My wife has big boobs. Sometimes she shows them off on purpose, but even when she doesn’t, they’re big and round and nice to look at. She says if people are going to look, at least be inconspicuous about it and not stare.

That said, I know other women who have felt cursed by their big boobs because everywhere they go, they’re ogled without their consent. Which is also fair. Just because some women are okay with it, doesn’t mean I’m entitled to check everyone out.

I’m a social worker. I had a tough time in grad school at the peak of the Me Too movement and Trump’s first term. My cohort was maybe 5% men. I sometimes felt like the target of the anger and resentment my classmates felt towards men in general. I worked hard to listen and not be defensive, but it was difficult.

I’ve experienced a little bit of that since graduating, but it was specific to a toxic workplace. These days I’m just so grateful to be surrounded by brilliant women. I learn so much and I never feel out of place.

If you like geometry and trig, the apps Pythagorea and Euclidea are very fun puzzles. They’re free and there are hundreds of puzzles. They get very difficult.

I wouldn’t go that far. As OP said, some groups are certainly like that, but I’ve been to a couple that are actively and explicitly secular. Every group is different.

I’m really sorry. I can’t imagine the helplessness of watching that happen around you.

I’m in a similar boat. I’ve been going to therapy for over 20 years. I’ve been with my wife for 13 years. She’s funny, creative, and widely beloved by almost everyone who meets her. At home, she’s emotionally hard to connect with. She’s never been to therapy and sees no reason to start because “nothing’s wrong with her.” She meets many of the stereotypes that we usually apply to men - can’t identify her emotions or claims she doesn’t have them, and doesn’t understand “why we have to talk about everything.” We’ve been to couples therapy a couple times and she generally hated it, saying the therapist made it seem like everything was her fault. I know I deserve a partner who will join me in processing hard stuff, but it’s been a very long road in trying to get there.

I support you supporting curiosity. If OP is asking in good faith, they deserve not to get torn apart.

That said, “racism” doesn’t only describe explicit disparagement of one race by another. Racism can also be a feature of language, systems, communities, etc.

To your last point, there’s a great book called Survival of the Richest by Doug Rushkoff. He describes “The Mindset” in which tech billionaires keep trying to use tech to escape the climate apocalypse that they created. They simply lose the ability to think of any solution besides further growth.

The Diabolical Lies podcast had an episode recently where they explored the history of sexual orientation. Apparently it was only in the last 100 years that we started using “homosexual” to describe a person’s identity rather than a person’s behavior. Personally I support you identifying however you want, though I understand other people being less flexible.

For dinner, anything from Alison Roman. For dessert, anything from Claire Saffitz. It’s a pretty basic take but their recipes are simple and incredibly tasty.

What’s your budget exactly? I haven’t tried them, but Consumer Reports has high ratings for the DustBuster CHV1410L and the ION HHVI315JO42. You can get either one for under $50.

This would have been my top line comment. I wish anime wasn’t such a glaring blind spot for me, because it’s something so many people connect on. But I see it like reality TV. There’s 1000 shows with 1000 episodes each, and some shows are probably great, but I’ve never been interested.

It’s so special and it has a lot of really important messages. Everyone has parts of their lives you don’t see, it’s okay to laugh at yourself, and we’re all in this together.

They did such a good job with S02E01, I wish we got a chance to see how they’d portray the pandemic.

High Maintenance on HBO. It’s an anthology show (different characters every episode) that centers on a guy who bikes around NYC selling weed. It manages to be hilarious while focusing on some very sad and strange experiences. It feels very grounding to me and I always feel a sense of “we’re going to get through this.”

Those people perform at such a high level. And they do it every night without missing. I can’t wrap my head around it.

Yes. They project the text from an angle so it reflects towards the speaker. Just like windows are transparent but can still reflect images in the right lighting.

This guy found that his production software had a hard time isolating the tracks, probably because the music was all generated at once, rather than track by track. I’m not smart enough to know any more detail than that.

I just started leaving my car unlocked for this reason. There have been a few times over the years that I left it unlocked and someone rifled through my shit, but last week they smashed the window. It’s amazing what a mess it makes.

I saw a guy at a music festival a few years ago that had a HUGE lostprophets tattoo across his upper back. Poor guy.

If you’re into movies at all, Team Deakins is a casual conversation between GOAT cinematographer Roger Deakins, his wife/creative partner, and an actor or crew member. It’s very pleasant. There’s no agenda, so they just chat about life and the film industry. Sometimes it’s incredibly technical, and other times it’s funny or philosophical. For technical, the Matthew Libatique episode. For philosophical, Frances McDormand or David Dastmalchian.