Yeah, the children are only for setting some of the scene, but they come back for a few short (like less than 5 minute) scenes. The easiest solution is double speed, it is extremely listenable with that small change and well worth the effort.
Every time I relisten I a gutted around that point. Very impactful character development, such a painful loss to move through and explored so well. Honestly one of the most emotionally impactful novels I have read possibly because of how much I enjoyed the differing Bobs bouncing of each other and finding equilibrium. I’ve listened to the first 4 around 5 times through and book 5 twice now, honestly on the edge of my seat for book 6.
There are three genomes that go into an embryo. One from the chromosomes of the large gamete, the egg, one from the chromosomes of the small gamete, the sperm, and one from the mitochondria, in humans from the egg as well. If you had two XX donors you could make XX kids. If you had two XY donors you could make XX, XY, and YY variants. The only viable ones would be XY and XX, YY would not reach gestation.
That said, if you took the DNA from gametes from each, removed the nucleus and mitochondria of an egg, added the total gametic DNA from both to the cell, added a mitochondria from either donor, then it should, in theory, be a viable egg like in IVF. This is actually a strategy for dealing with a mitochondrial disease by donating mitochondrial DNA from another source rather than those impacted by the disease. The problem would be there are many ways for this to go wrong and be left with an unviable embryo, so it would likely take many many eggs and many many donated cells to get a single viable egg with the donated DNA. That said, it could technically work.
I don’t have photos of myself on the internet and do not participate in group photos. If I see a photo of myself online I know, for a fact, that the person who posted it does not respect my privacy, therefore they do not respect me. I will not trust them with any information about myself and others and in general will cut them out of my life if at all possible. Because of this I don’t have people who violate boundaries they don’t share, so if I said “Actually, I think I may be a woman” or “I have been thinking about leaving the country” they would not immediately judge or try to prevent my doing so, they would let me be and respect my needs. Also because of this I am much more comfortable working on things with these people to make life better and to invest in their wellbeing.
And the fashion, oh wow, such an aesthetic.
Trashing!
I work in disability support so I may use various creams while massaging, I get messy while helping people with washing and toileting, and I feed people which can get messy. I also help people with their yards, cleaning their house, washing their pets, whatever they need.
Our little monster is the same about cooked chicken, if you have it you have obviously made a mistake, that is his food and while he is a gentle god he can also be a jealous god.
As for the fat, we have recently tried using fat from pork roasts, the fat cap is thick and soft so we can take a little of that and add it to his containers. I tried more refined fats, he will definitely eat butter, but he ends up missing the stop point and having loose stools if we use a refined fat.
This is the exact type of situation for BARF or PMR. BARF (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food) and PMR (Prey Model Raw) basically focus on hitting the nutritional needs of animals like cats and dogs by matching what they would get from prey animals. This includes a fair bit of digest for dogs but less so for cats.
My cat is doing very well on BARF and is not showing his age at all. He used to have bad hairballs, lots of itching, and very bad fur. He is now sleek and healthy with very shiny teeth and lots of energy.
His food consists of chicken cutlet (for skin, bone, and meat), chicken or lamb liver, chicken or lamb heart (for taurine), sheep brain, usually lamb kidney but sometimes beef, and then some selection of rotating meat which includes beef, pork, lamb, chicken, salmon, and prawns (sometimes called shrimp). It is about 7.5g for each of the heart, liver, kidney, and brain, then the bone is varied to change stool consistency (more bone makes harder stool) so he has an easy time there, then the meat is rotated to keep deficiencies in any specific meat at bay.
It takes about half an hour once a fortnight to make his food and he is fed every morning. He sometimes carries his meat somewhere else to eat it so we have to clean carpet or surfaces, but honestly, he is just way too cute for us to try and do something about it.
Anyway, maybe switching would help, the process of switching takes a while and requires building jaw strength so it is a little slow going at first, but the improvement to health is pretty great and it isn’t that much effort. Oh, and his poop smells way less, and there is less of it. He has much smaller and smoother poops, nothing runny, nothing girthy, and the cat litter is able to contain the smell more effectively than previously.
1 quark (no pairs please)
Yeah, the whole “China is doing propaganda using TikTok” line is kind of like saying Russia is using bots on YouTube. Like, yeah, maybe, sure, but focussing all your efforts on one single platform and ignoring the rest is silly. As the red team you would use as many different platforms as possible, make sure your disinformation output was broad and came from multiple, even opposing, ideological positions, and absolutely swamp the information space with junk. If nothing is reliable people don’t approach things carefully, they just check out. Once people check out it is a win.
Yep, and the while thing is moot anyway because use of the systems does not require ownership, so while the owners can exert more pressure on the algorithm and change what shows up other actors can do the same a little less easily on each platform. Propaganda is alive and well, so maybe try to limit yourself somewhat to a smaller group of people you actually know in person and be critical of information coming in.
Both. China is where most consumer tech comes from, and the rest often includes parts from China as well. Taiwan has TSMC which makes all the big CPUs, but honestly all the small stuff like consumer electronics comes mostly out of China. If they did want to integrate some sort of spying they would have the opportunity, and in the past individual threats to the state of many countries have had supply chain attacks carried out, so it is not an unfounded fear.
That all said, China is run by the CCP, an ostensibly Communist party, so red scare, not to mention Chinese, so racism, and Party, because Americans are against fun, or at least in government they seem to be. China also has an abysmal record on human rights, though coming from anyone in the west criticism is somewhat hypocritical given prison labour, proping up dictatorships, coups, exploiting slave labour, and so on. Nobody is doing a perfect job, nobody is saintly, but there are fair and unfair criticisms against China as a nation state and those do inform some of the fear of their potential for spying.
Now TikTok, Reddit, Meta, etc… There are the really scary tools with far too little attention.
I would recommend checking out audio books as a medium for reading. It allows you to increase the speed to whatever works for you, so 2x for me, and listen to a lot more in a day. It also frees you to listen at any times you have nothing cognitive happening, so dishes, washing, cleaning, etc.
As for single day books, the first book of the Bobiverse series by Dennis E Taylor. I loved the whole series including the recently released 5th book and the first is only 9.5 hours at normal speed, so about 4.75 at double speed.
Also All Systems Red is the first book in the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. The perspective of a SecUnit, a type of sentient cyborg, which has hacked its own programming and removed its limiters so it can act freely. This means no guard rails, no rules, no limits, which results in lots of TV shows being watched and avoiding humans. It is snarky, fun, and interesting. It comes in at 3.5 hours normal time, so 1.75 at double speed.
I don’t know about videos but having a look at the OSI model is a good way to start. It covers the abstract framework for packetizing data including things like the distinction between hardware and software, envelope, encryption, application layer stuff, the whole shebang. The cool thing is by going hardware, network, application you can see where responsibility are and it helps you understand where things can go wrong.
If you are interested there are plenty of CCNA style courses available on the internet, licit and otherwise, and they go into more depth, and the same applies to RHCE/RHCSA material. The training for certifications like that covers what you want to know but also puts it in context, and again licit and otherwise sources are available.
Steven Gould - Jumper
Barring the character names and teleportation it shares little with the movie, though I think the movie wasn’t all that bad tbh. The idea is a kid with an abusive single dad discovers he can teleport. He acts like a kid would, making lots of mistakes, and figures out his teleportation and how to live.
The novel is a little old so characters are a little shallow and stereotypical but honestly way less than expected. I have listened to the novels before but come back every so often for a repeat.