When my mom had cancer, I swear every relative and distant acquaintance came out of the woodwork trying to sell some kind of nonsense. It was already a devastating time, but on top of that it was insulting being forced to hear about all these delusional snake oil cures and conspiracy theories.

I swear, when I'm called into the office I get fuck all nothing done. Like once in a while there's a reason for me to be on site, and I do that thing and nothing else all day.

Distractions, interruptions, noise, general discomfort. Seems every time I actually start making progress on something, a person stops by my desk and that basically erases whatever I did. So it always ends with "I'll do it tomorrow when I'm at home".

Yeah I hear that a lot in my own town.

"Kids these days stay inside too much" kids go outside and they're calling the cops. Gee wonder why the kids don't go outside anymore.

You know, nothing summed it up quite like the whole Pokemon Go craze. It was wild, people of all ages were out like it was a festival every day. I've never seen main street so active before or since, and the parks too. That was like the best four weeks, perhaps a feeling I haven't had since being a kid on summer vacation, it really felt like summer meant something again.

And oh my god the old folks were livid. At kids playing. In the park. There are people in the city park, there aren't supposed to be people there, it's supposed to be empty and dilapidated.

I'm pretty sure it can still do that. Like if you can trick it into playing something that isn't even video, it'll shit out whatever it can interpret as video. Which of course will be garbled nonsense, but it did exactly what you asked.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet - have a good backup solution. If there isn't anything on your computer that can't be restored, then you're not going to feel as much pressure to protect things.

Of course there's crypto miners, identity theft, botnet stuff, all sorts of things that run undetected and don't simply render your computer unusable. But if you're absolutely sure you're not losing anything, then "nuke it from orbit" becomes a more paletteable solution for virus removal. A hassle for sure, but format and start over again becomes an option that results in no loss other than the pain of having to reinstall everything.

This is how they all need to be - let the chimpanzees throw their shit all day, ignore them, move forward as if they don't exist.

You know, sometimes I think if my mother hadn't passed away, things with my parents would've gone this route.

I had moved out, dad was spending more time at home, and she couldn't stand him anymore because he's an obnoxious racist.

Anytime I see or hear the word "females" when speaking about a woman, I can't help but say - feeee-malesss - in a hissing and lecherous voice.

Also I like this Patak brand of curry, and I think "p'takh" every time I open the jar.

Seems to me there's a concentrated effort to convince the public that there's outrage.

I think there's a place for both. But sometimes I tire of anti-heroes, sympathetic villains, bad guys who were right, bad guys who turn good in the end, that kind of thing.

Sometimes it's refreshing when the villain is just evil for no reason. Just bad, that's it, just a bad guy who is defeated in the end because he was bad. No redemption story, you don't feel sorry for them, none of that. I'm thinking like Ernst Blofeld, the T-1000, Palpatine, Sauron, Wicked Witch of the West, Skeletor. Uncomplicated villains, their motivation is just evil for the sake of evil.

Time and a place for both, and sometimes it seems like we only get the one. Like I can't think of a recently popular movie villain who was simply evil.

I paint gaming miniatures, and the only varnish I will use is Testors brand. One pass with high gloss because it's more protective, one pass with "dullcote" because it gives it a matte and neutral finish.

Every other product I've tried has turned out cloudy, frosted, not the finish I want, or even cracked. So at some point I stopped attempting to find an alternative and just only use Testors.

See, they only sell it at one craft store in my area and it's in a locked case so you have to get an employee and there's only like two in the whole store. And it's expensive. So I don't like that hassle, wanted to find something easier to get, but nothing was ever even acceptable. So, it's Testors Dullcote only.

Just speculation here but I'd say at the very most it'll be house arrest. People like this don't go to jail, they just don't. Not even "club fed" as they call it.

I wouldn't call compressed air extremely dangerous, but more than you'd think.

It can hurt you in a lot of ways and it's often played with like a toy. Like blowing air in somebody's face, don't do that, think of it like coming at them with a handheld drill. Treat an air compressor like any kind of power tool, not exactly dangerous but can hurt you.

I just read a thing on the subject https://news.northeastern.edu/2017/07/03/how-do-lawyers-handle-jury-selection-with-high-profile-clients-like-shkreli-or-cosby/

Basically the selection process (voir dire) is more like an interview than what you'd see in your low level petit courts where they just ask questions to the room. They focus less on familiarity with the case and more on impartiality and dedication to rule of law. I'm sure they go through hundreds.

Yeah even as a technician that's one I run on the off chance that it actually does something.

Which, sometimes it does, just often enough that I wouldn't call it useless.

My observation is that the accomplishments of older times would be entirely impossible today, like basically all the public services we enjoy wouldn't be possible if they were proposed as a new thing.

Take the post office, if somebody had a big idea for the government to build tens of thousands of buildings and hire over a million people just to move around pieces of paper - they'd be laughed out of the room. Impossible, the government couldn't and shouldn't do any of that. All public services: the fire department, the police department, and especially public libraries, that all couldn't be created in the current political environment if it hadn't already been built.

I'll say I have a considerably higher opinion of him now than I did in 2020. Then, I basically voted for a seat-filler, hold down the fort so the fascists aren't in power. Now, I'm fairly impressed.

But the fact remains that the man is 80. Sometimes he looks like a canny old man, and I kind of like canny old men, those old guys who are sharp as a tack with a wit to match. And sometimes he just looks elderly. I don't like the idea of the oldest president ever three times in a row. Frickin 80, he'll be 86 by the end of a second term. That's a problem. And while I don't have any problems with Harris, a lot of folks do.

My best hope is that he's saying he's running because it's politically weak if he doesn't. And if Trump is convicted of something before 2024, he'll bow out and there will be a democratic primary. Worst case scenario, I won't feel bad about voting for him again.

Well maybe a little - the man deserves a comfortable retirement.

You know, when I played FF1 I had already played several of the later SNES games. And in a way the simplicity was refreshing.

I still remember going into this town and all the NPCs are saying "there are pirates" and "I don't like pirates". Then there's a pirate who says "we're the pirates!". And that's it, simple as can be, there are pirates and you beat them. No long narratives, no grand schemes, just beat the pirates. Sometimes it's nice to take a break from the grand arc kind of stories.

Anybody who went to acting school has some background in music and dance. Obviously not their best talent or else they'd be a singer instead of an actor. I often consider that most people on television can sing and absolutely knows how to dance, we just never see them do it.

Sweeny Todd is a good example of this. You know almost the entire cast from something else and had no idea they were capable of doing music all this time. But, a classically trained actor has definitely been in a musical before, we just never knew about it. Alan Rickman wasn't exactly a vocalist, but he could keep up with one.

Republicans don't distinguish between undocumented immigrants and legal residents. Or between Mexico and the rest of central and south America.

They say "come here legally" and then when they do, the republicans are still mad.