Yeah, I usually buy cheap drug store readers and break them regularly. Even the ones with spring hinges can’t seem to cope with my head size. I should probably go get proper fitted glasses, but I also misplace them all the time and would worry about spending the big bucks on something I’d lose in a week.

Indeed, I do look for the tall sizes when I’m buying dress shirts. I generally have no problem there. It’s more with casual wear where there is not enough choice.

I’m 6’2" and have a fairly long torso compared to leg length. So I’m ok on pants but shirts can be a problem. I have noticed that with T-shirts, the difference between XL and XXL is all in the width and not length. This is not helpful.

I have a big head and have trouble with hats. Particularly ball caps. They are supposed to be one-size-fits-all, but apparently, I am an exception to this. Even at the widest possible setting, they are too tight.

I guess the central premise of capitalism is that while every society has its haves and have nots, capitalism is supposed to encourage the haves to invest in the economy rather than hoarding their wealth. In return, they stand to get even wealthier, but a stronger economy ought to generate more employment and generally improve the lives of commoners as well.

Unfortunately, in a never-ending quest to make wealth-generation more efficient and streamlined, employment is being eliminated through automation, outsourcing, etc. and the system is eating itself out from the inside. I doubt it can persist much longer, but what will replace it remains unclear. I pray that it will be something sensible that ensures everyone has their basic needs met and can still find rewarding pursuits in life. But there are so many ways it could go very wrong, and that includes staying on the current course.

A ok. Thanks for the clarification.

I had to look up who was mayor during the pandemic. Bill de Blasio. I just remember seeing an overhead view on CNN and thinking “Is that an honest to god mass grave in NYC?!?” That’s a hell of a legacy.

That’s very interesting. Thanks for the write-up. Reminds me a bit of the premier of Ontario where I am. Started life as a petty drug dealer before getting into right-wing politics, and quickly fell out of popularity cutting services and tearing down wind turbines across the province. But with his career on the rocks, the pandemic suddenly hit. That was basically his 9/11 and people rallied behind him. Never mind that his previous cuts to healthcare had exacerbated the crisis. But he’s back to his douchebag ways now.

Any New Yorkers here? I’m interested in your perspective on Giuliani. I only have a cursory knowledge of him. He first came to my attention when he made headlines busting some crime family as a DA way back when. Then he was in the news a lot as the mayor of NYC during 9/11. He seemed pretty respected at the time? I dunno. And next thing you know, he resurfaces as an enforcer for the Trump administration, winding up getting disbarred and generally shunned by society. I guess I’m curious as to whether he was always a scumbag or grew into the role?

I once knew a guy from the deep south who’d say stuff like yoostacud. I yoostacud run a marathon. I thought that was marvellous! Another one was fixina. I’m fixina get tickets to the game tonight. You in?

Sounds useful in Minecraft. Like you put a sign in a cave “exit widdershins” to tell people to follow the left wall.

It’s been a long time since I got my astronomy degree, but your version is what I recall also. Whatever small rotational perturbation in the initial gas becomes more pronounced as it coalesces in on itself and defines the plane of the star system. Planets form within this plane after it is defined, and they all travel in the same direction around the star.

Regarding galaxies, the most common spiral ones like our own Milky Way follow the same principle at a larger scale. But there are also elliptical galaxies, not to mention irregular ones. In an elliptical galaxy, there is a more random movement of stars in a cloud around its core. So they look more 3D I guess, to go back to what the OP was asking about. I seem to recall the most accepted explanation for how these form is from the aftermath of a collision between 2 spirals? So presumably, when our galaxy collides with Andromeda in several billion years time, the resulting combined galaxy may emerge as an elliptical?

Oh I didn’t know that! I will have to check out the original.

Last time I was on a road trip, the 10-minute-long “Stuck In The Drive-Thru” came up on my stream and about halfway through, my daughter in the back seat goes “Who is this?!? It’s epic!” I think she’s been hooked on Weird Al ever since?

I’m wondering how far I can get learning to play the cajon from YouTube tutorials?

I’d say I kind of suck at this point, but I’m having a good time and it’s early days still.

I’ve actually been having more trouble with Apple Maps lately.

My last trip was to perform at a country fair type thing and it couldn’t locate the venue. So I thought maybe if I put on the satellite view, I could spot it and drop a pin? But the whole area was behind a cloud. Wow.

Then later, when we were returning, it tried to send me on a shortcut through a mall parking into an overgrown field.

When I was first looking into IPv6, people were talking about how you can self-assign an address by simply wrapping an IPv6 address around your MAC address. But that practice seems to have fallen out of favour, and I’m guessing the reason is, as you say, the whole privacy thing? There’s a lot of pushback these days against any tech that makes it easier to fingerprint your connection.

This could be why Obiwan wound up a hermit? (Programmers of my generation at least talk about “Obiwan errors” because his name sounds like “off-by-one”.)

Sometimes people will say “That person’s name!” or “Those group of people!” in anger. “That Donald Trump! How dare he claim immigrants are eating pets?” to give you a current example.

When spoken of a family member or mutual acquaintance with a chuckle, it means more like “That person has some strange quirk but what can you do? We still love him.”

For example, you might hear “That dog! Always chasing his own tail.” So I think this is likely what you were getting from that conversation? It’s certainly not a criticism of your use of the word “people”.

I am not deaf, but this is triggering a pet peeve.

It seems a pretty common occurrence that I will be walking into a restaurant, bar, airport, doctor’s office, or whatever, and there will be a TV on a news channel with the sound muted or very low. For F’s sake, put the captioning on! What’s wrong with you?!?