The current state of the fluffy

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I guess it’s been a little while since my last post about the unending tire fire that is my mental state. I’ve been yo-yoing a lot, but here’s a summary of where I’m at right now:

CPAP: I’m back on it, trying some different things to make it more useful. The main problem seems to be bad mask fit, so tomorrow I’m going in for a proper mask fitting (rather than the half-assed thing the DME vendor did during the training session). Hopefully that will help.

Nortriptyline: I’m steady at 30mg/day, and have started taking it earlier in the evening, which has helped me with actually being tired when I need to be.

That weird failed drug test: Still no idea what happened with it. As one followup to it I had another diabetes screening (since that’s one possible cause of a false opium positive) but that came back fine (normal A1C and nothing out of the ordinary with my blood sugar), so that’s one less thing to worry about at least.

Day job: Still feeling like this is a bad match for me. Coworker is trying to assure me that I’m doing fine and trying to be helpful at getting me up to speed on the stuff I need to understand, but my brain refuses to play along.

AR startup: Going pretty well, I guess? I’m not doing a lot of active work for it but I’m glad to help out where I can.

Social life: I’m feeling much more withdrawn from my usual activities and am still on hiatus from most of my meetup groups. Ed is no longer hosting karaoke so I’m back to doing my drawing group every week. It’s going just Okay but I mostly use it for hanging out with a handful of folks I like. With a couple of those folks I saw Detective Pikachu the other day, which I enjoyed but I still have thoughts about. The monthly “smol games” group I’m in is still great though, even though I’m not actively working on any games (but I love seeing what other people are doing).

Music: Still plinking away at stuff. Also I really want to be able to attend Song Fight! Live, which is in Madison this year, but planning travel for it is a bit onerous. With music production I keep on waffling between “this stuff I’m making is pretty good, actually” and “ugh this is garbage.” So, same old, same old.

Warning to Xfinity Mobile customers

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Xfinity doesn’t do a very good job of publicizing this but if you buy your phone through them, it’ll be carrier-locked, even though the device is paid in full up front. How nice of them. And of course they do warn you about that in easily-missed text at the bottom of one of the maze-of-information articles.

It’s easier to get the phone unlocked if you do it before porting the number, as the helpful CSR can just do it over the phone, but if you failed to, there’s still a process you can take.

Anyway, here’s information that would have been more helpful for me up front:

Back to Ting I go

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When I moved back to Seattle, I was using Ting Wireless for my cellphone service. At the time their service was a bit spotty (as they were a Sprint MVNO) and in 2013 I ended up switching back to my usual standby, T-Mobile. At the time T-Mobile had a $30/month plan which covered my needs: 100 minutes per month (with additional at 10¢/minute), and enough bandwidth for my needs.

A few months ago I decided to try out Xfinity Mobile, because it was supposedly only $10/GB/month for me since I’m already an Xfinity Internet customer. (Not by choice, mind you, but that’s a separate rant.)

However, they seem to be a bit aggressive at “overestimating” my bandwidth usage (so my bill was usually more like $30/month, not actually saving me anything), and pretty much every incoming call would get dropped with a “Call failure” error. This is of course a common issue, which Xfinity refuses to acknowledge, and there are plenty of other complaints on the customer forum, all of which are unaddressed beyond platitudes of “we are working on this.” (Going back well over a year now.)

Anyway. I’ve given Xfinity more than a fair shake. Unfortunately, the $30/month plan I was on with T-Mobile is no longer available (I’d been grandfathered in for quite some time), but since 2013, Ting has improved things a lot; in particular they are now doing LTE on T-Mobile (rather than CDMA on Sprint) and given how reliable T-Mobile has always been for me in the past, and how much the folks I know on Ting have continued to sing its praises, I’m pretty optimistic that this will work out better this time around. I do suspect the price will be somewhat higher than Xfinity, but at least I’ll be able to accept incoming calls!

So, all that said, if you want to give them a try, using this referral link will get you (and me!) a $25 credit on new activations.

The ongoing MSG discourse

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It seems like the pro-MSG camp is really ramping up their Discourse again lately, and it’s getting really frustrating.

Yes, it is deeply unfortunate1 that MSG sensitivity was labeled “Chinese restaurant syndrome.” Yes, it is probably the case that a lot of supposed MSG sensitivity was psychosomatic and due specifically to that name. And yes, glutamic acid does exist in a lot of things naturally and does in fact contribute to the “umami” flavor. I don’t disagree with any of those things.

What I do disagree with, however, is the mischaracterization that everyone who has an MSG sensitivity is just faking it or being racist, with the same strawman “gotchas” like “Did you know it’s also in Pringles and Doritos?!” (Yes, I do. It was Doritos which first gave me a reaction, for that matter. Long before I’d ever heard of MSG or “Chinese restaurant syndrome.”)

It turns out that there’s a high correlation between MSG sensitivity and fibromyalgia. And like many things that cause fibro problems, it’s not a single isolated incident that causes problems, but an accumulation of issues. If I have something with a low-ish amount of MSG on its own, I probably won’t have a problem. But if I have something with a lot of it, or if I’ve had it several times over the course of a week, I will have a problem and it will ruin the rest of my day.

And yes, glutamic acid occurs in a lot of things, but (generally) not bound to sodium and not in the high quantities that it occurs in with processed foods!

Several studies have shown MSG to be safe for the general population. And I do not doubt that it is. But these studies don’t include people with nerve disorders like fibromyalgia or epilepsy, or with a general history of migraines or the like. MSG actively amplifies the action of the pleasure centers in the brain. Fibromyalgia’s main issue is an inability to downregulate nerve receptors. Can you possibly see how this might cause a problem for some?

These fucking thinkpieces completely ignore the very real problems that a lot of people encounter, and also encourage people to actively put MSG into their food and not disclose it to be a “gotcha” for people with problems.

It’s like putting gluten into the food of someone who has celiac disease because of the backlash against fad gluten-free diets.

It’s like giving someone sugar-based Coke when they ask for diet, because they think it’s funny. Or giving someone diet Coke when they ask for normal, because they think they should “lose some weight.” Both are disastrous for diabetics who have planned their glucose intake for the day. (And incidentally, artificial sweeteners are also a major migraine trigger for me.)

It’s like “testing” someone’s stated food allergy by putting that thing in on purpose. Or not worrying about cross-contamination, or thinking, “Oh, it’s only a little bit.” Which can cause people to die or at least have a very bad time.

Don’t FUCKING do that.

Generally: if someone has a food sensitivity, believe them. Even if you think it’s made up, there’s no harm in believing them, while pretending you know better than them for their own issue can be incredibly harmful. Even fatal.

An imagined scene from the future of Steven Universe

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For quite some time there’s been a lot of fan speculation that Lars is AFAB and trans, with quite a lot of compelling evidence to that effect. It’s a thing I absolutely believe and I keep on hoping for confirmation in-show.

So, the Very Trans Narrative ending of Season 5 could lead to a future episode (or the upcoming movie) to finally answer this.

Here’s how I think it might happen.

Read more… (Spoilers for Season 5)

New version of propellAR released

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We (Workshop 3D) have just released a new version of propellAR, which is free and fun and you should try it out! Even if you think it won’t work on your phone, try it anyway – its device requirements are a lot lower than most AR apps.

Also, we’re going to be showing it off at Tacoma Mini Maker Faire this weekend.

Finally, we are running a photography contest for those who are so inclined.

Anyway. Try out our app and tell your friends, so we can keep on making cool fun toys like propellAR!