RustyRaven

RustyRaven, 12 hours ago

Google timeline for April just arrived. According to Google the highlights of my month were a trip to the dentist in Blackburn South, followed by my exciting shopping trip to Supercheap Auto to get headlight bulbs. Sadly, I think this may be accurate 🤣

RustyRaven, 9 hours ago

A bowl of aurora coloured jelly please. It might be the closest I get to seeing one, given my view to the south is the wall of a townhouse and I had to sleep before and early start to work this morning.

RustyRaven, 6 hours ago

Bacon is serving aurora jelly you might like if you missed out on sky pretty.

RustyRaven, 6 hours ago

It is strangely satisfying when your side of a minor Reddit argument gets the most upvotes. Also slightly disturbing, given that this feeling is what no doubt fuels unhealthy pile-ons where everyone wants to join in on the “winning side” and abandons rational argument entirely. I should be the better person and focus on the benefits of thoughtful and reasoned discussion over competitive point scoring. But just for a little bit I’m going with HA HA you petty judgemental b*&% I win.

RustyRaven, 1 day ago

There has not been a particularly high volume of alarms this morning, it must just be randomly near you.

RustyRaven, 22 hours ago

Ouch. It might be ok for a couple of days a week but it is not ideal. You basically have to write off those days completely and you also can’t do any of the little chores you would have otherwise done around or after work either (things like doing your washing) so you lose a little bit of other days too.

RustyRaven, 21 hours ago

I did a few months of 9 hour days with a 3 hour commute. It paid the bills, but I can’t say it was much fun. It did have a major bonus that I could get time off to go to job interviews though. When I strarted my new job with 8 hours work 15 minutes from home it felt like I’d gone part time!

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

OMG it’s Friday. Why am I still up?

Do you think it might have anything to do with those cups of coffee I had today, even though I knew I was overdoing it after having abstained from caffeine entirely recently?

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

I gave up coffee because I was starting to feel the ritual of making coffee was something I was being trapped by, not something I was really enjoying any more. And I was right, I have been enjoying not feeling it is something I have to do every morning and can instead choose to do if I want to. But I might have chosen it a couple of times more than I should have considering my reduced tolerance - I normally go to bed sometime around 8 or 9, still being awake at 2am is going to hurt me tomorrow!

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

Those microwavable discs are great at holding heat, but Miss Meow showed no interest in lying on it. I think too hard and not flat enough. Even with some padding on top she ignored it in favour of sitting on top of the computer.

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

I cut and paste into Emojipedia to get the official answer:

Melon

A melon fruit in a light greenish-brown rind. Depicted as a cantaloupe by most platforms, but can resemble a honeydew at a distance.

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

That is odd. There are some emojis that don’t show on all systems, but the blueberries should. If you would like to see what they are supposed to look like this emojipedia page shows you the design for all the different compute systems.

RustyRaven, 3 days ago

It looks to be a fairly common situation - hopefully the reddit sub is a self-selected group with a higher than normal number of people in that position, but so many people posting there are miserable and feeling trapped. I went on there looking to get a bit more of an idea of what caring will be realistically like (I’m intending to care for my mother in future) and was not really prepared for the sheer volume of people who are being abused and don’t realise it. I mean I love my Mum, but I would not care for her if it would leave me broke and homeless, and if she develops dementia and starts to scream 24/7 or smear her own shit all over the walls she’s going into a home. No one should be in a position where they feel they have no choice but to live like that.

RustyRaven, 3 days ago

Pretty much, but the scary thing is that it is learning what people want to hear and in the process often amplifies human bias. It picks up on things like racism and uses that in its decisions. Then those decisions go into the records that AI systems are being trained on, entrenching the biases more and more over time. Because the processes are pretty much invisible it is hard to do anything to stop that from happening. Then we have this weird idea that computers are somehow impartial and should be trusted over human decision makers, and we are using AI to make decisions on things like who to shortlist for employment, who to flag for closer scrutiny in immigration, what level of aged care someone receives - all major life changing things!

RustyRaven, 3 days ago

I’m pretty sure the full time caregiver role was by design, often the youngest daughter. But the way everything worked was different back then and most people got assigned roles in life rather than being able to choose. Being a caretaker back then would have come with a home and board, which was about all most people could hope for at that time. Sometimes we have a similar idea happening now - one child becomes a caretaker and in turn inherits the family home. But too often now I think we have moved towards the idea that you (or more often that someone else) should care for someone out of “love” alone and have forgotten that does not pay the bills.

I think a lot of people’s negative attitude towards nursing homes is them mis-attributing their own decining abilities to the place they live, in much the same way some people refuse to go to hospital because “people die in hospitals”. Being stuck at home with insufficient support for your needs can be much worse than the institutionalised care of a residential home. Especially in situations where you are expecting other people to juggle full time work with a caring role being in a nursing home can be a much better situation.

There are definitely some people who have good experiences with caring for parents (which will hopefully be my experience!) but that can only happen if it is a free choice, not one forced on someone through guilt or coersion, and not when it leaves the carer with no resources to look after themselves. The “old maids” in the past would have generally gone on to be cared for by someone else in the family, or perhaps entered the church as a nun where they would have been cared for.

RustyRaven, 3 days ago

researchgate.net/…/7396985_The_case_of_the_disapp…

RustyRaven, 3 days ago

I think most people with a healthy relationship will do some things for their parents as they get older. But there is a line where it becomes unreasonable - imagine that your parent’s live in a place you don’t like being in or get benefit from going to (which may be how your brother feels) and you are expected to give up all of your free time to do those things. I’d be pretty resentful of being expected to give up all of my own free time and happiness to be a worker bee for my parents. It sounds like you are currently in a position where you consider the balance between what you are giving and receiving to be fair, which is a positive thing for both you and your parents. But where you have mismatched expectations and priorities (which could be the situation with your brother) it can really tear relationships apart. (I’m not saying this is the actual situation in your family, just projecting a bit and using it as an example!)

For my situation I think caring for my mother will work out well for both of us and should actually be financially beneficial as well. My sister on the other hand is in a completely different situation - she and her husband have been working towards being able to partially (or even fully) retire early and are looking forward to being able to enjoy their free time. Expecting her to give up what she and her husband have been working towards would be way too much, whereas for me giving up a job I’m not enjoying that much these days is a bonus! I’m anticipating my sister being the “fun daughter” that pops in to take mum out to lunch occasionally while I’m the one doing all the hard work and cleaning 🤣 . But that’s a role I am choosing of my own free will, not one that is being forced onto me. If it did not suit me we would work out other solutions.

RustyRaven, 3 days ago

I expected the concreters over the road to lay a fairly standard driveway for the new townhouses, but they have instead set up some quite complicated formwork to create a series of irregular charcoal coloured blocks which I assume will have a lighter coloured infil for the gaps. Should look pretty good. They needed to use a huge amount of timber to set up the formwork though, including a bunch they were happily scavenging from a neighbour’s hard rubbish pile. I guess that makes it a community endeavour.

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

Red.

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

My favourite used to be a deep royal purple, but I’m all in on red these days.

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

Miss Meow is snoring away loudly in her tunnel tonight, so Mr Woof has taken over her bed in the corner. I think he’s decided it’s a good spot to look through the window and keep an eye out for marauding possums in the backyard.

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

Interesting. Is that to do the actual caretaking, or to provide the home & financial support and someone else provide the actual care?

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

I managed to get a rare shot of both my snoozy pets in the same frame!

https://aussie.zone/pictrs/image/57a70662-b750-4287-892c-06596fceabdb.jpeg

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

It seems to be common for people to leave the family home to all the children jointly and just give the carer the right to live there. If that is the case it can often lead to a situation where the other siblings resent paying a share of the costs of a home they can’t get any benefit from and maintenance is neglected. Even if it is inherited in full it can leave the carer unable to fully support themselves if they did not get a chance to establish themselves and save money independently first, again leaving them dependent on the good will of other family members to help them.

Putting people into residential care or paying for home care is hugely expensive, it’s sad that so many people who are carers for family are not valued at even a fraction of what a paid carer would receive and are instead pushed into poverty. We are lucky in Australia that we at least have a carer’s pension available to help (and unemployment benefits if you stop caring), even if it is less than minimum wage. It sounds like some of the people in USA have literally nothing and are completely dependent on the person they are caring for. No matter how horrible a position they are in they can’t stop without becoming homeless.

RustyRaven, 2 days ago

I used to think USA states were similar to Australia’s, but once I learned more I realised it’s a lot closer to Europe and the states are a lot more like separate countries. Different towns and regions within the states also seem to be a lot more distinct and seem to be closer to what our states are.

Minimum wage for carers is a good thing, as is the training. The carer’s pension here is a bit less than minimum wage (although once you add in a few bonuses and extra assistance if you are renting it gets pretty close). I haven’t seen any training even available for elder care (outside of courses for people seeking actual employment).