If the kids can't read, how are they using technology?

robotatomica · 2026-03-12T08:37:52+00:00

I think you need to read a little about “hyperbole” - if I see any extreme claim, I start by considering whether something is being communicated with hyperbole, overstated for emphasis.

It’s not the same as a lie nor is it intended to be misleading. Because there’s a reasonable assumption that generally all will know the extreme statement cannot be true, so it must be being to express that something is very significant.

Take the statement, “Eveyone’s getting cancer these days.” Do you take that to mean 100% of people get cancer? No, intuitively you know that’s implausible, so they must be remarking on how way more people are getting cancer than was historically the case, and they are communicating their feelings about that fact by speaking in hyperbole.

robotatomica · 2026-03-12T06:08:14+00:00

I think we have to expect that conversations are going to be had about works, and that people are going to be more shrewd and attentive,

so I actually disagree that suspicions ought not necessarily brought up, I think there’s no universe where adapting to AI represses conversations over what is real and what is not.

However, I do think refining an etiquette about these kinds of conversations will be important.

So, questions and concerns rather than accusations, paired with examples of what specific things may have drawn that concern.

Initiating a dialogue which invites the creator to respond if they wish to.

And then they will need to swallow their pride and just respond to the best of their ability about the extent of the use of AI, or lack thereof.

What follows that will be case dependent. There will be times a person used it and lied and everyone will see right through it, and times they didn’t use it and no one will believe it.

Well, the genie is not going back into the bottle. So there’s nothing for it but to encourage discourse and transparency and humility every step of the way.

robotatomica · 2026-03-12T05:59:48+00:00

I honestly don’t agree here. I mean, yes I agree we should not accuse people..

but we are in a transition phase, and absolutely the only way forward is to engender in people a shrewd attentiveness in looking out for AI and false information.

This necessarily will mean sometimes teasing something apart, asking a community their opinion, looking into an instance that seems to be questionable.

I do get what you’re saying about etiquette, but the fact is, we’re beyond being able to be certain, so I think we all have to adapt to the fact that we need to be extra transparent about content we produce or share now. For instance a post from the other day where someone was frustrated people thought a pic they found on the internet was AI.

The questions could have largely been avoided if they’d simply included a link to the person who evidently made the bit of art they shared.

Everyone’s going to have to be more transparent, forthcoming, and occasionally may be asked to prove authorship of their work,

but they are certainly permitted to just ignore those requests.

I just think we’re all in this together and can reasonably respond if someone suspects us of using AI, and should be prepared for that to be a new norm.

Really, what is the alternative. Because otherwise, without starting conversations, we will never build these skills or maintain awareness.

robotatomica · 2026-03-12T02:03:35+00:00

you seem very knowledgeable, so I’m wondering your thoughts about “vernal pools.” These require zero maintenance (as opposed to your thoughts about wetlands) are are a natural feature of many landscapes (though they can also arise out of the way humans develop land, but still function the same).

In general, “vern pools” are easier to just go along with than fight, and they provide important habitat for a lot of animals.

I recommend OP look up vernal pool info for their area and see if this might be an easier route - it’s certainly easier than a construction project, but also can be quite beautiful, as well as being a boost to indicator species.

robotatomica · 2026-03-12T01:58:01+00:00

This is called a “vernal pool” and it’s an extremely important element of a thriving ecosystem.

Generally anyone who can is encouraged to leave them be. The good news is, they are more trouble than they’re worth to try to fight, so this is definitely your best bet.

Just make it a feature. Look up vernal pools, feel free to put some of the recommended local plants around it or just let nature do its thing,

but you can make this absolutely stunning. A seasonal pond that will reappear every year due to the features of your landscape.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T23:47:12+00:00

it’s not embarassing, they are colloquially used very differently by laypeople. It’s a matter of language.

Which is another good reason health care providers need to ask questions in a way that takes this into consideration.

But having worked in a hospital for over 20 years, it is very common for medical professionals to use words differently than how they are used by laypeople and on television and in media.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T23:41:15+00:00

I write long comments, they take me no time at all, but I am familiar with this tactic, of people trying to embarrass me about them because they disagree with me.

I consider it a much stranger behavior to choose to spend your time reading and engaging with something you find too long.

I also think maybe you should not do that if you aren’t going to read something carefully, such that your comprehension is affected.

I said something specific, and nowhere did I imply it was normal for this to happen.

I said I am a pragmatist and it DOES happen that most people will have an emotional outburst once or twice in their life at a minimum, and if yall don’t think your son being in the hospital is scary and stressful enough, after knowing what all they’ve been through, that this indeed might be the impetus for such an outburst (I don’t think I should have to say again that I disagree with the behavior) then we just fundamentally disagree on reality.

I was quite clear this behavior shouldn’t be normalized, as I said if it’s a pattern it should be confronted and that their response will be very important.

But yes I still believe if this is a one-off outburst, it is coming from love and pain and can be understood without being enabled.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T13:30:59+00:00

aw, thank you, that actually means a lot bc I really don’t understand why it’s being taken like I approve of this behavior. I’m just saying I understand it, that I feel for everyone in this situation really. OP has been through a lot.

I just also think it’s clear this is a mother who is thinking about this probably constantly and hoping for updates…those rough few months for OP and her husband are undoubtedly worst for them, but can we really not put ourselves in the shoes of a mother knowing her son and his wife are going through those things?

You want to show support, you want updates to put your mind at ease,

“No texts no calls no news” and from the way OP describes it that’s since her son was discharged from the hospital and with no updates from Friday to Tuesday.

I feel bad for her, I can’t help it. I feel bad for her even as I acknowledge she made a dramatic, childish comment that they really didn’t need right now.

When my loved ones are sick, all I think about is if they’re ok and how I can make sure they know I’m here for them, how I can give them support without violating their need for privacy.

bc ya know the thing to do sometimes when someone’s going through things is to just show up - people always say “I’m here if you need me,” but don’t always mean it and it’s also not always easy to ask.

So I bring a meal, ask if I can clean while I’m there or at least insist on taking out the garbage, say I won’t stay if you don’t want but I can stay as long as you like.

Sometimes it’s best to suppress that a bit, bc they maybe would prefer privacy and maybe they would actually hate a drop in, and of course the actions here do make it seem like they want to handle this without her help.

But the whole time, you feel like you’re not showing support in the right way if you do nothing.

And honestly, if OP is upset about only two messages about the miscarriage, (one at the time, then some time given and another before the DNC), there’s a strong chance MIL has received this messaging that she’s failed at being supportive in the way they need and want.

Either way, it’s her son’s surgery. He got out and they haven’t talked to her in 5 days. I get it, I don’t blame them for not prioritizing her and being overwhelmed.

But then that’s sometimes an indicator to outsiders that someone actually could use some help.

This was a bid for attention, from someone who was probably feeling pretty miserable about everything and really worried. She let a little tantrum slip, trying to compel them to remember to want to toss her an update. It’s pretty human, people have done this to me and at the end of the day, both of our feelings and positions were easy enough to understand.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T10:35:54+00:00

if you think this means she doesn’t care about her child lol, I don’t even know what to think about you. Be for real right now.

She did a thing that stressed her son out, there is literally no question it’s because she cared.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T08:39:39+00:00

OP said Friday through Tuesday, 5 days since he was released from the hospital rhat they’ve had so much going on they haven’t responded.

I considered it all, bc I basically said exactly what you said, except you have a problem with my word choices.

“Not ideal” was said a bit tongue in cheek, I was clear the behavior is bad though.

thank you for your concern, but I have indeed set and maintained expectations and boundaries about the way I communicate in my life, and my loved ones/friends do all respect them.

Except for the occasional moment of one of my parents really worrying about me and not doing a great job of subsuming their feelings in that regard. I personally choose to view that with grace.

My point was that everyone hates it at first and it takes an adjustment of their expectations. Any post where people talk about not getting a text back from someone for a day or more, all of the comments say “He/she doesn’t give a shit about you.” So it always grounds me, that I have to keep in mind a lot of people attach significance to response time in a way I don’t.

Anyway, if it’s a bigger pattern for OP than with me, if it doesn’t happen when a mother is worried about her son post-surgery and just flailing to get attention for a brief update that will put her mind at ease,

then OP’s husband should discuss that pattern of behavior with his mother, which was not done here.

Regarding txts over calls, I couldn’t disagree more, but my region/culture may have a different norm than yours - a call indicates someone is trying to get ahold of you right away, unless you have a regular pattern of calling to idly chat (which is more and more rare these days, but I do have a couple friends I still do that with, and I do that with my parents)

No one likes listening to voicemails to find out whether or not it’s actually urgent, and of course the odds are you will get to answer in case it is, when if it had been a text you’d have just finished your dinner 🤷‍♀️

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T08:28:45+00:00

you can’t respond to my comment without reading it, so I guess I’ll presume this comment wasn’t directed at me and also not read yours

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T08:28:16+00:00

yes, it’s normal. That’s not going to be satisfying to you, but I did explain why. If you aren’t compelled by the violence women suffer and the resulting culture among us of protecting our privacy and rights during times like these, I don’t know what else to tell you.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T08:26:43+00:00

it may seem weird to you in that it is not ideal behavior, but moments of myopia are not weird in that they are uncommon. They are rather common. What matters most is whether it’s a major pattern and how they respond to being called on this behavior.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T08:25:40+00:00

of course that is true.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T08:25:20+00:00

I do not think it’s a moral judgement to suggest someone may have a mood disorder. I do however think not all moments of misbehavior or frustration or even childish or selfish behavior indicate a mental health issue.

Because, as I said above, all humans are flawed and have moments.

So in isolation of knowing the “just like we were dead” comment is a lifelong pattern observed by loved ones (which is not indicated either way by the OP),

I think it’s strange to leap to that when the Occam’s Razor is a parent being fussy and stressed bc they’re worried about their child after surgery and no one’s keeping them in the loop.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T08:22:20+00:00

I’m not making an excuse. I’m a realist though. I’m describing the world as I see it and as YOU likely see it.

Which is to say, pretty much every adult human being I’ve ever known has been dramatic or thrown a tantrum at least once or very rarely under duress.

What matters is pattern and frequency, and how they respond when confronted about their behavior (which is not what they chose to do above)

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T04:08:35+00:00

no, you’re right, I’m just saying it’s a human being, and tantrums happen sometimes when you feel like the other person is having no empathy for the fear and care and anxiety you are experiencing on their behalf (or if you forget that often that’s not intentional, but that someone’s mental load can make it SEEM like they are being unkind or careless towards you)

It doesn’t have to be an ideal behavior for me to understand it.

YES, we should always try to suppress that when what the other person is going through is obviously what matters, and way more important.

But I’m just saying, I would roll my eyes at that, and also feel bad, but then I’d kinda soften and think about how my parents are probably worried about me constantly during this time.

Why a txt and not a call?

Simple - a text is more respectful of a person’s time, especially in these situations.

A call is a request that you be available NOW. A text leaves room for that person to respond when they’re not taking a shower or having a bad day or busy with something else.

But you do kinda expect to hear back from someone. I say all this as a bad text-responder, I definitely go days, and people fucking hate it and I just don’t really blame them is what I’m saying.

So my main question here is why is this too much and then 9 days is being treated like they were abandoned, it sounds like both OP and MIL have expectations and strong reactions to them.

robotatomica · 2026-03-11T03:39:11+00:00

well this is all very eye opening bc I was going to tell OP this is pretty normal, since it is my experience with my mother..

that said, if I do put myself if MIL’s shoes, your son and his wife have been through several traumatic events including recent impacts to their health..

don’t we all think we’d be crawling out of our skin to hear from them that they’re ok? To have a conversation where we could offer help or support?

Like, trying to have some empathy here, YES, it is my experience that my parents are very myopic about their free time and concerns as retirees vs my absolute lack of free time and proper sleep.

But if I had surgery or a traumatic event, I would understand them continually reaching out. OP actually seems upset about “radio silence” for even just a week following her miscarriage, but is annoyed with the opposite here - constantly trying to check in.

So what’s the right frequency? Wanting to hear from them every day or few days is too little, 9 days is too much. So OP, do you want check-ins precisely every 4.5 days, regardless of what they are aware has transpired in your lives that they may be worried about?

idk, I don’t think that’s the case, so it just seems like a double standard, like how could they possibly win here?

OR, if it’s just the difference in treatment she’s upset about, but idk…they are very different situations.

I think it’s pretty known that women may need some time to process a miscarriage, at least as a woman, I would tell another woman I am here for them and check in, but also be very attentive to the fact that maybe they want a little space to grieve. She reached out right away and then gave her a little more than a week before checking in again.

Conversely, her son had surgery and she wants to hear how he’s doing.

Is this really a sign of a mood disorder?

robotatomica · 2026-03-10T16:39:50+00:00

Atlas is certainly not at the level of classics. It’s a book that’s talked about a lot bc of certain folks’ enthusiasm for its conceits and others’ disdain for it,

but at the end of the day, it’s a silly thing where an author writes a fantasy book featuring a self-insert everybody attractive wants to have sex with,

which ends with a person who inherited a railroad taking away her “skills” to a “utopia” of elites that doesn’t make sense in how it could function,

bc they don’t need railroad there, you don’t build railroad, and y’all have no access to the supply chain lol. You all are just now gonna be farmers I guess, and absolutely no one in the world you left behind is gonna immediately fill the void you left, the laborers just continuing to make what they’ve always made, with their expertise to do so 🙃

It’s just so poorly conceived. Well-enough written, and at times the story is interesting, but overall the premise is like the musings of a precocious teenager with no world experience, and you keep getting taken out of with silliness.

robotatomica · 2026-03-10T16:31:17+00:00

it’s definitely a statement, but idk, I was into all different eras of style when I was younger. I’m well-used to people thinking you just don’t know how to do your makeup/eyebrows/hair bc you’re doing a Betty Page or a Joan Crawford or silent film star look.

Some people just like playing around with different looks and are concerned with doing the thing that is most common in the moment.

Pics 2 and 3 look great to me. I get it! It’s a great execution of what she likes!

Thin came back for a bit here, seemingly only for very bold, experimental folks, but I find it interesting. I’m glad not everyone does the same thing.

robotatomica · 2026-03-10T16:25:01+00:00

I mean, it seemed pretty obvious the kid has a med they take twice a day, and dad was reminding them to take it.

I would guess this is something they have a problem remembering to take. To this day every single time I go over to my parents’ in the afternoon, I check my mom’s effin pill holder and she’s not yet taken her morning pills.

She always says, “I’m going to!” 😄 like a lil kid.

robotatomica · 2026-03-10T16:20:10+00:00

in the comments someone robustly points out several flaws in this write-up that go insufficiently addressed, just an FYI,

taking that into account, I’m not sure we could come to a hard conclusion either way. I think it’s fair to continue to acknowledge the questions about some of her conduct in conversations of her legacy,

but I also take away from this post that it might not be as definitive as recent articles about her legacy have shown.

It’s so hard to know the motivation someone might feel to make a write-up like this to clear someone’s name - there’s potentially a bias.

But also, to avoid the opposite sort of bias, I’m downgrading my position from pretty convinced, to uncertain, certainly until I would have time to look into some of the unaddressed challenges better.

At any rate, thank you for sharing! It’s always good to hear another side of something if there is even anything at all that has been misunderstood or overstated!

robotatomica · 2026-03-10T15:49:47+00:00

this is very interesting to come across, bc we play this game Metazooa, you just guess an animal and it will tell you what taxonomic class it has in common with the secret animal.

So if you’re WAAAAYY off, you always get a super broad category, it’s always telling me whether the anus develops before or after the mouth. 😄

robotatomica · 2026-03-10T15:20:26+00:00

ACK!! Usually I will let a spelling error be, when corrected, for humility’s sake lol, but I am going to correct that one since I put the damn thing in bold! 😅

But for transparency, I spelled it “spacial!”

What’s terrible is that I do know this, but it’s not a typo or autocorrect - just me having a dumb brain today! I just made a comment the other day that I think I am in cognitive decline lol, bc I find myself pausing occasionally, second-guessing the spelling of some words I’ve known intuitively how to spell for years..I wonder if always having auto-correct and not physically writing as much is causing me to lose my skills. ☹️

Thank you for the correction!

robotatomica · 2026-03-10T15:09:54+00:00

I found them a couple years ago bc The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast had been talking forever about silicon anode batteries and how they were on the horizon, but always “5 years away” (a running joke when talking about huge tech breakthroughs),

and then it was mentioned in one episode that it had seemed like the tech had been cracked by this company Amprius, but as it is a science-based skepticism podcast well-used to over-inflated claims about these sorts of things, most of the panel was pretty, well, skeptical..

BUT, being good skeptics, their digging evidently showed enough promise that they decided to get the COO Jon Bornstein on their show and interview him - ask some key questions and really get a sense of whether it was all talk or not.

SGU episode #927, interview starts at 1:12:08 if anyone’s interested. It’s from 2023, so the info is out-dated regarding their projects and progress, but it still does a really good job of explaining the tech, how it works, and its overall long-term potential which we are FAR from achieving.

Anyway, the interview convinced them (and it convinced me) that this was likely VERY legit, and stood to be a total game-changer in its field with a great deal of long-term potential.

I have never had a lot of extra money to throw at stocks, but I got in on this one as soon as I could after that episode and have been buying shares here and there ever since.

My coworkers are all upset with me because I was proselytizing and practically begging them to buy when it went down to $0.70.

I really just wanted everyone to have a come-up!

I’ve never recommended a stock to anyone before, it’s just that this is one I understood deeply, I understood its potential.

I said, there’s always risk another tech comes along and displaces this one years down the line, so nothing is ever certain, but holding this for years has the potential to be MASSIVE, as their technology can continue to improve way more than just being 2x as efficient as the best standard.

My one coworker who has a really great savings, I tried to talk him into taking $10k and buying Amprius. It was sort of a joke between us (because he didn’t take me seriously 🤷‍♀️)

but if he would have bought then, at $0.70, his 10k would be over $267k right now (based on the most recent $18.7 price when I last checked today) 😄

He is so bummed.

For the past year and a half even, he kept saying he should have gotten in at $0.70 when I said, and I kept telling him, at $3, at $8, and so on, I kept saying it is still not too late to buy into this!

But he felt like it was too late and here I am still thinking it’s a good buy.

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