As with alcohol, I think it really depends on the individual.

For me, I find that too much regular pot puts me in a dim, slightly dissociated place. But it might also be that in the past I may have smoked too much cannabis at times when I was already headed for dim dissociation, so bit of a chicken and egg situation maybe. Meanwhile I have friends who swear that cannabis has saved their life, helping them cope with anxiety, OCD, etc.

Either way, if I had to choose between a pot or alcohol abuse problem, I’d def choose the former. It’s not ideal, but it’s far less likely to kill you or ruin your life.

Yes, it’s named after Claude Shannon, but I’ve never heard him described as “the founder of AI”. He’s the father of information theory, which is only indirectly connected to AI.

Also don’t forget the “externalized” costs of massive and irreversible environmental damage!

This is basically just a skeuomorph.

Them’s hunting eyes.

Also Portugal! I’m consistently pleasantly surprised every time i read or hear something about that country. And I’ve still never been.

Apple is great at polishing and packaging things that already exist. The iPhone was a better Blackberry, the iPod a better MP3 player, the iMac a better all-in-one PC… I have a hard time thinking of stuff they truly pioneered. The Newton maybe? That did not end well for them.

If I had to bet, the Vision Pro will turn out to be a burnt pancake, but long term I have no doubt that something like it — something that augments reality one way or another — will become a thing. And in the meantime Apple has pockets more than deep enough to survive a failed Vision Pro.

The backlash against them trying to innovate is kind of dumb though. They aimed high for a change, and taking risks like this should be lauded not laughed at.

Wtf is with this site that autoplays a loud video in the middle of the night.

The dingo ate my baby!

His actual name is written in Cyrillic so the latinized versions are all just ways of trying to write a bunch of latin letters that roughly correspond to how his name is pronounced. That’s going to be quite different across languages that use the latin alphabet, even across different accents in the same language.

If you were to write a word like 🚽 the way it actually sounds, would it be toy-let (canadian), tuy-leht, (if you’re from parts of britain) tay-let (if you’re australian), tee-let (new zealand)….?

I gave up trying to make Mastodon work. Two minutes of scrolling and I always end up closing it with an overwhelming feeling of cringe.

Mind you I could never get in to Twitter either. Maybe it’s just the format? It reinforces ego/personal brand over the value of the actual content.

… by publicly announcing that “we must eventually stop pouring gasoline on it!”

That’s exactly the point. There is a cost. The news media and the public discourse has limited bandwidth. There are only so many things we can talk about and fight for at any given time, and to me it seems like this issue may be drowning out more existential issues.

The irony is that the argument over pronouns is intentionally being amplified by right wing media and activists. They’re trolling us into being outraged about this, and we’re falling right into their trap.

It’s classic bikeshedding being used against us, and most of us seem to be entirely unaware.

I’d have no issue with you calling me ma’am or whatever you feel comfortable with, but that’s only because that part of my identity is not something I’ve struggled with for much of my life.

I totally understand and empathize with people for whom perceived gender is not what they identify as, and I’m 100% in support of ensuring that everyone has the right to be referred to by their chosen pronouns.

My point is that I worry that this issue is overshadowing other issues that I think are existentially threatening to our entire way of life.

We’re busying ourselves over respectful word use, while the world crumbles around us.

Do you think anyone will respect anyone’s pronouns when the world’s superpowers are run by fascist governments or our ecosystems and food production have collapsed?

On the other hand going to war over word use is not a good use of the left’s energy.

I understand the words are supposed to be proxies/symbols for inclusivity and respect for freedoms and charter rights, but that tends to get lost, to the point where both sides start to believe that it really is just about pronouns.

There are really big, scary things going on out there — corporatism, environmental disaster, and a geopolitical powder keg building — and I’m starting to worry we are spending way too much effort and energy on kindergarten-level righteousness.

I’m not one to defend Poland in its current state, or whitewash it’s checkered history especially with regard to how it treated Ukraine, but…

Poland didn’t even exist for 125+ of those 500 years, as it was completely erased off the map by the Hapsburgs, Russians, and Prussians. Its neighbours have always treated Poland as a playground for proxy wars and political intrigue, and both Russians and Germans think of the Polish as yokels or shit disturbers, worthy only of subjugation or exploitation.

In other words, it’s not hard to see why Poland quickly turned into an anxiety-ridden bully. Like an abused kid grown up into a shitty adult.

The casing — made to look like fancy metal — is cheap plastic. One fall on the hard floor (and it will eventually fall and hit the floor) and the casing breaks. Pretty soon your vacuum is covered in duct tape to keep it from leaking air.

These vacuums have some merit, but they are def not designed to last more than a few years.

There is a similar rule in Ontario, but it doesn’t apply to buildings built after 2018.

This exemption was put in place as an incentive for more rental units to be put on the market (or to enrich developers and landholders, depending on your political stance).

Meanwhile something like 30% of all online orders (and way more in the case of clothes) get returned, and a majority of that then goes straight to landfill/incinerator.

The majority of the electorate — 65%+ — own homes, and 75%+ of Canadians’ wealth is tied up in real estate.

There is absolutely no way this can get fixed politically in our democratic system. Any party that tries to deflate house prices in any meaningful way is committing its own suicide.

The only hope is that prices level off (or … you know… at least stop doubling every 3 - 4 years?) and the rest of the economy somehow catches up to make houses affordable again.

But I can’t see how that’s going to happen. We’re going to have to have a nasty recession to sort this out, and that won’t be because of anything whoever is in power at the time did intentionally.