Interesting that no one mentioned antidepressants. They’re more long term uppers, but I still would broadly put them in the “upper” category.

This happens in Canada as well. The way I see it is it’s supposed to show support for the candidate in question.

Ah, thanks, I’ll try this later

I had a CS6 license. Then suddenly it stopped working. And I can’t reactivate it because they shut down the fucking activation servers.

When it comes to updates, it’s shifted in that direction in the last while. But updates are just one aspect, and with just about every other aspect, they’re awful. Look at the way they fuck over independent repair shops. Look at the way they lock down their systems. And look at the way they make their devices as difficult as possible to repair. Then, look at the way they are pioneers at these practices. It used to be standard that you could install what you want on devices you bought and paid for. Apple was the company who drove the idea into the mainstream that the manufacturer could artificially restrict what you can install on your device. Same applies to having control over the OS. Same applies to the headphone jack. Same applies to repairability. They’ve been consistently spearheading the most destructive trends in the areas of user rights and environmental impact.

It’s been a slow March in that direction for sure. This is sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

The US is now third world country in my books.

That’s just nonsense. If it’s a group effort, it means that they achieved it together. If I did 70% of a project and someone else did 30%, it was a group effort, and we achieved the goal together.

Sounds like what I’ve been dreaming of for a while. Curious to see how things work out.

I’m pretty sure it’s so that they look better.

Lol, I meant how they got their supplies of the drug.

More information:

Also,

Christa Gail Pike was born on March 10, 1976, in Beckley, West Virginia. According to Liliana Segura of The Intercept, she was raped by a neighbor at age 11, and in 1991 she was sent to a Juvenile Evaluation Center after being placed on probation for breaking into a community center to steal candy.[7]

The center was designed to reform troubled youth. Children earned or lost points based on compliance with rules, and their progress through the program depended on those points. It was promoted as an alternative to more punitive forms of juvenile incarceration. By the 1990s, however, the center had become increasingly punitive, relying on a uniform points‑and‑punishment system rather than behavioral change.[7]

The program proved ineffective for Pike: she repeatedly violated rules, generally in minor ways, and remained there for more than a year, far longer than most children. In the months leading up to her arrest, North Carolina social services removed her from her home after her mother’s live‑in boyfriend physically and sexually abused her.[7]

Just going to leave this here - as with most criminals, she had a traumatic past.

That’s essentially it. They had “better” drugs but supplying them was already a bitch, they had to do it through the backdoor, and then as soon as someone published who the drug was coming from, they stopped supplying it.

The vast majority of the network has at least GoA 2, which is what’s needed for platform doors to work in any serious way.

Most metro infrastructure was built decades before platform doors became practical.

The first platform doors appeared in the 80s, that’s almost half a century ago. Also, there are enough examples where platform doors were retrofitted to existing subway lines. Maybe don’t accuse me of being misleading when you’re writing stuff like that.

Oh, and I never said it makes public transport much more expensive, I wrote it makes it that much more expensive. Two very different statements. Funny you mix them up after accusing me of misleading people. But accusations that are actually admissions, I guess. Never mind that you’re simply looking at the costs of the does themselves, and not the costs of the inflexibility you being into your system by installing these, among others.

Especially the safety one, these barriers are designed with safety standards and they can be pushed from train side with small force

It’s still a barrier, which is exactly the opposite of what you want in an emergency. And it can’t be that easy to push in since if it were, the air pressure from any train going through the station would pop them right off. But even assuming it is that easy to push off, it’s still an extra obstacle in the way, which not only risks slowing things down but also causing a panic.

Our modern rail system doesn’t shut down when some jackass throws something on the tracks

Someone throwing something on the tracks isn’t all too big of an issue though. It’s something that doesn’t happen all too often and is solved fairly quickly. A fairly common cause for delays? Problems with doors. Adding platform doors is roughly doubling the possibility of door problems at every stop.

And interesting you mention the commenter that commented Singapore. Because that person linked to a list of incidents there. And I don’t know if the list is filtered or anything, but it is pretty interesting that over half the incidents listed were either exacerbated or caused by platform doors, including a case where someone got stuck between the train doors and the platform doors and miraculously didn’t get killed when the train left the station.

Honestly, the new outlook is an enshitified outlook from all I can tell. Built as a web app (with resource usage to match), looks nice, but with less functionality. I really hope we can keep the standard outlook as long as possible.

It doesn’t need something like this to prevent these kinds of accidents, light gates on the train doors (which are standard in most subways nowadays) would have prevented this from happening. But even without, let’s not forget, this is a freak accident.

As to those platform doors, they’re actually not that common, and for good reason:

• It’s an additional cost, making public transit that much more expensive.

• It adds another layer of complexity and mechanics that can stop working and cause a disruption, meaning more delays.

• It requires very precise stopping, making (very fine grained) automated train operation a necessity and adding another layer of problems when the automated systems fail.

• It seriously reduces flexibility, since future railcars either have to have the exact same door configuration, or the doors have to be rebuilt. If the door configuration changes, everything has to be done in a “big bang”, since you can’t have multiple door layouts on the system at the same time, which has a whole series of knock-on effects.

• In emergencies it makes evacuations more difficult.

…and I’ve probably missed a few points, as well.

There’s actually an option in Outlook to prevent that from happening which I definitely use. I want to be able to see the invitation in my inbox, so that I can see when it arrived, when which updates came, etc.

The only problem: that option isn’t available AFAIK in the “new” outlook. Goddammit Microsoft.

In the east, these used to be in bars all over the place. Bars loved them, because they rarely had to be replaced. The only problem: customers had way too much fun throwing these glasses onto the floor and watching them not break… Until they eventually did, because everything breaks at some point.

Some (possibly incomplete) thoughts:

I think stuff like urban planning and designing walkable environments would be cool, but I’m not sure if that’s a viable path in 2027 and beyond.

So you have the option of looking outside the country? Because there are definitely countries (especially in Europe) who are doing a lot on that direction, that might offer something interesting. Also, tuition will be lower almost everywhere outside the US, so you don’t put on nearly as much debt, for the case that it ends up being the “wrong” degree. Plus, your chronic health issues would likely be much better taken care of there.

I also used to be interested in programming, but ever since AI and mass layoffs hit the scene, I’ve become disillusioned and stopped pursuing that path.

Depending on your situation, you might still be able to learn programming and build your skill set by contributing to the open source works. With some luck, the AI bubble will burst and we’ll be somewhat back to something normal again, where “normal” programmers will be needed.

Is staking your sense of stability on your career the wrong way to think about this?

Generally, you don’t want all your eggs in one basket. Any one thing can break away. I had a job for quite a while which was great and a perfect source of stability, it even helped me through some really dark times. Then things changed and it’s no longer a stability anchor. If I staked my entire stability on that, I would have been a goner. Try to find stability on friends, family (if feasible), hobbies, etc. Of course, that’s much easier said than done, but that is generally the way you want to go.