Most of the spiders will have eaten each other.

If you see them spreading into your living spaces, you can spray them with isopropyl alcohol for a quick clean up. If they’re staying out of your living areas, they’re the last defense you’ve got against real pests. Spiders, being apex predators, tend to be well spaced out except at hatching time. I usually transport my house spiders outside somewhere sheltered when they start looking fat, so they won’t lay their eggs inside. A few make it back in to patrol the inside of my walls, and eventually the cycle repeats.

Is this the same guy who just did a blessing of a golden statue of Trump, insisting it wasn’t a golden calf?

I can just imagine them doing the musical number….

Redistricting only works if voter turnout lines up with projections at time of redistricting and people don’t move districts in significant volumes.

If something happens that convinces non-voters to show up, redistricting can actually work AGAINST the party in power.

There was an x prize for a tricorder about a decade back; they found that to accomplish all the tasks, they actually needed three sets of hardware, two of which needed to be strapped on to the person.

If nothing else, Trump has proven that this can be a winning strategy.

Burns wrote on social media before emphasizing that the gilded effigy was not a false idol.

“Let me be clear: this is not a golden calf,” he said.

No, not a calf. A different bovine comes to mind.

And this pastor really doesn’t know his bible. Either that, or he knows it but didn’t enter the sheep fold by the gate.

Polygraph tests for the FBI actually make a lot of sense.

They eliminate people who panic under pressure, and eliminate people who can’t pass a polygraph test.

That leaves you with a mix of competent intelligent people and exhibitionist psychopaths. And there are other tests you can do to eliminate the psychopaths, should you desire to do so.

Aside from that, in some parts of the country, $120k per year is the financial independence income floor. In 18 years, it’s going to be WAY over 170k.

I remember when I was young, I calculated that if I saved a certain reasonable amount per year, I’d be a millionaire by the time I was 55. And I was right — it was just enough to buy a house that would have sold for $20k when I was young, leaving me in debt and with minimal monthly liquid cash.

I think it’s more a case that the people for whom gas prices are A Thing have now joined all the people who already disapproved of him… so another 5% of the population, who believed his lies right up until there was no denying that his actions were hitting their pocketbooks.

He failed to mention that it’s a rolling four weeks.

What I dislike is that the term AI has gone the way of terms like “hacking” and “the web” — I’ve been working with AI for over two decades, and suddenly LLMs are getting VC funding that’s enough to buy up the world’s memory and CPUs, use up entire communities’ water supplies, and set back responsible use of fossil fuels by decades. And now we’re being told to use these massive models or be replaced by them.

In other words, the problem isn’t AI, it’s people (as usual).

The reason nobody cares about the numbers is the lack of context. AI can provide that context, or hallucinate an interesting context if one isn’t available.

What could possibly go wrong?

[edit] I just thought of something: if an AI leaks a classified document by rephrasing it and stripping the markers, is the resulting document still classified?

It’s a better thought than hallucinated summaries.

So do cereal bags.

The cereals I buy don’t.

The boxes are really there to claim space on the shelf. They’re 100% marketing budget.

One dose of realism here: time doesn’t heal anything. The experiences you have during that time contextualize your current experience.

So if you spend years waiting for the feeling to subside to do something else, nothing will change. You have to get out there and have new experiences that help you make sense of the existing ones.

Hobbies that involve scheduled events where you interact with others help a lot.

Good point; I already live here. Some places are more expensive than others, but you can expect San Fransisco-style prices for things, not Cleveland-style prices.

Funny thing is, I often find it’s people born after 1990 who are desperate for small talk, but just often don’t know how to do it.

It’s like talking to them lifts this huge weight off their shoulders, and yet at the same time leaves them feeling weird and confused.

Just a reminder that Canada just expanded citizenship; many Americans may already be dual citizens and not even realize it.