In retrospect I think my comment sounds like I’m just excusing being sort of crappy if you’re humble about it.
I wish I’d included the sentiment that we’re all trying the best we can — because being a good partner should be the goal for any relationship.

Even though I’m currently only with my wife, I’m right there with you. I don’t want to add anyone to the mix unless their addition is very carefully considered.
I speak better in metaphor sometimes: It’s kind of like physics, almost. Imagine that we’re touching everyone in our life. If we allow someone to connect to us, they are going to impart their own momentum and direction. That is going to ripple through every connection we have, even if we aren’t able to measure or observe it. So we better make sure they don’t hit us so hard that pieces break apart or get damaged in the process.

If you’re somewhere in the world that has a TJ Maxx/TK Maxx or similar, go buy their random products that are on sale. Not all are winners, but if you change up your products and just experiment, you’ll find something you like.

I have long wavy hair, and right now I’m on a Shea Moisture curl and shine kick, but before then it was the Verb Ghost line of products for a long time.
Don’t sleep on after shower crap, either. My hair has been really dry lately, so I’ve been using a leave in conditioner by Shea, too (now discontinued, sadly). In the rotation is also the Verb Ghost Oil, and some random peptide leave in. JVN (Johnathon Van Ness) also has some excellent products, but we haven’t found them on sale in awhile.

I don’t use all the after shower products at once, but each has their use. Once you get a feel for what you’re going for, it’s like having a shelf full of tools.
And if you got a beard, well… use something and tell me if you figure out what works, because I still can’t figure that out. My hair looks great and my beard looks like it got lost in the desert.

That sucks, man.

I’ve been some stripe or other of non-monogamous for most of my adult life, and those types of relationships are often the ones that people experience first when they dip their toes in.
It’s honestly kind of maddening, because beyond making it seem like everyone who is poly/nm/whatever are all horny sociopaths (because almost everyone has something like that as a first story), it’s harmful. It’s physically and emotionally unsafe for the person who gets shafted. It treats people like they’re disposable and frankly, it’s selfish, insecure, and sometimes malevolent bullshit dressed up as a hippy-dippy love-fest.

It’s really fucking hard to be ethically nonmonogamous, and I wish people would stop pretending they knew what they were doing. No one knows, and it’s the faked confidence that gets so many people in trouble. People just trust someone to take care of them, and then the other person fails because they’re human, and humans fail. And yet… I can’t imagine not being this way, for some dumb fucking reason.

Toxic polyamory situation. A partner I lived with and was once very in love with fell away when she got interested in someone new. It was messy and shitty. I wound up dating someone new, who I had a great relationship with, and it was very physical. But I still lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with my ex.

My ex was a bit weird. She sort of viewed relationships as whatever things with no boundaries. Folks just do whatever they want in the moment and there’s no fidelity according to her. (Things I learned after I fell in love with her. Woof.) She also had intoned a few times that my new partner was a slut, which was sort of funny, given that my new partner had a pretty strong moral code.

My ex got a little less interested in her new guy, and tried to seduce me one night. And I rejected her. We had officially ended things, and I did not want to revisit that.
My ex sneered at me. “Fine. I hope you’re happy with [New Partner], and I hope [NP] is happy with you and your… magical penis!”

She practically spat that out at me, and… yeah. It was as funny then as it is now.

And for the record, it’s not magical. I just like to put top hats and little capes on it sometimes.

A base plate that’s got a spring under it, except for a little nub that pokes the power button.
Terrible if you live in earthquake-prone areas.

Wait. Are we describing a bump stock for your computer?

If I had one of those in my living room, my house would collapse.

(I have another response.)
Lean away, give her a long look, and gaze deep into her eyes. Tilt your head slightly to the side.

“…. dad?”

In the stunned silence, because she never expected you to be right, tell her that you didn’t think you would see her again after she disappeared on her way to get cigarettes all those years ago.

And then put your hand on her thigh and say “I’ve missed you daddy” with wide eyes.

Gets ‘em every time.

“Oooh, I don’t know. Maaaaybeee your lips, because I can’t stop looking at them. But if you did, then your doctor is really good.”

Deliver it light and kind of flirty and she’s not thinking about whatever trap that question is, she’s thinking about how you just told her you want to kiss her.

If it’s for any other reason - making sure an insecurity is unknown, wanting to springboard into a conversation, wanting to see how you react if she baits you into saying something dumb, or even having her own flirty line to deliver about it - she’ll probably get to it. Assuming you haven’t wooed her into a voracious make out session.

I used to play 1v1 Ticket to Ride matches against my wife using the app.

As background: I’m not a very competitive gamer, but I’m decent at problem solving. When I first learned TtR, I played with fairly … great players. One of my friends was (is?) nationally ranked. They routinely beat the ever-loving crap out of me. I think of the dozens of games we’ve played, I have won maybe 10-20% of the time?

My wife isn’t bad at TtR, but she doesn’t see things the same way in terms of strategy.

We had this one game where I drew a bunch of short routes all over the map, which blocked her early in the game, and a series of lucky route draws lead me to connect them, inadvertently blocking her at least twice, including on the last play, where I was just dumping cars to end the game.

She was always a little upset when I beat her, but this time the discrepancy was so bad and she was so upset. I just stopped playing Ticket to Ride - like, at all.

Shirley you’ve heard of absurdist humor?

That’s when my mom became old enough to vote, and she was a real idiot.

It’s not, you know, the best theory, but it’s the best theory I can come up with while also doing no research.

Bag holder on left kept visually resolving to the guy awkwardly holding a handgun to me.

Mine is “This is fucking stupid”, then I wake up pretty much instantly.

I find the idea that I’m going to be randomly attacked by unknown/evil forces so ridiculous, that I can’t suspend disbelief. So I wake up.

You say “Not even close.” in response to the suggestion that Apple’s research can be used to improve benchmarks for AI performance, but then later say the article talks about how we might need different approaches to achieve reasoning.

Now, mind you - achieving reasoning can only happen if the model is accurate and works well. And to have a good model, you must have good benchmarks.

Not to belabor the point, but here’s what the article and study says:

The article talks at length about the reliance on a standardized set of questions - GSM8K, and how the questions themselves may have made their way into the training data. It notes that modifying the questions dynamically leads to decreases in performance of the tested models, even if the complexity of the problem to be solved has not gone up.

The third sentence of the paper (Abstract section) says this “While the performance of LLMs on GSM8K has significantly improved in recent years, it remains unclear whether their mathematical reasoning capabilities have genuinely advanced, raising questions about the reliability of the reported metrics.” The rest of the abstract goes on to discuss (paraphrased in layman’s terms) that LLM’s are ‘studying for the test’ and not generally achieving real reasoning capabilities.

By presenting their methodology - dynamically changing the evaluation criteria to reduce data pollution and require models be capable of eliminating red herrings - the Apple researchers are offering a possible way benchmarking can be improved.
Which is what the person you replied to stated.

The commenter is fairly close, it seems.

they would have nowhere to retreat if their food supply ran out.

Um. Hello? There are scientists there.

Which means scientific papers, then tourists, then garbage and a symbiotic relationship, then the eventual domestication of polar bears.
Not, you know, the international scientific community treating scientists like cats.

That’s very fair, indeed.

Perhaps awareness of one will spark awareness of the other. I suppose my concern is that plasticisers are sort of a ‘hidden’ risk, for the most part. They’re used in nearly every food packaging (and prep, such as hoses) that isn’t contained in glass, or served up in its own peel.

Microplastics are terrifying and all that, but I’m sort of more worried about plasticisers like BPA, BPF, BPS and the rest of the alphabet of BP-whatever’s that was created and brought into use after the dangers of BPA were realized.

Just a heads up - if something plastic says it’s BPA-free, it probably uses a different bisphenol compound that is less studied than BPA. And is likely as toxic (or even more toxic)!

But nobody ever talks about those, because science words.

I’ve turned off my voicemail with my cell carrier, and send all unknown numbers to voice mail.

It’s a peaceful life.

Mind you, 4.1% reflects only people who are unemployed that have looked for a job within the last 4 weeks.

Let’s add in people who want a job, have looked for work in the last year, but haven’t looked in the last 4 weeks. And let us also add in people who want a job, but have a job market-related reason for not looking for one. The rate is now 5%. Still not bad.

Alrighty. What about adding in people who are working part time, but would rather work full time? The under-employed, if you will. Oh. Now it’s 7.7%

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Cryin’ all the way to the bread line.

And besides none of the above discusses that the unemployment rate is non-comprehensive and does not measure the quality of the jobs - rather, how well those jobs pay people compared to CPI.

“In this here melting pot, we burn away all our differences until we’re left with only the pure white flame of Christian nationalism.”

I had to put the statement in quotes because while being hyperbole, it’s not too far from how some people think, and I don’t want to be confused with those folks.