Also… who’s gonna be attacking Canada with drones?

Well, there WAS that thing a couple of months ago where Kilmeade said the quiet part out loud, suggesting we should execute them.

One of the wonders of being an adult is that our peers stop being limited to people who are the same age as us. Now in my late twenties, I have friends 10 years younger than me, and 20 years older.

Dating is different than friendship. But it’s not so fundamentally different that I’d feel weird about dating an adult in those age brackets. Is it more likely I’m going to date someone closer to my age? Sure. On average, they’d be more likely to be in a point in their life that I’m looking for, but it’s not a guarantee.

I’m a bit above your age bracket in question, so I’ll comment on what advice I might give to a friend in that age bracket. Were a friend of mine to be thinking about getting involved with someone 20 years their senior, I’d tell her to think carefully. She should spend some time thinking about what she wants from a relationship. If she’s still interested in going out late and drinking, or she likes raves, I might say she should consider whether her potential partner is still looking to have those things in their life. The opposite too, if she’s the “comfy book and a movie at home” type of gal, is she wanting to be with this partner who’s super into going out adventure biking all the time. I’d tell her to think carefully about why she’s interested in this person, but also what this person sees in her.

On average, people gain some level of “maturity”/“wisdom”/life experience/je ne sais quoi about them as they get older. On average, people tend to date people who are similar to them in some ways. On average, partners will have similar levels of this vague term for aged distinction that I lack a term for. Relationships that don’t follow this pattern are, then, unusual. Not bad or wrong, necessarily. My left ear is substantially asymmetrical from my right. That’s unusual, but not a problem, except I have to be careful when finding earbuds that fit both ears properly. Similarly, those who date with large age gaps like this are unusual. Not inherently bad, but with some things to look for. It is more common that these sorts of relationships have some sort of unhealthy dynamic. Maybe that’s a predatory power dynamic, or financial inequality, or just some skeevy 40 year old who thinks “coeds are hot sex toys, especially when they have daddy issues”. Or, maybe they just both REALLY like boats. Like, they met when they both learned they were building a to-scale hand crafted replica of Viking longships, and it was a wonderful match for them. Or, maybe they both have a kink for plastering lizard scales on themselves, putting on goggles, sunning themselves on the patio, and then fucking like rabbits. The reasons they can find love for one another are many, and are not mine to limit, or to judge. I can judge them, mind you. If their relationship is based on how much they both love drowning puppies, they’re awful people. But that’s who they are, not who they love. That’s different.

Absolutely agreed on learning to write Kanji, as well. Especially given that even PARTIAL learning will teach you how to recognize the writing of characters you’re not familiar with, which is critically important for being able to look them up in a dictionary.

Do you need to be able to reproduce every single Kanji you know? No. Should you spend time on learning how to write them? Absolutely, I’d 100% recommend it.

I suspect this will depend somewhat on your level of knowledge in those other languages. Japanese is broadly considered a very difficult language for native English speakers, and it’s pretty substantially different in many ways from English. Learning it is indeed possible, but takes a long time and a substantial commitment of energy. However, those with a decent fluency in Chinese (I use this rather than Cantonese/Mandarin because I don’t understand the nuances well enough to speak intelligently as to their relation to Japanese-learning) or Korean (and probably many other languages) will have a much easier time with the transition compared to those with a primarily-English background. Additionally, Japanese Kanji have a relationship with Chinese characters, and so learning the Kanji is easier for one with a meaningful Chinese background who has had to learn those characters already.

For some context, one can attend Language School in Japan, which is a half-time (~20-25hr/wk) course load taught with full immersion learning. That is to say, the course is taught almost entirely in Japanese itself, but doesn’t require any knowledge of the language to participate, as you’ll work up from a near-zero understanding. In many of these classes, the first few weeks might lean a small amount on English to explain certain concepts, but the complexity of English required is very low. It takes about 2 years of these courses in order to reach a “basic” fluency. Many who take the 2-year course take the JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test) and study up for the exam can test into the N2 category, which is what you’d minimally need in order to attend school or seek a job in Japan.

Learning on your own, I’d probably say you should expect either to spend many hours a day on study, and/or to spend multiple years before you’d reach the point of being able to understand a significant amount of the anime you consume. Learning the grammar and vocabulary are one thing, but actually consuming content in the language is an important part of learning, and jumping from nothing to full-on anime is a HELL of a jump in complexity.

As to how to go about it, there are tons of excellent resources available online for paths to take. Most will point you to various textbooks to work through, which is a pretty decent strategy IMO. The Genki series is one that is often recommended for those not working from a class, since it discusses the material in English.

I don’t think they meant geographic size. In terms of population they’re around 9th, in terms of GDP more like 25th. They’re not Malta obviously, but they don’t really stack up against the big traditionally heavyweight countries by most metrics.

If the design capacity was 25000, it would mean that an assumption that 20% possible error would get you that range.

That seems like a decent “outside approximation” range. Yeah some 3 person apartments will have only 1 person, but some 1 persons will have 3

There are several companies that provide access to bank payments, but they all tend to have substantial limits, especially for US banking.

If I go to someone and ask for a therapy session, even if they are the most supportive, thoughtful person I could hope to find, it’s not appropriate for them to hold it out as proper therapy. We have rules and restrictions on who is allowed to offer certain services, and for good reason. If one asks their therapist about confidentiality, it’s highly inappropriate for the therapist to misrepresent the confidentiality rules, also for good reason.

ChatGPT will gladly claim to be able to provide this support, and will promise complete anonymity. It will say that it’s able to offer good advice and guidance. As you said, the text it generates will certainly be natural-sounding. It also won’t be therapy. It definitely won’t be anonymous.

A person who lies about stuff faces consequences. A label on the door of a “medicinalist” that says “No promises to offer truthful information, verify all important things” isn’t going to prevent that if they’re selling arsenic as a cure-all. If a company wants to offer a service, they should be restricted in what they can claim they are offering.

I mean… Yeah, no shit. It’s not therapy, and your chatbot shouldn’t be pretending to offer professional services that require a license, Sam.

Let’s be truthful. You don’t want to have to explain or justify anything that your chatbot says, and you don’t want the Courts to be able to analyze whether you’ve violated any rights or laws either.

Well, but they did it the right way.

Meanwhile, health officials said seven children were killed after an Israeli air strike targeted a water distribution site in central Gaza. The Israeli military has claimed that the strike was a result of a “technical malfunction” that had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

So in other words, they weren’t trying to hit children with the missile, they were instead trying to hit the water source, which would’ve killed those children as well as many more people. That’s much better.

Those you want to convince with this would view it as a political stunt fabricated by the left or the Biden Crime Family or whatever, and all it would do is reinforce the idea that any evidence brought forward is irrelevant.

If they had enough evidence to prosecute, that’s fine. Sending rapists to prison is obviously worthwhile. But making a political point of it wouldn’t actually gain anything for anyone.

Depends on what I’m putting in. There are some plates of leftovers that I’ve made often enough to just know how long it’ll take, so the time is exactly what it needs to be and I can wander away for a second to check the mail or whatever. Popcorn obviously comes out when it’s done. If I’m warming a drink in a mug, I’ll stop it early if the handle is at a more convenient angle, since otherwise I’m liable to burn myself.

Credit card companies (Visa, Discover, MasterCard, AMEX) make their money through transaction fees. They make their money when you spend money using the card, regardless of any debts involved.

The banks that issue cards are a different matter. They also make some money when you use the card (some of which goes towards those credit card rewards you get, which is how they can do stuff like offer % back) but mostly they make money by letting you spend just enough money so as to be perpetually in debt. Your bank wants you to carry a balance. They want you to be paying them tens of percentage points of interest each year. The credit limit they give you isn’t the amount they want you to spend in one purchase, it’s calculated to be the maximum amount you can afford the running payments on, which will do nothing to touch the principal.

Sure, you can discharge the debt if you go bankrupt, but consider as well that your bank has a couple of other advantages. First, they get to see all your spending. They know how you’re spending your money, where, when. They also usually get to see your other information. They know how much money comes into your balance accounts each month, they know how much your rent/mortgage costs, they know how much money is coming in from Venmo when you borrow from family to cover debts you can’t pay, how much money you spend on food delivery apps, how much of an emergency fund you keep. They know how much money you’re spending on things that you don’t have to be, which is money you could be giving them instead, if it becomes a running balance. And at 25% interest, they only need this scheme to work for 4 years before they make as much money as they’d lose if you default on your entire balance. Plus, when you do have money in the bank, they get to use that money for other things while it’s with them. If you have a $100,000 credit limit, odds are pretty good you have an account with them holding a few tens of thousands of dollars. They get to use most of that until you ask for it back.

For the free (no-interest) versions, it’s a bullshit legal loophole in the US credit laws, or at least it was a few years ago. May have been more strongly codified since, though I bet almost nobody who could close it realizes the gap is there. The whole scheme is out of Australia, but I have no idea what their legal setup is.

The US requirements are basically:

• You can’t charge fees to host the plan
• You can’t charge % late fees, only fixed
• You can’t have more than 4 installments, meaning no more than 5 payments if you include an optional down payment
• You must not deny customers for means-based items, or using credit data. You can give them an effectively meaningless approval value though.

You as a customer pay late fees if you miss a payment, but they make most of their money by charging the merchant a higher transaction fee. So, it’s theoretically free for the customer, meaning it can fit into the loophole. Legally it isn’t a credit product.

The TL;DR is “because the law is full of holes and bullshit, and if it’s making people money then it’s not likely to change”

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You’re locking in on the wrong thing.

In 60000 miles, the above poster reports one gallon of gas was saved. That’s 0.05% assuming 30mpg. We don’t need hundreds or thousands of changes that each net us tiny results, we need big changes that can happen quickly and net tens of percentage points of improvement. Yes, small changes are not literally nothing, but solutions need to look like “40% fewer cars on the road” sorts of things if we want to actually accomplish anything at all.

The world doesn’t have time or space for us to make these minor, rounding-error changes. I know the argument will be “every little bit helps” but we collectively need to start making massive changes, and stop thinking of this as an incremental problem. We should still make improvements and strive for better efficiencies, but the practical reality is that those changes are too small, too slow, and too late.

While I certainly agree with your overall point, I’d guess that firefighters have someone who’s job it is to start the engine/truck while their fellows are donning their gear.

“Base” is the number of distinct integers you have in play. In Base 10, there are ten of them. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. You can think of the numeric representation 10 as “1 ten, and 0 ones.”

In Base 2 (binary) the only two digits available are 0 and 1. The first four binary numbers are 0, 1, 10, 11, which represent zero, one, two, and three. In Base 2, “10” means “1 two, and 0 ones.” But, “Base 2” can’t be written in binary, there’s no concept of 2! Indeed, the way we reflect two in binary is 10. Which means, when we’re talking in binary, “Base 2” is written as “Base 10.”

This holds true for EVERY base. In Base 4, we have the digits 0, 1, 2, and 3. So if we want a value of four, we need to write it as 10. “1 four, 0 ones”. So, when we’re talking in Base 4, the way to say “Base 4” is ALSO by saying “Base 10”!

The trick behind it is that numbers written don’t have context-free meaning. You can’t communicate what “10” means without knowing how many distinct digits your conversational partner is working with. Most people have centralized on base 10, but there’s no inherent advantage to doing things that way. Indeed, it’s kind of awkward in lots of ways. Consider Base 12 (the digits of which are most often 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, as an aside). In Base 12, you can easily divide your base numbers by 1, 2, 3, 4. That’s SUPER handy, since we obviously break things up into groups of 3 and 4 pretty often in our daily lives, but that’s pretty painful in Base 10 because you immediately run into the need for fractions.