At that point, I’d expect the cyclist to pull over and let traffic flow past.

The same way we expect slower traffic to keep right or use turnouts to let faster traffic pass them on mountain roads. Nothing wrong with being slower or less comfortable on the roads, but if you are causing traffic to back up, you can get out of the way.

The biker’s loss is <1min as they use a turnout, shoulder or sidewalk, and the cars all get where they are going without needing to perform riskier passing maneuvers.

Doesn’t generally apply if you have a single car but I’ve been in a situation behind a cyclist where I wasn’t knowledgeable about the road ahead and was unable to find a place to safely pass for a while. I clearly was making the cyclist nervous, and I was nervous. A 10 second delay for the cyclist would have resolved the issue. Instead, I spent more like a minute waiting for a moment with enough visibility to let me safely pass.

A company where the stated objective was to prioritize profit at the cost of human life. That’s a job to cause death.

The people working for that company are not likely to be in a position to quit over ethical issues, as they are trying to feed their families, but the CEO of that company made decisions that directly impacted other people lives and likely killed many. If he didn’t want to deny claims for care, he could have resigned. Instead, he profited.

His job was to cause death. As is the job of all for-profit health care companies.

I sure hope it’s not staffed with people that find CEOs repugnant…

There are no good billionaires and corporations are not your friend.

Don’t lump us all together. Windows users are just linux users who aren’t there yet.

I moved early this year and haven’t had significiant problems, though I’m IT savvy and can code my way around my issues. Linux is great, and I’d been halfway there for a long time, but Windows had the edge on gaming and simplicity. They fucked up, though when they started pushing for AI and Win11, at least for me. Where the Rubicon lies will be different for everyone, but it does exist for many.

We win by couching linux as the place to go to escape corporate focus and greed, not by being elitist.

This is the part that hurts the most.

I canvassed, I rallied, I pushed people to vote. I did what I could to ensure the fascist didn’t win again, but he still did. Enough of my country either didn’t care, found some excuse to not vote for her, or wanted him to to be president.

I was denied a chance at a primary, but I was excited for Kamala. There is no person who can sit and represent 300 million people and make them all happy, but she was more on my side than not, and I’m willing to push for ‘better right now’ and then push for ‘better later’ too as distinct events.

As part of the now vocal minority, I don’t relish what is to come. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it; but lumped in with ‘Americans’, we sure seem to.

Exactly.

Same reason I sometimes eat boxed mac&cheese or go to a mcdonalds instead of a real burger place. Sometimes the thing is it’s own thing instead of what it’s imitating.

I can’t make a mcdonalds hamburger at home. I can’t get the ingredients and bread:sauce:meat:cheese ratio right. My burgers are good, I’d even say better, but they aren’t the same and sometimes I’ll crave the mcdonalds version.

Honestly, I hate these arguments. “To each his own,” “Don’t yuck my yum,” etc. Sometimes I want to do things I know are imperfect and you, internet stranger, have no ability or prerogative to tell me what I can do or like.

What does that mean?

This is the frantic typing of someone who is distraught; who has seen their country die and now has to live with the still-kicking remains.

That might be a bit hyperbolic, but to those of us with empathy for our fellow man, it’s not a major stretch.

They mean to say that so many people are about to die in so many places, both domestic and foreign.

When I woke up after election night, I wept for the uncountable number of people who would die because of that one night. Some will be killed soon by having critical care fully enshrined as illegal because they are women. Some will die later, because their healthcare benefits are cut and they can’t afford care. Some might die because they happen to have said the wrong things publicly. Many will die in a year, as we empower other fascists in other countries to do terrible things. Many more will die in a decade because of policies enacted by the incoming administration, which places vastly more importance on the increase in wealth of a few over the well-being of the many. And I can see a future where BILLIONS die because the people in charge prioritize power and money over the health of our planet.

The nation that I grew up believing in: the melting pot, the country that welcomed those in need has turned hostile and ugly. The first trump election was a fluke, a flaw in the system that allowed a “charismatic” “outsider” to gain power and abuse it. Biden’s election was a refutation, though only barely, and seemed to show we were better than that.

Trump’s re-election, however, is proof that we aren’t better. Enough people couldn’t be bothered to vote that we elected a criminal.

We, collectively, chose this and we will never be free of that legacy.

Here’s my complaint about this. Had trump lost the election, he would be demanding recounts in every possible place as well as launching lawsuits to delay and distract. We KNOW this, since he did it in 2020.

How unreasonable is it, then, that with all the questions raised by both his statements in public (such as “we’ll have it fixed so good you won’t have to vote” regarding 2028) and the statistical anomalies we can’t call for a recount in places where things seem amiss? If nothing is found, great, we elect a fascist; but if there was an attack/hack/fraud, then we find it and expose it. We have nothing to lose (we’re saving money over a trump loss and recounts everywhere) and Democracy to win.

I’m in a swing state and I definitely checked after the election to see that my ballot was counted. However, I can’t see the details as a private citizen, so I can’t verify it was tabulated correctly. I’m in NC, where the republican governor candidate was truly repugnant, but trump won by 3.39 points and Josh Stein won by over 14! In fact, more people voted for Stein than Trump. Maybe we could get Mark Robinson to request a recount…

I believe we are well and truly fucked.

Education and critical thinking is lacking in the majority of the electorate and the trend is that we elect leaders that reinforce that instead of mitigate it. Defunding education doesn’t improve this situation, and I feel we hit a tipping point where we might not be able to get these skills back in the curriculum going forward.

Follow-up. If any of the myriad things that Harris doesn’t do for you (anyone reading this) are that important, what have you done to solve them offline? Have you written to your senators and representatives? Are you canvassing? Are you part of your local democratic organizations and aware of how local offices affect the bigger picture? If you are sitting there going “I don’t like X,” and not DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT and choosing to sit this race out or protest vote for “jill” instead of Kamala, you are doing EVERYONE a disservice. This is not a spectator sport where you can just chime in every 4 years.

Sure, be mad about how Kamala isn’t the perfect choice, but just think for a second about how much worse donald would be for ANY of the things you might want – unless what you want is to be racist and spiteful ¯\(ツ)/¯.

If you think trump would really be a better choice for things like the economy and cost of living, then you need to go back to school for some critical thinking skills – which the Republicans would like to finish cutting from the curriculum.

If any of these issues matter, then get involved on November 6th after you voted for Kamala. Otherwise you might just not have the chance.

Want more progressive leaders? Become them or find them and encourage them to run for office and them help them win. Bitching about how both sides are the same every few years does NOTHING except help the worst side.

Same! My 15k lumen, 6500 Kelvin lamp is honestly one of my favorite things. My office is brightly lit regardless of the world outside. My wife hates it and demands I use soft white, 75w equivalent lights everywhere else.

I can live with the lights that imitiate candles, but I go to MY space if I need to see something clearly.

Passive aggressive ‘All your veggies are actually fruits’ energy here. I love it :)

This has been a regular debate in my household and I’m with you on this.

I’m going to echo Ahardyfellow and Auster, but put it here so it hits your inbox.

It sounds like you are struggling with connections and novelty. Be active and ping your friend network, see who is up for doing new things with you: find a new restaurant and catch up, go to an active collaborative activity like an escape room, etc. Push yourself a few times and it will build momentum and keep you all connected.

If your friends aren’t up for these things, find new friends (and keep the old, you can have more than one friend group and they don’t have to interact).

I’m an introvert and leech off my wife’s friend group so I’m not the expert on making new friends, but I think Auster’s idea is solid: Find a hobby that gets you out of the house and talk to people doing the same thing. Plan to see each interaction as a success, even if it doesn’t make you a new friend or even go well. The goal is to socialize, and if you do that enough, you will find people who make you happier.

Novelty is a big factor in our happiness that doesn’t seem to be talked about much. If you are always following the same routine, try and shake it up. It’s not comfortable at the start if you’ve been in a rut, but it will make you happier. Put it on your calendar to do something new. Even if it’s only once a month, and the ‘newness’ is just doing something you like in a different place. Again, it’s momentum, and more challenging new things will seem less daunting over time.

That’s some really neat context. I wasn’t overly concerned with Jeb at the time, since I had no interest in any of the R candidates, but the ‘please clap :(’ sure did the rounds.

I can see now, though, that Kamala Harris was certainly aware and trying to not hit the same landmine during the DNC. Watching her try to politely tell the crowd to shut up for what felt like an hour got quite painful.

Crowds: You need to let your speakers speak!

I don’t mind the taste of the “healthy” tortillas. I generally prefer the taste of whole grain bread and pasta over white flour variants. My largest complaint is that they all seem to disintegrate when you look at them – probably a gluten thing, but they all just break or shred instead of hold together, which defeats the purpose of wrapping your food in them.

It does indeed. Thanks for sharing this, and I’m now a fan. Sadly, they seem to have split up after rebranding as ‘Twin Beasts’. I found the album for this on bandcamp: https://thetoottoottoots.bandcamp.com/album/outlaws ; and the rest of the album is great too after sampling a few tracks.

That lead vocalist is mostly incomprehensible, but his voice is awesome.

don’t trust polls.

This isn’t telling you to not be confident or to be scared, this is telling you to not assume victory is assured. Vote regardless of polling. Polling can be accurate or not. If the polling is accurate, and a majority would vote for A, but A is so far ahead of B that A-voters sit out the race, B can still win if enough voters choose to stay home.

This is a really interesting question. If I were a researcher, I’d try to go chase this topic, since it seems to be fairly quantifiable.

Like Mudskipper, I can replay music in my head but it has a few caveats: I don’t really process the instruments… I remember the pitch/volume/etc but primarily of vocals. I also replay with the original singer’s voice and not my own. Replaying a few songs in my head now and I can’t even focus on the instruments if there were vocals unless they are critical to how the song works, like a bass drop. If I try to replay music that is instrumental, I get verbal recreations, like someone performing the song acapella. If i focus hard, I can hear instruments instead, but that requires thinking about it. This matches how I ‘sing along’ with instrumental pieces in otherwise verbal songs. It might just be that the backing music isn’t retained, so I can remember the melody, but not, say, a bass line unless the bass is being highlighted.

Are there people who CAN’T replay music in their heads? Are they immune to ‘ear-worms’ or do they just perceive it differently?

I’ve combined these headphones with earplugs for a plane trip. Engine roar overpowers the sound for bone conducting headphones the same way it does for earbuds or headphones that don’t isolate. You might still need to crank the volume up, though. Planes are loud. No issue of other people overhearing it at that point though.

Umm… trigger warning, I guess, but the best way to fight fears that you know to be somewhat irrational is information and exposure. This guy, https://www.youtube.com/@travismcenery2919/videos , has very deep and detailed videos about the spiders you are most likely to meet, along with some cool pressure tests of said spiders showing that they really just want to be left alone rather than hunt you.

I liked spiders to begin with (except for the jerks that spin a single invisible strand at head-height in front of my door every morning), but his videos do a good job of giving them character and making them into cute eight-eyed goofballs instead of super predators.