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We're in a very interesting period of time where I can go online and get really valuable and insightful political commentary from former Department of Labor secretary Robert Reich, and then I can go to another window and distract myself by watching his son Sam Reich host/torture a bunch of improv comedians in a variety of creative ways.

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dog eating a hot dog at the mariners game

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i dont know why anyone else misses analog board games, but to me, it's because physical parts let me cheat. there's no moving pieces around when someone isnt looking in a chess app, no sneaking bonus pieces out of the graveyard in checkers, no double drawing cards in go fish.

i spent years developing those skills as a Professional Little Brother. what am i supposed to do now, go back to college? learn how to play games the right way? i mean, who gives a shit? the fun part was never the game, it was the Getting Away With It. or, you know, for the rest of my family, Catching The Bastard. now that was entertainment.

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Another fantasy trope story:

A story where a prominent prophesy very clearly states that this specific important thing Must Be Done by the firstborn of one specific guy. So three young heroes head out to fix this: This Guy's official firstborn heir, his bastard he didn't even know about before getting married, and his unofficially adopted orphan kid who just started living with him at some point, who is the oldest of the three so technically speaking is still the one who was born first. And all three must go because while the meaning of the prophesy itself is very clear, it's an utter mystery to everyone which one of them counts as their father's firstborn.

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Ideas are cooking for my pride outfit.

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Conversational skill check: Work acquaintance mentions in an offhand tone with no discernible expression that they have recently lost over 20 pounds. They fail to elaborate. A response is expected.

Me, rolling a 6: …On purpose?

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they went off with this

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there was a brief period of time in my childhood where for some reason I thought pelicans and storks were the same thing. so when people referred to "babies brought by the stork" i (very naturally!) would picture a pelican carrying a baby around...in its mouth. bc a pelican mouth is about the right size for it. great for carrying baby shaped objects.

when i tell you the Pelican Put Baby In Mouth post recalled something absolutely primal in me...

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I've never been one to complain about rainbow capitalism anyway and in 2025 I am firmly "I will take whatever I can get" but I wish that conversation ever focused on whether companies putting pride themed logos on their social media accounts have homophobic or transphobic policies behind the scenes. Subaru was notable in the 90s because when their market research showed their cars were popular with lesbians and they decided to start actively advertising to them, they backed that up with policies for their LGBTQ employees, notably extending benefits to same-sex partners when gay couples couldn't legally get married, which was a big deal at the time. If a company is doing rainbow capitalism in public but have a history of employees complaining about discrimination we should talk about that but that's never what the generic complaints about rainbow capitalism are.

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Fic that appears to be an AU where the characters have a little low stakes meet cute and are having a sweet little romance, only for it to be revealed that no, this is in-universe and they both have amnesia and all the other characters are trying to find them and are losing their fucking shit

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broooo did you seriously disturb my eternal rest & bring me back to this mortal coil just because my ancient enemy the eternal night has returned? after i sealed it away and everything? which one of you tampered with my binding runes 🙄

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how are they gonna adequately prepare whatever child they cast for nico di angelo. it has got to be impossible for someone that young to give informed consent about playing the saddest wettest loser in all of human history. like hey kid i know youre sprightly and all of ten, but we need you to be in all five stages of grief at all times. remember, your mother was killed in fascist italy, youre eighty years old, and now youre in love with the guy who killed your sister. say this next line like you know what it's like to be an ear of corn.

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Whenever I think about students using AI, I think about an essay I did in high school. Now see, we were reading The Grapes of Wrath, and I just couldn't do it. I got 25 pages in and my brain refused to read any more. I hated it. And its not like I hate the classics, I loved English class and I loved reading. I had even enjoyed Of Mice and Men, which I had read for fun. For some reason though, I absolutely could NOT read The Grapes of Wrath.

And it turned out I also couldn't watch the movie. I fell asleep in class both days we were watching it.

This, of course, meant I had to cheat on my essay.

And I got an A.

The essay was to compare the book and the movie and discuss the changes and how that affected the story.

Well it turned out Sparknotes had an entire section devoted to comparing and contrasting the book and the movie. Using that, and flipping to pages mentioned in Sparknotes to read sections of the book, I was able to bullshit an A paper.

But see the thing is, that this kind of 'cheating' still takes skills, you still learn things.

I had to know how to find the information I needed, I needed to be able to comprehend what sparknotes was saying and the analysis they did, I needed to know how to USE the information I read there to write an essay, I needed to know how to make sure none of it was marked as plagerized. I had to form an opinion on the sparknotes analysis so I could express my own opinions in the essay.

Was it cheating? Yeah, I didn't read the book or watch the movie. I used Sparknotes. It was a lot less work than if I had read the book and watched the movie and done it all myself.

The thing is though, I still had to use my fucking brain. Being able to bullshit an essay like that is a skill in and of itself that is useful. I exercised important skills, and even if it wasnt the intended way I still learned.

ChatGTP and other AI do not give that experience to people, people have to do nothing and gain nothing from it.

Using AI is absolutely different from other ways students have cheated in the past, and I stand by my opinion that its making students dumber, more helpless, and less capable.

However you feel about higher education, I think its undeniable that students using chatgtp is to their detriment. And by extension a detriment to anyone they work with or anyone who has to rely on them for something.

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“how is annabeth head of athena cabin” have you ever met an autistic 12 year old girl. she’s running that shit like the navy