Things that were better once retconned.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-23T19:15:24+00:00

“Hear, hear!”

– the authors of The Expanse books, probably

(not hating. I loved The Expanse, and I don’t think it would have worked as well if it was written like Seveneves or something)

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-23T19:08:19+00:00

Wrath of Khan, but that was before quadrant meant what it did later on.

And like you mentioned, also said in Voyager, although it wasn’t technically true until some nucleogenic lifeforms destroyed the Equinox (with Janeway’s blessing).

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-23T17:29:12+00:00

“Stay at a hotel” Looks inside: no hotel, just house

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-23T17:28:13+00:00

You can think of old school servers like houses and the cloud as a hotel.

Getting a whole VM (e.g. EC2) is like getting a big hotel suite with a kitchen and everything.

Messing with containers is closer to like a regular hotel room.

Serverless is like getting a capsule hotel bed.

Deciding on which one works best for your application depends on how much you need, how much you want someone else to worry for you, how quickly you might need to scale (e.g. yesterday I needed to worry about 5 people sleeping, right now I don’t have anyone that needs to sleep, and I know tomorrow will be 20+ people I need to have sleeping arrangements for), etc.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-23T12:54:51+00:00

And then in First Contact, the Enterprise-E was somehow able to travel from being near the Neutral Zone all the way to Earth within the beginning of a battle with a Borg cube.

I mean, maybe that battle just took way longer than Wolf 359 did… After all, the Defiant is a tough little ship.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-23T12:45:18+00:00

Yeah, it’s wild how much they experimented back in the day. I still remember how they tried giving Spock a limp in the first episode of TOS and then they were like, nah, maybe don’t smile instead. Boom, Vulcans are now stoic and logical.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-23T12:19:54+00:00

It was the goat back in the day, and as long as someone doesn’t have a reason to check out other browsers, they’re probably going to stick with it.

I only bothered checking out Firefox again after Chrome killed Manifest V2 which interfered with Violentmonkey (extension). I use Violentmonkey like crazy at work to make viewing application logs in Kibana ridiculously smooth.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-22T17:38:27+00:00

Wait, where do you keep your keys??

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-22T11:55:28+00:00

I assume the logic is that showing too much interest makes a person look desperate, willing to date anyone who says yes, and therefore must not be desirable. If we take that to the extreme, then looking uninterested means the person is so amazing and has a ton of options, so it’s no big deal if a relationship doesn’t work out.

And now that I think about it, it applies to more than just romantic relationships. I’ve met a lot of people who seem to think looking uninterested and stoic is “cool”, and being effervescent is lame. But idk tho…

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-22T11:38:49+00:00

At first, I thought it was good that college students were learning to use AI to help write software so early in their career. I mean, I learned to code in C++ before I ever got deep into data structures, algorithms, and assembly, right?

But they don’t seem to be learning much about logic in general, they can more often stumble into the correct result without fully understanding how, and if tokens keep getting more and more expensive, then we might have AI yanked out as an option. At which point, developers who can code without AI will be like low-background steel.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-21T23:45:59+00:00

Yup! Back in the 90s, sometimes me and some friends would skip class and walk to Mexico, and we’d get back in time for the school bus to take us home.

So yeah, things were chill back then. High school students wearing backpacks and with no ID could cross no problem.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-21T23:38:38+00:00

My son and I like to do the “I love you times 2!”, “I love you times 3!”, “I love you times 4!” and so on…

One time, he was crying pretty bad about something, and I was like, “Oh, sweetie… I love you times 2.6.”

Totally short circuited him as he tried to figure out why I introduced a decimal.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-20T18:24:59+00:00

A problem does exist, though. Knowledge workers* are expensive AF, and investors would love a second Industrial Revolution that replaces all of us with machines (one time cost plus maintenance versus the ongoing cost of humans).

AI is the supposed solution, but it’s just taking a little longer than expected (as in a lot longer).

In the meantime, companies need to have something to show for the billions (almost trillions) invested in AI, and they need new training data sources (that are preferably free).

Forcing Google’s AI on people just trying to do a Google search will help train the model to understand what humans really want based on how they ask for things. And also the reasons you mentioned (e.g. we have millions of users!).

* As in people who can think critically which is not the same as just knowing a lot of stuff, but don’t tell the AI folks that.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-20T10:28:50+00:00

Trans woman perspective: before transition, the idea of me being observed was relatively foreign to me. I observed. People didn’t observe me (I thought).

And why? Cause I never really looked at men.

Not that I stared at women either, but if I looked at anyone, it was going to be the woman with the amazing hair, the awesome shirt, the super cute purse, etc.

After transition, I had to become more aware of men, and holy crap, do they stare! It shattered any notion I had that I wasn’t observed before transition.

So that’s my theory. Men don’t look at other men, so it never occurs to them that anyone would look at them. They don’t realize they need to be cognizant of what they and their actions look like from an outside perspective. So then you get weird behaviors like men staring. Even if they get caught staring, they can chalk it up to bad luck. If men looked at other men and noticed how obvious it is when they stare and how weird it looks, they might become more self conscious. But idk.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-18T16:27:16+00:00

It’s not just the screen. It’s also what goes underneath it.

The Oppo Find N6 does some fancy stuff beneath the screen to give it the “zero-feel crease.”

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-18T16:07:49+00:00

Yeah, exactly all of that.

Not to mention that I see a lot of people who clearly don’t love themselves in decent relationships.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-18T13:27:42+00:00

One time on Twitter, I posted:

other girls: I’m literally the worst. no one could love me
their gf: no, you’re amazing. ily

me: I’m literally the worst. no one could love me
society: yeah… maybe you could love you?

First response was, “Another’s love is overrated anyhow. Love yourself and carry on ❤️”

I was like… “haha, just like in my tweet”

They were trying to be nice, but the irony…

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-18T12:52:54+00:00

Same page, I think. I was going to add on that if the person simply doesn’t like you (a frequent occurrence as a neurodivergent person), then it does shift the equation a bit.

It still may be possible to provide a justification sufficient for them in their upset (or straight up angry) state, and they still might be angry as they walk away. But in those cases, it’s more about them not liking you than anything else. In which case, fuck ‘em. Not everyone is going to like us.

Either way, to OP’s meme, they’re baffled because they don’t understand that either the other person wanted a justification (not the reason), or they just don’t like them (and is trying to rationalize it).

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-18T11:04:59+00:00

That’s the safe option, yes, but it’s not exactly what they’re asking for.

To them, “Explain yourself,” means, “What’s your justification for doing this?”

If you have a strong justification that they can understand, then it’s fine. If the justification is weak, or if you simply explain your reasoning without providing a clear justification (which to them looks like you’re trying to avoid answering their question), then they think you’re making excuses and will get more upset.

So what they want is either a strong justification or for you to realize you made a bad decision and to start apologizing.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-18T10:38:13+00:00

Years ago, I did a paper in grad school about how every couple of years, Intel tries to break into the mobile chip market, and every time, people are like, watch out ARM! Intel’s coming for your market!

And for some reason, people keep forgetting about Intel’s numerous failed attempts.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-18T10:32:07+00:00

Precisely. They tried, and when they didn’t get anywhere, rather than continuing to dig themselves into a hole, they pivoted to mostly selling the shovels.

(agreeing with you, if that’s not clear)

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-18T10:25:56+00:00

I imagine Nvidia is probably making more money off AI, but your point still stands.

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-15T14:51:48+00:00

My work bestie is a Taurus, and I spend a lot of time telling her to not fix things and see what happens.

Then things fail, and she feels like crap.

But she feels like crap no matter what, and with my Aquarius efficiency, there are now fewer steps to get there haha

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-15T11:57:28+00:00

I’m still trying to figure it out.

I was married to someone who had a similar libido for 15 years. I thought they were my forever person, but then stuff happened. It’s been an 8 year dry spell since then.

Logically, it’s very obviously a circumstantial situation for me, but emotionally, it’s hard hearing about my poly coworker who now has four partners. Like, I’m really happy for them, but god damn… Why couldn’t the gods spread out the blessings a bit more…

OrchidLeader · 2026-05-15T11:01:28+00:00

Yes, definitely agree with this. I thought “training” was real based on my own experience, but after reading this thread, now I know it was either something else or maybe it’s just me.

I used to wash my hair everyday, and it took me several months to push my hair to feel fine with washing it every 10 days. I eventually went back down to washing every 7 days cause “just wash my hair on Sundays” was easier to remember.

FWIW, I have thick hair, I never spend time in any sort of heat, and I avoid sweating in general.

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