i hear you, fellow texan. no fan of ercot, but reading this thread has been infuriating.

for anyone else reading my comment - some years ago, i lived in oklahoma for a little while. years of drought, one year a lot rain. lots of trees with a lot dead branches weighted by new growth, then that winter an ice storm hit. trees bigger than my car came crashing down and it was all over the town i lived in. for three days in the silence, you could hear branches cracking and falling. two houses down a tree went right through their living room. one end of our street was impassable for several days until someone could cut one tree into small enough pieces to clear it.

needless to say, power was out. parts of town had power back within days, some parts of the state, if i remember correctly, didn’t have power for weeks.

grid stability or redundancy couldn’t have prevented that problem.

https://www.weather.gov/oun/events-20071208

Ken M! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_M

Ken M, is that you? (i hope so!)

which one… Elon? (i’m all for it)

this is the way. there is a place for policing in society, and it should be composed of highly trained, educated professionals held to a high standard.

A V E R A G E takes a heck of a lot of poor folks to balance the billionaires.

they asked me and others to leave the house when i called (active suicidality and psychosis). i told them we would not, that i was sitting next to him on the floor and two minors were in their rooms nearby. i hoped they would be less likely to do something stupid when they knew there were three other people here and one actively witnessing and close to him.

i think it ensured they were more thoughtful entering my home, and he was calmer when they entered because i remained.

fortunately, i had calmed him enough and taken the weapon that this was even a possibility. i suspect it doesn’t hurt that we’re white.

i would typically agree, except that my neighbor told there is a cat that belongs to her little dog. i have since been paying attention - i swear, it’s like that dog has a cat. she walks the dog and the cat comes along. not with my neighbor, but with the dog.

let me be more direct then - i find it difficult to take your view on the whole of academia seriously when its basis appears to be the “experience” of a “friend,” particularly keeping in mind you have already wholly dismissed social sciences. i understand that statements such as yours are not invitations to actual conversation.

good night.

yes, dispense upon us your second-hand, bitter expertise. i’m certain you have the Truth, the Facts, and the Data.

the bad news is that, despite growing up with pc’s and having had some level of troubleshooting skill as a result, i have forgotten most of it in the last 10 years as computing/tech has become pushy and handholdy. i suspect this is not uncommon.

edit - but i still miss xp. 😔

yeah, they really advanced environmentalism with this dumb shit. 🙄

or paint, that’s been a thing.

really pisses me off, environmentalists attacking art, of all things. random art didn’t cause environmental issues, and they’re undermining their own message with the sheer absurdity of it.

wow, that headline is a whole journey

is the insurance good enough to cover the cost of a knee and a hip for me? because that’s what i’m gonna need if they want me to take up running. at minimum.

this is not a bonus available to employees who can’t take up running, for whatever reason.

thank you for pointing it out, i had not noticed.

regardless, always good to consider how presentation influences our views.

yep, definitely turned out to be the kind of hateful shitbag his grandfather would have loved. bleh

the only problem i had when i was driving a small car (i drive a mid-size car now) was my sense of vulnerability when surrounded by stupid massive lifted trucks bearing down on me. it felt really unsafe. and i live in stupid-giant-truck land, they’re not an anomaly here.

eta - plus giant truck owners seem to get off on being scary aggressive drivers.

xits omg, i didn’t know people were calling them this now!