Thank you. I broke up with her last night. I wanted it to be on good terms, but it devolved into us venting about our issues with the relationship. It really fucking sucks right now. I looked through all the valentines cards and sticky notes she left for me over the past few years, and I wept. The highs really were high.

I have a support system, but it’s gonna be a while before the pain goes away. It’s brutal, but I couldn’t keep living like this. I haven’t felt like I could be myself around her for a long time; I had to be her ideal partner instead.

You were right about how I was living. I was trying not to be harmed by our relationship instead of enjoying it. And I can’t say how long it’s been like that. It just crept up on me, you know?

It was like I realized how much I’d been carrying this whole time. Trying to keep her happy to avoid being berated or yelled at, or told you’re not good enough. In the moment you can dismiss these things as temporary events, but they’re not temporary when they become part of your daily reality. I really think she wanted perfect, while I could settle for good enough.

Yeah, I think you’re right. I just needed to hear it.

It really fuckin’ sucks, but I think I’m just gonna make it worse if I wait. I’m just a little scared to admit years of my life were wasted, yah know?

You’re right. I should be asking my friends. But, a part of me also wants to know what a stranger would say. My friends know and care about me, but I think it’s worthwhile to see what someone totally removed would say if they knew how I felt.

And I won’t lie, maybe a part of me is looking for permission. I don’t want to feel like I’m crazy or making a rash decision.

I really appreciate it, though. It’s tough, and I don’t think there’s a ‘good’ answer. No matter what I do, it’ll be an unhappy outcome on some level.

In theory, it’s until you have resolved your issues. It’s more like the therapist mediates and asks questions to helo you understand your relationship dynamics. We made quick progress, but it dissipated over the course of a year.

By then, the therapy was mostly trying to help us retread ground and we both struggled with that fact.

That cope from Conservative Christians™️ is always funny. Similar statements show up in the Talmud. A large animal passing through the eye of a needle was a common idiom in Jewish culture at the time to demonstrate impossibility.

Yep. I have access to everything else, just can’t view Youtube while signed in.

I disabled my adblock for YT, but I still use privacy badger and occasionally a VPN.

Good to know. Even if it does get unsuspended, I’m taking it as a wake up call. If that was my gmail account I would’ve been in a bad situation. I use it for almost everything.

Better late than never lol. They really are a shitty company. Bots run the show over there. I just never thought it would be this bad until it was…

The schools doing okay financially aren’t the ones cutting these programs for cost-saving reasons. In bigger state universities eliminating programs, the cuts are largely political. School admins are worried that state legislators will target school budgets in the near future if cuts aren’t made to “useless” subjects in the humanities and social science.

In regional state universities and private liberal arts schools, however, the situation really is dire. They’re cutting to survive. The US has started to experience a decline in college enrollment. Universities have known it would happen since the late 2000s, but not in the way it has.

Big universities are growing or maintaining class sizes, which is putting tremendous pressure on the regional and liberal arts schools as the available students evaporate. It’s pushed the timeline for change up at many universities and it’s only going to get worse.

Do I feel sorry for university admins? No, they should’ve taken action sooner, with real wind-down plans for students. But we’re going to continue to see cuts to small programs for decades to come; it’s unavoidable.

Shapiro has a sexual harassment coverup allegation (for a close aide, not himself) and what appears to be serious mismanagement of a stabbing case, where a woman’s death was initially ruled a murder, but ultimately his office refused to re-examine the case. It’s going before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and might be heard before the election. Harris doesn’t need an October Surprise to derail her momentum if it makes Shapiro look bad.

I have to imagine the game was a disaster for them to abandon it like they did. Given what Cities Skylines 2 was like at release, their standards must be in the basement.

Thank you! That cleared it up!

I see some providers support DANE. Is that different than either DMARC or DKIM? I looked it up, but the description was very technical and didn’t clear up the differences for me.

I don’t think she planned on getting caught. This was a once in a lifetime case for her. Securing a conviction would elevate her career substantially. It’s not unprecedented for prosecutors to engage in this kind of misconduct.

That said, most Brady violations are from incompetence rather than malice. Tons of evidence–not just exculpatory–has been lost by poorly trained or lazy investigators.

If Baldwin provided all the ammo used, it increases the likelihood he is convicted by a jury. This ammo would’ve been provided to the Armorer by a third party, without his knowledge. At trial, the defense could have made any number of arguments that Baldwin had no way of knowing live ammunition was on set because an outside individual brought it to the set.

In any case, it’s a clear Brady violation. The prosecutor has a constitutional duty to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense. It’s not up to them to decide if it will be enough to establish reasonable doubt.

What the prosecution did was place this evidence under a new, case & number for a non-existent crime. They never had any intention of investigating the case that ammo was assigned to. The only reasonable conclusion one can draw was the prosecution deliberately obfuscated the relationship that ammo had to Baldwin’s case to avoid providing it.

In an already highly attenuated case, and with overwhelming evidence that Baldwin’s rights were violated, there can be no fair trial going forward. From the perspective of the law, once the prosecution has been found to have violated Brady deliberately, there can never be due process for the defendant.

I kinda don’t want to dip my toes in this, but here goes:

I agree that it’s occasionally a breath of fresh air. The issue I’ve always had with Hexbear is they’ve more or less replaced one version of American (and to a lesser extent European) exceptionalism with another. Where American nationalists consider America to be exceptionally great, Hexbear considers it to be exceptionally evil. They routinely attribute domestic incidents in different countries to American meddling–regardless of evidence–even when those events either achieve nothing for American geostrategic goals or actively harm them. America as the “great Satan,” etc.

Just an example because I remember it: Imran Khan lost an internal power struggle in Pakistan. He was probably the most west-friendly candidate left there, but Hexbear blamed a CIA coup https://hexbear.net/post/186331

In the same vein, they permit or even encourage Chinese aggression against the Philippines, within the Philippines’ own exclusive economic zone. You can’t substitute one form of imperialism for another. It’s a trap I see a lot of leftists fall into.

I think most of 'em are alright. Just growing into leftist thought still and grappling with the moshpit that is international politics. Also they’re funny lol

Thank you so much for this information. Your passion is contagious. I’m going to dive into all of these sources in the morning!

Have a wonderful day/evening/night!

So, as someone who has used the Internet since its very earliest days, what would you say about what the Internet is like today versus back then? Was it better? Worse? Any major online events that you can recall from that period?

I grew up at the very tail end of the old forums and certainly after the decline and death of old school chat rooms. Most of them died or went inactive while I was in high school/college. The version of the internet older adults used is almost alien to me.

Hell, today’s Internet is on its way to being alien too.

EVs are also a major issue for firefighters. Lithium ion battery fires following an accident are ridiculously hard to put out and present a significant safety hazard in confined spaces, like tunnels or narrow streets. It takes close to 6 times the water to control EV vehicle fires.

And while it’s a more minor issue, EVs are heavier than ICE vehicles in the same class, which causes more road wear and more tire wear (and more micro plastics to enter the environment).

And, I guess, finally, there’s no established break-even point for carbon emissions over ICE vehicles. The estimates provided in the literature vary wildly–from 13,000 miles to 94,000.

I love the technology, but I hope solid state batteries become a viable option for EVs.

As someone who peer reviewed papers, and got familiar with the process, most reviewers do not take the time to seriously examine papers. I would compare my comments to other reviewers for the same paper, and holy shit they barely read it. I would spot pretty blatant omissions–bad methodology, incomplete sections that make a paper impossible to reproduce, poor quality figures, need for major revisions. The other reviewers would offer minor suggestions and leave it at that. And the chief editor will push it out the door with minor revisions that don’t address any issues.

I have seen some truly blatant shit get published. Like figures that have made up data, or that we’re straight up copied from the authors’ previous publication and presented as new. The for-profit publishing industry doesn’t give a fuck. Those issues might get caught 10 years down the road, like in that case, but it’s usually a slap on the wrist for tenured faculty unless it gets lots of attention.

Prof in my department when I was a grad student blatantly copied work from another researcher, and the only sanctions he got were a moratorium on taking new grad students.