RickRussell_CA

As more and more of our physical world looks the same

The Tyranny of the Algorithm: Why Every Coffee Shop Looks the Same

patientgamers checking in

Wait… they’re just giving it away?

Something something Stallman was right (about this specific thing, anyway).

Those are versions of the characters from the 1978 Ralph Bakshi animated version of The Lord of the Rings.

The article’s summary paragraph at the top attributes a statement to DeSantis that he didn’t make.

Gov. Ron DeSantis says people aren’t living as long as they used to, so that should help protect them from losing Social Security and Medicare protections when they get old.

That paraphrasing is deceptive, IMO. In the text of his remarks, it’s clear that he’s drawing an actuarial conclusion that lower lifespans eliminate the need to raise Social Security and Medicare benefit ages. What he actually said:

So, I think it’s hard to say, you know, raise the age (for Social Security eligibility) when the average life expectancy is going down. We used to think that life expectancy was just going to keep going up and that’s just not been the case.

DeSantis says plenty of crazy shit, we don’t need to invent stupid things and pretend that he said them.

Please roll D100 on the Hurl Chunks subtable.

Hyping up your nation’s commercial achievements is one of the more common diplomatic functions.

I have a college friend who worked for the British consulate in San Francisco as a sort of “startup consultant” in Silicon Valley, promotion British startups, British products, and trying to find jobs for British academics.

It might be possible to live off fruit, but in the end, “food restriction resulting in significantly low body weight” is the definition of anorexia.

I don’t claim to know if she put her health in a compromised state or not, but look at recent pictures.

I still think old shitty statues and stuff should be put in a museum or something

I don’t think anyone has a problem with that. But, that’s usually not what the regressive types are complaining about.

To use the US example, the overwhelming number of “Confederate Monuments” were erected many decades after the Civil War, and typically funded by white supremacist groups or their close allies in city and state government. They were installed in public parks, on public easements, in front of public buildings, etc. Notably, they are typically not on graves, old battlefields, etc.

Folks quite reasonably think we should remove monuments that were put up as a big “F U” to remind black folks who is really in charge. These statues are certainly shitty, but they also are not “old”. They’re much younger than the people/conflicts they memorialize, and have no historical significance (except to the white supremacists who put them there).

Of course it’s not just the US. I remember in the wake of the collapse of the Iron Curtain, communist sympathizers complained at the removal of Soviet monuments. I remember college professors complaining at the renaming of Leningrad back to St. Petersburg, calling it a “dangerous right-wing move” and an erasure of Lenin’s history and legacy.

I don’t know if you mean Apple IIs, or the scene in the movie.

If you want to learn how computers work, the Apple II was, and arguably still is, a great platform. 8-bit programming is still fairly comprehensible to the novice, and the MIPS assembly language that is used in academic textbooks draws a direct lineage from the Motorola 6502 instruction set.

I learned basic 6502 programming on my Commodore 64 in the 80s, and I was shocked when I took a computer engineering course in 2010 that used MIPS assembly for the examples. It wasn’t just easy to understand, it was the same in virtually every respect. I had no problem at all following the code.

Really look at that computer. The OP is in his fifties.

Apple II and its variants were used in schools well into the 90s. It was still selling pretty well even then. There’s a great scene about it in the Fassbender Steve Jobs biopic.

I have back problems, high cholesterol, high blood pressure

As someone who waited way, way, way too long too lose weight, let me recommend that you review your situation with a doctor.

I’ve lost significant weight in my 50s and it’s completely turned my health around. Cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, almost every indicator was dangerously of whack. I was on a boatload of medications, it was doing jack squat.

Now I get tested and everything is where it’s supposed to be. I’m down to small maintenance doses for blood pressure and triglycerides, and I’m off the diabetes medical entirely.

I don’t know if weight it a problem for you, but if it is: you can get it under control.

They’ve been in Early Access for 3 years. They need to stop cutting bait and start fishing.

To their credit, they say “ultra-processed” to capture this distinction.

With respect, I think you’re ignoring the facts. How it’s prepared absolutely makes a difference in how it tastes, how easy it is to eat, etc. and there is a resulting effect on how much people eat.

Freshly grilled chicken and frozen chicken patties are both chicken. But the chicken patty is ground, pre-seasoned, pre-cooked, etc. This makes it easier to get ready and easier to eat than a fresh chicken breast.

The poison is in the dose, as they say. 500 calorie surplus every day is a pound a week of weight gain.

And as dieticians have shown us over and over again, you can eat shitty food and be healthy, you just have to eat an appropriate amount of it. There are diets based on cookies and snack cakes, if you eat at your maintenance and cover a few basics with supplements, you can easily thrive on them.

I almost became a meteorologist! 2 years of grad school, but decided to quit before I became the bitterest person on Earth.

That’s why you start with so-called “small talk”. It’s rare that anybody really cares to talk about the weather, or notable local news, or the performance of the regional sports teams. But these subjects are safe. They give your conversation partners an opportunity to give an opinion and hint at their real interests (their families, their hobbies, etc) without broaching subjects that others might find exceptionally unpleasant or offensive.

So, don’t “jump from one topic to another that has nothing to do with the previous”. Give your conversation partners opportunities to change the subject, in a way that feels natural.

Yeah, that previous explanation makes no sense – the YT guy who recorded his entire session was deleting the same stuff over and over again.