WTF-Beta

@Bernard

@wtg said in About those shutdown firings:

“And we have laws here, and the things that are being articulated here are not within the law.”

Louder for the people in the back!!

@Steve-Miller thanks!

@Axtremus said in Checking out the competition:

companionship humanoid robots!

Indeed!

@Steve-Miller said in A great week!:

I just spray them.

With what?

Oh wow! How interesting to see that.

Gentler times, in some ways, in that a pie is more benign than most of what we see today ... (not to romanticize 1977 though!!)

@Steve-Miller said in I’m almost tempted to attend the open house:

The foo-foo Provincial furniture looks ridiculous.

especially in the basement!

Sounds wonderful! And great pics!

@Steve-Miller said in A great week!:

Their habits are much different than ours. We almost never snack, they snack all day. They drink astonishing quantities of Diet Dr. Pepper and iced tea throughout the day. I’ve never seen anything like it.

That kind of thing is always interesting, and those kinds of habits sort of define one's day. For example, I pretty much always eat breakfast immediately upon rising, whereas my mother (and most of my other family members) never do that. When we travel together or when I used to stay at her house (before she moved into my neighborhood) I always felt like I was causing her trouble. At holidays, she would want to make breakfast for everyone, but by the time she would get around to it, I would have perished from starvation.

BTW random question. This kind of stone, is it hard to keep weeds from growing through it?
https://photos.zillowstatic.com/fp/b660a259256b5c414ee175b32258928c-uncropped_scaled_within_1536_1152.webp

@wtg omg that’s wild.

Maybe they should fill it with furniture designed by the person who did the furniture for the ShiroKuro sushi place I posted a while back. It would be like living in the Take On Me video.

@Bernard said in I’m almost tempted to attend the open house:

The foyer looks like a great place to roller skate!

Interesting.

Only tangentially related, but I have been teaching a unit on Japanese technology in my Japanese language course for several years now. I have students do readings about robotics, and different kinds of robots (manufacturing robots, the new customer service robots that are becoming more common in Japan, as well as pet robots like Aibo and therapy robots etc.) And now we’ve added discussion of AI and implications for robots with AI etc.

Anyway, in the past, students have always enjoyed this unit and they do an essay about it where many talk about the kinds of robots they’d like or how they think robotics will evolve in the future etc.

This semester? It’s awful. They don’t like robots (which literally is a first) and they are really disinterested in the topic of technology as a whole. (And it’s not the class because the units thus far have proceeded as normal). And everything they talk about is quite pessimistic.

I wonder if they are “tech-ed” out, or getting the message that America is falling behind in tech development. Or maybe they are seeing tech developments as not improving their future, but threatening it.

@AndyD What lovely photos!!

Re professional photographs, I’m sorry it’s taking so long, I’m sure that’s frustrating, esp for your daughter, who must want to see them very badly!

Interesting! And given the damage that auto-immune diseases cause in other parts of the body, the argument has some intuitive appeal.

Before the election, there was a lot of talks about checks and balances. Those checks and balances are not working as intended.

@Daniel it must be neat to see that!

RIP indeed.

She always had such a good hat game! I remember this one from the Godfather!!

@wtg said in The Chicago kidnappings have begun:

https://people.com/news-producer-violently-detained-during-chicago-ice-enforcement-11828618

She was later released without charges

Yes, because she shouldn't have been detained in the first place. There is no accountability here. There entire thing is unAmerican in the extreme.

Oh no

@wtg that looks to be the wrong link

Her family has obviously worked very hard, and successfully, to make a positive difference from this tragedy. My heart goes out to all of them.

@wtg said in Peace Prize:

@Bernard said in Peace Prize:

Uh, oh. Tantrum from the WH in 3... 2... 1...

Go!

They are so predictable, it's embarassing.

@wtg said in Peace Prize:

“He has the heart of a humanitarian,

Oh yeah, this is how I always describe his "heart" ...

@wtg said in How TikTok hooks its users:

Never been on TikTok.

I have seen Tik Tok videos on YT and I think on the TT browser page but not on the app. I only watch if for example something links to one. (NYT’s articles sometimes do that). But I don’t have an account and I don’t seek out those kinds of videos.

Facebook has “Reels” which are similar in style — IOW short and if you watch one, it automatically pushes another to you. I used to watch those sometimes but I quickly notice that it was a mindless time suck, and I made a point of not watching them.

So I can totally imagine how someone could get sucked in. That’s the design.