Interestingly, many skip that first step. Iirc, it’s about 30% who don’t get more awake but rather start to relax under caffeine. About the same % who also need to poop right after, but not the same people. Lol

Significantly better, actually, but it helps that I didn’t spend my teens and 20s doing hard drugs. Uhh… in the US.

Of all things I have in common with people outside the US, somehow that’s one of my favorites, haha. I think your comment made my day, lol

Whoa! Is that why I hate Hershey’s? I don’t mind their dark but the milk one is awful lol

Reminds me of my own issue with parmesan cheese in things; I taste a vomit smell and just a little will make it bad to intolerable. I followed a recipe that added a sprinkle to a large pot of soup and to be the whole thing just tasted like vomit soup. My wife didn’t notice at all. I think I’m sensitive to butyric acid, the shared factor between the two.

I’ll use your stink bug example in the future when cilantro comes up, though, especially since so many people I know love cilantro and can’t imagine (and to be fair it’s very good without said gene, lol)

I still doomscroll to stay a little informed but my recent salvation has been free ebooks on my phone. Same phone strolling action but instead of doom, I get fun little mysteries.

Every morning, instead of pouring ourselves a bowl of cereal, we get a bowl of war crimes.

NPR yesterday mentioned quite clearly in an interview with John Bolton that economic sanctions are the biggest factor in Iran, and very much on purpose. It is a US strategy, even pre-Trump.

He acknowledged the cultural upheaval that’s been going on years ago, too, and also that negotiations with their regime is a “waste of oxygen.” But sanctions were definitely central.

Though I suppose NPR isn’t really sensationalized… you wouldn’t interview John Bolton if you wanted sensational news.

Yeah… That’s a violation of FERPA and is reportable offense that’ll get ya fired or sued. Lol

I love the idea of someone trying this stupid question irl only to realize it wasn’t even plugged in. That’s … well fuck, that’s most IT work. The convoluted approach is definitely the wrong one. Lol

Santa already extrapolates data for children without lists but with generative AI, we’re going to see new and exciting ways to disappoint children this Christmas!

It’s a lot of individual tables because Santa’s excel struggles with anything past a few hundred thousand rows. It’s not just names, but addresses, lists of desires, and so on.

There are around 2 billion children. If you wonder why he skips so many children, it’s not religion or poverty, it’s because Santa’s files got corrupted.

Ah, my teenage hero. Good chance I direct downloaded something; the Internet was so much better back then, lol.

This actually happened to me. I still had to look busy so I mostly just studied more or worked on a second job I had grading papers. I also spent a bit of time writing stories and designing things. Adding in something creative can help your brain balance things out.

Your mention reminded me of a false pretense game from Adult Swim called Glittermitten Grove. I would consider that itself a fake game in the way a storefront might be a fake cover for a drug operation, except the drug in question is Frog Fractions 2.

Aight, if there are no wrong answers I wanna mention a real old one I’ve had a soft spot for since childhood: The Dreamcast-like music video Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

There aren’t a ton of examples from pre-social media, I wonder if there are any others that people can think of that’re even older?

Edit: Actually reading a few there are some from the 90s, like Simpsons. I forgot all about them, lol.

I don’t think the question is what level math to end on, but rather how math is taught. I teach psych statistics at University and the average student does the math parts mostly fine (it’s just algebra) but their critical thinking and application of the math is usually what is sorely lacking regardless of their ending math course. And in the real world where we do everything with computers, the application is 99% what matters.

I’ve had people in middle age who dropped out in 6th grade in Mexico do better than fresh-from-US-high school calculus experienced students, and that’s not even taking into account this more recent COVID-survivors generation that feels like they skipped a year of education. It’s very… grim.

One of the worst US congress members shares a last name with me, but it’s also so common that it’s pretty diluted. It needs to be both infamous and uncommon, sharing a last name with millions of people ain’t that.

Then again, Epstein is kinda common and I can’t help giggle when I bring up a certain researcher with that last name and call her model the Epstein model.

You basically described the economic concept of consumer surplus. When a product is entirely dependent on the price a consumer is willing to pay because the supply is infinite, the natural result is… this.

Except they shouldn’t be price discriminating; it’s easier and more effective to just offer tiered pricing structures (e.g. collectors editions) and eventual sales (e.g. 50% off after a year) to hit people at different places on the supposed consumer surplus curve. As you note, the undermines your confidence in the prices but you’re likely a little lower on the curve compared to the “must have on day one” crowd.

That said, the whole theory also explains why freemium is so attractive. When there’s no price minimum, the optimal price is 0 and you work your way up with features and perks (while also raising the price people are willing to pay by getting them hooked). It’s all nasty business, lol

Mumble was… fine. My friends actually moved to Discord from Mumble for our MMO stuff but that was primarily because it was easier to invite randos to the chat. That quality makes it almost impossible to break away from atm.

I recall the latency being only a little worse than Discord, but I think that’s because a friend set up the server at his work as a side thing (he also hosted Minecraft and Terraria). It’s not too complex to setup, but your quality will depend a lot on the computer and network you’re running. At least, it did for us, back in the day.

We’ve thought about alternatives to Discord. Old names were Ventrilo and TeamSpeak but they’re just not very modern. Plus, now almost every chat app has voice, too. Just, for features, it’s hard to beat Discord at this… though I’m willing to read the other comments to get for ideas, too. Lol