I found myself a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four printed by Harcourt, Brace and Company for $20. It didn’t have its dust jacket, but everything else about the book seemed quite fine. There isn’t really much on the inside indicating specifics, but everything I found about it online would suggest that it’s the first US hardcover edition from 1949. It has to be the oldest book in my collection so far and my favorite from a publishing standpoint.

That’s the wild thing—I’ve tried all sorts of ways and it reads like a viable meme whichever way I read it.

I finally have my accommodations settled with the university and I started really using them. Joined a disability rights club and I started helping out a couple friends with their Discord servers. It feels like I have things properly tuned in to my pace for the first time in a while, and it feels like I’m seeing that pay off.

Also it’s been a hot minute since I’ve been on. Glad to see things are holding up and glad to be coming back 👍.

Almost makes me think that we have a fighting chance to make tags on Lemmy work. Part of me would want to see tags get some unique formatting like post flairs, but even just inline tags would be a leg-up.

Or maybe both in-line and post tags. Neat stuff to daydream 🤔.

That’s wild to imagine! Any recollection of how high up those ceilings might have been? The gyms I remember in the US had ceilings that were something like 2 or 3 stories high, if I had to guess. That strikes me as quite the height to jump for a fitness test. Just for the height factor alone I can’t picture myself having the guts back then to do it. Dunno if I’d even have 'em now 😨.

No, not really. Graduated from high school in California in 2017. Both my middle and high school, however, had the equipment and stations on hand. It feels relevant to mention we also had what looked like climbing pegboard stations: boards on a wall that’d go something like 6 – 10 ft., 1.8 – 3m high that someone would climb with pegs. We didn’t use those, either.

There might’ve been one or a few times that my freshman PE teacher had us climb or swing on a rope as part of a circuit? He had the good graces, at least, to give the rope foot and hand knots to work with. That was definitely an exception, however, and wasn’t part of anything mandated by the district nor the state. Pretty wild, though. I kinda wish my schools did more to push that. I sure wasn’t the athletic type, but my arm strength could’ve benefitted from it.

What do you mean by that? 🤔

My take on it is that English doesn’t have enough variety in gendered words, whether that means binary, non-binary, or neutral options. In which case…yeah, come to mention it, you might be onto a perspective I didn’t think of.

People ought to be have range in how they express themselves, and I’d suppose there isn’t enough. I had been in favor of increasing the range and popularity of neutral and non-binary terms for a while now. I still am, but I don’t think that has to be mutually exclusive with increasing the range of gendered options, either. Perhaps part of resolving gendering issues in language isn’t just providing more neutral options, but more gendered options. If someone wishes to identify with masculine or feminine labeling, I think they ought to be able to.

Or maybe another lens to this is that there are “gender neutral” terms that, through context and history, have come to carry a sort of implicit gendering to them. I’m not sure if that’s a challenge in linguistics or a challenge in how some people may think.

All an interesting way to frame this kind of thing that I hadn’t considered before. If you have your own details to this you’d like to mention, I’m sure it’d be insightful to read. My language experience outside of English only extends to Spanish and some beginning bits of Dutch, and I’m in dire need of brushing up on both 🫠.

Bikes! I’m thinking about getting a new bike in the next several months, and a step-through bike seems to have some features in practicality that I value compared to a step-over bike. Not Just Bikes, ironically, has a pretty good video talking about Dutch step-through bikes that introduced me to the concept and advantages of a step-through. It might be on topic to mention that Not Just Bikes gives mention to one of the Dutch names for this kind of bike: “omafiets”, or Grandma Bicycle.

I’d suppose it’s getting better, but I still encounter a fair chunk of people who see a step-over bike as a men’s bike and a step-through as a women’s bike. And I’ll think C’mon, that’s a fair chunk of potential storage space you could have over the rear wheel if you put a rack on top. I’ve tried making it work before with my step-over bike, but in my experience, that space becomes much less meaningful when you have to swing a leg over and end up knocking your shin on something as you get on.

I’d love to see bikes just sold by their step type more often. Give all of them a wide color palette, keep the labeling at Step-Over or Step-Through, and let people ride what they wanna ride. I’m making progress with changing minds, but it’s taking a fair chunk of time to reach Pops at least, bless his heart 😒.

Not Just Bikes gave an iconic point: step-over/men’s bikes are the only kind you can hit your nuts on.

Edit: Proofreading: “one of the names,” not the name.

Yes 😉.

I’d say “whichever one has the more chunky/varied texture,” which I’m pretty sure puts me in the Jam Camp, but my local groceries never seem to be consistent with whether that should be called a jelly or a jam. I’ll take whatever’s put in front of me, but I personally enjoy having some texture variety in there with the seeds and fruit bits.

Except for marmalades. I definitely enjoy an orange marmalade on toast, but something about the idea of rinds feels icky in my PB sandwiches 😖.

'Used to smoke weed on something like a weekly to monthly basis to help unwind. I stopped after I got on an Adderall prescription to help tend to my ADHD.

Adderall has some pretty restrictive control measures in the US, and weed still has some more substantial restrictions federally. My medical provider says they might test me for weed and other drug usage randomly, and that if I’m caught with something federally inexcusable in my system, I’ll be booted from my prescription.

Is it something I could finesse my way around so I could keep up with my weed unwinding days? Probably. It definitely helps to live in a weed legal state, and if I end up dropping my Adderall for something less controlled, I could see myself getting back into weed. But my work and education have benefited from my prescription though, and even if the risk could be made slim, I’m personally not that comfortable with putting that on the line.

Besides, there’s other vices they don’t test for that fit in just fine 🥴.