It's not legally binding if you didn't sign it, but that won't stop someone from trying to claim that you did.

Wait, Sabu's kids were foster kids. He was fostering them. Certainly if he went to jail, they'd go back to the system.

I mean, if you're a sole caretaker and you've been arrested for a crime, and the evidence looks like you'll go to prison, you're going to have to decide what to do with the care of your kids on your mind. I suppose that would pressure you to become an informant instead of taking a longer prison sentence, but there's pressure to do that anyway, like not wanting to be in prison for a long time.

I feel like it's actually a little faster than a digital computer. I don't have a lot of experience yet, though.

If he didn't want us to read Metamorphosis he probably shouldn't have had it published. It was, long before his death.

But it's true much of his work was unpublished when he died and was "rescued" or "stolen", depending on what narrative you prefer.

Another problem with Windows, that has been going on for quite some time now, is that they do not have a real support channel for non-enterprise users that produces useful knowledge for the future. Almost any issue you google now has a thousand "answers" on microsoft.com that do not fix the problem because the people answering have not reproduced it and have not confirmed their solution.

In Linux forums, generally speaking, there is either a way it works or agreement that it hasn't been fixed yet. The main source of spam now is actually StackExchange, that prioritizes discussions from 10 years ago on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, rather than up-to-date questions and answers.

Funny, I thought ICE officers had blood on their hands. But I'm glad it's "the press" that's responsible and not the person pulling the trigger.

For original research, a researcher is supposed to replicate studies that form the building blocks of their research. For example, if a drug is reported to increase expression of some mRNA in a cell, and your research derives from that, you will start by replicating that step, but it will just be a note in your introduction and not published as a finding on its own.

When a junior researcher, e.g. a grad student, fails to replicate a study, they assume it's technique. If they can't get it after many tries, they just move on, and try some other research approach. If they claim it's because the original study is flawed, people will just assume they don't have the skills to replicate it.

One of the problems is that science doesn't have great collaborative infrastructure. The only way to learn that nobody can reproduce a finding is to go to conferences and have informal chats with people about the paper. Or maybe if you're lucky there's an email list for people in your field where they routinely troubleshoot each other's technique. But most of the time there's just not enough time to waste chasing these things down.

I can't speak to whether people get blackballed. There's a lot of strong personalities in science, but mostly people are direct and efficient. You can ask pretty pointed questions in a session and get pretty direct answers. But accusing someone of fraud is a serious accusation and you probably don't want to get a reputation for being an accuser, FWIW.

According to Hal Roach, the Irish do this too, because they don't want to disappoint you. I haven't asked for a lot of directions in Ireland, but I can imagine this is true, or that they will just keep you chatting and see if you forget about your question.

I like manual transmissions but I think DCTs are an improvement for the average car. They seem to have a lot less "hunting" than the typical torque-converter automatic and good precision for the driving conditions. It is easy to put them into a manual-select mode. And, of course, they don't seem to stall.

The manual transmission crowd cannot be convinced. Even when you show them the performance advantages etc. They just want 'fun' and 'engaging', however they define that.

Manual transmissions have certain advantages, particularly in their home next to an ICE. They never 'hunt' for gears; if you want that, you have to hunt. They can be push started if the battery is dead.

Manuals are really good in bumper-to-bumper traffic: often the second gear has an incredible range from slow crawling to 40 km/h. You keep the clutch completely engaged and just work the gas pedal. (The odd time when things look like they are coming to a complete stop, you hit the clutch to keep the engine from stalling. But if the traffic moves again while you are still rolling, then you just re-engage in second gear.

You can do a similar thing in automatics with their 1 or 2 gears, but it doesn't work quite as nicely as that second gear in a typical manual.

Manual transmissions are tougher against heavy loads (than torque converter automatics). If you have to tow a heavily loaded trailer, manual is better. The clutch is fully engaged and so very little energy is lost in the transmissions. Automatic transmissions can heat up under load and can overheat.

A lot of this is not relevant when we are talking electric vehicles, of course.

But in an ICE car, there are good reasons to prefer a manual transmission, even if you're not a sporty driving enthusiast.

I've driven both. I don't know how to define what I feel, but the true clutch is more "fun and engaging". I still went with a EV because it is the right choice, but I want the ICE with manual and if money was limitless I'd have a collection (plus a personal mechanic to keep them all running)

For me, there is the sense that the transmission is doing a precise and correct job, which reflects my intent. That causes the feeling of fun that comes from anything that works well.

On YouTube there are videos of machines doing precise jobs well, which people call "satisfying to watch". Those are relevant to the discussion, I feel.

You can get a ioniq 5N which simulates appropriately ICE noises, gear switching when you want it, and drive silently when you want it

I have only ever owned cars with manual transmissions for my personal vehicles.

I would 100% get a vehicle without a manual for my next car if it’s an improvement over a manual. I’ve driven a handful of Priuses. I would definitely own one. I would definitely own an EV.

I have no desire to own an ICE-only vehicle with a CVT, automated manual, or conventional automatic. They add complexity and opaque failure modes. Last year I lost reverse in our plow truck (an automatic). Totally undiagnosable for me, nevermind fixable. Had a new used transmission put it, and it started bogging and lurching from a stop and up hills. Can’t work around it, can’t fix it. Sold the truck for $300 to someone who’s going to part it out (the engine wasn’t great either) and moved the plow onto a new used truck.

We’re not all stuck in the past. Some of us do understand the system well enough to be picky about believing something is an improvement.

Another example: CFL lightbulbs flat-out sucked. Avoided them as best as I could. Bought CREE LED bulbs at $20 apiece as soon as they came out at Home Depot.

Manual transmission people are like the audiophiles of cars. Other than some sports cars, nobody cares.

PowerToys has a wonderful QuickAccent feature. The dashes and hyphens are on hyphen-KEY and some other characters are on comma-KEY, and many symbols are on the key that they resemble, like ¶ is on P-KEY where KEY is the follower key you want to use. I turned off using SPACE because it conflicted with some other software, but right arrow works great for me.