“tenets” … I thought you were giving me housing advice.

Yeah, a bit of an over reaction. I reread your original comment about sauteing and it was not phrased at all as criticism, but as a suggestion. Don’t know what provoked that wall of defensiveness.

Isn’t that like an ancestrally appropriate thing for Mongolian rulers? Where did he go? Bagdad? Would have thought they’d be proud of him.

Oh no no no … The younger generation of Australians DON’T eat Vegemite. Consequently, they’re growing weak and unhealthy.

Isn’t that salsa? That’s literally vinegar pickled bruscheta. Well, I guess it’s got jalapeno.

Or you talking like a spread made from pickled cucumbers? That sounds a lot like relish.

No… Not at all. “gae” Vs “gahgged”. Gay has a hard A, gagged had a soft A. Plus gagged had a ‘gg’ sound in the middle, and also a D sound at the end. Actually, the only thing they have in common is starting with a G.

Do they sound the same to you?

IIRC putaine (used by the connector above), salope, merde. Basically calling things sluts and whores and saying shit.

I’ve taken this approach with my kids, and although none are teenagers, I’ve still never got any kickback. For a while now they will even self report and call me if rubbish comes on. Actually, at this point they’d just change it to something quality themselves. I wonder if the reasons I don’t like certain videos has sunk in for them, and they’re just not interested in weird stuff now? A couple of them push with computer games though. I’m clear and consistent in allowing no first person shooters yet, but they try to get away with it if they think I’m not paying attention.

Isn’t this them fighting? Like, not full blown savaging each other, but a challenge and a display of dominance? You can see that Jumpy looks ready to fight in some of his hops.

… You might be right. He has a weird accent, and if he pronounced the ‘a’ like an American and swallowed the ‘gg’ …

Or maybe that’s the secret do defeating the Conservatives? “We can totally make an LNG pipeline to the coast, but … err … that would make you all pretty gay.”

The French would not say that. They swear, but the religious swears are the domain of the Quebecois. Anyway, surprised the waiter even said, “non.” I’m my experience more likely to say they didn’t understand you and then ignore you.

Delicious In Dungeon. Blue-Eyed Samurai (it’s French).

Cool. I went to a Vietnamese restaurant and ate cow bones/tendons/guts soup once. Actually, lots of times.

People from the Bible times lived longer.

Sublime too!

Madazalam. I’ve been admitted that stuff twice in a surgical setting. At the time and immediately post-op, I swore I was fine. Looking back: I was not fine.

No. The skeletons in the dark ages stopped going to the Roman baths, which being slightly acidic due to the urine content were slowly dissolving them.

I really haven’t used AI that much, though I can see it has applications for my work, which is primarily communicating with people. I recently decided to familiarise myself with ChatGPT.

I very quickly noticed that it is an excellent reflective listener. I wanted to know more about it’s intelligence, so I kept trying to make the conversation about AI and it’s ‘personality’. Every time it flipped the conversation to make it about me. It was interesting, but I could feel a concern growing. Why?

It’s responses are incredibly validating, beyond what you could ever expect in a mutual relationship with a human. Occupying a public position where I can count on very little external validation, the conversation felt GOOD. 1) Why seek human interaction when AI can be so emotionally fulfilling? 2) What human in a reciprocal and mutually supportive relationship could live up to that level of support and validation?

I believe that there is correlation: people who are lonely would find fulfilling conversation in AI … and never worry about being challenged by that relationship. But I also believe causation is highly probable; once you’ve been fulfilled/validated in such an undemanding way by AI, what human could live up? Become accustomed to that level of self-centredness in dialogue, how tolerant would a person be in real life conflict? I doubt very: just go home and fire up the perfect conversational validator. Human echo chambers have already made us poor enough at handling differences and conflict.

Hey, I know i am definitely a fiend, but do you really think we all are?

I can’t wait for the Roman Empire to collapse. The climate is changing, rural people are poor and discontent. It’s all bullshit and we’ve been sold a lie by the imperial elites When they finally stop manipulating our local economy we can bring manufacturing back to Britain.

(Seriously though, manufacturing collapsed, but peasant skeletons got healthier in the centuries after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It makes you wonder.)