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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • So first there is a difference between reduction of meat products and an elimination. Having people consume less meat is good and helpful even if they don’t cut it out completely.

    Second, as a vegetarian, I don’t understand what you mean by producing a bunch of monocultures. Do you think vegans just sit around all day eating avocados? I eat very little dairy or egg, and my diet consists largely of beans, rice, chilli, bread, stir fry, tofu, peanuts/legumes, veggies, baked potatoes, sandwiches, etc. I eat a large variety of staple goods cooked into a variety of dishes from around the world, and classic American fare, just without meat. Avocados and other resource intensive crops like almonds are a minority of my diet by a large margin. Things like beyond meat is also an infrequent treat.

    Edit: here’s a decent article. https://www.nytimes.com/article/plant-based-diet.html

    Generally speaking, a plant-based diet consists largely of vegetables, fruit, beans, legumes, grains and nuts, with little or no meat, dairy or fish.

    Yet another major study has recently been published, showing that eating a plant-based diet is significantly better for the environment than eating a meat-based diet.

    The research, conducted by Oxford University, found that people who follow a meat-free diet are responsible for 75 percent less in greenhouse gas emissions than those who eat meat every day, and that following a low-meat, vegetarian or pescatarian diet is proportionally less detrimental to land, water and biodiversity than a meat-heavy diet.

    Referenced research: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w


  • Some suggestions, either online or local;

    Bookclubs
    Walking groups
    Chess, board games, table top
    Theater groups (meetup groups to go to the theater as a group)
    Escape room group meetups.

    Depending on if you are in a city or a smaller town the locals options will vary. I’d look at meetups site and browse local activities. For most any activity you will find a range of ages, but some will skew more one way than another.

    Best of luck!



  • I’m sure it varies by area.

    Where I live they install speed cameras in residential areas, school zones, and bus routes. They also only trigger when you are going 12 or more over the limit, and the highest speed limit I’ve seen with one these was 45mph, 35mph during school times. They also have an officer review and sign the citation, it is a flat fee, and no points. If needed, the officer who reviews will testify in court.

    If someone is going 12+ over on school zones, school bus routes, and residential neighborhoods, then they deserve their fine.



  • I’ll give you some general advice and am happy to answer any follow up questions you might have.

    Upfront, I recommend getting a laptop from a well known vendor running Windows. If you aren’t looking to go on a technology learning expedition, just need something that will work, and will have a warranty and a support line if things go wrong, you can’t beat a vendor. Dell is probably where I would look, but Microsoft surface, and Thinkpad’s are also good.

    Going with Windows from a vendor supplied laptop will maximize the amount of support you have and the number of things that just work.

    If you are looking for more of a technology project, I’d need to know more about what your tolerance is for fiddling with technology or your computer not working.

    As for CAD, as others said, check the recommended software specs and match your computer to them. Make sure you give yourself plenty of fast storage like m.2.

    For browsers, I use Firefox. I’d recommend Firefox as being a good balance between privacy and just working with plugin support. But chrome and other chromium based browsers like edge also just work.

    Consider getting a Microsoft 365 personal or family account. For $100/year you get cloud storage, computer backups, and the local and online office suite, and it all integrates well into Windows.

    If any of the above assumptions are wrong, I’m happy to update recommendations.

    Finally, how do you learn to fish? It takes time to come up to speed on things, so slowly learning, finding neutral review sites like maybe Tom’s hardware, and doing your own testing.

    Lots of people will give you opinionated advice, so don’t be afraid to be skeptical. Think about what’s important to you, whether that be just working, or privacy, or availability of support materials.


  • I don’t disagree that comment OP could have phrased it better and come across as less judgey. And I think that of someone like you left a well worded reply to the effect that it would be very fair feedback.

    At the same time I feel like some of the comments she has gotten are living down to the less generous version of her statements. If that makes sense. It also sort of feels like people wallpapering over the underlying reason that many women look for social media participation, which is as a way to vet for safety reasons.

    But I agree, it’s not good to typecast and overgeneralize, and a better suggestion to the post OP might be that some women look for social media accounts for safety reasons, if that is part of your social issues mentioned.

    But I digress. Have a great day!



  • I love that your post gave a probabilistic binning of someone who doesn’t have a traditional social media account, which was unironically confirmed by people replying with rustled jimmies.

    Come on folks, it should be clear from context that she is saying that a single woman setting up dates is going to use what limited info they have to avoid stalkers, cheaters, red pillers, and anti social people. That this might filter out perfectly normal people along with the creeps is the cost of maintaining safety and not wasting time, which is pretty much par for the course in dating. There’s also a difference between exchanging info after a brief meeting, and actually knowing a person for an extended time and then dating. I doubt OP is saying that someone they studied with for three semesters would be excluded for lack of social media, because they have real life context and don’t need the proxy filters.

    Also, getting real close in these replies to “but I’m a nice guy” and “I’m not like other girls.”



  • Yeah, this is one of those situations I have mixed feelings on. On the one hand, in a perfect world what consenting adults do on their own time wouldn’t change perceptions of their competency or leadership.

    Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and executive leaders do carry the expectation to keep their private lives private, and if something is public it shouldn’t be controversial.

    My two cents is that the guy was naive in thinking this wouldn’t undermines his executive role as leader of a campus. And naivety isn’t a great trait in a leader. But the president shouldn’t have made disparaging remarks about him and should simply have left it at a vague “differences in judgement.”


  • I read a NYT article on this and the videos included them having sex with the pornstars and they also published their own porn videos.

    In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Gow and Ms. Wilson said that they believe they were fired over the videos, which included sex scenes together and with others under the username Sexy Happy Couple. Both said they felt it was wrong for the university to punish them over the videos, arguing that doing so infringes on their free speech rights.

    Mr. Gow, 63, said he and his wife, 56, have made videos together for years but had decided recently to make them publicly available on porn websites and had been pleased by the response. They said they never mentioned the university or their jobs in the videos, several of which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views. The couple also has made a series of videos in which they cook meals with porn actors and then have sex.

    The article also includes some basic legal history that doesn’t make it seem like they will have much recourse.

    NYT gift article


  • I look at the long arc of history and see that progress is not monotonic (always increasing or decreasing). We are experiencing setbacks to overcoming our challenges, as have those who came before us. But while we can read about years passing in a paragraph in a history book, we have to live and experience those years. And with all the challenges comes new technology and drive and awareness to solve problems. As unfortunate as it is trouble breeds innovation and commitment to change far better than comfort and easy times.


  • I highly recommend Stephen Tetlock’s book, super forecasting, who is the sponsor of the project you mention.

    One method of forecasting that he identified as effective was using a spreadsheet to record events that might occur over the next 6-18 months along with an initial probability based on good judgement and the factors you quoted. Then, every day look for new information that adjusts the forecast up or down by some, usually small percent. Repeat, and the goal is you will trend towards a reasonable %. I omitted many details but that was the jist.

    Now, that’s for forecasting on a short ish timeframe. There is a place for more open ended reasoning and imagination, but you have to be careful not to fall prey to your own biases.

    This particular forecast of OPs feels like it is ignoring several long running trends in technology adoption and user behavior without giving events that would address them, and forecasts something they care about doing better in the long-term, a source of bias to watch. I tend to agree with you that I think elements of this forecast are flawed.





  • I was unfamiliar with misophonia so I went looking into it. I know it is a poorly studied issue, but I wasn’t able to find any peer reviewed research where children’s noises in general were used or reported as a trigger. I found lots of discussion forums, but that is anecdotal.

    The reason I went digging is because the op describes all children’s noises, happy, sad, whatever, whereas what I read in the literature was very specific noises were reported as triggers. E.g, lip smacking, chewing, pen clicking, etc. In one study, they even used videos of children and dogs playing to help participants calm down and establish a baseline. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0227118

    While I’m admittedly ignorant, it seems OP may have a more general aversion to children than I would expect of misophonia given what I’ve read from medical sources.

    I only mention this as a counter suggestion to help op avoid self diagnosing and maybe going down the wrong track.

    I think counseling is warranted to help sort it out.