Jam is mashed, preserves have chunks of fruit. With some fruits it’s hard to leave large china during processing (like raspberries, which break easily when properly ripe), at which point raspberry preserves might have less sugar then raspberry jam.

That’s been obvious since the beginning.

I went to a party that lasted all weekend. We weren’t drinking or anything else, so I want to emphasize I did all this to myself, completely sober:

We were tossing lightsticks back and forth in the dark; I was barefoot. I leaped up to catch a lightstick; when I came down, my right foot landed fully on some kind of spiny, prickly, thorny plant, and I got a bunch of the pointy spiny bits embedded into the sole of my foot. This was particularly ironic, as I had made a point of pointing out the plant to everyone else earlier and telling them to avoid it.

The toilet backed up and I had to clear it with a plunger that had a broken handle. I cleared the toilet, and also managed to flay about a fifth of the skin off the palm of my right hand.

I slipped on the stairs and wrenched my back pretty badly. The dog ran underfoot and I sprained my left ankle. Something else happened, I don’t even remember what, and I injured my right hip.

The worst part was that I had driven myself and a group of friends to this party, which meant I had to be the one who drove us back: my car had a manual transmission and no one else knew how to drive stick. So envision this:

My right foot, with the spikes still in it, was used for the gas and the brake. My left foot, with the sprained ankle, had to delicately balance the clutch as we drove up and down these narrow back hills. There was no way to balance my weight on my injured right hip, so every movement on the gas or clutch put some torque on the hip - as well as twisting my injured back. And I had to shift with my right hand wrapped like a mummy’s, but the shifting pressure was still on the part of my hand with the flap of skin. And the roads just kept jostling every single injury I had.

It was an incredibly, insanely painful drive home. And it was still one of the best parties I’ve ever been to.

I’ve been saying for years that the insanely heavy-handed politics of both Florida and Texas aren’t an accident nor are they a miscalculation. They’re a deliberate policy to drive out liberals, attract conservatives, and ensure that both Florida and Texas (and their precious, precious electoral college votes) remain red.

Are they looking meaningfully at you while they’re doing it?

I’m afraid that that information has had to be [redacted]. Choose another path.

Asking for bribes, no doubt …

Oh, they’re being cute with this. You need to pay money to get what reddit is calling “gold” (formerly known as coins), which you can use to give awards with. But one of the old awards you still can’t give is the old-style reddit “gold” (premium). So they want ever more money without even giving the minor account boost you used to get, just for some skin for a comment. Fuck those guys.

https://archive.is/heCxq

Possibly true, but we can’t ignore the same possibility with Biden’s “Uncommitted” voters.

When you check in, just tell the desk that you don’t want housekeeping sitting your stay.

Clever human!

.Israel said it was carrying out “a precise counterterrorism operation to eliminate Hamas terrorists and infrastructure” in the area.

A precise operation meaning that you’re just going to level the entire place and everyone in it? “Kill them all and let God sort them out”? Fuck your genocide.

For years, the site had a standing policy that prevented the use of generative AI in writing or rewording any questions or answers posted. Moderators were allowed and encouraged to use AI-detection software when reviewing posts. Beginning last week, however, the company began a rapid about-face in its public policy towards AI.

I listened to an episode of The Daily on AI, and the stuff they fed into to engines included the entire Internet. They literally ran out of things to feed it. That’s why YouTube created their auto-generated subtitles - literally, so that they would have more material to feed into their LLMs. I fully expect reddit to be bought out/merged within the next six months or so. They are desperate for more material to feed the machine. Everything is going to end up going to an LLM somewhere.

Serious Trouble, by the further hosts of (and essentially a continuation of) All the President’s Lawyers.

Nocturne, by Vanessa Lowe. A podcast about the night, and things that happen during the night. Favorite episodes: Night ways about what ancient people use to do at night and how archeology and anthropology are changing their perceptions; Finding the Void about a guy who lived inside a mall; On the North Face about a guy who got lost while climbing Mount Shasta; What’s Would You Do about the fear of night.

I usually check in on The Daily like once a week to see if anything interesting has been covered.

And This Week in Virology, which I got into during the pandemic. Usually the weekly update on Friday on what contagious diseases are currently circulating, and about half the time their Sunday episode.

A. It was a recall election (though still good).

B. Was this district affected by redistricting?

Some of the states are very logical. For example, both Florida and Texas have deliberately and determinedly become red state hellholes because they want to drive out liberals and attract conservatives - because by doing that, they ensure that they retain all of Florida and Texas’ electoral college votes.

Ah, one of the things that rural areas bitch about most, all the young people leaving the region …

Just to put the timeline straight: Marchan issued the gag order, trump retweeted 10 things that might have violated it, Marchan said that was wrong, trump said he hadn’t violated it, Marchan scheduled a hearing. Before the hearing occurred, trump again retweeted ?3? things that might have violated it. Marchan holds the hearing, finds trump in contempt on 9 of the 10 items - it’s at this point that trump’s retweets are established as mostly violating the gag order.

Today’s hearing was in regard to the ?3? retweets made prior to the first hearing. He’s getting a fine today because the [comical] argument would’ve been made that, at the time of those, ?3? retweets (before the first hearing), he still believed his actions weren’t in contempt.

I’m not sure if he’s done anything since that first hearing that might violate the gag order, but that’s when the clock started ticking. And, unfortunately, it only started ticking for those kind of violations. He might decide to try smirking finger-guns next, and argue that he was only just enthusiastically greeting an old friend :/

In addition to those, consider getting a hypoallergenic mattress cover and hypoallergenic pillow covers. And wash your bed linens more frequently.