2d4_bears

I am convinced that law enforcement wants intentionally biased AI decision makers so that they can justify doing what they’ve always done with the cover of “it’s not racist because a computer said so!”

The scary part is most people are ignorant enough to buy it.

Poetry

I’ve recently been working longer hours than usual away from home. My dog has been much more physically affectionate when I’m around because he misses me (cries). For example, at night he sleeps against my leg so that he’ll know if I get up. Things have been tough recently but knowing that this furry monster that lives in my house loves me has been helping.

There are plenty of people who can lift 800lbs in the idealized form of barbells along certain ranges of motion, such as the deadlift or squat. However, I sincerely doubt any human could lift 800lbs of dead weight gorilla, much less one that is struggling. The heaviest stones that have been lifted are in the mid 600# range, and lifting a stone is easier than lifting an equivalent weight of floppy body.

I loved Morrowind at the time. The atmosphere felt alien and there was something new and surprising around each corner. That said, I suspect it would be nearly unplayable if your sensibilities are shaped by modern game design. The controls - especially for combat - were considered clunky even at the time, so I imagine they’ve aged poorly. There is also almost no quest tracking system. You had to use hints in character dialogue or environment design to figure out where to go next to follow a plot thread.

I’m not a fan of the big budget game remake trend, but if someone were to remake Morrowind with QoL improvements and not just updated visuals, I’d consider checking it out.

Probably around 72 hours. I had a severe bout of depression a decade ago. I’m not certain how long I went without food because my memory of that period is hazy, but I barely ate or left my bed for a week. A few years before that I had salmonella poisoning (do NOT recommend) and didn’t eat or really even sleep for something like 10 days. I drank sugar water and electrolytes to stay alive but I still lost about 10 kilos.

Some further research suggests that you’re right. They’re not native to the area but I guess were introduced a long time ago. Thanks!

I had exactly the same experience.

I also really liked Vermont while I lived there, and everything that you mentioned are great features. That said, the state (and much of New England) is overwhelmingly white. I am white-passing, but my spouse is not, and they felt consistently othered while we lived there. Not in an aggressive or hateful way, but in a “strangers see me as a novelty” way that you tend to get in homogenous communities. Burlington is probably a bit more diverse than the relative middle of nowhere where we lived, so your mileage may vary.

You just unlocked a childhood memory of mine. At maybe 6 or 7 I found it very strange how closely my church’s dogma rhymed with various”pagan” mythologies that I’d read about. I recall asking my mom about it, in some childish way, and being taken aback at how unsatisfying her “paper over the cracks” response was. Later on, I also had a lot of “I’m supposed to feel something but don’t” moments. This was a source of considerable distress until I managed to deprogram myself.

Yeah it’s wild how many ways humans can express “don’t question the dogma,” both explicitly and implicitly with deflection, body language, etc. I’m a child of clergy, so I very much grew up “in” a church. Consequently, I don’t even have any specific memories of asking questions and being told not to doubt or what have you. I’d never not been immersed in the fundamentalist milieu, so I subconsciously learned to police my own thoughts and actions without realizing it. It’s taken years to recontextualize some of my childhood behavior. Most of it is sad stuff, like realizing “oh I ghosted that friend because I was trying to avoid becoming aware of the homosexual crush I was developing”. Anyway, I guess my point is that we can be good at preventing ourselves from questioning dogma, too. Until the shelf collapses.

I’m not an ex-Mormon specifically, but this shelf analogy resonates with my experience as someone who was raised in an evangelical Protestant church. Eventually you stack up too many inconsistencies and the cognitive dissonance is too much.