I definitely learned that working with a law firm once. I could have set them up something more secure with an open source stack but what they really wanted was a company to blame if things weren’t as secure as I promised.

I imagine that’s why a lot of governments and big companies pick a big corporate vendor when it’d be cheaper and better to hire people. There’s less liability if you can blame a vendor than a specialist in the event something goes haywire.

I’m going to give a sincere answer.

Usually AWS (or Vercel and Mongo Atlas if it’s a Node/MongoDB situation or an early dev situation). I forget all the brand names the other cloud providers use and have to do a search for “EC2 equivalent Azure” or whatever. You can’t be an expert in everything, after all. Plus, Azure has admin pages where I have to use Chromium instead of Firefox and it’s like, “Come on, assholes.” I don’t mind Google Cloud but it’s rarely cheaper and I can’t justify it to someone paying me.

I know Amazon is evil. I cancelled my Washington Post subscription — I lived in DC so I kept it longer than most would — because Jeff Bezos is a fucking menace. But you kind of have to pick one or keep a chart on your desk with all the different brand names and what equals what.

Just use open source. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. I’m a full stack developer and I’ve never given Microsoft a dime.

Well, truth be told, my gaming PC came with Windows and I did buy Flight Simulator but I felt dirty after and some of the silly airplane peripherals weren’t working right with Fedora so I kept it dual boot. That was before Steam Deck and Proton, though, so I should probably test it all again.

I’ll intensively use his wife if he fucks with the hydrogen line.

I might be the poster child for medicinal use. I never really enjoyed getting high and I’ve gone to many Dead and Company and Widespread shows. So, I’m not an amateur or in favor of restricting drugs but I normally just say “No thanks.” when I’m the rotation. Most strains make me itchy or tired and antisocial. Everyone’s brain chemistry is different. For me, I either had fun or (more often) just felt miserable.

When I developed an anxiety disorder, I tried everything else. And some pharmaceutical pills do work but it takes like 30 minutes for a pill to work. But I found a strain and dose that works in 2 or 3 minutes. I’m not saying everyone will have the same experience but it should be legal everywhere. People who don’t even smoke recreationally testify that it’s got fewer negative side effects and helps. If it were a novel drug, it’d easily get FDA clearance.

A lot has gone backwards since then but at least cannabis is legal in most places (even if only medicinally). I have a prescription and being able to know the strain and dose is actually really important.

I just have random anxiety attacks and a small-to-medium dose of Granddaddy Purp works better than any traditional medicine I’ve tried. Benzos just make me sleep. I can at least function with the right dose and strain and I can be certain about it buying from a dispensary. And my case is minor. It’s way more important for people with stomach cancer or whatever who have no appetite. The right dose and strain makes them hungry and happy. I don’t think there’s an equivalent pharmaceutical. Every state/country should make medicinal marijuana legal. Otherwise, people buy it off a dealer and can’t measure the dose or know the strain.

South Carolina used to do that. Like even at fancy restaurants, they would open an airplane bottle to make your cocktail.

Desus and Mero interviewing David Lettermn is one of the most perfect interviews ever. https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/video/xnvqVqcIjAlW6JjWbCWqSFiN_BB484EG/

I’m sure it’s on a free service but it’s one of the finest moments in TV history.

There was a time when I didn’t know what those words meant either and I strongly encourage blissful ignorance over doing research only to come away more ignorant. Every time you don’t know what something on the Internet means, read a scientific paper or another few pages of Tolstoy or visit a museum. You’ll be a happier, healthier person.

Wait until they cut Medicaid. People are going to be gnawing on rechargeable AA batteries like it’s chewing tobacco. Maybe C or even D batteries if they need more OnlyFans subscriptions to make rent. It’s going to be like when N.O.R.E. found out Doja Cat was in racial chat rooms showing feet. People are going to find out their crazy but hot girlfriend ate whole car batteries for 8chan.

This is the America Ted Cruz wants. Vote for me and I will make sure Doja Cat gets the purest lithium.

You can get lithium from the pharmacy if you act crazy enough. Farm fresh lithium too, not some old phone battery lithium.

I’m glad my old, non-smart one still works fine. It slams into things and says, “Roomba needs help” or something when it eats a sock or wire I missed. But at least it will outlast the company’s servers.

Yale just put a scholar on paid leave because an article by an A.I. powered, pro-Israel site claimed she was a member of a sanctioned group that she apparently isn’t actually a member of. Assuming all that’s true — it was in The NY Times — the investigation should take 5 minutes, max. It was an A.I. hallucination on a fake news site. Case closed.

Plus, Yale has endowment worth over $40 billion and the scholar was part of a project that was 100% privately funded by donors. I’m somewhat sympathetic to schools with limited resources caving to pressure from politicians and major donors but Yale could absolutely take a stand. They could probably just threaten to get rid of legacy admissions and have most of Congress, SCOTUS, and political donors in a tizzy over having to send their idiot failsons to a state school.

And, yet, in that time, consumers paid more for telecommunication services and basically the main innovations they got were touchtone phones replacing rotary ones and higher bills. Bell Labs being a success story doesn’t mean Ma Bell shouldn’t have been broken up.

If consumers are paying extra to a monopoly anyway, just fund university labs and non-university research agencies (which we do). We have dozens of equivalents to Bell Labs. There’s no reason to rely on monopolists for innovation.