Hygiene:

If disposable: I generally rotate a disposable after each long use, let it air out for a couple days and use a different one. Honestly, the headstraps tend to break just from repeated donning and doffing and that prevents overuse. But if the straps don’t break, eventually a disposable respirator may get beat up or kind of visibly gross and then I toss it and use a new one.

If elastomeric: Disassemble and wipe down with a bit of water every few uses or after a long use. It depends. Wash it occasionally. The biggest problem I ran into with my elastomeric was that it traps a lot of water and I forgot to disassemble and dry it after use, let it sit for a few days, and came back to find it was really musty. Disassembled it and washed it but the mildew was growing in the filters so I had to just toss the filters and get a new one.

Other than that there isn’t really a concern. How quickly a respirator will get gross will vary based on your activities while wearing it and how long you wear it. If you’re working a physical job in a respirator all day, you may want a fresh one every day just because you don’t want to be pushing old sweat and body grime onto your face at the seals.

Environmental: I mean, we are just individuals trying not to get fucked up by the plague. Our impact is minimal compared to the environmental devastation that Capitalism and its related imperialist wars drive. I don’t worry about it, except for one thing: When I’m done with a mask I always rip the straps on one end so that if some animal encounters it in a landfill or the wind picks it up, they don’t get tangled in the straps. A thing I read about back in 2020.

Those are part of Hexbear’s wholesomeness! Care-Comrade

Biggest reason I abandoned all other lemmy accounts was that most were federated with .world and if I wanted that level of neoliberal fascist bootlicking I’d go on 's politics subreddits.

2nd biggest reason is that Hexbear is the most wholesome and supportive community.

I just want to let you know I am enjoying your series of bear posts <3

My personal experience with exercising in a respirator is that it is perfectly manageable and not a safety issue, but I also have not had Covid that I know of, have an athletic background, and was pretty well-trained up til about 6 months ago which means I’ve had a lot more leeway. Your experience may vary.

There are some N95 respirators (Gerson pouch respirators) that are specifically designed to have very low breathing resistance, comparable to a surgical mask, while providing real filtration. I think it’s due in part to the large volume. You could get a sample pack and try doing some heavy exercises (bike strenuously, do some sprints, lift some weights) with and without it on and with and without your preferred mask to see.

I think I can answer more questions if you provide more information about the mask type.

Is it disposable or elastomeric? What filtration type? N95, N99, KN95, KN100? How well does it fit? Do you find it getting humid or difficult to breathe in after a while? Does it have an exhalation valve?

In terms of the physics of what’s happening in a mask go, masks do not really store CO2 or limit the flow of air, because the pore sizes are humongous compared to the size of these molecules. However, they do trap water vapor and the humidity can impact your lung’s gas exchange efficacy. When I use my elastomeric mask for long periods, I have to periodically go outside, take it off, and shake condensed water droplets out. This buildup of humidity can be mitigated by getting a mask with an exhalation valve – while that doesn’t protect others and so was frowned upon earlier in the pandemic, at this point since most people aren’t wearing a mask it doesn’t matter as much.

thank you o7

Is there a problem with blorp? I got this error trying to connect:

Did Not Connect: Potential Security Issue

Firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to blorp.zapto.org because this website requires a secure connection.

What can you do about it?

blorp.zapto.org has a security policy called HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), which means that Firefox can only connect to it securely. You can’t add an exception to visit this site.

The issue is most likely with the website, and there is nothing you can do to resolve it. You can notify the website’s administrator about the problem.

Learn more…

Websites prove their identity via certificates. Firefox does not trust this site because it uses a certificate that is not valid for blorp.zapto.org:8443. The certificate is only valid for blorp.bot.nu.

Error code: SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN

View Certificate

Just got back from a date and it confirmed for me that I cannot date. Certainly not now, maybe not ever again. I’m absolutely emotionally unavailable. I just want to be back with my ex. It’s too bad, this person was cute and really into me, we agreed to a 2nd date already because I hadn’t processed some of the feelings yet but it all came up on my way home. Going to have to figure out how to let them down kindly, promptly.

I guess almost half a year isn’t enough time to get over such a long term relationship with a longer term friend. I want to just give up on everything.

Lovecraft had some big-brained 600 IQ views on race I will never understand.

And I semi-ironically love him for that. I love reading Lovecraft not because his stories are scary — they aren’t — but because it’s hilarious to read them knowing they come from the perspective of a white guy who is grappling with anxiety that the White Race may not in fact be the masters of all creation. Reading them from that perspective makes a lot of it funny. Like oh, what’s so horrible is that he realized he’s not at the top of the world. Normal people already know that.

Approximate time for Faust?

ukkk just because I almost never see a good take from feddit.uk users anyway. The good ones can or should just join Hexbear anyway, or Lemmygrad if they want more federation

I’ve been using the em dash a lot — decades! — due to influence from reading a lot of classics from the 1800s when I was a child, and I do it with the spaces around it for visibility, readability, and clarity. The spaces don’t give anything away.

Just very short sessions but in that case I decide the game just isn’t worth it. The very act of getting motion sick from it makes me not want to play a game.

I could probably try zofran or some other anti motion sickness medication, but I don’t want yo have to take medicine just to play a videogame

Hades: extremely queer.

Damn. Why can’t I ever lathe something good?

Blue Prince is cool but spooky and made me motion sick.

I still haven’t gotten around to playing the original Oblivion so idk why I would bother with a remake. I have not generally found remakes or remasters to be worth it at all because part of the charm of the games is their art style and jankiness, historical snapshot in the time of a game remake. Thank fuck Remedy never decided to make a Max Payne (yes I know ACAB but I have a weakness for noir, it’s so good) remake because the janky graphics are part of it.

I tried the Spyro remake and preferred the original – they butchered the art style. These older games made good use of the fuzziness and lower resolution to evoke a sense of grandeur and opportunity. Adding too much detail and resolution actually robs from them. I worry about that with Oblivion. I think Demons Souls is the only good remaster I’ve seen and part of that is just that it made such big quality of life improvements to inventory management.

I have 0 interest in The Doors but Val Kilmer was fantastic in Top Secret – should I watch it for him or is this going to be absolutely nothing like that performance?

Could the baguettes be phallic imagery?

On the one hand this is bad, on the other hand the saber rattling over Kashmir is a time-honored. tradition at this point. war is off the table.