Avalon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon

From what I can find Apple and Google bowed to political pressure and removed all apps designed to do this. Unfortunately I can’t find a working alternative right now. Thanks for pointing this out to me.

ACLU’s Mobile Justice app automatically uploads videos to ACLU servers.

The no preservatives label needs better regulation. Every food that has it is loaded with either salt or sugar. The reason that they are loaded with salt and/or sugar is because salt and sugar are two of the oldest and most used preservatives. And that’s my soapbox, thanks for listening.

I was so disappointed the first time I went to Trader Joe’s. It had been so hyped up and people made it sound like a mini Jungle Jim’s. Then it opened and it was just a more expensive Aldi.

Edited to remove a mistyped word.

Immuno blockers suck. My mom has an autoimmune disorder and has been on them for decades to control it. They’re better than not being able to control her disorder of course but every minor bug that goes around is a serious issue for her. Glad this round went well for your family.

No it can’t, with tax brackets you are not taxed at the top rate for your whole income. Say you make 90k and the tax brackets go 0-15k:0%, 15k-30k:10%, 30k-40k:15%, 40k-50k:20%, 50k-100k:25% 100k+:30%. On the first 15k you make you pay $0 in tax on the next 15k you pay $1.5k, on the next 10k you pay $1.5k, on the next 10k you pay $2k, and on the last 40k you pay $10k. Total tax of $15k(~17% of 90k). Now say you get a raise and are making $110k. On the first 50k you are still only paying $5k, on the next 50k you are now paying $12.5k, and on the last 10k you are paying $3k. Total tax bill $20.5k(~19% of 110k). If you were taxed at the top rate for your total income then the first tax liability would have been $22.5k(25% of 90k) and the second would have been $33k(30% of 110k). That’s part of the difference between actual tax rate and effective tax rate, the other part being things like tax incentives, write-offs, and deductions.

I think GOG might be an exception to this, where they will never revoke access to the games you previously bought, but I am not 100% sure of their policies.

They are, when you buy a game from gog they send you the installation files. You install and run it with your own hardware whereas with Steam and other digital gaming companies you are just getting access to the game on their servers. By sending you the installers and letting you play independently from their servers gog gives up the ability to lock you out. It’s the primary reason that they should be the first choice for where to buy a digital version of a game. The upside is that it’s the closest you can get to actually owning a digital copy of a game; the downside is that playing on another device requires that you transfer files and reinstall rather than just logging into a remote server.

Festivus. It’s the holiday for the rest of us.

https://festivusweb.com/

What you’re talking about is a calculation based on the birth of John the Baptist. John the Baptist’s father was a priest in the order of Abijah and John the Baptist was conceivced with his father’s barren wife as a reward for his service in the temple. His service would have ended in June. The angel Gabriel visited Mary in the sixth month of that pregnancy to tell her that she would birth Jesus. The calculation is June + 6 = Dec + 9 = September.

December is definitely not the correct month because the story has shepherds tending their flocks in the field. Sheep have to be brought in from the field for the winter months and would not have been in the field in December. They would have been moved to shelter no later then the end of October.

The year is also problematic. Jesus was born during the reign of King Harrod who died in 4BCE. And during a mass killing of babies which, if it happened at all, would have occurred at least a couple of years before Harrod’s death.

It’s also worth saying that there isn’t good evidence for Jesus having ever existed at all. It seems most likely that he did and was a reformist rabbi that the myth was built around but no one apparently wrote anything about him for a century or two after his death.

Bette Midler’s cover of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

Boogie Oogie Oogie by A Taste of Honey

Boogie Wonderland by Earth Wind and Fire (and Rain)

My neighbor was a maintenance man at an apartment complex and was bitten while emptying mouse traps. He was infected with a virus that caused some kind of lymphatic disease that developed into viral meningitis. He wound up spending months in hospitals and rehab and has permanent brain damage and disability. It was treatable if he had gone to the Dr earlier but healthcare is expensive and hard to access so he decided to wait and see if it’d pass.

It was the large option at the time but it is not as large as the one in your link. Mine is also all grey. I got 2 cats from my local animal shelter, they were about 2 and 3 months old at the time and the younger one was a little bigger than the older which should have been a warning sign. They are both American shorthairs. My older cat is white with a calico saddle and is only a little bigger than average, she is 14 lbs. My younger cat is almost solid black with 2 little white toes on one of his back feet. He is 22 lbs, over a foot tall, and from his nose to the end of his tail he is 39inches. He can stand on his back feet and get stuff off the kitchen counter.

I had one when my cats were kittens, unfortunately one of my cats is freakishly large and can’t turn around in most lidded litter boxes so I had to replace it but it was very convenient. It’s easy to use and the monthly clean out is about the same as any other manual litter box.

I offer you 3 better alternatives to daily burping for fermentation.

Good: Latex balloon with a pinhole in it. Stretch the neck over the opening of the container, when uninflated the pinhole is too small to let contaminates in, as the off gassing inflates the balloon the pinhole expands and the gasses are released.

Pros- cheap, latex balloons are ubiquitous, not opening the container reduces the risk of infection

Cons- stretching and wear to balloon prevents reuse, risk of tearing or slipping allowing too much gas to escape and contaminates to enter the container, vigorous fermentation may fill balloon with liquid/foam or cause a blowout

Better: Airlock

Pros- easiest option, airlock will be designed for use with container with no modification or customisation, least interaction needed generally no action will needed during fermentation but occasionally airlock may need refilled, resistant to blowout and fluid/foam leakage

Cons- if there is a blowout it will be spectacular and potentially dangerous, can be difficult to find and expensive if not using one of a few standard types of fermentation containers,

Best: Blow off tube, run a tube from the opening of the container to a container of water with the fermenter end having an airtight seal and the water end submerged. Water level must be below the level of the liquid in the fermenter.

Pros- blowout proof, resistant to fluid/foam leakage and leakage is generally contained in the water container, all materials are available at hardware or craft stores and at most big box stores

Cons- creating an airtight seal can be tricky for non-standard containers, requires the most space and materials

Check out the Allegory of the Cave, might change your mind about the usefulness of Plato. You might also find something interesting in the philosophy of Pythagoras’s cult and in the stoics.

There’s no common language name for the fat layer under the skin in English. The medical term is most often used which is subcutaneous fat.

Edit: Using “cutaneous” for skin is borrowing straight from Latin which is a little odd. Not because of the Latin, lots of medical and scientific terminology is Latin origin, but because almost every other time we talk about the skin we use the Greek term “dermis”.

One beside the bed, one in the kitchen, and one near the front door.

For oven fires turn off the oven and shut the door. An oven is a fire box, it will contain the blaze. The oven probably isn’t completely airtight but it should be close enough that the fire will use up the oxygen and extinguish itself quickly (the vent will pull hot air out but not let cooler air back in). Let it sit for a while and cool after you can’t see flames anymore to make sure the fire doesn’t reignite when you open the door and let fresh air in. Fire can damage the elements and seals so the oven needs serviced before being used again but so long as the fire was only inside the oven it should be repairable.

Make sure your fire extinguisher has the right rating for the place it is stored. For the oven grease fire, and most kitchen fires, a class K extinguisher would have been most appropriate because it is designed to put out cooking oil fires with minimal splashing.

https://www.nfpa.org/news-blogs-and-articles/blogs/2022/08/26/fire-extinguisher-ratings

I would argue that having facts without context isn’t knowing. I accept the definition of knowledge to be justified true belief. Ultimately this is a probabilistic argument, Solipsism cannot be overcome so we can never absolutely know anything but phenomenologically it is best to assume our external reality exists and functions roughly the way we perceive it. With absolute knowledge out of reach we need a functional construction to serve in it’s place. Justified true belief is as close to absolute knowledge as we can achieve. In this construct belief uses it’s conventional definition, true means that it doesn’t contradict reality as we perceive it, and justified means that we can point to strong evidence in our perceived reality to support the belief. Without at least some context the belief cannot be justified so the thing cannot be known.

The Secret Service are police. They are most well known for protecting presidents and their families but their original and primary mandate is to protect the integrity of US currency. They have jurisdiction over all federal financial crimes and a particular focus on counterfeiting.