A phone can upload automatically, so even if they take it the video is out there.

Just use a burner phone bought with cash.

This is at least an area where I’ve seen improvement in many denominations. The Episcopal Church in particular has gotten pretty hard-nosed about its sex abuse training. I was volunteering for a food drive and they made me take a 6-hour course along with any other volunteers who hadn’t been through it because children may be present and they have instituted strict rules.

The training had video confessions of people who had used church activities as a way to become “trusted” sonthey could abuse children. They talked about what they did and how they used their positions of trust to grrom their victims (e.g. “accidentally” touching kids while playing to gauge their reactions).

They then make crystal clear that the rules they have are not optional, or meant as an attack on the adults either. An adult roughousing with kids or talking with a distressed kid alone is most-likely not a rapist. We all understand that, so when someone says “hey - make sure to leave the blinds open with talking to Kelley” or “Steve - we can’t play flag football with the kids” it isn’t an accusation. It’s a reminder that we’re there for the kids and we all follow the rules so that if someone evil does show up they can’t engage in probing through “harmless fun”. If anyone can’t respect those rules they’re not allowed to participate.

The one exception we had for the “no touching” rule when I worked for a Methodist church was for a specific teenager who was usually very sweet but had developmental issues that would occasionally lead to extreme behavior, including occasional violent outbursts. For him we had a few specific adults that had special training (and waivers) that were allowed to restrain him. We also made one of his parents accompany any activity he was involved with. I only had to physically intervene one time when we were bowling and he took a ball into the parking lot to attack cars.

I work in municipal development and we have 20 new “developers” a week trying to get us to buy their permitting apps. All of them are willing to offer us an exclusive discount as an early adopter, and the few I’ve had meetings with haven’t even been able to tell us what backend databases the apps use or understand that there’s a difference between an Amending Plat, Site Development permit, and a Building permit.

And I have to fight the mayor every time because he’s all aboard with the AI hype. He tried having all the city ordinances and decelopment manuals re-written by GPT to make them easier to understand, and we had to get the city attorney to explain that not only was it idiotic, but that it would cost a couple hundred grand just to have his firm go over everything and explain the specifics of how dumb it was, and that if a code re-write is needed (and it is), they should spend that money hiring a firm specializing in code review.

The slop apps are out there - they’re just all being pitched to governments and CEOs that have infinite faith in anything that will make people more expendable.

9-5 isn’t really a thing anymore.

It’s more likely to be 8-5 or 9-6. You get an hour for lunch, but you’ll be so busy you usually skip it and work that extra hour for free.

I’ve been popped by 120 volt a few times.

It hurts like a motherfucker, but should throw a breaker or GFI before it kills.

Did you just make the Avocado Toast argument?

I think they should treat US athletes like the did clean Russian athletes.

Allow them to compete, but not as representatives of the US.

I work near downtown Austin, where both Waymo and Robotaxi operate.

Waymo cars are some of the best drivers on the road because they actuallyt ested their product, use multiple Lidar sensors instead of just cameras, and have remote driver backups for unusual situations.

Teslas drive like maniacs and will end a ride and tell the driver to get out in the middle of a lane.

Surely you’re not saying we have the resources to save the poor from their lot? There will be poor always, pathetically struggling. Look at the good things you’ve got.

Think while you still have me! Move while you still see me! You’ll be lost, and you’ll be sooo sorry

when I’m goonnee!

This is why when my city installed them (with a 3-2 vote from Council) they required them to all be installed in the Right-of-Way, which gives the city more authority to remove them if the contract is terminated (which it likely will be soon).

My father was a firefighter, and his go-to quote every time someone wanted a cat rescued was “How often do you see a cat skeleton in a tree?”

They eventually jump down. They can generally survive terminal velocity falls without injury so long as they land well, which they generally do when they jump out of the tree. But it’s still scary, so it may take them a bit to build up the nerve for the jump.

I used to be clergy. Now I work in government.

So I feel like I’m a decent authority on how the separation of church and state makes both institutions better.

Not just YouTube animators. Professional production companies making scripted televised cartoons use Animate.

It’s the animation equivalent of ending Photoshop or Premiere suddenly.

Or did they just initially export the emails from Outlook as pdfs for the redaction process?

Preachers and all other church staff members have to pay income taxes.

There is an interest-free housing stipend for preachers that works similar to an FSA (use it or lose it annually). Some military service members get a similar stipend if they live off-base for the same reason. Many preachers and service members are itenerant and may be reassigned to a different area at any time. Purchsing a house isn’trealistic if you don’tknownwhere you’ll live in 6 months, so they can’t take advantage of tax breaks like the home interest mortgage deduction. Preachers who are provided free housing (parsonage) can’t take advantage of the tax-free stipend because they don’t pay for housing.

My thought on that particular tax break isn’t to close it but to expand it to everyone who rents.

I’d be careful about saying you “got” it. You got a glimpse of it.

I remember going into a segregated laundromat in 2005 in Alabama. It wasn’t legally segregation, but they absolutely had a black and a white laundromat, and I (white dude) went into the wrong one and felt very uncomfortable with all the looks I was given. I was eventually approached and told to leave and go to the white one, which happened to be much nicer, of course.

I thought at the time that I suddenly understood it. But black people deal with thay every fucking day, and I do not “get it” because of 10 minutes of racial discomfort in my 20s.

That’s pretty similar to how it is.

I used to be a preacher. I paid taxes. Any facility space or property we rented to commercial companies (we had a psychologist who used a portion of our space during the week) was taxed.

The only real break we got versus other charities was that clergy can get a tax-freee home/apartment rental stipend if they aren’t provided a personage. The idea there was that, for itenerant clergy, purchasing a home isn’t realistic because they don’t know where they’ll live in a year. They can’t take advantage of things like a mortgage interest deduction.

But my solution there is to open up tax exemption for all rent payers and to tax the living shit out of landlords to make them sell and open up housing inventory.

Google pays them the make Goigle the default search engine.

I think the total number of documents may have been made known during the previous administration.

It’s just that the documents were under a court seal until last January because of Maxwell’s appeals, so they couldn’t be released.

“We opened a position in response to feedback from the person whose former role you’re interviewing for.”

“You increased staffing?”

“No. We created an opening in response to their feedback.”