Well… okay. But only because I’m sleepy.

Boooo! Only my opinion is the right one!

Are they gonna fix how dumb those cars look?

K-2SO lookin’ freak

That’s also highly valid, and not something I factor heavily into my thoughts about the future of U.S. support.

Shit. Huh. I gotta rethink that.

Support your claims.

Edit: With like, actual sources.

And I didn’t call you stupid. I insinuated that your motives were suspect and that you are dishonest. But I am beginning to think you lack the ability to actually make supportable claims or debate people - which would probably mean … eh. *shrug*

I don’t deny that. I really can’t wait for the transition away from petroleum.

But … power, and the economy is power. Sigh. The U.S. gets billions for its oil.

Oooh. I attracted a 1-day old account that conveniently doesn’t know about U.S. statecraft toward the Middle East for the last 70 years, doesn’t know about the long history of arms transfers to Israel, doesn’t know about the Balfour Declaration, the Jewish terrorism against Britain and Palestine until Britain left the area, or the genocides that happened as soon as Britain stopped offering protection to the Palestinians. You conveniently seem to fail to understand geopolitics in any meaningful contexts.
And then you “Source?” my (very well informed) opinions.

lol. No. Don’t waste my time.

A bunch of folks without many rights, property, education, or jobs in a country where they are basically hostages is quite different than Iran.

Yeah - it’s about regional control, and defensive positions.

This comment is sort of a continuation of this one, but not exactly. (Sorry about the link to my instance, I’m new and don’t know how to do the thing.)

The U.S. has long needed a bully in the area to prevent the Middle East from being too unified, so the west can get relatively inexpensive access to its oil.

The state of play right now is that the U.S. actually produces enough petroleum for its own needs, but our western allies do not, and supplying them with enough oil will raise the cost to an unacceptable level/a level where they’ll have to channel money to the Middle East (which hates the U.S. for its meddling, or to Russia, which also hates the U.S.)

In about 10-15 years, technology and renewables will advance to a point where oil demand is going to have decreased to the point where the U.S. can supply all of its needs and those of its western allies without jacking the price up.

That means the U.S. won’t need a bully. But it will mean that the U.S. will cut funding to Israel, and more or less stop coming to their defense. Israel’s plan is to push out every non-Jew, using Zionism as an excuse for awful statecraft, and they’re going to push their borders to easily defensible geographic areas.
Once they do that, they’re going to basically become North Korea of the Middle East - armed to the teeth and hard to get into. Because if they don’t, everyone they’ve been bullying for the past hundred years (yes, this started before the declaration of statehood), is going to wipe them from the map - potentially leading to them launching the nukes they keep pretending they don’t have, so they don’t have to undergo international monitoring.

Assuming, of course, the plot by other countries to destabilize the U.S. fails and U.S. is still major player by the time Israel’s plan is accomplished. If the destabilization effort succeeds, we may see a full scale war against Israel before their aims are achieved.

That’s my take on it, anyway. They won’t stop because they don’t think they can stop, due to how horrible they’ve been. (At the behest of the U.S., who will begin dropping them once their usefulness has ended.)

Honestly, the article is a mess, but it talks about a real issue while failing to clearly establish that it is a real issue. They really should have discussed how this affects people in third world countries aside from the vague possibility of privacy invasion.

They focus on Sam Altman for the connection to OpenAI and its pop culture relevance, and then further drift from the topic to make it relevant to U.S. audiences by discussing U.S. matters. A mess of a ‘story.’

lol

I don’t get it either. We met in a group chat in 2016, and that lady was like “I choose him, that man that’s like 10 years older than me and a total weirdo and is probably going through some sort of mental health crisis.” She then flirted with me (while I tried to avoid her, because I fucking knew this would happen!) until I relented and sent her pictures of my butt, and then she sold her house and moved across the country to bother me forever. (Some details omitted.)

The real story is… actually that, just less dramatized. We met via a chatroom attached to a subreddit, some folks in that chat formed their own group and we both joined it. Rather - it was formed around her. She was in the process of ending her marriage. We all gave her advice and care, while also being perverts and weirdos that flirted with one another. Several months after her divorce was final, I noticed she started talking to me a lot more, and was sending me DM’s instead of the main chat. Heck, she once asked me if she was attractive, and I remember telling her that any man would think she was - not wanting to tell her she was achingly beautiful. A member of the group had begun to overstep and get creepy. He actually chased off someone pretty cool because he was sort of obsessed with her. I didn’t want to be ‘that guy’ but I also had my own thing going. I was dating a woman in a poly situation, and she was married (all on the level, all parties fully informed and consenting). I enjoyed dating around and generally being a deviant. I had previously had long distance relationships, and I knew they were horrible and hard and awful.
One day, after weeks of flirting back and forth, my wife asked what I was up to, and I told her I had just gotten done taking butt photos for a woman that I used to take butt photos for. (A nonsexual thing, she just liked my butt.) And my wife said I should send her some next time. So I did, and she reciprocated, and I sent more photos, and she sent more photos, and then we had phone calls, then video chats, the thing that made me fall in love with her happened*, and then we had an in-person visit, followed by several more during the most happy and heartbreaking year of my life while I found a better paying job to get a bigger apartment before she moved to live with me. It took a while. We moved in together on our first anniversary.

*She recorded a video of herself singing me happy birthday. It’s probably the most backed up file I own.

I am an irascible fool. I’ve spent the majority of the last decade in various stages of depression. I’m overweight, often disheveled, long winded, and ramble about deeply irrelevant technology topics, or unsolvable and depressing political issues. I’m kind of a miser, I never think about fun, and I don’t generally like people. I’m opinionated, judgmental, and quick to speak my mind.

My wife is so beautiful that last week while walking the dogs, some guy circled the block to rev up his engine and take off in front of her while him and his passenger stared at her, engine roaring, running a stop sign in the process and coming within a foot or two of clipping another vehicle that did not have a stop sign. Yesterday, some teenager on a moped nearly fell off trying to awkwardly spin around a roundabout so he could “sneak” another glance at her. Early on in our relationship, we went to a professional networking event, and a man who was supposed to be an HR rep waited for her to go to the restroom so he could tell me how beautiful she was. Three years ago, a friend of a friend asked us for a threesome at a party, and her words to my wife were “I just want to please you and serve you.” She didn’t even look at me. (We didn’t go for it. She smokes.)

My wife is so annoying.
Last week I was trying to get dressed for work and she bum-rushed me for a hug while I was trying to button my pants. And my dumb ass got annoyed about it. She routinely tells me she thinks I’m beautiful, and very charming. She will sometimes just lean around a corner to look at me and squeal. She literally just walked into my office to rub my chest and tell me I’m a babe (like 30 seconds ago). She tells me at least once a week that she gets butterflies around me. She’s giddy and giggly to see me. She’ll text me to tell me she misses me when I’m out of the house for more than 30 minutes. She writes me love letters. (I write her love letters too, I’m not that awful.) She takes pictures of me all the time. There’s a whole album of photos of me that I sometimes just catch her looking at. If I send her a voice memo, she saves it so she can listen to my voice later.
My wife is the best.

Some people just love their partners in expressive and visceral ways, even if their partners are just Monument, a weird and flawed human. But I do my best, and I won’t ever quit.

In addition to what others are saying, just keep it smart.

From personal experience - I bought a 5v strip to play with, liked it so much that I guess I just got mental lock in. Decided to encircle a room with a continuous loop of them. About 48 feet perimeter. With my lights, that was about 300 watts. At 5v, that’s 60 amps!
At one point a solder joint failed and a neutral wire disconnected, causing another to pick up more voltage than intended, eventually over temping the wire and causing some melting of mounting brackets.
No fire. Just a serious reassessment of things, and pulling that whole system.

I now use 12v or 24v strips. They require less power injection and lower amps. (Amps are what generate heat, and kill you when you get zapped.)

However, and not to dissuade you at all, but if it makes sense, perhaps a motion sensing nightlight?
I use some zigbee RGB ones by third reality - they report to my hub when they detect motion. You could just buy a bone stock RGB strip controller and create an automation to fire those when the nightlight detects motion.
Definitely not the same journey of learning and experimentation, and with far less options to play with. But it would be way more manageable, and no arguing with family about insurance policies or electrical code.

I’m just imagining Musk banning his account once he realizes how much he just embarrassed himself.

Followed by:

Lawyer: What brings you in today, Mr. LeCun?
LeCun: I got banned from Twitter.
Lawyer: But I’m a patent attorney.
LeCun: I know.

Beastie Boys “Sabotage” riff starts playing.

I’m so glad I checked back into this thread. That’s fantastic to hear!
I’m really happy for you!

I’m coming at you with the confidence of a complete internet stranger that is not in your situation, not in your shoes, and not in the same mindset as you.
I say that because I think I could do this right now at this time in my life, with how I currently feel, but I know absolutely, that I would not have had this level of confidence at certain points in my life - heck, even at many points in my life.

But here’s my completely ungrounded in your reality suggestion:
Figure out if you are going to go with another quote. If you are, then commit to yourself not to change your mind on that unless she offers a requote, but well… I’ll explain further down.
Call her up, and give her the rundown. For me, that would look like this - I’d make sure she had at least a few minutes to talk, and I’d say something like “I have a couple issues I’m currently trying to work through regarding this project, and I need your help.” I’d say that her quote came in a bit higher than others, and maybe even make a point to say that you know her work is worth it, but you don’t have the budget for it. If she offers to change her quote, I’d stop her, and say something like “I’m not opposed to that, but before we talk about that, I want to talk about my other issue.”
Next, I’d steer the conversation to the next thing you wanted to talk about. I’d tell her that my other problem is that I really have enjoyed working with her and I’d like to ask her on a date if she was interested, but I’m worried that asking her out might be problematic - I wouldn’t want her to feel beholden since you have a working relationship. I would be very, very clear - that no matter her response, you’ve already left her glowing online reviews, will continue to recommend her to your friends, and if she still wants to offer a revised quote, you won’t show it favoritism if she does go on a date with you.

It’s important that you impress on her that she doesn’t have to go on a date with you to get work. (You might want to say that.) You don’t want a power imbalance there. Heck, I’d even tell her it’s totally fine if she wants to end your personal/professional relationship as a result.

Good luck! I hope you find happiness.

It’s a good thing I’m an American!

The neglect, parental addictions, childhood sexual abuse, income insecurity, and unwillingness to test for, let alone treat mental health issues only made me more of a rugged individual!

From the makers of Baby Bjorn, we present the Kitty Jeaorn.

Those fun lovin’ socialists.