If the heat is running, we’re playing a dangerous game.

“Flip him over, that’s how Hendrix died.”

Removing all distractions, which takes a bit of work. Covering every single source of light. Little indicator on my charger? Slapped electrical tape on it. Blackout curtains. Noise machine. The hardest one: Never using the bedroom for anything but sleeping. Not even a little peek at the phone and YouTube for a relaxing video. I have an analogue non-illuminated clock for daytime, and if I need to check the time in the dark, a Timex I can hit the glow button on. If I really can’t sleep, I get up and go into another room to read or listen to something.

It’s an older copypasta sir, but it checks out.

And that standby battery life? Sorcery.

It’d be a big spend, but you can get some Hue dimmable A19s with a bridge for your home and set them to whatever color temp you need. It’s not accurate to specific temps (I can’t ask it for 4000k) but with a little tinkering in the spectrums and sliders you could get it close.

You can also just take a trip to the Waffle House off I-95 in Florence, SC. It allowed smoking when I was there in 2014 and probably still does.

I love a clinical trial. Sign me the eff up. That being said, as you mention, there are some issues with the speed of trials. And in particular, the demographic spread that volunteers for clinical trials in the US is a problem because it’s typically a monolith: white women, college educated, generally healthy, ages 18-35 IIRC. Proportional representation is hard to find, and distrust in public health is (for good historical reasons) low in minority populations. Pulling in a wider swath of people isn’t possible, and researchers are missing massive chunks of data from which trust could be built.

A real tour de force of systems theory.

It’s kind of a joke, but ask about how they arrange their sock drawer.

Yeah, about that: I have a horror story.

Tl;dr Apple Store repair techs are crap, right to repair all the way.

I had an iPhone XS that was behaving weird. It was about 84% on the battery scale, which we all know is bullshit. I did all the usual stuff you can do before bringing it in (soft reset, hard reset, various settings, deleting apps, wiping and starting over, etc.). I was hoping their diagnostics would say something but would just as well get a new battery for a fee. They said it was perfectly fine, so they took it back to do a regular non-warranty swap. They said maybe an hour.

One hour later, “come back in 15 minutes.”

30 minutes later, “we’re still working on it.”

30 minutes later still, someone comes out and tells me that while they did replace the battery, they broke two screens trying to get it back on, and for liability reasons, couldn’t try again. They’d send me a refurbished phone. But they needed my fucking phone number so Apple support could call and set it up. This was said dead-faced, broken phone still in the employee’s hand.

They also needed a $1,000 hold on my card for a then-6 year old refurbished phone to be shipped to guarantee a return, and it would be 2-3 days.

Don’t get it done at the Apple Store unless you can afford the risk. Go support your local repair person who isn’t a fucking klutz.

It’s nothing. David Foster Wallace wrote in his novel taking place in the IRS: “Abstruse dullness is actually a much more effective shield than is secrecy. For the great disadvantage of secrecy is that it’s interesting.”

Second Vinegar. It’s an awesome little add-on.

In the southeastern US, we have plenty of fatback in stores, among other odds and ends. The employees laughed when I had to ask what it was.

Set it on “waterproofs” for some Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend level nasty

Greenville, NC in a Walgreens, around 2013. A man who looked like, or could well have been Gary Busey, in a leather jacket, in a pile of talcum powder on the floor, was picking up handfuls of powder and snorting them.

Steal his look at a reasonable price!

Thoughts and prayers are considered “out of network” on this one my dude

100% on the not forcing yourself on anything in a PhD. I was ABD and my heart wasn’t in it anymore. The whole thing was a disaster, committee was unreachable, department was no help, and by the time I was done, I hated myself for ever doing it. It was an exercise in completion. Absolutely be open to saying “this isn’t fun anymore.” There is zero problem with just getting a masters — in fact, I think you get the most value out of one because it’s a concentrated experience on what you want to do. There’s a stigma on “mastering out” but that’s crap. Know your limits and stop while you still love what you’re doing. I wish you the best in returning to school!