Yeah the whole “big rip” or whatever the colloquial term is, is an interesting one to think about if the expansion just keeps on accelerating.

But from what science news I follow, I think our models and theories in that area are in for a shake-up. It will be interesting to see!

I think that is kind of orthogonal to the concept of heat death, though, which is more about entropy. Any universe that has a solar system or galaxy in it is far from reaching the state of heat death.

Yeah, I wasn’t very particular about how far up the list. Top 50 was probably too much in most cases.

Looking back for my son’s birth year, his name is just barely in the top 100 for boys. So top 200 overall.

That’s actually more popular than I expected it to be, but it is definitely in the very broad sweet spot we’re talking about.

Looking back at my birth year, my name is in the top 10! That’s even more surprising because it didn’t feel that way at all. I think there was one other kid with the same name in my graduating class of hundreds. Yet I distinctly remember there was one class one year that had SIX "John"s.

edit: that’s six Johns out of a single classroom of maybe 30 people at most, not a different graduating class. They were in my grade!

Not a physicist, but I thought the heat death of the universe also involved all the matter being sucked into black holes and turned into pure energy. There’s a big chunk converted up front in the accretion disk, then the rest is converted into hawking radiation as the black hole(s) evaporate over the oodles and oodles of years.

Whether or not there are also lumps of iron-56 or other matter floating around in the cold void probably depends on the real truth behind dark matter and dark energy and their long-term behavior.

Time for a rev bump to DSM-6.66

Thanks! That’s usually what I’m going for.

When choosing my son’s name I had two rules:

1. No super popular top 10 or 20 name. There were plenty of very popular choices that I liked as names. But, I figured let’s try to find something at least a little unique for various reasons.

However!

2. They shall not need to spell their name every time they tell it to somebody. This implies a few things, like choosing an established first name people have heard before rather than making something up, and using the common spelling of that name.

Ooh, I need to make one of those in my house. Both because it would be fun for friends and family (including the kid’s friends and our nieces & nephews) and the regression back to analog would satisfy some little petty yet righteous part of my brain that makes me avoid Facebook.

I can’t wait to hear more. Please just make a phone that I’ll want to buy. My phone is 4 years old and there’s just nothing I want to replace it with yet.

It has become less and less of an issue over time though. Not only have I gotten used to using my phone FAR less with positive health results, but I have set myself up to have access to my Linux PC during the “chill with the family on the couch” times in the evening when one might zone out on their phone for a bit. That’s what I’m using right now!

Ooh yeah let’s get a 6" 2025 take on the OG Motorola Droid with the slide out keyboard, to make it more linux-phone-y.

It’s like if you think of all the ways we influence other people and show our worth to others, all of the most immoral and unethical tactics that actually work in the real world seem to come to Trump instinctively. He doesn’t even have to think about it. I think that helps him instantly jump to conclusions (linkedin filter: he’s decisive and a risk taker!) and have the unearned dunning-kruger arrogance to plow ahead (LF: he radiates confidence and stands up for his beliefs!) and wreck the country just to make some numbers go up for people who otherwise want for nothing.

Or maybe he’s just being controlled by malicious forces. (linkedin: he has high-level connections in the international community!)

Nine sneezes means you are in Hell, unfortunately. You have already been dead this whole time, and your torture for this moment of eternity has been temporary amnesia and experiencing the sudden terror of realizing you are sneezing yourself to death. That price of darkness can be a rascal like that.

Yeah, it seems that so many people are that way about so many things. And at some point I honestly thing it is bad for you.

Sometimes learning to do the thing and then doing it yourself is a FAR better experience for your well being even if you get worse results in twice the time and at double the cost versus paying somebody to do it for you.

I am convinced that impostor syndrome is just the other end of the spectrum from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that having impostor syndrome means you’re an expert, but that you have the curiosity to look under the surface and get a glimpse of the long path ahead of you. You don’t just assume you “got this” because one piece of many clicked into place.

I guess my strong impostor syndrome has mellowed over these past 5 or so years while I have been working on myself (as in mental health, not job skills, lol). Some of it is confidence gained by knowing better who I am and what I want out of life, accompanied by elimination of a lot of “I should be learning this / doing that / building my career XYZ” thoughts. And part of it is leaning into what makes me different from others at work versus the others, using that stuff as strengths rather than seeing them as deficiencies where I don’t match up.

because I was interested in how coding works, and trying to understand underlying concepts

Ah, yes. The secret to being better than most people at at most things. Curiosity and giving a shit.

That general approach was so common. It really is sad.

One of the really bad effects of modern society (american especially) has been conditioning us to think of ourselves as these independent entities separate from nature and from our actual physical communities & people. We just interact with those things when we require their resources, etc. Transactional relationships happen.

One effect of this is, of course, not being considerate to those around you. But as your example shows, some people are so bad about it that it’s not even a question of deciding whether to choose their own convenience over the safety of others. Considering the risk to others never enters the picture in the first place. When asked about it they would answer something like “my health is my concern, their health is their concern, and it’s also none of my business.” Said politely and without malice. It’s just ingrained that deep.

I jumped through hoops decades ago to get tested for ADHD and did not get the diagnosis based on my good performance on the cognitive tests, plus some of my wife’s questionnaire answers not seeming severe enough.

I finally started Adderall here in my 40s thank freaking god.

I have actually made comments very similar to yours. Basically how phones are a technological marvel but are ruined by greed.

Funny enough, if somebody offers you insurance that builds cash value, even though the sound of it does make sense you should probably run.

These companies and their enshittification have kinda killed the broader concept of phones in my mind.

What is my phone? It’s my worst computer, proprietary and closed, and which I have been actively avoiding using all year long in order to improve my mental health. It’s a tool that makes it easier to exist in modern society, not something that enhances my quality of life.

So I’m not thinking about whether I need iMessage vs Android openness like I might have a decade ago. I’m sitting here wondering if I even need a phone number in the first place! But, even with some wonderful Linux phone device that’s like a 6" laptop with a touch screen and LTE/5G, I guess you’d still just have a number associated with your service.

While I do not prefer either of them to an open platform, I think the more common draw of iOS is that you know what you’re getting versus the bait and switch that Google always seems to bring.