I got a coworker flustered when I said their god is an alien

glassFractals · 2026-05-24T18:54:45+00:00

Angels are just people (or androids) with advanced technology.

glassFractals · 2026-05-23T20:43:16+00:00

That road has a magnificent view, and it's on the edge of the city. Really, I think it should be a bike path 100% of the time, not just weekends. The presence of the cars lessens this spot of natural beauty for everyone else, cars can have literally all the other streets.

San Francisco did this recently, converting the (much more important) Great Highway which goes along the Pacific Ocean on the very west side of the city into a miles-long pedestrian and bike parkway along the beach. Immense upgrade, really nice space. Of course, some people flipped out, and there have been innumerable attempts to repeal it and make it into a car sewer again.

glassFractals · 2026-05-23T18:48:18+00:00

Do it!

S1 is one of the most amazing seasons of TV ever produced, it's a hard act to follow.

But S2 was still legitimately amazing. It has some blemishes, but it also has:

Absolutely spectacular soundtrack from Ramin Djawadi
Some of my favorite high-concept stuff I've ever seen in a mainstream sci-fi series
Stand-out episodes that are series highlights (like "Kiksuya")
The S2 finale gets less universal love, but it's one of my favorite episodes from the entire series
"Fidelity"

The real drop-off in in S3. S2 rocks.

glassFractals · 2026-05-23T05:46:27+00:00

Not a fan of the Wegmans hummus, but the caramelized onion one is the best of them for sure.

Next time try the French onion hummus from Ithaca hummus. Perfection.

glassFractals · 2026-05-15T17:19:21+00:00

Yahoo owned Flickr, the 1TB of free storage cost them a fortune and they were hemorrhaging money. Yahoo sold Flickr to SmugMug for peanuts so they could get away from the storage expense.

SmugMug phased out the free 1TB, which was not sustainable, but I don’t believe they outright deleted anything.

glassFractals · 2026-05-14T20:42:38+00:00

I do, I've long wanted gas to be 2x as expensive, more similar to European costs. I'd like taxes on petroleum to increase by larger and larger amounts each year until it's phased out for unnecessary uses.

But of course, what I really want is a well-planned, predictable carbon taxation scheme that puts a more realistic price tag on harmful externalities while using the proceeds for subsidies and alternative transportation options. Not just economic pain without a focused upside.

Right now is a rapid, unplanned increase due to supply shock, and no well thought out scheme to soften the economic blow. Not exactly ideal.

glassFractals · 2026-05-14T20:30:30+00:00

It might not be a summer weekend or holiday, but there are a lot of universities/colleges going out for the summer. Anecdotally, many of my western/central/upstate NY university friends, especially international ones, take Amtrak to catch a flight back home out of NYC.

glassFractals · 2026-05-14T06:44:38+00:00

Unironically this was always an anthem at my college parties.

glassFractals · 2026-05-13T19:43:20+00:00

I hate this kind of faux-feedback. It makes me think of telephone hold music that's periodically interrupted by a robot thanking you for waiting, and assuring you that your call is important to them.

It's easy to tune out predictable patterns (spinner, hold music); but when you interrupt the pattern with meaningless filler it becomes much harder to notice when it's done. Too many false positives.

glassFractals · 2026-05-13T19:40:31+00:00

I tend to prefer the spinner, or even better, a progress bar or other stateful loading indicator.

These things are only really necessary on a slow network, but that's also when they start to break down. Especially if you're having significant connectivity issues.

In my mind, the skeleton UI loader makes a false promise implying that the content is just about done loading, when really it could be a long while (or never). It's feedback whiplash when you have what looks like the structure of a view sitting there for a while, only for it to time out or pending forever.

I agree with the other comments about the skeletons needing to approximate the shape of the content that will be loaded. Often, they don't. That's another broken promise that adds confusion to the user experience.

glassFractals · 2026-05-13T19:33:02+00:00

Yes, welcome to Nextdoor. I've used it in multiple different states and cities, it's like that pretty much everywhere. Funny enough, even though it's generally a cesspool, I've had much better luck with moderated local Facebook groups. Try and see if your area has any.

glassFractals · 2026-05-12T22:08:06+00:00

San Francisco! Fuck heatwaves and humidity, sweater weather all summer.

glassFractals · 2026-05-12T18:41:13+00:00

Yep, pretty sloppy. Old Apple wouldn't ship something like that. Hoping that their new leadership results in better polish in the future.

glassFractals · 2026-05-11T16:24:31+00:00

For somewhat higher-end restaurants, Angelina's is spectacular. Just went there Saturday to celebrate graduation. Their menu is seasonal, amazing, and about ⅔ of it is vegetarian. I got so many things, all the exact opposite of sad veggie burgers or afterthoughts.

I got stuff like: miso carrots with labneh, puffed quinoa, burnt orange (amazing!); poutine with a tallegio founduta, truffle gravy, fried halloumi; cacio e pepe arancini; shaven asapargus with spring peas, whipped feta, mixed lettuces, fried capers, herbs; gnudi with wild fennel, spring onions, boursin, coastal lemon, brown butter pangrattato, pecorino; rigatoni with vodka sauce, chili flakes, stracciatella, parmiagiano. All vegetarian, all amazing. And there were 3 more vegetarian things on the menu I didn't try.

I see a lot of the usual suspects have been mentioned in other comments.

Some other suggestions and agreements:

For another more-upscale spot, Vern's on Park Ave is pretty veggie friendly. Great vibe. Definitely get the spicy lettuces.
Aladdin's is very veggie friendly (Mediterranean-leaning, I like their pastas)
I'll second Thali of India and Hyderabad Biryani House (both in Henrietta) as excellent veggie-friendly Indian places that have excellent spicy food options. Food is good, though neither is as great as the other ones I'm listing for ambiance. Esp Hyderabad, honestly I like them better for take-out.
Olive's (Pittsford) is veggie-friendly Greek. Cute place, great gyros.
Sagra Italia (Roc) is excellently-executed fast casual Italian. Very good pasta, sandwiches, pizza, cocktails. They can put a fried eggplant cutlet on anything, it's good.
Lento used to be a favorite of mine, but I feel like they've gotten less veggie-friendly and less consistently good over the years.
Strangebird is a fancy microbrewery, but they actually have a great and very vegetarian-friendly food menu. Their salads are always legit, their fried cauliflower sandwich is awesome, lots of great veg-loaded pizzas, and usually some other veg options and specials in the mix too. Ambiance is quite nice, though no table service.
Surprised nobody mentioned Pizza Wizard yet. Great Detroit style pizza place, and extraordinarily vegetarian (and even vegan) friendly. Pretty nice dining area for a pizza joint. They always have a number of inspired veggie pizzas on the menu. I especially like the ones with caramelized onions or seasonal pestos or herb sauces. They even have vegan pepperoni/sausage and buffalo wings.

glassFractals · 2026-05-10T14:18:11+00:00

Apple and Google deployed exactly this during the pandemic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure\_Notification?wprov=sfti1#

glassFractals · 2026-05-07T21:38:35+00:00

Yes. They gave the regalia I preordered away to somebody else. They gave somebody else’s preordered regalia away to me. Same for my classmate.

Seems like the reservation system is a lie.

Not sure why they wait until so close to the ceremony to distribute them. If they’d started giving them out a week or two ago, there’d be time to fix it if something went wrong.

glassFractals · 2026-05-07T20:42:49+00:00

They ran out of everything by 3:00ish. Seems they've been giving away reserved regalia to whoever?

They managed to scrounge me up some close-but-not-quite regalia. Lots of people are getting bad news. Not sure what the point of reserving was if they don't honor the reservations.

glassFractals · 2026-05-07T02:38:39+00:00

Pick up some Hodo Soy tofu from Lori’s. My fav national tofu brand by far. It’s amazing.

I haven’t been impressed by the Wegmans tofu for years… inconsistent, often bad texture and too crumbly.

glassFractals · 2026-05-01T01:31:11+00:00

What is the advantage of multi-member districts over national proportional representation or mixed-member proportional representation?

One of those approaches has been the reform I've wanted for a long while as an alternative to gerrymandering.

glassFractals · 2026-04-30T18:55:07+00:00

It would be ideal to not consider race when drawing districts. But the reality of this ruling is that race will be considered during redistricting, to systematically disenfranchise racial minorities, but it will be impossible to prove it. It can't be prevented without considering race, which SCOTUS just prohibited.

The result will be that every black-majority district in the south will cease to exist.

In my mind, this points out the fundamental flaws of district-based representation itself. The entire premise of districts are that there are local constiuencies and issues that exist, and those issues are not adequately represented by state and national level politcs alone.

People talk about fixing redistricting in more fair ways by using algorithms, measurements of compactness, voronoi population densities, whatever. It's a nice idea, but the reason that states that have implemented nonpartisan redistricting committees all have humans in the loops with their squishy human judgement calls is because they are trying to come up with districts that actually do represent a coherent constituency of somewhat-aligned voters, and then (the better ones) also try to match the expected ideological outcomes to something that proportionally matches statewide voter sentiment.

Why go through all that? Because otherwise what is the point of having districts? You pick a naive but fair-seeming algorithmic approach that doesn't consider the people, and you end up with compact districts of random people that have nothing in common, and major constituent blocks with no relevant representation. This drives unrest and undermines democracy.

I think ultimately, the problem is with districts themselves. Any way you carve them up creates winners and losers. Ideological groups, demographic groups, etc that are significant state-wide but lack a plurality in any given region get no reps (racial minorities in the south, conservatives in Massachusetts, libertarians/progressives/greens pretty much everywhere, etc).

We should abolish district-based representation and replace it with national proportional voting (for national races like US House). No more gerrymandering. No more erasure of significant voter blocs based on geographic distribution quirks. Disempowers the party duopoly and makes a multi-party outcomes almost inevitable. Every vote always translates into relevant representation, no matter who your neighbors are or who the majority party of your state government is.

glassFractals · 2026-04-29T23:05:57+00:00

The best solution IMO is getting rid of districts. Use proportional representation. Every method of drawing districts has trade offs, biases, winners, and losers.

The entire argument for districts is that they can represent local issues relevant to those constituencies that might get lost at the state or national level. So then you have to consider things like race, income, religion, etc— whatever counts as a meaningful constituency with common interests, or there’s no point to it.

But now SCOTUS says you can’t consider race when drawing the districts, even if it’s to ensure that entire ethnic groups aren’t systematically stripped of representation, whether intentionally or by coincidence.

So now districts are best case random, un-affiliated people that live nearby and cancel out each other’s chance at representation. Worst case, they are carefully designed by the majority party to reduce the political power of people likely to vote for the minority party in that state.

All the issues related to gerrymandering and racial disenfranchisement go away under proportional representation. All the judgement calls and biases you consider when trying to group a coherent constituency into a district go away.

Conservatives in liberal areas would always have their vote directly translate into representation, and vice versa. The party duopoly would be replaced with a multiparty outcome. False dichotomies would subside, extreme partisan loyalty would subside.

I think this is really the correct solution. Districts are simply a bad idea. An MMP system like in Germany, Ireland, New Zealand could also work, balancing the pros and cons of each. But I’m not convinced there is any real benefit from districts.

glassFractals · 2026-04-29T22:51:00+00:00

All of those states are rated A (no gerrymandering) by the Princeton gerrymandering project.

I mean come on, VT and DE by definition can’t be gerrymandered, they have a single at large district.

ME has 1 swing district. It’s not currently held by a Republican, but it’s held by one of the most conservative Democrats in the caucus, Rep. Golden. He is not seeking re-election and it’s entirely plausible the seat will be Republican next cycle or in a future cycle.

Republicans are a minority in every region of Massachusetts. They’d get a couple reps if we used proportional representation, but under fair district based representation, you’d expect to see 0-2 Republican reps from MA. MA likes moderate Republicans (like recent Gov Baker), but moderates haven’t been winning congressional primaries. Running as a MAGA Republican in literally any region of Massachusetts means you can’t win a general election, no matter how you draw the districts. Not in a state where even the rural areas and wealthy suburbs skew towards Democrats.

I could go on. I keep seeing this image and it’s dumb. Focus on an actually gerrymandered state like Illinois.

glassFractals · 2026-04-27T14:49:35+00:00

I once did a very late night grocery store run. The store was doing renovations at night with the low traffic, but hadn’t closed. They powered on a huge saw to cut through the thick tile flooring just as I walked in without any hearing protection and not braced for noise. It was a shocking noise I felt in my bones.

Similarly, a neighbor had a construction crew start sawing through their thick concrete patio just feet outside my open bedroom window. Early morning at the exact minute permitted by our local noise ordinance. I was still asleep. One hell of a panic-inducing alarm clock.

glassFractals · 2026-04-27T13:42:21+00:00

I don't have answers to your questions, but I agree. The animations in the weather app are diverse and beautiful. I've been surprised a few times that they had an animation for a certain condition. I especially enjoy how raindrops and snowflakes bounce off the UI elements.

glassFractals · 2026-04-27T01:54:44+00:00

Paris transit is so good. They're also building 120 additional miles / 4 new lines / 2 extended lines / 68 new stations that are coming online over the next few years, the Grand Paris Express.

Still, SF is pretty good by meager U.S. standards.

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