Chemicals in food = ✋ 🤚

Pathogens in food = 👉 👉

One of the few bright spots in this whole mess is seeing this meme evolve into weirder and weirder images every day. I hate everything about the current political climate, but at least I know I’ll see a new version of this every time I open the comments on here. And that makes me smile.

In the 90s … users being distracted by their phones

Do you have a source for that? Cell phones were rare in the 90s. Even then, they weren’t “smart phones” by any sense - they were just used for talking. No text, no apps, no games. Cell phones didn’t become common distractions until the early 00s.

I don’t work with computers or coding, yet even in early childhood education/therapy some people are pushing for AI. Someone used it to make “busy scene” pictures for students to find specific things in. I hate using them. Prior to this, we used “busy scene” images that are easy to find online, full of quirky, funny details that the kids enjoy spotting.

But I can barely look at the slop images that were generated. So many of the characters have faces that look like wax figures left in the hot summer sun. The “toys” in the scene are nonsensical shapes somewhere between unusable building blocks and poorly-formed puzzle pieces. Looking at the previous, human-made pictures brought me joy, but this AI garbage is a mess that makes me sad. There’s no direction, no fun details to find, just a chaotic, repetitive scene. I bet the kids I work with could draw something more interesting than this.

Did anyone else totally misread the headline? For a moment I thought it said, “Optimus Prime.” To be fair, I’ve never heard of this robot project. I’m ready to expect almost anything from absurd billionaires these days.

If only on one side of the body? A mirror, probably. If they’ve been used to treat phantom limb pain, maybe they’d work for itches too?

Tiiiiiin roof

Rusted

This is probably the 4th or 5th post I’ve seen on Lemmy about this poll this week. Each time I checked the results, they were the same (except for the very first one I saw, which was different by only one percentage point.) The answer’s pretty clear.

Although I’m pretty sure it’s a PR stunt at this point, I do appreciate that DDG asked its users at all. Every other company seems to be like, “We’re gonna make you use AI, regardless of whether you want to or not. Suck it up!”

Well, that’s one way to start the new Axis powers. The internal fascist structure could be a gamble (usually even other fascist leaders want to have more authority than deference), but I guess we’ll see how it goes.

String theory has entered the chat

What a thing to read as I went to take my first bite of the day.

Breakfast has been postponed.

"I apologise it was taken that way. I was with a group of friends and there was nothing serious about it.”

Haven’t we heard that enough by now to know that’s a pathetic, bullshit excuse? What you say with friends reveals something about you and how you think. The guy could’ve said nothing and he’d have been fine, but for some reason the idea of taking over Iceland was in his mind and for some reason he felt comfortable making light of it. If infringing on another country’s sovereignty is such a non-issue that he feels comfortable joking about it, he’s clearly not fit to be an ambassador. (Though as a Trump-appointee, it’s hardly surprising he’s not fit for the job.)

No one migrated en masse to Lemmy because making an account here is too much work for someone to just hop on over and check out.

On the plus side, Lemmy doesn’t force you to make an account in order to view it. That’s becoming increasingly rare these days. It used to be normal to lurk for a while and get a feel for a site before taking the jump to making an account, but so many places won’t let you view a damn thing unless you sign up (and then when you have an account, they try to force their app onto you. Because of course.)

At least with Lemmy, newcomers can browse around and decide if making the account is worth it. The choices involved in picking an instance might not draw in crowds, but hopefully it’ll draw in those who actually want to engage with the site. Quality over quantity.

Don’t forget that prescription meds get applied to our deductibles, but OTC meds don’t. In other words, it’s more money from consumers’ pockets and a lower chance of insurance having to pay out.

Buying over-the-counter meds doesn’t count toward your deductible. I swear this is just another way to get consumers to pay more while letting insurance companies off the hook.

You’re so kind, thank you. 💜

Trump declares himself the acting president of Venezuela.

He also thinks it’s fine to kidnap the president of Venezuela.

Well, if both those things are true…

I still would’ve thought it funny, even if I was not supposed to show it. I was a “smart ass” kid and know that not every teacher treats kids with respect from the get-go, so depending on the circumstances I might secretly be happy to see an act of civil disobedience.

But yeah, I do work with a much younger population. I know the kids I work with usually don’t mean to cause harm, they just aren’t emotionally mature enough to react in socially-appropriate ways. It all depends on the circumstance, which is another thing I’ve seen a lot of school officials completely ignore. Sigh.

I guess I was jaded because i got detention for just existing.

Which is how I (and many others) ended up growing up with an abysmal sense of self-worth. I didn’t understand why I was in trouble all the time (yay undiagnosed autism/ADHD) and for years internalized the idea that I must just be “bad” and deserve whatever happens to me. Which was hard, because I always wanted to help people and would give of myself to others when needed. But something must be seriously wrong with me, I figured, since no matter what I did, I always ended up in detention, grounded in my room, or both.

I was able to overcome that eventually, thankfully, but it made me a doormat during my teenage and young adult years as I was effectively taught to never stand up for myself. Cue abusive partners and employers dominating a good chunk of my life.

That’s funny. When I realize that a kid I worked with took something I said literally, I recognize it as my mistake in wording, and laugh about it. I’ll say something like, “Okay, that is technically what I said. Perhaps I should’ve phrased it as such-and-such” and I then tell/show the kid what I meant. No punishments. We are trained to take responsibility when there’s a miscommunication. We are the adults, after all, and if a kid misunderstands us, we’re supposed to clarify ourselves - not expect them to magically know something they weren’t taught.

It’s such a far away world from the environment I was taught in, and I’m so glad to work somewhere that aligns with the science of how kids develop.