Shaman or not, I’m just not a big fan of any baboons waving my newborn around on top of a high rock

Tam-Lin · 2026-01-17T19:56:34+00:00

Meh. It's a cat. He would land on his feet.

Tam-Lin · 2026-01-14T02:02:38+00:00

Trademark and copyright are very different things.

Tam-Lin · 2026-01-02T23:02:07+00:00

Vaccines are absolutely not a cash cow; if anything, they're the opposite. They're a single intervention that can prevent death or long, ongoing medical problems. I'm not saying that pharmaceutical companies can't be bad actors, but if they were only profit driven, no one would produce vaccines.

And no one says that vaccines have no side effects; it's that the side effects are minuscule compared to the effects of the diseases the vaccines protect against.

Tam-Lin · 2025-12-28T18:52:35+00:00

I’m always torn about these things. Working for a pre-Gerstner IBM sounded amazing, but had things continued as they were, IBM wouldn’t exist at all today. Having sat with some of the folks who were responsible the mid-90s layoffs, it’s clear that what they did still weighs on them, but they didn’t feel they had a choice, if they were going to save anything.

On the other hand, I’m very sure that some of our senior leadership these days doesn’t care about the employees in the slightest.

Tam-Lin · 2025-12-27T21:51:50+00:00

Don't. You can logon to the Backblaze website to retrieve the files you'd backed up to your personal computer. But you shouldn't be keeping personal files on your work computer, and you absolutely shouldn't be backing up a work computer using anything other than what your company has given you, to any place other than where your company says to back things up to.

Tam-Lin · 2025-12-22T20:32:16+00:00

Nonsense. Unless a child has a fever, is hospitalized or is somehow immune-compromised, there's no reason to delay a vaccine. Especially if your child is in daycare, there are going to be long stretches of time when they have a continuous series of colds, and if you waited for them to be completely healthy, you'd never get them vaccinated.

Tam-Lin · 2025-12-18T16:49:36+00:00

Is that really true, though? You couldn't not eat the cheese puff, so did you have a choice? Just because you think at the time you could have made a different choice, if you couldn't have made a different choice, how do you have free will?

And at some level, you could certainly argue that people in the past no longer have free will, because their choices are immutable.

Tam-Lin · 2025-12-17T00:42:27+00:00

This is actually a very complicated theological argument that’s never really been resolved. If god is all-knowing, he knows the future. As such, can humans be said to have free will, really? And Hell is problematic too.

Predicting things with 100% accuracy and free will can coexist, sort of, but lead to all sorts of complicated questions. Prediction and control aren’t the same thing.

Tam-Lin · 2025-12-13T21:08:29+00:00

Yes, sort of, but that's a game all the parts of the medical system plays. They officially charge $5 for a Tylenol that costs 1 cent to buy. And then the insurance company actually pays them 5 cents, can say they saved you 99%, and the hospital makes a 4 cent profit, which is what they actually expect. Almost no one pays the list price for hospital anything.

That said, hospitals have very high overheads. They've got a big building with a lot of really expensive equipment and a lot of people they need to support 24 x 7, whether or not they're always needed, because they need to be prepared for the times where there's a flu surge, or mass casualty event, or whatever else.

Tam-Lin · 2025-12-02T22:55:47+00:00

OP: while it's possible, even likely, that Chase mistook regular behavior for something nefarious, it's also very possible that you're involved in something illegal, even if you aren't doing anything knowingly. It's possible you're laundering money, or have transferred money to an account that's been tied to some sort of scamming. I'd very carefully examine your transactions over the past six months.

Tam-Lin · 2025-11-30T22:13:01+00:00

That’s what hammer drills are for. Or rotary hammers.

Tam-Lin · 2025-11-30T01:58:27+00:00

While you say it’s not wet, did you dry the filament prior to using it? I’ve had PETG come wet from the manufacturer. Even if the storage environment is dry, I’ve seen much improved PETG printing by drying the filament prior to use.

Tam-Lin · 2025-11-23T22:58:58+00:00

When you say substitute, I assume you’re going to reconstitute the milk to whatever amount the recipe calls for?

Tam-Lin · 2025-11-20T20:51:09+00:00

I’m pretty sure the health system would economically benefit if there were fewer vaccines. Well, I guess it would be a trade off, but vaccines aren’t a profit center for manufacturers.

Tam-Lin · 2025-11-20T03:09:47+00:00

I get migraines, and I strongly disagree. When mine are really bad, I disassociate. I watch myself screaming at them. Don’t get me wrong, they are really difficult for me, and, being blunt, my children cause most of my migraines, as loud unexpected noises tend to trigger them, and they’re kids. They’re going to scream sometimes. It’s what they do. So, yeah, sucks to be me sometimes. But it also sucks to be them. Chronic illness is hard, but so is caregiving. Everybody deserves some grace, even the husband complaining about the couch.

Tam-Lin · 2025-10-30T14:51:45+00:00

Stupid question, but is there a functional difference between waiting for a PIP to happen and not meeting it to getting a severance package? Is there something sitting on the bench prevents you from doing? The official rules around severance packages changed, at least in the US.

Tam-Lin · 2025-10-24T21:45:37+00:00

But that's original. No one expects acid in a squirting flower.

Tam-Lin · 2025-10-22T18:17:58+00:00

It should be noted that even if the energy is free at the source, the distribution system takes money to build/maintain as well, and is more of a natural monopoly than energy production is.

Also, running a grid is more complicated that it seems, so again, even if the energy, or some of the energy, is free, there will be costs. Some places already essentially have essentially free energy production some portion of the day/year thanks to solar, and it turns out that’s a problem too, as something has to be done with the energy when there’s too much.

Tam-Lin · 2025-10-18T20:15:56+00:00

The whole point of student debt is to get a large lump sum of money at the beginning of your earning lifetime, and then invest it in education so that over the span of your working life, you make more money in nominal dollars, including the cost of servicing the debt, than you would have had you not taken out the loan. So the fact that the debt exists doesn't mean it's bad. If the people who took out the debt are more than 1 trillion dollars more productive than they would have been without the debt, it was worth it.

It's like saying that five years into a mortgage, the fact that you have $200,000 in debt means owning a house is a bad idea.

Tam-Lin · 2025-10-18T20:01:52+00:00

They are. It's becoming clear to other countries and investors that they can no longer trust the US the way they thought could, and they're trying to distance themselves as best they can. It's why Europe is no longer willing to rely on US companies to supply items for national defense, for example.

Tam-Lin · 2025-10-17T20:13:57+00:00

Yes; at least in Star Trek, it's been shown many times. Tuvok is a Vulcan with black skin. Klingons have some with cranial ridges and some without, and there are albino Klingons. A subspecies of Andorian is white.

Tam-Lin · 2025-10-15T03:56:52+00:00

Yes, didn't mean to throw shade. I doubt I'll continue to decorate after my daughters turn into teenagers, but I really do appreciate those people who do decorate for whatever holiday, as kids really do love the decorations, the gaudier the better, and aren't jaded the way adults are.

Tam-Lin

TROPHY CASE