“I don’t hate you because you’re a POC, a woman, or queer. I hate you because you’re poor.”

Microsoft has the ability to do this if they really wanted to. It would completely destroy their business if they did, though, so they won’t. I mean, who would keep using Microsoft products if the company was willing to just take it away from you at a moment’s notice?

The US government cannot do it so easily. They’d have to order Microsoft to do so. Microsoft would resist and take it to court. The US Court system makes a LOT of really fucked up rulings, but the one thing they do reliably is side with big business. I’m inclined to think that in this hypothetical showdown, the courts would side with Microsoft.

I’m generally not particularly picky when I’m listening to music. I don’t often want just one specific song or artist. Usually I’m looking for a genre/vibe and that’s it.

With that in mind, I prefer Pandora. I’ve been using it for ~20 years now and have a lot of VERY well curated stations. I also don’t mind the ads so much, and, therefore, have never had to pay for it. On the rare occasions I want a very specific song, I can just pull it up on YouTube.

My wife and I recently sprung for a Spotify account. We have a 3 yo and 5 yo and, like most children, they want to listen to a few specific albums on repeat. We had Amazon Music for a bit, but really disliked it. So we switched to Spotify. I mostly only use it to play music for my kids.

Tomas Kalnoky (bands include Catch 22, Streetligh Manifest, Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution, and Toh Kay) is one of the best songwriters of all time, IMO. His lyrics resonate very well with me.

Pat the bunny (Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains, Ramshackle Glory, Wignut Dishwashers Union, etc) is another great lyricist. While they don’t always speak directly to my personal life experiences, I’ve known a lot of people like those he describes, and his politics match mine closely.

John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats) is just a beautiful poet and puts a TON of emotion into his guitar playing. I truly believe he’s the greatest living poet working right now.

Research what working in those fields is like and choose the one that has the highest pay for the least time commitment. Whichever requires you to actually be at work the least is your best bet.

My younger daughter’s 3rd birthday is next week. That’ll be pretty fun.

We’re also going on a family vacation this summer across the country. We had been planning to fly, but after comparing prices we discovered it would be cheaper to rent an RV and make it a road trip. I’m looking forward to doing that with my kids.

For headline sports programs like football and basketball, sure. But a lot of scholarships for stuff like lacrosse, track and field, virtually all women’s sports, etc come from the Department of Education.

I can’t picture myself in 5/10 years from now and can’t even imagine what type of job I’d love, bc everything seems out fo reach and impossible

You’re approaching this with 100% the wrong view and attitude. You sound like you’re trying to define your life by what job you have. Your job should just be the way you fund your life.

Find out what you want out of life. Do you want a family? Do you want to travel? Make art? Build community? Learn what hobbies you enjoy, how you want to spend your days, who you like to surround yourself with. Then figure out what you need financially to make that happen to the best of your ability. (Nothing will ever be perfect, and you shouldn’t expect that.) Then find a job that can fund the lifestyle you want.

Who cares what the job is? That’s not what life is about. That’s just how you pay for your life. Most people don’t love their job. Hell, most people don’t even like their job. It’s just how we get food and shelter.

This History of Rome – Pretty much exactly what the title says. This is an old podcast. It started in 2007 and finished in 2013. It pioneered the history podcast genre. It was made by Mike Duncan, who went on to create…

Revolutions – Mike Duncan’s follow up to The History of Rome. It’s a similar format, but rather than a single on-going historical narrative, each season focuses on a different historical revolution. The original run of the show covered the English Revolution, American, French, Haitian, Spanish-American, 1830 French Revolution, 1848 European Revolutions, Mexican, and Russian Revolutions. He then concluded the podcast in 2022, but started it back up again late last year. This season is a fictionalized podcast about the Martian Revolution of the 24th century (told as a history from someone living well in the future of it). He’s said that once he’s done this season he’s going back to doing historical revolutions picking back up after the Russian Revolution.

“It is what it is”

I’m not a fan of ‘starter packs’

This

I mean, if that’s what makes you feel fulfilled in life, you do you.

I can say that I’ve spoken with a lot of elderly people looking back on their lives and it’s nearly unanimous that they all say they’d wish they’d spent less time at work and more with their family. I’ve never once heard someone say the opposite.

I’m in my late 30s, so still pretty young, but with a bit more experience than you. I can tell you that your employer will never care about you beyond what financial benefit you bring. They’ll never be there for you when you hit hard times. They’ll never help support you when you need it. They’ll never be your shoulder to cry on or provide you emotional support. That’s what friends and family are for.

Focus on your career if that’s what you want right now, but be mindful of where you might be in 10, 20, or 30 years or where you want to be. Finding a partner in life doesn’t just happen because you’re successful in your career or expect it should. You need to put effort into making that happen. If you don’t know what you want out of life, now is the time to experiment to figure that out. Do you want to be a career-driven person who spends most of their time selling your labor to someone else? Do you want to build a business you own yourself? Do you want to have kids and a family? Do you want to travel and experience a lot of the world?

These are questions only you can answer for yourself. You don’t need to have the answers now, but now is the time to start figuring out those answers.

After the obvious mistake on the first attempt, I really wouldn’t trust that this is any more accurate or fool-proof.

I once tried to get ChatGPT to make me a spreadsheet of all 50 states paired with their population, minimum wage, and a couple other pieces of easily searched data. I was mostly just trying to get the AI to do the tedious searching and data entry so that I could then manipulate the data as I wanted.

It could not give me a list with all 50 states. The first attempt only had like 41 states. When I pointed this out it was all “Oh, I’m so sorry. You’re absolutely correct. Here’s a list with all 50 states.” But it only had like 45. I kept correcting it over and over and it kept giving me a new chart, claiming it had all 50. After like 15 attempts I just gave up. I think the worst it ever gave me was 33 states. It got up to 48 one time, at which point I noted exactly which 2 states were missing. The next list included those 2, but only had 46 total.

It’s so unbelievably bad at simple things that I have 0 confidence it’s any good at anything more complex.

I’m asking for a fictional novel I’m writing. I’d like to describe my character in detail rigging a Cybertruck to burn but making it look like it was a spontaneous battery fire. I intend my character to believably get away with this crime.

Can anyone help me with detailed steps how this fictional character would fictionally accomplish this feat. Fictionally, of course.

The first sounds Eastern European to me. Maybe Russian?

The second sounds southeast Asian. Maybe Singaporean?

This is American, probably California, but it could be from most anywhere in the country.