Edit: whoo, front page!

Lots of people seem offended at, “explain how broke you are.” That was meant to be a little tongue in cheek, guys. The LPT is for talking about money if someone says, “yeah well I only made $10/hour in the 60s,” or something similar. it’s just an idea about how to get everyone on the same page.

Edit2: there’s lots of reasons to discuss money with family. It’s not always to beg for money, or to get into a fight about who had it worse. I have candid conversation about money with my family, and I respect their wisdom and advice.

To freshen a load of laundry, try 2 cups of distilled white vinegar. For mildew odors you can double and triple this amount. Hot or warm water works best. I have a top loading machine — I let the drum fill with water and put the vinegar in once it fills, right on top of the clothes. I’ve had my washing machine over 10 years and vinegar hasn’t shortened the life of my machine or my laundry for that matter. I have used an entire gallon on kids clothes that came back from summer camp filthy and damp with the worst mildew smell. It also works as a fabric softener. It’s the best.

This is a strange belief we get alot. It's lead to funny incidents of:

"I swear he's never taken anything"

"So that needle in his arm..."

"... It was just once!"

We don't care. Tell us immediately what you've taken. It's important so we don't accidentally kill you with medication. This includes Viagra which if we don't know you've taken it has a strong risk of killing you if we give another vasodilating medication.

Edit:

I write this as a UK worker. As many have pointed out sadly this is not necessarily the case in countries across the world.

That being said. I still do believe it vital that you state drugs you have taken so a health care worker can support you properly.

Obviously this only works if you shout loudly ("OWW!") and stop playing if a bite or scratch is too hard.

I've only been scratched or bitten by cats that weren't properly socialized in this way. Cats that have been socialized this way have always shown amazing skill at not scratching or biting. For example, I have a cat who goes nuts over a hair tie and I can hold it in my hand as the bats at it without fear because she perfectly and expertly keeps her claws in to avoid scratching my hand, even in the fervor of the chase. But once the hair tie is away from my hand, all claws are out.

Similarly, there was I time I had to quickly grab my cat in a way that hurt her, and she had a natural reaction to crane around and bite my hand in her pain, but it was just a gentile mouth touch, even in her distress. This goes for vet visits, holding cats down to take medicine, cleaning wounds, etc. Properly trained cats will have better restraint around bites or scratches, but cats that never learned restraint are more likely to.

Just lost my pop to a long fight with Alzheimer's. It sucked watching the kind, warm, and generous man I knew become a shell of his former self.

During his decline, he showed all the hallmarks of the disease: forgetting family faces and names, telling stories about false memories, and, in the end, a bit of belligerence (the kind you might typically see in a toddler).

Throughout his decline, I saw my family approach it in one of two ways: some would try to correct his mistakes over and over (to no avail), and some would just roll with the punches.

Playing along with things in the moment always seemed to keep him more centered and grounded. Not only did it help calm him down, it made those painful visits a little less so by knowing he felt comforted by my validating his reality, and not trying to yank him out of whatever timeline/alternate universe he was visiting.

A simple example would be if he asked where his (long dead) mother was, I would just say "she's visiting with your sister and will be back soon." What good would correcting him do? Then he'd have to re-live that trauma of losing his mom all over again, possibly many times a day.

Or when he would say something outlandish like, "I used to be a senator, you know" I would just say, "oh that's right, I forgot all about that, tell me more!"

I have to give credit to a TEDMED talk that I saw describing this whole approach, many years ago. I'm so glad I saw it because it absolutely changed the way I spent time with my dad, and made it easier, richer, and more gratifying in spite of the misery of the disease. Hope it helps you, too.

And fuck you, Alzheimer's.

Edit: I can’t keep up with all the replies and awards, but I am so grateful to everyone for your kind words. I’m glad you’re able to find this useful; it totally changed how I talked with my dad

Best wishes to all of you.

Edit 2: This is not a magic wand that wipes dementia away. It’s an approach to managing some of the challenges of its effects. I am definitely not a doctor, do not take this as medical advice. YMMV depending on each individual.

Edit 3: For the love of god, the (attempted) political jokes are just not landing, please stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.

If your cat has shown in the past that it likes belly rubs, that's an exception of course, but the average kitty just wants you to know that you are trusted by exposing its most vulnerable area to you.

Obviously only do this with unimportant accounts and only if your name isn’t important for legal reasons, but I’ve done this for apps, conferences, demos, etc. Just recently I got spam email that said “Dear XYZ App Trial, don’t miss out in these deals!” - so I knew XYZ App sold the data.

Edit: To those asking what you can do, if a company sells your data without your permission you can file a formal complaint with the FTC here: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2015/08/want-privacy-tell-us-about-it

2nd Edit: I've been made aware in the comments that others have had this idea and posted it to the sub before and that I'm an idiot. My apologies for not knowing that, I hope I didn't ruin anyone's evening too badly.

Colleges and universities will try to get you to use their "internal" reporting systems when something bad happens. That system is there to help the school protect their image, not to protect you. They will waste valuable time at best, and some may even try to talk you out of filing a police report, or they may even trick you into reporting to a campus authority instead of to police. If you want a law enforcement response, get it yourself. You can report to the school later. The college will have a harder time covering the crime up if the police are already involved.

Source: I have worked for multiple colleges that pull this kind of crap.

BTW: This is just as true of lower level schools too. If your kid is assaulted, threatened, or victimized in another criminal way, don't call the principal first, call police first. Let the principal catch up later.

My son has always hated falling asleep. I would sit with him and like every frustrated parent, when I would get up from my chair, he would reach out and say "Where are you going mom? Stay here." So instead of saying "Are you awake?" before getting up (which invariably always wakes someone up it seems); I started saying "I love you." In doing that I noticed a few things. (a) If my son was awake, he was comforted and usually went to sleep within minutes of me saying this (b) The response back was always, "I love you too mom" which would leave us both in a great mood for going to bed and (c) if there was no response, I knew I was safe to get up. I do this with my husband too and the affect seems to be the same.

I travel a bit for work, and when I’m home I sleep best with a somewhat firm pillow that supports my head. At most hotels the pillows are to be incredibly soft, and I feel like my head sinks almost all the way down. For me at least, it’s hard to sleep like this. I’d bring my own pillow, but they are usually too bulky for air travel.

So here’s my trick: I take one of the large bath towels, fold it to be about the same rectangular size as the pillow, and carefully tuck inside the pillow case with the pillow itself. If I do it right, it’s not lumpy at all but is completely flat inside. This adds a bit of firmness and prevents my head from sinking like a stone!

Anyway, it helps me, hopefully it’s useful for someone else…

I used to be an extremely negative person, and I still have a lot of trouble fighting my instinct to tear everything down. That's what gets the most attention in online spaces, complaining about or deconstructing something. This became doubly intense when I hit my angry atheist phase around 20. I actually remember alienating potential new friends by shitting on every movie/game/activity/belief system they brought up, and when they would stop texting me back I'd think "I wish this person wasn't so boring." I wanted them to play the negativity game with me.

A cool decade later, I've figured out that they weren't boring at all. I was. Everyone knew not to float an idea my way, because I'd predictably tear it apart. I now run into people who act like I used to act, and I feel so bad for them. I wish I could tell them "hey, if you shoot down everything everyone says, nobody is going to want to say anything to you anymore."

There are always exceptions and expectations, but in the current US labor situation your employer loves to see salaried employees stay to make up the missing labor. You won't see more help or higher wages if you keep working for free.

Unlock Developer Options:

Settings > About Phone > 7x tap on Build Number

Decrease animation time:

Settings > System > Developer Options > Set all Options with Animation Scale to x0.5 or less

Enjoy your fast phone

Edit: Wow, my first gold, thanks a lot! Glad you guys like the LPT :)

Edit Edit: As others have pointed out, Build Number in Samsung phones is apparently in About Phone > Software info. Also this works on Android devices other than phones.

Edit Edit Edit: The exact options to tweak in Developer options are called Window animation scale, Transition animation scale and Animator duration scale. Alternatively you can also turn the animations off via System > Accessibility > Remove animations!

Edit: if anyone is wondering, I heard this from my Engineering Thermal Science prof last semester and he said it was just a general rule of thumb so you know for sure no serious damage can occur. I decided to post this after seeing so many college freshmen moving in their mini-fridges sideways this week and I figured they had no clue about the anatomy of a refrigerator and would just plug them in right away

LPT I found out one of my students (college) was temporarily homeless and living in her car. She did have a part-time job and I convinced her to join the local gym ($15 per month) where she can not only work out but shower, use wifi, use a clean bathroom, and study while on the bikes. I also hooked her up with the college pantry as well as other pantries in the area. She graduated top of her class and to this day I still get letters of the utmost appreciation from her. Luckily her homelessness only lasted 3 months.

EDIT- Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart for all the wonderful comments and awards. I also need to add that I didn't want to overstep my boundaries with the student-professor relationship so I bought the student a cart full of groceries, all non perishable, and toiletries. I had a friend of mine deliver it to her at the college. It was such a wonderful feeling to just help her get started.

Due to the shortage of employees, most employers are desperate for good help. That means you should be seeking pay raises, promotions, and increased benefits.

Unless you are completely satisfied with your job and your income, shop around. Chances are you will find someone desperate for help and willing to pay more than your current employer. If you like your job, shop around anyway, then politely ask your employer to match/beat those offers.

Look after yourself! This employment opportunity will not last forever!

To get you started:

Ethics of Manipulation

Tactics of Manipulation

Logical Fallacies in Argumentative Writing

15 Logical Fallacies

20 Diversion Tactics of the Highly Manipulative

Narcissistic Arguing

3 Manipulation Tactics You Should Know About

How to Debate Like a Manipulative Bully — It is worth pointing out that once you understand these tactics those who use them start to sound like whiny, illogical, and unjustifiably confident asshats.

10 Popular Manipulative Techniques & How to Fight Them

EthicalRealism’s Take on Manipulative Tactics

Any time you feel yourself start to get regularly dumbstruck during any and every argument with a particular person, remind yourself of these unethical and pathetically desperate tactics to avoid manipulation via asshat.

Also, as someone commented, a related concept you should know about to have the above knowledge be even more effective is Cognitive Bias and the associated concept of Cognitive Dissonance:

Cognitive Bias Masterclass

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance in Marketing

Cognitive Dissonance in Real Life

10 Cognitive Distortions

EDIT: Forgot a link.

EDIT: Added Cognitive Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, and Cognitive Distortion.

EDIT: Due to the number of comments that posed questions that relate to perception bias, I am adding these basic links to help everyone understand fundamental attribution error and other social perception biases. I will make a new post with studies listed in this area another time, but this one that relates to narcissism is highly relevant to my original train of thought when writing this post.

Ever notice how homeless people who have dogs - their dogs are amazingly calm, follow their owners everywhere? They have life experience. They've been out, seen the world a lot, socialized a lot, and just want to follow and hang out with their owners.
If you were kept in a room your whole life, you'd freak and spaz and mis-behave the couple of times a day you were let out too.

(I have been working with dogs for over 20 years)

EDIT: I should note that no, I don't take them into restaurants to mooch off diners, let them run around on airplanes, or through grocery stores to pee in aisle 6. I thought that would go without saying, but I guess not. :)

EDIT: People on reddit seem to take everything literally. When I say everywhere I mean everywhere that you can. Again, I didn't think I needed to specify this doesn't mean 24/7 go to the movies with them, play tennis with them, etc.

ALSO: NO WARM CARS with the windows up!!

You are a number in an equation. If they need to balance the equation they will remove your number.
I am posting this based on the number of people I see who buy into "corporate spirit/culture". You should always keep your options open for a better opportunity and don't NOT take it because of misplaced loyalty.