This always gets downvotes, so I’ll tell this Indian proverb again. Short version:

Rich guy feels for the beggars. Decides to travel the country and give every one he sees a Rupee. After 20-years of this philanthropy, he is now a beggar himself.

Sound noble? The rich man didn’t improve anyone’s life, only wasted his fortune.

When you acquire that sort of money, by hook or by crook, the only sane way to disburse it is through trusts, scholarships, endowments. Drop a million in the stock market, now you have a never-ending scholarship to give away. Rinse and repeat. The robber barons of old did this and built great things. Apparently they’re too selfish now days. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Also consider, when you’re filthy rich, you have criminals and other scum banging on your door nonstop. You literally have to hire someone to filter the noise. Bezo’s ex seems to have the idea. She seems to be doing solid charity work.

Lemmy: “Fuck her! She should splat it out all at once!”

Return to the proverb in the second paragraph.

And yes, taxation would solve most of these issues. But isn’t politics all about arguing who gets what money for what purposes? We’ve had rich people since the dawn of time, don’t see them magically going away. At least there’s a sane avenue for them doing good works. Dropping it all at once is a childish notion of how charitable wealth works.

Mostly agreed, but if Woz had gone billionaire, he’d have more to give. I wouldn’t pursue such a life myself though.

Reading it now and you’re exactly on point.

You only hear about the ridiculous lawsuits. Local lawyer used to explain it on the radio all the time.

• Media doesn’t report on the 99.98% of boring, and meritorious, lawsuits
• Judges toss frivolous cases
• Lawyers are loath to bring frivolous cases due to reputational harm, even disbarment

Our sense of risk is absurdly out of whack with reality.

This is my argument for government science budgets.

Headline: Scientists Spend Millions Studying Andean Frog Fucking Habits!

“What a waste!”

What if I told you those scientists were making more frogs to study how they can freeze solid and thaw out? Or how limb regeneration works?

Rereading it right now. Fucking bizarre. At this point I just want to see what happens in the last book or two.

That pic on the right? Yeah, that’s Leto II, Paul’s son turned into, mostly, a worm, with a face and tiny hands. Also, he’s going to live about 3,500 years and turn into a mega sandworm, after forcing peace on the galaxy. I assume it gets weirder.

LSD is a whole different game. And you can’t get addicted, impossible. Trip today? Yeah, you’re not tripping again for another couple of days, no matter how much you take.

We American Southerners tend to redneck out among our own, pretty normal otherwise. Ex-wife’s mom from Mississippi would go ALL out when home among friends, sounded like Steel Magnolias up there.

American here. Now you’re just making shit up. :)

I automatically adjust my accent, intensity and vocabulary according to who I’m talking to. Not a thing I think about, but I started doing it when I was in tech support and customer service 20-30 years ago. Same kinda defensive thing, “Hey! I’m just like you and I’m on your side!”

Never thought about women pitching their voices higher. I’ve experienced that, makes all the sense in the world!

America was laughing our collective ass off when this hit:

Trump: The Game

What kills me is GenX and Boomers voting for this conman. We have no excuse not to remember America’s laughing stock, we were there.

What are they, Fremen?!

Many science fiction stories fall back to using rail for transporting goods. Because it’s efficient. Unless we come up with literal magic like anti-gravity, rail it is.

One Saturday morning I was laying in bed thinking about Swatches. They were super cool in 8th grade, but mom wouldn’t buy me one. Didn’t get my first until I graduated high school, the B&W French text version. :) (I have to admit, $30 in 1984 money was quite a bit for a plastic watch.)

Then it hit me. I’m an adult. I’m making good money. I can buy a Swatch! Got on eBay and scored an 80’s model that morning. Now I have 3.

Nothing changed going from IE Edge to Chromium Edge. Say that with a straight face next time.

Microsoft: Kills crappy, insecure browser no one used and everyone hated.

Lemmy: BAD!

That’s what I was taught 35-years ago, but from comments I’ve read, I gather there’s a lot of disagreement in biology these days.

When the batteries drain off they no go bang. Still, pollution.

Comments here aren’t helping, are they?

Also, why is everyone wearing 60s clothes?

You’ll love this!

I deployed an open-source chat system at work, just for convenience. Boss was concerned that it didn’t do any logging and we couldn’t tell who said what.

“You don’t have any records of what we say verbally. What’s the difference?”

“…Oh. Well, you’re right.”

He was coming from a legit concern. We didn’t point fingers when someone screwed up, zero blame, but we needed to know exactly what happened so we could fix it.