Here in NM, out on my walks around the neighborhood every day, I say either “good morning” or “hello” to everyone I pass, which varies from one to perhaps ten people per walk, 99% respond in same. It’s not fake, it’s just common courtesy to acknowledge other people. I see about half of them every day, and I know of two regulars who won’t respond, so I don’t say anything to them.

There was one guy who enthusiastically said “good morning!” every time for a couple of years, we even stopped and chatted briefly a couple of times. I didn’t see him for an entire summer, then when I saw him again he wouldn’t say hello. Then he started saying hello again, on his own. I don’t push. Some people have a lot going on.

I don’t know about “heavy eye contact is a challenge”. At about 15 feet apart, walking toward each other look to make brief eye contact and say “good morning”. By the time you’ve said the words, they’re nearly past you, and they either respond or don’t. That’s all there is to it.

If I had friends who responded to a smile and a wave with a sneer, I think we wouldn’t be friends for long.

I wear the same clothes two days in a row, sometimes three. This alone cuts laundry in half, or by a third.

When I take off my clothes I don’t bunch them up or turn them inside-out, so they come out of the dryer ready to hang with minimal fuss.

All of my socks are the same, black Dickies, so I don’t need to match them.

I hang everything, because I hate folding. Also, when it’s folded, it’s stacked somewhere, and you need to dig through the stack to find anything. Socks and underwear go in a bin.

An aging Congress, out of touch with the AI revolution, could find itself out of its depth.

I’ll point out that term limits for Congress would mitigate this issue. And, term limits are better than simple age limits, because a young person voted into office could still have decades to become entrenched and corrupt. Whereas term limits keeps up the churn.

I’d pick Spain. But, there’s no way I can do it now, I’m too old and poor.

Had I known what a shithole this country would become, I would have started out with that in mind and made it happen. I would have done many things differently, had I known. Hindsight is 20/20.

Estimated range: 205 miles.

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A vehicle trained and validated almost exclusively on dense urban grids may simply lack the exposure needed to handle a deer at dusk on a farm road.

I haven’t logged into my Amazon account in ten years, and this won’t make me do it.

Learn the difference between need and want. Stop buying crap you don’t need. And, never knowingly buy anything off Amazon.

Fuck Amazon, and Jeff Bezos. All excuses people make to willingly buy off that fucking site are bullshit.

For what we pay, every store could be this way, but the billionaires keep demanding more and more of the profits.

They’d only “need” to raise prices to keep their personal profit up. Fuck every single billionaire with a running chainsaw hard in the ass.

I’ve used delivery on a few items when it was free, and felt a little guilty about it. Once, I added some coffee to my online order that was only available to ship, just to get it over the $35 free delivery, because it’s something I buy every week, anyway. They fucking delivered just the coffee, free or not, such a waste. But, I won’t pay a premium for it. I’m not rich.

More crappy subscriptionware. No, thanks.

I would in a heartbeat if just for a day or two, but I suspect it’s not allowed?

EDIT: I did it, but I pixelated it. Hopefully I won’t get banned for that.

Biden shit his diaper. It’s not Trump’s fault.

Fiona being cursed to turn into an ogre at night was a blessing in disguise.

CRAM was conceptualized by Gregory Price and his team at Meta.

Implemented on Linux because that’s where it works, but closed source, so they’ll use it on their own hardware alone? I guess this is just an interesting thing, but nothing anyone will benefit from but Zuckerberg, since he owns it.

Yeah, I bet she is.

Also, the last time I went to a cashier, because it was the one time I saw a long line at the self-check lane, I stood in the short line, I was third, while the cashier chatted up the customers, left the line to help another cashier with something and was generally very slow. I suspect they’re not required to be efficient anymore, and perhaps even encouraged not to be. I watched as the guy I would have been behind in the self-check line left the store while I was still second in line at the cashier.

I’m sure they were shown a staged demo of how the camera and “AI” catches people putting items in the bag without scanning and that convinced them the tech was good enough.

But, the scan camera check only catches people who aren’t trying to fool it. There are easy ways around it.