This comment is a bit flip, but true.

To use an oft-misattributed quote, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Human nature precludes any other outcome.

I found that comment here. (Another reason social media is such a cognitohazard.)

Still ongoing explosions in a Russian ammunition depot near Voronezh, Voronezh Oblast Russia. This depot was attacked by Ukrainian UAVs last night.

Nice. Attack inside Russia. That’s like 200km from the Ukraine border. Good.

Dang. Broke Firefox and Safari again. Your browsers are weak and puny. I need better.

When dealing with salespeople showing up randomly at the door, I try to be polite but firm — but I had to recalibrate that from my North Florida standards where “polite but firm” could include some degree of violence, like a polite punch or a warning shot.

I don’t live in that world anymore, thank the gods.

I agree, but this is true of all social media as currently constructed; it’s all a huge alienation device. It’s all an enormously destructive cognitohazard.

Wow, looks like I graduated from WGU just in time.

I’d never, ever, ever in a million trillion years install this piece of crap hellishly invasive surveillance malware on any machine of mine ever ever. I never would’ve considered WGU if they had this requirement when I started there. Real-time proctor monitoring of your screen and testing environment was bad enough; this is full Stasi.

This should be required of no one and is incredibly harmful.

Yes, yes, I could’ve easily gotten around this by buying a cheap computer only used for WGU. But why should I have to do this? And many students who attend the school (like every school) cannot afford to do this or are in an environment where this would not be possible (overseas soldiers, those testing on company computers, etc.).

I just squoke by before this was implemented; I would’ve gone to ASU Online or U Penn’s online program or UF’s if this insane requirement had been in place at WGU, despite those being a lot more expensive.

Will no longer be recommending this school to anyone, despite having a mostly great experience there myself. Avoid avoid avoid.

We’re passing through ‘the worst housing affordability crisis’ ever seen, former Housing Secretary says.

For an illustration of how very few people comprehend how house prices work, read the comments in the thread above. Nearly all of them are frankly fucking retarded. Just complete brain damage in every way possible. There are maybe a few thousand people in the country who understand what drives housing prices. All the rest are clownishly wrong in every way possible.

Why is it this way? Is it just propaganda? Wouldn’t it be to people’s benefit to understand this, the largest amount of money most people ever spend in their life? The comments on this post were better than any comedy I’ve watched lately. Just belly laugh after belly laugh.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

Why there’s so many China bootlickers on Reddit lately? Is this some kind of targeted gov campaign?

China has millions of people whose job is solely to spew propaganda. So, yes, that’s partially the reason. Some are genuine authoritarian bootlickers, like Ian Welsh. But some are actually compensated.

I’m not sure which is worse.

Yes, this is the degrowther mindset:

People have told me that what I do in the stock market isn’t real, is a statistical fluke, that I am lying, that it could not possibly be true. Meanwhile I take very small risks (for me) and make good money given my actual risk level (almost nil). I’m not getting super rich because I mostly don’t use leverage* and I don’t play with any money I can’t afford to lose.

That “not real” money that was a “statistical fluke” that has gone on for more than 25 years somehow just bought us a goddamn 3/4 of a million dollar house in cash (we paid equal shares). No mortgage, no financing, all greenbacks.

So fuck all y’all. I got the real estate to prove I’m just as awesome as I say I am. Just because you can’t do what I do doesn’t mean I cannot. Dang.

*Leverage is how you make big money, but you occasionally lose everything. And the government won’t bail me out when that happens like it does the banksters, so can’t do that.

These are both definitely something 99%+ of women do not understand about being a man:

And I think those two go together. A woman I was friends with years ago was at first convinced at first I befriended her in some harebrained attempt to get sex. Then, bizarrely, she started getting insecure that I actually did not appear to be after sex from her. That was crazy-making and the friendship did not last.

About the threat thing, more women have been violent toward me by far than I have been violent toward any women*. It’s not even close. So, again, who exactly is the dangerous one?

*Because my “violent toward women” count stands at 0, where it shall remain. At least that I have initiated. That does not include sparring and hand-to-hand combat classes.

Interesting night in the city. FedEx driver falling asleep behind the wheel of a big truck, swerving like a Mardi Gras reveler on Fat Tuesday.

Then I pulled up to get some fuel and the dude next to me was smoking a cigarette while pumping gas. I made sure I knew where the emergency shutoff was and got out of there pronto before anything lit up, blew up, or otherwise conflagrated too close to me.

Scuzzbucket convenience stores are something else.

Is it really common for Europeans to think they can drive across the country in a day or is it just an internet trope?

I wouldn’t say it’s really common, but it definitely happens. I’ve run across something very similar personally, with a German colleague who thought his family would be able to visit NYC, the Grand Canyon and Disneyland in three days.*

Many Europeans just don’t know how insanely large the United States is. Many of the EU countries are the size of Montana at the largest and most are much smaller than that. But in the US, Montana is only the fourth largest state by area and is still only 4.7% of the contiguous United States.

So the country is frickin’ huge, y’all. And a lot of Europeans are just not accustomed to thinking on that scale.

*Sure, technically, you could potentially make it to all three in that time. But seeing anything or having any fun? Hell naw.

One time I was interviewing a promising candidate. As we were discussing accessibility features and the difficulty of getting them right, he said, “It’d be easier if we could just fire all the disabled people.”

He pretended to be joking but I’m quite sure he was not. Needless to say, he was not a hire. He probably would’ve been without that one fatal comment.