That's... Kind of what it already does though. It's just that it's not cooling the inside enough to heat very much of your house.

It's already a problem. People are outsourcing their thinking to LLMs, and LLMs aren't capable of thinking.

IIRC, this hasn't been debunked per se, but it was a very small, very limited study, and doesn't really do a great job of explaining homophobia in a broader population. (I mean, you're talking about 64 people in total; depending on your inclusion criteria, that could be a meaningless sample size.) Penile plethysmography is a proxy for sexual arousal; it's useful in some instances--like predicting whether or not someone will commit more sexual offenses in the future--but isn't even that great in those instances. If I remember correctly, there's strong evidence that disgust is a trait strongly associated with conservatism, and homophobia is a an extreme disgust reaction.

FWIW, I was casually--but quite virulently--homophobic when I was younger. I'd been raised in a very conservative, evangelical religious group, and I believed all the bullshit that I'd heard about gay people. That changed once I lost religion, and actually met people that were gay. That, of course, is only anecdotal evidence, and does assume that I'm neither gay nor bisexual (and I don't believe that I am), but it fits with what I've seen from conservative thought.

I am... Rather older than most of you, in all probability. My partner likes being choked; not hard, not actually cutting off air or blood, but the sensation of hands or an arm around their throat. They also like being caned, and spanked; I'm into fairly serious rope bondage (as a rope top) and CNC.

Under British law, a large percentage of the sexual activities that we both enjoy together would be criminal offenses.

For what it's worth, in the 1920s, oral sex was considered shocking to moral sensibilities, perverted, an affront against nature, and grotesquely obscene. I suspect that the view from the year 2100--should humanity survive that long--will see choking in much the same way.

Multiple personality disorder isn't a thing. Having multiple personalities as a result of disassocitive identity disorder isn't a thing.

The supporters of the idea that multiple personalities exist rest their faulty belief on shoddy studies and unproven beliefs.

I'm on the autism spectrum. I'm high-functioning, what would have been called Aspergers prior to DSM-V. What that means is that I largely function in day-to-day life, and that I don't need significant supports. The term 'Aspergers' is helpful, because people have a rough idea of what you mean when you use it. Austism spectrum disorder is more nebulous. Treating differing levels of support as being 'hierarchical' is not useful, and will--in the long run--tend to mean that everyone gets the same levels of support, rather than people with greater needs getting more support. (Would it be nice to get therapy? Sure. Do I need it as much as other people might? Probably not.)

And fuck yes, if there was a magic pill that I could take and I'd suddenly be absolutely dead-average neurotypical? Yeah, I'd take it. I'd swallow a handful. I'm probably a lot older than a bunch of other people on the spectrum here, and lemme tell you, it does not get better. If anything, the older you get, the worse it is, because the friends you had in school drift away, and you don't make new ones. I know that social lives tend to get worse as people age, but at this point, the ONLY social life I have is two hours of church (non-denom universalist unitarian; I gave up theism years ago) on Sundays.

I have a degree, I have a job that I'm good at, I own a house and land, I have a ton of cats that mostly like me, blah blah blah. But goddamn, I feel very alone. I tried for YEARS to do what I thought you were supposed to do to meet people and make friends, and shit always fell flat. And now I know that yes, it IS me, I'm the problem. I'm the one that's fucking up. (And apparently it's really really autistic to send out questionnaires to ask people where I could improve in my social skills.)

Yeah, that's actually kind of true. When you're working, you can shut off a lot of that stuff for a while, and power through. Then that's nine hours that you don't have to think about X, Y, or Z. It gives you space, so that emotions aren't as raw, and it gives you a structure. I would never suggest work instead of therapy, but I know a lot of people that went to work the day after their spouse died because they couldn't stand to be alone with just their thoughts.

Getting fired for being in a 'bad mood' when my ex-spouse told me that they wanted to separate took me from deeply depressed to suicidal, and I got to spend the next four days, three nights in a hospital. If I hadn't been fired, I would have... Coped. Not well, but I wouldn't have tried to taste-test a shotgun.

Don't fucking buy Mira products; they're overpriced Czech surplus. The OM-90 is the Czech designation for Mira's CM-7M, and you can get them for $90 on eBay, vs. the $450 or so that Mira charges.

Honestly, get yourself an M-40 that's in good shape, buy a 40mm-to-3M-bayonet adapter, use some 3M P-100 cartridges (you can get them for about $2/ea. when you buy in bulk). P-100 will filter out all particulates--even finer particulates than a HEPA filter or N-95--and will also filter out water- and oil-based aerosols. That covers all riot-control agents, because CN, CS, and OC are all aerosols, and not true gasses. Almost any surplus gas mask that's been made in the last ~30 years, seals, and uses a 40mm NATO cartridge is going to be just fine for riot-control agents.

If you are really worried about a P-100 filter being insufficient, get a few new old-stock NBC filters. NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) filters were phased out about 15-20 years ago in favor of CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) filters, but if they haven't been used, they'll be absolutely okay for riot agents.

If you wear glasses--and many people do--get a spectacle insert for whatever mask you have. Glasses break the seal, and while you will probably be fine with contacts in, that's not necessarily a good risk to take. Supposedly the Kris Optical Mag-1 glasses can be worn under a mask without compromising the seal, but I can't personally attest to that. I think that they're one of the older styles of BCGs that were issued, but I'm not sure.

Oh, and get GOOD hearing protection. Consider high-end electronic ear muffs, and wearing ear plugs under them. Some places are using LRADs to disperse crowds, and those can wreck your hearing.

I don't have to pay tariffs for Costco purchases.

But I do have to pay duty if I buy more than $200US in any single trip.

The closest Costco to me is in Canada. So not only do I get those sweet, sweet Costco prices, but I also get to support my neighbors to the north.

:)

I had a 'pastor' try and witness to me yesterday, insisting that his spiritual experiences made him right, while the spiritual experiences of people that converted to Judaism or Islam meant they had been deceived by the devil.

Unfortunately they're pretty failure prone; they've got some small plastic parts that tend to break. Being pump guns, they're also at risk of short-stroking, where you don't fully complete a cycle, and jam your shotgun.

It's a great idea, KelTec just needs to iron out the bugs.

Nazis should get a platform. A platform with a short drop and very sudden stop.

If you need to regularly scratch your anus, you probably have parasites. That's one of the prime ways for some species of parasites (roundworms, I think?, probably tapeworms too?) to spread.

That's like saying that it's inevitable that murder and rape will happen.

Just because someone is going to do it eventually doesn't mean that you shouldn't have the death penalty for doing it.

The fact that the cancelled in the face of public pressure means nothing; they can always resume the partnership once the pressure subsides.

FWIW, I'm in the process of starting a grid-tied solar installation. Total cost, without batteries, will be about $70,000. That's a 17kW system, that should produce an average of 30kWh/day in the winter.

If I had been doing this last year, it would have been sharply less; tariffs and the drive to kill solar has driven costs up, and the end of the solar tax credit on 31 December means that everyone that wants to do it is trying to do it now, which drives up labor costs.

You'd be fine, aside from the attorney's fees for declaring bankruptcy.

...Oh, and probably losing your housing.

Single digits, 100%.

Single digits range from -9F to 9F. Triple digits start at 100F, and can go way the fuck up from there. (And with climate change, they will!) Once you start approaching triple digits, you have to worry about humidity, because you can easily hit a combination that's literally too hot to live.

Is -9F unpleasant? Sure. But you can layer clothing, and that will keep you comfortable. Death Valley has hit >130F, and when that happens people die, even if they drink gallons of water and stay in the shade.

Having spoken with a few women that have done things adjacent to pornography, their regrets are mostly in regards to the way they were treated by people that were not in the industry. The escorts I've spoken with enjoy the work itself, although not necessarily all of the customers.

What you're saying about the horrors of pornography and prostitution apply to ALL people that need to work for a living. The company I work for buys my time, the product of my labor--which they sell for many times what I'm paid--and even my dignity by forcing me to wear a uniform of their choice. I absolutely do not like the customers that ultimately purchase the products of my labor, but I have little choice if I want to have a place to live, and food to eat.

One really, really important caveat here is that, The report said that "despite concerted efforts to encourage" victims to come forward, the team was unable to interview any of them. The UN mission was able to review reports, photos, and videos all provided by the Israeli gov't, but couldn't find a single victim willing to go on the record.

That's really, really fuckin' suspicious. If the sexual violence was systematic, the way that the Israeli gov't claims, how is it that not even one person is willing to personally talk about it with a UN team?