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StatisticalOutlier

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Everything posted by StatisticalOutlier

  1. Unless it's the only thing she changed in her lifestyle, there's no way to know the greens caused the improvement. I have a horrible diet. I eat mostly processed foods, and vegetables only very rarely--a salad maybe every two weeks (the cranberry walnut one with chicken at Potbelly, which it turns out has more calories than anything else on the menu!). I got my eyes tested the other day, 18 months after the previous exam. One eye improved by .25 diopter (it's now -3.50) and the other eye improved by .75 diopter (it's now -4.00). If people want to improve their vision, I therefore recommend a diet that alternates among Whataburger, Culver's, Jersey Mike's, Panda Express, Potbelly, Schlotzsky's, and Chipotle.
  2. I was disappointed in season two, too. I'm watching season three only because I'm a completist, and it's a struggle. One problem is that they're getting away from the store and the shenanigans of the employees and the customers. But also, many of the episodes are apparently take-offs of shows/movies I'm not familiar with. I'm sure they were fun episodes to make, but not fun for me to watch. I wish this had been a one-season wonder.
  3. When did we learn his objection to her was based on her drinking and sleeping around? I remember at the beginning, when he was asked about his attraction to her, or lack thereof, he said he didn't want to say because he didn't want to hurt her. I remember the "hurt her" for sure. I assumed it was because of her looks, or her personality--something she can't really do anything about. When did he started talking about "protecting" her? That could mean he was protecting her from being hurt that he wasn't attracted to her, and not protecting her reputation or whatever. In fact, he mentioned her personality, saying she was too negative. That one I can actually see as a misunderstanding, because he specifically said she "hates" so many things. I wonder if she's the type who's says things like "I hate this traffic" or "I hate having to wait for a table," and she considers them observations and he considers it negativity. I do think he might be turned off by her drinking. Early on he said his dad doesn't drink water, he drinks vodka. Anyway, has he specifically said why he doesn't find her attractive?
  4. Same here. I had over 60 years of being a very comfortable, consistent size, and still wear clothes I got in my 30s. Shirts all fit the same, same bra size (and in fact same bra style) for many years, but shorts and jeans have gotten tight in the waistband. But it's physically uncomfortable for me to have this post-menopause roll around my middle for the last couple of years. At the beginning, I could keep it at bay by consciously not drinking as much sweet tea as I'd like. But that's not as effective as it used to be. There's a crease/fold above my waist in the back that I've never had before and I can feel it--not touch it with fingers and feel it, but feel it existing. In fact, it disguised my case of shingles because I've seen enough episodes of My 600-Pound Life to know what can happen when skin folds on itself, and I figured it was just whatever they have to deal with now that I've got some flab on me. Nope, it was shingles. And now when I sit, I have flesh folding over on itself in front and on the sides Sure, I've had it fold over a waistband or the like, but shifting my posture would go a long way toward fixing that. But it doesn't matter how straight I sit up, there's that roll, and it's uncomfortable. I don't know how fat people put up with it. I see these men with basketball shaped bellies and actually wonder if I could just power through the interim, it would be more comfortable to have a big hard ball instead of the squish.
  5. The WW person said only a few words, and I don't remember what they were even about. I think she was there mainly so Oprah could mention resigning from the board and donating all of her shares of stock to the National Museum of African American History. I do know that WW is now embracing these drugs for weight loss, and talking about how WW is still relevant as a community. Pivot or die.
  6. I would call it a preference rather than a shortcoming. From personal experience, I can say that Denver housing costs are high. Michael said that if they got that house, each of them would be paying $250 more per month than they already are, and my math says they're currently each paying $2,000 in rent. I always think of having two people moving in together as reducing the overall housing cost, not more than doubling it. I looked at rents in the building where the show rented the apartments (from the product placement I always thought it was Sen-i-ral but it's Sentral--logo fail on that one), and a 1-bedroom 1-bath is between $2,100 and $2,500 a month, and the 2-2s go for between $3,000 and $5,000 a month. A whole house, albeit not above a Whole Foods, for $4,500 doesn't sound that bad.
  7. I watched it. I don't recall any mention of unavailability to people with diabetes, and there was definitely no mention of how this special is going to make demand for the drug even higher than it already is. I came away from it kind of hating Oprah, when before I didn't have much of an opinion. The whole thing was a justification for using these drugs for the "disease of overweight and obesity." Yes, wanting to eat so much you will be fat is a disease, and yes, it's overweight and obesity, not just obesity, that warrants treatment. They didn't talk about the side effects of the drugs, except one woman said she tried it and her nausea was so terrible she stopped using it, but she's considering trying a different one in the future. The only medical talk was about the health dangers of overweight and obesity. It was always "overweight and obesity." Seems to me "overweight" could include ten pounds if you're a Real Housewife™, and there was no mention of anyone who shouldn't be taking these drugs. Apparently these work by making you not crave food, and Oprah was going on and on about how food is always on her mind, and she's thinking about her next meal before she finished the one she's eating. Well, guess what. Some people who aren't overweight or obese do that, too. Probably a lot of people, actually. Also, one of the doctors said they've been using these drugs for weight loss (not diabetes) for 20 years, and Oprah was shocked and wanted to know why she didn't know that. In fact, the doctor is with a facility (Cleveland Clinic?) that Oprah said she is a patient of, and she seemed annoyed to be hearing about this for the first time. And I was annoyed that the host of the show was learning this on the show; it seems to me the host of an overview shows like this should have done the research and just be presenting information, not hearing it for the first time. And there was a moment where the CEOs (I think) of the two companies that produce these drugs were on camera together, and Oprah said it was a huge deal. Oh, and there was some talk about insurance coverage for the drugs, how insurance should be covering them because overweight and obesity are a disease. I'm sure the drug company muckety-mucks' presence had nothing to do with that. CEO(?) of Weight Watchers was there, too. Oprah said her disassociation with WW was so there would be no conflict of interest that would prevent her from airing this show. But she can pimp the drugs, apparently.
  8. In a perfect world, yes. My sister lives in Maryland, just over the DC line. I can't remember what exactly we were discussing, but it was something along the lines of leaving your keys in the car and she said she never does it because she doesn't want to help anyone make a bad decision. It made me love her just a little bit more.
  9. Actually, I think it would be the opposite. Vocal fry spreads because people hear it and adopt it. Then again, maybe she heard it and adopted it before she lost her hearing, and now can't hear how awful it sounds. 😀
  10. Well said. I'm always too shallow to actually grok to things like that, so I really appreciate it when people put it out there for the recognizing, and the taking.
  11. Ok..maybe to some people it smells like fresh flowers, to me it smells like skunk. He said fresh flower, singular. Not fresh flowers. "Cannabis flower" is another term for the part of the marijuana that is smoked, and lots of people think it stinks. (I had a feeling people wouldn't know the difference between "flower" and "flowers" in this context. Suffice to say vaped weed smells nothing like lilacs or magnolias.) Well, you said she called him a pothead on national TV, not that she implied he was a pothead, or spoke in code about his being a pothead. And if she was speaking this indirectly, it's unlikely people who aren't steeped in pot culture would get the reference/accusation.
  12. Did she? I didn't take notes while watching the show or anything, but that's my recollection, too--nobody on the show has ever said what Austin vapes. But vaping weed stinks. There's no way you can vape cannabis in the bathroom of an apartment you share with someone and they won't smell it. It's produced a stinky cloud over the entire island of Manhattan. You even said you make people vape weed on your porch and not inside. (I'll leave aside the discussion of whether it's fair to make neighbors smell it for another day.) I haven't used cannabis since the kinder, gentler, days of 1970s weed, but I'd much rather someone in my life vape weed every once in a while, the equivalent of having a drink occasionally, to vaping nicotine all day every day. I wish they'd use edibles. Those don't stink.
  13. One of the mean older boys had taken his other mitten and I can't remember what he did with it but the little boy wasn't going to get it back, so he had no use for the one he did have.
  14. I can't even begin to imagine why they test only people over 40. In fact, as people age their distance vision sometimes gets better as their near vision worsens. Go figure.
  15. Are you looking into a machine? If so, then I assume the machine would make the letters look farther away to you than they actually are. At the last eye doc I went to, the chart I was reading was on the wall in front of me, but it was actually a mirror on that wall, reflecting a chart that's behind me, increasing the effective distance I was looking. They don't test the vision of people under 40!? That would actually track with testing close vision, because people start having trouble with that at 40, but as you noted it doesn't affect driving at all, except looking at the speedometer. But the acuity standards I was looking at for Texas, for example, don't care about that at all--it's all distance vision. As it should be. For some reason I'm thinking you might be in Canada. Might it be that different there from the U.S.? But if it is, why? I can't think of any reason to choose not to test younger people.
  16. But how do you know you're guessing? With the ones shown here, you know you can't read it and of course you'd dig to find out what it says. https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/can-you-read-these-rxs-09-2014 But isn't it also possible to encounter something that's sloppy but not illegible, and you unwittingly go one way when the other way was actually correct, like you look at a character that looks like a 1 and nothing like a 7 to you, but it actually is?
  17. Actually, Mr. Outlier recently had to get an eye exam from an eye doctor in order to renew his driver's license by mail. (His type of license can't be done online.) I looked at the documents, and visual acuity is expressed in terms of 20/xx. So it's just a regular exam and has nothing to do with signs we see while driving. Interestingly, I looked at the Texas Administrative Code to see what the visual acuity standards are, and the driver's license people didn't put a glasses restriction on his license even though he didn't meet the requirements: he's close because one eye and both eyes together meet the standard, but the other eye alone doesn't. But the eye doc's handwriting was atrocious. Seriously--his 3s? Were a backwards C with a horizontal line in the middle. Who the hell makes a 3 like that, especially someone whose job entails writing specific numbers that other people have to read? But at least you'd recognize it as a 3 (by ruling out everything else, but at least it can be done). His 2s--especially in "20"--look like they could be a 1, they way he draws them and hooks them to the 0. I don't know if the clerk misread it, or decided life is too short to pick on this particular application with documentation from an eye doctor who can't be arsed to write legibly. And...wasn't there criticism years ago about doctors' handwriting? There have always been jokes about it, but the joke quit being funny when their prescriptions were being filled incorrectly because of the bad handwriting.
  18. I favor avoiding technical terms, too, but "step up in basis" is something people might hear mentioned even if particulars aren't given. And it's actually descriptive, so it might stick. Aah, good point. I edited my post to acknowledge it.
  19. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what's going on, but the letters on street signs are a lot farther away than what you're looking at during the exam, so the ones used for the exam in the office would have to be a lot smaller than what's on the farther-away signs to be "the same." Right?
  20. Just to add to this--the reason for this is that when a person inherits property, he gets what is called a step-up in basis. I don't know anything about coop ownership, but for assets like real estate and shares of stock, which trigger capital gains tax when you sell them, the tax is imposed on the difference in the value between when you obtained the asset and when you sold it (i.e., the gain). Say a single mother of one son buys a house for $50,000 in 1980. She dies in 2020 and the house is worth $900,000. If her son inherits the house, her son gets a step-up in basis. If the single mother had sold the house in 2019, she would have had to pay capital gains tax on the ~$850,000 gain. If she still owned it at her death in 2020 and her son inherits it from her and then sells it in 2021 for $910,000, he owes capital gains tax on a $10,000 gain--the difference between what he sells it for and his basis, which is $900,000 because he inherited it and got a step-up in basis. [But see EtheltoTillie's post below about the personal residence exemption, which would apply to certain real estate but not to other assets, like shares of stock.] Losing the advantage of a step-up in basis is something a lot of people aren't aware of when they get the idea to transfer ownership of their house to their adult child instead of waiting for the child to inherit it upon the parent's death.
  21. Idiots indeed. I had a friend who was an auditor for the state in the 1980s, before computers did a lot of the work, so he was onsite for sales tax audits. He never understood why a business being audited would obviously mistreat him, like give him a place to work outside when it was cold. Those people were not thinking. And opposite of engineers, we have lawyers. I had an advent calendar-type thing once that Santa's face, and his beard had numbers on it, to put a cotton ball on each number corresponding to the day of the month. I turned it into a gambling thing, where people in my office "bought" a number for a dollar and not only put on the cotton ball but stood to win the pot as well. To do sales tax audits, the auditors would use random number generators to pick invoices to examine, and we had an auditor do it for our Santa beard numbers. It came up 2. The lawyers all protested because 2 didn't seem random enough.
  22. That's what I thought, which makes me wonder if Lauren and Orion actually got married. I also wonder about the officiant signing the license. If the officiant presided over a ceremony before the couple got a license, can he sign it once they do get a license a week later, based on the ceremony that happened before there was a license? (Although in this particular case, I found out Colorado seems to allow people to self-solemnize their marriages--the couple can sign the license themselves and don't need an officiant to sign it (or even to perform a ceremony.)
  23. Maybe it wasn't trying to forge new cinematic pathways, but it seemed really formulaic. Even if the story itself is formulaic, I don't think a portrayal of it has to be. As I was watching it, I was thinking, "What about this story in particular made Clooney think, 'I have to make this film'" and couldn't come up with anything. But when I think back and put it all together, it's a remarkable story. It somehow didn't seem that way as I was watching, but maybe that's because the swelling music would take foretell the emotion we were fixing to experience--that's what I mean by formulaic. FWIW, I went in knowing nothing about it except it was based on a true story. Plus I was distracted by Joe Rantz's hair. It was so obvious it was dyed/bleached, and assumed it was because the real person had blond hair. But it just looked wrong, for a poor man during the depression to be coloring his hair. I also noticed he had pierced ears, and his girlfriend in the movie had two piercings in an ear. I guess that's the down side of seeing movies on the big screen.
  24. I don't use an ear trumpet, but for my type of hearing loss, cupping my hand around my ear really does make things easier to hear, and conversation easier to understand. And it really DOES block out the sounds behind me. I remember my mother's hearing aid--gold metal, matchbox-sized, that hooked to her bra, with a very thick wire going up to her ear.
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