I Have No Mouth, But I Must Shop

Even if you were the only two sources of books, I don't have the time to *read* a book a day any more. So why would I choose the inferior product?

Can't speak for OP, but I think the difference is that it isn't a goal so much a barometer.

Like, when I was growing up the local film critic had very different taste than me. I knew if he gave certain types of movies a bad grade, I'd probably like them. This feels like the political version.

If I set the temperature to 72°F, it gets converted to 23°C for some reason.

And because the AC only kicks in at 2°C over the set temp, setting it for 72°F effectively keeps the room at 77°F.

I can compensate for this but shouldn't have to.

My bought-in-the-US air conditioner works this way. Fahrenheit temperatures are displayed but behind the scenes everything is Celsius, only with a lot of rounding errors.

I can't get past "Zeus, god of war." But then, they ares cientists, not mythologists.

There really aren't prizes involved in club swimming.

As for "unfairness"... Our rival school's swim team had an exchange student who was competing in the Olympics for his country in my best event. But go on, tell me how the real unfairness is a trans girl wanting to be on a team with her friends.

i suspect the folks raising a stink about "coming in second" have never participated in a sport like this, or parented someone who does.

My sport was swimming rather than cross country, but I don't know of any athlete who would prefer finishing first to beating their personal best.

Cindy, but her conviction was overturned because the prosecutor didn't turn over all the evidence to the defense.

It's funny that so many folks on the hellsite seem to have taken the opposite message and assumed that the Christians living in "practical atheism" he was referring to must be the ones who aren't loudly intolerant.

I had the shitty judgment to write this joke reply just a few days after she issued a warning that she'd block people scolding her for engaging with bad-faith users. Didn't realize I'd been (understandably) blocked for this until Bluesky melted down this week.

For what it's worth, sorry.

So in 11 years we went from Richard Cordray turning down his Jeopardy! winnings to... this.

It never occurs to them that the reason they observe assholes have a tendency to be more successful is because successful people tend to be shielded from the consequences of being an asshole.

Who's telling them that?

I think there's a common fallacy, not specific to dating, that goes something like this:

1. This person is successful.
2. This person is an asshole.
Therefore:
3. If I act like an asshole, I too will be successful.

Yep.

30 years ago I was seeing these guys (billing themselves as "Pick Up Artistry" and "Speed Seduction") spamming their bile into every possible newsgroup. It was obvious that their primary seduction targets were gullible men who would pay to have their "masculinity" validated.

Men and boys aren't being told they're bad... they're being told that other people are saying they're bad. Important distinction.

It's supposedly not punishment but one can be sentenced to "time served." I don't know how to reconcile that.

So that's what CASE NIGHTMARE ORANGE is...

That website is obviously a scam site... for starters, their whole "team" is taken from a template called "Untitled UI Webflow Library."

I just can't tell if that site is actually associated with the rest of the "project" or not; it seems like the work of a less sophisticated scammer.

Wasn't a restaurant-based AI already used as the central twist of a dystopian miniseries?

But she *is* the Gail Clown Pagliacci...

It's "Elbereth," right?

Forget it, Kathryn, it's ReplyBotTown.

Hey, it's that Alfred Bester story that starts with a cool concept and ends with the protagonist's subjective world shattered.

They're too busy creating the Torment Nexus to look up the etymology of "robot."

In which model are Democratic Party politicians actually responsive and accountable to their constituents?

What is the remedy for ineffective leadership? Primaries? Ask India Walton how well that works.

So $0, rounded to the nearest million?

Neither of which applies to a high school kid who just wants to play with their friends on a JV team.

Whenever I've asked folks complaining about trans folk in sports what they think the purpose of school sports is, the answers are never about students' health or social skills; it's typically about college scholarships or a need to figure out who's the best in an arbitrary category.

Remember when conservatives used Chesterton's Fence as an argument?