I guess I don’t think of the higher agencies as cops, even though they are. And those higher agencies (FBI, NSA, CIA, etc.) don’t strike me as the type of groups who want to keep the public informed—quite the contrary, actually. I would expect local cops to praise themselves if they got something right, sure.

Or they have stopped them, so we haven’t heard about it.

I’m not advocating giving up privacy but you don’t know for sure that these tactics don’t “work.”

I wasn’t actually so mad at first. They bought back our smaller cheaper car and we felt very compensated. But for the second car, which was much bigger and more expensive, they only offered a “fix” which they said wouldn’t affect performance (yeah right), and a small amount in restitution. It felt like a slap in the face. In hindsight I would have gone about things differently but let’s just say that I have little to no faith in the way our justice system works anymore due to how we decided to proceed after that, and we will never buy a car from VW ever again.

Meanwhile, we actually replaced those cars with Teslas. And now we feel like we’re kind of back in the same place, having given money to a company that is pretty shit. We try to vote with our wallets as much as possible but there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, after all. It’s just really depressing and disheartening and makes me not want to buy anything anymore.

I’m in the opposite camp. What are the reasons you don’t like Rivian? (I don’t like VW because we had not one, but two vehicles caught up in Dieselgate. They’re dead to me. Which is a shame because I really liked them.)

Thanks!

I’ve tried. The thing that’s hard to replicate is the beans, actually. Though I’ve mostly used canned refried beans; I’ve been meaning to get a can of whole pintos and mash them myself, and see if that helps.

The Double Decker taco came back for like a month last year and I went to Taco Bell probably eight times once I realized it because it’s my favorite and I’m super pissed that they won’t just make one for me even though they have all of the ingredients, FFS.

Maybe he had feelings for you and felt he needed to make a clean cut? Not that that is an excuse, really.

Winter, but I’m in California so of course it’s a bit different for us. I love rainy days, particularly with no wind. I prefer to be inside listening to it, but if there’s no wind, I don’t mind being out in it too much.

Totally get that. I used to be that way; somewhere along the line I decided that I would not allow myself more than three WIPs at a time, and I’ve mostly been pretty disciplined about that, and it’s helped. I make a lot of sweaters for myself so when people learn that I knit, they know to ask me if I made what I’m wearing, and the answer is often “yes.” The ones who are also crafters just admire the work, but the ones who aren’t start telling me I should sell (big lol) or that they’d pay me to make them one. If I charged an hourly rate, it’d probably mean upwards of a thousand bucks for a single sweater, but they have no concept of that.

Anyway, I hear you on the learning new stitch patterns and then getting bored. I mostly knit while in meetings or watching TV these days, because it got easy. I had to learn something new (sewing) to stretch my brain because knitting wasn’t doing it anymore.

People want to pay me for my knitting. Too bad for them that the amount they want to pay me is laughable and also there’s no way in hell I’d take the time to knit someone I barely know a sweater.

I can’t burp either. Turns out my mom can’t. I wonder if it’s a genetic disability. Seriously, that may sound ridiculous but sometimes it’s really inconvenient!

Regarding stickiness, perhaps it’s because the internet is ubiquitous now. Fifteen years ago, those of us on Fark and Digg and Reddit came to the internet for a lot of things. Notably, we kept in touch with friends that way (MySpace and Facebook) and in particular, we got our news that way. My parents were incredulous forever and still kinda are that I “don’t watch the evening news.” Now everyone uses it for everything. The big difference is that the early adopters are naturally more open to change because they adopted something that was a change. The rest of the population was slowly pushed into it. Now they don’t want to leave the sites that they’re used to (e.g. Reddit and Facebook) because they aren’t that open to change in the first place.

Upvote for Maintenance Phase, love that podcast.

Running is the worst for me personally, between weak ankles and maybe sports-induced asthma. Thankfully in high school I got a pass out of any running due to a slightly nuts podiatrist who thought the only sport that was safe was snow skiing because my ankles were bound in. (Even swimming was out, apparently? Made no sense to me. I went on to play water polo anyway.)

Loved badminton.

I (maybe, kinda) miss what Facebook was like in, er, 2008-ish. But then again I was also 25 so maybe I just miss what life was like back then.

On the one hand, part of me thinks, take the twelve hours! My firstborn was a terrible sleeper and after that experience, sleep trumped all other concerns in our household.

However, one thing about said firstborn that I wish I’d had the experience to figure out sooner was that part of the reason he didn’t sleep was because he was very easily overstimulated. He had a very short window between fine and cranky, and if we missed it, sucked to be us. There were no cues. What we needed to do was not wait for cues, but we had no idea what we were doing. If she’s resisting, maybe try a bit earlier in the schedule, before she gets cranky?

Also, it’s worth checking with the doctor to see if they’d be worried about the 12 hour thing. If she’s eating well and staying on her charts, the doc may also tell you to enjoy your good sleeper.

It’s been a long time (my kids are 8 and 10) so I’m sure features have changed but I figured I’d chime in with my favorite baby monitor feature. Not all of them had it but I found it invaluable.

I think ours were Samsungs? And they had a “vox” feature. Essentially, if the room was quiet, the monitor screen and microphone would turn off. If there was a noise, it would pop back on. (In this way, it’s different than an audio-only monitor which I presume is on all the time.)This allowed me to sleep (when sleep was available…rarely with our first) and be awoken when needed. I was way too sleep deprived for Nest Cam alerts on my phone to actually get through to me, especially since they popped up once; if I missed it then, it wasn’t going to keep nudging me.

That said, the monitors themselves were cheaply manufactured junk, and not inexpensive. I liked the vox feature enough that when the first one started having problems with the antenna, we bought a second one and immediately taped the antenna down. Hopefully you have better options out there these days.

Sometimes I think this too. But if I was 27 again, I’d still want to do the whole shebang. It’s only with the experience of having done it that I would choose not to do it again. Although it was freaking expensive…

Thirded! Also worked for us in a car seat.