Yeah I think I’ve seen that usage, but I’ve also seen it used as a negative put down rather than an affirmation. I just have a lot of trouble with this one for some reason. Anyone know where it comes from?

And every time I think I understand what people mean by it, I’m wrong. This one has got to stop.

Yeah, I honestly don’t know how la croix does it, but that water has serious flavor, without any of that gross chemical aftertaste. I drink so much la croix…

I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but I definitely understand what you’re talking about. For me, the tingly calm feeling comes from the abrupt change between constant background white-noise and sudden quiet. I love love love that feeling. The moment after you turn off a loud fan, shutting off a car engine, when an ambulance siren finally stops, a jump cut between a loud action sequence in a movie and a normal scene. Even the moment when a song’s accompaniment drops out but a cappella vocals continue.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Edit: typo

Pending Train is pretty darn close to what you’re describing. I only got through the first episode, it falls prey to a lot of annoying little tropes, but it’s a cool concept for sure.

Ha! I never thought about the underground mansion hideaway. Good stuff. You’re right, they’d be pretty much unstoppable and unbeatable.

If I could bend, I think I’d choose the earth nation. Imagine how much cool shit you could build. Need an extension on your house? Here’s a brand new stone wall in 30 seconds.

I would take it upon myself to solve homelessness, if it existed. You need a house? Done. You need a house? How many rooms? Done.

I would build so. much. stuff. It would get weird.

Omg this happened to me last year in my old shitty apartment, but it was real. Somehow a massive roach ended up on top of my comforter. I had serious trouble sleeping for a while after that, and I was seeing tricky shadows for weeks…

The whole neighborhood had a roach problem, it wasn’t any particular grossness on my part. The general consensus amongst my neighbors at the time was that the nearby restaurants were to blame, but you can be sure I did a deep cleaning after that episode…so glad I don’t live there anymore.

Yeah there are a ton of these on Craigs List lately too. It’ll be a whole listing that appears to be a standalone separate unit, but it turns out to be shared. Sometimes there will be hints like “private entrance” or something, but it’s still pretty deceptive.

Good question, I wish I knew. The closest I’ve found is sometimes Zillow, but it’s pretty different, not really comparable.

I’m not on Facebook, but from what I hear they’ve got the monopoly on this kind of thing now.

At least as far as apartment listings in California go, in my experience most of them are scams and phishing schemes. So yeah, 5-10 years ago most were legit postings, now it’s flipped.

I believe there are 3 kinds of musicians. Keep in mind I have no evidence for this, it’s just what I’ve experienced through a life of playing music and being around lots of musicians.

#1 is someone with natural ability, these are the people who seem to be able to pick up any instrument and intuitively understand how to make it sound like music. This is the rarest kind of musician.

#2 is someone with a little bit of #1’s natural ability, but like 70% of their skill comes from honing it through sustained, long-term practice. It’s hard, and can be incredibly frustrating, but also very rewarding. I’d say many if not most successful musicians fall into this category.

#3 is someone with none of #1’s natural ability, but a passionate desire to learn. With grueling long hours of practicing the basics, studying some theory, and intentional instruction, #3 is perfectly capable of playing an instrument beautifully, but it will be a lot more work for them than it would be for #’s 1 and 2.

It’s probably pretty similar to sports. Some people are naturals, but almost anyone can learn to be really good at them, it just takes a shitload of work.

No he has had a secret service detail ever since he was elected, he didn’t refuse their protection after losing the election and leaving office.

Current presidents are required by law to have secret service protection, former presidents are entitled to lifetime protection, but can choose to refuse it. He hasn’t refused it.

Blow some cannabis smoke in my face and point me in the direction of a comfortable chair. Now it’s a chill hangout session, not a boss fight. But you still win.

Completion reward: let’s share some pretzels

Yup! I don’t understand the downvotes, because this absolutely happens. Especially when technology has progressed to enable us to answer certain questions that we couldn’t in the past. Old curmudgeonly academics can definitely be resistant to accepting that they’ve been wrong, even when confronted with proof. Sometimes the only way for old theories to die is for their proponents to die or retire. It’s a shame, but ego can be a massive problem in some disciplines.

This is great advice. It’s not difficult once you get good at it; but there’s nothing quite like the feeling of being in a real two-way conversation where you know the other person is actually listening to what you’re saying, not just hearing the sounds. I feel like I can count on both hands the number of real conversations I’ve had where I felt truly respected and heard.

I tried the alarm on the other side of the room thing and it consistently ruined my day. Put me in a frustrated and pissed off mood from the start. Now I just force myself to get out of bed immediately when the alarm goes off, no excuses and no snoozing allowed. It sucks, but I’m never late.

All bets are off on the weekend, alarms are only for a damn good reason.

Yesss! I grew up with one of these and didn’t realize it was unconventional until I lived on my own and tried to find one in a store. Had to buy it online. I use it nearly every day.

Yeah, I think this is it right here. While the protests might not have done much for those of us who were already painfully aware of the cops’ racism, behavioral issues, and lack of accountability, it did make it so that everyone else had to pay attention. You couldn’t ignore the protests, they were everywhere. I don’t have numbers, but I think a whole lot of white people who by default didn’t believe there was any real injustice in the system finally saw it, at least for a little while.

That said, it was unfortunately fleeting, and there hasn’t been enough sustained motivation to address the systemic issues that would need to be fixed for law enforcement to ever be properly held accountable. The people doing that admirable work are still doing it while the cops still have too much power. They might think twice before murdering someone in front of a camera. Maybe. They’ll still do the murder, they’ll just make sure there’s no evidence.

So, a net positive, but the bar was already so damn low.

I LOVE this. I’m pretty sure I’ve tried every single media/pc remote available, and they all suck for one reason or another. Been thinking about building my own, and this is totally the direction I would go. Thanks for the inspiration!!

I was forced to upgrade my work laptop by my company, and I basically lost two full days of productivity because of how truly shitty the new OS is. Still not back to normal productivity, and it’s been two weeks. Definitely felt like a scam…

I’m a big fan of SoundCore products. I’m currently using the Space Q45 which replaced my pair of Life Q30s which I used the hell out of. IMO the Life Q30s have slightly richer sound quality despite being quite a bit cheaper than the Q45s, but all of their over ear headphone are super super comfortable and have good noise cancellation.

Oh I definitely remember seeing the movie. I even remember the VHS dust jacket on the shelves of Blockbuster. But who the hell knows lol

Lol I got into a pretty heated argument with a group of friends, half of whom definitely remembered the movie and even started recounting some of the plot. The other half had no idea what the hell we were talking about.

Heh yup! That’s part of the effect, a whole generation potentially conflated Shaq’s movie with a movie that was never made. Scroll down the link I posted, they mention it. So bizarre.

Shazaam!

I don’t know why you’re getting such combative and inaccurate answers, but this is an excellent question! It’s called backfilling, and it’s an extremely common practice at archaeological digs all over the world for a number of reasons.

You can’t beat the natural processes of the earth for preserving much of what is found. It must have done a good-enough job up to the point of excavation, otherwise we wouldn’t have found whatever it is we found. So it is usually more efficient, cost-effective, and functional to backfill an area that you know you’ll need to come back to later.

Excavation is inherently destructive, you can’t “repeat” the process like you can with hard science experiments, so archaeologists are encouraged and often required to preserve (meaning not dig) areas of a site for future research when we know our technologies will be improved. And if you can’t dig a whole feature properly in one season, backfilling it to preserve your progress until the next dig season is incredibly common practice.

The natural processes of sedimentation do a much better job at preserving something that has already been exposed to the elements than most of our modern techniques. So if there is an important find, it’s often easier to backfill it with clean sediment to ensure it’s still well-preserved when the researchers are ready to properly study it. Often a layer of geo-frabric is laid down under the backfilled material to mark where the area of interest starts, and so that you know you can dig quickly without worrying until you reach the fabric.

It’s harder for looters to know where to look for “treasure” when a site has been backfilled between seasons. It’s often one of the only security measures in place at sites that are under excavation year after year.

There are many other reasons for why backfilling is a pretty standard procedure at archaeological sites. I don’t know specifically if backfilling is common at Pompeii, but I’d imagine they must do it every so often. Pompeii is one of the most famous tourist sites in the world though, so it’s probably not the most representative example.

Regardless, your instinct is right, backfilling is incredibly common, and often the best way to preserve a site for the future. Don’t let the haters get you down!

I want a third person single player Superman game, where Superman is actually as OP as he should be. No squish whatsoever unless kryptonite is involved (and kryptonite would have to be very rare). Because he’d be un-killable and have the edge in almost every situation, the game would have to be pretty creative in order to keep it challenging. And no, I don’t want a Clark Kent journalist simulator. I want to have full 3D flight, invulnerability, super-speed, and everything else. The whole shebang. With some creative storytelling and game mechanics, this could be so awesome.

I hear you. West is inspirational, and Biden is far too old and not exciting in the least. I don’t like Biden one bit. But unfortunately even if a vote for West is not necessarily a vote for Trump, it’s still a vote against Biden, which makes it more likely that Trump will win. Almost none of us get to vote for a person we actually like, so I’m genuinely begging you to reconsider and vote for someone who has a chance of winning. Unfortunately unless something radical happens in the next few months, that’s only Biden and Trump. If you’re trying to send a message with your vote for West, I don’t think the people that matter will hear it. I wish things were different, but unfortunately this election is between a boring old institutional politician and a racist, fascist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, insurrectionist rapist.

I’ve got a slightly older Sceptre 43 inch 4K, and tbh I’ve been trying to find a replacement for a while. The form factor of the TV itself is great, but the picture is pretty crappy. There’s a ton of light bleed around the edges, the HDR functionality is insanely frustrating and looks terrible, and the upscaling is crap. I got it on a ridiculous sale towards the beginning of the pandemic when local shops were clearing their inventories, so I can’t really complain. But I would not buy it again.

I also have two of their PC monitors, and they have the same problems as the TV. No more Sceptre for me in the future.

Any of the books narrated by Peter Kenny in the Culture series by Iain M. Banks. Banks’ books are my favorite Sci-Fi, and Kenny does such an impressive job of doing an understated reading. He “does the voices” really well so you can tell the characters apart, but it’s all very subtle and easy to listen to. He also does the “techno-babble” so damn well, and captures Banks’ sense of humor perfectly.

I think there’s only one of the Culture books that he didn’t narrate, can’t remember which at the moment.

Yeah, it was public. This was a while back though, more than two decades ago, so it was the relatively early days of those big online databases. I vaguely remember my school being part of some early trial, though I could be pulling that out of nowhere.

Random American here. Research skills? Yes, definitely. My high school had access to a couple of the major academic publication databases, so we definitely learned the fundamentals. So many essays.

Media literacy? Nope, not in the slightest. Would’ve been nice though.

I think we’re severely lacking in media literacy, financial literacy, and civics in general. A whole generation with a strong background in those things at an early age would do wonders for society.

iPhone text selection and text manipulation in general is abysmal imo. I find typing on my iPhone to be seriously challenging.

For some reason I can’t eat peanut butter in the morning, it’s weird. I’ve tried, and it makes me gag. But I LOVE peanut butter in general, and crunchy with honey is my favorite. If I’m feeling extra special I’ll add some salted butter…

I hate to nitpick, but I didn’t say I believed it, I just said it was simpler, more beautiful, and more believable. Obviously anything in a sci-if show is going to be fully influenced by human culture/religion. Just trying to prompt some good discussions over here.

A similar theory of consciousness was made popular by Babylon 5. It’s one of my favorite philosophical theories they discuss. In that show, the Minbari believe the universe manifests itself in each person in an effort to find meaning and understanding. Essentially, sentient life is as much a part of the universe’s core functioning as stars and planets. It develops as the way for the universe to explore and understand itself. To me, this concept is simpler, more beautiful, and more believable than all our human religions.

I am also a hairy bearded man and I love crying. I’ll cry at sad and heartwarming scenes in shows and movies. Pretty much equally split between tears of sadness and tears of joy. Full on sobbing less frequently, but often enough.

The physical release of tears can be incredibly emotionally cathartic (I imagine that’s the idea?). I usually find myself calm and collected by the time the tears dry.

Stigmas are stupid.

This is the answer. They are simply delicious vehicles for butter and maple syrup (none of that fake shit either…).

This right here. I’ve been using f.lux for years and years, more than a decade at this point. You can set it up so it ignores certain apps, specific displays on a multi-display setup, or all fullscreen apps. You can also fully customize the color temperature in addition to if, when, and how it transitions between cool and warm tones.

Can’t recommend it enough. It’s one of the first things I install whenever I get a new computer. I think it might also integrate with some smart home tech, but I don’t touch that crap.