This comes from a memory of a digression during a lecture in an ecology class I was in 20yrs ago… so you know, grain of salt.

From this particular professors point of view. Symbiotic was the term to describe mutualism until recently. And then. A few papers started using symbiosis as an umbrella term for all relationships with sub-terms to describe the “benefits math”. This, to him, was annoying pedantry. But eventually all the textbooks adopted the new hierarchy of terms and the world moved on.

If you took a biology class with a text published pre-2000s, it’s very possible that your book described symbiosis as a mutually beneficial relationship between species.

Long story short: the language is fluid and ever changing, even in science fields.

Sigh…

People who have enormous fame or import like miss swift can’t exactly travel public roads in an unmodified car from fucking Avis. Not only is fame a tremendous distraction on the road, but she is also a lightning rod for insane people who are known to be heavily armed.

I mentioned the president’s motorcade because she has some of the same problems. She and the president share security problems you don’t have. Those security problems have expensive and carbon intensive solutions. You’re not smarter than all the people who work on the problem. I promise.

Now, before you start name calling on the internet why don’t you flip that dog’s breakfast of yours into the on position.

How does car get to the place the jet landed? Another bigger jet full of cars? That’s how the presidential motorcade works. Seems really consumptive, but it’s one person who leads a nation of 350M, so it also doesn’t make me angry.

Meh, sometimes I drive places a really should have walked. Same shit different scale. I am not moved to anger by this. Eliminate fame or accept that it’s resource intensive.

I’m not sure I fully understand the criticism to be perfectly honest. Is it actually possible to have a mega pop star of that type without them having a more intensive carbon footprint? Like she can’t really fly commercially for a lot of reasons. Tour schedules are one thing but can you imagine the scene it would make?

Fame is really just letting one person, who we consider special for some reason, use the resources of many. They get to live an extravagant lifestyle and we get the cultural benefit their work.

Bottom line: private jet travel seems to me like a requirement of her job. I’m not about to sit here and shame everyone for the carbon output that their job requires of them. She is not some capital class, passive income, leech. The lady works.

FWIW, I don’t really think I could name or identify one of her songs. Everything I know about her is what bleeds through into my media sphere. She could be a real shitheal for all I know.

I mean my first house was a two bed, 1 bath 900sq ft cape code in a much cheaper market. I paid 100k for it in 2005.

Honestly that seems like a pretty good deal for a first home. If you can come up with 10% down you’ll be paying ~1500 a month. Refi when rates go down and you could be close to 1k/mo.

Well… a tablespoon is 3 teaspoons and a cup is 48 teaspoons. You did get the 16Tbsp per cup right though.

This was a good try!

When I first read your comment I wanted to say that managing with these units isn’t really all that difficult. But, then I remembered that I have a magnet on my fridge that converts teaspoons to cups to quarts etc. I don’t know anyone who keeps that info in memory. Doubling or halving an American recipe can be an exciting math project

It’s fun to see what metric conversions an American has memorized. If a person can quickly convert miles to Kilometers, they are probably a runner. If you ask a group of colleagues how many grams are in an ounce, the dude who quickly say “28.3 give or take” is a pothead.

The real charlatans were the “the technology has promise” people. No, the technology was dumb.

This is a thing that sounds like some crazy uncle bullshit but it is actually completely true and non-controversial.

The scariest thing to a central banker when it comes to inflation is that wages might start to go up. When that happens the inflations is basically permanent.

It’s an interesting argument but I think it is stretching things too far. Also isn’t a little anthrocentric to assume that our relationships are unique and different than all other living things here.

A pine tree drops needs that are so acidic few other plants can grow near it. Is it damaging the ecosystem?

Our relationship with bovines is weird right. probably the most successful large mammals on earth. Their success is completely due to being a great machine for turning grass into human food. It’s symbiotic in a lot of ways: we clear pasture and kill predators for them, but also, we eat them. Great for the cows and us, sucks for the trees and wolves.

Ants and aphids have a similar relationship. Great for the ants, and the aphids, not so much for the plants.

If you want to conflate human economics with the natural world, you would have to admit that nature is the domain of the most ruthless of capitalists. Christ, the whole point of a lot of leftist thinking is that we must “rise above” our animalistic nature.

What annoys me about this meme is that it is the same relationship that underpins all business relationships. I understand you are not happy with the state of things but showing a drawing of “capitalism” at work in nature isn’t really making the point you think you are making.

This might as well be a pic of two guys in suits trading on a stock exchange floor with the same caption. Or add this to a caption to a pic of a lion eating a baby gazelle while its mother watches from the tree line. What point are we even trying to make here??

Studying evolutionary biology in my undergrad had a big impact on how I look at systems. Judge them by their effect, and not their parsimony. If the mess inside starts to negatively impact efficacy, it will almost always get replaced and almost never get fixed.

Getting obsessed with “how the sausage is made” is a pointless endeavor. If it’s good, eat it, if not make something that tastes better.

Criticism of Israel and Hamas seems pretty neutral. Praising Israel seems pretty Islamophobic and praising Hamas seems pretty antisemitic.

Did we used to conduct war in a way that was safe for civilians? I’m not aware of that history. The war in Gaza looks like war to me. The same way we have been practicing it since we picked up our first sticks in anger. Murdering civilians is a consequence of war. The “good guys” fire bombed Dresden and nuked Japan.

I would give more examples but being honest I am straining to think of other wars in human history that were worth fighting. I am drawing a blank. All of it is pointless slaughter. At least in Gaza you can understand that the Israelis were provoked to war. Can’t say the same for the US in most of our wars.

Alternate title: “A man child realizes that society imposes roles on people based on gender and throws an ill-advised tantrum about the roles assigned to him.”

A male human is pretty much solely judged on his ability to be strong and independent. Men crowing about their prowess in those skills is pretty much the basis of the human mating ritual for as long as we have existed.

In the past 100yrs we have been eroding the strictness of those roles and women are now also allowed to take pride in those characteristics.

Ken needs to sit the fuck down now.

Stardew Valley will probably be the game that looms largest in my kid’s nostalgia. They have both played the life out of that thing. Other things that come to mind: Minecraft, phasmaphobia, fnaf, Skyrim, duck game, BOTW, and Nidhogg 2.

There is no guiding aesthetic driven by the technology, just whatever is available and cool.

Re: loot boxes, there is no denying that fortnight is(was?) a huge deal in this gen of kids. I’m sure at least some kids are going to have fond memories of getting v bucks for their birthday.

Granted I don’t exactly run in the conspicuous consumption crowd, so maybe I’m out of the loop. Cope Luwak was a thing I heard about in the late 90s but have never seen in the world, ever.

I suppose this is one of those products that has a reputation for being expensive so rich people buy it to flex and that creates some demand. Like gold pizzas or whatever other dumb shit gaudy nouveau riche assholes are doing to get attention.

I’m sure there are places in the world where you can forage the shits and have something unique, but I highly doubt that what makes its way to fintech bros in manhattan has any real value at all. Just a cruel gimmick.

What is that top image from? Why is he wearing a Michigan State shirt?

I don’t want to kink shame the tech press, but we got to talk about the bezel fetish. These are functional devices and they need to interact with a human body, not just slowly rotate on a pedestal during a reveal event.

I guess we have no choice but to see this through. Achieve zero bezel, the press will finally be able to finish. And the the customer complaints will drive us back to sanity over the next few generations.