ArbitraryValue

joined 2 years ago
[–] ArbitraryValue 4 points 3 days ago (3 children)

"Obligatory charity." Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

[–] ArbitraryValue 2 points 3 days ago

He didn't do well against Persia but he did bag an impressive number of Christian saints.

[–] ArbitraryValue 71 points 5 days ago (5 children)

The computer that controlled all the doors refused to open any of them, including the door to the room in which it was physically located.

It wasn't quite HAL 9000 because doors could still be opened from the inside, but control over the computer was regained only with the help of a locksmith.

[–] ArbitraryValue 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

I was talking to a friend of mine about whether or not we would get along with exact copies of ourselves. He didn't think that he would want to spend much time with his copy, but I thought I would love my own company in that sense. We would have the same values, the same goals in life, the same likes and dislikes, the same hobbies, the same sense of humor, etc. And all that is just with a same-sex copy of myself that I would have no attraction to. An opposite sex (but still heterosexual) copy would also have the same sex drive and the same weird fetishes.

Anyway, it's still probably not worth fracturing one's psyche for but with good arguments for each side. Reasonable people can disagree.

[–] ArbitraryValue 7 points 5 days ago

No, not the bees. My eyes!

Or so I've heard...

[–] ArbitraryValue 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

What can "never" mean here?

For coal, however, if you invest 1kWh you typically get below 0.4 kWh in return.

So people run coal plants to destroy energy? Like, you have too much electricity and so you build a coal plant to get rid of it?

I'm not sure that whatever metric this source uses matches what most people think when they hear "energy amortization".

[–] ArbitraryValue 19 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Bezos looks pretty good for a man his age.

 

The fascinating thing here is that the government's lawyer, the one supposed to argue against this guy's return, appears to have sided against the government.

"Give us 24 hours to get him back, Reuveni said. "That was my recommendation to my client but that hasn't happened"

 

When I was a teenager, I thought people in their 20's were the most attractive. Now that I'm about 40, I still think people in their 20's are the most attractive. It's hard for me to believe that I might ever be attracted to someone past retirement age, even when I'm past retirement age myself, unless the person is like one of those celebrities who look way younger than they are.

This isn't something I can comfortably ask most older people I know, but there's one man who admits that he isn't and one woman who is. Which is more normal?

 

"Deleted" sounds so casual too, like God did it as part of some routine cleanup.

 

I live a bachelor lifestyle, so I have no food in here. Just alcohol. I hope the mouse figures that out and goes away. I should get some traps in case it doesn't. I hate killing animals but there's no practical alternative.

 
 

I was supposed to move my car last night but I forgot. The ticket is for $65 but I found a dollar on the ground near my car so I'm actually only out $64.

I set an alarm in my calendar so I won't forget next time.

 

It'll cost $9 each time. They're raising money for the mass transit system by charging specifically those people who don't use the mass transit system and that feels really unfair to me.

 

Archive link.

As recently as February, Mr. Walz said on a podcast that he had been in Hong Kong, then a British colony, “on June 4 when Tiananmen happened,” and decided to cross into mainland China to take up his teaching duties even though many people were urging him not to.

But it was not true. Mr. Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, indeed taught at a high school in China as part of a program sending American teachers abroad, but he did not actually travel to the country until August 1989.

Why bother making something like this up?

 

Pretty much every major shopping website has terrible search functionality.

I usually want something very specific, for example 60w dimmable e12 frosted warm led bulb. I have not found a single shopping website that won't show me results without many of these terms in the description. I don't want to see listings that say 40w and don't say 60w anywhere, and it isn't hard to filter them out!

Are these shopping websites bad on purpose? What's in it for them?

 

Before covid, I would be sick with a cold or flu for a total of about two weeks every year. That means I spent 4% of my time sick; one out of every 25 days. Since covid appeared, I've been wearing an N95 in crowded indoor areas whenever I reasonably can. (Obviously I can't if I'm eating something.) My main goal initially was to protect my elderly relatives, but during the last four years I have not gotten sick even once, except from my elderly relatives who didn't wear masks, got sick, and then infected me when I was caring for them.

Why isn't everyone wearing N95s? Sure, it's uncomfortable, but being sick is much more uncomfortable. And then there's the fact that wearing an N95 protects other people and not just the wearer...

 
 

There appears to be no straightforward way to permanently stop Windows 11 Home from rebooting on its own after installing updates. I looked for workarounds but so far I have only found a script that has to run on a schedule to block the reboot by changing "working hours". (Link.)

Is that really the best that is possible?

view more: next ›