FZDC

I wonder how the built-in Google and Apple IMEs compare.

I think Black English has been a major contributor towards towards mainstreaming "y'all" outside of the South. The rise of black stories being told on television and through film, plus the rise of hip hop/rap as a mainstream genre of music, has helped normalize certain phrases that used to only be associated with either the South or with black vernacular.

That's basically what Arlington National Cemetery is. The union government seized the land of Robert E. Lee, and planning for if they couldn't keep it after the war, decided to turn it into a cemetery to basically make it useless as a farm/estate. Lee's heirs eventually sued and won the land back, but didn't have much use for it, so they sold it back to the government.

BUT I don't tear down people for choosing that life, urban living isn't for everyone.

My contempt for small town and rural America comes from living in it for about 5 years, and then regularly visiting it for another 3 or 4 years. I'm glad I live in a walkable city now. But I don't really criticize people for living that rural life, except in defense to someone else attacking my own lifestyle.

When this song came out, I remembered joking with my Army friends (many of whom are from rural areas, and definitely shared the experiences of getting stationed in rural areas) that it's weird the song! didn't include stuff like "find decent sushi" or "attend an NFL game" or "order pizza after midnight." Or if I'm feeling particularly mean spirited, I'd throw in "find a six figure job" or "hold hands with a white woman in public."

Realistically, though, something like 60% of Americans live in suburban America: close enough to a major city that they can go in for events, but far enough that they can feel that they're isolated from crime or whatever. Nobody actually likes rural living, but some residents of suburban America likes romanticizing rural ideals while still living in an environment that gets the benefit of the economic engine of a nearby city, and the density to support a variety of restaurants and stores and activities. There's an entire subculture of people who own $80,000 trucks and $3,000 guns, who have $200k+ jobs in the city but say their heart is in the country or whatever.

I'm healthy, fit, educated, and kinda rich. I'm also a man.

Do you believe those circumstances grant me with privilege?

The answer is obviously yes, so I'll acknowledge it, rather than try to change the subject to ways in which I'm not privileged. Bringing up ways that white people may not be so privileged doesn't actually address whiteness as privilege.

And privilege isn't even something to feel guilty about. It's just worth acknowledging in a "know thyself" kind of way.

Stop arguing semantics. We're done here.

Compare to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master——that's all.

Yeah, if you want to make up your own definitions to the words you use, and then order those around you to stop arguing semantics, then you're basically not having a conversation at all.

Your comment was confusing because you don't seem to understand what is or isn't part of an operating system, and the mere mention of the operating system was pretty far removed from any relevance to your own point.

It's a proprietary service, and if you want to argue that companies can run proprietary services in a closed manner, denying access to third party clients, cool, that can be your position, but it would be an incoherent position to claim that only OS developers should have that right.

I'm raising kids in a walkable neighborhood.

At this point, my biggest concern is still that they'd get hit by a car. At their current young ages (under 5), they're just not good about understanding where danger comes from when crossing the street or a driveway/alley entrance. Even later in life, I'm wondering how old they'll have to be before I'm comfortable with them riding their bikes on city streets.

At some point, I expect it to pay off (they'll be able to go to hang out with friends and bring themselves to school long before they turn 16). I'm just hoping I'll be able to stay in a walkable neighborhood when they're at those life stages, so that they can take advantage of the good stuff that this neighborhood has to offer.

I've been seeing it in fashion, too, with children's clothes not being as clearly gendered. There's the whole muted colors/beige trend that's easy to make fun of, but looking closer also reveals quite a bit more undermining gender norms in clothes. My daughter wears a lot of dresses (obviously a girly clothing item) with things that are traditionally associated with boys: rocket ships, robots, dinosaurs, heavy construction equipment like dump trucks and excavators, etc. I happen to have a lot of men's clothes that use floral prints or similar design elements, and my toddler son has some of those shirts, too.

I know I have a long road ahead of me on parenting through how to navigate societal gender norms (or even other norms that don't always make sense), but I remain hopeful and optimistic that the environment will be relatively kind and will provide plenty of role models of all types to work with, and draw lessons/examples from.

I'm not going to win every fight, of course, but I'd like to think I'll be able to choose my battles and at least provide some guidance in the right direction, and shield my kids from the worst of the worst examples.

Even if you give your kids both, they still interact with other kids at school who primarily get the gender role toys, and make the gender/interest association. By the time they hit teenage years and are starting to engage with the internet, the learning and interest gap is there.

I'm genuinely hoping that things will be better for my children, through some active management of the environment/exposure that my kids see, especially by fostering and highlighting examples they can learn from. I'm hoping that the early exposure will provide some level of inoculation against the worst of the worst cultural gender norms. There are a number of women engineers and programmers in our family, and my wife has a ton more athletic accolades/credentials than I do. So my daughter associates her soccer league with following in her mom's footsteps, and knows that science and computers are associated with her aunts.

As the dad, I do almost all the cooking in my home, and any activity in the kitchen is associated more with me than with their mom. My daughter has a play kitchen but she also tends to come to me to be the person to show her how to play restaurant (not sure if I'm muddling the message by implicitly leaning into the male stereotype for professional cooking, rather than the female stereotype for at-home cooking).

Of course, there are plenty of examples of people doing things more traditionally associated with their own gender, but I'm hoping that the more chaotic distribution weakens the willingness to internalize stereotypes.

So I am somewhat optimistic, somewhat hopeful, that these Gen Alpha kids will actually have plenty more counterexamples diluting the force and effect of those societal gender norms, compared to what we experienced as Millennials.

I still say "y'all."

Y'all means all.

To me, the obvious answer is stainless steel. There are cheap ones and expensive ones, and everything in between. The more expensive ones tend to be constructed with more even surfaces, with better heat transfer (things like an aluminum or copper core), and more durable to regular or even careless use. But even the cheap ones are great.

Stainless advantages over traditional Teflon-based nonstick:

• Metal utensils and scrubbers don't damage it, which means you can use thinner spatulas and scrub more aggressively, or do things like whisk in the pan (helpful for making sauces or gravies)
• No need to worry about maximum temperature (Teflon reacts poorly to high temperatures, degrading quickly and off-gassing fumes that are mildly harmful to humans but deadly toxic for birds)
• Oven-safe (if the handle is oven safe), which is good for certain recipes that are easier to just transfer to the oven (certain sauces or braises)
• Much better thermal conductivity, for faster temperature response to turning the heat up or down.

Stainless advantages over ceramic non-stick:

• Metal utensils and scrubbers OK (ceramic nonstick is more resistant to scratches than traditional nonstick, but the guides still all tell you not to use metal)
• Can withstand higher temperatures (ceramic nonstick isn't as bad as traditional nonstick at high temperatures, but it still loses nonstick properties under high heat, over time).
• More likely to be oven-safe (some ceramic nonstick is oven safe, but you'd have to look and check, and still be mindful of temperature limits)
• Better thermal conductivity

Stainless advantages over cast iron:

• Better thermal conductivity (cast iron actually sucks at this but nobody seems to acknowledge it)
• Easier care, no need to season
• Can handle acids no problem, so things like slow cooking a tomato sauce or deglazing with wine/vinegar/juice are possible without weird dark discoloration in your food.
• Much lighter in weight, so much easier to use when transferring or pouring food, washing the pan, etc.

Stainless advantages over carbon steel (including carbon steel woks):

• Easier care, no need to season
• Can handle acids

Don't get me wrong: I literally own every single type of cookware listed here, and I cook on all of them for different purposes. But the stainless is my workhorse, the default I use on weeknights, because it's easy and mindless and I literally can't mess it up.

EDIT: Wow, can't believe I forgot to actually list the disadvantages of stainless. Main disadvantages:

• Not non-stick. When things stick, it can be a huge pain in the ass, ranging from making your food ugly to actually ruining a dish (for example, if the sticking causes you to destroy the structural integrity of the thing you're cooking, or the the stuck food starts scorching and adding bitter burnt flavors to your food).
• A little bit more effort to clean in typical situations, and a lot more effort to clean when there's food residue stuck to the pan.

I'm slightly annoyed at my kid's new school. My kid is getting ready for school in a Chinese immersion program, which is great, but the new school wants to gently ramp up with half days with parent participation, with only part of the class signed up for specific half-day blocks. This is annoying because parents, you know, have jobs to go to, and taking 3 hours in the middle of the workday to get the kid to school, stay with them for a half day, and bring them home early is pretty inconvenient. Plus the days my kid isn't participating (with other half classes signed up), I've gotta get childcare coverage.

Can't wait until we get to the normal 8:30am start time with regular after school care.