Why does Baby Jesus look like Donald Trump?

Yeah, but asking for the small piece how I get through social situations like birthday parties with grocery store sheet cake; I think grocery store sheetcake is absolutely disgusting and a standard-sized piece will literally make me sick, but I will suffer a few bites to be part of the festivities and not make the host feel judged for their taste in desserts. Give me a big piece and I’ll feel obligated to finish the whole thing or rudely waste the gifted food.

Also sometimes I’m full or have a bellyache or already had a big dessert that day and really can’t handle that much sugar.

Either way if I’m wrong and decide I want more, there’s this concept called “getting a second serving.”

Sincere question:

Most of the comments here cite reasons for disliking AI that include one or more of the following: environmental degradation, resource consumption, increasing energy/hardware prices, disregarding copyright, disregarding privacy, undermining human artists, mass layoffs, creating a market bubble, throwing education into chaos, monopolization by corporations/billionaires, AI hallucinations/inaccuracy, a product that is overpromising/undelivering, a product that makes generating misinformation easier.

Which of these reasons for disliking AI do you think fall under your assertion of “anti-intellectual technophobia”? They all seem like legitimate, well thought out reasons for disliking something to me, especially when considered together.

Boo, AI slop

Is this meme recommending the destruction of:

1. generative AI Godzilla

or

2. generative AI, Godzilla

?

#commasmatter

I would consider this mildly infuriating, yes.

You can thank the vehicular cycling movement of the 1970s for selling the idea that bicycles should operate like cars on American roadways.

(To anyone at all interested in this topic, I highly recommend reading the linked article for more context. Or watching the Not Just Bikes video in Boomer Humor Doomergod’s comment if that’s more your speed.)

You may have seen my “I’m gonna repost this comment every time I see this type of submission in this community” comments recently. They received positive responses, but after realizing that this type of content is most of the community, I decided a full post would be more productive to the conversation and feel less passive-aggressive.

Great, now “Hitler micropenis” is in my search history.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adolf-hitler-dna-reveals-nazi-likely-kallmann-syndrome-genitals-micropenis/

Everybody should know less about celebrities. Give those poor people some privacy (and stop feeding the attention-seekers).

Not last night, they saw the Aurora down in fucking Florida!

Also >:( for AI image

I haven’t heard of (or personally experienced) hard water being a problem, but I’ve been told chlorinated/fluoridated water can be. Filtered water, or water that’s sat out for 24+ hrs (this allows chlorine to evaporate), is supposedly better for plant health. Some species are more susceptible to these chemicals than others, but I’m uncertain if chlorine/fluoride alone is enough to kill a houseplant.

I think it could work well if you’re the type of person who can follow a daily schedule better than a weekly or biweekly schedule (for instance, if you build it into your routine, e.g. “every day after finishing breakfast the first thing I do is water the houseplants”). It could also work well if having to make a judgment call (“water only when the soil is dry”) is too intimidating or can’t be scheduled into a calendar app with automated reminders.

I know of some plants that can tolerate irregular watering, but can’t think of many that thrive with it. Even in the wild, the seeming randomness of rainfall has at least a seasonal pattern to it, and the plants that are best suited to irregular watering are generally not ideal houseplants for various reasons, like they go dormant during dry spells and start looking ugly, or drop a bunch of leaves when underwatered and make a mess, or require huge root systems, etc. Probably the best houseplants for the truly incapable of following a watering schedule are the drama queens: those plants that have big, showy leaves that droop significantly when thirsty, but quickly perk back up after watering. Noticing this still requires attention, of course, but wilting leaves are much easier to notice than dry soil. I’ve never grown a houseplant like that so I can’t come up with specific examples, but I know they exist.

If you want a plant that does well in lower light and with frequent watering, I’d recommend the maidenhair fern.

Mine gets cranky if it’s not watered at least daily, and it would probably prefer twice a day! In the wild, these plants grow in places with constant water, e.g. alongside a waterfall. Still they’re fairly hardy plants somewhat acclimated to weathering dry spells; I’ve almost killed mine then had it return from the brink of death multiple times following a week of neglecting to water it. Ironically the maidenhair fern’s love of water means you won’t need a plant sitter to come over and water when you go on vacation: if you’re going to be gone for more than a few days, stick the pot in a tub of water a few inches deep; maidenhair ferns doesn’t seem to mind wet roots at all (I’ve done this for up to a month, no prob).

They do need at least a little light, such as an hour or so of direct morning light or hours of indirect light, making them a great choice for north-facing windows and other conditions where many houseplants would struggle.

Obligatory IANAP (I am not a paleontologist).

My understanding is that many (most?) living plants did die; what survived were seeds that could wait around for conditions to be a bit less apocalyptic before sprouting, kinda like what happens with major wildfires. Similarly, the animals that survived were a lot of creatures that could live off seeds and other remaining plant matter (such as small mammals, which had previously been an underdog in the Mesozoic).

Are you still teaching English or did you manage to get out and do something else? My understanding of English teaching in Asia is that it’s a bit of a career trap.

Darwin was also born into wealth and could spend his life studying whatever piqued his interest. Do you have the funds to spend five years circumnavigating the globe studying cool wildlife? Because I sure as fuck don’t.

Whenever I see this I think “wow, cool idea, wish we had something like this in the US.” And then I think “it’s just asking for a discrimination lawsuit so unlikely.” And then I think “well we should be making public transit free for everyone anyway.” And then I think "until we get our housing affordability and mental health crises resolved, free transit proposals just becomes a fear magnet (“roving homeless shelters!!!” “crime train!!!”). And then I get sad.

Disability protections are generally a great thing, and the US is significantly more accessible than many countries for them, but I’ve watched a lot of cool, creative ideas get torpedoed because of them. Instead we’re stuck with car dominance because “everyone can drive, not everyone can walk/bike/take the bus” (inb4 “wtf that’s not remotely true” … I know, but car brain doesn’t).

FYI the Women’s March org is hosting “Free America” protests for the July 4th weekend. See the Women’s March site here. Some other groups may be organizing protests too, but from what I’ve read the WM ones are probably the biggest.

If there’s not a scheduled protest nearby there’s always the option to make a sign and take to a street corner for a solo protest. If you’re feeling especially ambitious there’s always making a giant sign to prop up against the chain link at an interstate overpass (I’ve never done this but it looks fun).

We’re now seven comments deep discussing your refusal to fix a basic grammatical error. You tell me.