Well, I have no arguments with what you’ve said. I think security keys/FIDO tokens should be more prevalent too. Otherwise this is 100% correct and I feel the exact same way.

Your story reminds me of something that my bank started doing. I got a robocall about something to do with my credit card, and the voice said to verify using x and y using my keypad, I think it was day/month/year of birth or something and I immediately noped out of the call. I hit all the wrong buttons until it got me to a person and I ripped them apart, and their supervisor for basically training their userbase to answer security questions given by an automatic voice on the other end of the line with no way to verify who is calling.

You can spoof your caller ID, you can get a text to speech robocall bot with DTMF recognition and just spam call a whole area where the bank operates and gather a bunch of personal information because it sounds just like the bank and there’s no way to prove who called.

What a crock of shit. It’s a security nightmare.

I did call my bank after at a known valid number, verified them as they verified me, and there was something going on, so the call was legit, and totally unacceptable.

These clowns want us to trust them completely, and give us no reason to do so, but they want us to bend over backwards to validate ourselves. Fuck that.

It’s confusing since espresso is a type of coffee, and coffee (aka “drip coffee”) is a completely different type of coffee.

Coffee is both a class of item, and also a specific item within the class.

If you say coffee, it could mean the class of all kinds of coffee, or you could be referring specifically to the coffee item in the class coffee. If you say espresso, it’s still in the class coffee, but it’s a specific type of coffee that cannot be conflated with a different kind of coffee.

English sucks.

An Americano isn’t coffee.

It’s a watered down espresso.

The only reason it exists is because Americans visiting Europe would ask for coffee, and many euro coffee shops only had espresso, so they just added hot water to espresso and that was close enough for the tourists.

At least, that was what I heard.

I mainly use Windows and Microsoft almost exclusively uses “disk” everywhere.

I don’t think you’re wrong at all, but even after I’ve been working in tech for so long, all the terms for everything get confusing for me too.

Just saying.

Round optical disc in a hard caddy/shell

I can clarify some of the tech stuff.

A “disk” is a concept. It’s an object which contains data.

“Hard” disks and “floppy” disks are always referring to the rigidity of the internal storage media. 7", 5.25", and 3.5" floppy disks have the same round magnetic storage material. The only difference with a 3.5" floppy disk is that they put a hard case over the floppy disk.

CD, DVD, Blu-ray, etc are both disks and discs, as their typically handled without a caddy/case. So technically both apply.

SSDs are still disks, just solid state, rather than floppy/hard spinning magnetic media.

Technically flash drives are also solid state disks, but we don’t generally conflate the two terms for clarity.

$20 CAD each (ish) and they come with the heater?

That’s actually pretty good for pricing. The ration heaters are not cheap.

Most MREs that I’ve looked at are a bit more elaborate than your average canned product.

But the idea is the same, yes. It’s more interesting than your typical canned meal, and it’s more expensive, but the quality of the food, if you can call it that, is not dissimilar.

MREs usually are a more “complete” meal with a variety of components, while canned meals are just a volume of a single component.

For me it’s mainly that it adds variety.

And sure, there’s MREs that are like, stew, or soup, that you would probably be better off just grabbing a can of ready to eat Campbell’s or something… But there’s way interesting options than that too.

I once saw a “taco” MRE. It was little more than some “beef” (that you had to heat up) and “cheese” and some other fairly sad toppings on a small tortilla… But I would still take that over a can of chunky beef soup any day.

The nice thing is that MREs are shelf stable for a really long time, so you can get a box of them and shove them in your trunk, or into a desk drawer and then you don’t have to worry about lunch for a month. Longer if you occasionally go out for lunch with coworkers to local food places near your workplace.

Presently, I don’t work in an office (my job is 100% work from home), so I don’t really need it. I can get the same variety from a frozen meal, which is arguably easier, and it’s definitely cheaper than MREs.

I also have considered buying a few boxes as emergency food and throwing them in the trunk of my car. I live in Canada, and getting stranded in a blizzard isn’t impossible. I have access to my trunk from the cabin of my car, so I shouldn’t need to get out to get them and I could stay nourished while waiting for rescue. MREs are supposed to be paired with heating/cooking packs, which would help the car warm up when I’m having one, and with a decently sized container of drinking water, I could wait weeks for rescue, as long as I have adequate protection from the elements (jackets, blankets, etc), and some way to dispose of my bodily waste without contaminating my “living” area. I almost always travel with a radio (I’m a certified amateur operator, aka, ham radio), and a battery bank for my cellphone.

For a couple hundred dollars (maybe? Maybe more? IDK what the prices are for MREs right now), myself and a passenger could survive for a while being stranded in the white wasteland of Canada, without really having to do anything… Just waiting for rescue.

With global warming, last year we barely got snow where I am, and I don’t travel much, so the whole thing is on the back burner at best. The idea was to have it, and if I don’t need it, a few months before everything expires, the MREs become my lunch, and I buy a fresh box for my vehicle.

I’m not a monster.

I’ve seriously considered buying MREs because I can’t be bothered to meal prep.

I agree with the idea of bodily autonomy. Above all, someone should have the right to do, or not do, whatever they want with their own person.

Whether that is to listen to doctors advice, buy pharmaceuticals and self-administer as prescribed, or even end your own life, and everything in between.

Quick disclaimer, suicide should still be evaluated by a psychiatric professional, and simply being suicidal shouldn’t necessarily mean that nobody can, or should stop you from committing that act. I’m mostly referring to medically assisted self termination, after the appropriate safeguards, checks, and balances have been cleared. Simply wanting to off yourself without being cleared as having sound mind should be something we, as a society, should address carefully, with the assistance of mental health professionals.

With all that being said: I probably would DIY some pharmaceuticals. Anything that’s an opiate or other restricted substance, definitely not. But if I can buy the ingredients without needing a special permit or license, I definitely would.

Something I’ve noticed with institutional education is that they’re not looking for the factually correct answer, they’re looking for the answer that matches whatever you were told in class. Those two things should not be different, but in my experience, they’re not always the same thing.

I have no idea if this is a factor here, but it’s something I’ve noticed. I have actually answered questions with a factually wrong answer, because that’s what was taught, just to get the marks.

I hate the mentality of “I had to suffer, so you should have to suffer too!”

And so many of them have that attitude.

It’s just gross

Thanks, I hate it.

Are you still using them?

I left Facebook when they banned me for not using my real name.

I was left in limbo indefinitely, because I challenged their assessment, and every time I try to log in now, it says that my account is “under review” or whatever.

Been like that for… Going on 6 years or so now. Maybe more.

Six of them.

What even is this response?

I was raised. I raised myself.

I see a lot of boys who are so sheltered from the world that they can’t even make hot pockets or do their laundry without someone helping them.

I wanted to be raised by my parents and I was forced to raise myself. I don’t say this to garner any sympathy, because I know I won’t get any. I’m not going to throw myself a pity party because I was left to figure it out.

The only point I’m making, if any at all, is that: school doesn’t prepare you for life. It certainly didn’t prepare me for life… And parents should be teaching their kids how to deal with stuff, and think about their choices so they can make good ones without needing to be told what to do.

I had to figure that out on my own. It’s 100% possible to have a very easy upbringing and be raised right.

I don’t think I need to tell anyone that nobody gives a fuck about how you feel or how much you’re struggling, if you have a dick between your legs, and that demonstrates the problem in society. Boys will “figure it out”.

Most of them don’t, more than a few, never will.

What’s all this shit about being raised? Who raised you?

Do as I say!

Don’t talk back!