rowinxavier

joined 2 years ago
[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, lots of people from my background are sensitive about it but honestly, nobody around me understood money and therefore couldn't have taught me. I knew very little about money until later in my adulthood and at that point I didn't have more than I needed. Now I have a little bit of excess and managing that has been a great learning experience.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I have dyspraxia which is basically medically diagnosed lack of coordination. I drop my phone at least a few times a day, I bang into walls and benches all the time, and I've fallen over so many times I don't even get hurt any more. Along with the coordination I have lost or broken so many things in just this way, not to mention I am massive and most things are not built for giants. So yeah, a good number of items have been broken or outright destroyed shortly after purchase. No budget can handle that other than to just have more money on hand and to be as careful as possible. Screen protectors, rugged cases, and no open top drink vessels.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I come from a poor background, so having any large pot of cash was always risky due to "emergencies" requiring those funds. I got out of that living situation and now finally have more money than my living expenses for the first time. None of my family were actually good with money, so that is the background for this post. So yes, correct.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Absolutely. I had some TWS headphones that were really good and I actually ended up replacing the battery in the case when it couldn't hold a day of charge because it was worth it. I would much rather repair something than replace it and buy quality that will last as well, both of which are benefited by having the cash on hand. If you can't afford $200 headphones but you can get $20 ones today maybe buy the $20 ones and use them while saving for the better ones. It will take time but you may be able to make the crappy ones last long enough, even if you have to get two sets to make it through.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

For some items yes, but, and perhaps this is privilege from living in Australia, surely if it fails immediately you can return it and get a replacement or refund? Here we have a 12 month warranty on most things but also a reasonae expectation standard, so if it is a larger thing like a fridge or dishwasher we can get more of a reasonable warranty period.

So I guess a better way of phrasing it would include at what point it requires more money from you if it fails? So for a basic electronic thing 12 months would be the minimum that would be covered by the manufacturer and you are only on the hook for it after that time? I know that is not suitable for some other places like the USA where you are often on your own once you leave the store.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Yes, and items seem to be manufactured to exceed their warranty period by only a short time. I assume that an item will last for a year in most cases, or the warranty period if that is longer. For white goods like a fridge or a washing machine I look for statistics and use longevity as part of my purchasing process, so I aim to buy appliances which will last a fairly long time and then save based on that not being the most likely outcome. My fridge can be expected to last 5-7 years, so by year 3 I will have enough saved or room made in lines of credit to afford a replacement. Obviously it is best to have nothing accruing interest so I will tend to pay credit down first but some if the credit cards where I am actually have good terms such as a 36 month interest free period. The utility of money during that time is available for other things and I can reduce my costs in other ways.

 

Most people don't really budget for things that are large on a yearly or even monthly scale, but you can and probably should.

For example, I know that I use my headphones a lot and being without them would be really annoying. Budgeting based on buying them asap because I need them is a really painful way of managing that cost because I can't do anything else at the same time and it is expensive. If instead I set aside a smaller amount while I still have working headphones it is much easier.

My formula for working out the cost is fairly simple. How much does it cost for an item to fill the need? How long do I expect that item to last in the worst case? How much would I therefore need to save per week for that cost to be saved before the current item needs replacement.

My headphones cost around $100. I expect to need replacement not sooner than about 16 months. So I should save $75 per year which works out to less than $2 per week. If I just save $2 per week I will hit my goal of $100 within the year and of something goes wrong earlier I can make the difference up the normal way. If I end up not needing a replacement by the time I hit my goal I can keep saving for a higher cost option or move that saving to another goal to boost that.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

For just a little over £50, £57 on Amazon, you could get these.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00050763/

I have a pair and they are absolutely fantastic. The reduction in noise means I can hear my podcasts, audio books, or music without having the volume up high. I find them to be light enough for long sessions and not too tight, but they also don't fall off the moment you look to the side. I use them for mowing the lawn and other heavy work but also around the house or while playing video games.

The battery lasts multiple days worth of usage, claiming and realistically reaching around 40 hours of use. I haven't yet actually run them dry because I charge them at night but I will frequently have them on from shortly after waking up til bed time with only an hour or two of them being off, so around 14-16 hours, and they are still comfortable after that.

The sound quality is perfectly good. I have some audiophile grade IEMs which do generate better sound quality but for normal headphones these do a great job. I bought them here in Australia and they were around $100 and honestly, worth every cent. Before these I had Tactix which were great but they eventually, after about 4 years, had a loose cable on the left ear and would crackle in and out of function. If I can get anything like the same out of these I will consider them a very good yearly cost, around $25 per year for my main headphones. I would budget for ~$75/year if I were thinking about what is reasonable, so a third of that for one pair of ear protecting headphones is pretty great.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

What game is this? Dungeon crawl stone soup?

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Also you will usually find 950 (aspartame) along with 951 (acesulfame K) because the two have slightly different profiles and work very well together. If we do a study on humans I would want it to include the common and also some uncommon combinations. A lot of people are switching over to erythritol and stevia but I don't know how safe they are. We make erythritol internally but the dose may be quite different, and coming in through the gut could be quite different to internal production, not to mention with the stevia as actually prepared not lab purified.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago

This. I've helped a few people over the years and I've been helped too and with experience on both sides nothing is as impactful as the recognition of how much the help has improved life. A card which says something about the difficulties and how the help felt to receive can be a massive positive, more than any potted plant or simple gift. It lasts forever and is something they can come back to time and again.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 39 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Before you take this to mean anything about why you should do, you are not a mouse. This is a study in mice and the differences between what impacts it will have in mice and humans may be very large. Mice are not good human analogues, but they are very cheap and good model organisms.

The findings they report include weight loss and cardiac/neurological impacts. This appears to compound over time with worse impacts as the study continued. This would make sense if the impact of aspartame was a slow chronic toxin or inhibited some normal pathway. If it is the former then avoiding aspartame for mice is important at all times. If it is the latter then having a break every so often should ameliorate the damage, though how much and what time ratio is not tested here.

That said, this is in mice. In my experience human brains a fairly different from mouse brains and the metabolic context is also quite different. I doubt the applicability of this to humans will be replicated well any time soon. If they do find an issue it is likely to be different to what happened to the mice, and though it is possible this will carry over to humans it is unlikely.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 32 points 6 days ago

I like when they have both, like the roller thing you can click to input a number, best of both worlds.

 

This study is talking about two groups, one with a target INR of 2.0-2.5 and the other with a target INR of 2.5-3.5. The higher dose is the current standard dose.

The outcomes were extremely close group to group and it looks like the Confidence Interval was greater than 1.5%, so the study was not adequately powered to have confidence of non inferiority. Is that interpretation correct? Obviously the difference in the groups was not large, but it reads to me that they couldn't be sure it was close enough to not be worse with the lower dose, therefore they can't eliminate the possibility that low dose treatment is more dangerous than current dose? If so, would they do another study or would that basically amount to p-hacking? Further thoughts are appreciated.

 

So we're doing breams now?

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