Gas is expensive in California too though.
I’m not sure if natural gas in California is expensive compared to other areas, but I have natural gas in my heater, water heater, laundry, stove, and oven and I pay less than $30/month. My electricity bill is an order of magnitude higher each month and there’s only two people in my household and we don’t even have an AC or electric vehicle.
I’m not aware of any modern residential gas stoves which use a pilot, they use a spark to ignite on demand. Commercial ranges sometimes have a pilot though.
It’s still relatively common to have a pilot in a gas water heater or furnace though.
When I first picked up the straight razor I ran into the weird areas and contorting my wrist as you mentioned.
I just tried different grips and shaving patterns until I found a pattern without weird wrist positions, it took about 10 shaves to really get comfortable.
I don’t know the terminology, but if the common wrist position you see people straight razor shave with can be called “wrist up” I actually shave about half of my face and most of my neck with my wrist “down” gripping the razor kind of like a paint brush. I don’t know if that’s the correct way to do it, but a few months in and I can complete a shave nearly as quickly as I could with a safety razor.
The only weird spots left to figure out are the sideburn on my non-dominant side (which I do by feel with decent success), and my brow lines.
I think you nailed it, moving from a cartridge razor to a safety razor requires a large jump in technique. With a cartridge you can just whip around your face and get an acceptable shave without really caring (unless you have sensitive skin). But with a safety razor you have to pay attention to the direction of hair growth, handle angle, and to a smaller extent the tautness of your skin.
I have VERY sensitive skin and cartridge razors were killing me, so switching to a safety razor and getting past the skill curve saved my face.
After 20 years of safety razor use I recently switched to a straight razor which accepts replaceable safety razor blades, which I saw my barber using. I’ve found the skill gap between a competent safety razor user and a straight razor was very small. Within 2 weeks I was getting better shaves with the straight razor! It’s closer, easier on my skin (fewer passes), and I can detail around my mustache and eyebrows way better.
YMMV
I was influenced greatly by Robert Axelrod’s short essay about the Prisoner’s Dilemma titled “The Prisoner’s Dilemma Computer Tournaments and the Evolution of Cooperation” (link PDF warning)
tl;dr The essay explores an iterative game of Prisoner’s Dilemma, and demonstrates how cooperation can emerge from a group of self interested participants. It has implications for the statistical emergence of morality, and even remarks on politics.
You’re not wrong, but in this specific case he was in ICE custody for less than 12 hours.
I agree this is total fuckery, but at least the dude was released hours later.
All of the wine being discussed in this thread comes from the blue counties just north of San Francisco.
Harris won Sonoma county 72% to 25% Trump
Harris won Napa county 64% to 33% Trump
California as a whole voted for Harris 58% to 38% Trump. The wine producing counties actually voted more blue than the average in a DEEP blue state.
Luddites.
AI might not be producing the best content, and it will change the nature of how humans work (or don’t), in good and (many) bad ways. But every culture which has resisted the inexorable march of technology has lost in convincing fashion.
I may not like it, but the current gen of AI is one tiny fraction of a step in a direction which cannot be stopped. Instead of fearing the machines we need to figure out how to best use them.
Reduce the natural resource consumption, and put the thinking rocks to work so humans can focus on what’s valuable and important to us. If people are freaking out that their memes aren’t drawn by hand, they’d probably be better served by not wasting their time on memes at all.
When it first happened the USGS site had it rated as a 6.0 and I immediately called bullshit. The house creaked a bit, but my wife who was on a conference call didn’t even notice it. I probably only caught it because of my phone’s advanced warning alert.
I think in parts of the world where we frequently experience quakes and our infrastructure is built to handle them we need another word for these little shakers, instead of calling them full on earthquakes. This is like calling a light drizzle a deluge.
Crips, which have been given the backronym “Community Resistance In Progress”.
But it doesn’t take much research to show they do not stand for the types of values you’re referring to.
I have a few guitars, across the spectrum from early 50’s Gibson family heirlooms, beat up 80’s shedders, 90’s Guitar Center trash specials, all the way to a Fender masterbuilt reissue Tele.
IMO you pay what it’s worth to you. If you like the way it sounds and you play it well, you’ll know what it’s worth.
I’m not sure what some of my fancier guitars are worth, but I know the one that sounds the best and I love to play the most is the bottom dollar Epiphone I’ve had set up and replaced the electronics in. I’m probably up to $700 all in on that instrument over 30 years and it just sings for me.
Spend what you want, if you love it then it’s worth every penny.
No fucker wants that, and you’re disingenuous for suggesting they do, or that nationalisation of housing means that
I’m not saying anyone wants to turn all housing into the projects. I’m saying it’s inevitable given how national and local governments have managed housing in my experience.
You think nationalisation of housing happens without a government competent enough to do it?
Maybe? IMO all lifelong government bureaucrats are corrupt and/or incompetent, and the result of putting them in charge of housing everyone would be horrific.
You might as well complain about buses because they don’t work without wheels.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re attempting to get at with this statement. I will say as a lifelong user of public transportation in my metropolitan area the buses and trains post-COVID have been nightmarish.
I’m not sure how true this is.
My Jabra 75 is paired and connected via BT with my Android phone and a MacBook Pro. I can hear notifications or podcasts from my phone as long as I’m not actively listening to something on the Mac. I use this dual device always on config upwards of 9 hours a day with no issues.
I love reading comments like these.
Yes, let’s turn an entire country’s housing stock into the projects.
There’s got to be a better way to provide housing than whatever we’re doing now, but putting an inept government, run by corrupt or otherwise incompetent career bureaucrats, in charge of the roof over my head would be a hilarious joke if people weren’t being completely earnest about it.
Honest question, I’m not sure I understand why people are hung up on physical headphone jacks, what am I missing?
A few years ago it was a bummer because I didn’t have good wireless headphones, but at this point decent BT headphones are pretty cheap, and great ones are available. Even cheap BT buds have extraordinary battery life if you know what to look for.
Removing the jack contributed to better water resistance in phones, which has saved my family and friends thousands in replacements.
As far as audio quality, I admit that I reach for a set of wired headphones when I need something to sound amazing, or to eliminate delay while gaming. The wired or wireless audio quality in mobile phones is nearly universally poor unless you use an external DAC (which negates the cost argument) or buy the one or two models built for audiophiles (also negating the cost argument). Also, I don’t seriously game on my phone, so no worries about delay there.
Is this argument a meme at this point, or am I actually missing out?
You defederate or screen all sports content? Is this a personal preference, or do sports subs attract hateful content?
From the article:
Archer, according to the transcript, also testified that the elder Biden was put on speaker phone with business contacts, potential business associates including foreign national “maybe 20 times” during the course of Archer’s and Hunter Biden’s business relationship. Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand,” Archer said.
Be honest, that isn’t selling the “illusion” of access. That’s Hunter saying “do what I want, or I get my dad on the phone to fuck up your life. Don’t believe me, here, talk to him yourself”
It’s a mixed bag.
Growing up was made difficult because school is so slow that I’d rather be getting into trouble than sitting in class. By the start of middle school I’d already read the entire high school honors reading list, I had to walk to the high school from my middle school in 7th grade to take math classes. I rarely had regular school work in high school, nearly all of my academic teachers designed a different curriculum for me, which was nice but probably mostly to keep me from acting up in class. I never studied or did a shred of homework, but got good grades.
Social interactions were tough, I’m not much of an empath, not that I don’t experience empathy but emotions just aren’t intuitive, actually they often are the opposite of what you’d expect to be helpful, especially among young people. I had to concentrate to read people’s faces and mannerisms to understand the emotional and social subtexts of most interactions. I self medicated with alcohol a lot in high school.
All of my academic classes in high school were honors, and my final 2 years were all AP, while lettering in 3 varsity sports (4 total, but you can only play 3 each academic year). It wasn’t until my second year in uni that I ran into a class for which I actually had to study (nuclear chemistry), and boy was that an awful surprise. A handful of classes were like this for me, most I just showed up 3 times and got a good grade: the first day of class so I wouldn’t get dropped, the midterm, and the final.
I read quickly, think systematically, and information just sticks in my head. It was very difficult to understand why this wasn’t how most people were. Everything I do I analyze for improvement, and remember to do it better the next time. My wife calls me a skill collector because people seem to think I’m super good at everything, but to me it’s just logical that if you’re going to take time do something you might as well do it as well as possible.
After uni things started getting easier. Being forced to closely analyze social interactions and systematically give the “right” reactions is extremely useful in professional life. I wear this mask in all my interactions with all but my closest friends. It’s a bit psychopathic, but I don’t do it to anyone’s detriment, it’s mostly to get along and fit in.
I’ve self selected for highly intelligent friends, and I’m exhilarated to meet new people who can communicate with the kind of bandwidth that our brains run at, if that makes sense. I’m still close with most of my friends from high school, who have had varying levels of success, but I still have to be guarded when it comes to activities or conversation to make sure I don’t stick out too much.
In general I have a very pessimistic view of people and the world. The average person isn’t very sharp, and half of all people are dumber than that. However many smart people do evil things, most of the time for no reason at all. It’s exhausting to keep up with it all, so I just focus on my path and my family, and do what I can to directly improve my community.
It would be nice to fit in a little easier, but I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything else.