not sure it helps Garga as much as it might seem to. After all, he'll be gone in a few months or weeks, and Garga will go back to really needing someone's help.
I was mostly responding to, "How long would you let a non-chore-sharing adult kid live with you?" -- my answer being, if you figure out how to let them stay at all, it's probably possible to do it indefinitely. If Garga is struggling to handle the cat box, dishes, and laundry situation in her home, the people who live there and love one another should definitely help... but with or without her son, she will still have dishes, laundry, and cat boxes.
The suggestion of 'never allowing' such things (and/or making the son leave if he won't contribute) doesn't solve any problem whatsoever. Lots of people would rather keep the son and the chores, rather than losing the son and keeping the chores anyways. (Hopefully, not many of us will face that decision, but some of us probably will.)
The solutions of using some diplomacy, tact, patience, and leadership skills are a much stronger set of suggestions.