This is a masterful post. No notes.

Well, one note. Apparently that link triggered a “we detected unusual activity from your computer” page that I had to click through. But honestly, that makes it even funnier.

If you’re interested in learning to identify more countries’ flags, I can suggest a free game that helped me. I played the flag games on Seterra over and again until I got good at it. If you scroll down on this page you’ll find a selection of flag games.

Pro tip: start with the first linked page and practice individual continents first. It’s easier to learn in chunks than by going for the whole world from the start. Same goes for learning to identify each country, which you can also practice on this site.

Take a quiz every day and before you know it, you can show off your nerd skills to an audience that might be impressed or that might think you have no life. 🙂

Ooh, I like it. It’s a modern version of the Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last. Which might be more familiar to modern audiences by its Futurama parody via an episode of “The Scary Door.”

Interestingly, somebody made a short video showing key moments of the two stories side-by-side. Futurama - Scary Door, Twilight Zone

I’m not looking to have a baby, but I gotta admit that if I were an astronaut and the one-in-a-million chance of getting impregnated by floating sperm happened, that’d be incredible. I’d have the first baby conceived in space! What a cool story to have in a family’s lore.

Of course, that’s provided it survives the rest of the trip.

Thankfully, my family knows I don’t go to Starbucks. The gift cards in question were from employers and coworkers.

Users can also upload photos and ask the app which drinks would aesthetically complement their clothes or environment.

Talk about frivolous. This idea makes me angry but I can’t quite articulate why. Maybe because it’s another sign of how out-of-touch those making decisions are from the rest of us?

Here I am, refilling my one reusable cup (received as a gift) with free coffee from work on Friday afternoons, so I can drink it on the weekend without having to buy any. And there’s the billionaire C-suite asshole thinking that making our coffees match our outfits is a top priority.

The funny thing is, I have Starbucks gift cards. I haven’t touched them. I should though, because otherwise that’s money (someone else) already paid to the company and I might as well get something for it. But then I read shit like this and I feel repulsed at the idea of going there. I really wish people would just gift cash instead…

Marianne was a plain, sweet girl with seemingly no flaws, like a stereotypical “Mary Sue” archetype.

Ginger was a hot movie star, originally written to be a combination of Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe.

And the GILF is Mrs. Howell, which goes without explanation.

Ahh, thank you. I totally forgot about spreading knives for a moment.

I love the idea of using a knife to carve another knife. It’s like your knife had a baby.

I’m also curious, what kind of material can a wooden knife be used for?

So true. As a teen my bf and I accidentally ruined his big sister’s birthday because of this. We were waiting for a flight that kept getting delayed all day and by the time it finally got cancelled, his sister had to postpone her plans to drive to the airport to get us. She was all dressed up in a sexy anime-esque/lolita style and it was clear we ended up cockblocking her birthday date. I felt so bad, but there was nothing we could do.

No no, we still need peer review. I’ll bring it up to my girlfriend and see if we can replicate the results. I don’t have all the fancy equipment though, so to map our clitorises we’ll have to get creative…

at least one

Imagine being the one and only person in space. I consider myself a pretty extreme loner, but even I think that would be terrifying.

Logic puzzles should be applied in more classrooms. Start with simple problems in elementary school, and progress to more challenging ones as students grow. Critical thinking needs to start early.

I interpreted it as a criticism of those who think there’s no point to learning something if there isn’t an immediately-obvious application for that knowledge. Like those who say, “What’s the point of learning history? I’m not going to become a historian,” as if learning needs to have a clear end-goal or else it’s useless. Or those who think it’s pointless to learn to play an instrument because you’re not going to become a famous musician. It’s a mentality that ties in with capitalism, where if you’re not being productive, you have no use.

A well-rounded education should equip students with skills they can apply independently no matter what they do. Learning history provides context for the world we live in, why it is the way it is, and can inform us on how to move forward. Learning to play an instrument builds new connections in the brain, strengthens fine motor skills, and (in the case of reading music) how to move information between abstract concepts and a tangible form.

These skills provide benefits to people that can be built upon in the future. They may not have immediate usage to a student, but they create a foundation upon which a student can reach higher as they progress in life. Not every lesson is practical in the moment, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have value to a growing mind.

The other examples on the Know Your Meme page were worth it

Thank you for saying this, that’s the point in time we were at. My parents had rented a dumpster, and that final cleaning was the last day before they had to return it, and two days before the new homeowners were set to move in.

Meanwhile, at the same time, I had just moved into a tiny little studio apartment. I have almost no storage/furniture, and no money to buy any. Most of my things are still in boxes because I have nowhere else to keep them. Boxes still fill my car now (months later), to the point that my 4-seater can’t hold a single passenger. I can’t overstate just how little space I have.

Point is, I had to cut down to only the necessities. Holding onto the book set would’ve just been more clutter taking up space that I need for more important things. Which reminds me, I have to dig out the boxes that have my summer clothes and do the switcharoo with my winter clothes (which I currently store in a luggage bag. I don’t even have a dresser!)

Oh, I know. I used to work in a nursing home. Dementia is horrifying. But in the meantime, the memories are still with me, and that’s good enough.

“When the text looks professional and written as a doctor writes, there’s an increase in the hallucination rates,” says Omar.

Huh, now there’s something we have in common. Trying to make sense of something a doctor wrote makes me feel like I’m hallucinating, too. Is there a class in medical school on “Illegible Handwriting,” or is it just a coincidence?

In all seriousness though, I wish I could be surprised by AI failing at this. We have entered the Misinformation Age. There’s no closing Pandora’s Box, though this time I can’t find the “hope” that’s supposed to be in the bottom of it. Society would have to turn real skeptical real fast, but I’ve met enough people to know that such a tranformation is going to take time - and by “time” I mean “decades or longer.” With AI already here, we’d have to wise up immediately… but I fear that humanity isn’t mature enough for that yet.

My parents moved a few months ago, and that meant I had to come over and decide what to do with some of the stuff I owned that was still at their house. I sorted things into “keep” and “throw away” piles.

One of the things I had to decide on was my Harry Potter books. My parents were surprised I put them in the “throw away” pile. It was hard for a moment, not because of what they were, but because I remember the day my dad came home and surprised me with books 2 and 3. I had read the first book for school, but the first 4 books had already been published by the time I got into it, so my friends were well ahead of me. I was so happy when my dad spontaneously did that. I hadn’t asked for the books, but he knew I wanted them and went out of his way to get them just to surprise me. I felt so loved.

As I held those same books in my hands, 25 years since first receiving them, I took in that loved feeling, but it was twinged with disgust for JK Rowling. Although it pained me, I knew I wouldn’t be reading them again. In my internal monologue, I told myself, "These books served their purpose long ago. It’s okay to let them go and move on."

So into the “throw away” pile they went. The only things worth keeping anymore are the memories and experiences that those books originally opened up to me, and those can’t be tossed out even if I wanted to. Putting the books into that pile felt like visiting a wake - the series is dead to me now, and with this final viewing, I could have closure over it and finally say goodbye.

You made the right choice. I kept reading past that part, but eventually had to stop and reevaluate what my time is worth.