After an unusually long warm season

Considering the fiasco that was iOS 13.0, followed very swiftly by 13.1, it’s pretty obvious that they rushed this release out the door. Of course, you start to realize why when you look at all those shiny new iPhones that coincided with this release—all those new hardware features aren’t going to function on iOS 12.

It’s really quite simple: find a recipe that includes proper seasoning. There are a hell of a lot of herbs and spices beyond excessive amounts of salt and sugar.

Yeah, me too. And, honestly, I think the tax credit for those who paid their students loans might be a step in the right direction, especially if the amount could be spread out over several years.

He described the plan as aimed at removing the government from the student loan business, which does raise the question of whether a bunch of predatory private-sector lenders would just immediately rush into the breach

I was told similar tales many years back, but at a Target in the women’s restroom.  Just...yuck.

Honestly, having been around a couple of children who are extremely picky eaters—that is, who like and dislike entirely random foods (will be okay with some healthy foods, then decide they entirely hate some junk foods and vice versa)—I imagine sometimes the battle is just getting a child to goddamn eat, so you’re…

Once the “newness” wears off, since these changes are being used to promote the latest Mac OS, I imagine Apple will eventually release these separate apps for PC users too, as there are a lot of PC users with iOS devices. I would expect iTunes to be supported by Apple in the interim.

Meanwhile, the people (mis-)managing the cities are making them horrendously expensive to live in, forcing people like me think about moving out. And guess what that probably means? Driving. Landlords, property developers and the crooked politicians that enable them certainly aren’t going to “do their part” to help…

“Senf” is the German word for “mustard.”  It appears to be a European stock photo.

Really, “boomer and millennial” is just lazy shorthand for “old and young.” The equally overlooked Silent Generation (1928-1945) and the rapidly dying Greatest Generation (1901-1927) did plenty of good and bad in their days too.

Actually, Gros Michel bananas still exist. They’re just not common in the West where we mostly only have access to mass-produced bananas, which are all Cavendish now.

For visitors, private travel insurance is common in this circumstance, because, although these countries have socialized medicine, they generally won’t cover astronomical U.S. medical costs. Canadian retirees who might spend months each year in Florida do this.

The biggest problem is that all the “young candidates” have been seriously underwhelming. I get that Biden’s popularity largely rests with his name recognition (and his numbers have been getting worse with time), but what does it say that his only two main competitors have been Sanders and Warren? There’s a real…

I understand the concern here. On the other hand, I think the consequences would end up being that stores would stop carrying a lot of unique international brands altogether.

I think a lot of it is related to a general lack of trust in authority that arose in the 1960s and 1970s between JFK’s assassination (and conspiracy theories), then Watergate culminating in Nixon’s unprecedented resignation.

I love antiques and despise mass-market minimalism—to hell with bland, white-walled condos!

An awful lot of government is basically held together by old standards of aristocratic etiquette and “gentlemen’s agreements.” I think, perhaps, our founders just couldn’t conceive of a society breaking down so substantially that they’d need to have explicit laws covering everything—and, yet, Plato was able to…

In a broader sense, nothing ever gets changed unless it’s an issue that affects the upper middle class, since these are the folks who make up our media and political elite.  It’s rotten as hell, but it holds true every time.

Well, and you know why that is. FPTP is why Canada has a revolving door of Liberal and Conservative governments. Why would either of these parties want to stop the gravy train?