Strands #199 “Handy helpers”

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While I don’t care much about the subject, I do actually care about ineffective communication and how it presents. Indeed, I have made a few comments like that— specifically putting the reason a comment failed to communicate— in the hopes that at least one person will avoid that particular pitfall next time. I don’t do it as much as I’d like to because sometimes it’s hard to condense why a comment failed, but this one was pretty easy.

For the sake of argument though, making quips would still be better than worthless comments like your original one even if they didn’t communicate something. Among every form of discourse, quips are vastly better liked than “not true but I can’t prove it” to everyone but the guy being called out.

Wordle 1,187 6/6

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Ugh

Nah don’t care, that subject itself doesn’t affect or interest me. Just saying that you convinced no one and that your comment provided no value besides a few upvotes for me, which don’t even matter on this site. I also intended it more for others who might be inclined to do the same thing rather than you yourself.

If you actually ever want to change minds or prevent the spread of misinformation (which I’m still not convinced it is because again, you provided no evidence and I still don’t care), it’s a good idea to actually elaborate instead of just saying “not true”. The only people convinced by empty comments like yours will be convinced the other way by the next evidence-free claim.

Btw I genuinely don’t see how the info would change my life for the better so if you are gonna start trying now, just edit it into your og comment or something, I probably won’t be back in this thread again

Connections Puzzle #464

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Yesterday’s was hard, much happier with today’s

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Not good. Also 200 day streak

Strands #198 “On the rebound” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵

I bet “that’s not what happened” with zero elaboration has a single digit success rate

Weirdly, this comment is a little hasty but only because of recent developments. ONN presumably didn’t make enough money so it was canceled, thus they couldn’t keep doing sketches like that. Now that The Onion has bought itself from its corporate owners, ONN is said to be returning. If the new ONN sucks this comment will be accurate though.

I love this one. I sometimes fit “post office box” into sentences just to say it the way Duncan does.

Side note, I saw Duncan’s actor in an episode of Always Sunny a few years ago and it was lovely seeing him. He’s probably my favorite from ONN. The segment about Nigeria where he accidentally reads about Niger is a phenomenal use of visual comedy

Wait I’m still a bit confused. Do people use the brush part?

Hey, it’s Credit One, a notoriously predatory bank. Interest rates are high, fees are aplenty, and they’re not exactly kind. I’m in the credit card hobby and they’re famous for being shit (but situationally useful if you’re trying to rebuild credit). If you’re one of those and use it properly then cancel it, it’s fine. If you don’t pay it off, the balance balloons.

This person will continue to compound interest and fees until they charge off the account, sell it to some collector, and eventually one of the collector human centipede segments will sue them. Some banks will occasionally let go of debts, but a Credit One charge off will probably see this individual trying sovcit tactics in court -> judgment -> wage garnishment eventually.

I used to hang out on the dph subreddit and it was one of my favorite drug subs. A little bit depressing because of the side effects and how many of them had already suffered significant brain damage though.

I miss the drug subs like /dph or /heroin. I read them for years since these very much interest me— there’s so much of the human experience I will never try— but I fear permanent side effects and am not much of the drug type anymore. If only I could try it and rewind time with the memories intact.

Plus the dph memes are great.

If I were truly thrown into this scenario, my first step would be accepting likely death. Even if you maintain status quo and do no good, you’ll be killed by the next guy in line. There’s nearly no way to both satisfy the current oligarchs and maintain enough power to prevent being replaced by one of them. There is also no way out, as Russia has carried out assassinations in foreign countries. Not that you’d make it onto a plane.

So I really would try to do all that. I’d tell them that whatever force got me there also gave me time to enact failsafes so that, if I disappeared, every property that every Russian billionaire owned would make unexpected contact with drones. Then I’d go ahead and post Putin’s files with every billionaire’s dirt and holdings hoping to start some fires they’d need to put out before coming for me. From there, an aggressive push towards democracy by appealing to the people in the hopes that they’ll back me, which might buy a little extra time.

I think this secures a few hours. They won’t want to move against a complete unknown that suddenly became president. That’s enough to call Biden (allegedly to negotiate US withdrawal from Ukraine in exchange for election interference in Harris’s favor) and send him every bit of data on the military that I could. That might be enough deterrence to buy more time: “the US military knows everything now, so killing me might have consequences.” I’d CC several other NATO members, but for time’s sake Biden is probably the one to call.

Maybe I could get some bodyguards that appear loyal to me, maybe not. But every bit of bluster I could muster, I’d throw it down out the gate, then start trying to fix the country before they call the bluff.

Yeah, I still die quickly, but even a single step towards improvement is worth my life. An easy decision to make when it was forfeit the second I became president. Even if I failed miserably, merely dumping presidential documents would have been worth it. Perhaps it’d get the ball rolling.

Edit: I missed the part where everyone loyal to Putin would be loyal to me. That opens up a ton of space to actually set up these failsafes or move against the oligarchs myself, as well as secure the Kremlin with men more or less actually loyal to me (by wiring them all a million USD on the spot with promise of more). Putin put down a rebellion from one of the most powerful oligarchs, so there might actually be a way to survive long enough to do many of the things on that list. I’d probably not dump the oligarch files and keep that on a disappearance failsafe then proceed mostly the same hoping to generate serious, potentially irreversible momentum before dying.

This is such an odd endorsement to seek.

I don’t see a huge amount of people who would trust the strange protest candidate enough to simply obey and vote for Trump. Especially because among his supporters who are largely 1) protest voters or 2) prone to conspiracy bandwagons, how many will remember who he endorsed in three months?

Thanks for this summary, I haven’t followed this and didn’t know what it was about. Sensical format and structure, extremely helpful in explaining a crucial difference

I don’t think it’s a bad day situation, that would be if she made mistakes. The moves were clearly deliberate.

I was never going to beat these girls on what they do best, the dynamic and the power moves, so I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative because how many chances do you get in a lifetime to do that on an international stage?

I was always the underdog and wanted to make my mark in a different way.

And y’know what, if it doesn’t negatively impact her career from here, power to her. It was memorable and entertaining, even if it was at her own expense. As long as her opponents didn’t feel disrespected (I don’t know enough about the breaking culture to say), I think it was worthwhile. Wouldn’t most of us say we benefitted from watching it?

Hi, I must agree with others that you’re eating more than what you think. I was underweight for over 20 years, so the opposite problem, and I’m one of the few people here who read “I struggle to meet 1500 calories” and nodded. For the vast majority of humans, weight loss is entirely based on energy deficit, so something must be up.

Calories are deceptive. Two days ago I had one sub sandwich (the bread I use, Schär ciabatta, comes in half sized so two of them make up one sub). It was 850 calories, far more than I expected the first time I had one— it’s not even large. That plus an Arizona tea made for 1040 calories in a single pretty volumetrically small meal.

I track the calories of every single thing I eat. I use an accurate to 0.1g scale to measure every ingredient I use in meals and to track serving size for snacks. I pour drinks into a measuring cup. It was some work at first but by now it’s basically second nature. You don’t need to go that far, but I’d highly recommend doing something. Every ingredient must be considered: are you accounting for butter or oils in pasta or even steak? Those add hundreds of calories.

The fruit smoothie sounds almost like bulking food to me. Peanut butter in a smoothie is great for weight gain. How much is two scoops? What’s in the smoothie itself? If you have vague measurements of ingredients and amount, I’d be happy to calculate a caloric estimate. It won’t be exact, but would be a good start.