It's so crazy to me, because ChatGPT is a terrible research tool. It'll give you all sorts of false stuff, because if it doesn't find a quick answer it'll invent one. Nor does it have any sense of what constitutes truth or even reality in what it ingests.

I got to see one of your panels - I think it was Character Creation 101? I was the one dressed in the Astarion outfit, off to your left. :)

Always liked that song, but ever since I learned how awful he is I've resorted to only ever listening to covers of it, just so as to avoid Nugent.

7) Empire of Exiles by @erinmevans.bsky.social (2022).

I've talked about this book a lot and yet not enough. In my top 3 epic fantasies I've read in a decade & fantasy fans should read. it.

Great characters, fascinating setting, & well plotted: both individual mystery arcs & series metaplot.

Normalcy bias. People don't realize that these things will have repercussions, and the repercussions will have repercussions. They just assume everything will go on the same way it has in the past.

Normalcy bias. Too many people make inherent assumptions that things won't drastically change because they didn't change before, day to day life has always carried on, etc. Even if they're aware, at some level that connection just doesn't get made, at least not in time.

I think they're trying to do it. That doesn't mean they're going to succeed at it, rather than simply causing all sorts of chaos and devastation that will massively backfire on them.

Everyone should be watching what Democratic politicians do and say now, because at some point they're going to ask us to support them in something, and many will try to pretend they were always at the front fighting back against Trump. Remember who did, and who coddled up to them.

Absolutely. Going along with this just means they're complying in advance and giving legitimacy to the stuff he's doing. It's better to object than to just hand that same power to him willingly, even if that means he'll try to seize the power anyway.

Republicans don't want people to realize that ActBlue is just an intermediary/infrastructure for grassroots donations - they want people thinking it's shady big money manipulators. You know, like the people behind the Republican party.

I'm reminded of a scene from Will & Grace, when Karen's (ultrarich) husband is insisting she live on a budget, which she shows to Grace, who replies, "I think Spain could live on this budget."

That part of the memory people used to use for phone numbers has been replaced with the passwords we now need to remember.

Very much this.

I'm just waiting for the reveal that your cats are secretly your henchmen in your supervillainy scheme.

And then they get upset and blame US when we dare to speak up and push back even just a little, or point out the crappy things they're doing.

They were the ones altering 'the deal' in the first place. Nobody objects to tech or success inherently, they object to abuses and extreme excesses.

Niven and Pournelle were unfortunately very right wing, something I came to realize in hindsight. It's ironic, because I remember reading one of their novels, "Fallen Angels", in the 90s, warning about abandoning science for ignorance - but they thought it'd be the left. Instead it's the right.

I wish I could say that nobody is that dumb, but my experience indicates that some people would drive an hour each way across town to fill up on gas that was 10-20 cents cheaper a gallon, while wasting 3-4 gallons in the process, yet remain utterly convinced they were smart/frugal/saving money.

Someone asking you to use Family+Friends whom you don't actually know is also a red flag for scams, because it makes it much harder (if not impossible) to dispute the transaction when/if you get scammed.