And as luck would have it, I actually was just talking to another friend about this and he turned up a gnome extension that looks like it does exactly what I need, so it may become a Linux machine yet.
I do still want to do some upgrades and I kind of got to like the server idea though so perhaps I’ll be building a new Linux PC and also recycling the old parts into a server
Anecdotally, really just shoplifting in general.
I work in 911 dispatch, been there for about 7 years, so long enough to have a decent feel for how things have changed since before COVID.
And while I’m not keeping a personal tally, it definitely seems like over the last couple of years I’ve been getting a whole lot more calls about shit like people stealing a single red bull from a convenience store. (Yes, they call 911 for that sometimes, and we also answer a lot of the 10-digit non emergency lines, it all pretty much has to go through us one way or another, it’s the same cops responding whether it’s an emergency or not so at some point it has to end up with central dispatch)
We actually have a couple convenience stores with security guards now because of this.
Most burritos I’ve had have the ends folded in which may make them a calzone
Like a lot of people I have one or two things keeping me tied to windows for now
The main one for me is a little goofy, but my computer is hooked up to my TV and it’s synced up to my Philips hue lights.
My other consoles and such work fine through the hue sync box but for some reason the PC does not, so I have to rely on the hue desktop app to get the PC synced to the lights
And of course they don’t support Linux, and from what I’ve seen online WINE and the other usual workarounds don’t do the trick either
There’s a couple of people out there who have cobbled together alternatives, but none of them are quite where I want them to be yet.
I’ve been with my wife for around 10 years now. When we started dating she had a PC that wasn’t exactly top of the line, and it was already a couple years old, but was still pretty beefy for its time. She did a couple upgrades over the years, more RAM, SSD, etc. but most of the components were the same ones she originally bought probably around 2013-ish
About a year ago she decided it was time for a major upgrade and built a whole new computer.
I took all of her old components and stuck them in a new case. I of course had to buy a hard drive, power supply, some fans, etc. and it wasn’t maxing out the graphics on the latest AAA games like her new rig can, but it still managed to run pretty much everything I threw at it.
After a couple months I did scrounge up a newer graphics card from a friend doing some upgrades of his own, which was a nice upgrade, but not totally necessary.
I am now running into an issue with some newer games not liking the old processor even though it technically has the required specs (and it’s not windows 11 compatible) so I’m likely going to be doing some major overhauls of my own soon, and I think I’ll probably recycle these components into a home server or something, so I wouldn’t really be surprised if this PC of theseus remains in service in some capacity for a full 20+ years.
nobody alive today was alive and in the military for any major conflict that we were actually victorious in
There are still a handful of WWII vets kicking around
Also depending on how you want to define “major” and “victorious” you could maybe make an argument for Dessert Storm, and possibly the 2003-2011 Iraq War. (Whether we should have been involved in those wars in the first place, and how those wars were fought are separate issues, and I certainly wouldn’t call them “unqualified” victories, but I do think there are absolutely certain angles you could look at them from and make the argument that the US was the victor in those conflicts)
Michelin Stars started out as a travel guide brochure for the best restaurants in France as a sort of advertisement for Michelin branded tyres
It was really more of a way to get people to drive more and so have to buy more tires (hopefully Michelin)
The original guide had things like maps, tire shops, gas stations, and tire repair instructions. Back then, cars were still new to a lot of people, and Michelin figured that a lot of people probably wouldn’t know where they could go get gas or new tires or whatever, but if they had that information people might be inclined to drive more. If you didn’t know where you could get gas along your trip you may not want to take that drive after all.
Then after a while they started including things like restaurants to give people more of a reason to go driving around.
How did the Michelin stars become so sought after by top restaurants and chefs?
It’s advertising. If you make it into the guide, more people are going to hear about and want to come to your restaurant. And since the guide has such a good reputation, it’s seen as a badge of honor that this restaurant/chef is good enough to be recognized with a star.
Was the head of the Michelin tyre company also a renowned food connoisseur or something?
No, they were renowned tire manufacturers. But they were French and that probably didn’t hurt the branding since French food has such a good reputation. I’m sure subconsciously on some level a lot of people are going to give a bit more weight to a French company rating restaurants than, for example, an American one.
What about other tyre companiee, why didn’t they do something similar?
Why bother when Michelin was already doing it? You don’t need to buy Michelin tires to eat at a Michelin-Stared restaurant. Regardless of where the guide came from it got people driving around more and needing new tires.
There’s other travel guides out there, some focus more on other things besides restaurants, some focus on areas not covered by Michelin, some overlap or compete with Michelin or position themselves as sort of an anti-Michelin because they disagree with the criteria Michelin rates restaurants on.
And I’m sure some of them are or have been in the past published or sponsored by tire companies. But Michelin managed to get into the game early enough and did it well enough that they just became sort of the restaurant guide.
And other tire companies have taken other advertising routes that are maybe a little less obvious. Let’s consider the Goodyear blimp flying over sporting events. I’m sure there’s a small element of “you should drive to sporting events to see our blimp ~and also wear down your tires a bit in the process~” at play there.
Are Michelin Stars still given by the tyre company, or has it been spun off into its own thing?
Yes it’s still the Michelin tire company. I don’t have any real insight into their corporate affairs, so I don’t know how much crosstalk there is between the tire-manufacturing and the guide-writing parts of their business these days, but it is still the same company.
A “truckers” (CB) radio is exactly what I was suggesting FRS radios as an alternative to.
I suggested them because they are much simpler to use. With a mobile base station you need to figure out where to mount it in your car, where to mount an antenna, tune that antenna, how to hard-wire it into your car’s power (or splice an adapter onto it to power it from the cigarette lighter), whereas with a walkie talkie you just need to turn it on, put it on the right channel and push a button.
(Handheld CBs do exist. I’ve very rarely seen them for sale in a brick and mortar store)
Because they’re fucking everywhere, something like 90% of the US population lives within 10 miles of one.
It’s basically shorthand for “this is a common and readily available thing that you can acquire anywhere in the country for cheap even if megacorps have driven all of the local specialty retailers out of business in your areas”
As opposed to something like a HF ham radio which is a specialty item that no big retailers like walmart, to the best of my knowledge, carry, and so you’re probably not going to be able to find it locally.
I keep a CB radio in my car, and have a few friends with them
It is actually really handy when you’re road tripping together in different cars to be able to just grab the mic and say something to the other vehicle when you need to stop for a bathroom break or you’re having an issue with your car or want to give them a heads-up about whatever.
If you’re fairly close together a set of cheap FRS walkie-talkies from Walmart does the job just as well. Probably worth stepping up to CB if you expect to lose sight of the other vehicle though, range is usually a bit better.
It’s especially handy if, like me, you go camping and such in rural areas with unreliable cell coverage.
You do occasionally also get helpful heads-ups from truckers if you’re listening to channel 19 about road conditions, police activity, traffic, etc. but mostly it’s just idiots babbling about conspiracy theories and immature bullshit.
I feel like that’s kind of the point they’re making
When you tie so many of those things to marriage, you’ve created an inherent inequality between married people and unmarried people.
Let the idea of “marriage” be up to you, your spouse(s) and whatever god(s) you think may exist.
And let people sort all the rest of it out for themselves.
For example
You can have your spouse and kids covered under your health insurance that you have through work. You don’t necessarily need to live together or even be on good speaking terms as long as you have that piece of paper that says you’re married.
So why shouldn’t you be able to share those benefits with someone else of your choosing? Maybe you’re single and would like to make sure that your best friend and their kids who you see all the time and think of each other as family can go see the doctor when they need to. You probably have a closer relationship with them than someone with an estranged wife and kids they never talk to, why shouldn’t you be able to add them onto your health insurance?
Not only that, but it was one of the launch titles, so it was always available on the GameCube
I remember waiting in line at Target on release day and walking out of there with the console and Luigi’s Mansion in-hand.
After sitting outside for a few days getting a little bit shriveled I think they look even better. This pic is actually from almost a week ago when they were freshly -carved, if I remember I’ll snap a new pic of them later on
But yeah, I think they just generally have a lot more character than pumpkins, and you can usually get a couple turnips for the price of one decent carving pumpkin
The trick or treaters in my neighborhood always seem to appreciate them too, even if half of them don’t seem to know what a turnip is (a disappointing amount both of kids and parents call them onions)
I just use a forstner bit in a cordless drill to do most of the work, so not really.
It would probably be a bit of a pain if you were to do it all by hand
A few previous year’s turnips
Yeah, I don’t think so. Need to search around for some more clips to confirm, but that one seems to be about an ICBM that would launch into space instead of a cruise missile that would fly low along the ocean
Also I’m pretty confident it wasn’t a comedy
Based on the descriptions of the movie I can find and the date, I’m tempted to say no, but if anyone has a link to a relevant scene I’m open to changing my mind
I’m having a hard time finding clips or screenshots of this one that might match up to what I remember, so I can’t say yes or no yet. The description doesn’t sound like it would match up, but if anyone happens to have a video or screenshot to back this one up I’d appreciate it.
Not, definitely not the rock. Solid thought though!
I played for a handful of years around 2009-ish
Never got very far, don’t think I hit max level, never got super into any particular aspect of it
But I had fun fucking around online with some friends
Probably the biggest source of strife in my marriage is that my wife played for the alliance and I was horde.
And well over a decade later my text message notification sound is still a murloc.