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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • Had a previous car that was manual. Then I bought a car with a CVT (continuously variable transmission) and it’s such a nuisance because it is always unpredictable when it will shift. So you go to pass someone, step on the gas and sometimes it takes off and other times it fiddles with shifting for a second before giving you any power. Can also be a real pain in stop and go traffic because it will have unpredictable amounts of power when starting from a stop. I’ve had this vehicle since 2017 and it’s always been this way. I don’t miss having to shift constantly but I do miss having a reliable amount of power when I’m in a certain gear - that’s what is so nice about a manual transmission. You feel more in control of the car. That said, my daily driver now is electric with no transmission and that is the best of all.








  • I’ve had a similar experience overall. The breaking point for me was about 2 weeks after I set up Apple Intelligence I had a vacation planned and important details were on my calendar (flights, hotels, rental car, etc). My wife and I were discussing logistics of the day we were leaving and she wanted to know what time our flight departed so I asked Siri “What time is my flight on Saturday?”

    It was literally one of two items on the calendar that day and she couldn’t answer the question. She kept resorting to trying to search the web for “flights for Saturday.” I tried a lot of other things also before disabling the feature but it was just useless for most basic things.


  • I’m a Neuroradiologist and occasionally people ask me “Have you ever scanned your own brain?” when they find out my profession.

    Abso-fucking-lutely not. I’ve seen how many people have random abnormalities that are unknown until discovered incidentally when having an unrelated problem evaluated. Finding something abnormal in my brain would no doubt keep me up at night even if it was something medically considered unimportant. No way I’m going to scan myself just for fun.




  • Thank you this is such an important thing that often goes unsaid. We are all really busy people, all of us, and we don’t have time to microanalyze the nuance of very person’s situation.

    If you’re a public personality and you do/say something awful - how you act when called out is all most people are going to see or care about. If you don’t acknowledge you were wrong then I assume the bad action was deliberate and I move on. Life is too busy to give attention to people that act badly and then refuse to apologize or take responsibility.



  • Recently one of my opposite numbers, a columnist up in Vancouver, B.C., announced that he couldn’t take America anymore. He broke up with us.

    “Goodbye, America,” wrote longtime Sun columnist Pete McMartin.

    “Goodbye Bellingham, Seattle and Portland — how I’ll miss my Cascadian cousins with our shared Pacific sensibilities.”

    “What was once so close has never been so far.”

    McMartin, channeling the bitter mood of betrayal in Canada right now, said the heedless U.S. president is forcing all Canadians to make a choice — between being “vassals or enemies.”

    “I’m choosing the latter,” he announced.

    “So, goodbye America, it’s been nice knowing you, but I don’t know you anymore. I’ve reached that point in our relationship where any admiration I have had for you has been replaced by a new, angry resolve, which is: I won’t consort with the enemy.”

    Ouch. The enemy? What can I say to that in return?

    The awkward reality is I don’t know what to say to Canadians at this juncture in our shared history. On the Peace Arch at Blaine between our two countries, the inscription reads “Children of a Common Mother.” This feels then like the world’s biggest family breakup — with us as the cause.

    Would it help, Canadians, if an American said he was embarrassed for America right now?

    Would it count for anything if I pointed out that we were as blindsided as you by Donald Trump’s suggestion of annexing your country, and making it the 51st state? That he didn’t bring up his weird Canada animus until after he’d won the election?

    No, that probably won’t help. The bitter truth is we knew Trump was impetuous. We knew he loves to bully his allies more than his enemies — witness how he relishes humiliating, say, GOP senators. And we knew he would act out the Ugly American shtick on the world stage. We elected him anyway.

    Still, picking on … Canada? I think I speak for more than a few Americans when I say that the only people more baffled by this sudden choice of enemies than you, Canadians, was us.

    So for what it’s worth, Canada, let me say that I admire how you’re rallying to our threat.

    I loved how you mocked the idea of Trump requesting Canadian troops on the border by instead posting hockey sticks in the snow with googly eyes on them.

    I love how everybody’s wearing “Canada is not for sale” hats.

    I smiled at how a British Columbia coffee house has started a movement to change the name of the espresso drink “Americano” to “Canadiano.” Quiet acts of resolve matter, even silly ones.

    I also like that there’s now a weekly protestoutside the U.S. Consulate in Vancouver, with signs like “Stop Him, Americans” and “Toque off, Trump.” And I endorse how your sports fans are lustily booing our national anthem. Atypical for you supposedly polite Canadians — but exactly what the times demand.

    All this makes me envious, Canada. You’re behaving as we ought to be.

    That we’re not protesting or booing right along with you blameless Canadians was the most wounding part of Mr. McMartin’s breakup note.

    “Goodbye to my American friends,” he wrote.

    “Your silence and the silence of all Americans in response to this aggression leaves me disheartened. That silence speaks volumes. I — we — have heard you loud and clear how little our friendship as a country means to you.”

    How can I explain this quiescence? I cannot.

    I could report to you that people here are exhausted. I have readers in Seattle who write to me daily saying they no longer read the news, because they can’t take it anymore. It’s their way, I guess, of also saying goodbye.

    I could tell you that some people here still regard Trump as a buffoonish cartoon figure not to be taken seriously. He won’t really try to annex Canada, they blithely say.

    Or I could try to convince you that we’re only hibernating. That you just have to be patient, Canadians, as the old America you once knew, the one that famously does the right thing only after exhausting all other options, is about to burst onto the scene.

    But I can’t honestly sell any of that right now. You got it right in your breakup note. You called us quiet cowards, which hurts because it’s true. We kicked up a million times more fuss when a transgender celebrity drank a Bud Light, or when they asked us to wear masks, than we are right now that our bonkers boss is threatening to economically crush, and then imperialistically occupy, our closest ally and friend.

    As one Canadian wrote in response to McMartin’s goodbye:

    “The United States is not what I once thought it was. Their true character — or lack of — is in clear view. I can think of excuses, but in the end, Americans had a choice, and this is the one they made.”

    What can one say to that?

    I have a friend in Canada who insists the main difference between Canadians and Americans is the apology. Canadians apologize two or three times before breakfast, he says, while you Americans won’t do it even after you’ve, say, invaded the wrong country.

    So that’s what I got, Canadians. It’s bound to be small solace. It won’t end the tariffs or the takeover madness. It won’t “stop him.” But it’s the only thing I have from the heart to communicate that there are some down here who not only hear you, Canada, but who stand with you.

    Which is to say: I’m sorry.




  • The hate for proton is because the CEO Andy Yen retweeted Trump announcing his pick for assistant attorney general for antitrust cases. His retweet included commentary fawning over Republicans as “standing for the little guys.” When criticized the company doubled down and supported him but then said they wouldn’t be making any more comments because it was a distraction.

    If that isn’t enough, someone noticed that CEO Andy’s Reddit username is ”andy1011000.” The numbers at the end are binary for “88” - a well known pro-Nazi dog whistle. He says this is only a coincidence and is meant to refer to being born in 1988.

    So in summary he is publicly praising fascists and has a username which coincidentally has a pro-Nazi reference.