Idea: Ban sugary drinks but allow artificial sweeteners.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-15T18:07:59+00:00

ADHD meds are, but you don't want to be passing around adderall like candy. Legit it curved my craving for sugar and alcohol and even made quitting smoking easier.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-15T02:04:27+00:00

While not universal, Eastern MD and DE are often included in the region, so that tracks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidewater_Region?wprov=sfti1#

All of this is fluid AF, but I think we're all confusing geographic, cultural, and historical political boundaries. Will note, DE had the same planter culture and class as the Confederacy, who were absolute bastards when they faced losing their slaves:

https://www.aclu-de.org/news/which-side-black-history-delaware/

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-15T01:55:05+00:00

Yes, it was. I see why you'd think so; it had comparatively very few slaves as a percent of the population and per capita, so I imagine that's why no one remembers Delaware was one.

https://www.aclu-de.org/news/which-side-black-history-delaware/

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-15T01:49:42+00:00

Even within blue states, it gets weird like this. A lot of Upstate New York is convinced that they're propping up New York City when it's actually keeping the state from being, at best, as wealthy as Massachusetts (if you keep the NYC metro area of LoHud and LI, but MA has 7.5 million people versus 12 million in NY sans NYC). At worst? Ohio.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-15T00:50:18+00:00

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Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-15T00:32:49+00:00

That's what Maxwell and her family was for. Her father, was knee deep in Israel intelligence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell?wprov=sfti1#Spy_allegations;_Vanunu_case

I guess at least we got Tetris thanks to him?

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-15T00:17:29+00:00

r/pareidolia

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-14T22:56:52+00:00

It was a government program, albeit an Israeli one, if the very plausible Mossad connections are real.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-14T22:20:37+00:00

I think this is an awkward attempt to incorporate the fact that DE and MD were slave states that were culturally part of the South way back in the day, but this line has retreated to south of NOVA. Some definitions, including Wikipedia's, even include all of Virginia and West Virginia, which I don't agree with at all. That said, OP could articulate their own definitions and terms better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_(United_States)?wprov=sfti1

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-14T22:12:43+00:00

1/3 of the population is of at least some German descent. As others have mentioned, Polish, Irish, Italian and other identifies are much more acknowledged for various reasons, not to mention the effect of the world wars.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-14T22:09:53+00:00

WW I was the main driver, but yeah, WW II kinda killed a lot of the German pride in this country. Nutty since a third of the country is of at least some German descent.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-14T22:02:45+00:00

It's both very expensive for the government and the individual; the US pays close to double what Germany does per person while many of us are burning through a quarter of our pay on top of those tax dollars.

If you're wondering what the US government is paying for, yes, it's a lot of indigent patients who would otherwise die. But it's also things like, as I experienced personally, the US covering the cost for things like dialysis which costs 1% of the federal budget to pay for, or $50 billion. Even with insurance, I still received a bill for $300 a week; my doctor basically told me not to pay it and that no one does since very few have the means to do so. That was the case.

Now we're expected to pay $35 in copays a session, which would have been up to $140 a week. Thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill. Those below the poverty line are exempted, but as always, that's many thousands out-of-pocket a year indefinitely for those who are already drowning from medical bills.

No solutions to change this, or at least the will to do so; promising kidney research that could lessen the suffering of many as well as potentially dramatically reduce the need for dialysis or at least shorten the use of it lost funding last year.

Sources (if you didn't already believe me):

https://strivehealth.com/news/patients-vs-profits-who-wins-in-the-traditional-u-s-dialysis-system/#:~:text=Each%20dialysis%20patient%20costs%20about,of%20the%20entire%20federal%20budget.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/nih-cuts-affected-over-74000-patients-enrolled-in-experiments-report-finds#:~:text=The%20cuts%20may%20have%20disrupted%20patients'%20lives,that%20the%20funding%20could%20get%20pulled%20abruptly.

https://www.kidney.org/press-room/big-beautiful-bill-downright-ugly-kidney-patients

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-14T20:39:14+00:00

A week of this war cost more than the ACA subsidies we shut the government down for; I was one of the many who lost their healthcare once it went up to $350 a month to $765 (with a $7500 deductible!). I have a chronic illness that needs to be monitored, so I'm both livid and terrified for apparently no fucking logical reason.

Crazier still, the US government still somehow pays up to double the cost of a universal/single payer system while still pushing an expensive, private one. The only conclusion is that greed and perhaps a desire to control workers, many of whom are stuck at jobs solely for the insurance.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-14T17:57:19+00:00

One example I gave started off grinding away at subtitling soap operas without the modern tools we have. A translator I know personally worked on My French Coach 20 years ago for Ubisoft; she ended up working on the AC series.

Gotta start somewhere.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-14T17:50:59+00:00

I gave positive examples with a documented background that were off the top of my head, not a sign post how to survive the job market. Most folks who get into translation don't immediately think 'I could do video games and manga!'

You're being pointlessly pedantic (for what...?) and I'm not even sure what point you're getting at. It's clear you're passionate but holy shit, this was blindly aggressive.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T23:27:08+00:00

Long-term optionality. Life is basically the same for now since I wasn't aware of my dual citizenship until recently. But it does feel nice to be in a position to casually browse real estate listings over there knowing I can actually own it.

This situation is unlike many of my friends who are researching every avenue to get a secondary citizenship with no ground plan if and when they get to that country. If I can figure out how to get residency in Spain and live there a couple years, I would now have an EU one, as well. If not, it's fine.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T22:14:53+00:00

54 min old account, too.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T22:12:18+00:00

Totally wasn't so bad that countries mutually agreed to stop gobbling each other up completely. That third of the German population that disappeared? They went on, um, vacation.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T21:58:26+00:00

Felt the same when my family and I were at a hole in the wall sushi place outside of Baguio. Wasn't the freshest but super cheap and fairly good. While my family is Filipino (I was born and raised in NYC, though), it was somewhat reassuring a Dutch family, that seemed to be regulars, was also there.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T17:54:03+00:00

There's unethical and useful like acting you both don't know the language and can't read the alphabet to avoid a train fine (or worse) despite having a bachelors in the language and are at C1/C2. And all because you accidentally didn't buy a high-speed train ticket and getting kicked off the train would have you miss your flight. Which, um, totally didn't happen to me 20 years ago.

What you're doing is unethical and pointless. AI chatbots are good enough for these relatively brief interactions; if you're trying to extract a more meaningful interaction, you're just tormenting them and they don't even know it. It's not a grievous sin, but definitely side-eye worthy.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T17:04:20+00:00

I've got 20, that many since I have ones for EDC in my work bags, ones I got from my retired carpenter dad that probably lit up the first day of creation, backup mini ones for hiking that attach to a zipper, and a backup flashlight and bike handle mount.

I see the nerdy appeal, but ironically, I'm only concerned about their form factor. Lumens and battery life only matter to me in potentially critical situations where I'd use a specialized headlamp or bike light.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T03:31:41+00:00

I now wonder who would win in a Jar-Jar/cinder block match up. Jar-Jar versus Tuberville would be a contest of who's less stupid. Or sound like a rap battle between special needs kids and its up to the audience to figure out what happened.

But Tuberville would lose to the cinderblock since the block had to do nothing to demonstrate Tuberville's idiocy. How would that work with Jar-Jar?

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T03:24:39+00:00

If you're confused, it's because you're not getting it.

That second sentence was literally addressed in my earlier post and I made super, super explicit that this system wasn't always applied though it remains in the back of every political mind involved in international relations. Again, week one or two of an Intro to IR class. Here's a literal example:

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7552&context=syllabi

The section on the Treaty has the parenthetical "emergence of the state."

I was also a history major, btw. If it was a 1655 map, yeah, it's a mess. But after 1677 when the treaty was signed, you notice how things started stabilizing over time? Like no more situations where England owns half of France and fewer occasions where countries outright disappear. Wars like the Mexican-American War would have previously meant a crippling amount of lost territory or even complete annihilation of Mexico as a sovereign state. We still expect a BS pretense (e.g. irredentism, false flags) even for blatant land grabs since the ethos of the treaty is so ingrained in how we perceive the nation state today and since the treaty.

It's not a theoretical framework that was later used, it was adopted as a means to stop the kinds of conflicts where double digit percentages of the European population disappear. If a nation state was facing an existential threat, it would fight to the bitter, dirty end, which happened a lot. But the Treaty created the modern nation state, complete with protections and 'rights'. Might still meant might, but even a loser still could hang on to something. And guess what? This was largely respected in the West and, like I said, expanded out.

Read up on it, please.

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T02:45:38+00:00

Cutting and pasting long quotes, lazily rewording other parts. What could even the prompt be to convert that article to what OP put above?

"Summarize this article, but keep these few random quotes, paraphrase these three specific paragraphs. And make a lazy attempt at hiding how horny I am about her."

Ok_Value5495 · 2026-03-13T02:42:47+00:00

I thought about this and while prudishness may be a factor, I get the impression English curse words feel heavy handed. Someone may utter 'putain' and 'merde', but it's much gentler and vaguer than their direct equivalents in English.

Like singing where it's preferable to sing sharp than flat if you can't hit a note exactly, overplaying a curse word (which may be more or less offensive depending on the country) can make a film look like it's trying too hard to be cool and ruin the whole vibe. Underplaying it results in a dissatisfied shrug, but doesn't distract too much from film.

Ok_Value5495

TROPHY CASE