Some people who are utterly tech ignorant and unwilling to actively parent their children might feel better about handing their kid a device so they don’t have to deal with them.

However, this is primarily the end game of both targeted advertising and those who want wholesale surveillance of the population (who are often the same people). Tying the whole of your online presence to your unique offline identity.

Same.

If I’m going faster than other traffic and already over the limit by a decent amount, I’ll move over once the middle lane is clear, but I’m not speeding up just because you’re impatient.

In fact, I’ll slow down just a wee bit.

I give no fucks.

But, the caveat to that is that I don’t loiter in the passing lane at ten under the limit. It’s the passing lane. I’m there because, you know, I’m passing people and not because I think I need to do 95 mph in a lifted truck just to assert my dominance over the morning commute.

It may be a pozidriv, but I guarantee you the vast majority are being removed and installed with a #2 phillips driver, chalk it up to government efficiency again, lol. However, as egregious of a fastener sin as this is, to my knowledge it has yet to cause a catastrophic incident or frequent work stoppages.

The slotteds are maybe a step up from a thumb screw, not much torque at all on those, If you have to use an impact driver someone fucked up intentionally in such a way that it would almost constitute deliberate sabotage. They’re recessed below the panel so you need a little something for purchase, hence the slot. They’re also integral to the component, so no chance of FOD with those.

It’s a 50 year old airframe, torx was still relatively new around the same time it was first being drawn up. Torq-set has been around since the late 50’s or early 60’s IIRC and is a proven NASM standard. They went with what they knew worked in an aviation application, and it gets the job done well enough. And, as I was pointing out in my last comment, it’s typically one kind of fastener per job, unless its a fairly big job. So the work flows fairly smoothly considering the age of the aircraft and number of subcontractors involved.

High torque on the side holds one of the cockpit fairings and isn’t involved with the switch. Flathead fasteners are trapped screws and part of a different module that can be removed independently of the switch. Only the phillips is part of the switch assembly.

The vast majority of screws are high-torque, while a few odd bits and bobs are different types for one reason or another. It’s not as bad as you’d expect.

Back when the anti-5G hysteria was at it’s peak, I wanted to sell cheap latex paint mixed with iron filings as a “high tech” coating that would prevent the 5G radiation from entering your home through the windows at the low, low price of $119 a gallon. (It also conveniently marked which houses the folks selling knives, magazines, and vacuums should visit.)

Sucks having a conscience sometimes.

I recall reading an anecdote from a track and field coach who said his discus throwers got better performance when he asked them to throw about 70% as hard as they could on a full strength throw. I wonder how that would fit into this model, because rather than probability, it’s more about not letting your brain get in it’s own way when executing a technique.

My wife listens to audiobooks out loud when she’s alone and has left a more than few playing absent mindedly. Most of them seem to do pretty well in terms of both variety of acts and how they’re described. But there are only so many euphemisms that manage to straddle the line between overly dry and patently rediculous.

She did have one book where the author over used the word cock enough that I swear the VA reading it was pronouncing it differently each time just to keep things interesting. It was kinda like: my Cock, MY cock, my coCK, my COCK, mY Cockkkk… my? cock? for a solid five minutes.

You can make your own meaning, an act that is also inherently meaningless but often satisfying, or you can just relax and enjoy the things that are enjoyable.

I used to try and explain it in more detail, but I’ve failed to get the point across often enough that I wonder if it really can be explained. I think people just have to sit down and think about it until it snaps into focus for them.

To some degree, what is important, enjoyable, and satisfying to each of us is determined by something immutable, but if we apply ourselves many of us can examine, reason, and then understand things to a degree that we have broad control over what we let matter to us.

Focusing on what we choose to let matter to us is key to living without meaning. But we must also embrace the other parts of life, because without them, the things we believe matter most would lose their meaning.

Without the contrast of suffering, we would struggle to understand joy. I think that’s the hardest thing to accept for most.

Anyone who is passionate about what they see as a moral cause will be insufferable to at least a few people. Passionate Linux and FOSS advocates are insufferable in the eyes of WIndows fans, for example.

It’s not just vegans, it’s just how human minds work.

I’ve always joked that marriage is a lot like sharing your house with someone… so you should choose that person wisely.

But in a lot of ways it can be that simple. It’s making an effort to understand the commitments and courtesies that your partner needs to share a life with you that separates a marriage from a love affair. It’s an intentional commingling of your lives with the intent of mutual benefit, sharing affection, and having the grace to allow one another small mistakes in the process.

If the people in question have an understanding, then I don’t think that legal status, civil or religious ceremonies, permanent cohabitation, or even monogamy are essential, as you’ll find relationships that remain stable despite lacking one or more of these things from time to time. But, entering into and honoring that commitment to each other is.

Boiler room is slang for a room filled with shady stock brokers using high-pressure tactics to sell crappy stocks for fraudulent reasons.

When fund raiser time came around, his band teacher told everyone to take out their phones, call relatives, and try to get them to commit to buying x number of candy bars. It was like a little boiler room full of kids begging grandma to shell out $50 for mediocre chocolate.

• Susanne Vega’s cover of the Story of Issac is somehow more Cohen than Leonard Cohen’s version.
• Motorhead does Sympathy for the Devil the way it always should have been done.
• Briana Buckminster and Billy Moran made a pretty much perfect acoustic cover of Carry on Wayward Son.
• I have always loved the original, but the Jerry Douglas / Mumford and Sons version of The Boxer has replaced it.
• Clutch now owns Fortunate Son IMO, no one else should play it.

Our policy was supervised / filtered only until early teens. Kids sites, educational stuff, games we purchased and approved of, etc. We were also late to give them phones, our son got his first because in his freshman year of high-school his band teacher set up a boiler-room to sell worlds finest chocolate and he was the only kid who didn’t have a cell phone.

When we had “the talk” we discussed masturbation and porn, why porn is popular, and all the negatives that go with it without condemning it outright. We talked about online predators and not sharing things with people you didn’t know, especially pics, addresses, etc.

My wife and I are firm believers that kids need space to discover who they are, so as they became teens, things went to semi-supervised. We paid attention to them more than their devices, but we had rules such as adding one of our emails as a recovery address to any socials they set up, so we could check up on them if we thought something bad was going down. Never had to use that, and I think just having it there made them think about what they did online.

Around sixteen/seventeen, no filter and no more backdoors into their accounts. Just a couple of long heart to hearts about how shitty things can be on the internet and how we’re there to talk with no judgement if they need us.

Exactly, and i didn’t mean to hijack your comment. It’s just that it’s something that bugs the hell out of me, but that I completely understand at the same time.

I’ve started heading it off with stuff like, “I don’t watch the news, that’s how they send out the subliminal messages.” You have to be careful with those though, you could start a micro-relationship that goes on far longer than you want it to.

Maybe no one needs anything anymore,

I’m guilty of dreading small talk myself, but no, this isn’t the case. Damn near everyone would be better off with more micro-relationships, more empathy, and more community support these days.

Problem is you never know if you’re going to have a nice chat about the weather, or get to listen to gramp’s reinterpretation of a talk radio political screed aimed at yourself or someone you love. And since so many things try to divert a large fraction of our attention to rage baiting political blurbs with no actual content, celebrity gossip, and outright propaganda, it’s not unreasonable to be wary of the possibility of getting more of the same from a source you can’t easily filter, turn off, or click away from.

People, especially those who are more introverted, seem exhausted by it all even while still responding to it. The psychological hooks are set pretty deep.

I’m enough of a conspiratorial thinker to believe this is by design. An attempt to move us away from empathy and community and teach us to rely on corporations and products for the kind of support you’re describing. Don’t wait for a kind stranger to help you change that wagon wheel, get a trail-side assistance package at the trading post before you set out…

Not covered in this image: having to learn how to be more discreet in your tweens and teens. You told your dad’s boss that dad “couldn’t come to the phone right now” and took a message, not that he was dropping a hot deuce and had run out of toilet paper.

Zugzwang strategy. You have to make move, there’s not even an option not to play.

It’s not just about capturing the mobile phone market and punishing alternate ROM developers, it’s also pushing people into the market that might otherwise choose to have a dumb phone, no phone, do things in person, via mail, etc. No android/iPhone? Good luck with online shopping, communicating with medical providers, checking your kid’s grades online, paying utility bills, taxes, etc. etc.

As the boomers die off, and fewer people do things the pre-internet way, there’s no incentive for governments, businesses, and so forth to maintain those processes and systems. Why would we have a receptionist take appointments by phone if she’s just typing them into the same web interface? Why print report cards when we can post them online? Why maintain a storefront and not just warehouses like Amazon?

Opt-in to surveillance or opt out of necessary parts of life, all under the guise of “convenience”.

Exactly, how does this not come across as completely off the charts levels of insecurity?

Exactly, there’s that sweet spot where they’re holding some milk but are still a little crunchy that’s just amazing.

It’s the only way I eat oreos.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you’re lonely and hurting, don’t fall in love with anything that doesn’t have a pulse. It’s only going to fuck you up worse in the end.