I wanted to design bridges. I design bridges.

Depends on if this is work or not.

If it is work and I’m pressed for time, I usually start to interrupt them and give a summary based on what I know and ask them to fill in any gaps.

It can be disorienting for some staff because I can tell that they practiced trying to lay out everything perfectly so that I can understand them and that they have problems trying to parse everything out to create the delta between what they know and what I know.

If the USA was going to pick another language, it would be German.

A lot of initial theory was written when the idea of complex markets and how they functioned was a relatively new idea. Compared to previous economic systems that were implemented, capitalism involved a lot less government involvement.

Crony Capitalism came about as an idea when established companies found it was cheaper to buy off the government for a better regulatory environment.

In theory you can have capitalism without crony capitalism, but it generally requires political power to be very diffuse and not concentrated in certain industries.

I feel like part of the problem was that Microsoft tried porting instant messaging and video calling services into the Office suite for decades and it didn’t stick. I remember previous attempts like Skype for business and Lync, with few people in the companies I worked at incorporating it into their workflows.

It took COVID and full remote work to push people into using a program like Zoom over SMS and phone calls. Once most of corporate America switched to using Zoom for conference calls, Microsoft had to rush out a new product that could unseat Zoom quickly.

The official name for Mexico is the United Mexican States, a similar name to the United States of America but focused on the region of Mexico, the area which has Mexico City and the State of Mexico.

The problem with applying this to the USA is that, unlike Mexico, the USA was a collection of various colonies with different political and religious traditions coming together rather than the more unified viceroyality of Mexico.

Using words like Atlantic or Piedmont wouldn’t work well as the words described the colonies as is but the nation was partially rebelling to be able to settle lands on the other side of Appalachian Mountains.

Columbia might work as the word was used as a by label for the USA, so the United States of Columbia. This would likely cause Gran Colombia to choose a different name for their country.

Outside of Columbia, I can’t think of a name which would act as a label in which all colonies would agree.

Except during seismic events.

Depends on the sand.

That’s also generally more the geotechnical engineer’s call.

Viagra was originally meant to treat hypertension.

I’m a structural engineer. It is part of the job.

I’ve been mostly right.

I wished I worked out more right now. My problem is that I’m spending more and more spoons on my job and I don’t have enough remaining to exercise.

Tracking devices like Apple Tag.

It has its uses, but it can also be used to track people without them being aware.

Yeah. I wouldn’t expect people who want algorithm-fed video to switch to a text based platform like Lemmy.

Yep

16 - parents

I taught a friend how to drive and he was in his mid 20’s when I taught him.

Flying back from Vegas and the flight I was on got cancelled. They drew out the process to cancel it so that it didn’t get cancelled until another flight already took off. They gave hotel vouchers, but so late that it wasn’t worth it getting a hotel for 5 hours. They played loud music in the airport to keep people from sleeping.

Also had a flight going back home after Christmas that was so delayed I ended up driving back.

A decent first step is trying to figure out what the picture looks like.

What kind of job do you want? What kind of family do you want? What kind of place do you want to live? What hobbies or activities do you want to do? The picture will be blurry and that is ok.

From that, you can start to plan out what you need to do to make that picture. Do you need a certain education? Do you need to live in a certain part of the world? Do your goals match your drive? Are your goals reasonable?

And it is fine if your picture changes over time. It does for everyone. However, having a picture gives you something to plan against.

The tactic hasn’t worked for the party, but it has worked for me.

I feel like the administration has been trying to provoke violent retaliation against ICE and keep being disappointed that the only deaths are from the other side.

Probably kinda.

I imagine that someone who can’t draw for crap using AI to create the visual component to their stories. They may also use AI to create character “voices” who say things in their specific manner

Manga production costs drop as a writer doesn’t need as many skills to write them and the AI handles more of the heavy lifting when it comes to generating content.

Eventually one of these slop mangas becomes popular enough to get animated. Since it is animated, it becomes a lot easier to make. My guess is that the beginning looks like AI empowered rotoscoping, human actors provide the movements which become the basis of animated characters. You can even do voice modulation too, so the vocal performance gets swapped to the right voice.

These animes might be less popular, but if they are being made at a fraction of the cost of human animation.