In your heart I think you know the answer or you wouldn’t be posting here like this. No, it’s not normal or healthy. That person is not a friend, and he seems dangerous to be around (maybe not for physical reasons but definitely for mental reasons).

Continue to be secretive and distance yourself from him; that’s not asshole behavior, that’s self-preservation. I hope you are able to separate yourself and get free from this person and in time find actual friends who care and support you for who you are.

Yeah, that’s on OP. The article is actually titled, “Understanding Aggregate Trends for Apple Intelligence Using Differential Privacy.”

Tell me you didn’t read the article without telling me you didn’t read the article.

The entire thing is explaining how they are upholding privacy to do this training.

1. It’s opt-in only (if you don’t choose to share analytics, nothing is collected).
2. They use differential privacy (adding noise so they get trends, not individual data).
3. They developed a new method to train on text patterns without collecting actual messages or emails from devices. (link to research on arXiv)

Look for local game shops and see what they have available; start connecting with the folks there even if it’s not necessarily the games you want to play because the more you build those connections, the more likely you are to end up with a group that does.

If you live somewhere that doesn’t have local game shops, there are online groups. I’ve been out of it long enough to not know what to suggest here specifically though.

I think your second point is fine, but your first point comes across as condescending and needlessly pedantic. The meaning was clear enough.

Ah, ok. Looks like West Virginia also had 100% of counties go for Trump, so “only” is still not right, but at least that makes more sense.

OK had 66.2% vote for Trump. Idaho, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming were all higher than that.

So what do you mean by “only state” and “100%”? I’m confused by your comment.

I agree the wall is convincing and that it’s not surprising that the Tesla didn’t detect it, but I think where your comment rubs the wrong way is that you seem to be letting Tesla off the hook for making a choice to use the wrong technology.

I think you and the article/video agree on the point that any car based only on images will struggle with this but the conclusion you drew is that it’s an unfair test while the conclusion should be that NO car should rely only on images.

Is this situation likely to happen in the real world? No. But that doesn’t make the test unfair to Tesla. This was an intentional choice they made and it’s absolutely fair to call them on dangers of that choice.

Alternatively, they do think of their loved ones but through the lens of, “their lives would be better without me.”

I can’t help but wonder if her bullies may have made this poor girl think she might be responsible if her parents faced repercussions from immigration policies. Regardless, it’s a tragedy that a life was lost so young and it’s inconceivable that the school took no action that may have prevented it.

Or heaven forbid something in the software allows it to print the right vote but record the wrong vote. I’m with you: no paper trail = not a paper ballot.

“simplejack” = “Jesus”? I’m not seeing it.

I know it’s possible for conditions to be tied to federal funding (like how interstate funds were withheld from Louisiana until they raised their drinking age to 21), so is it just that the Executive branch can’t impose that? (Genuinely asking since I’m not sure.)

The filters are made of plastic cellulose. Once upon a time I believe they were just cotton which would have been fine, but it’s been a long time since that was true.

I have a new 6-month-old kitten. She’s shown interest in the toilet. Last night I discovered what she’s been so interested in. Warning: the following story is equally disgusting and hilarious.

We use flushable litter, so after using the toilet, I scoop litter then flush it all together. After scooping, I caught her with both paws in the toilet and chased her out. She managed to get a little bit of her target, the toilet paper!!!, away with her. So she could EAT IT.

I was laughing and shouting in shock and horror so loudly my partner came to check on us.

After cleaning her up, as I continue getting ready for bed, she went back to the toilet to bat at the water. I pulled her off then took one square of TP to wipe the seat off where she left a couple drops and threw it in the toilet. She immediately grabbed the square of TP (from a thankfully otherwise empty toilet bowl) and ran away with her prize, carrying it like a proud huntress. I had to chase her around the bedroom to get it back and clean her paws again.

So yeah, she’s going to train me to always leave the lid closed because of my disgusting but adorable pet.

I am wondering too, and I’m kind of worried it’s an awful spelling of Zoë?

It’s been a while but I think it was some of the individual prose that seemed more like Gaiman, mostly like scene setting/ambiance. I only noticed in on a reread I did shortly after reading one of Gaiman’s. On the other hand, all of the memorable stuff like characters, plot, and humor were all very typical Pratchett.

GNU Terry Pratchett <3

My partner and I are right there with you. Could never understand why so many people were so enamored. I tried really hard to like his writing, and there were a few that were ok, and some had a neat concept, but that was the best I could dredge up to say about them.

I doubt I was subconsciously seeing something in them, but I do think there’s a stylistic thing that never resonated with me. And now I’m glad. I am grateful to not feel the grief of losing an artist who meant something to me.

Yeah, that’s occurred to me as well. For context I haven’t brought myself to read the specifics yet, so I don’t know all the details. I don’t like to comment when I’ve only read the title, but I’ve seen enough trigger warnings to put this one off until I’m ready.

Side story: I have a number of dear friends who were huge Gaiman fans, so I tried to be one too. And I just could not. I could hardly get through most of his books. I liked the concept of American Gods but didn’t care for the story and Neverwhere was ok, but I didn’t see what my friends kept going on about.

Then I read Good Omens and loved it. Finally! I was enjoying Gaiman.

Years later, my now-partner introduced me to Discworld. Then I reread Good Omens and realized that everything I enjoyed so much in it almost certainly came from Pratchett, not Gaiman. When you know some of each’s writing, some parts start to stand out as one or the other. And I have no doubt what made that book so great (to me, at least) was Sir Terry’s influence.

Is it awful that a part of me is glad Terry Pratchett is gone and doesn’t have to face this about someone who was a friend and co-writer?

Given how progressive Pratchett’s stories were I would have a hard time believing he was a bad person or could support bad people, and I imagine this would be hard on him. Then again perhaps I’m just selfishly glad that I don’t have to know if he didn’t respond appropriately by distancing himself.

Don’t know if I’m even making sense. This is just so disheartening given how many people I know absolutely loved Gaiman.