exasperation

I sure did, whoops.

Before the Internet was popular there were decals being sold of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes pissing on the logo for Ford or Chevy.

I'm sure dueling fandoms have been around longer than that, too.

I haven't seen a new bank branch open with a drive through in a long, long time. Most banks just have multiple ATMs in the drive through, as there's very little you'd need a teller to do compared to what the ATMs can do now.

It was the fastest way to get original physical documents from one side/floor of the building to another.

When I was a kid that was the standard way that banking drive throughs worked, too. You'd drive up to the multi-lane drive through, each station would have a pneumatic tube for handing off cash or checks or receipts between the car and the teller in the window. It pretty much ended when ATMs could start handling cash and checks.

If you're interested in this stuff, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions describes a lot of how science actually happens, where most normal science builds up accumulated information under an accepted paradigm, but occasionally those old models slowly become untenable with repeated observations that are anomalous or not explained by that existing accepted scientific paradigm. Then a scientific revolution occurs, the old paradigm is cast aside or limited in its scope, while the new paradigm takes over as the generally accepted set of theories. The book is one of the most cited works of the post-war era.

~~Geocentrism~~ Heliocentrism didn't have a clear advantage over ~~Heliocentrism~~ geocentrism, until Kepler made the observation that the planetary orbits were elliptical. (One big objection to geocentrism was that the stars should have some kind of observable parallax if the earth were moving around the sun, but that ended up being explained by learning just how freaking far away the stars are.) Heliocentrism with elliptical orbits, though, laid the groundwork for Newton's theory of gravitation.

Later on, Mercury's anomalous orbit just couldn't be made to fit Newton's theory, but astronomers held onto Newton's theories for decades before Einstein's general relativity was enough to explain it. Einstein's own cosmological theories needed to be fit in with the discovery of the cosmic background radiation and our expanding universe, and eventually we got to our current paradigm of the lambda-CDM model, which postulates the existence of dark matter to account for galactic structures, dark energy to account for the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. All along the way, there were discarded theories that just don't hold up.

The history of how we got here can help inform how we should speculate about where we might go next. New normal science might try to figure out what dark matter actually is (different theories can be tested by looking for different observations), without actually challenging the overarching lambda-CDM model. Or research into the Hubble Tension might allow enough observation to propose a new model entirely, for a revolution into a new paradigm.

And of course, Kuhn wrote his hugely influential book in 1962, so many decades of thought have refined and challenged some of those ideas. It's interesting stuff.

Lol no

I do.

I know some who work in defense/military/foreign policy who had assumed that there would still be guardrails in place to prevent the nomination and appointment of totally unqualified conspiracy theorists to the highest positions in the defense and intelligence world, the haphazard effects of DOGE cuts on the military and intelligence and veteran agencies, or the vindictive pettiness of some of the senior military firings (or even the termination of security details for officials from the first Trump admin).

I know some who work in healthcare who are terrified about the cuts to healthcare and science research, and a lot of the informational/data infrastructure that they depend on: tracking diseases, etc.

I know some who work in finance and banking who thought that the tariff talk was just a negotiating plot rather than a true belief, and sees real danger that Trump permanently ends the post-war global economic systems that elevated American prosperity.

I even know some in oil and gas who are now convinced that even though Trump says he cares about their industry, he's not even competent enough to protect them from the harm he's causing everyone.

And sadly, the worst examples are the immigrants I know who didn't actually believe us when we told them that Trump 2.0 was going to be a disaster for immigrant human rights and livelihoods, even permanent residents and legitimate visa holders with high incomes and educational backgrounds. Now they're sharing stories of good law abiding people they know getting rounded up and questioned, and just otherwise fearing for their safety.

And this isn't exactly the same as people only caring when things affect them. It's slightly different. It's people only realizing that he's full of shit when they come to mess around with areas of their own expertise and experience.

So yeah, I know a bunch. I try to tell them they've been duped and that we can move forward by lobbying the Republicans they voted for, but the underlying unspoken theme does often carry a bit of an "I fucking told you so" foundation.

No, if you look closer I actually managed to avoid the 2008 stuff by kinda being immature and "behind" by not being super set in my career path in my late 20's. My smart friends from high school and college were decimated by the 2008 recession. When I went back to school in the early 2010's, I basically got my law degree with a bunch of people who were younger than me, and got myself on the middle millennial track (despite being an old millennial).

My delayed career progression, as a slacker in my 20's, saved my financial situation.

And if I were even older, 2001 might have permanently set me back, too. Lots of late Gen X never really recovered from that.

I'm with you.

For meat, I generally prefer dry heat. If we're doing low and slow, I like slow roasted in the oven, or smoked in an outdoor smoker. If it's fast heat, like steaks, I prefer it over charcoal. Or burgers on a griddle.

For things where wet cooking works better (steam, poach, braise), a pressure cooker can be a good substitute, but even then I generally prefer the control that comes from being able to add ingredients at different times, open the lid to check on things, adjust temperature or seasonings as necessary, etc.

Basically I very rarely use my pressure cooker. It's fine for making stocks, and is fine for making beans quickly from dried, but it's almost never my first choice for any main.

Glad they're happy but I would be pissed off beyond measure.

Isn't that the whole point of relationships? For us to understand what we like, what we want, and what we don't, and find partners who fit those things (while simultaneously fitting their preferences)? And then let people with different preferences and different characteristics find their own matches?

I certainly wouldn't be this person's soul mate because like you, I'd be annoyed at the lack of planning and not at all charmed by this particular style of quirkiness. But let other people enjoy the things they enjoy.

Plus they live very short lives, giving less opportunity for the accumulation of a lot of knowledge.

Their reproduction strategy and life cycles also basically don't allow for generational interaction: most octopuses reproduce only once, produce tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of offspring, and die shortly after reproduction. Then the young paralarvae drift as plankton until they grow large enough to settle wherever on the sea floor they happen to be.

Some of us millennials have been extraordinarily lucky.

I'm an old millennial but I avoided any personal impact from the 2001 recession by being in college, on financial aid.

Then the 2008 recession didn't hit me very hard because I wasn't a homeowner was a single childless dude who was flexible enough to just up and move wherever there was a job, across the country if necessary. I had a different job in a different state each year from 2008 through 2011, taking big raises with each move, then eventually back to school.

Then the 2020 recession didn't hit me very hard because my wife and I both had counter-cyclical jobs (I tend to be busier when businesses are failing) and already owned a home, allowing us to bypass much of the inflation of the post-2020 period with a fixed rate mortgage we had refinanced to below 3% in 2021.

Now, the 2025 recession is probably gonna hit us hard. But I've basically escaped the last 3, so maybe I'm due.