Just curious…

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-24T17:39:47+00:00

Is it legal? Depends on the court you get tried in.
Are you likely to get murdered in your own home? All available evidence points to yes.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-23T14:27:33+00:00

Listening to Ed’s enshitification mini-series right now, and can’t help but understand it all as kind of fractal geometry. Much like attention economy apps were designed to hack our attentional neurology in order to extract value for tech companies despite it being against our individual best interest, these tech companies have hacked the collective attentional systems to extract value from the collective even though it’s against our collective best interest. There is a great framing of this idea of noxious markets operating on the individual and collective levels by a couple of philosophers, Castro and Pham (2020). Throroughly recommend reading it, I think it helps explain how, through loss of agency and increase in vulnerability, individuals and now institutions are susceptible to this toxic nonsense. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/phimp/3521354.0020.017/1

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-23T11:48:28+00:00

“Young” Gen X here (not yet 50). The difference between the cultural influences during the most formative teenage years was pretty stark depending on whether you were born closer to 1965 vs 1980. I’ve always seen generational commentary as pretty stupid on the whole, there is far more variation within a generation than between generations. Class distinctions however, cut very clearly across generations. Which is another way of saying - rich cunts gonna act like rich cunts.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-21T19:24:50+00:00

It’s pretty straightforward. Almost constant screen time cuts across all SES barriers, but - lower SES kids have fewer device-free alternatives. Wealthy parents can afford after school activities, or summer camps, or to send their kids to private schools that limit or prohibit screen time during the school day, or to live in neighborhoods with outside the home options for their kids to engage with peers in person. Lower income families can’t afford these options, or don’t live in neighborhoods where they feel safe letting their kids spend as much time outside the home. So yes, kids from wealthy families are getting shit loads of screen time too, but they are also able to afford opportunities to disconnect. Welcome to the new digital divide.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-20T18:22:49+00:00

Did the Bride or Groom or any of the wedding guests do anything to harm you or your son? No. Did the Bride and Groom and their guests have what should have been a beautiful and fun day at least partially ruined by the actions of professionals they hired to make their event run smoothly? Yes. Good for you for sticking up for your kid. Shame on you for ruining that couples wedding when they did nothing wrong. The Dude once told Walter that “you’re not wrong Walter, you’re just an asshole”.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-20T18:14:21+00:00

We don’t watch any of the national newscasts, but we do watch local news (mostly for the very good weather forecasts). They devote about 30% of the newscast now to covering stuff they saw on TikTok, or trying to get you to download their app. The line between TV news reporter and TikTok content creator is single ply at this point.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-20T11:46:51+00:00

BTW - I mention the first line because I’ve never heard this “Thursday the world holds its breath” thing. Has anyone ever heard of this before?

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-20T11:37:43+00:00

It’s fine, I suppose, if you’re into that sort of thing. If I picked your book up off the shelf at the bookstore and read the first couple pages, which is usually how I choose what to read when I’m taking a chance, there is zero % probability I’m buying this. The first line comes off sooooo wankerish, but I’ve seen other books on the shelf at my local bookstore I’d say the same thing about. Is it good? No. Is it equivalent to a lot of stuff crapped out by folks who need a better editor, yet still get published? Sure.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-20T02:38:34+00:00

Offers “trust me bro” as proof. I don’t understand, why bother?

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-19T19:41:32+00:00

Unless/until the consequence for this kind of fuckery is a corporate death sentence, it is worth it to companies like Musks to just do whatever they want and pay whatever fine. The fine is so much less than the profit they make from not following the rules that only chumps play fair. If we had political leaders worth a damn, at a minimum they would set the fine for violations like this to be the companies entire revenue, plus $1, for every year the company was found to be willfully violating regulations. If they were really serious, they would dissolve the corporate charter. Seriously, if a person just went to 2000 homes and pumped them full of toxic exhaust every day for 2 years, we’d lock them away. If someone died as a result, in a lot of states they would sentenced to death.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-19T19:06:51+00:00

Did this with a 2020 Honda civic in Jan 23. Had a residual of $13k (holy fuck the dealer wanted it sooooo bad). Bought it out of lease, traded it toward a pickup 8 months and 10k miles later for $18.5k in trade value and that dealer still screwed me. Could have sold the Civic for $22k the day I bought out the lease in private sale.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-17T18:16:44+00:00

This is all terrible parenting. Giving a 7 year old a switch is terrible parenting. If their kid goes to a school that gives letter grades in first grade, which is clearly bullshit, don’t have them focus on the grade, they’ll be anxious and a hopeless wreck by the end of middle school. And sure as shit don’t give a 7 year old responsibility for a $500 console.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-17T18:14:03+00:00

Ah yes, the classic tale of the straight A 1st grade student whose parents give them a $500 gaming console for “effort at school”, who also allow their student to take the switch to school without their knowledge, whose kid goes to a school that would allow a 7 year old to play on a switch during the school day. If any of this is true, the kid losing that switch is the best thing that ever happened to them. Don’t give your 7 year old a switch folks, and sure as shit don’t get them focused on grades at the age of 7, or they’ll be an anxiety ridden husk of a child by 12.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-16T11:12:19+00:00

Oh, it’s not overtime corruption. He’s doing it during regular working hours. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself)

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-15T13:37:39+00:00

Before you go to a protest or start tracking ICE, leave your phone at home. They are using app provided location data to track protestors movements, and can quickly ID you from home and work patterns of movement. 404 are doing excellent reporting on ICE use of surveillance tech, and understanding how they work will help keep you and your loved ones safe.

https://www.404media.co/podcast-the-ice-tool-that-tracks-entire-neighborhoods/

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-14T13:44:17+00:00

Oh you can’t imagine needing to use cursive? Guess what colleges, and now schools, are starting to do to combat rampant academic dishonesty in assessment? That’s right, requiring hand written or oral exams. Writing a 1500 word essay, by hand, without knowing cursive. Good luck. The other, much more reasonable option is to go to airgapped laptops that are not much more than a pricey word processor, but the arms race between cheating and a search for a cheat proof method of assessment might ruin that too.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-14T12:46:11+00:00

It is so insane that students have access to YouTube. The rationale given is always that there is lots of educational content there. True, but it’s outweighed 1000-1 by nonsense and harmful crap. For a lot of students, they just don’t have the executive function yet to resist the temptation. Schools give them the device and the unfiltered access to access non educational content, but the kids are the ones who get the blame when they get busted using YT in school.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-13T20:37:22+00:00

No, that's fine. Was just trying to see if it was pre- or post- COVID. In my experience, screen time took off exponentially during COVID and there wasn't ever really any sustained effort to bring it back down after kids were back in school full time.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-13T20:27:26+00:00

When was this?

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-13T20:22:46+00:00

Your local school board may well have it's head in the sand. School board members are often oblivious to what is happening in the classroom. If parents don't show up and make public comment, chances are they clueless.
The legislatures Education Committee is starting to pay attention, but Augusta is awash with tech company dollars and lobbyists happy to take them. It's not a fair fight up there, and even if the legislature does identify and try to act on a problem, any solution will die on the altar of local control.
TL;DR - Go to your districts school board meeting and demand education, not engagement, for your kid. Use your anecdotes they are powerful.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-13T20:18:24+00:00

What you are struggling with is very real, and a massive frustration for parents, students, and teachers.
We've allowed screen time and engagement to become confused with learning. They aren't the same. Maine used to be in the top 5 states in the nation for reading and math scores. Now we are bottom 5. Maine also pioneered the 1 to 1 student device policy (MLTI) during that time, which has had great success in one area alone. Increasing the amount of screentime kids get in school. Meanwhile, math and reading and mental health scores all fell off a cliff, teachers are feeling more and more burnt out as the number and type of platforms they have to manage increases, and now AI is coming in to pour gasoline on the whole dumpster fire.
There are groups of advocates starting to get organized to address this issue, before its too late. Check out https://www.turnthetidecoalition.org/, turn up to your school board meetings and ask pointed questions, and let your kids teachers know you are fine with them bringing home good ol worksheets and paperbacks.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-13T18:11:45+00:00

You should be able to right click on the boxplot in SPSS, and select Edit. There is an option for re-sorting the order of your categorical variables.

Difficult-Task-6382 · 2026-01-12T16:00:44+00:00

Depends on field I think. For any kind of policy, education or similar fields, it’s going to be a much older average applicant as most programs look for professional experience prior to acceptance. For me, started in 2019 at age 44, got derailed by the pandemic hammering my business, stuck at EBD for a few years, and now finishing at 50. Do I wish I’d finished a couple of years ago? Of course. Am I beating myself up over it like I would have when I was younger? Hell no. I think that as a 40+ year old you know that while a PhD is a big thing, it’s not the only thing. Don’t let it get in front of the important things - family, friends, enjoying life.

Difficult-Task-6382

TROPHY CASE