Honestly, I think the theatrical releases are better and some of the stuff left on the cutting room floor belonged there (looking at you, weird mouth of Sauron).

Get at me when they release the Tom Bombadil/Scouring of the Shire cut though.

Aside from driving being an activity that, in my opinion, will require something approaching AGI, there are other issues to consider. Self driving cars will be completely unable to make difficult decisions reliably. How, for example, do they deal with a robbery where you just have someone stand in front of the car to immobilize it and then have the folks inside the car at your mercy? I have to imagine that either you're producing pedestrian murder machines or serving up passengers on a silver platter.

Well, on substack, that community of writers includes nazis who are able to monetize their hate through that platform. So, if that's what you're looking for...

I agree with respect to the low likelihood of changing one's old posts being effective in preventing their being used as training data. I'd assume, however, that those who are motivated to "vandalize" (itself a loaded term to refer to altering one's own words) their old posts have more than one motive; in addition to inconveniencing humans, doing so devalues reddit as a place to find information and, in theory, punishes reddit for their actions, maybe even deters others from behaving similarly.

This a situation where I think that maybe a shared distaste/disdain for "slacktivism" leads to folks discouraging potentially effective collective action in one of the limited contexts where online protest has a chance of having any effect.

The only option that fits your budget today I can think of would be picking up one of the old xeon combos off of AliExpress. I spent like $100 on a MB+CPU+64GB DDR4 combo with a 2880 v4 I think. 14c/28t at any rate. You can probably grab a case/power supply/video card used for under $50 on eBay.

Please note that I'm not saying that this is a good option; it took a lot of fiddling for me to get mine running smoothly. But if you've got more time and patience than money, it might work for you.

I chose a name that means the same thing as my birth name, but in a different language (old English -> Norwegian). I asked my mom what my name would have been if I had been born a girl and took that first name as my middle name.

Congratulations! That's a big step!

If you're taking oral estradiol, a pill case. Super helpful for figuring out if you remembered your meds. I like the little circle ones with the push button. They're cheap and come with a creating case that's easy to throw in a purse.

If you're anything like I was, you'll have a roughly zero percent chance of forgetting... at first. Once it becomes just a part of your life though, the case helps.

Not directly related to HRT, but get started on that hair removal as soon as you can. I'm still working through my laser treatments and I really wish I'd started them sooner. (A note on that: if you do laser, you'll be told not to shave or use makeup for a week after each treatment. For me, that was a nonstarter. Anecdotal, but this appears to be a liability thing more than anything else as I have consistently done both following treatments with no ill effects).

I'm fine with folks with strong political convictions. The thing that gets me is the viewing of literally everything through the lens of reductive party politics combined with the belief that anyone who disagrees is an idiot or a monster.

Who ever saw a manual powered sliding door?

Anyone with a pocket door in their house. They're relatively common, especially in smaller homes where you don't want to lose limited floor space to a swinging door (e.g. a small bathroom).

Pretty rare as an entry door, although it would have the benefit of being much harder to kick in.

The thing I really hate about it is that where I live, they don't have bags at the self checkout. Cuz you know, someone might steal a fucking plastic bag. 🙄

My first couple of months after starting my transition, my legs (and sometimes arms and other areas) were basically razor burn city. I tried literally every razor and shaving cream under the sun to avail. Finally, i switched to an electric razor. No more razor burn. The shave's not as close, but i also don't look like a renaissance-era smallpox victim, so worth it.

It probably takes me 5 minutes to do everything (face, legs, arms, chest/abdomen) if I do it every day. It takes maybe 15 if I let it go more than 3 days or so.

Training how to use "AI" (LLMs demonstrably possess zero actual reasoning ability) feels like it should be a seperate pursuit from (or subset of) general education to me. In order to effectively use "AI", you need to be able to evaluate its output and reason for yourself whether it makes any sense or simply bears a statitstical resemblance to human language. Doing that requires solid critical reasoning skills, which you can only develop by engaging personally with countless unique problems over the course of years and working them out for yourself. Even prior to the rise of ChatGPT and its ilk, there was emerging research showing diminishing reasoning skills in children.

Without some means of forcing students to engage cognitively, there's little point in education. Pen and paper seems like a pretty cheap way to get that done.

I'm all for tech and using the tools available, but without a solid educational foundation (formal or not), I fear we end up a society snakeoil users in search of the blinker fluid.