@lowqualityfacts That's why they speak in such old-fashioned English.

@alienghic

Thanks, Diane. Hence (as we've all heard a thousand times before) the need for multiple defences: vaccines, masks, ventilation and distancing -- none of which is sufficient by itself, but which are highly effective when used together.

It seems disingenuous to claim that any one of these measures should be discarded because it isn't, by itself, enough to eliminate the risk (and risks) of Covid infection.

@clacke @strypey

@calcifer Trying to avoid an unnecessary question, I searched the Web for "Delores" and ended up at the always-edifying Urban Dictionary. My advice would be: don't do that.

*Shudder*

@ckeen @erinbee In case this has anyone swearing off bananas because of their natural radioactivity, Randall Munroe has come to the rescue:

https://xkcd.com/radiation/

TL;DR: bananas are good for you. 🙂

@alcinnz Another way to look at that is that compilers should minimise the abstraction penalty. If you write beautiful clean code with everything broken down into small functions and classes, the compiler's job is to ensure that you don't pay for your clean code in poor performance.

@eyeling Ah, thanks. I hadn't realised that there was an order of magnitude between the wavelengths you're capturing and the wavelengths used in thermal imaging. Presumably, an object that was almost hot enough to glow red would shine brightly in a near-IR photo, but a healthy cat doesn't come close to that. 🙂

@eyeling Surreal, but beautiful.

May I ask an ignorant question? The cat is the biggest heat source in the photos, so why doesn't he or she glow red? If I were to take equivalent photos with my cheap thermal camera (which, I know, is a different technology), Balu would be by far the brightest object in the frame.

@thenewoil Eww. Presumably, another way of avoiding the unique ID without having to trust anyone you don't already trust is to install Firefox via your Linux package manager.

@david @lioness

Oh, and it's quite normal to spend twenty minutes crafting a toot, right?

@volpeon See also <http://smbc-comics.com/comic/data>.

@david

I'm slightly disturbed by this list of risk factors and the number of them that I recognise.

Self-training to overcome discomfort and be more sociable — isn't that what everyone does? No? Oh.

Could some of these be summed up by the phrases "literal-minded" and "binary thinking" (if it's not A then it must be B)?

Could you explain what you mean by "subtitles", please? is that just hearing what people say and missing what they really mean?

@lioness

@damko

Here's some science, showing what happens in practice:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4321715/

As we all know, one of the first effects of alcohol is to make you want more alcohol, but the euphoria soon wears off with increased consumption. Some of us learn to drink slowly and maintain the optimum level, a gentle buzz without disinhibition and danger; others, genetically different, never do, and don't realise they're in a trap until it snaps shut around them.

@onepict

@damko

I do agree that people's first few experiences of drinking should be in a safe, healthy space, where they can learn without risk. But isn't that an argument for minimum age limits for buying alcohol? Your first drinks should be provided by your parents, not by some 15-year-old lad who wants to get off with you.

@onepict

@damko

Yes, some of the edge effects can get strange. In the UK, I could have got married or joined the army at 16 (both with parental consent), but not legally bought a round of drinks until I was 18. (Not that that ever stopped me; the tacit understanding, in those days, was that 18 meant "16 and well-behaved". They've tightened up enforcement since then.)

@onepict

@mike A disc? A DISC?

When I was young, Netflix would send a horse and cart carrying three people and a script.

@clacke @TheFerridge @sotolf I've always been a little sceptical about the prisoners' dilemma game, because the results you get out will depend on the relative penalties of the four conditions. For example, if you reduce the sentence discount that prisoners get for ratting on each other, you reduce the likelihood that they'll do so. I'm not saying that the game is worthless: just that the results are meaningless unless you specify the starting conditions.

@sotolf @TheFerridge In my experience, being friendly to a stranger doesn't guarantee that you'll get friendly behaviour in return, but being hostile is a pretty sure way of being met with hostility. In most circumstances, being friendly is a good opening gambit.

@Camel @schratze I have no qualms about using and recommending ad-blockers. The people who used cookies and trackers to follow me around the Web and sell my data to companies I've never heard of, all without my consent, gave up all moral right to complain. They stole my private data from me. Now I'm opting out.

Every system I administer, for myself or anyone else, has at least one ad-blocker. Go and do likewise.