Protip: Hamburger Helper has always been the most expensive way to do this. Buy raw macaroni and one of those seasoning spice packs (e.g. taco mix) if you’re not good with measuring seasoning or have none at home. Take a photo of the Hamburger Helper directions (on the box) with your phone if you need something to go by.

There are probably tons of such recipes online too.

Thanks HP. Not only are you the worst with your drivers and what you’ve done to the inkjet market writ large, but now, regular maintenance of your laser printers requires a robot prostate exam. Thanks. I hate it.

I wonder what aspects of education fight the tendency

For the individual, mindfulness and instilling a sense of belonging to a global in-group (e.g. “human beings”) is key. Avoid language that directly compares social groups as inherently good vs evil, as that’s where bad things start to creep in. Teaching empathy, critical thinking, nuance, and generally encouraging curiosity are crucial to maintaining this broader world view.

At the macro-level, it’s about maintaining that sense that there is no race, country, or populace anywhere that is top-to-bottom “evil.” So we keep educating our peers with counter-examples to bad behaviors, and shed light on lies and rumors when they reinforce negative narratives. Leading by example through charity, empathy, and compassion can help, provided the story gets out. Unfortunately, all this goes up against power structures a lot of the time; these arbitrary divisions and biases get used to great political effect. It’s hard as hell to do.

Is this an everywhere thing? Or a certain kinds of people thing?

It’s in-group/out-group psychology. So, it’s everywhere (including here) and one must be mindful to counteract it.

I really appreciate that there’s one character in Demon Hunter that has a gun. It works, and is incredibly effective… against lower-level demons. The world-ending upper-rank variety need at least a decapitation, and half the time, a secondary decapitation or dismemberment of some kind. Simply asploding demon parts with one or two shotgun slugs is not enough in that case.

As a storytelling device, it really grounds the entire power-system in both the supernatural and super-human. We get periodically reminded that a gun absolutely holds its own in raw firepower, but the situation is just a bit more of a problem than it can handle.

The presence of narcissism and sociopathy in the C-suite is due to selection bias, specifically for people with “bold” personality traits.

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28406658/
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886919307007
• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychopathic-tendencies-help-some-people-succeed-in-business/
• https://marytaylorandassociates.com/news-insights/the-existence-of-sociopathy-in-business/

When you layer masking on top of that, you get a skilled individual that can navigate a lot of business situations. This all happens because they’re incredibly useful traits for making money, above all else. Ethics be damned.

Maybe. Depends on how well-sealed those bearings are.

You’d need ambush tactics

Smoke and rockets. At least until supplies run out. Then you get crafty: sticky bombs, fire traps, optical illusions, nets…

The last one is interesting since I bet they’re not dexterous enough to undo knots, let alone handle being tangled up in something. Once you know how they’re programmed, you hit them outside that envelope.

Possibly, but I’ll bet it’s too coarse to get into things. Middle-east environments are likely to be well within the operating requirements for any military-hardened versions. So think: dust, dirt, dry clay, and sand.

Diatomaceous earth, and any super-fine starch that can absorb lubricants would be my best bet here. A very, very finely pulverized sand or glass might also do the job. It might also be worthwhile to see what solvents and chemicals can penetrate sealed bearings, eat wire insulation, and corrode water-resistant alloys. Heh, maybe just a jar of brake cleaner would work.

That’s why they push this bullshit outside of the law anyway. More specifically, this is the act of an executive agency, and even then, a lone individual on a twitter account. There’s enough layers of “oopsie-doodle” and “come sue us,” that they feel pretty safe doing this shit.

Meanwhile, “in god we trust” is still on our currency…

I find this alternate timeline incredibly likely. I had a friend in college who was all about SCO Unix back before they went evil, even when Slackware was the go-to distro. We would have a lot more BSD forks out here now, although NextStep (and maybe even OSX) would probably still emerge as one of the better commercial ones.

As an aside: what I find amusing is that Homebrew is basically BSD Ports, served from a git repo. In 2025, it’s a completely insane way to ship OS software to a single platform, but it does work.

The only difference was scale: the man was using a walkie-talkie,

Featuring the svelte and portable Motorolla cellular model from 1988:

Which is an improvement from this beast:

My god. The bets you could win with people.

“Okay, so I’m going to eat this - what was in it again? Durian, sardines, kimchee, and muenster cheese salad? Let’s add some onion for crunch and I’m in.”

I had a domestic A/C unit fail this way. Zip ties kept the power leads to the compressor taught against the bottom leg of the compressor housing (cast iron or some kind of steel). The edge of the zip tie, combined with vibration and moisture abraded the insulation over the period of about 3 years and grounded out against the housing. This destroyed the compressor motor windings (melted to a dead-short under power), leading to a pricey repair.

Technician knew what to look for since he saw the exact same failure mode on that make of A/C unit in a commercial model on a rooftop.

Eh, personally, i’d still find a way to screw that up.

I dunno, eyeballs are pretty much unitaskers. Vision gets used to help reinforce balance, reflexes, and proprioception, but that’s all in the brain.

Teeth might be debatable. Arguably they’re only for masticating food. The debate opens up whether other functions are physiological and so compulsory, social constructs, or neurological things we do instinctively.

With everything else, I 100% agree. It’s all an engineering nightmare to service and troubleshoot.

They’re just about always so tight it feels uncomfortable to cut those when youre dealing with fibres or just about anything, really.

Exactly. Let’s use a securing mechanism that requires a razor-sharp blade, held perilously close to what you don’t want to cut, in order to undo.

They show up in the worst places. Top offenders are inside A/C units and car engines. Yanno, where there’s lots of vibration to help the little bastards cut through insulation.

Also: big buildings usually have cargo elevators. It would be insanity to “door-dash” every last package on the passenger cars, limited by what could be carried or lugged on a hand-truck. Instead, they would load up the whole car from the truck on a loading dock, then deliver one floor at a time, start/stopping the car where needed.

China: Bulldozes Kowloon Walled City

Also China: