To address your second point “not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump”; why isn’t the opposite true? “Not voting for Trump is a vote for Harris”, follows the same logic, so refusing to vote or voting independent should be net neutral, no?

You’re missing some context - “not voting [instead of] for Harris is a vote for Trump”. If the dilemma is between not voting and voting Harris, choosing not to vote subtracts a vote from Harris.

Of course Harris got a boost in donations after she became the candidate - she appealed the the people who thought Biden was too conservative. That doesn’t mean conservative democrats are an insignificant demographic, they simply already donated earlier. The move towards the center is meant to not drive them away into not voting [instead of voting for Harris]. Obviously there will be some progressives and some conservatives who will decide to not vote [instead of voting for Harris], the goal is to move to the point where these margins from both sides will be minimal.

Volunteering?

There’s a good chance got them because dunkin donated them or because the cafe didn’t want to give cash for fear it could be construed as pay.

The point of gift cards is that they’re: a. Not money (when using money might have some sort of disadvantage for either side). b. Have restrictions that the person who gave it to you might want to impose. c. Are usually cheaper than paying money directly to the vendor.

And frankly, no one forced you to try and use them. They were given as a gesture of appreciation, and you could have given them to someone who would have been happy to have them, or just politely refuse to accept them. Also, not checking the expiration date is on you.

Yes, young people usually engage more in “forbidden” activities than older people.

Yes, Fatah is a relatively secular organization. And is absolutely a better start than Hamas.

You should to realign your metrics for the middle east if you think If “hooking up with Putin” is the worst thing someone can do there.

Are you thinking “young people” = “less religious”?

That’s mainly the case for Christians/the west, not Muslims in Muslim countries.

Which one, the west bank or Gaza?

Or do you think each one will get an autonomy in almost every aspect, but will still be part of the same state?

Depends on the starting conditions.

There are two main “forces” at play here:

Hamas, which is an fundamentalist, religious and military organization backed by Iran. If they were to gain power in a Palestinian state, it would look something like Hezbollah controlled areas in Lebanon. So… not good.

Fatah, on the other hand, is a (relatively) secular organization that’s in good relations with western countries. If they were to gain power, Palestine would be more open to western influence, and will probably treat women, secular people and minorities better. This version of Palestine will probably be the most pro-western Arab state, so it might be more influenced by western values more than other Arab states. Of course, in the mid- or long run it’s possible an extremist power will rise regardless of western backing (ex. Iran).

Assuming a you’re talking about the near future, which organization will have control largely depends on if Hamas would exist. If so, they’ll probably get the credit for a recognized state due to their “resistance”. Then again, it’s very possible one of the conditions for a universally recognized state will be the elimination of Hamas as a political (and obviously military) force.

I’m kinda ignoring the “including Israel” part of your question, as Israel would absolutely not accept any version of Palestine with Hamas.

I have two main moral guidelines by which I try to live:

A. Try to leave everything better than it was before, or at least avoid making it worse. It doesn’t have to be by much, but if every person makes things just one tiny bit better, the culminating effect will be great. Do your part.

B. The difference between a moral person and an immoral one usually doesn’t lie in the ability/inability to know right from wrong, rather in the ability to rationalize their immoral actions. Therefore:

• Doing bad things once in a while does not make you a bad person, it makes you human.
• Avoiding doing bad things 100% of the time will make you a bad person, as you’ll inevitably fail and will be forced to rationalize your actions, making it easier to do more bad things.
• What makes you a good person is the ability to know when you’re acting wrong.

From there, there are a few rules that help me along the way:

1. Everyone are wrong. Assume you’re wrong about some important things/core beliefs, you’ve just yet to discover which ones. Don’t hesitate to act according to what you think is right, but understand you’re probably doing something wrong somewhere. Look for signs that show that’s the case.

2. Making mistakes is fine and inevitable. Reflect on your mistakes and try not to make the same mistake twice.

3. Use everything as an opportunity to learn. The best way to learn is from other people’s mistakes - it provides a visceral lesson without you having to pay the price.

4. People’s opinions of you are their business, not yours. Though you should choose to use them to improve yourself when applicable.

5. Admitting being wrong or admitting a mistake will not only improve things, but is a sign of strength. Not doing so is a sign of weakness. This is true both for yourself and for other people.

6. Give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t be quick to judge them. Wait until you have enough data and then come to conclusions.

7. No rule is correct in all situations.

8. External rules (and laws) exist for a reason. If you’re going to break one of them, first understand why it’s there in the first place and why it should be ignored. Do not assume you know better than the people who came up with it.

9. Blanket statements can be correct or incorrect for the most part, but they can’t be used to solely justify an action or an opinion.

You can use LLMs to, well, do what they’re designed to do - generate text. Need to write a marketing text? Summersie a meeting or make a summery more readable? Rewrite an “about” page to incorporate something new? Just be sure to read through the generated text and make sure it’s correct.

Cool. Thanks

Ohhh, I think I get it.

Purple is what you get when you force the visible light spectrum into a wheel, so there’ll be something that “connects” blue with red?

If so, is the reason we perceive green as a different color than purple is because we have receptors for that specific wavelength, otherwise both colors would affect our red and blue color receptors similarly?

So what would be the color created by a wavelength of 550nm?

Wow, I just got and used a whetstone for the first time yesterday!

I’ll tell you what I did, with the understanding that I’m less knowledgeable than others in this post, but can probably better relate to your situation.

I’d also be happy to hear feedback from others.

I bought a dual King whetstone of 1000/6000 grit for a basic German knife that lost its edge after a few months of daily use. The 6000 side is probably overkill (King is made for Japanese knifes, which do require 6000 grit. 2000-4000 would do for a German knife), but the whetstone was at the correct balance of price, apparent quality and known brand.

I mainly used these two videos as guides:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkzG4giI8To

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahaaHxhbsA

Using a marker to see if I’m holding the knife at the correct angle helped, thought I mostly used it to get my bearings. I didn’t bother with the whole 10, 8, 6 etc. stropping process, rather went a few times on each side, and tested it until the knife was able to cut through paper easily. Overall, I’d say it took me less than 10 passes on each side.

The main issue for me was forcing myself to hold the knife correctly and move my other hand to apply pressure at the right point (I was able to do it correctly, it just took a bit of work). I also had a hard time keeping the angle of the knife constant.

The whole process start to finish took me about half an hour, I’d say about 5-10 minutes were due to me being a noob.

When inspecting the edge, I noticed it was convex, which makes sense as the angle wasn’t uniform. From what I understand, this might actually be better than a straight V edge (the most common type), so… yay for me, I guess?

After finishing the knife easily passed the paper test, and cutting through a tomato was more a matter of placing the knife on top of the tomato and sliding it back and forth, allowing the edge to drop down and slice it. The knife is at least as sharp as when it was new, if not sharper. There is one spot where I think the edge isn’t as good, but I only noticed it because I was looking for issues and it isn’t noticeable with regular use. Overall I’m very happy with the results.