I’m always excited to see new designs for her. She always looks awesome.

I’ve come to view this stuff as people trying to cast spells. Basically, if you do a ritual and write magic words, maybe what you want will come true.

In the ancient days you summoned demons and angels. Now you invoke the Secretary of State or something.

I read that as Miette and did a melodramatic voiceover in my head.

I need to play Disco Elysium again.

I’ve been finding the crazy building in arid environments odd, because even aside from forest fires, if your water supply dries up, you’re going to have to uproot and move to a state or location with a reliable water source. And you’ll be part of a big mass of climate migrants at that point.

This picture is too cute for something so horrific.

I’ve been thinking of getting a motorcycle, and Harley has no entry level bikes So new riders try a Honda or Kawasaki when young and broke and build brand loyalty to that, I’m sure.

Not surprising Harley is dying. All their stuff is so expensive you never get to figure out if it’s good or if they’re coasting on reputation while quality goes to shit or something.

Duality exists. He might have been awesome in a way they saw, even if his loud pipes were annoying to you.

Don’t know if he was, only that you got a limited view of this person, and it seems cruel to degenerate how other people mourn.

Because most people run on their personal experiences, and don’t do great when they have to think very far ahead or extrapolate and make connections.

If you’re lucky enough to be born into a conservative home that’s not bugshit crazy, and you’re lucky enough to not be TOO smart, neurodivergent, gay/lesbian/trans/etc. then you’ve probably never seen the full ugly face of conservatism because you were treated nicely.

Lots of conservatives will treat you perfectly politely…if they get to know you, and as long as you look white and clean-cut enough. As long as you give the right social signifiers, basically.

Most of my ex-conservative friends group was driven away from conservative family because we were abused in some obvious fashion, were gay/lesbian/trans, were neurodivergent, etc. We were different in ways that, ultimately, after a lot of pain, forced us to cut ties with family. (It was never our first choice though.)

But a woman who was lucky to be born into a family that treats her halfway decently won’t experience that sort of ugliness until an emergency happens and it’s leopards-eating-faces time.

And it’s VERY hard to rock the boat BEFORE something bad happens to you, when you know rocking it will have really bad consequences immediately. People don’t like to be shunned or kicked out of families, so if they’re not treated TOO badly they’ll toe the line and conform out of fear of the unknown and fear of losing everything they have and know.

It’s a veiled rape threat, the kind that is worded ambiguously enough that it flies under the radar for many but terrifies those who’ve experienced similar scenarios with creepy, weird, abusive men.

I’m curious about two things. Will nesting birds or animals find this material tasty or good to gnaw on?

I always ask that ever since I learned vehicles using a more organic plastic for wiring harnesses suffer from shorts due to animals like mice nibbling the plastic because it smells tasty.

I remember as a kid, I was mystified by this other girl on the block who could do this. I didn’t understand why anyone would care. A car is a car?

Eventually I realized it’s because she was super into external social status signs. She wasn’t a gearhead, so she hadn’t picked it up the way guys do bonding over technical stats of whatever, but she was hyper-sensitive to social status, so she picked it up along with anything else related to fashion. And cars can be considered fashion, right up there with makeup and having the right purse.

Random addition to your post…

There’s early/limited studies suggesting the drug valproate, which is used for bipolar and epilepsy sometimes, can re-open the perfect pitch acquisition capabilities of the human brain even if the individual is no longer an infant and has aged past the language acquisition stage of childhood development.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848041/

Different use of it in an 8 year old girl with language regression: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11230735/

Acting, literally. Playing a character to entertain. Some characters are villains.

I think this is why random wrestling dudes sometimes successfully slide into Hollywood acting careers.

Roberts send bob pics, not dick pics.

Doesn’t help you now I’m sure, but I’ve found gently banging around the rim or lid of a jar on the concrete outside usually loosens the seal enough to open the jar.

(Outside on concrete because I don’t want to dent anything inside.)

That’s how you end up washing your earphones

I finally realized this guy’s name reminds me of some in house menswear brand at Sears or K-Mart or some other department store that suffered and wheezed and whimpered before going out of business.

I wonder if Ukraine is having an effect on attitudes.

Anyway, I can’t speak for others, but one thing I’ve come to realize through life experiences is that the best way to resolve differences is to behave civilly and talk. BUT. I’ve also seen that there are people who do not ascribe to or live by my preferences and ideals for this. There are people who don’t value rationality, there are people who can’t be shamed or pressured by society into behaving nicely and getting along with others. Those people respect the stick, and only the stick. I don’t want to use the stick. But these people do not live by my ideals (which are to talk things out and behave civilly), no matter how I say pretty please to them, and it’s foolish to project my values onto them when I see with my own eyes that they behave and react in patterns different to my own. They respect things that scare them or directly threaten them only, and continue to misbehave if all they’re going to get for it is a finger-wagging and a scolding.

So it seems very wise to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. The military is our stick. There are people out there who will behave in the most horrific uncivil ways right up until the moment they realize you have a big stick, then they’ll suddenly rein themselves in, and you can then be civil and talk things out. But that opportunity to talk doesn’t appear unless you actually have the stick when you’re dealing with folks of that sort of mentality.

It’s very important to look at your opponents with clear eyes and see what they ARE doing, not what you wish they would do, and not what you would do if you were in their shoes. As the saying goes, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

Weirdly enough, the only game I tried to play that didn’t run was this random Indy game. Didn’t even have fancy graphics, it was one step up from macromedia flash games

The AAA games I’ve played are fine on Linux. Baulders Gate, No Mans Sky, Fallout 76, Cyberpunk 2077, Crusader Kings III.