You’re right, but just to rephrase:

• The natural sciences aren’t in the business of saying whether or not a given person existed.
• If you think of history as a social science, then there may be “scientific” methodologies that determine whether or not a given person existed, but that’s not what’s generally though of as “scientifically proven”

It’s OK dog. The thing is, you figured it out. You’re better off than those that never figured it out. Now you just gotta move on from where you’re at.

Choices - we make them, chances - we take them

Some are mistakes, some we celebrate them

We don’t look back, cause so much we facin

I always stay proud of myself, I’m yelling, “Fuck regret!”

🗿

FWIW I only ever used those services if they accepted a prepaid credit card. OpenAI didn’t accept prepaid cards when I tried, not sure about Poe. Just something to think about.

Emo nights are a thing around the US, not sure about the crowd age.

Sometimes when you try to subscribe to a community, it’ll just keep saying “request pending” but if you look in your list of subscribed communities you’ll see it there. I think it’s a known bug.

Side-zip duffel bags are awesome. I had to live across town for a couple days, and 90% of my clothes fit in two largeish bags.

Cable management is for work. In my happy place, I just let my cables run wild.

There was [email protected] but people dislike that hilariouschaos instance for some reason.

Xanax would probably help, but be careful using it for the first time because sometimes it can make one just fall asleep.

I think a general anesthetic, where they just knock you completely out, is usually considered unnecessary for a root canal, but you can ask. If you have anti-anxiety pills prescribed, that might work, just let the dentist know beforehand. Some places have movies or some other kind of “patient distraction” because yeah, it can get a little unnerving hearing all those sounds.

Like everyone else, I agree that pain management can be pretty good these days. For me the experience was:

• dentist comes in, says hi, reviews what’s going to happen, asks if you have any questions; tell them if you feel nervous, it’s ok
• doctor puts a “local anesthesia” (something on a q-tip) to your gum, so the needle won’t hurt too much
• then the doctor injects the “real” anesthesia in the gum. (an assistant may do this part - it varies) Depending on how deep they need to put it, you may feel a bit of pain, but not too bad. Pinch your arm moderately hard, and imagine that happening in your gum, and that’s the most I’ve ever felt for a very deep injection for a removal. it lasts about 1 second. (some places might give you nitrous oxide for this part, but I’ve never had that.) They may give more than 1 injection, depending on the situation. From this point on you should feel no pain.
• doctor/assistant goes away for 10-15 minutes to let the anesthesia spread. your mouth starts to feel numb.
• the dentist comes back with an assistant, they get organized (figuring out what tools they need, etc) From this point on they’re mostly just drilling or doing whatever they need, and your job is just to move your head however they want and keep your mouth open and spit when they tell you. it’s a little boring, tbh, at one point I almost dozed off and made a bit of a snoring sound.
• it can be a little weird having saliva pool in your mouth. the assistant should be vacuuming it out regularly. if they’re not doing this often enough, let them know. It is also very very helpful if you can breathe through your nose. if you have a problem with this just let them know.

Good luck, let us know how it goes!

This could be a Garfield strip.

We should call it “X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.” Every time. Yes it sounds ridiculous, because it is.

She’s only dating him to get to Scoob.

Yeah! I submitted my first timestamps a couple weeks ago, and I got really into it, making it so the timestamps were timed just right. But in this case I was so grossed out by this techbro ad in the middle of this amazing movie, that I just clicked the window closed and went on to watch something else.

Something tells me this cat is never still enough to properly photograph.

It’s a killer movie, but it’s got ads embedded in the stream… even ublock origin and sponsorblock didn’t catch them.

ROCKERS: full movie. Just watch the first 3 minutes.

This is why healthcare in the US sucks.

• A wealthy person will have a 24-hour hotline to connect with a nurse or doctor (immediately or through return call) with access to their medical history who will help them figure out what to do.
• A moderately well-off person will have a web/phone interface where they can send a message and someone will return their message in a day or two.
• Everyone else has to make a gamble: do I spent money to try to figure this out? Do I risk spending money and then it turns out to be nothing? But what if it’s something and it’s more expensive later on? What will my insurance pay for? How do I find someone that’s reliable, but also inexpensive? All of this causes stress which makes things worse.

In your case, think of anyone who knows your medical history and who you can ask questions of. The doctor who prescribed your anxiety medications - can you call/message them and ask them? The pharmacist who dispenses the meds - can you go/call and ask a question about your medications? Some pharmacies also have nurse / clinic stations, too. If you have any kind of medical insurance, check out their web page - a lot of them have set up tele-medicine offerings recently. If your job has an HR department, this is actually one case they can be helpful; an HR person in my company helped me figure out what health resources I had access to, based on my plan. Finally, if you haven’t been getting annual checkups, you should start thinking of doing so (especially as you get older), and ask them how you can contact them to ask questions like this.

Good luck fam, I hope it turns out OK for you.