Read lots of history. Humans have not changed in thousands of years. Though the details of our current problems may be new, the underlying motivations and mechanisms are the same as the have always been. And despite all of our problems, the trend line of humanity is moving in the right direction. Try to remember that progress is not linear. Rather, it is a constant pattern of three steps forward, two steps back.

Middle picture brought back memories of Internet days of yore.

Powell tried to do his job rather than be a yes-man. There were some incidents where the two made conflicting statements at press conferences, and Powell didn’t recant his statements.

But every once in a while it briefly changes to It’s Not Unusual.

I woke up to a lovely rainstorm this morning and thought of this classic.

The article focuses on the Rockies and Sierra Nevada. The situation is marginally better but still awful in the northwest. As of today in Washington state:

• Snowpack statewide is at 54% of normal, down 10% from last week. (“Normal” being the 30-year average for the calendar date)
• 115% statewide water year to date precipitation, up 2% from last week.

So slightly above-average precipitation this winter, but it was largely rain instead of snow. And the snow we do have is melting fast. The reservoirs are full, but their total volume is nothing in comparison to the snowpack.

Everyone I talk to is expecting a bad wildfire year and widespread water use restrictions.

I had a drink the other day
Opinions were like kittens, I was giving them away

Medical device industry here. Some of our software and electrical engineers are using Claude as a sounding board for ideas, or as a starting point to find possible paths forward when they get stuck with a hard problem. Nobody trusts the model to give an accurate answer. Nobody is being encouraged to use AI models. At the end of the day, all work committed to a project is done by real humans with the normal review processes.

Management is cautiously looking at potential uses for AI in our products, but there is a healthy dose of skepticism all around. If your machine is displaying diagnostic data to a doctor there cannot be any question as to whether the machine is hallucinating.

Pardon my ignorance, but are you talking about liberation theology? Or does “Christian liberationist” mean something else?

No one hits like Gaston,
matches wits like Gaston!
In a spitting match, nobody spits like Gaston!

I’m especially good at expectorating!

[Spits] Ten points for Gaston!

https://youtu.be/pC7aPpY6jPQ

I’m at a point in life where money isn’t the issue. The bottlenecks are always time and energy. Someday I’ll have time to focus on music (and skiing, and backpacking, and drawing, and …).

I have a tangent related to 90’s social skills: I wish I had attended university before the high-speed internet era. We collectively replaced so much face-to-face interaction with stupid Flash games and scrolling ebaumsworld.

I would trade my accumulated engineering training and skills in order to be a great musician. I’m done with office work, staring at a screen all day, and coming home mentally exhausted. I want to be able to go to a jam session and shred with the best.

I think you are looking for the !perchance@lemmy.world community

And I say heeeyyy-yey-yey-yey-yey!

Do most Americans give the French shit? I think most Americans don’t care one way or another TBH. Our country is famously self-centered and unaware of the rest of the world.

I do give my French friend a hard time sometimes, but it’s all in good fun. He does the same to me. I certainly do not look down upon him or his country.

The minority of Americans who do sincerely talk down about the French are ignorant and shitty, though.

That sound like so much fun!

For the last few years I have been heavily involved in scouts due to my kids. It’s the first time I have had a volunteer role that felt semi-professional: I’m organizing other adults, managing money, planning events weeks or months in advance, etc. I didn’t initially want to be so involved. I gradually volunteered for one role after another because shit needed to get done and nobody else was willing to do it. I feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants, but everyone seems happy with my work so I guess I’m not screwing up too much.

Previously I did a handful of “warm body” volunteer jobs where I just had to show up on schedule and follow instructions. Fixing kids’ bikes was the most fun, but serving the poor was the most rewarding. The best volunteer role was delivering and serving dinners at a tent city hosted by a local church. We would join them for the meal and talk around the table. That was eye-opening. I went away with a lot more compassion for the homeless, and a lot more disdain for all the little ways my country makes their lives unnecessarily hard.

“I’d never done a crazy thing in my life before that night. Why is it that if a man kills another man in battle, it’s called heroic, yet if he kills a man in the heat of passion, it’s called murder?”