Had an olive dish, must have been an appetizer in a restaurant in Santa Fe. It was fabulous. I like olives. There was a time I liked kalamata olives in Bombay or Tanqueray martinis.

@Mik I’ve negotiated with guys like that. The dumbest way to negotiate ever.

I have been exchanging emails with two people I went to school with that are still close friends. One , Joe, moved to town and joined me and a buddy when we were in the 3rd grade. The other, Linda, moved to our school after leaving a nearby parochial school to start high school. Joe and I knew who she was, but little more. The emails are random and on many topics. Joe is a very successful attorney in Tulsa. He has two daughters I like. Linda became a widow recently. She has four children. They are scattered and I don't know them.

Markdown help screen If you want to see the special characters that let you customize your post (like increasing the font size), click on the ?Help that appears on right side of the full edit screen. Screenshot from my laptop. I'm using the Vapor dark skin. The arrow at the bottom left points to the icon you use to change skins. [image: Markdown-help.png] The full help link for Markdown is here: https://commonmark.org/help/

Quote-- "In some sense this self-negation is a valid and even fitting expression of American postwar culture, which fled from communal expressions of anything." Yes, "...fled from communal expressions of anything." is a good way of saying it. I think this is lamentable, but putting aside whether it is or not, does anyone doubt this trend accelerated and is still accelerating? Leaders from both political parties have now famously dismissed half of the American people. First, Hillary Clinton, in effect, publicly saying half of Americans are deplorable, and next, Joe Biden, in effect, publicly saying half of the American people are garbage. It's not difficult to conclude these comments were intended to 'divide and conquer.' In spite of the lack of subtlety, Americans seem to be be unable to develop and retain any sense of shared identity and common interest. I think it is impractical to harken back to the time the New Deal with the intent to interpret a "populist" standard. Still, I thought this was an interesting and thought provoking article.

You Gaetz the representation you deserve: https://ethics.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Committee-Report.pdf *In sum, the Committee found substantial evidence of the following: • From at least 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him. • In 2017, Representative Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl. • During the period 2017 to 2019, Representative Gaetz used orpossessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions. • Representative Gaetz accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, in excess of permissible amounts. • In 2018, Representative Gaetz arranged for his Chief of Staff to assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent. • Representative Gaetz knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct. • Representative Gaetz has acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House. Based on the above, the Committee concluded there was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.*

Unctuous

It's a PSYOP. They are US military drones being deployed for the purpose of attempting to cause the population to want or at least to accept increased funding for federal law enforcement agencies to be forced through Congress during the interregnum. Trump happens to be correct. You're welcome. NNTTM.

Ivermectin is prescribed in systemic form x million times to humans around the the world. The idea that it's only a horse dewormer is plain false.

The grey box is terrible.

You wanna take lots of risk, just buy Bitcoin.

@ShiroKuro said in How to keep text messages secure: Yikes! This is one big concern: "hacker who has managed to get your ID and password for a website can monitor your text messages to intercept a one-time passcode that's used in two-factor authentication (2FA)." For this, go to Passkey when you can. There are still technical kinks to smooth out and it will take a while for more websites/web services to adopt Passkey but it's the most promising path to better cybersecurity protection for the masses that doesn't drive the casual users nuts.

Here's why it's important. I'm joking! I'm not sure how important it is/ be. Oops! I did it again. A biography is set to be published. It will say Andrew will split his time between the UK and the UAE . “It wasn’t very long ago that Charles was captured accepting bags of cash, thousands of pounds of cash in Fortnum & Mason bags, from an overseas donor of dubious integrity. He looked like a mafia boss. So, Andrew in a sense is no different from anybody else. He’s just more clumsy and stupid about it. "It was first reported in 2010 that Andrew had free use of a “very impressive” and “gilded mini-palace” in Abu Dhabi. Andrew’s then-spokesman confirmed he was “given the use of a villa by the Abu Dhabi royal family” for both personal and professional use. https://www.thedailybeast.com/prince-andrew-set-to-flee-england-for-secret-abu-dhabi-palace/ It's Eugenie's relationship with Harry and Meghan and the issue (sic) of their children being born by a surrogate (or in the case of the daughter-- maybe borrowed from a friend, the key word is 'maybe' but this is not a joke) that I'm focusing on next. I'll post about it if I can figure this out with any degree of certainty.

@AdagioM

@Rontuner said in AI school instruction: makes sense it didn't last a long time!

Or the well-worn Republican stand by: No one could have predicted...

Conducting government business over private e-mail accounts. Wasn't that a complaint against Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State? Big Al

@wtg whoops, I obviously didn’t read to the end! But I’m glad they got to that point. Interaction is always the key, and that’s why I decided to focus on sociolinguistics rather than other subdisciplines of linguistics. But the way, I like that that article you linked ended with the stuff about songbirds: Even in songbirds, it appears that learning from an adult is often a necessary step in developing the ability to vocalize and communicate. Baby male Zebra Finches deprived of an adult “tutor” will still learn to sing, but not the in same way as their peers (In case you’re wondering, just listening to a recording doesn’t work as well. Yes, scientists have tested this.) Like many songbirds, male Zebra Finches utilize their singing skills in order to attract a mate. If they don’t get the chance to learn from an older mentor, their resulting sub-par singing skills may even mean they are less likely to attract the attention of the lady Zebra Finches. Interestingly however, one study found that when isolated Zebra Finches were allowed to raise young of their own, successive generations gradually altered the song. Within 4 or 5 generations, the descendants of these isolated birds were producing songs very similar to those of their wild counterparts. I have always thought this was a fascinating discovery and sort of knocks human exceptionalism down a few rungs. (Insert critical comment about Chomsky here). Also, the part I bolded aligns so clearly with findings from human first language acquisition. And this is another reason why all the hype around using AI in educational roles really bugs me.