Thank you for saying this, that’s the point in time we were at. My parents had rented a dumpster, and that final cleaning was the last day before they had to return it, and two days before the new homeowners were set to move in.

Meanwhile, at the same time, I had just moved into a tiny little studio apartment. I have almost no storage/furniture, and no money to buy any. Most of my things are still in boxes because I have nowhere else to keep them. Boxes still fill my car now (months later), to the point that my 4-seater can’t hold a single passenger. I can’t overstate just how little space I have.

Point is, I had to cut down to only the necessities. Holding onto the book set would’ve just been more clutter taking up space that I need for more important things. Which reminds me, I have to dig out the boxes that have my summer clothes and do the switcharoo with my winter clothes (which I currently store in a luggage bag. I don’t even have a dresser!)

Oh, I know. I used to work in a nursing home. Dementia is horrifying. But in the meantime, the memories are still with me, and that’s good enough.

You can’t compare Catholic leadership to MAGAts.

Sure we can. Catholic leadership protects those who rape little boys the way MAGAts protect those who rape little girls.

“When the text looks professional and written as a doctor writes, there’s an increase in the hallucination rates,” says Omar.

Huh, now there’s something we have in common. Trying to make sense of something a doctor wrote makes me feel like I’m hallucinating, too. Is there a class in medical school on “Illegible Handwriting,” or is it just a coincidence?

In all seriousness though, I wish I could be surprised by AI failing at this. We have entered the Misinformation Age. There’s no closing Pandora’s Box, though this time I can’t find the “hope” that’s supposed to be in the bottom of it. Society would have to turn real skeptical real fast, but I’ve met enough people to know that such a tranformation is going to take time - and by “time” I mean “decades or longer.” With AI already here, we’d have to wise up immediately… but I fear that humanity isn’t mature enough for that yet.

My parents moved a few months ago, and that meant I had to come over and decide what to do with some of the stuff I owned that was still at their house. I sorted things into “keep” and “throw away” piles.

One of the things I had to decide on was my Harry Potter books. My parents were surprised I put them in the “throw away” pile. It was hard for a moment, not because of what they were, but because I remember the day my dad came home and surprised me with books 2 and 3. I had read the first book for school, but the first 4 books had already been published by the time I got into it, so my friends were well ahead of me. I was so happy when my dad spontaneously did that. I hadn’t asked for the books, but he knew I wanted them and went out of his way to get them just to surprise me. I felt so loved.

As I held those same books in my hands, 25 years since first receiving them, I took in that loved feeling, but it was twinged with disgust for JK Rowling. Although it pained me, I knew I wouldn’t be reading them again. In my internal monologue, I told myself, "These books served their purpose long ago. It’s okay to let them go and move on."

So into the “throw away” pile they went. The only things worth keeping anymore are the memories and experiences that those books originally opened up to me, and those can’t be tossed out even if I wanted to. Putting the books into that pile felt like visiting a wake - the series is dead to me now, and with this final viewing, I could have closure over it and finally say goodbye.

Oh snap. I’m a 10 minute walk away from a station that could bring me directly into NYC.

… sup 😎

You made the right choice. I kept reading past that part, but eventually had to stop and reevaluate what my time is worth.

Well, reading that was a waste of my lunch break.

Ugh, this was the case when I worked at a nursing home. There were bird feeders placed in spots near windows, so the residents could watch the birds. The residents noticed no birds ever showed up, and when I learned that, I went out to the feeders to inspect them. Mold, mold everywhere.

I took them in, cleaned them out, sanitized them, and refilled them… but I think the birds in the area were too smart to bother with those feeders anymore. It was obvious they were neglected all the time, and I imagine the birds were well aware that the feeders weren’t worth the trouble.

Sorry birds, sorry residents. I tried.

That sounds really lovely, but for some of us, we wouldn’t even be able to get our families to participate. Consider the families that make their adult kids pay rent, even though they own the house the live in. I’d think that doing things like laundry, cleaning, cooking, picking up prescriptions, groceries, etc. should suffice for contributing to the household. Thankfully, that’s how it worked when I was an adult living with my parents - I didn’t pay rent, but I was often a “gopher” that was sent out to do errands on behalf of my mom. It was annoying, but I figured that by doing such things I was supporting my family just as they were supporting me, and there was an unspoken agreement about it.

Unfortunately, not all families/households operate like that, at least here in the highly-individualized US. If some parents won’t extend a gift economy within their own families, it’d be an uphill battle to get them to apply it toward people they aren’t related to.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. If one (or a group) of these anarchists is willing to do an AMA, I think it’d be very enlightening for a lot of us. I for one am curious to learn how lots of things are supposed to work under their proposed system. But whenever I find an anarchist in the wild, it doesn’t feel like an appropriate time/place to ask such questions.

There are some big issues that are difficult to address, but if someone truly believes anarchy is the ideal system, providing information to help others understand how it’s all supposed to work can go a long way. A dedicated AMA can clear up questions, and who knows, maybe even win some people over to their side.

I mean, yes? When I don’t have my sunglasses, at least.

The combination of this topic and your display name reminds me of the Professor using his high beams to search for Pazuzu.

You may not know about protests in Spain, but we sure as shit see yours. And we see you getting shot in the streets. And yes, you look like fucking clowns letting what semblance of a democracy you had slip from your fingers.

So you can see that some of us are trying to fight this shit, but in the next sentence say we “look like fucking clowns.” I’m not sure what the message here is supposed to be. Why would the protesters, whom you acknowledge risk getting themselves shot in the streets, deserve to be insulted for actually doing something? Or did you mean that other Americans look like fucking clowns, and it’s just an unfortunate juxtaposition?

Peasant. Mine uses his arms to carry me everywhere in a human throne.

“Nothing” is a bit of a stretch, but it’s true that milestones pretty much stop happening for much of adulthood. I’ve traveled, I’ve dated, I’ve moved and changed jobs. But I don’t want to fall into a rut, so I’ve been working to give myself a new “milestone” every year. Last year I achieved a key certification for work. The year before, I learned to identify every country on a map. The year before that, I learned how to solve a Rubik’s cube. Other things have been learning to knit, identifying every nation’s flag, and learning to fly an airplane.

I’m not sure what to aim for this year, but I’m open to suggestions.

I keep forgetting that I’m 37. I could swear I was 27, like, yesterday.

I’ve got a coworker in his young-20s who admitted to being “ageist.” When he heard my age he reacted weird, saying something along the lines of not caring about people 30+.

I wasn’t offended. I simply told him, “You’ll be there before you know it.” My other coworkers (also 30+ years old) backed me up. Dude can enjoy his time now, though from his response I suspect he might have a fear of aging that he’s not fully come to terms with yet.

Reminds me of when I play Kingdoms Reborn and I’m trying to conquer a small tribe. Somehow, a handful of unarmed villagers will kick the asses of all the warriors, cavalry, and archers I’m able to send.

They base the reading time by assuming someone reads 240 words per minute (stated near the top of the infograph, on the right.)

My guess is they didn’t actually time somebody reading the terms and conditions, but rather they took the total word count and divided it by 240.

I wondered where they got the number from, too. I found a page discussing a meta analysis of English reading speeds that concluded that for silent reading, people commonly read 238 words per minute. The infographic probably took that average and rounded it up to 240.

Though considering the jargon and opacity of most “terms and conditions,” I imagine the reality to be that most people take longer to read through it than if they were reading something for pleasure.