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In the past when I've burnt out (or come close to it) I've gotten up and went. Being out of my home environment, reminding myself that what I think of as normal is not an inevitable and fixed way of being was very renewing. And of course you can always fantasize about moving to a place while you're still ignorant of all its drawbacks.

Gaining perspective was the important part of it. When I was ready to re-enter the business world I did so with an understanding of… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:49 PM on November 16, 2023

I guess my main concern is if Company B seeks to confirm my employment dates with A, even though Co A will give me glowing references which is probably more of what they will ask for and care about.

As a side note, Co A will almost certainly never give references at all. They will simply confirm your start and end dates.

If you want references from Co A you'll need to get them from individual coworkers and include them yourself.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:36 PM on November 16, 2023

The OED notes it as transitive.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:10 PM on November 16, 2023

Basic idea is to open up a (spreadsheet, csv,...) and... I have a spreadsheet and I manually open it up, sort on a column, read over to see what child that record belongs to and then write the name and date. Then sort on a different column and repeat for various things that might be coming due.

So if I were doing this the reading of the data would look like:

import csv
csvfile = open('my_csv_file.csv')… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:35 AM on November 14, 2023

Suggestion: Get it working on the command line first and tackle the GUI only after it’s done. Once again this is in the service of not getting overwhelmed.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 11:34 AM on November 14, 2023

I specifically left pandas out of my suggestion because it is an extremely powerful tool with an extremely large manual. While I wouldn't hesitate to suggest it to an experienced programmer, it seems a bit much for someone who is just starting out. My $0.02.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:44 PM on November 14, 2023

My Spanish is a horrible train wreck, to the point that I refuse to speak it. This is a logistical problem as I live in Mexico. I am constantly ashamed by my lack of ability and my meager efforts at getting better. Walking around I can feel people judging me.

When I do muster the courage to speak I always learn (and quickly forget) the same lesson: people really appreciate that I’m trying and want to help when they can. The fact that I’m pathetic gives them a chance… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:51 AM on November 13, 2023

Seconding a temporary tattoo. Basically a decal for your skin that fades relatively quickly.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:34 AM on November 13, 2023

Yup, this has all the signs of a Constructive Dismissal.

Store all the documentation you have so far and going forth try to get things in email rather than verbally. Also, call an employment lawyer on Monday.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:20 AM on November 11, 2023

They are not constructively terminating you. They are not hoping you quit. They are hoping that you do or fail to do something that lets them fire you without paying your severance.

Firing for cause takes many months and does not involve purposely hobbling the employees' ability to perform their job responsibilities. Even in at-will states the process is fraught.

Agreed, however, that if you want to prove constructive… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 2:08 PM on November 11, 2023

And by the way, the reason to pursue this as constructive dismissal is not because you think it will ever get to court. It's that the cost of defending themselves will have to be balanced against just paying your severance and being done with you. So dot all the i's and cross all the t's, but don't get too attached to the idea of legal revenge.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 2:13 PM on November 11, 2023

The problem is, this takes up an enormous amount of energy. I have much less to spend on my hobbies and with the people I care about.

So if I’m understanding that correctly it means that the events you’d like to skip are the larger ones or ones with people you don’t care about that much.

If that is the case then you have this internet stranger’s full permission to skip them.

I’ve found a working… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 3:37 PM on November 9, 2023

Just as a side note, I unfortunately waited until the very end of my career (when I was pushed over the edge by being forced into an open office layout) to recognize that my sensory issues really did qualify as a disability for ADA purposes. I got my full size cube back and it was made understood that I would not be attending meetings with more than four people in them. I wasn't strict about that but it gave me an out when I needed one.

I wish I had set the whole thing… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 4:42 PM on November 9, 2023

I want to spend more time around people, but am wondering if it's ethically ok to do so when I'm not at my best, and where to draw the line.

Up to you. If you're making other people uncomfortable the situation will work itself out by them not being around you any more.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:09 PM on November 10, 2023

My family is spread out all over the world and if I don't think about it I'll go months or even years with only birthday wishes and the occasional forwarded meme. The cure has been scheduled video calls -- once every three months or so I have one on one calls with the members of my family that I like to catch up with. The exception there is my parents, with whom I have a weekly call.

My father has monthly group calls with his six siblings, something that doesn't… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 2:19 PM on November 9, 2023

If you really want "a detailed enumeration" be prepared to do a lot of research. Maybe you just want the high level list of factors, not details on each one.

I'm getting a comfortable level of detail here and I'll dive deeper on the more interesting bits. It's pretty clear there are distinct problems in physics, physiology and psychology in play as well as a jumbled mess of issues that derive from two or three of them at once.… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 8:08 PM on November 7, 2023

Dang. Everyone's answers have been very helpful but I'm marking Nelson's as the best answer as that table of contents really is a detailed enumeration of the entire topic.

There's much to follow up on in this thread, and if I'm really serious there's a 370 page book to buy. Thank you everyone.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 2:07 PM on November 9, 2023

Behave normally. Have normal conversations in the style that you have had for years. Do not mention treatment or possible futures unless she brings them up first.

Basically, if she's terminal and wants to be in denial about that then nothing is gained by trying to contradict her. Enjoy your time with her and let her reach out about her diagnosis when and if she's ready.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:32 AM on November 9, 2023 marked best answer

Also, prefer not to spend a lot of time OR money on care.

All other things being equal, this part is really a crapshoot. Logistically an older dog makes sense in terms of a limited commitment on your part -- even if they disrupt your life it will only be for a few years -- but the older the dog you more time you are likely to spend at the vet.

The more serious issue is that dogs are pack animals and they will know if they… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:02 PM on November 8, 2023

I definitely would look at your family of origin and your relationship with them. What were your responsibilities -- explicit and implicit -- and what would have happened if you walked away from them?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:46 PM on November 6, 2023

Freedom is my go to for this. I can get around it, but the process is annoying enough that I go to bed instead.

For bonus points it’s multi platform so I can’t just switch over to my phone.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:39 AM on November 4, 2023 marked best answer

This turning off business seems like a very weak solution to me, since the workaround is just to plug it in again. Letting the battery run out on a laptop also sounds like a very bad idea because you're going to want it fully charged when you wake up.

Also it's a blanket shutoff of a useful tool.

The reason I use Freedom is that I get a lot better granularity. I can choose which apps and which websites are still available to me -- email, for… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 10:07 AM on November 4, 2023 marked best answer

What will happen [if I discuss suicidality]

You will be asked if you are in the advanced planning stages, specifically if you have gathered tools or have specific immediate plans. Provided the answers to those are no (and it sounds like they are) then the topic is wide open.

I used to be suicidal every day. I'm not anymore. It took a while, but progress was made.… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 8:24 PM on November 3, 2023

I’ve said this elsewhere, but it seems particularly applicable here: Depression is God‘s great joke on mankind. It is the only disease that makes you feel like you deserve to have it.

You don’t.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:30 AM on November 4, 2023

I've had moments of mania

If they had been diagnosed as mania you would not be considered Bipolar II. Mania is specific to Bipolar I. From your description, hypomania seems more likely.

I saw a TV drama

With rare exception depictions of mental illness in film or TV are misleading or simply wrong. Between misinformation and creative license they’re not a good place to get an… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:33 AM on November 3, 2023 marked best answer

Not trusting what upper management says is an important part of being a healthy employee and should be encouraged. Your mistake in the situation was to trust them, and instead of telling your employees that you had heard nothing about layoffs in your area, you told them that there was an actual no.

In any case while you and your employees should never trust the words of upper management, you should make sure that your employees can trust you. Tell them directly that you… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:35 PM on November 2, 2023

Dealing with trauma is a long term, often cyclical thing.

Your brain clearly isn’t done processing what happened in your first relationship (and no wonder!) and so it’s taking the opportunity to do some more work. And an opportunity is what it is: your partner is away, you have a chance to reconsider some very difficult feelings. To forgive yourself, perhaps, for what you think of as active self-deception. To let go of any remaining shame about what a clearly… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:11 AM on November 1, 2023

I wrote...
I think the best thing you can do is to dive into how these emotions felt and what it all meant to you at the time. Write about them [...]

Sorry, I'm a bit slow sometimes. I just realized that all of the detail you put into writing this question *is* you processing it. So.. umm.. well done! :-)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 10:01 AM on November 2, 2023

This appears to be working as I hoped. Thank you.

There was a minor hiccup with the batch file, namely that the % before "% Processor Time" needs to be escaped. I've posted the corrected script below for people who want to cut and paste.


for /f "tokens=2 delims==" %%I in ('wmic os get localdatetime /format:list') do set datetime=%%I
typeperf -y -f BIN -sc 18000 -o c:\perflogs\perf_%datetime%.blg… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 8:47 AM on October 30, 2023

Just a quick follow up to say that I ran this using task manager at 8:30 every morning and the data was stored away (and not subsequently deleted by Windows) just fine.

Thank you again for your help.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:00 PM on November 1, 2023

Among other things I would be suspicious of that letter because it the perfect job rejection reason. "Sorry, you're too qualified for us."

No matter what happened internally it's a great way to stay on good terms with a candidate in case their first choice backs out or some other position comes up that you might to apply to.

And yeah, touch base with the manager via private email if you've got it or LinkedIn if not. They may be… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:39 AM on November 1, 2023 marked best answer

My question is, as someone who’s had trouble loving herself all her life, and finally settling into a comfortable routine alone… Is this a symptom of me starting to love myself, and why is this process contradictory to finding love externally?

It's pretty straightforward. A person who loves themselves has a much higher standard for who they will allow into their lives.

When you find someone suitable you will find it much… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:27 AM on October 30, 2023

It's pretty straightforward. A person who loves themselves has a much higher standard for who they will allow into their lives.

Just to add to that: When you're messed up it's easy to believe that most people are out there having happy, interesting, and healthy lives. Turns out it's a relatively rare thing, and congratulations on finding your way there.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:30 AM on October 30, 2023

Definitely the most straightforward way would be for the message to be intercepted as spam in a place that is rarely or never checked.

For example I have my permanent email address at "pobox.com". All of my mail goes there and they forward it on to gmail, but before they do they cull out the obvious spam. What gets through generally gets caught by the gmail spam catcher. I check my gmail spam folder relatively frequently, but I never check the pobox.com… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:20 AM on October 30, 2023

Right. If anyone is still reading, my foreshadowing about programmers and oscilloscopes paid off when I realized I had accidentally flipped the scale switch on the probe and in fact the voltages were still fine despite the smoke.

I am now getting what looks to me to be the desired signal at the entry connector to the laser. I would appreciate if someone could look at these pictures and comment on whether I'm reading things correctly.

The laser… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:36 AM on October 24, 2023

If all three pictures had probe 1 connected to the same signal, they're consistent with probing a PWM control signal, set for 0% duty cycle for the top picture, 100% duty cycle for the middle picture and a smidge under 50% for the bottom picture.

Yes, this is what the pictures were meant to show. Probe 2 was not connected in any of them.

The fan circuit was 3 wires -- Ground, Vcc, and PWM. I don't have the specs for the… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 11:08 PM on October 24, 2023

Sorry, 2.2k and 4.7k .
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:15 AM on October 25, 2023

The laser user manual does indeed specify "12 or 24V" for the laser module driver board's Vcc, but I'm gathering from context that the laser is available in two models, one built for a 12V power supply and the other built for 24V.

Ding ding ding! I went to the ordering page and indeed there are separate options for 12v and 24v. And I ordered the 12V.

So, I need to redo the bench test with 12V and see if I've bricked… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 11:14 AM on October 25, 2023

Yup, bricked the new one. Old one still works but the new voltage drop for it will allow more flexibility and the redone wiring is much prettier. All in all a pretty successful failure to upgrade.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 11:41 AM on October 25, 2023

The smoke came out of the printer chassis.

There are four items of note inside the chassis: the power supply, the main controller board, the LCD controller board, and something I can't identify that is just a couple of components hooked together on a cable that runs between the power supply and a socket named POWER-DET on the controller board.

None of these items have any obvious char marks on them and there's no melted plastic anywhere. Given… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:46 PM on October 25, 2023

The connections are not made directly to the power supply but rather where the 24V leads connect to the controller board. I agree with you entirely about the "let's make life exciting" layout of the power supply terminals.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 8:18 PM on October 25, 2023

Best case outcome: six moderate Republicans are pissed off enough by the shenanigans from their own total wingnut faction that they just say fuck it, we're electing the Democrat

This would be an unheard of event in American politics. The complete dominance of two monolithic parties in the U.S. means that if your party disowns you there is nowhere to go. It's political suicide.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:16 PM on October 25, 2023

For me dropping by is entirely dependent on the friends in question. One qualification is that they're perfectly comfortable saying "sorry, busy now" and they need to be comfortable with me saying the same.

A British friend wanted to take it a step further and have it be okay to open the door and walk in. I explained that I spend a lot of my time naked and the topic was dropped.

Do you always keep yourself and your house… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:04 PM on October 25, 2023

> the high rates of sexual abuse perpetrated upon neurodiverse people

Two 14 year olds willingly fucking each other is not "sexual abuse".

And a 14 year old displaying stalker-y behavior being left alone with their stalkee may not be a good plan either. The potential for this to be an unhealthy relationship exists and I can see why the OP felt the need to seek outside opinions.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:36 PM on October 24, 2023

Which reminds me, if you do end up having a sex talk with them I suspect that teaching them about Affirmative Consent will very helpful.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:43 PM on October 24, 2023

There’s a certain passion and kind of philosophical edge to the way he might discuss an important topic, and a kind of enthusiasm which feels different to me from his usual energy. Very rarely it feels a bit... edgy? I think this is coming from his craving a debate and wrangling with thoughts.

There are a couple of friends I interact with this way. We don't shout or get angry, but we go full on into joyful debate with no quarter asked or given. It… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:54 AM on October 24, 2023

(I think I often agree with some things and disagree with others). But I also think this is normal for people in relationships?!

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”

--Rainer Maria Rilke
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 8:29 AM on October 24, 2023

And even if everyone stays polite and voices don't rise to the point of a noise complaint, you might be getting hostile vibes.

I just want to expand on my earlier comment: There are so so many reasons to be uncomfortable with people having an argument in front of you, polite or not.


It's baked right into our lizard brain to get ourselves away from situations that may lead to violence, and our lizard brains don't… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:07 AM on October 24, 2023

This my life and I deal with it by really liking who I am. Every step has led me to be the person I am today and to change any of it would be to abandon myself.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 10:41 PM on October 21, 2023

My goal with my hobbies is to learn everything I can about them. The best way to do that is to screw it up — following a recipe to the letter and everything going great teaches me virtually nothing about cooking. You never understand *why* things are done the way they are until you venture (intentionally or otherwise) off and find out, for example, what forgetting the teaspoon of baking soda actually does.

Last night I caused the destruction of a project I’ve been… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:35 PM on October 21, 2023