With shiny new future-tech, “genuinely earnest project” and “elaborate scam” are not mutually exclusive. Those who buy in at the peak of the hype curve are going to get an expensive prototype of dubious real world utility. That’s just how it works. If you’re a gadget hobbyist with disposable income, you knew this; you’…

My suspicion is that Don Jr is too lazy. He’s perfectly content to live that trust fund life. Ivanka strikes me as the type with something to prove, such that she’d put up with the various inconveniences of politics (public appearances, nosy reporters, having to turn up in DC for votes, etc) to be important.

I was 16, and I was competing in a big national tournament. First day ends, I’m totally wiped, but I’m still in contention. I have to be up at the crack of dawn to compete in the finals. My room-mate, however, has not won a match all day. Her tournament is over, so she decides to throw a party. In her room. Where I…

One possible outcome is a coalition of the pro-stability moderates in both current parties, versus a right-wing populism. Blue-collar labor is already there; the evangelical rank-and-file would go along, and a fair chunk of the Sanders vote would too. The sticking point would be getting enough of the Republican donor…

Taking photos is a useful alternative to taking stuff. A digital photo is basically free, you’ll never lose it (assuming you have a backup system in place, and you should have that anyway), you’ll never have to pay movers to lug it around or rent a storage unit for it or clean it or...you get the idea. And you can…

As I understand it, most pollsters aren’t touching this one, because there are so many unknowns. So you have very limited data, on top of whatever the “October Surprise” generator that is 2020 will do.

If she was a complex patient, shouldn’t she have been kept in the hospital, rather than sent home to fend for herself?

If there is one thing I understand about people, it’s this: how they treat others is how they will treat you. I seriously don’t know how this is not universal knowledge, but...it isn’t.

This. What you’re seeing is absolutely everything we’ve got. If money, equipment, and headcount could be diverted to COVID, it was. People were building out manufacturing facilities for vaccines that were little more than sketches on a whiteboard. It was mental.

This can’t be SOP for everything. This is emergency mode.…

Keep in mind that the people who actually design, test, and approve these things hate the anti-facts lunatics. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Trump gotta take credit that he does not even remotely deserve - but keep your eye on the scientists. The scientific community is loudly behind this one, and we are hard to…

Honestly, as an unfuckable woman who is mostly avoided by shitty men, I’ll take my lot over the alternative. Apparently it’s possible for the very socially adept to leverage the attention and turn it into opportunities, but I’m the full-on engineer stereotype; this just wouldn’t be in my social range, even if my…

Indeed. There are awful bosses in the real world, but there’s also HR, and people get fired for being awful. And if you choose the wrong boss, you can find another one. There's not much stigma attached, so long as you don't make a habit of it.

I had that teacher too. Fortunately, after getting a C on the first quiz - apparently Gatsby’s paranoid delusion that some guy on a billboard is staring at him does NOT reflect his guilty conscience, but rather his fear of God’s wrath - I approached the rest of the year with a simple question. Is this more likely to…

When I was in college, I found myself at a fancy event, talking to someone important. She was in a wheelchair, and when she turned around, my leg got trapped between some pointy bits on her chair and a marble column. I handled that part like a total grown-up. Did not make a fuss, instead politely explained the…

A few years ago, I started a new job at a company that makes fancy widgets. The widgets weren’t performing as well as usual, and my team was tearing its hair out trying to figure out why. Long story short, someone hadn’t changed a filter. Millions of dollars of product recalls, months of frustration, and a genuine…

+1. I almost feel bad for Melania - she’s shallow, not evil, and she signed up to be a trophy wife and nothing more. Most first ladies knew going into their marriage what duties were expected of a politician’s wife; it wasn’t dropped in their laps by surprise. They may not have known that they’d be in the White House,…

My retirement-age parents have decided that Crocs are their jam. They have a closet full of every color they can get, and every day, they match their Crocs (and smartwatch bands) to their outfits. I gave them my blessing to wear them down my aisle, in part so I could watch their/our friends who still have f***s to…

I think I get it. Even in STEM, it’s slightly uncomfortable to be an uninvolved bystander - yeah, I’m here because I find your pain intellectually interesting. (I’m in biotech and have mostly worked on human diseases. Cancer, HIV, etc.) In the humanities, it’s even harder to be taken seriously if you can’t claim a pers…

I’m a scientist, my first job was SARS, I’m involved with this too. Some points:

As I understand it, some tight-knit religious denominations (think Amish) opt to basically insure themselves. It works because there’s some social pressure involved - it’s understood that if you use the insurance, you’re spending your neighbors’ money. Also, there is a cultural bias against the sort of intensive,…