I worked homeless outreach in a rural area. My job was to connect people to housing, assist with obtaining government benefits, and mental health services if necessary. They would spend the day at local hot spots, well trafficked convenience stores in the morning, well trafficked stores like the local grocery store for most of the rest of the day. A lot of them would hang out in the stores as long as possible to escape the heat/cold and many would also hit up strangers for money at these spots

They were often very hesitant or completely unwilling to share where they actually slept. Even though I worked for a nonprofit a lot of them saw me as a government employee and even the ones who didn’t still were very hesitant to trust me or any of my coworkers with that info. I’m pretty sure they were scared that I would call the cops or something. Some slept in wooded areas, some slept behind stores, some couch surfed, etc from the ones who did share and who I found (part of my job was being the point of contact for police and other emergency services who found people staying outside in dangerous weather and getting them emergency housing).

Even though it was probably like 2013 or so that I did this job the absolute cheapest room that would rent to the homeless was $700/mo. There were cheaper rooms around but they tended to require big deposits and would often refuse to rent to someone that didn’t already have a permanent address. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal but they would get around it usually by being vague and ghosting. “Oh so sorry someone else got the room”, stuff like that, and you’d see it was still available for 3 more months. I can’t even imagine what the rent is like now

Super depressing job. It’s very difficult to escape that cycle once you’re in it. It radicalized me a lot to work with people who were literally left on the street in a town with hundreds of vacant apartments. By our estimate there were maybe 20-40 homeless people in said town at any given point

a virus perpetuates and replicates itself infecting other executables with its code, thus the name “virus”.

this is just shitty code that crashes hard. it’s not even particularly malicious, it doesn’t destroy anything

that’s not what a virus is

It hasn’t seen a release yet, code is here:

https://github.com/arjpar/WebShield-staging/tree/ldev

I’m not endorsing it, never heard of it before this post, but this was literally the second line of the readme

Speed or mallrats depending on what kind of vibe you’re going for

edit: upon reflection I will change my Sandra bullock movie to “the net”. Terrible, but strong 90s vibes

You’re both wrong for speaking in absolutes. It could be pica but it’s impossible to fully assess such a situation based on a literal sentence description, you would need to know the context, frequency of behavior, occurrence with other items (eg is it solely soil). It could be soil eaten out of desperation to alleviate symptoms related to iron deficiency but again, impossible to know from a single sentence but a child eating soil would be grounds to evaluate for pica unless the child was specifically instructed or something (eg folk medicine)

brought to you by someone who spent 5 years doing neurodevelopmental evals of autism and intellectual disability in children, where pica came up a decent amount of the time (especially for the kids with ID)

There’s a theory that says this is the case (I can’t remember the name) but if it was accurate it’s probably been thoroughly destroyed by the modern diet which is laden with foods that push reward cravings (like excessive carbohydrates)

Ibanez gsr200. Got it used locally for $150 in really good shape, basically never played. But new they’re like $200. Yamaha tsr/trbx was the other option I was looking at, similar price range. Both had pretty excellent reviews as long as you kept in mind they’re beginner basses but they’re very solid.

I did go to a shop and played them both before buying. Pretty comparable. Main differences were Yamaha was a bit heavier and Yamaha has 24 frets vs 22 on the Ibanez. The Ibanez is also not a passive bass, it has a bass boost circuit. It’s the smaller 4th knob on the front of the bass. This means the bass needs a 9v battery which some people may not like. Also means you can give the sound a bit of texture/growl when you want, or you can just leave it off for a clean tone.

I do like Yamaha gear a lot, my primary workstation/synth is a Yamaha and it’s been a workhorse for me since literally 2007, played almost daily and been on several tours. I also have a Yamaha marimba I got cheap from one of the corps I marched in like 09 or so and it’s held up great despite the fact that it was certainly abused in its former life, played hard, and toured constantly (plus I still play it regularly). But the Ibanez was a sweet deal and I didn’t want to spend too much (as you can see I’ve already spent way too goddamn much on music gear in my life)

Also shoutout to rocksmith, which has been so awesome

A cheap beginner bass guitar. I was like man will I play bass even? I’m a drummer mainly but I also play a decent amount of piano bc my main drum things are drum set and marimba and I played synth for 1 season in drum corp. I got a bass because I wanted to actually try playing bass parts for songs instead of clicking them in. It does sound better (well, eventually it did) but it’s just really fun to play. Like I had also bought a $100 used guitar and I just find playing that a chore. I can play a few songs but I’m a permanent beginner and have no real interest in growing. The bass though? I play that like an hour a day and it’s actually cutting into my drum and piano time