🖖

Came across a forum thread about insurance: https://www.slateforums.com/forum/threads/insurance-premium-cost-for-slate.14577/

No answers yet, just speculation (as expected), but apparently I’m not the only one wondering about insurance so I’m surprised by the downvotes. Was that because people don’t like to think about negatives like insurance costs, because they don’t like the Slate and I called it interesting, think I’m nitpicking compared to the cost of the vehicle, or something else?

Now that I think about it, another ongoing cost factor is vehicle registration, which can be higher in some states than a gas vehicle because they’re trying to make up for lost revenues from gas taxes.

I hope to go electric someday, but I don’t plan on buying a Slate right now. My ICE crossover SUV is still going strong, even as a compact still has more cargo space than the Slate (covered too, which costs extra on the Slate), and I don’t drive very much. But if the worst were to happen (wreck or such), it’s nice to have a backup plan. Used to have a 90’s Toyota pickup and loved that size, so I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy the Slate too.

If VD goes, can free love resume?

Quite interesting, but I wonder how much car insurance will be for it. I’ve heard it can be rather expensive to insure EVs. I suppose not even the insurance companies know the answer yet.

AI (specifically chatbots) is crap, has stolen and monetized work people shared for free, violates copyrights (including the GPL), has already caused job loss, is biased and bigoted, I’d even say somewhat unethical to use due to the aforementioned things. People are better off not using it (although it’s basically forced on you now when you go to certain websites). But I’ll just mention a couple things:

• It takes around 200 ChatGPT queries to use 2 gallons of water for cooling (EDIT: seeing a lot of different answers on this, some as high as 2 gallons for only 15 queries. Lets go with that instead. It still means that taking a shower for only 4 seconds uses more water than a single ChatGPT query.)
• A standard shower head uses 2½ gallons of water per minute

So to save water, taking a shorter shower, not having a swimming pool, not watering a lawn, not washing your car, not spraying driveways, flushing the toilet less often, washing a full load of laundry and running a full dishwasher instead of hand washing are all much more impactful than cutting out the occasional AI query.

I do hope that awareness of AI water waste will also motivate people to cut water use in other ways too, so it’s good that the issue keeps coming up.

The vaccine did not work well for me: I got COVID at least 3 times. Was wearing N95 masks from the start (happened to have some). Stayed at home except for vital shopping. Grew my hair out. Social distanced the best I could. Played a lot of Animal Crossing. But interacting with work and family is unavoidable, and that’s who I believe I got it from every time, as they were generally not taking it seriously.

From what I read, when I got the shot and boosters I should have had some kind of mild reaction. Felt bad for a day or at least a few hours, something like that. But that never happened to me. However, others I talked to did have a reaction, and they also didn’t seem to get COVID. So I’m inclined to believe that the vaccine probably did work, for at least some segment of the population, just not for me for some reason. It was a rush job, so it not working for everyone isn’t a conspiracy, to me it’s somewhat expected. And maybe one of the other brands would have worked, but I don’t think you were allowed to mix them.

Can’t think of anything!

Those look incredible!

Slightly higher resolution: https://i0.wp.com/ivo-hennemann-grundschule.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Frauendorf_0012_komp.jpg

You’re the only person that said that. Quit gatekeeping.

You can configure which categories to skip, so you could enable ad spots, yet still skip intros, or non-music portions of music videos, that kind of thing. There are 10 different categories.

Right, I was disagreeing with them on those points.

Do it! Stand Up was, IMO, their best album. Here’s another version for motivation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=e6Kyap5BTfo

I’d heard the random JT song on the radio, but after going through their albums those ended up not even being my favorites. Lots of good stuff on “Too Old to Rock and Roll”!

Oh, and I’ll add ELO, because there’s a space station on the cover of Out of the Blue.

Intentionally misgendering is offensive, but that’s not what happened here, in my opinion. There’s nothing in their profile so sure going neutral with they/them is probably a safer option, but defaulting to male pronouns (which traditionally are all encompassing) is also fine, IMO. If they had a preference that they cared about then they would specify it.

APP still holds up. Listened to Gaudi the other day due to all the LSF cathedral news and it was good.

I’ll add: Jethro Tull

Still have Malt-O-Meal every so often. It’s good! Glad both are still around.

Perhaps it’s a reference to “mad as a hatter”.

I’ve been enjoying the graphics in Satisfactory. Although I believe most of that enjoyment comes from their creativity and art choices rather than technical specs. Factorio is dark, dirty and depressing to represent the reality of mining and manufacturing, but for those same reasons I didn’t want to play it. However, Satisfactory’s bright and cheerful-looking landscapes, creatures and art drew me in to actually want to pick up the game. Then the juxtaposition of that natural beauty with cutting down trees and machines marring those landscapes spewing pollution was a highly effective choice to drive the same point home. I began to notice my GPU fan was spinning up and I dropped the framerate until it wasn’t. And I’ve made other greener choices in my life as well, just because I played a game.

EDIT: fix typo

Do a lot of people actually add fruit to their cereal? I only started eating more fruit once I’d replaced cereal.

There are several state secessionist movements, which at various times were gaining popularity, but none of them seems to be even close and from what I can tell they all peaked years ago. You’d think that if they had any chance that right now they’d be stronger than ever, but it doesn’t seem to be the case, unfortunately.