FWIW this is a common post-regime debate. Visit Berlin to see a number of creative solutions.

Oh gosh, that’s a big one! Oh. Oh no.

Pew! Pew!

Haha, I see where you’re coming from. It’s a fairly old and ongoing debate: the importance of classical humanities in the curricula of primary and secondary education. To illustrate, at one point children were not only taught literature from the Greco-Roman period, but also the languages they were written in.

In fact, that’s one of the key reasons for all the institutional Greek and Latin usage you see in higher ed. That was the tradition. These were languages only the educated knew. The effects of that on society were mixed, in my opinion. Fast-forwarding to today, the recent trend has been to prioritize knowledge more relevant to the modern era, including STEM subjects and practical trade-related skills.

That’s the reason for the lingering notion, among older generations especially, that classical works are foundational knowledge, a common intellectual inheritance that everyone should know. While I’m more used to thinking this way, and can probably make some convincing arguments for it, I recognize that in many ways and for many individuals, it fails the test of relevance. So maybe it really is for the best that it’s only taught in the optional extension of higher ed.

Yes, zero expectation from me to read that book, but if you ever become curious, mythologies are often short, fun, and memorable stories to read. And once familiar with them, you’ll see references to them basically everywhere, including the names of blockbuster films and spaceships, like the Apollo.

You’re good. I upvoted. People downvoting are leery of anti-intellectualism (and not without good reason).

But I don’t see that in your comment. You simply didn’t know something, and you didn’t get mad when corrected. You acknowledged you just didn’t know yet.

In addition, your guess that the majority who recognize the name associate it with something from pop culture rather than classical mythology is likely accurate. Those who were taught this in school, or who had the resources at hand to teach themselves — public libraries, internet access, free time, etc — often forget that in most of the world knowledge remains a privilege, whereas the right to pay for entertainment is nearly always guaranteed.

If you’d like to read some of these stories, along with commentary about them, I would recommend A Guide to Mythology by Helen Clark, which is public domain and thus free. You can listen to it for free as well.

Edit: add links and additional resources

Tbf, if you’ve ever watched a turtle attempt to right itself, you might forgive it the time needed to psyche itself up for the task.

The first rule seems likely to work. The second guarantees no property will ever be renovated.

Full edit/redaction: 💜 Sorry for late reply. I hadn’t checked OP’s profile and incorrectly assumed they posted here to avoid ftm transphobia. Since I framed my advice specifically for ftm affirmation based on that assumption, it’s not as relevant to OP. Sorry for treating you as a cis aggressor unfairly. Appreciate you.

Attempt at useful advice:

Partner is mtf and totally agrees with you re: the lasers. She usually also discusses hair color as a consideration since hers are dark which increases the effectiveness of each session. Since I like her hair and like when she doesn’t shave, I’m a little biased, but she uses a common brand of articulated cartridge razors that surround the blades with a thick soap block. They seem to make cuts and razor burns impossible. She has only used my safety razors when she was treating keratosis on her shins.

All my best to you and OP

I’m going to reiterate the dissenting advice I offered when this room was empty, knowing my shaving enthusiast homies would soon arrive to suggest beginners should first master the 1904 Gillette special, like we did 😏, and reject the fancy multi-blade magic micro swivel razors with their “industry-leading safety,” “low up-front cost,” and “ease of use.” Because that guy on YT said it was bad skincare with gravitas on loan from Nessun Dorma.

OP asked for beginner tips, how to avoid the random injuries etc. Of course shavers each have their own highly optimized rituals particular to them, which are great to share, and beginners will eventually develop their own as well, but if someone sees us climbing a staircase and asks how to start, if our instinct is “oh easy, just join me on my step” that’s a good sign we need to reflect further on our own learning process.

Do you have a small collection of vintage safety razor handles? Do you have a shelf filled with dusty cigarette boxes of razor brands your skin somehow didn’t like, unless you installed it in a particular deck brass Soviet piece with a butterfly retainer that apparently added the fractional degrees necessary to make the damn Astra blades humane? I bet it was a learning process for you, like the rest of us. When you’re just starting out you’re not optimizing anything at all. Just having a go-to solution that doesn’t leave blood on your shirt is a huge win.

ETA, TLDR: We’re all beginners at something.

IME it works differently for different people.

Some folks float apart with grace, an amicable break and a parallel drift to a friend pace.

Some need to basically say goodbye, a hard break, then rediscover each other later.

Just know that at least half of that process is not something you can control. You can be supportive and kind. You can let them know you’re still in their corner if they ever need you in plenty of ways.

But sometimes what they need most from you is to no longer need you, and sometimes they need to make space for someone else for that new relationship to have a chance.

If you still want to attempt platonic right away: boundaries. My advice is to keep things light, especially if you have regular contact.

If you want a hard break, maybe put an event on the calendar to meet up, like tickets to see your favorite band next season.

For something in between, maybe occasionally send her stuff you come across that you know she’d laugh at, or replay the inside jokes, stories, adventures, mishaps, etc.

Regardless, maintain the boundaries you agreed on at the start, especially re: her love life. You are happy if she is happy. That it. If you can’t feel that deep down, for real, go for the hard break.

Yeah I have a few of those for the most secure stuff. Hard to beat! The USB-C one is the newest and I debated the choice but damn these days it’s great how it works with everything.

No need to do anything the hard way when you’re just starting out. The whole process with prep, safety razors, after care etc can wait. I’d also skip the disposable two blade razors.

Invest in a decent starter set of the modern 4 and 5 blade cartridge razors with the reusable handle and soap strips around the blades. They’re forgiving compared to everything else, which is perfect when you’re learning. Even if you want to try more trendy shaving equipment later, you’ll be grateful to have something fast and foolproof on hand when you’re in a rush!

As for technique tips: Any kind of soap will help the head glide, but obviously shaving cream is made for it. Light pressure is all that’s needed. Let the razor blades do the work.

Stretching the skin taught helps avoid irritation. Shaving with the direction of the hair to start can help your skin and follicles acclimate to the abrasion. Then you can try shaving against when you’re ready.

If we cut and run every time a big corporation “embraces” a new standard, just to lessen the pain of the day it’s inevitably “extinguished,“ we’d miss out on quite a lot.

This standard was open from the start. It was ours. Big corps sprinted ahead with commercial development, as they do, but just because they’re first to implement doesn’t mean we throw in the towel.

Also:

1. Bio auth isn’t necessary. It’s just how Google/Apple do things on their phones. It’s not part of the FIDO2 standard.
2. It works with arbitrary password managers including FLOSS and lots of hardware options.
3. Passkeys can sync to arbitrary devices, browsers, device bound sessions, whatever.

Yeah the moods in this thread, like

“[I don’t understand this]!”

“[I don’t trust this]!”

“[It doesn’t fix everything]!”

“[This doesn’t benefit me]!”

“[What’s wrong with old way]!?”

And like, all valid feelings… just the reactions are a bit… intense? Especially considering it’s a beta stage auth option that amounts to a fancy version of the old sec key industry standard, not the mark of the beast.

Yeah the counter-interoperability of proprietary expansions on FIDO standards sounds a lot like embrace extend extinguish to me. I know engineering standards generally require field revisions but these big corps have a track record of this behavior.

I can see how the FIDO standard’s dID requirement might be an issue at the org level, but even in the case of a fully custom/unknown rooted device they have provisions for using traditional security keys attached to one or more associated devices via USB/BT/NFC. Megacorp platforms might be first to facilitate adoption but the spec absolutely accommodates open provider integration.

I need to experiment with personal security passkey registration and authentication workflows to know how difficult it actually is in practice, but it looks like the equivalent of self-signed certificates are possible anywhere the user controls the stack like self-hosted intranetwork suites that are popular around here.

Thanks again for the write up!

I could see that. I’ve only found a few in the wild (mostly just enterprise, niche tech-related, and big platform web apps) but there’s probably some clunky implementations out there I haven’t suffered through yet.

For one, there seems to be this idea that if you lose your passkey you get locked out of your account forever.

True, plenty in this thread even. IIRC there’s usually a recovery key process same as a typical authenticator MFA, sometimes other routes in addition like combining multiple other MFAs or recovery contact assignment. Regardless, completely losing PW manager access across devices would presumably be the more immediate crisis for most.

Thanks for the great article! I had a question re: the top disadvantage you mention (lock-in).

Background: Although the on-device integration for Apple, Google, etc. use their cloud for E2E sync between devices, it appears KeePassXC using their passkey interception, discovery, and import procedures accomplish the same cross-device passkey implementation without needing a particular vendor cloud lock-in. As best I can tell, this meets the original standard’s sync fabric requirements (whether or not the big providers like it) and relies on platform-specific APIs mostly for interoperability.

Question: If KeePass has been able to implement their own sync this way, and the FIDO standard accommodates non-OS providers (e.g. browsers or PW managers), what is currently the biggest technical hurdle remaining for FOSS-based passkey providers?

KeePassXC has begun rollout of their own implementation, and I’m pretty sure they’re considered FOSS.

From a quick scan of the white paper, it appears they’re currently using on-device passkey discovery and otherwise “intercepting” passkey registration workflows, which I take to mean they aren’t originating the request as a passkey registrar. This may be the easiest method to satisfy FIDO’s dID requirements.

This is a big one. Lock-in and the threat of provider blacklisting means it will remain a shortcut like SSO (“sign in with ____”) until we’ve established federated providers.

On further reading, this may not be as far off as I thought. Passkey registration providers can be OS-level but browser and password manager based solutions were intended (overview from FIDO alliance). And it looks like KeePassXC has begun rollout of their own. If I’m reading correctly they currently “piggyback” off of an OS-based provider in various ways, so it’s not yet an end-to-end implementation, but these are early days.

The passkey options I’ve come across so far are as close to push-button as I can imagine.

Do you mean from the developer perspective, like the complexity of the API/workflow?