StatisticalOutlier

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. 😀

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

No topic for American Fiction? I thought it was a whole lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed his interactions with his siblings, which I didn't think would be a focus of the movie, and loved it when his sister told him his book changed her life...because it was just the right height to stop her dining room table from wobbling. Aah, siblings. I could weave a blanket out of Jeffrey Wright's voice, I'd wrap myself up in it and never take it off.

I saw the black-and-white version and enjoyed it. I'm old enough to have had Saturday afternoon monster movies on TV, and have warm feelings about black-and-white monster movies. I do think the parts where those things come jutting out of his back looked better in color, but otherwise it worked really well in black and white.

I've always been curious how the licensing goes on this show. Does anybody know the particulars of how they do it without the couple going to the county clerk together before the ceremony?

Silicone is used only for ear molds used with the hearing aids where the computer is in the thing that hangs off the back of your ear. As far as I know the other ones, with the computer in the mold (which you have), have to be acrylic. And most people with mild loss who have the ones that hang off the back of their ear don't use a mold, and instead choose open-fit, which is just a little receiver that goes down in your ear, attached to the hearing aid over your ear with a wire. Those are by far the most comfortable if you can handle the thing hanging on your ear. Which I can, but I take my reading glasses on and off constantly, and if I have my hearing aids on, I don't put the ear piece of my glasses over my ear where it belongs because it clacks against the hearing aid--the ear pieces hover above that area, which I hate but I hate the clacking even more. I'm guessing you have the "in the canal" (ITC) (the link is for both ITC and ITE). The ITC is what I originally had, and I'm pretty sure it was the smallest type available 30 years ago. But since then, they've invented ones that don't extend out of the canal at all. Take a look at the CIC and IIC here: https://www.starkey.com/hearing-aids/styles If your actual canal is less sensitive than the entrance to your canal for some reason, a hearing aid that doesn't extend as far out might work for you. Also, there's one called Lyric, which I gather is super expensive but they're interesting--a practitioner puts it waaaay down in your canal and it stays there for months. https://www.phonak.com/en-us/hearing-devices/hearing-aids/lyric And finally, when I was having trouble with the fit of an acrylic ear mold many years ago, the audiologist gave me some Comply foam stuff that wrapped around it. I don't know if having something softer pressing up against your skin would be more comfortable than the hard acrylic, but it might be worth asking about. I wonder if this has something to do with your Medicare Advantage plan. I've never had a hearing aid fitter that charged for adjustments for a hearing aid I bought from them. But if you got them for free, paying $65 a few times still adds up to a lot less than paying for them out-of-pocket and getting unlimited free adjustments. This might be one of the gotchas that can happen with Advantage plans--hearing aids and some other things are covered, but with restrictions. Then again, they're not covered at all if someone is on traditional Medicare. The problem with that plan is that it really does take time for your brain to learn how to hear what the hearing aid is offering, which is why they recommend wearing them all day every day, especially at the beginning. Your brain needs to learn how to hear what the hearing aid is offering, and a family gathering is not the place you want to find out your hearing aid is feeding back and needs adjusting. That said, I don't wear mind except on an as-needed basis, but I've been at this for decades and my brain adapted long ago and somehow stays adapted. So I can not wear them for weeks or longer (Covid shutdown), and then meet a friend for conversation and use my hearing aids and they sound fine to me. But I would never suggest that for people who haven't been using them for a long time and have completely adapted to them.

Call me crazy, but her only choices are hair that's long enough to cover extensions and a wig? The idea of having short hair is that repellent?

I'm not sure. A lot of times I think it would be a blessing if certain women's hair would all fall out and they'd start over from scratch. In fact, I wondered if the "start over" on the screenshot of her extensions was a sly commentary suggesting just that. 😀

Oh shit, you're right. I still get those two confused, despite their very different "journeys" not to mention the fact that they don't really look all that much alike. Thanks for correcting me, because I was wondering why they weren't there. I know zero about extensions. Do you unclip them to get them out? Remember at the honeymoon the guy had to use scissors to hack out whatever she had in there? Hey now. Chloe's 39 and Austin's 31. Just a data point--I was 41 and Mr. Outlier was 31 when we met and the usual societal pressures gave me pause, but it's worked out great--25 years together so far. It's funny because I'd had long-term relationships where the man I was dating was 10 years older than I was, and nobody batted an eye. The age difference came up only with respect to obvious generational differences, like music, or cultural touchstones like the man having to deal with the Vietnam draft while my peers didn't. But reverse it, and it's a suddenly a non-starter, period. If there's no biological imperative relating to a woman bearing children, I can't think of any reason a man being 10 years older than his woman partner should be any different from a woman being 10 years older than her man partner. But boy does the taboo persist.

That's acrylic. They also make silicone ones that are softer. But I meant how much of it protrudes from your ear canal? Here are some examples: https://greatlakesearmold.com/earmolds/earmolds-styles/ In my ear that has the mold, I finally figured out I have to have a full shell mold, which completely fills the concha (bowl-shaped part of your ear) and it has to be acrylic (hard) because my ears wiggle a lot when talking and eating. A hard mold that butts up against the perimeter of that bowl stays in place. It looks like this (this is a hearing aid, while mine is just a mold with a wire that goes to the actual hearing aid behind my ear): My first one ever was an in-the-canal (ITC), the kind you can barely see. But it worked its way out constantly and drove me crazy. And it would get sore because it has to be kind of tight in the canal to stay in as well as to prevent feedback; my full shell one doesn't have to be as tight in the canal because my outer ear keeps it in place and the shell keeps amplified sound from escaping and causing feedback.

His mother and sister were at his first wedding. His sister was wearing a tuxedo with a loose tie and looked fantastic.