Whenever one of these questions comes up, all I have to say is my parents were saints compared to so many. I was raised without religion, whenever I asked something they did their best to answer honestly, never forced me to do stupid shit, etc.

My brother, on the other hand…

https://youtu.be/jJLNurAIrlM

Oi. I had mine in my hall closet, looks a lot like yours, including the Noctua cooler and stack of hard drives. In spite of adding a vent to the top of the closet door, and a big gap at the floor it still got too hot. I ended up moving it to the spare bedroom.

The one I have that looks like that is bluetooth.

Is simply mailing the check to him not an option? Do it once, tell him to figure out something else for the next one.

What if this $600 is the difference between him staying where he is, or needing to come home, and then he shows up on your doorstep?

OH NOSE!

Not muh corporate internet!

We’d all be better off with less of it.

Cool. Legit target. Traffic with the military and get bombed.

Go ahead and ban me for posting the truth.

Context:

Since 2014, the government of China has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang which has often been characterized as persecution or as genocide. There have been reports of mass arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, family separation, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights.

I don’t get it either. I imagine it’s a side effect of being naturally more fearful, and stupid, so they get sucked into the right-wing media spiral which then tells them this is one more thing for them to be afraid of. Maybe. I think the reason can just be loosely tied to “family values”, or religion, or “our country”, or drag queens, etc. and that’s all it takes. They don’t need a solid line of logic and reason, they just need to be led to the conclusion along any path, then anger and fear cements the response in place.

I bet your nieces would use something other than FB to invite you to their BD party. Assuming they’re not three, or something.

By the time officers arrived on scene, the suspected assailant had been shot and killed inside the school building. It is unclear who shot the suspect.

I suppose if you work in an elementary school these days, you know the Calvary isn’t coming in and you’re on your own. My guess is a teacher took down the shooter.

Cracking eggs on the counter instead of on the edge of a bowl.

I crack eggs on the bowl edge, and have for 50 years, literally since I was 10 years old and my mom taught me to make scrambled eggs. Maybe one in 50 gets a piece of shell in the egg, no big deal, just pull it out.

They don’t know what to do with the face. They’re afraid to go big, so they go bland and call it “understated elegance.” The only clue it’s a Jaguar is if you happen to notice the name on the front. At least the Rolls still looks like a Rolls.

Massive A-pillars. I guess if you can blow $150K on a car, you can afford to hit pedestrians.

I mean… I’m sort of doing that right now.

My routine is very consistent. Right down to eating the same meals every day so I don’t need to think about what to eat, and I know what I’m getting at the store every week.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

I like the movie and have watched it three times, now.

I think I put in about 120 hours, which is low for me.

Haven’t been back. I feel like I did everything. I dunno if there are any good mods for it, I haven’t looked. I lost interest.

Well, 30% of the U.S. takes it seriously, unfortunately.

Maybe they learned they need to air gap critical infrastructure, and leave the management to on-site humans who are paid well enough not to hold their inventory for ransom.

Pike spent her prison time in solitary confinement

Absolute torture.

Warning, hard questions ahead, but, don’t worry, I’m sure you can find easy answers.

You might as well just stop reading, and downvote me now.

These are the cases that test the limits of human empathy and compassion.

When we imagine that “there are some people who can’t be rehabilitated”, how certain are we? In this case, did anyone even try? Who decides when we give up, are the people deciding this fully qualified to do so? Is it a judge listening to a single “expert witness” psychologist? Is it the prison warden deciding? Should more people be consulted, are we ignoring possible solutions out of convenience, or even anger and bloodlust?

Are you qualified to decide? Do you know what’s possible? I don’t. Did you read what she did and say, “she’s not worth the effort, she can’t be helped, the only thing to do is lock her away”? Is that your expert opinion? Maybe you learned it from a movie?

Everyone wants simple answers and the simple answer is to say that this person, because of what she did, deserves death, or at least to be locked away for life, out of sight, out of mind. Allow the brutal prison system to do whatever it wants. The experts must know what they’re doing. Why even try with this one?

I think “that’s the best we can do”, only because no one has tried harder.

Have we tried absolutely everything, can we think of nothing more? What could be learned from more concerted effort?

These are the cases that test us and I think we give up out of disgust, hatred, and convenience. Not to mention money in our for-profit prison system.

Here in NM, out on my walks around the neighborhood every day, I say either “good morning” or “hello” to everyone I pass, which varies from one to perhaps ten people per walk, 99% respond in same. It’s not fake, it’s just common courtesy to acknowledge other people. I see about half of them every day, and I know of two regulars who won’t respond, so I don’t say anything to them.

There was one guy who enthusiastically said “good morning!” every time for a couple of years, we even stopped and chatted briefly a couple of times. I didn’t see him for an entire summer, then when I saw him again he wouldn’t say hello. Then he started saying hello again, on his own. I don’t push. Some people have a lot going on.

I don’t know about “heavy eye contact is a challenge”. At about 15 feet apart, walking toward each other look to make brief eye contact and say “good morning”. By the time you’ve said the words, they’re nearly past you, and they either respond or don’t. That’s all there is to it.

If I had friends who responded to a smile and a wave with a sneer, I think we wouldn’t be friends for long.