Essentially, no one uses prions as a weapon because if you’re going to carry out a bioterror attack, there are much easier to acquire and more effective agents.

When I saw your long comment, I was really hoping for some reassurance around how many safeguards would prevent what OP described. Now I’m twice as worried. 😥

I have no idea how I originally found this, but it is one of the coolest things I have ever seen/heard: https://youtu.be/l_MyUGq7pgs

Any company that pays for ads closely tracks the efficacy of ads and can more or less prove that the ads are worth it. There’s no guess work.

Wow, that is an insanely impressive engineering feat. Stuff like this is why I still love the internet. Thank you for sharing it!

I’m surprised no one has mentioned hobby horsing yet.

4 drinks (for women) isn’t a lot. That can be as little as two martinis or three margaritas.

5 (for men) isn’t really a lot either. That’s less than a 6 pack of beer. Or like 3 cocktails depending on how strong they are.

Most people I know will likely have at least one day a month where they drink this much. A birthday party, a holiday celebration, a wedding, a big game, etc. I wouldn’t think twice about a couple drinking this much on a date night. Heck, I’ve been to stuffy work functions that gave me 3 “drink tickets” (which would have put me over the limit). Throw in populations like alcoholics, college kids, service industry workers, etc, and I find it really hard to believe that’s only 5% of the population.

I’ve seen this stat a lot, and anecdotally there’s no way it can be accurate. It really makes me wonder about the methodology of data collection. First, it seems like the heavier of a drinker or drug user you are, the less likely you are to set aside time to participate in a long survey. Second, regardless of the assurances of confidentiality, I’m not sure people would always be honest about the extent of their drinking. In AA, one of the most important steps is admitting you have a problem…

For anyone interested, here’s the paper that explains the survey methodology: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt47098/Methodological Summary and Definitions/2023-nsduh-method-summary-defs.pdf

And here’s an FAQ: https://nsduhweb.rti.org/respweb/faq.html#q6

A few interesting notes:

• Among people who were selected for the interview but did not complete it, the most common reasons for not responding were (1) refusal to participate by the respondent or by the parent or adult guardian of the adolescent respondent (26.1 percent) and (2) did not participate because the residents were not available, never at home, or did not respond to the web survey (18.9 percent)
• For both data collection procedures, communications with potential respondents stressed confidentiality. Consequently, respondents’ names were not collected with the interview data. For web-based data collection, the website’s https encryption provided sufficient security for information entered from compatible devices via any Internet connection
• The interview questions will take about an hour to complete
• Interview respondents who completed the interview received a $30 incentive

Also, do you remember what platform you saw it on?

Oh, nice! Thanks for explaining that. I didn’t realize there was a way to run a cluster without HA.

I’m not sure how well that works if the cluster is only designed to be temporary, since removing a productive node from a cluster is a bit risky

Good callout. Just did some reading on the concept of maintaining a quorum, which I didn’t know about. Definitely need to be careful if I go with that approach, but it does sound interesting! I’m not entirely opposed to leaving the old laptop as a node and then using it for experimental stuff or maybe running just one specific standalone service on it after moving the critical stuff to the new server.

Sounds pretty straightforward. Thanks for the info!

That’s a fair point, but I kind of want to tinker around on the laptop without worrying too much about breaking things and figure out what all I actually want to self-host. That will help me figure out what sort of hardware I need.

This is a genuine question: What do people get out of reading “both sides” (or all sides) of editorialized news? Specifically compared to just reading the facts of the situation.

I’ve been reading almost exclusively AP News for years (and occasionally listening to NPR), and I really like getting the details of whatever just happened (or is currently happening) without too much of a spin or a “take” on it. I can use the primary sources from the article and then form my own opinions.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done much reading from other sources. I used to like NYT, but not so much recently. I don’t really feel like I’m missing much other than the occasional deep dive investigative journalism piece, so I’m curious what other people are getting out of it.

Unfortunately sometimes it’s really hard to avoid. I’ve been to restaurants that don’t even have physical menus. You could probably find a menu on their website, but not always.

I wouldn’t call myself a frequent flyer, but I fly at least several times a year, and I’ve taken a lot of different airlines. To your point, I honestly haven’t seen much difference in terms of cancelation or delay between budget and regular airlines. There are 3 main differences in my mind.

First is that budget airlines nickel and dime you. Carry-on isn’t free, it’s an add-on. Your backpack size is thoroughly checked. And if you mess any of that up and they catch it, the upcharge is huge.

The second point is sort of a continuation of the first: on-flight service. Depending on the duration of the flight, non-budget airlines will give you some snacks and drinks for free. Budget airlines charge you for them. (I once had a budget airline try and charge me for water when I was fighting off a headache…) Some of the nicest airlines will even have entertainment consoles built in to the seats, even in economy.

Third is seat space and comfort. The seats on the nicer airlines have noticeably more leg room and more cushion. A lot of them have adjustable headrests and recline a bit. Sounds like a small thing, but I have pretty long legs and a bony ass, so it makes a huge difference to me.

For shorter flights/trips, I’ll still do budget airlines sometimes. For longer flights or if I have a lot of luggage, I usually have a strong preference for the nicer airlines. Of course, depending on how big the cost difference is, I’ll occasionally go against my preference.