Zink

This reminds me of the similar map of names for soft drinks. You have your soda vs coke, but I live in one of the "pop" regions which is admittedly a larger area than these little "bubbler" enclaves. I mostly switched over to "soda" once I went to college though. A nationwide and international assortment of group members will encourage that.

y = mx + b It’s algebra. It’s linear. 😬

That miata concept sounds fun. But would it be more fun than one that has revs and gears, even though it would be way faster? Honestly the ideal in my case might be like 2500lbs and 300hp but only like 100 miles of range to keep the battery size down. But I don't think that's gonna happen.

You are correct, but that does not absolve the companies or the government of any responsibility. It should not be “anything goes” as far as intentionally addictive designs on anything with a screen for the same reason they can’t just put cocaine in Doritos. They still engineer in what they can, but with some guardrails. And even in that case the regulations here in the US leave a lot to be desired.

I definitely agree with you there. Reddit, unfortunately, does not. I am not suggesting that Reddit's bad intentions necessarily make removing one's past contributions a good thing or a necessity -- but I do understand why folks might do it. Vandalism does still feel like the wrong label though. With Reddit you are the sole creator and controller of your comments and their contents (except mod/admin actions, of course) at all times. And even though those comments are part of a larger structured collection of comments, it still isn't like a Wikipedia edit or a contribution to the Linux kernel, where a multitude of other individuals have to approve the change and can edit the exact same spot in the future. You are definitely taking stuff away from your fellow man, and it may be a net negative for humanity, but it is still at least YOUR stuff that you are sabotaging. Usually messing up your own stuff isn't called vandalism. I think that's why we jumped on that word. When you try to sabotage a wikipedia page or some FOSS project, that is OUR stuff that you're sabotaging, even if you created that part originally. That was probably too much text to try to describe the manner in which I am splitting this hair, lol.

You're using a non-profit knowledge sharing organization as an example in a discussion about Reddit, which is quite the opposite.

Literally just today on the drive home I was wondering to myself what would be the best way to generate a list of like 100 songs that are exactly like the handful of best ones that I never skip and that hit every time. I didn’t know this was an ADHD thing! What has worked best for me in the past, funny enough, was to discover music the old fashioned way. I started with songs, bands, or sub-genres that I liked, and just loaded albums and discographies rapid fire into my jellyfin server. I’ll occasionally listen to an album, but when I’m feeling adventurous I typically just hit shuffle on the entire library. Every once in a while, a track that belongs on “the list” will light up my neurons and hopefully I have a hand free to add it. Otherwise, it may be lost to the sands of time. In my case “the list” is comprised mostly of thrash, groove, or industrial metal that is energetic enough to occupy the music box in my head so I can calmly get some work done or enjoy a stretch of country road.

🎶 Jean-Luc P. Ain’t Nothin’ Ta Fuck Wit! 🎶

Except if THAT is a 12 o’clock flasher, in which case it is correct about 30 times each day.

My experience being born into religious conservative white america is that phrases like “I don’t believe in” or “I don’t agree with” are just the politically correct language and/or dog whistle for “I hate that shit but I need to act polite.”

I’d make #2 even more general to include experimentation and trial and error with your routine, especially breakfast and lunch plus your sleep hygiene. That might sound complex, but you just do one thing at a time. If you have a few better days because of it, that direct evidence is the best way to make it stick in your brain. The fact that I have any routines at all is evidence enough for me that it works for me. But I’ve been working at it for years. There are definitely multiple stimulants involved, lol. And sometimes if you can’t make any progress, maybe you need to kinda look upstream and see if there is something else blocking you to work on instead, or that you need to combine with what you’re already doing. And sometimes it can be basic stuff that seems like it’s obvious, like maybe getting some real food in your stomach along with the coffee.

That’s an angle that more people should talk about, honestly. The mistreatment of the American populace isn’t just to keep a steady supply of cheap labor for the rich people’s investments, it’s to keep a steady supply of cheap lives for the government to do their dirty work. My generation’s dead and disabled veterans fell in service to that sweet Iraqi oil. Oh and the Saddam hidden underground meme, can’t forget that one!

Yeah, LLMs are interesting tech products to play with and find some niche uses for. But for the love of god they are not “prop up the entire stock market and numerous multi-trillion-dollar companies indefinitely” good!

This is one reason I’m so glad we devs can install linux at work. I have LibreOffice installed sure, but if I need to use the Microsoft Office suite for some reason, it all works great as webpages in librewolf!

Nah I don’t think that’s the alternative. It’s not about dedicating your life to it. It’s about allowing yourself some nice experiences to enhance your daily life even though you have very important bills to pay and can’t just buy whatever food you want. I didn’t even comment because I’m some kind of cooking or dining enthusiast. It was more about the general attitude (which I very much grew up with) essentially that it is silly and self-indulgent to stop and smell the roses when there’s money to be made or work to be done. Basically the conservative culture where being a good human means being a productive boot-licking worker bee and not getting into all that touchy-feely human stuff.

Invoicing intensifies

I used to think that way in general, and personally I am still a bit like that. It’s just one piece of figuring out how to get my brain & body to cooperate with me. But something I have learned, for me at least, is that leaning into things that engage a variety of your senses in a positive way is often a good thing. And even better if it leads to good interactions with other people that matter to you (insert boo-hiss from my introverted recluse AuDHD side). I think in the US especially, we often treat food as a necessary evil rather than just a necessity. People don’t have time to waste on preparing healthy food and then eating it with their family. They need to focus on the “important things” like putting in long hours at the office so that they can afford to drive a BMW home instead of some pleb Honda shit. They’ll just grab some fast food or something in a box that will fill stomachs provide some macros to sustain life in the near term, and everything will be just fine.

Some people just do not think about cultures outside their own. Like, at all. Hey that IS my American culture!

Seriously! We have a third grader, and he’s pretty good at reading. Recently he has been arguing with us about the pronunciation of some new words from his homework. The problem is, his arguments are sound! He’s accurately following the rules he learned for sounding out words. When this has come up in the past, all I’ve been able to do is acknowledge his argument and explain to him how English has all kinds of weird rules and exceptions, and it’s the kind of thing you remember with experience using the words. Like, there is no new rule to learn, and you don’t have to freak out about remembering all these exceptions. It will just come with time. (Because we all know there’s nothing that kids like more than olds telling them to just wait or give it time, lol)

They can do that because Firefox is open source. If Mozilla disappeared and funding was sent to one of the forks instead, they could hire more developers and maintain it directly. Maybe even hire some of Mozilla’s best engineers.

I used to say this kind of thing when I was an angry young conservative because I assumed the culture I grew up in had a shred of good faith in its arguments and actions. The individuals can certainly mean well at times, but they are fed insidious lies that are made to sound good on the surface. 30 years ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you because I knew many people are stupid. Today I would wholeheartedly disagree with you because I know many people are evil.

John Deere has entered the farm

Yeah there is a real trend in conservative culture (at least where I grew up) that fits right in with the rest of the anti-intellectualism. And it’s not taught explicitly but it permeates social interactions. I’m trying to decide how to describe it… Basically, you look down on people who are trying to improve themselves.

Very much true in my specific limited experience. I live in a nice little town here in the US, and I’m a well educated middle aged white guy. It’s safe to say that I get to see a pretty nice version of America even as horrible shit is happening all over the place. I’ve gotten to spend a few weeks in Sweden of all places over the past few years. Plus I got to see the insides of some airports in other places luke Belgium and Germany. There’s just something different in the air over there, in a good way. I thought of it as a kind of dignity that came from respect for others as well as oneself, but I like how you call it social cohesiveness. I think some of the details around food and drink showed it best, and they make good examples because they apply to a mix of the general public. The food itself is obviously much better over there. Even things like the hotel breakfast or the cafeteria at a workplace had a huge variety of fresh, real foods as opposed to ultraprocessed manufactured branded products. But the dishes and utensils were some of the most interesting to me as an american. In places like an office cafe at work, or a local restaurant, or I think even an airport, they would have actual GLASSES, plates, and silverware. And on top of that, you would often return your dishes to the kitchen or even put them directly on to the dish washer rack waiting for you. This breaks my american mind. Fragile non-disposable cups in a public place? Other than coffee mugs on people’s desks or restaurant glasses being dropped off and picked up with at your table, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that within these borders. If you could use glasses and silverware in public places here, I can’t decide what would happen first: somebody would get cut on one of the immediately broken glasses, or so much of the stuff would get stolen that they’d close it down. I like to call out their bathrooms too. The way we do it over here is big men’s and women’s restrooms with next to no privacy (it’s one big room with flimsy floating dividers forming the toilet stalls) and stupid culture wars about who should and should not get their genitals inspected or whatever. Over there it’s just several individual doors, each with a small bathroom. Much better privacy, no fodder for the bigots, and much better utilization of the resources.

American here living in a car-only area. I didn’t even raise an eyebrow at that previous comment. Sure most drivers are fine, but there are plenty of people who make me wonder what the hell combination of these issues (and others) is going on with them. The most common example I get to see is the people speeding through the elementary school parking lot in their luxury SUVs. I especially love it when they start a phone call as they start driving, after they just finished standing around, collecting their kid, and walking back to the parking lot.

I was never a coffee drinker for unrelated reasons, and also never acquired the taste for it even though the smell is generally nice. But now I’m in my 40s and have multiple medical conditions (i.e., more than just the AuDHD, lol) that are treated with stimulants, so I will usually supplement my adderall with a cup of coffee in the morning and one at lunch time. The nice thing is that I don’t have decades of tolerance and habit around the stuff, so it is still nice and potent. Instead of adding a bunch of junk to it, I just let it cool off then drink it quickly or add a chocolate protein shake to it for a few breakfast calories if I didn’t eat. Plus even though I don’t like the taste I think the coffee at work is decent because it’s a machine that grinds whole beans, and the operations manager for our location fills the hopper with the beans himself. Some Starbucks somebody gave me recently tasted rotten in comparison. And that’s not “mischievous child” rotten, that’s carcass rotten.

I don’t keep up on the appliance world very much, but for many years I have been under the impression that when replacing one it’s always a good call to NOT get the Samsung. I have literally never seen reason to doubt that rule. I’m actually pretty happy with my current appliances, but I don’t stick all to one brand and I stick with the simpler cheaper designs. If paying for the next higher tier brings higher build quality or upgrades the core function’s power/capacity, then I’ll probably go for it.