Thankfully I've never lived anywhere where prom night is a thing. I can't imagine the stress of "keeping up". It was bad enough having the high school "cool kids" cults; amplifying it would be a nightmare.

I wouldn’t bet on an eBook being usable 30 years down the line.

I wouldn't seriously bet on an eBook reader being usable 5 years down the line. Could it? Possibly. Is it guaranteed? Not even close.

As for the content, my SO points out that we have knowledge that was stored on computers in formats nobody alive knows how to read anymore. We've lost information—some of it probably very important!—that's younger than I am.

In the mean time I'm reading stuff that's been gleaned from writing that was recovered literally thousands of years after it disappeared.

I think I’m just meant to be single.

No. No you're not. Don't let that brain worm in.

Here are some other brain worms not to let in: not your brain worm's, your "guy's".

Here's a list of red flags that should have you blocking and permanently removing this guy from your life:

• "the type of women he likes, woman that loves god, wants kids and marriage, goes to the gym all that good stuff" vs. "[I am] an atheist, don’t want neither and I’m 117lbs".
• it was mostly girls that are not of my color
• he proposed we be friends with benefits, I shut that down and told him that sounds very degrading to ask me after he just told me he wouldn’t want his own woman doing such work
• He got into a whole rant, I stood on what I said then got blocked lol.
• “I think i just liked u and i didn’t wanna get hurt. So I kinda said fuck it, imma just save myself the trouble.”
• he was venting about how lonely he is and how hard it is to find the girl that he wants

And so on.

Dudebro, as described, is an incel of the worst kind. You will not be happy with this kind of turd circling the toilet bowl of life. Don't "settle" and don't ever let that brainworm in your head. NOBODY is meant to be single. (Not even the aforementioned turd; he could easily be not-single by just not being a dismissive prick.)

Snowball.

I landed a new client at work who will likely keep the company's bills paid just by itself for the foreseeable future, giving us breathing space to do interesting things that entail some risk.

I started wearing a mask in crowded public places in about 2020 (for some inexplicable reason). I never stopped. I wear one in the metro. On buses. In crowded shopping malls (or even crowded small shops).

I used to get several colds per years and maybe one thing that caused me a fever each year (usually a flu).

I haven't had a cold or flu or any kind of fever-inducing infection since ... oh ... call it 2020.

Oh, I see! Thanks!

Imma need "xkcd explained" for this one!

Then it wouldn't be from the Tang Dynasty now, would it?

I've always said it: Nobody has time for things. You make time for what you value.

If you're not making time for your hobby, you're not all that into the hobby.

Weirdly I find Catan suffers exactly from this, and you have the added problem of if you fall behind you're just waiting for your turn so you can offer a trade nobody wants and then do nothing. Hour after hour, doing nothing. But you can't leave the game because that would throw everybody else off.

I won't play Catan any longer.

It’s harder for female characters because it always wants to add giant gazongas, but eventually you can get it to generate a normal looking character.

I would put phrases like "small-breasted woman" or at one point, in frustration, "small-breasted, and by this I mean SMALL, not LARGER THAN HER FRICKIN' HEAD YOU HALLUCINATING DIGITAL PARROT!" into the prompts.

I always got breasts that were a sizable fraction of the head size. Often larger than the head size. Except for that last frustrated prompt. That one got me huge breasts with parrots sitting on them.

This is what happens when you think your "AI" is "neutral". It isn't. It's filled with all the biases of society, only with a patina of neutrality slathered on top.