The thought of losing a child triggers a primal terror, but keeping children at home is much more harmful, both physically and psychologically. Tracking them 24/7 might seem responsible, but who are you really doing it for, you or your kid? And is this even your choice to make?
Once you make this kind of decision for another person, you’ve set the precedent for others to choose for all of us.
The irrational fear of child abduction has been linked to increasing rates of childhood obesity. Fewer than 350 people under the age of 21 have been abducted by strangers in the United States per year since 2010, while for children and adolescents aged 2–19, the prevalence of obesity is approximately 18.5% and rising, and affects over 13.7 …
Remember the good old days, when Net Neutrality used to be an issue? Like so many others, it got lost in the maelstrom of turds that was the Trump presidency. Some of my more prescient friends started downloading as much porn as they possibly could, but like most, I was quickly swept away by the latest debacle of the moment, as Net Neutrality was lost under President Trump’s watch.
Flash forward and Pornhub has been forced to purge approximately 80% of its content, and legislators and media conglomerates are using credit companies as the muscle.
On December 10, 2020, Mastercard severed ties with Pornhub, and Visa and Discover quickly followed suit after New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof alleged that Pornhub “is infested with rape videos” and “monetizes child rapes” in an opinion piece. …
Nuclear power is the cheapest, safest, and cleanest by far, but it pushes the wrong emotional buttons. It just doesn’t fit into our picture of an ideal world, so we dismiss it, and we justify our rejection with flawed perceptions and dated information. But it’s coming anyway, because there’s no other choice.
How many people died at Fukushima? Now how many of those people died because of exposure to radiation?
Those are two very different questions with very different answers, but in a world where most of us rarely scroll past the headline, the two have become conflated.
Over 15,000 died at Fukushima due to the earthquake and tsunami. The number of people who died from exposure to radiation is either 0 or 1. …
AOC is every good thing that Trump pretended to be, and they’re afraid that not even Trump supporters will be able to deny it unless they’re inundated with propaganda against her 24/7.
If Trump supporters had any integrity at all, they would at least support her in principle.
AOC has no PAC sponsorship. She received no support from any establishment politicians. So regardless of what you think of her or her policies, nobody owns her. She works for her constituents, and not for some corporation or special interest group.
AOC graduated cum laude from Boston University with majors in economics and international relations, and somehow this makes her obviously stupid. …
There’s an old saying that if you have nothing, making $10 million is almost impossible. But if you have $100 million, it’s practically inevitable.
For every article you’ve read about the 10 habits of billionaires, there are millions of broke people out there with the exact same habits. You aren’t going to be reading much about the Joe the hobo who straightens out his boxes every morning.
The advice of billionaires is not applicable to you, as you don’t have $100 million you can just park in Coca Cola.
Save enough to survive for six months before you start investing.
If you’re working from home, you’re already saving money. The metrocards, gas, and trips to Starbucks add up. So get your debts under control and save a little before you start. …
You write a book and pour your heart into it, and crickets. One of them is traditionally published, and the 14 people who’ve read it love it, but it also dies on the vine.
So one day, you figure to hell with it. I’ll write some smut and see how that goes. And it sells immediately and keeps selling. No promotions, no social media posts, no nothing, and people keep buying it.
Earning money writing is close to impossible, and this is not to denigrate any writers of erotica or porn, but never before have I sold this many books and felt so depressed about it. The world is telling me something I don’t want to hear. People could give a shit about my novels or articles about nuclear power. …
If only I’d known then what I know now or had the power of an adult to make consequential decisions. We can never go back, but maybe some of these lessons might help future generations.
You kill someone as a minor, and you typically come out clean at 18. Depending on where you live, juvenile detention might be an improvement. At least you get fed.
A lot of this depends on who you murder. You kill a pretty white woman and you’re getting the chair, child or not (NY used to have the death penalty). But a fellow delinquent or evil bully? …
I used to stop at bars before work to pull myself together. The hair of the dog works, at least for a little while. A few hours later I’d sneak out for a cigarette and another quick beer. Once I made it to lunch, I had a full half hour to load up for the rest of the shift.
Now, I no longer have to commute. All I have to do is drag myself 10 feet to the computer. And conveniently, the fridge is right behind me.
There’s been a lot of overtime and stress in general, but for me, it’s mainly the boredom. And when it’s too busy to write on the side, I can still drink beer and listen to music. …
Facebook had been keeping a lot of my “friendships” on life support. Maybe quitting in 2019 wasn’t such a good idea after all.
The person I speak with the most is my boss. The only people I messenger or text are my co-workers.
I finished college in 1997, before social media, so my few friends from that time have disappeared into the ether. I’m still in touch with a couple of people from high school, but the frequency of our interactions diminishes with each passing year. …
Rules are only as good as the times we’re living in.
Since I started working from home last March, I’ve committed at least three fireable security breeches. One was by accident, but the others came with the indirect approval of my boss. He tells me to go ahead and just do things, but generally prefers not to know exactly how.
My job title is Proofreader, Sr., but once my coworkers learned that I knew how to map their drives, I became an auxiliary of technical support.
Most of my coworkers are not computer savvy. They’re older people, and we’re all working in an ancient industry. We use the same terms and titles as our forefathers with printing presses. Send me back 500 years and I could immediately return to work. And based on the performance of our current systems, a printing press might actually be an improvement. …
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