The video in the article has some good footage too. The “why is there bright light when I am nocturnal?!” face is a mood I felt on a deeply personal level.

For sure, I just get antsy when peer review doesn’t come from from external sources

Hm, 5 year old journal, with the editor board, funding and half of the authors all from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but significant hospital contribution. I remain skeptical of the headline but hopeful of the science.

Which kind? We’ve got bunches. The sulphur crested are the most famous, and they are great but can be vandals

Oh no, i got to see them. This was a decade ago, and I was told even then that there used to be many more. I was happy to see any at all though, I had only ever seen them in movies and they almost seemed mythical. They are pretty magical, it’s very sad to hear they’re almost gone.

Seeing a chipmunk was the same for me. And goddamn are they cute, I had no idea they were so small and precious. Alvin and the chipmunks are monstrosities by comparison.

The bin chickens are my kin, I’m in the small minority here who appreciate them.

And yeah, the flying foxes are a surprise for most foreigners. They’re also pretty big and often fly low at dusk, so they can be slightly startling too, even though they’re just adorable fuzzy harmless nectar drinkers. It’s a pity they screech too, it might be easier to reassure non-locals that they’re not dangerous.

People are also often surprised to see all the other Sydney city wildlife and how much of it there is, especially rainbow lorrikeets. Everyone loves the lorrikeets, but people from the northern hemisphere are especially awestruck when they see them. It’s understandably almost a little surreal to have such brightly colored parrots hanging out in the middle of a city, if you’re someone who comes from a city that is just pigeons and sparrows.

If you want to see a croc, just go walking near the shallow water of the top half of the country’s coast. You won’t see the croc for long, and it will be the last thing you ever see, but it will be up close and very personal.

Seriously though, you don’t go to see salt water crocodiles in the wild or even go near any body of water on the northern coast. If you can see one with the naked eye in the wild, you’re already too close. They’re extremely fast, extremely aggressive, and the males get up to 6m / 20ft long and 1000kg / 2200lb. They are very much a zoo only thing.

I was excited to see squirrels, lightning bugs and a racoon in the US.

When people come to Australia they obviously want to see kangaroos, koalas and platypus and quokka. Koalas are very rare to see in the wild, and a visit to a zoo will score you a sleeping ball on a branch. Kangaroos are frequently roadkill if you go outside the city. Quokka require a long trip to a really remote location. You’ll also almost never see a platypus, even the ones at the zoo you might catch a water ripple at best.

But if you’re headed to Sydney city, guaranteed you’ll spot the almighty and much maligned “bin chicken”, our Australian white ibis. Often not quite white from the bins. At night they serenade you with their collective honking from their tree, which can be easily spotted by the masses of white poop underneath. And you’ll see fruit bats in the evening. Hopefully not the daytime corpses hanging from electrical cables while they slowly rot, but that’s not altogether unlikely either, unfortunately.

If you want your funeral to properly represent you, write your own eulogy.

I don’t know, there’s a lot of drag happening in that picture. Breasts don’t just lift themselves like that, and those heels look painful to walk in.

No royalty, just drag.

Same. This pic has been helpfully living in my memory for probably a decade.

That’s generous, some clergy actively participated.

Miroslav Filipović also known as “Brother Satan” was a military chaplain and Franciscan friar. He was expelled from the Franciscan order during the war for his participation, but it didn’t stop him wearing the robes, which he even wore to his execution. He was the Chief Guard of Jasenovac concentration camp, the third largest in Europe, which killed up to 100k people. It was run by the Ustaše who were very involved with the Franciscans. There were forced conversions too in the camp, even if the local Bishop didn’t approve and actively had participating priests arrested. Even the Nazis thought Jasenovac was too cruel.

The Pope later gave the Ustaše leader protection at the Vatican and helped him to flee to Argentina. He knew. They all knew. The Vatican was even sued in California for it and the looted gold the Ustaše took to the Vatican is probably still there too.

More info on the Catholic Church’s relationship with the Ustaše

Compression springs on the feet plus the anti vibration pads? I’m thinking something like these but with sturdier springs. Or these but possibly less hardcore

Edit: obviously make sure the bed doesn’t rest against the wall too, but he’ll, if you have to, put springs there too!

If I heat pasta salad in the microwave, is it no longer a salad? Is a leftover portion of pasta a salad before it is reheated? I’m not sure temperature is a requirement.

Also I have to question calling two flavours of Jello “different things”, let alone calling 2 flavours of gelatine a salad, but I know Americans are more liberal with the word salad than other places.

Where I am you will rarely see the word salad used in relation to dishes that don’t contain some raw chopped vegetables, especially leafy green ones. Or it’s the dish’s imported original name, like potato salad. Fruit salad is the one exception to that, I think.

Macadamia nuts. Not the roasted ones, not the shelled dry ones you can buy in the store. They are garbage compared to the unshelled ones, even if you do need a special device to open them and they can be very frustrating to eat fresh.

When they’re freshly opened, they’re opaque brighter white, sweet and even a little juicy. It’s a completely different experience from the ones you can buy off the shelf. It’s honestly a shame Australia doesn’t have a bigger market for the fresh ones.

I hear you. The rare occasion I’m in Singapore I will buy a whole bag and devour them all over a few days.

And when I see them where I am (also often golf ball sized), I message all my SEA friends with the location and price so they can descend like a flock of seagulls.

Technically not my area, but mangosteen. Mostly grown in South-East Asia, it’s a sour sweet fruit with the texture and structure like a soft orange, and one big seed per segment. It is seriously delicious.

Medication has opened up a whole new world to me, I wish I had known decades prior. It has also given me a better understanding of my body and the way it works, and very importantly: what I need to watch out for. It also made a bunch of old life experiences make sense for the first time.

ADHD is one of the few neuro conditions they have found reliable and useful medication for, with very few negatives, including my favourite: no withdrawals. I think it’s worth exploring, even if you decide you’re fine the way you are afterwards with no intervention.

Good luck, it is a trip!

I understand completely, and you’re right to question it. The answer is that a lot of these behaviours are pretty normal, and it is very possible to identify with some of the memes even if you don’t have ADHD. It’s when they just keep resonating with you on a really fundamental level, across your entire lifetime, that you should maybe be suspicious. ADHD has a genetic component too, so it might help think about your parents’ behaviours and if they also match.

My psych had me complete this self assessment quiz (ASRS v1.1) before my first appointment for evaluation. It might help you too: https://psychology-tools.com/test/adult-adhd-self-report-scale