Maybe that’s why everyone’s being so nice to him. He got into a tragic accident and lost his arm. His coworkers know he might be feeling sensitive about it, so they’re coming around to tell him he’s looking good as a way to encourage him to keep his spirits up.

Joke’s on you, the only people at parties that I want to talk to are fellow nerds who spout random facts.

Yep, my schools didn’t teach art history. I only learned of French impressionalists in school, and that’s just because I took French class. Even art classes didn’t touch the classics, so I’m learning through my own studies now as an adult. This is what a typical American education system gives us. :(

In my usual Wikipedia rabbit hole journey, I came across some lovely paintings the other day. I ended up going through the page of Johannes Vermeer, admiring a bunch of his works. Consider my surprise when I scrolled by a familiar painting, The Girl with the Pearl Earring. Although the artist’s name didn’t ring a bell at first, that painting is famous enough that it stopped me in my tracks. Go figure, he’s got all these detailed slice-of-life paintings that give a strong sense of what life was like for an average, middle class, Dutch person in the mid-1600s, and yet the only work of his I’d seen before was that one.

I guess it’s kinda like how some musicians can put out multiple albums, yet be forever known as a “one hit wonder” because only one of their songs “made it big.”

We can’t discount the classic dick-measuring contest that’s bound to happen when rich people compare their net worths to each other. I’d be shocked if some people weren’t at least partly motivated by having a bigger “number” than their friends do.

Damn, you were one determined little blastocyst. Well done.

Interesting. Although users in Philadelphia can cross the river to New Jersey to buy legal cannabis, it’s only available in Pennsylvania with a medical card. I have to wonder if these cases are coming from people who bought weed legally in a neighboring state, or is it happening with people who consumed unregulated alternatives (like Delta-8) from places like smoke shops and gas stations?

Spongebob is an odd one. He looks like a manufactured sponge, yet he’s the child of natural sea sponges. I don’t know if he himself has a genetic variant that makes him rectangular, or if he went through some sort of horrific surgery to make him that shape.

There are greater risks to using sunlight to treat newborn jaundice than to use the blue lights hospitals provide.

From that link:

Why Sunlight is Risky

While sunshine does contain blue light, relying on it to help jaundice in newborns comes with significant risks:

• Unpredictable Light Intensity: The amount of blue light in sunlight varies depending on the time of day, weather conditions, and location. This makes it difficult to ensure the baby receives a consistent and therapeutic dose.

• Sunburn Risk: Newborns have very sensitive skin that burns easily. Even brief exposure to direct sunlight can cause sunburn, increasing the risk of skin damage and potentially skin cancer later in life.

• Overheating and Dehydration: Sunlight can quickly overheat a baby, leading to dehydration and other serious complications.

• Difficulty Monitoring: It’s difficult to accurately monitor a baby’s bilirubin levels while using sunlight as treatment. Medical phototherapy allows healthcare professionals to closely monitor levels and adjust treatment as needed.

On the flip side, the potential side effects of the hospital blue light treatment include mild “skin rash, diarrhea, or dehydration,” which are usually temporary and resolve on their own after treatment. I’d rather a baby get a mild skin rash that goes away after being taken out of the light, than get sunburn that takes weeks to heal from and can increase the risk of cancer.

Having a new baby is stressful, I get it. But it takes nearly 9 months for the baby to arrive. Is that not enough time for new parents to learn about the medical treatments their baby will receive?

It’s so wild to hear cell phones for kids being spoken of as “a right” when they didn’t even exist for some of us as kids.

I get that times change, but phones feel more like a privilege than a right. Just like driving. I remember “it’s a privilege, not a right” being hammered in during driving school, as irresponsible driving can mean having your privilege revoked. Having that expectation for phones as well makes sense.

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It’s wild to remember this joke was from 1998, yet I can swear trucks have gotten even bigger since then. I remember most pickup trucks having a compromise between cab space and bed space. My brother’s first truck had two seats in the front and two side seats squished behind it - that is, it was such a small space that the seats faced inwards from the wall and we had to fold our legs so our knees went up. It was actually pretty fun to sit back there, I had a friend who’d ask him specifically to drive us places because she loved that feature.

But nowadays it seems most pickup trucks (that I see, in the US) gave up on making that compromise, like the truck in the post image. Full cab in front like it’s trying to be a family sedan, then a long-ass bed that makes the thing stick out pretty much anywhere it parks.

I’d say “pick a lane,” but with the size of these things, I don’t have high hopes.

I fucking called it.

Here, take my uterus. I’m not using it.

As a woman, I think you’re spot on. I was thinking the same thing. If it said “Ovulation Cycle” and made the two images points between ovulation and periods, a “highs and lows” sort of thing, it would make a lot more sense.

This reminds me of something that happened yesterday. Though thankfully it was not any sort of assault, just a false accusation or miscommunication about a scheduling issue. It had gotten changed mid-way through the day and one of my tasks was swapped with another person’s. The other person suggested asking the upper management if we could swap back to the first way, and I said I was okay with it. She went to talk to upper management, told me the change was okay, and so we went with it.

Anyway, one of my managers (that’s been picking on me a lot lately) later came to talk to me, going off the assumption that I suggested the schedule change. I told her I didn’t, she told me the coworker said I did, she then continued her spiel about corrective behavior and being more flexible about the schedule. I was caught off guard by the whole thing and didn’t know what else to say.

Recently I had a meeting with upper management discussing my progress toward my next raise, and the only thing left to check off regards responding to direction with professional communication. I can’t trust that manager to see my response as anything but defensive, as she’s proven her distrust of me over the past couple weeks. So, I immediately messaged a manager who’s a step above the one who talked to me and explained the situation. I brought up the point for the raise, and stated that I wasn’t sure how to “respond professionally” to a false accusation. Thankfully, she knows I was okay with the schedule change, since I had discussed it with her shortly before the incident in question took place and she knows I was ready to roll with it either way.

Thank goodness the higher management at my workplace knows me well. The person I messaged ended up giving me props for professionalism by reaching out to her, and said she’d talk to the manager who gave me the dress down.

Hopefully the middle-manager’s bullshit won’t stop me from getting the raise I desperately need. Lately it seems every time she talks to me, it’s to tell me to do something differently. Meanwhile all the other managers compliment me on both how I work and how I communicate, so… something’s clearly not adding up here.

It’s unfortunate how often I’ve heard this post’s argument in the wild. It’s always been strange to me how people seem to equate “I’m vegetarian” with “everyone should be vegetarian.” As if it’s a given that if one holds a position or belief, they must invariably want to force it on others. It’s a sad state where people can’t comprehend individuals wanting to just do their own thing.

I’m talking as someone who’s never preached, doesn’t go looking for conversations about vegetarianism/veganism, who just occasionally responds to someone’s question of, “What are you having for lunch?” I don’t tell people I’m vegan IRL until it becomes important, because the admission often comes with an interview and/or silly arguments that appear out of the blue. I’m just trying to get through my day, like everyone else. I’m not looking to convert you, I’m not trying to make eating meat illegal, there’s no mass cow genocide in the works, I’m simply sitting here eating hummus. Chill.

Got 16 speeding tickets? Instant banishment to Lancaster. Good luck speeding on a horse and buggy.

I was also confused by this part:

“Writing is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do…particularly when you get to the hard part,” Will Young, the theater’s executive director, told The Financial Times. “When you get stuck, it’s easier to reach for a distraction.”

Is it a distraction, or is it a way to refresh one’s brain? Sometimes when you’re writing and you get stuck, a break from the task is exactly what you need to regain focus. Task switching frequently can make things harder, yes, but if you’ve already been writing for hours, I’d argue that spending a few minutes doing something else is a good thing to overcome writer’s block.

Attempting to power through every minute despite your brain hitting a hard limit is how we get burnout. Whether it’s a few minutes taking a walk outside or a few minutes on the phone, giving your brain a chance to wander every now and then can go far in getting you back on track.

Can we shoot those in charge of the absurd prices instead? All you did was luck out, but you’re still one of us.