Yes, but he gets so deep into character, he could turn American!

Sacha Baron Cohen.

The appeal of Trump’s rhetoric and populist message is entirely subconscious, and doesn’t stand up to even a few moments of critical analysis. Baron Cohen has a genius-level understanding of how to get into people’s heads, and what’s more, he can do it fluently, on-the-fly. His U.S. presidential candidate character would totally dismantle MAGA.

Also, it’s not even the same corporation or factories behind them. It’s just a brand name at this point, and the product has nothing in common with the old, good one. For example, Maytag bought Amana, and then Whirlpool bought Maytag. (It’s enlightening to read the list of Whirlpool-owned brands.)

So your decision is to feign helplessness. I can only point this out, but it is your life and your decision to make.

Do you understand? Do you own that decision as your personal choice? I ask because posts like this one indicate otherwise.

Another harsh truth that I learned from existentialist writers, especially Albert Camus, is that we are cursed with freedom. How we choose to deal with what the world gives us is entirely up to us, and refusing to choose is also a choice. If we choose not to try to be somebody worth having as a partner, well, that is a choice.

I also understand depression, and that making that effort may not be possible. Then, healthy alternative is to affirmatively make the choice not to try, and to own it. Sometimes, people call this, “owning your shit .” Paradoxically, it helps a lot by putting you back in control of your own life, instead of feeling like the universe’s chew toy.

So, listen to me or not. It’s your choice.

Harsh truth: No, it’s not enough. You have to convince somebody that their life will be better with you in it. Loyalty and respect are requisites for a good romantic relationship, not the reasons to get into one.

Not quite. The Santa Clara decision gave corporations equal protection under the 14th Amendment, is law in the same sense that Citizens United is, and has been applied many, many times. The 2010 decision held that 1st Amendment protections apply to corporations.

It’s a 19th century idea that appeared in the published decision of the Supreme Court in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co.

Only—get this—it wasn’t even what the Court decided. Instead, it was the guy in charge of recording the decision for publication who declared “corporate personhood” in the headnote (summary) of the case. And would it surprise you to learn that the guy was the former president of a railroad company? We just sort of went along with this not-precedent until the Citizens United case.

Sheer bloody-mindedness.

Clove oil is a decent anti-mildew agent. I have used it in a past apartment, and use it on my boat to knock out the mildew scent.

So, we’d be governed by influencers?

That’s literally American history.

Oh god, I wish that were true!

Figure out how to make sexual intercourse or masturbation physically pleasurable. Most people seem to get it naturally, but I can’t crack the code.

For what it’s worth, I can’t visualize either, but have excellent directional sense.

Classic selection bias. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but I remember reading that the majority of men who have ever lived never reproduced. That’s unfortunately pretty normal.

Interesting! I see what you mean, but while looking up Win11 emoji, I found this article from Microsoft about adding 3D design elements based on customer feedback. And, indeed, on my work computer (23H2), they’re not-quite-flat anymore.

I’d be so happy for a desktop window manager that didn’t make all of the window borders grey-on-grey, and distinguish the active window by making the title text slightly-darker grey.

Apple’s skeuomorphic phase overlapped the Retina display era, though, so I don’t buy that explanation. Also, it’s nothing to do with raster vs. vector. The photos that we take with phone cameras are raster graphics, for example. They look great, and it’s because they’re high-resolution. High-res raster UI elements would look great, except then the versatile manipulation by CSS would not be possible. Vector graphics are very good at that.

But here’s the thing: Complex vector graphics exist, too. There were some pretty fancy PostScript graphics even back in the early 1990’s. With all the pixels that we have now, we could have good design instead of flat, if the developers bothered. But it seems we’ve internalized the feeling that we’re not worth the effort, aesthetics and color aren’t interesting, and life is a joyless slog. Which sounds and awful lot like clinical depression…

(Incidentally, odd that emoji aren’t flat design.)