Spyke

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What were you wrong about for a long time? How did you realize you were wrong?

That if you weren't part of "our" religion (my family's religion, Catholic), you were basically living your life wrong and were an awful person. When I went to college I met people who believed different things, including in nothing, and I realized they were not, in fact, terrible, almost subhuman, people. I quickly changed for the better and that's one of the best things to ever happen to me. It's amazing how accepting you can be when you just accept people for who they are

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That gourmet luxury blend...

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There are some standards. The ingredients are listed in descending order of size (ie the first is the largest).

They can get around this in a few ways (though this isn't really relevant here), such as for example preserves having this ingredient list: blueberries, sugar, corn syrup. Even though the amount of blueberries is technically larger than both sugar and corn syrup, sugar and corn syrup (still basically sugar) can add up to much more than the amount of blueberries. By including multiple types of sugar they can sort of hide the fact that the largest ingredient is some form of sugar

games

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Japan Patent Office rejects Nintendo application relevant to Palworld dispute, cites games like ARK as prior art after third-party submission

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I'll do my best :)

Nintendo is suing palworld for patent infringement, meaning it thinks palworld is infringing (using without permission) one of Nintendo's patents.

These parents went through the application process and the Japanese patent office decided they were valid (basically that they were new and inventive).

Now, though, the validity of 2 of the 3 Nintendo parents are having their validity questioned.

A pending Nintendo application (not yet a patent) is, at the moment, considered to not be patentable because it lacks the new and inventive part that is required of a patent. This was discovered because a third party told the patent office about something that existed in some sort of publication before the Nintendo application was started (basically). This earlier-existing thing is called prior art. Prior art is sort of like a quasi-patent in the sense that new applications' new and inventive determination is based on basically all previously existing stuff. Just because Nintendo didn't disclose it and just because the patent office itself didn't discover this prior art doesn't mean it does not still operate to block the new application's new and inventive idea.

Now Nintendo has to demonstrate to the patent office that its new application is actually different from the prior art or that the prior art should, for some reason, not actually qualify as prior art. If it is successful, it can become an actual patent (assuming all the other stuff it needs is correct).

This all matters because this new application stems from existing Nintendo patents. This means basically that Nintendo patented something extensive that can be broken into smaller parts that are also patentable. This is confusing but it's sort of like if you designed a 3-in-1 hot coffee, espresso, cold brew machine (on paper). It was so unique that if you separated the espresso part of it it was still new and inventive over everything else in existence, which makes it patentable. As well, if you separated the cold brew part, it was also new and inventive (therefore patentable).

This new application is like the cold brew part of the example above. The espresso part was already found to be new and inventive (now a patent) but the discovery of this third-party prior art is not only blocking the new and inventiveness of the cold brew part (new application), but also of the entire 3-in-1 machine (already a patent). This could happen, for example, if someone in India invented the 3-in-1 machine but the Japanese patent office didn't know about it and Nintendo didn't know about it when Nintendo first tried to patent its 3-in-1 machine with the Japanese office. Now, the India machine has been brought to japan's attention during this new application and it could lead to the office reconsidering the validity of Nintendo's 3-in-1 machine altogether.

Hope this helps! I tried to make it easy enough to follow with a more imaginable example but the whole thing is still pretty abstract and confusing.

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Have you ever had an illness that most people don't understand?

Cancer. Sure, people realize you undergo treatment for a while. You may be in the hospital for a bit. You're very sick but you do your best. Eventually (maybe) you get to some state termed "remission." You're probably no longer being admitted to the hospital at this point. So you're basically all better right?

No. Not at all.

There are lingering problems that vary among patients. It's hard to explain. Very few people understand what it's like to feel under the weather for days, weeks, months. To live with the fear of relapse. To wonder if the chemo you underwent will cause you to develop a secondary cancer later. To have bone damage from steroids. To have increased sensitivity (read: pain) in many senses/ places from the courses of radiation. To have to fight harder for jobs if you lost yours (or didn't have one) and now have a gap. You may be such a determined, hard worker, but it doesn't take much to be seen as a liability.

Even if someone thinks they understand, they really probably don't. You dont even fully understand what's happening—today you wake up and just can't. You're tired. You're trying but you're so tired.

I can't get too upset, I guess, with people who don't understand. But I wish they could. Things may get better, but they'll never really be back to "normal," whatever that even means.

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Are MRNA vaccines any riskier than other vaccines?

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Herd immunity means it's effectively eradicated, meaning that enough people are protected from it that the virus cannot readily find new hosts and basically "dies out" in the areas in which herd immunity is reached. That's why severely immunocompromised people, eho often cannot get vaccines or cannot mount a response even if they do get vaccines, do not get, e.g., polio. If only the majority didn't get the virus, those who are susceptible (the minority) still would, but this doesn't really happen (in places where herd immunity is reached). Other places around the world may still have the virus floating around, but after a while at the herd immunity level in a location/ country, it is effectively eradicated.

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Democrats Introduce Bill To More Than Triple The Minimum Wage

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Technically yes, but the federal minimum wage right now is $7.25/hr (with a few exceptions). Even full-time at this amount is poverty level in most of the country, and many places now pay more than this anyway, so it doesn't actually do much. In fact, now it seems like companies can use it as a way to suppress wages by saying look, we're offering you $12/hr, which is almost double the minimum wage! In reality, that's still insufficient to live anywhere by yourself in basically the entire country

climate

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Hurricaine Helene Aftermath - Appalachian State University, North Carolina

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That's right: usually. Sometimes no. Or sometimes the volume of water only slowly drains away (like some rivers move extremely slowly and it's almost as if it's not moving at all). If it takes 3 days for the water in the normally filled river to move 1 mile, even if it takes 2 days with the flooded valley to drain instead of 3, that's still 2 days of floods.

Imagine you drop a bunched up shirt onto the floor. If you look, you'll see that there are lower spots surrounded on all sides of high spots. Terrain irl is not so different from that in spots. Hope this helps explain :)

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Let’s Outlaw Being Homeless! That’ll Work!

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I too would rather stand in the median of a busy highway interchange for 12 hours a day, in the rain or snow, with a bag of my stuff getting ruined, holding a sign and watching everyone turn their head away from me to not make eye contact, day in and day out, than get a job. I'm so glad you understand

/s

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Chicago homeless migrants shelter faces backlash

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It's correct how it is. It's acting as an adjective, as if you said "red shelter." "Migrant's shelter" would mean the shelter belongs to one migrant. "Migrants' shelter" would mean the shelter belongs to a group of migrants, which is also incorrect because they do not own it. Hope this helps :)

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What is a product that you won’t accept a generic alternative for?

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Kerrygold (and other imported-to-US/European, "fancy," etc.) butter just tastes better. It has more fat content than land o lakes, for example, which contributes. The unsalted version is also cultured, and that makes a difference too. It's definitely worth the price in any use where the butter flavor is important. In baking, maybe it's not as worth it, but even then I'd still use it over a US brand.

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Spot The Differences For A Free Stay!

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Unfortunately, the history taught here (at least where I grew up, but I believe it is like this in most parts of the country) is so US-centric and pre-WWII topical that we didn't learn anything else. I don't think I learned about the Japanese internment camps until law school and I was in "advanced classes" throughout my pre-university years.

Of course people would educate themselves outside of class, but there's a variety of reasons that doesn't really happen. It's quite sad and unfortunate we don't learn about the other atrocities (even those directly caused by the US). I wish it were different.

Slightly off-topic, but we're not even taught the realities of our own history that we're supposedly taught about. Example: the civil war. If you ask many people in certain southern states (and surely some more northern ones too), the reasons they give for the war do not match reality. Or at least they do not come close to telling the whole story. The stranglehold on our education system is bonkers