About to do a Winston draft this weekend with my BiL. 3pk Crimson Vow, 3pk Karlov Manner, which feels like a reasonable thematic match (and it's what I've got laying around). Plus a few promo packs thrown in for extra spice.

Very excited! Haven't been able to go draft for real for a few months since my latest child was born.

Hoping to pull a Sorin for the wifey while we're at it.

Yeah it was pretty much this.

"He said he'll flatten it!"

What, like as opposed to the dems, who will write a very strongly worded letter after the bombs they send over are used to flatten the place?

"Well yeah at least they're writing that letter! Better than no letter! "

Yeah I was about to make a similar post - just had a big debate with some older family friends at a party my parents had that are die-hard dems (which was nice, as they're way further left then most other people there).

They were aghast when I said I wasn't voting blue, and had no idea who Claudia or the PSL are, of course.

Got a lot of "this is the most important election ever" and "if he wins democracy is over" of course. But the one that really chapped my biscuits was saying that if he wins, then [my family member] will lose access to reproductive health care and IVF in particular.

So I said yeah right, neither side is going to change a damn thing about that, because they both see it as way too valuable of a carrot/stick to give up campaigning and fundraising on it. If the dems care so much about it, why haven't they actually done anything about it?

"Well Biden's wanted to, but he's been hamstrung by the extremist right!"

So what about those years when he had full congressional majority?

"Oh well yeah, I mean I guess he could have done more there..."

And then we got called away to the rest of the party and never got to continue.

Bonus points for my insistence that both parties intend on continuing the genocide - but ofc he is going to do it worse somehow. When I said I'm not going to vote for Genocide Light™️, they said, "Hell yeah I am! It's better than the other option!", and I sadly beat a dead horse a little more about there actually being more options available and maybe you actually don't have to put your stamp of approval on genocide-with-rainbow-flag-characteristics.

Also bonus-bonus points for one of the two (very sweet, kickass person generally) asking "So what does genocide mean again?" in a completely honest, non-hostile way, indicating that they simply had not engaged with even the thought of such a thing happening before this conversation.

And these are the two that always get in trouble for being too vocal about their left-ish political opinions at these functions.

I've had both over the last few years, and while the cooking experience is not all that different tbh, the one thing that bugs me about my current glass-top electric stove is that the surface is so flat that my ever-so-slightly warped carbon steel pan doesn't sit flat and rocks all over the place and doesn't heat evenly. I've basically been unable to use it since moving here, and it's my favorite pan. :(

But if I had my choice, I'd ofc go induction, but between the other two I'd still go electric, just for the fumes alone. But I'll probably be way less hot on the idea of glass-tops in the future, that's for sure.

I've had both over the last few years, and while the cooking experience is not all that different tbh, the one thing that bugs me about my current glass-top electric stove is that the surface is so flat that my ever-so-slightly warped carbon steel pan doesn't sit flat and rocks all over the place and doesn't heat evenly. I've basically been unable to use it since moving here, and it's my favorite pan. :(

But if I had my choice, I'd ofc go induction, but between the other two I'd still go electric, just for the fumes alone. But I'll probably be way less hot on the idea of glass-tops in the future, that's for sure.

Really such a bizarre way to word a policy initiative.

Like, "oh we need to give billions in bank bailouts in order to protect the wealth of all the ~[black]~ hedge fund managers! See! We're doing this for racial justice!"

I mean I guess? Seems like the people you'd want to be blocking in the first place are the exact type of people you'd expect to have a whole clown car full of obnoxious burner accounts in the first place. And FB and IG make more sense because those accounts are (at least theoretically) real id linked - you're not supposed to be able to just go make more accounts on a whim, and you're setting the privacy on posts to only show to mutuals. Just seems like the flimsiest protection imaginable.

And yeah obvs bellend does this stuff to help his impressively stupid followers, and it's definitely dumb, but I'd be a thousand percent surprised if he hasn't made the engineers over there work insane overtime hours just to hardcore his account with godmode viewing and posting powers. Hell, we saw the code for white(!)-listed hate speech filter bypass for him and his buddies, so they're clearly not above it.

Just seems like a really surface level thing to worry about that doesn't really affect any degree of safety or privacy. Still, stupid, yes.

I think someone just had a goofy meme idea and a made a silly, and then it stuck because it looks silly and lessens the pain of having to see that daft bastard's crufty mug again.

Already more thought than that turd-through-a-playdoh-spaghetti-machine-for-brains dork-waffle deserves, tbqh.

: "something something context of everything before you or whatever"

: "oh bet?"

Maybe I'm missing something, but I've found it very strange the concern over this change. I mean, it's only for public posts, which they could see if they just logged out or switched to a burner account anyways? Like, if it let them send a message or comment on posts, or see posts for followers only or something, I'd see the issue, but it doesn't seem like that aspect of the feature was all that meaningful anyways. Am I wrong?

I mean I assume if it's a big public priority of it's probably something terrible, so there must be more to it than how I'm understanding it currently.

Just to clarify, they were uncropping a version that was just the top half of the original picture, so the differences were in the part it "reimagined", not changing things that were already there (in what it was given).

Still, obviously, and I cannot stress this enough - yikes.

Haha I just got a side-eyed code comment the other day because I named a variable in a migration AffectedAsses (something about assessments).

"Let's change this to not be crude" they said. Boo. I'm affecting all their asses with the next one.

Shakhouska is the goddamn bomb. It’s the epitome of dish that’s super easy to put together but tastes great and makes you look like a way better chef than you actually are.

Adding this to the family recipe server. Thanks!

Another option, for an actually reasonably authentic cookbook: The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen https://www.amazon.com/Sioux-Chefs-Indigenous-Kitchen/dp/0816699798

First off, I would say to stop thinking about it as being easy or relaxing. It's an active practice, and it takes a lot of work to get started.

In most mindfulness practices, you aren't really trying to just empty your head and think of absolutely nothing the whole time - the point is more that you are intentionally focusing on one thing (your breath, or a candle flame, or the feeling of love or whatever), and when your mind wanders, which it will constantly, the whole practice is about recognizing that and bringing your focus back to where you want it to be. Boom, one rep. Your mind wanders again, you see that and bring it back. Another rep.

So the idea really is not that you are emptying your mind, but rather that you are training your focus to go where you want it to go, and eventually to stay there better.

It's like training to hold a kettle bell at arms length. When you start off its just hard, and you won't be able to do it long, but by putting the weight back up and trying again, you're getting stronger in those muscles, and the next time you can do it longer. Similarly, you can really only train so much at once, and you're going to need to take a break and come back again later. In many ways, that's the reps that you are doing, which is to come back to the practice again after being away. You do all you can for one day, and then when you come back and sit down the next day, boom that's a rep.

It's a thing that doesn't really get easier, you just get better at doing it.

Your focus is a muscle, and you're probably not used to training on it so specifically. Much like how if you go out and play a sport or just roughhouse with some friends, you're using your muscles and getting stronger, but you're not specifically training your muscles, and that type of training will only make you so strong. If you want to be able to bench press 200 lbs or whatever, you'll almost certainly never be able to do that just by playing a lot of baseball at the park; you need to go to a gym and use the equipment in a very particular way. Similarly, if you want your focus muscle to be able to instantly drill down and focus on a particular thing and hold it without wavering, then you need to sit in zazen and practice directing and holding your focus, and the breath is the perfect target for that - largely because it is truly boring, but it's always there, and you can feel it, and you will know exactly when you are not focused on it.

The kinda side benefit of making that focus muscle strong is that you get way better at using it without even trying. You'll be able to at least be present in the moment with minimal or zero effort as your practice develops, and then down the road you'll be able to achieve the full meditative state at will, even just standing in line at the grocery store or when you are experiencing something you really want to be present for. It gets hard to turn off, eventually. By that point you'll know what to do with it, but you will definitely not be the same.

I feel like all the magic has flowed down into the smaller regional burns at this point. Those are obviously hit or miss depending on your local scene, and you don't get quite the same huge community pieces as the big burn, but there's usually plenty enough to keep you busy just checking everything out for the whole event anyways, let alone a thousand times that if you really get involved with volunteering/organizing. Hell in a previous state I lived in, there were a few smaller local burns and then a bigger state-wide one, so even then you could kinda pick and choose how big and crazy of a thing you wanted to attend/do.

I need to start looking at local options around here...

They call em rogues, they travel fast and alone. One hundred foot faces, of God's good ocean gone wrong...

My favorite line on this subject: only call the police when the situation would be improved by the addition of an easily frightened maniac with a gun.

That is to say, usually don't.