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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • I’ve been on 70mg of Vyvanse (Elvanse) for a few years. It’s just enough to get me through a 10 hour work day. Everyone’s bodies react differently.

    You’ll get used to the medication, so a given dose will feel like it’s doing less over time. If I don’t take my meds for a few days, my pulse will be elevated when I start taking them again. After a few days of that, it’s about 10 BPM higher than my non-medicated heart rate. I’ve found the first day of a new stimulate medication to be not at all representative of what long term use is like. After being on a few stimulant medications for a while, it eventually feels like I’m my normal self, just more focused.

    Do not split the pills over food without talking to a pharmacist first. With stuff like Adderall XR, splitting the capsule can make the meds instant release. I’m not sure if Vyvanse is the same way or not. Either way, don’t rely on an idiot on the Internet (me). Ask a professional.

    Personally, I’ve found Adderall XR to work decently well for 6 to 8 hours. That’s not enough for me, but it might be for you. A smaller dose of Elvanse is also a good idea. Personally, I’d go with changing dosage before changing meds. If the smaller dose is still not going well, try a different med. I tend to give myself a couple of weeks on the med before I think about changing it unless I have an extreme reaction. I only did one day of Ritalin because it made me extremely aggressive, for example.

    Good luck.









  • According to the state salary database, there are about 3 dozen UW employees who make more than $500,000 a year in 2022 (the most recent year published). A few are administrative staff, many are coaches for sports (which is very dumb), and a few are professors.

    Their total salaries sum to $32 million, which is a lot. But when you divide that across the total number of students, it comes out to about $580 per student per year. So even if you stopped paying these people, tuition would only go down about 5%.

    That’s assuming that these staff members don’t bring any value, which is not a good assumption. Many of these highly paid people would be highly compensated in this private sector–for example the manager of UW’s investments makes $1 million per year–so rightly or wrongly, the university must pay very high to retain them.

    As I said before, the university has received $400 million less from the state (adjusted for inflation) today than it did in the 1980s. The expense of highly paid staff is a drop in the bucket compared to the drop in state funding.


  • The last outbreak was not contained. Prior to 2022, there was no sustained transmission outside of central Africa. The 2022 outbreak saw significant transmission all over the world. There were 30,000 confirmed cases and 42 deaths in the US alone.

    Just because something isn’t extremely contagious right now doesn’t mean it can’t become a pandemic. A virus can will mutate, it can go unnoticed, etc. As it stands, mpox can be transmitted by respiratory droplets.

    Smallpox was a related virus. It too was transmissible through close contact with other people. It killed 300 million people in the 20th century. While vaccination is likely going to prevent mpox from becoming anywhere close to that deadly, I’d rather not play with fire. Don’t ignore a nasty virus.


  • In 1986, my mom paid $386 ($1,106 in 2024) in tuition for a quarter at the University of Washington. In 2015, I paid around $3,700 ($4902 in 2024) for a quarter at UW.

    In 1986, UW got $440 million dollars from the state. That’s $1.2 billion in 2024. In 2015, UW got $644 million from the state. That’s $0.8 billion today.

    It’s hard to find enrollment data for some reason, but there were less than 30,000 students at UW in the late 80s. In 2015, that figure was closer to 55,000.

    Using inflation adjusted figures, the state was contributing $41,000 per student in 1986 compared to $14,500 in 2015. Adding in yearly tuition, the total cost was $44,700 in 1986. In 2015, that’s $29,300 per student.

    Importantly, this analysis leaves out private contributions to the university’s budget which makes up a large portion of its funds. However, those funds are usually restricted in how they can be spent.

    Most of the buildings on UW’s campus were built in the 50s or 60s. There were some that were from the 20s and 30s or older. Forget cosmetics, most of those need renovations just to remain usable. There were thousands of good, usable computers in the libraries that were always in use. Keeping that fleet running is an expense that just wasn’t around 30+ years ago. Labs equipment has gotten better and more expensive. I used a $100,000 high speed camera when I was in school. My mom sure didn’t have access to that.

    Based on my quick, back of the envelope math, education has not gotten 3 to 4 times more expensive, but the state has been contributing less and less money to fund it.


  • Second, the only reason for the massive amounts of student debt is due to universities massively inflating the cost of an education to milk the government of their federal student loans.

    I can’t speak for everywhere, but that’s not true for my alma mater. Tuition has been rising because of a lack of state funding. 20 years ago, state funds made up 2/3 of the University budget. Now it’s 1/3. The difference has to come from somewhere.

    Go to an in-state school. Prices are lower. Go to a community college to take your desired program’s prerequisites and transfer to a state university. Or just finish up a degree at a community college.