#ive been using it for a literal decade with exactly zero issues

[foxpunk]

back on my anti-chromium bullshit (<- never stopped) love yourself and use firefox

[tigerdrop]

hey i just wanna say the long posts genuinely make my day. also can you talk more about gordon freeman character because the way you write him makes me quake in my gay little boots

i would love to talk about gordon freeman. thank u for the opportunity

the first thing i need to communicate about gordon is that this dude sucks. and i say this in the fondest way possible. he is a bitch from the moment he drops into the world until the moment he goes out. if you dont believe me, give it another watch! gordons mouthy and rude for no real reason, at least so far as “being a regular dude on his way into work” goes, and this dude goes around calling his coworkers names with zero provocation. (of course, we all know that the reason is because its a funny guy improv stream that borrows a bit from freemans mind, but im talkin from a character sense.)

but my argument isnt just that gordon freeman sucks. its that he sucks in a very specific way that i find insanely endearing. i love this dude. i love to hate him. hes awful in a very mundane sense - weve all known a guy like this, at least if youve spent too much time online - and its cathartic to watch him suffer because of it.

gordons a smart guy. as written, hes gotta be - hes a recent MIT grad, on his way to work at a top-secret research facility to do weird shit with crystals and theoretical physics. but the thing about smart guys is that theyre often......selectively intelligent. we can see this in the way that he has a hard time navigating his surroundings, and needs the science crew to guide him through it and keep him alive.

this is one of those things that is a natural consequence of somebody going through the game for the first time, but that i am interpreting as “gordon is kind of stupid sometimes”. its uncharitable but its not like he doesnt deserve it. he likes to boss around the crew as if he knows what hes doing, when he often very much does not, and is fond of demeaning their intelligence. hes real bad about this with tommy in particular, treating him like hes a kid whos playing at being a scientist when tommy is actually a decade older than him. all i am saying is that gordon ought to stay humble. hes awful cocky when he perceives himself as better than others.

which, i think, tracks with how cocky he gets when he gives up on the whole “well-meaning citizen” thing and just unloads bullets into people. he puts up a front of being a Nice Guy, you know, just some dude caught in a bad situation who doesnt like seeing his companions obliterate every NPC they come across, but that doesnt stop him from cackling like a fucking madman and mowing down aliens (and soldiers) every once in awhile. when he stops seeing himself as helpless and starts seeing himself as the one in control, the gloves come off. he gets mean. and i think thats very sexy of him

this, among other things, is why i am insistent that gordon freeman is a control freak. he desperately wants to be in control of the situation at all times, shepherding around the science crew primarily by bitching at them, but its of limited success. its futile. sisyphean. tommy, coomer, bubby, and benrey exist almost to torment him with exactly the thing that would make him suffer the most: a gaggle of people running around causing problems for him, but he cant go anywhere without them b/c hes reliant on them to make it out alive.

its perpetual suffering, and its cathartic to watch. and funny, too. and if youre a little weirdo like me, its very, very enjoyable. how twisted up he gets when nobodys listening to him! how sweaty and frazzled he must look. its cute, and it also makes me want to reach through the screen and shake him and tell him to just be a little nicer. he wants control but he doesnt know how to attain it, he doesnt know how to play nice like a real leader. i think its a neat contrast to gordon freeman as we know him in HL2, where he literally is the leader of the resistance and has to live up to it. this is gordon freeman but if he was moe through helplessness.

“helpless” is, i think, a great way to describe him. a core bit of imagery in half life is this sense of railroadedness and helplessness, with gordon freeman being put into play like a chess piece and having no choice but to move forward. and this iteration of gordon leans into that by being totally dependent on the science crew in order to make progress and Not Die. and hes also subject to the whims of benrey, local eldritch weirdo who has basically made it his life mission to fuck with gordon.

gordons anxieties dont help with that. if he wasnt so fun to stress out and fuck with, the science crew probably wouldnt do it so much! too bad for him that they like fucking with him so much that he was driven into a panic attack (multiple times, even, depending on your interpretation). hes got that real neurotic mindset. always worrying about shit that could go wrong, and attempting to exert control over his surroundings in an effort to control the anxiety.

IMO the real way to nail the Neurotic Gordon Freeman Experience is to combine the ever-present anxiety with his pervasive sense of self-loathing. he openly states that he has no friends and nobody seems to like him, and to that, i really gotta say, i wonder why. he doesnt really seem to factor in that hes kind of a bitch, and has way too high an estimation of his own intelligence relative to everybody elses. its really one of the worst ways to be: aware that people dont like you, but unaware of exactly why. if he was like, 10% nicer, he probably wouldnt have had half as many issues getting through black mesa, but also, its funny to see him squawking his way through the game. so, you know.

its stuff like that that makes me headcanon him as a dude with low self-esteem in general. convinced that hes not likable, not attractive, out of his element......impostor syndrome, except that theres some truth to it. this is a guy who truly does not realize how good he has it: he really is just an average shitty dude, and yet, somehow, benrey took a shine to him. some poor motherfucker out there actually likes him and wants to suck his dick. thats dedication

also, i keep bringing up “repression” when i talk about gordon. and hopefully, what ive been talking about helps explain why. he has a strong desire to be a regular dude, not just murdering his way through black mesa, but if hes pushed hard enough he leans into it. gets bossy. picks up a cigar off a dead soldier and takes a long drag, before smacking forzen around with a pistol and ordering him around. gordon freeman is a regular, kind of anxious guy who likes competitive swimming and streaming on justin.tv and making anime references, and he is also a guy who takes a filthy pleasure in making a trained soldier his bitch. and i didnt make up any of this shit - this is purestrain canon, baby. this is a guy with problems

to me, this screams the kind of guy who represses a lot of shit b/c he doesnt feel like its morally decent. you run into this guy a lot online: the wokeboy, the online leftist, the guy who spends too much time on social media websites. (like reddit. i think he would actively use reddit and he would never get any appreciable amount of karma but he never stops posting. its sisyphean! cathartic.) from the way he talks about “bootboys”, i think it tracks. he knows about imperialism, he knows about feminism, but at the end of the day hes your average american white dude who struggles with internalizing it.

a lot of those dudes struggle with sex and gender issues. (dont we all.) when youre trying to be a Good Person(tm), you spend a lot of time thinking about your own relationship to sex and kink and all that shit. and i maintain that a too-online dude who buries a lot of his control freak tendencies would also try to bury a lot of weird sexual shit in an attempt to seem Normal and Well-Adjusted and not like a little freak. i justify this by the sheer number of times gordon blurts out weird sex shit as a joke. there are only two outcomes to making that many piss jokes: either youre secretly a piss guy, or you lathe-of-heaven yourself into becoming one. i will stand by this

ive talked a lot about why this dude sucks. now, let me talk to you about what makes gordon so much fun to write. first things first: hes funny! a subjective evaluation, yeah, but both in- and out-of-character, hes aiming to be funny. and being the straight man to everybody else plays into that whole “helplessness” thing.

secondly: underneath it all, there is a good dude under there. gordon worries when his companions get hurt, he tries to clean them off and patch them up, and hes got his lil leftist heart in the right place. you could even read a lot of his bossy, bitchy demeanor as him wanting to make sure everyone gets out okay and doesnt hurt themselves. when it comes to animals and anti-imperialist sentiment, gordons a pretty good guy.

hes the kind of guy who would probably see a dog on the street and get excited and play with it, but would get really prickly about the correct way to put dishes in the dishwasher. control freak tendencies.

finally, subjecting such a miserable, tormented guy to even more psychological anguish is really, really fun. you feel a little bad for him, but he kind of deserves it. so many problems he goes through are purely of his own making, and if gordon would just relax and quit trying to hard to maintain control - of himself, of the people around him - and own up to having Problems and Issues, he would be a happier guy. but thats why its fun to bend him until he breaks. being a little control freak myself, putting gordon freeman thru psychosexual torment is cathartic.

when it comes to writing his thought processes, the fact that he is canonically some kind of psychotic (yes, i am boldly claiming this. suck me) and i am also canonically some kind of psychotic makes it easier to write what i think his thought processes are. i just give him my brain issues of “getting lost in thought” and “overthinking fucking everything”. a touch of paranoia helps. even if i dont explicitly label him as schizophrenic please know that i am writing him as a paranoid little nutcase at all times because, uh, you write what you know.

paranoid. anxious. of the mindset that everyones out to get him (which isnt helpful when everyone is out to get him). repressed and deeply Not Normal but trying so very fucking hard to be normal and well-adjusted. a control freak with sadistic tendencies who also really, really likes getting bullied by his best frenemy. a hapless little nerd who sounds really cute when his voice starts to break from nerves. and, most importantly, a dumb jock. do not ever forget this.

thats gordon freeman, babey. hope that helps

[visualimpactfitnessco]

Dry Fasting for Fat Loss: Burn Fat 3X Faster than Water Fasting

A lot of people have tried typical intermittent fasting but have never tried a “dry fast”.

A dry fast is fasting without even allowing water of liquids.

Literally, eating or drinking nothing during your fasting period.

This video explains why dry fasting can burn fat up to 3 times faster than water fasting.

I prefer fasting with water, tea, and coffee.

Here’s a detailed post about my experiences and tips over almost two decades of using intermittent fasting.

18 Years of Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss

That being said, I haven’t actually attempted a water fast. I was curious so I looked into it in more detail and here’s what I’ve found.

What is Dry Fasting?

Dry fasting is a true fast with a zero intake of food or liquids. You don’t drink water during a dry a fast. In fact, an “absolute” dry fast doesn’t even allow showering.

I think that not showering or brushing your teeth is a bit extreme.

A “soft dry fast” allows for showering and brushing your teeth with water.

There has been no proven additional benefit of skipping a shower (unless you enjoy smelling funky).

And…

I can’t even fall asleep if I don’t brush my teeth, so that is a no go.

I’m talking about a prolonged dry fast here.

If I was doing a short daily intermittent dry fast where I was allowed to shower at night and brush my teeth I would be fine.

I’ll explain the difference between the two different soft dry fasting methods: prolonged dry fasting and intermittent dry fasting.

What is Intermittent Dry Fasting?

Intermittent dry fasting is done by only eating and drinking water during a specific window of time each day and fasting for the rest of the day. Food and water is typically allowed for a few hours at night.

This is how the Muslim religion fasts during Ramadan.

They eat a meal in the morning then no food or water during the day, then resume eating food and drinking water with a late-night dinner.

Going without food for 16 hours is pretty easy.

I’ve done intermittent fasting for years and it is surprisingly easy to go without food once you adapt to it.

I haven’t gone without water.

I imagine dry fasting could cause some dehydration during intense exercise or simply being in a hot climate.

…but since you are only going without water for around 16 hours, it probably isn’t a huge issue.

What if you extend that time without water longer?

This is what happens with prolonged dry fasting.

What is Prolonged Dry Fasting?

Prolonged dry fast is when you go without food or water for 24 hours or longer. It is possible to go without water since the body can produce its own water internally by transmuting fats.

This body accelerates the burning of fat in order to get water. This is one of the reasons dry fasting can burn more fat than intermittent fasting.

Here’s how the body makes water internally during a dry fast.

The body enters a state of ketosis

Body fat is broken down

Free hydrogen molecules are released

The hydrogen binds with oxygen molecules in the blood causing water to be formed internally.

I have to be honest the prolonged dry fast seems a little extreme.

Typically the longest people go is 3 days, but that is a long time to go without water.

Dry Fasting Dangers.

About 60% of the body is water. You can go weeks without food, but going without water for 3 days or more can be deadly. Short dry fasts like Ramadan are safe, but prolonged dry fasts are quite risky.

I don’t think the discomfort and risk of prolonged dry fasts are worth the results.

I do NOT recommend prolonged dry fasts.

Yes…

You can lose fat at a faster rate, but why not just take a slightly slower but safer and less miserable approach to fasting.

Either a water fast or intermittent dry fast.

You still can get tremendous weight loss benefits from a short water fast.

Being hydrated will allow you to workout and sweat, etc.

I would be paranoid to train when dehydrated.

That being said, I do want to give a balanced view.

Dry Fasting Results: Before and After

This is a dry fasting before and after video of a woman doing a 5-day dry fast.

This was the best one I found because you see her visible weight loss progress day-to-day.

She is even doing the hard dry fast version (no showering).

I sweat quite a bit when working out, so there is no way I would attempt this.

Again…

Intermittent Ramadan-style dry fasts are a safer way to go.

Also…

If you struggle to go without food for more than 4+ hours, I have another diet hack you may want to try instead.

A 3-5 day ALL-Potato diet called The Potato Hack.

I’ve written a blog post on exactly how to do this…

The Potato Hack for Rapid Fat Loss

I have had friends who have lost 15+ pounds in 5 days with this little diet tweak.

Works well.

My blog post recently went viral after Kevin Smith from the movie Clerks lost 48 pounds with an all potato diet.

So if fasting isn’t your thing?

Give this a try.

The post Dry Fasting for Fat Loss: Burn Fat 3X Faster than Water Fasting appeared first on Visual Impact Fitness.

source https://visualimpactfitness.com/dry-fasting-burn-fat-3-times-faster/