The problem is that now the first page of results is all AI garbage and wrong, so you’re not 100% sure at what point you’ve reached the sane internet.

It’s so shameful what greed and broken electoral finance laws in the U.S. have done to the country. Right now, an investment of a few million by a PAC can turn into billions of dollars from the government, via direct aid, passing laws, or simply looking the other way if a company isn’t being too obviously evil.

The primaries this year were highly telling in that regard - politicians were being nakedly bought in plain sight, but, again, because “you don’t fuck with the money” it’s not a question in political circles of whether overhauling campaign finance should be undertaken.

For the 5% of my adult life that I’ve had short hair and no beard: Quentin Tarantino. For the rest of my bearded, long-haired adulthood: Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus. But they need to have blue/green eyes and forehead wrinkles.
(Huh. On paper that just sounds like I look like Nick Offerman, but not really.)

I guess I’m going to show up to my next meeting with my boss as my boss.

Well, I just realized I completely goofed, because I went with .arpa instead of .home.arpa, due to what was surely not my own failings.

So I guess I’m going to be changing my home’s domain anyway.

lol. While writing that out, I had that thought too, but decided that saying it was more of a feeling was vague enough that I could hide behind that when someone inevitably pointed out it could apply to some adults, too.

I do feel it’s noticeable - an adult that has some sort of social struggle vs a kid. But it’s like… A kid seems to make statements that come from a place of naïveté, whereas an adult seems to make statements that come from a place of ignorance. Adults seem to couch their words in defensive language, while kids seem kind of blindly assertive. It truly is more of a feeling, I think.

A lack of understanding interpersonal interactions.

And it’s more of a feeling than it is any single behavior. You just… know it when you see it. They simplify too much, think values/morals/rules are shared, obvious, and uniform, and that getting along with others happens solely on their terms. They kind of act like everyone but them is an NPC - not realizing to everyone but them, they’re the NPC.

I must confess - aside from knowing there was a difference, I didn’t really know what the difference was until a few online searches yesterday.

The understanding I have is that winter/summer gas programs began in the late 1980’s.
My supposition is that they have been handled seamlessly to the point that unless you are involved in regulation or the industry, it’s relatively inconsequential to most folks. I imagine knowledge of the program’s existence is probably one of those things that people sorta ignore unless it randomly becomes a topic of conversation. (Like any number of random regulations that impact our daily lives that we just don’t think about most of the time.)

There’s a difference between summer and winter fuel for gasoline engines in some areas. It’s usually to do with smog restrictions.

The same octane can be reached with different blends of hydrocarbons. So instead of just ‘pure’ gasoline to hit a desired octane, refineries can mix together higher and lower octane fuels to reach the same overall octane rating. This increases the amount of refinery products that can be used to blend gasoline, so it can be made more cheaply. The trade off is that it’s less pure, and most importantly for this comment - that some components of of these cheaper blends may evaporate more readily, leading to smog.

In summer, when it’s warmer, some areas mandate gasoline must meet certain standards for evaporation. In winter, those standards are decreased, because it’s cooler.

Ethanol has a relatively low evaporation point. I don’t know the specifics of the commenter’s location, but I could see ‘summer gas’ having no ethanol to meet these standards.

More info: The Vapor Rub: Summer versus Winter Gasoline Explained — Car and Driver

Scary.

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Ugh. Yup.

I learned that after buying my house. My furnace is 3x what my house needs and is expected to be an expensive repair someday.

So you’re not describing the issue where internet connected EV chargers can be easily hacked, and potentially told to dump the charge of the connected vehicle’s battery on the grid en masse, causing overloads and transformer explosions.

But a slow moving issue like that sounds like a frequency or voltage issue - something goes under or over enough and isn’t detected via monitoring, causing premature equipment degradation, and potential system collapse. Definitely a lot of expensive damage, though.
(Basically, a stuxnet-style attack on the utility grid - and we’ve already seen evidence that SCADA/PLC’s can be hacked in the water supply system.)

A destabilizing push, rather than a hit with a hammer.

That’s the reason I killed IPv6 on my network.

I’m not very physically affectionate with anyone anymore and I don’t know why, but I used to be very affectionate. Now, like, when I want to hug someone, throw my arm around them, or… anything, I freeze up and internally panic unless I know the person pretty well and they invite the contact first.

With that said, meh. I don’t care if it’s a man. I don’t enjoy wrestling, but other forms of affection or physical contact are fine. I have no sexual interest in men, so I guess I don’t even think about it that way.

Brazilian Jaw Job?

I’ve been watching Bridgerton lately and it took me too long to realize that “offering their hand” meant handshake.
Like, how is proposing less familiar than hugging?

I’d keep working for a few years and use every single penny to generate additional passive income. Once I was not just comfortable, but nicely appointed, I’d split my time between working part time, doing stuff to help other people, and being a gigantic slut.

I am running out of time to type up a comment right now, so I apologize for just link dumping, but if you have time, I encourage you to check these out:

• The Brookings Institute – Five reasons to oppose congressional term limits

• NPR – Term limits for Congress are wildly popular. But most experts say they’d be a bad idea

Sorry, this is one of those issues I go die on a hill for, like hating DST. (And everyone downvotes me!)

Term limits have been shown to create ‘brain drain’, and ultimately what winds up happening is that that legislators must focus on career growth - either spending their time in office campaigning for the next elected position, or looking to opportunities beyond politics. It takes time and experience to become skilled in crafting bills that don’t have adverse effects and cannot be overturned or lawyered to do things they aren’t intended to do.
The net result is that it creates a slew of amateur legislators, and professional lobbyists, as legislators are forced to retire just as they become skilled at the job.

An alternative to a retirement age is mental/physical fitness reviews, but that’s also tricky. If there isn’t a defined process then unscrupulous people will just use a doctor of choice to get the results they want, but if there is a process, politicizing that process to serve one party or the other could mean using mandatory retirement to force key vacancies.

I do think that at some point we need to pry the hands of people off the levers of power, and I can’t think of a way that is as ‘non-corruptible’ as a set age limit. It would not always be personally fair, but it would probably be for the greater good.