*bullshit

*delusional

This is a side effect of deregulation of both corporations and the stock market. I think that we’re going to see the pendulum swing towards more regulation and consumer-friendly policies here in the US. I don’t see that lasting for the long-term, though. There are too many vulnerabilities in the political system that allow asshole billionaires to manipulate it.

True. I just bought a 1-year-old 330i, and it’s less than my wife’s Kia SUV (We live in Michigan, have three kids and two dogs, so it makes sense for us to have one big bus that can go off-road, else we’d have something smaller and electric). The BMW also costs far less than a pickup truck of the same age and mileage. US manufacturers have been transitioning out of the business of making sedans for years, because they’re not popular here. It is just a sea of SUVs and pickup trucks.

I do have a subscription to all kinds of “connected car” crap for the first year, but I’m going to turn all of that junk off when I make some other modifications later this year. I think the subscription is actually pretty cheap, but I just don’t want a bunch of spyware reporting back my location and speed.

Every morning for the past 20 years. Mostly TWIM, but only for 20 minutes as a formal sit. Lots of short meditation breaks during the day, though. It has made me way less of an asshole, and a happier person.

Same

Yep. I didn’t see anything posted. Maybe my client didn’t refresh correctly.

Pluto was discovered because the orbit of Neptune didn’t match predictions, so astronomers decided that there must be a ninth planet out there. It was very close to where the math predicted it would be.

It turned out later that Pluto was much, much smaller than at first thought, and couldn’t be the 9th planet. It then turned out that the mass of Neptune was greater than expected, and the orbit actually matched expectations without the need for a 9th planet.

As a kid in Detroit? Distant gunfire, most summer nights.

Now as an adult in the suburbs? Usually a fan, because my wife prefers that and I don’t mind.

What a flock of raging assholes. How did they justify forcing working conditions like that on you that you clearly did not want? Did they offer any excuse for doing that?

Is this more of an ADHD thing, or an ASD thing?

I don’t like bright overhead lights, either. I was diagnosed ADHD at the tender age of 56.

I was diagnosed at the age of 56. It might be worth you trying meds again. I have found Strattera to be extremely helpful to me.

And I followed every productivity guru in the world for decades just to try to keep things going for myself professionally. I have so internalized that I am just lazy and need to rail on myself to keep myself in line, that even though I know it isn’t true I still do it to some extent.

I don’t notice anything else related to vasoconstriction. My BP hasn’t changed since I started on it, for instance. It doesn’t really affect my appetite for sex, just my ability. This has lessened over time, but it’s still present. (And after ~8h, everything is fine.)

You can take it before bed if you like. Some people find it sleep-inducing at first. I find it simulating an hour or two later.

From what I have read, there are several different experiences from it. You’ll likely have to try it and see how it works for you, and what accommodations you’ll need to make. Hopefully the comments in this thread give you an idea of what to look out for.

Yes, its daily. It took a few days to notice a difference for me, but it definitely helps me with executive function. I’m up to the max dosage after 18 months, but it’s still working.

Side effects for me are nausea for maybe an hour after I take it, and major “shrinkage”. Sex is a real challenge for around 8h after taking it, and it looks like I’ve been swimming in the Arctic sea for about that long. This isn’t a major problem because I take it in the morning, but it has been occasionally frustrating. That effect wears off by evening, though, so my spouse is ok with me taking it. 🙂

I have never taken stimulants, so I can’t offer a comparison there.

Enough that I can code in pretty much anything. I think the typing point was when I coded professionally in my 4th or 5th language some time in the early 90s.

I have been told (by my attorney) that arbitration is sometimes more expensive than filing suit. IIRC, the rationale is that arbitration can have very high fees and involve a large number of people. It was in the context of drawing up a boilerplate nda, but it has been awhile and I don’t remember the details.

I’ve tried paid versions of ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. I am currently using Gemini, and it is working reasonably well for me.

I mostly use it to replace searches. I haven’t used Google in years, but mainly relied on DuckDuckGo until SEO made it less useful. My secondary use case is for programming. I tend to jump around to a lot of different languages and frameworks, and it’s hugely helpful to get sample code describing what I want to do when I don’t know the syntax.

Once in a great while, I will have it rewrite something for me. That is mostly for inspiration if I want to change the tone of something I wrote (then I’ll edit). I think that all of the LLMs suck at writing.

Correct - its a double negative. Similar to “inflammable” which should mean “not flammable”, but doesn’t.

IIRC, “irregardless” was added to more US dictionaries in the late 20th century. I had a coworker in the early 90s who would become viscerally angry when others would use it…so the rest of us would use it often.

There wasn’t much meat in that story. While it is suspicious that a Russian oligarch paid for a lifetime membership in the NRA , that is not the same thing as funneling money into the Trump campaign. Can you cite any others that have more substantive allegations around Russian money in the NRA?

Before the more reactionary people attack me for being pro NRA, I most certainly am not. I just prefer to advance one or two solid arguments instead of a dozen mediocre or weak ones.

Edit: And thank you for posting that. I did not know there was even that much suspicion on them for accepting Russian money, though it isn’t much of a surprise.