AFK BRB Chocolate

Old guy checking in. I was a computer science major, graduating in 1985. My goal at the time was to go into computer animation (note that Toy story, the first full length computer animated movie, wasn’t released until ten years later). But there was a big computer animated project that was canceled or tabled just before my last semester, so the market was flooded with out of work animators and I decided I’d better do something different. I was getting married, and I needed a job.

I had good grades, but I didn’t think there was much that made my resume stand out from my classmates, each of whom was making 100+ copies of theirs and applying to every software job they could find. So instead, I asked everyone I knew if they knew anyone who worked at a place that hired software people, and asked if they could get me a name of a hiring manager. I got seven or eight of those, and I sent each of them a letter with my resume, mentioning who pointed me their direction. Out of that I got three interviews and two job offers. My first job ended up being writing control software for the space shuttle main engines, and I stayed at the company almost 40 years. I just retired in January.

They manipulated it and then tried to cover it up.

You didn’t need to stand up a whole instance to create a community.

As I understand it, it’s the effect of a number of policy decisions intended in the surface to stabilize the economy. They stopped approving minimum wage hikes, they accepted a higher rate of unemployment due to factory automation, etc. Also, the difference between worker and executive compensation has grown tremendously.

I don’t know if it’s an urban legend, but the story I had always heard was that chocolate became very scarce during the war, as milk was rationed, but Hershey’s figured out how to make decent tasting chocolate from spoiled milk, which was easier to get since no one wanted it. The war went on long enough that Americans eventually expected chocolate to taste like that, so after it ended they reformulated to keep the signature taste while using fresh milk.

That’s why the right aligned with evangelicals all those years ago. Prior to that, Republicans were actually for abortion rights as a personal freedoms thing. But then they started with the family values stuff, casting Democrats as literally against God. “You need to vote for us because we’ll protect marriage, keep you safe from the sin of homosexuality, and most importantly will protect the babies from being murdered.” Once in office, they could pass all of the tax cuts for the wealthy and reduce corporate oversight, which was the actual goal.

Didn’t they just elect a fairly liberal president?

I’ve thought for many years that the first true cybernetics will be artificial eyes. If they can get self contained optic systems that fit into the eyeball space, it should be trivial to allow them to see a much wider spectrum, plus macro and telephoto. That would be cool. A computer interface for them would be awesome, but I’d have trust issues with that as well.

My wife lost her sense of taste and smell because of COVID, but just for a week or so. I hadn’t considered how soul crushing that is. Food just becomes whatever the texture is. I remember her popping a Reese’s peanut butter cup into her mouth, then spitting it out. She said it was like having a lump of shortening in her mouth - all she tasted was the oil. She’s a daily coffee drinker, but coffee was just gross to her. She was getting pretty depressed before it came back.

Yes Putin sought NATO membership, but NATO was formed as a check on Soviet aggression, so that’s a nonstarter. Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, and they thought they’d cakewalk into Ukraine as well. There’s no slant where Russia is the good guy in this. You sound like a propaganda machine.

Russia sent people to talk about peace

You mean the country that started the war by invading another country wants to discuss a peace they could have by simply getting out of that country? Russia, who has violated more than one ceasefire? What a bunch of crap.