Raptorpat

kid won a slot in the pre-K lottery

happy birthday @JehutyNinja and/or @Judy

happy birthday @no members to show!

the short of it is that fast-track totalitarian overhauls tend to backfire monkeypaw style Mao's "great leap forward" probably led to more human death and suffering than any other single event in history

my undergrad capstone course was about various efforts by totalitarian governments to create utopias, and the dystopias that resulted

happy @mochi day

Lots of things happening at once. Lots of things happening outside my control. Lots of things happening in my control that I don't have energy for because I'm anxious about all the other things.

happy birthday @QueenoftheDorks and @TwistedSister!

my anxiety is also high

do you think this resulted in any accidents from people who didn't realize it was cringely out-of-context yoda-speak

happy belated birthday @Vamped @Satou Kazuma and @GaiusIuliusCaesar!

Happy birthday @Heshi

happy birthday @PerfectFlowingHair and @BlueNeptune777!

technically yes

the sinuses are swelling more than they are filled with goop you either gotta relieve the swelling or relieve the pressure of the swelling by embiggening its boney prison

idk I was reading things like Jurassic Park and LotR in elementary and middle school, and they were good and fun and people thought I was reading ahead of the curve at the time. But the moment something was required in class it became a chore, and then when it escalated that the broccoli wasn't even being disguised in kid shit, I guess that was it for me.

It was probably a combination of (a) being forced to read it in the summer, (b) the heavy handed allegory, and (c) just not being emotionally ready for that kind of literature. I just remember how the English teacher was making such a huge deal out of the fact that the doctor was constantly described as fat to draw a connection to greed, and in my head I remember thinking that characterization seems mean to fat people. I think I liked Old Man and the Sea, or at least it was impactful enough that I would dwell on parts of it after the fact. But I was uninterested in English/Lit as a kid, I remember when we started reading To Kill a Mockingbird in 10th grade and that as an adult I'd definitely categorize as super important literature but I just remember the first chapter or prologue being about the mystery of the Boo Radley House and being intrigued about that like haunted house setup, then feeling like there was a huge bait and switch where the book immediately sidetracked into "grownup things" and didn't circle back to the fun mystery until the end. Maybe I was a textbook case as to why English class was important, I had zero intellectual curiosity.

I never read that book in school I do remember how much I hated The Pearl by John Steinbeck, which was required summer reading (possibly why I hated it) before 9th grade.

hbd to muttley and all his birthday twins

I'm just sitting here and thinking to myself, not sure how you would draw anything but a fairly conservative line on how to legally distinguish it. To the extend that it's a "I know it when I see it" that entails a lot of subjectivity, I feel like the only reasonable line is probably similar to defamation where you have to litigate the absolute truth and the intended harm etc. which is a high bar and an even higher bar when you're talking about the enhanced speech rights that media and politicians have (in the context of defamation).

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/04/trump-tariffs-nintendo-switch-00006655

the frequency and size of mandatory game updates are killing me. I have to clear space on my shitty moto G7 every time and it's getting to the point where I don't have unused or unnecessary apps to sacrifice when clearing every cache isn't enough.