Yeah i remember reading how, when telling/making up stories chat gpt loves to say that characters “smirked” which is a very fanfiction/online erotica thing.

Also cool - the Spanish word for jeans is vaquero. So the English word for vaccine and the spanish word for blue jeans are both derived from the Latin word for “cow”. I always thought that was neat.

I’m not crying for the banks, but that’s why they don’t just give out loans to anyone.

That’s not completely true, because it depends on the future value of your house. Plenty of banks got burned in the early 2000s when they gave out too many loans and then all of a sudden the houses weren’t worth what people owed on them.

Casually Explained makes that joke lol

“You know, back in high school I had the biggest crush on you”

“Why didnt you tell me?!”

“Well… I am telling you now …”

“Ahh but I needed to know thennn”

Oh I thought of one - the Cemeteries of Amalo series by Sarah Monette. The premise is there’s a guy that can kind of commune to the dead and he travels around this sort of magical steampunk-era city solving mysteries. It is occasionally spooky and intense but the overall vibe is very cozy.

Apart from that, definitely Chronicles of Narnia as some people suggested. Although I thought they had a very bittersweet feeling to them. My favorite one for coziness would probably be A Horse and his Boy.

It’s … Really a pretty reasonable requirement. Yes, voter fraud is very rare etc etc but I think it matters psychologically. It’s kinda like how a lot of the airline safety talk is there to reassure the passengers. If voters have to get their ids checked to vote it might instill some more confidence in the system.

Yeah we can just call it GIMP for short

Honestly I wouldn’t sweat it. It’s more something that seems gross than is actually going to make you sick. Pretty much ANY high traffic surface in public is gonna have way more pathogens on it than something in your house. And breathing the same air as your roommate is more likely to get you sick than touching something that they’ve touched. Still kinda gross though.

Yep, I’ve always thought that. It’s actually very sneaky of health officials, they are exploiting people’s perception of how filthy going to the bathroom is to get them to wash their hands more. Ends justify the means I guess…

Should have just used bleach if they don’t care about it actually being a viable treatment. Or, for that matter, we’ve already invented spermicidal foam…

I was a donor to that project, and right now I think there are still concerns about the long-term reversibility. The project isn’t dead but I doubt we will see it as a readily available option for the public within the next decade, if ever.

Nothing wrong with that ofc, but are you sure you are straight? Sounds like bi or pan to me idk.

Yeah it’s just brining. 30% and 500mg is crazy though. My local supermarket (and I checked-also walmart) value pack of chicken is 2% and about 50mg sodium per serving, which is pretty negligible. And it does make the chicken jucier.

Honestly… most online FPSs are fine if you aren’t good. I’m trash and I almost never see cheaters in R6 haha.

Yeah that’s the obvious one haha.

Yeah the honest answer is there is no single “American education system”. Primary education is splintered into thousands of different counties, each with their own curriculum and funding, with varying degrees of state and national oversight. Some are good, some are terrible. My public school education was pretty solid overall, despite the clear shortage of funding.

On the other hand, despite rising costs, the US university system is still world-class.

I feel like it should be possible

I don’t think that’s true, we have more trees than we did 100 years ago but I couldn’t see anything about more trees than pre-European settlement. I am inclined to doubt that.

I guess. You could also look at things like plastic pollution where industry straight up won, and during the 60s-70s successfully pushed the responsibility onto consumers to recycle while continuing to crank out single use plastic with very few restrictions.