Recent health developments

Another casual blogging event.  This one is about farts.  Wait, I’m being serious!

A few months ago, I had COVID for the first time.  I never got it before, because I work remotely, don’t go outside, and I’m also very religious about getting my boosters.  I finally caught it because my husband’s company’s RTO.

As I recall, I took a week off of work.  At the tail end, it was in that liminal state of “am I really sick enough to take off work?”  I could just give work 90%, and then I get to save my vacation day for when I actually feel better, you know?  The symptoms I had at the end were constant burping, and globus sensation.  “Globus sensation” is when you feel like something’s stuck at the back of your throat, I had to look that up.  Also, farting.

The stomach symptoms didn’t entirely go away.  And now, three months later, I’ve decided it’s because I’ve developed lactose intolerance.  I have tested this empirically.  Lactose intolerance can be treated with lactase enzyme, which you can buy over the counter.  Try ice cream with and without lactase, observe the difference.  Okay, so, I don’t get sick from lactose, not usually anyways.  I just get gas.

Could COVID induce lactose intolerance?  Maybe.  Some people on the internet seem to think so, although that’s not worth much.  I’m half Asian, various degrees of lactose intolerance runs in the family.  Some people just suddenly develop lactose intolerance as adults, and the timing may well be a coincidence.

I’m currently working out how much I need to change my diet vs just taking a bunch of lactase all the time.  It’s very nice that lactase is an option.

Deconversion Narrativization

It’s said that the world is made of stories. But, if that were true, why is translating a personal experience into a story so lossy? Invariably, you must choose where the story starts and ends, which pieces of context to include or exclude, which events to highlight as important. You must choose the “moral” of the story, or lack thereof. You must adjust the story based on who you tell it to (unless, you know, you’re a bad storyteller). If you want your story to be 100% objective and accurate, my advice is don’t tell a story at all; just live it, and then your life will be 100% accurate to itself.

In atheist circles, we occasionally circulate deconversion stories. They’re probably most common among people who recently left religion, and then after enough time people stop caring so much any more. I wrote a deconversion story back in 2009, so long ago that I don’t even remember it. It’s not a story I need to tell over and over, even if it would be new to most readers.  But I might still tell it occasionally, perhaps with different goals in mind than I had back then.

What sort of goals do we have when telling a deconversion story?

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Confession

I left Catholicism when I was 18, so I literally have a child’s understanding of the Catholic practice of confession. It was a ritual that did not make much sense to a child.

What is confession? It’s one of the seven sacred sacraments, the other six being eucharist, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, annointing the sick, and baptism, in some order. Catholic Wednesday school, known as CCD, is supposed to introduce kids to three of the sacraments, namely eucharist, confession, and confirmation.

Confession was essentially a scheduled annual obligation. One day, all the kids would quietly line up for a little private chat with one of the priests. And just to paint the picture, we always talked to priests face to face, we never used confessional boxes, ubiquitous though they are in fiction.

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Computer difficulties

Story time.  So the other day, my computer crashed and then it wouldn’t restart.  I’m not much of a hardware person, but my brothers are, so I spent a long phone call with one of them opening it up and inspecting the hard drives.  The hard drives are fine.  Great.  It’s probably a software issue, and the Windows installation was corrupted.

Anyways, I decide it would be easier to bring it into a shop rather than fixing it myself.  I put it in a suitcase and roll it over to the repair shop across the street.  I tell them Windows needs to be reinstalled, and they say they’ll take it in for advanced diagnostics.  It’s free, provided that I register as a member–so actually it’s not free, it’s $60.

A few days later and they say it’s fixed.  Not diagnosed, fixed.  They say that they needed to reinstall Windows, which is what I had said.  So I roll the computer back to my apartment, and guess what?  The computer works, but the hard drive is wiped.  Specifically, just one of the two hard drives was wiped, the other hard drive is fine.  It’s just… that was the hard drive I was using.

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FIRE

Sorry if this is obnoxious, but I have some rich people thoughts. I think a lot about retiring early. I figure it’s a ways off, but it seems eventually correct. I’m a tech worker, married to a tech worker, no kids, with fairly frugal interests and habits. I live a very savings-positive lifestyle.

On the internet, this often goes under the heading FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early). I’ve read a bit about it, although a lot of it is financial advice, which I haven’t found too helpful. My biggest concerns are not financial.

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How I developed a game

I made a video game. I have not published, but I’m currently looking for playtesters.  In fact, I’m trying to get playtesters right here and now, please let me know if you’re interested!

It’s a small puzzle strategy game titled “Moon Garden Optimizer”. I’m sure say more about the specifics of the game design at a later time.  Today I’m sharing my development process up to this point.

moon garden optimizer, recent screenshot

A screenshot of my game

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Macroeconomics with Peter Navarro

Back when I started working in finance in 2020, I remarked to a colleague that I felt pretty ignorant about all this finance stuff. So they suggested a basic online course in macroeconomics. That course: “The Power of Macroeconomics: Economic Principles in the Real World” taught by Dr. Peter Navarro.

In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, Dr. Navarro is currently the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, in the Trump administration. He is seemingly the only economist in the world who thinks universal tariffs are a good idea. That guy. Even at the time I took the course, Navarro had been the director of the White House National Trade Council during the first Trump administration. But I swear, I didn’t realize who he was until 2022, when he was arrested in relation to the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

No deep dive here–I’m not going back through the course to sift for oddities. This is just storytime, recalling what I can about Dr. Peter Navarro from several years ago.

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