I have heard a bit of that. I’m somewhat wary of the overall commoditization of cheap, dubiously sourced batteries in general. I feel like they’re getting big enough that maybe their brand is becoming valuable enough to raise their standards, but it’s a hard thing to measure. I think outside of the standard AA/AAA form factors, even Energizer is putting out some shaky quality these days.

Any specifics on why you’re anti-Anker? If the quality sucks, that can be improved. If they’re actively trying to destroy democracy and the middle class, that’s kind of different.

I’m sure the “are you a teen?” enforcement is really gonna hammer that nail in, too.

The agreement is only as good as the hospital’s vetting, so I may be a little optimistic after seeing a very thorough and protracted process on my side. If you work for a healthcare system that’s okay with Beacon and Oracle, then it may be time to evaluate whether they’re a good healthcare system to work for.

Medical AI has guardrails out the wazoo. By the time it’s made available to a physician, it’s probably been reviewed by a council, vetted by IT, and negotiated heavily by Legal. If the data leaves the premises, it’ll be thoroughly protected and isolated.

That said, fuck AI. I’d give up medical transcription to get the environment, economy, and sanity back. Musk’s data center is running dozens of natural gas turbines in a low-income, primarily Black neighborhood 11 miles down the road from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It’s positively ghoulish.

cries in American deprivation

It’d be a stupid way to end up getting punched.

“What happened?”

“Well Doc, it started with a boring conversation…”

Don’t be Bashful! What’s the worst that could happen?

If I can’t escape the conversation at that point, I just see if I can work in all of the names of the seven dwarves to entertain myself.

“Just thinking about that makes me Sleepy…” etc.

They won’t notice if it’s done well and even if they do notice, what are they gonna do?

Somebody once tried to sell a box that would cancel all your streaming services and only fire the account back up for a month at a time when you wanted to stream something. It was a phenomenal idea with a genuine problem worth solving, completely torpedoed by the fact of the box costing $400 up front and I think requiring its own subscription.

Good and bad can coexist in a worldview. Teach your kids that they should love their neighbors but your neighbors are all white and straight (-presenting), etc. They were terrible in aggregate in a lot of ways, but there was solid agreement that Nazis could go fuck themselves. If boomers wish their kids would listen to them more, maybe they should remember their own parents’ stances on fascism.

Row 2 would kick in the teeth of Row 3 if they saw them voting for fascists like they keep doing.

That’s a very fair point. But even that level of “nuance” I think can be lost on an audience of many millions in a generation where a large proportion of kids make it to college without ever having read an entire adult-level book cover to cover.

This is exactly why I had to stop watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It’s brilliantly written satire most of the time, but I know people are getting the wrong ideas from it and laughing at truly despicable behavior that they’re going to emulate first for ironic humor, then eventually just because it’s hedonistically rewarding.

Except that you can draw whatever you want and it can be different each time in theory. Some may enforce consistency, but there’s no legal requirement of it.

I used one a million years ago when I was a teenager and I hated it because it legit sounded like a lawnmower. Are they still so insanely loud?

I was at a grocery store back when you had to sign the little digital screen for a card transaction and I finished signing, but the cashier got distracted and didn’t accept the signature for a while, so I just doodled Godzilla trashing a skyscraper next to my name.

My best friend was there with me and from that day forward, I’m not sure if he’s ever signed something without adding a Batman logo.

Signatures are arbitrary.

Pretty much this, if I remember correctly. Because of this linguistic feature, they have an exceptionally well-developed sense of absolute direction and basically know at all times which way is which.

Bob fell out of the boat. Which side? The south side. Turn the boat 90° clockwise. He’s still off the south side of the boat.

Didn’t you read it? I lost my game boy games. And my Game Boy Micro. Rare shit.