Seconded, I use a Define 7 and it’s fantastic. Best big black box I’ve ever owned.

Have you checked out United Allergy Services? They claim to have self-administered allergy shots.

So Google Search, even back in 2000, was an AI?

I know they make terrible shirts.

Whoa, that post history. Now I have to wonder if this is a fetish or if OP has an obsessive/compulsive disorder.

I looked up the page and it gets worse.

You will need to shop for a car inverter. Find one that is at least 1,500 watts, and it will help you power your refrigerator for up to five hours—usually without damaging your car battery. Considering how much food we keep in our refrigerators, a $200 car inverter is a bargain!

I grew up believing the same until somewhere in high school, when I started taking science seriously.

… a jumble of local maximums and chance.

I really like how you phrased this. I’m totally stealing it.

Oh no, rate of mutation is definitely a thing and is controlled by several factors. A big one is generation time, which is what it sounds like, the time between each generation. The copying of DNA is a source of mutations. This is why many controlled experiments on evolution are done with bacteria, who have super low generation times. For example, depending on temperature, the generation of many salmonella species is around 20-30 minutes. That lets you crank out massive numbers of potential mutations, then introduce a selective pressure, like an antibiotic the species normally isn’t resistant to or an energy source it normally can’t utilize, and see what happens.

To answer your question, yes, a higher mutation rate would confer an advantage. To a point. Most mutations are deleterious and usually lead to death, a few are benign and do nothing (at that point), and a very rare few are immediately advantageous. As long as the rate of mutation isn’t so high that the deleterious mutations combined with whatever other pressures are wiping out the population, more mutation means more chances to have the right trait to deal with a novel pressure or, very rarely, do something better.

To preface, I’m a microbiologist, so I have skin in the science game. I hate how these articles often have science illiterate authors or authors who are imprecise with their wording. They repeat misinformation on basic topics that science educators have been striving to correct for decades, perpetuating the cycle.

…the study shows once again how evolution throws up multiple solutions to basic problems…

In this case, it’s the “mysterious force of evolution that whips up solutions to problems”. Evolution doesn’t create solutions. There is no guiding force behind evolution.

Evolution through natural selection selects for existing solutions that were generated randomly through mutation, increasing the frequency of that trait because those without either die or are outcompeted. What happens if a trait is required for survival but no organisms have it? They all die. That’s why over 99% of all multicellular species that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. If you include microbes, make that 99.99999%.

Seriously. If these “media pros” are actually concerned, it appears my personal server adheres to higher standards than their industry.

I’d imagine an increasingly hostile world economy coupled with a then-looming but now beginning climate crisis might have a huge impact there.

I think a lot of the Internet is going to end up shitted up with this kind of nonsense. While leaving Reddit certainly tackles one issue, having a way to filter out the rest of this shit would be useful.

No no, you really weren’t off base. Even if they were owned by Walmart, I doubt they could do worse.

That’s great, I’m glad you got some deals!

The thing about them is their low wages and reluctance to train their employees meant high-end goods were often priced very low. Levi’s jeans were $10-15 a pair while designer jeans were priced at $5. I recall someone donating a batch of Hermés scarves. None of the pricers knew the brand, so they put them out for $1 each. I bought them all for 50% off (employee discount!) and hit eBay. This kind of thing happened weekly so the employees were always looking for things we could resell. We made less than $20k/year, that’s how we scraped by!

I’m not sure how other stores are, but mine was a great example of being a penny wise and a pound foolish.

So, I’m not trying to be the “ackshually” guy.

Value Village isn’t owned by Walmart.

Buuuut, you’re still right. They’re absolutely a shit company. I was an assistant supervisor at Value Village a couple of decades ago. First, they’re 100% for profit but advertise in such a way that consumers believe they’re a charity. What they do is buy donations from charities by the pound. Any donations accepted at the store on behalf of a charity are paid at a drastically reduced rate, so of course they push HARD for customers to bring donations directly to the store.

The shit cherry on top was the stores lying to charities about the quality of received goods to avoid paying. If clothes, for example, were soiled, they’d refuse to pay for the entire batch. Stores would find a few dirty shirts, claim the entire cart was crap, claw the money back, and sell the rest of the cart.

The company makes a HUGE profit but pays their employees peanuts. Our head cashier had worked for the company for eight years and capped out at $7.25/hour in 2003, about $14 today. One year, they announced no raises, no reason given. My then girlfriend and I discovered the owners had purchased a cabin in Northern California for use by the c-suite douches. The store manager was pulling in $60k a year, plus bonus, in a very low cost of living area. Me? $8.25 per hour.

What else? They incentivize under staffing by making a supervisor’s paltry bonuses tied to their staffing budget. Staying at budget meant no bonus. They had to come in under budget for any bonus, and the more “savings” the higher the bonus. I got chewed out when I first started scheduling because I used all the hours allotted in the budget. The store went from a shit hole to being fairly respectable but it would eat into my boss’s bonus. Her maximum annual bonus? $2.5k.

So they may not be owned by Walmart, but they’re the Walmart of thrift stores. Fuck those guys.

Welcome to Murica, where you have the FREEDOM to receive subpar care when you need help the most.

I’m a fellow citizen of the bald eagle who also has dealt with psychological issues and the United States’s terrible health and mental care system. I read through your posts and saw you’re thinking of ending it. I don’t know your situation, but I’ve been somewhere similar. I have an incurable, chronic, progressive health condition that causes some disability and just hurts like a motherfucker. Not looking for sympathy, just explaining.

I was dead set on ending it because I couldn’t imagine going through life always in pain, being a burden to my spouse, family, and friends, and just being a big overall sad sack like I was. Obviously I didn’t. I got help and worked through my giant pile of issues and I’m glad I did. I think about how I was then and my life now with my wife and friends and my stupid, silly cats and I always start crying because I love all of them and everything so much and I was so close to giving all of this away.

I agree with you 100% - everyone should have bodily autonomy, including the right to end your life as you see fit. Just give it a lot of thought. It’s fucking morbid, but what kept me going for the first few weeks is that I could always kill myself later. I didn’t need to make a decision then, I could always make a decision later if trying to make things better was as impossible as it seemed. It was a ton of work and it really sucked sometimes but it got better. Even when things regressed hard, I kept looking for ways to keep improving because at the heart of it, I really didn’t want to die, I just couldn’t imagine living, so I worked on making a life that I could believe in.

No matter what, don’t look at this as a failing. People like us can have a certain strength and appreciation for life that others who haven’t had to deal with this don’t understand. If you need to talk with someone who at least might get it, I’m here.

You and many others probably know this already but for those that don’t: in countries like the United States, private prisons actually lobby to make it more likely that previous offenders will return to jail. They seek stricter sentencing so offenders are incarcerated longer and to remove funding for nonprofits and programs that provide rehabilitation.

Relevant article: https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/private-prison-giant-corecivics-wants-corner-mass

Just let that sink in. There are human beings that are doing their best to make sure people fail and are punished without rehabilitation, hoping they become trapped in the prison system, all so shareholders can make a buck. How fucked up is that?

There’s a great book called Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. It’s mostly a primer on how CPTSD works but does have content on what to do about it. Just putting a name to things is huge.

I started with the audiobook, primarily listening to it on my drive home. I knew it had nailed it for me when I realized I had spent an entire week’s worth of commutes home rage crying.

Or complex PTSD. That’s what I have and the two have a TON of behavioral overlap. My therapist and I spent a good amount of time determining if I was autistic or not.

I’m also disabled. We tend to refer to this as the “disability tax”. Anything that could potentially be billed to insurance or for which there are no other options is incredibly expensive. If we can’t afford it or don’t have insurance, we’re always welcome to go die under a bridge somewhere. Gotta pay for the owner’s yacht.