I itemized for the first time this year so I couldn’t use it, but I did fill it out completely as a comparison point to make sure itemizing was worth it. It was pretty painless, not very different from free filing through various other companies.

It’s not.

We are nowhere near advanced enough to say that life, complex or intelligent, doesn’t exist anywhere near us. There is no reason to believe an intelligent spacefaring race would make themselves so obviously detectable that us stupid primates could see them. And for non-intelligent life, we’ve been able to confirm mere thousands of planets. We have a very long way to go before we can start talking about the meaningfulness of a lack of life signatures in the atmosphere.

We haven’t progressed far enough to be detectable by intelligent life in other star systems, even the closest ones. The filter can easily be in front of us. It could just simply be that interstellar space travel is too infeasible, so intelligent species never reach beyond their home system.

I generally tell people the only reason to do it is if your career pursuits require it, and even then I warn them away unless they’re really sure. Not every research advisor is abusive, but many are. Some without even realizing it. I ended up feeling like nothing more than a tool to pump up my research advisor’s publication count.

It was so disillusioning that I completely abandoned my career goal of teaching at a university because I didn’t want to go anywhere near that toxic culture again. Nevertheless, I did learn some useful skills that helped me pivot to another career earning pretty good money.

So I guess I’m saying it’s a really mixed bag. If you’re sure it’s what you want, go for it. But changing your mind is always an option.

Sounds an awful lot like the political positions I hear all the goddamn time in the US.

Using racial slurs isn’t only damaging and insulting to the person being directly talked to or about. I suggest adopting a blanket position against racial slurs in any context.

More directly, we can’t agree if Sunday or Monday is the first day. IMO Sunday is the first day. Calendars look better with the weekends acting like bookends.

I do the same, metro commuting and a short trip to visit family (~50 miles each way) every couple weeks or so. I don’t even have to plug in every time I get home, I only need to make sure I am charged up at least to 75% for the family visit. Level 1 charging is more than sufficient, I’ve only ever used a charging station just to see what it’s like and try to use up some credit I got for them through my dealership.

For those without EVs: level 1 charging is just plugging into a standard 120V outlet. I have no special equipment at home, though I did need to confirm my breaker could handle it. For my 2023 Bolt EUV I charge about 1% per hour on the reduced charge setting (8 amps). If I do need to charge a little faster I can swap it to 12 amps, but I typically don’t need to do that.

I have an uncommon but not unique name and I have firstlast@gmail.com. As far as I know, others with my name usually include a middle initial in their email address but they sometimes forget it. I’ve gotten family event plans, car maintenance reminders, digital receipts, contractor quotes, and even once added to a daycare group (that one I did reach out to the coordinator to let them know and then removed myself from the group).

My team has one day per week where we have our regular team meetings and the expectation is we are usually in the office on that day. Outside of that, we all set our own schedules based on our needs. Some people just like being in the office or have job duties that necessitate it. Others like me have little reason to be in the office other than specific meetings so I WFH 4 days most weeks, coming in on those if needed.

It’s the best work setup I’ve had so far, and a lot of that is because our manager is actually great at her job.

Getting screenshots or videos off the Switch is laughably arcane. Nintendo is so weird about modern tech conveniences.

I got a 2023 Bolt earlier this year. I just connect my phone wirelessly for maps and music and don’t touch most other things on the screen. I LOVE the heated steering wheel for winter and cooling seats for summer. That particular package is well worth getting.

Definitely DO NOT give OnStar your credit card info though. The dealership will sit you in the car and initiate the OnStar call before you know what’s happening. Just refuse to give credit card info, the extended trial whatever isn’t worth the hassle of OnStar charging you when they said they wouldn’t. I ended up having to do a chargeback because OnStar straight up lied to me about when charges would occur.

You’re telling me you never encountered salsa verde before learning the French word “vert”? Even if true, I highly doubt that’s the norm.

And I’m not sure why you think being on the East Coast matters. 13% of Americans speak Spanish at home, less than 0.4% speak French or Cajun at home. That’s a ridiculously huge region you’ve cited that includes NYC where you’re probably going to visit a bodega long before you learn “vert” and Florida which has major Spanish influence, just like the other two most populous states California and Texas. I live about 100 miles from the Canadian border in the west, so by your geographic argument I should encounter more French than Spanish, but Spanish exposure is way more common here.

For those of us in the US, we’re more likely to encounter the Spanish “verde.”

I disagree that that’s what it means, IMO “shuffle” explicitly means each track exactly once. Pedantry aside, what I meant was a truly randomized order when you shuffle a playlist. It’s a major critique of Spotify among users and has been for a very long time.

I really don’t get it. Users have been begging for a true random shuffle for years. It’s not a hard thing to implement.

You have to accept these pieces of paper I printed out instead of me paying off my credit card debt because I invoke USC 420.69 Hocus Pocus Debt Begonus.

I’ve lost interest in movies over time but maybe for a different reason. I far prefer TV shows these days, especially sci-fi and fantasy, because for me the point is the escapism. With movies there’s just not enough time for the level of immersion I’m after, with rare exception (Lord of the Rings being the main one, but that was more of a miniseries in movie trilogy form). I want to escape into the world and get to know it, what the rules are there, what it’s like to be there.

My current workplace has an official policy of flexing hours for salaried employees. Which is exactly what you just described: if you work time outside of your regular hours, take comp time off for it. And my supervisor is probably the best boss I’ve ever had, she’s super respectful of our team’s time and work-life balance so we don’t even need to run flex time by her. As long as we mark it on our calendars we can just do whatever. A good boss makes such a huge difference.