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  Finally got around to reading the NYT article about The Nerd Reich seeking absolution From religious scholars This excerpt brings to mind what is probably the best scene in The Sopranos — when Carmela consults a Jewish psychotherapist who tells her to, "take only the children, what's left of them, and go." She sits with it for a bit, then starts musing aloud about arranging lawyers and child support. He cuts her off telling her it's all blood money — he says he won't take...

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  @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org I grabbed the image you posted, re-uploaded it to Mastodon, used 'add text from image' and it mostly OCR'ed just fine. It only got truly squirrelly when it got to the bar Here's the unedited OCR output

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  Did... did the tree from _The Giving Tree_ write this?

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  I take ketamine for depression. A couple times a week, I take it 2-3 hours before bedtime in our spare bedroom. I've been doing this for a while One side effect at my prescribed dosage is that K makes me amorous. I have no idea if this is common to other people or not, but it's a consistent side effect for me My husband and I have been together for 30 years, We have kids. We have an active sex life. And yet... On the nights that I take ketamine, we always always have a short discussio...

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  A few days ago I was at the airport in Barcelona filling out paperwork to get VAT refunds for purchases made in France, Germany, and Spain The Spain administrivia was handled by a machine scanning a receipt and my passport — the refund hit my credit card before I landed in NYC — but the France and Germany refunds required forms that needed to be stamped, put in envelopes, and dropped in a mailbox right next to the processing area My oldest (27) watched as I tried three times to lick the envelo...

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  After Anonymous leaked the evidence in the Steubenville rape case in 2013 — including the video of the rapists' friends laughing and joking while the rape was ongoing — I sat down with my oldest (then 14) and made him listen to the audio with me. We talked for a long time about what his responsibilities were if he should ever find himself in such circumstances That kid, who coincidentally graduated from Cornell a few years ago, is 27 now Seems to me that a lot of parents missed an easy op...

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  Back in 2016 or thereabouts, my old boss was emailing me from a Board of Trustees meeting at Cornell. They were discussing (among other things) how to deal with reports of sexual assault on campus Back then, a big part of my job was to keep him from saying stupid shit. He shared his recommendation to me privately in one of those emails, and I told him he should never ever ever make that suggestion out loud where anyone could hear it. Even now I cringe just thinking about it In retrospect, his...

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  In most ways I think Europe is so much saner and healthier than the US — I would very much like to figure out how to move here — but there is one respect in which I remain the ugliest of ugly Americans: I am convinced that I could make a fortune selling Charmin and other such luxury toilet paper brands in Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona I know, I know, Europe has bidets (and older plumbing that makes US two-ply stuff untenable) but I wish I'd thought to pack a roll when I left NYC

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  I read this line back in 2017. The US sure seems to have worked out how to turn a significant portion of men into compulsive gamblers "If you were the GDP, your ideal citizen would be a compulsive gambler with cancer who's going through a drawn-out divorce that he copes with by popping fistfuls of Prozac and going berserk on Black Friday." -- Rutger Bregman, _Utopia For Realists_

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  This is a thing that I did not know was happening in Barcelona today when I booked our trip "The correfoc represents the driving out of evil spirits and symbolises the triumph of good over evil with the patron saint providing protection over the city. The fire and noise is believed to purify the strees. The Devils are cultural groups that dress up as devils and parade the streets during certain festivals in Barcelona. La Mercè is one such event. The devils run up the streets with bangers a...

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  The VRBO we're staying at in Barcelona has a rather cool, unique feature The architect, Bonaventura Conill, was a disciple / colleague of Gaudi. When the building went up, it had four stories. Fifteen years later, two more stories were added. The apartment on the sixth floor is (I'm reliably told) the only residence in Barcelona where you can see both Casa Batlló (a spectacular view out the living room window) *and* Sagrada Familia (out the bedroom window) Bonaventura's grandson ow...

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  Because I am an incredibly negligent parent, my oldest kid somehow made it to the age of 27 without ever having heard David Bowie's _Heroes_ But as the XKCD cartoon reminds us, there are on average 10,000 people in the US learning about something cool for the first time every day So today my kid got to enjoy his inaugural listen while standing at the Berlin Wall, which I guess kinda makes up for all my negligence

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  In a world of frogs and scorpions, be neither. Glad these scorpion frames didn't suit me because I might have been tempted Kuboraum in Berlin makes some very interesting eyewear. My kid almost talked me into the stegosaurus frames. Almost

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  @Bwacton@mastodon.social None of the dinners were as memorable as tonight's steak here in Berlin, but I had several of the best baguettes of my life from a place in Paris called Mimo the Baker And I'm pretty sure they must supply a dozen of the nearby restaurants because no matter what time of day we went in, they were piping hot out of the oven, and we saw several people walk out with 30 baguettes at a time Oh, and we had breakfast at La Grappe right across the street from Mimo that...

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  I did not know that when you get what's left of your steak "to go" in Berlin that they give it to you vacuum sealed [Aside, this is the best piece of steak I've had in Europe -- and we just spent four days in Paris]

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  AI is so smart

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  I am in Paris with Kid1. The *only* thing K1 knew he wanted us to do in Paris was go to the Catacombs. He kept saying it'd be like walking through the Tomb in Blue Prince And because tix for the Catacombs go on sale exactly one week before one's preferred entrance time, I stayed up until an ungodly hour (in Las Vegas) to get the "first entry of the day" tickets. I am a Good Mom Three days ago, Kid2 decided he wanted to join us in Paris. His cousin is a pilot so he flies free...

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  Buying a jigsaw puzzle from Germany with the disclaimer: "Die Ecken und Kanten des Dreieckskartons sind leicht angestossen." Per google translate: "...it is in very good condition, the poster is present, and the puzzle pieces are complete. The corners and edges of the triangular boxes are easily triggered." Tough time when even the packaging is struggling

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  RIP to the legend of legends We lost one of the best ones "Singer-songwriter-actress Dolly Parton, whose glittering country music stardom was matched by her pop fame and popular parallel careers in film and TV, died on Aug. 25. She was 80 years old, with her family not releasing a cause of death, but saying she “died peacefully today in Nashville.” https://variety.com/2026/music/news/dolly-parton-dead-dies-country-music-1236842727/

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  @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org I have found more corroded batteries inside home-owned pinball machines than I can remember If people own 3+ machines, their batteries are fine. Those are hobbyists. But the people who own one machine as part of a larger game room? They don't even know their pins *have* batteries [Mine have been replaced with NVRAM chips]

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  I know we've been living in a world of Mad Libs headlines for a decade now, but... This cannot — and I mean CANNOT — be real "Harry Potter fans have forced a new multimillion-pound power cable between the UK and Ireland to be relocated after complaining it would desecrate the “grave” of Dobby, a fictional elf." https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/10/harry-potter-fans-force-relocation-of-430m-undersea-cable-to-avoid-dobbys-grave

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  @20002ist@thepit.social https://mas.to/@kims/116800985400093957

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  NBC calling the race for El-Sayed https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/abdul-el-sayed-wins-michigans-democratic-senate-primary-notching-midwe-rcna589750

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  I wanted to post the pic of Bari Weiss and Sheryl Sandberg in Sun Valley (with Sandberg holding two copies of Fetterman's book) but I threw up in my mouth a little every time I tried to write the alt text

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  Trump Media has officially launched _Truth API_, its new paid data service providing faster access to Trump's Truth Social posts Per the press release, Truth API gives firms "a direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform’s most market-moving Truths" It reportedly costs as much as $100k/mo + + + Setting aside just how illegal this is, anyone who buys this genuinely has zero understanding of Trump His kink is betrayal. If you pay him for this service, he knows you're a...

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  @mattblaze@federate.social @Nshrubs@mstdn.social @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org @smellsofbikes@mastodon.social @blogdiva@mastodon.social When I had shingles 20+ years ago the rash appeared on my chest. I stayed at home wearing nothing but completely unbuttoned shirts, totally open at the front. Slept without a top sheet Even a breeze coming into contact with that skin was agony

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  I'm torn between "they absolutely did this on purpose" and "they are nowhere near competent enough to have done this on purpose" "A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference in Brazil ⁠this week, ​causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online. Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in ⁠Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant ma...

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  Just burn it all the fuck down: "DraftKings and Delta have launched SkyPicks™, a new free-to-play in-flight sports contest that gives eligible customers (21+) an interactive way to engage with sports while they travel." https://www.draftkings.com/draftkings-and-delta-air-lines-launch-skypicks-bringing-free-to-play-sports-experience-to-domestic-flights

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  The line between discernment and purity test continues to mess with me I have two people in my life who, by almost any measure, are to my left politically and are doing far more local and global good than I am. They mentor, they canvas, they donate professional skills. One is a surrogate big sister to dozens of LGBTQ kids who first came out to them. Another is a prolific award-winning author who travels globally giving talks about ableism. Until recently, these people were role models and north...

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  So the person who hacked my email a couple of weeks ago used it to reset the pwd on my American Airlines account and charge 990,000 frequent flyer miles worth of airline tickets This is especially impressive considering there were only 562,000 miles in the account at the time [After a couple hours on the phone with AA and a trip to the police station to file a written report, I'm told the miles should be back in my account in a week or two. Fingers crossed] And yes, I spent most of the da...