Children aren’t playing there. It’s just the guy living down the street has some priors.

It’s the same picture.

This could be as innocent as “hiring manager was on vacation and we still have some interviews planned” or “our interviewer was caught fornicating with a chicken and we’ve had to make some internal changes”.

I would take it as a positive sign that you’re still in the running, but like others have said, I wouldn’t pause my other job searching tasks to wait for this one to play out.

Kobo works fantastic.

If you have the ability, set up calibre and calibre-web and you can configure your Kobo to use your ebook library as the “store”.

Kobo also has at least one plugin/mod that replaces the whole reading UI with one with more features. Check out KOReader for that.

Apart from that, though, it makes little difference what ebook you get. If it allows you to load your own ebook files on manually (afaik they all do), you can do whatever you want.

And then, surprise! It’s a UK company so they artificially put it at the TOP of the alphabetical list, but you didn’t notice it before you scrolled everywhere else first.

I think I’m at my wit’s end with “smart” things.

Roomba? It takes less time to just vacuum the place than it does for the fucking vacuum to realize it’s been humping the same chair leg for most of its battery charge.

Assistants?

“Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”

“Sorry, that device hasn’t been configured yet”

“Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”

“Sure, turning 2 lights on”

“Hey Google, open the bedroom blinds”

“Sure, opening the blinds”

In places with marginal tax brackets, no. The numbers are different where I live, but the principle (hah) is the same:

If you earn 291k a year, the first 191k is taxed at 24%. The money left over (100k) gets taxed at 32%. So if you get a raise or bonus, the “tax problem” is only that your extra money is immediately taxed at 32%.

I know people who still repeat the line that earning more money will push them into a higher tax bracket and they’d end up with less money than if they stayed at their current income.

This is a great observation. I find it absolutely amazing how many spouses of my friends spontaneously develop NPD as soon as they separate.

It’s almost like…. there’s no disorder, it’s just anger at an ex partner, but using sciencey words is supposed to bolster their case.

And if it’s not a clean kill, the rodent can scratch and bite and give the snake an infection or a missing eye.

There’s no good reason to feed live prey if the animal will accept frozen.

I’m spending way too much time thinking about how the collar and leash work.

Standard sovereign citizen behaviour. If someone claims you owe them money, you plug your ears and run away yelling “lalalalalala”. This erases all debt.

“We should have gotten more feedback before…” is one of Sony’s corporate values.

That’s what happened to Martok.

I wasn’t ready quite yet so I put them in a bag in the freezer.

The bag got so full I had to move to a bigger bag.

My freezer is half full of brown, frozen bananas.

I don’t even like banana bread. Help.

If it was only Spirit I’d assume the gunfire came from inside the plane.

Uh, just a shopping complex near where I live…

Where do my fingers go in?

The only reason driver competence isn’t reassessed with road tests every few years is because the overwhelming majority of drivers are afraid they would fail, so they loudly fight any attempt to rein this in.

Holy fuck, some guy watched me drive for 20 minutes TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO and that’s considered sufficient for me to drive until I’m 80. Regardless of driving record, collision repairs, and any number of things that scream “look into this guy”, the government thinks everything is fine.

I think the standards to be allowed to pilot a 1-2 ton fucking missile should be much higher than they are.

I hung around on Reddit for like 15 years before I left, and I saw a progression from earnest debate to sarcasm becoming dominant in a lot of subs, particularly the busy ones. I imagine this holds true for any popular, long-term forums.

This is what I see:

Person A comes in and gives an opinion that is opposed to the general consensus in the community (“hive mind”).

Person B responds with a detailed explanation of why that opinion has been soundly rejected and how it maps to “the consensus”. This is the kind of quality post that made Reddit shine. It gets upvotes like crazy not because it’s “right”, but because it clearly explains how you get from opinion A to opinion B in a way anybody can follow.

Five years passes.

Person ZZZZ comes in and gives the SAME opinion as Person A.

Person B, inexplicably still a member of the community, responds with a short blast of sarcasm that makes it clear they disagree with that opinion, but long gone are the days where they bother to thoughtfully contrast the opposing views. It’s basically a snappy “you’re dumb and wrong; get fucked” comment. It gets upvoted like crazy this time not because it explains anything, but because it echoes the tired sentiment of the community.

I don’t even know if that’s a Reddit thing or just a general human experience thing. If someone were to approach you alone IRL and say they have concerns about trans athletes, you might have enough energy (and recent context) to be willing to explore the issues and explain your take on several facets of the arguments people commonly make.

If someone came up to you and said they aren’t sure about “this women voting thing”, I can’t imagine you’re going to be nearly as patient or willing to engage. Women’s suffrage has SAILED. The time for debate ended when your great grandmother died.

I saw a similar thing with the current wars. Early on there were interesting points raised. Now if someone comes in with a “unique” opinion on Ukraine or Gaza, they get buried in downvotes or told to fuck off. The time for debate has passed.

Maybe it’s an issue of people joining a debate late and wanting to understand the issues become indistinguishable from bots and trolls with a paid agenda. Volunteers can’t be arsed to waste time educating them.