athos77

Jam is mashed, preserves have chunks of fruit. With some fruits it’s hard to leave large china during processing (like raspberries, which break easily when properly ripe), at which point raspberry preserves might have less sugar then raspberry jam.

The New York Times did an article on it last fall. Here’s a non-paywalled copy of the article or, if you prefer audio, here’s the episode of The Daily where they discuss it.

I went to a party that lasted all weekend. We weren’t drinking or anything else, so I want to emphasize I did all this to myself, completely sober:

We were tossing lightsticks back and forth in the dark; I was barefoot. I leaped up to catch a lightstick; when I came down, my right foot landed fully on some kind of spiny, prickly, thorny plant, and I got a bunch of the pointy spiny bits embedded into the sole of my foot. This was particularly ironic, as I had made a point of pointing out the plant to everyone else earlier and telling them to avoid it.

The toilet backed up and I had to clear it with a plunger that had a broken handle. I cleared the toilet, and also managed to flay about a fifth of the skin off the palm of my right hand.

I slipped on the stairs and wrenched my back pretty badly. The dog ran underfoot and I sprained my left ankle. Something else happened, I don’t even remember what, and I injured my right hip.

The worst part was that I had driven myself and a group of friends to this party, which meant I had to be the one who drove us back: my car had a manual transmission and no one else knew how to drive stick. So envision this:

My right foot, with the spikes still in it, was used for the gas and the brake. My left foot, with the sprained ankle, had to delicately balance the clutch as we drove up and down these narrow back hills. There was no way to balance my weight on my injured right hip, so every movement on the gas or clutch put some torque on the hip - as well as twisting my injured back. And I had to shift with my right hand wrapped like a mummy’s, but the shifting pressure was still on the part of my hand with the flap of skin. And the roads just kept jostling every single injury I had.

It was an incredibly, insanely painful drive home. And it was still one of the best parties I’ve ever been to.

Are they looking meaningfully at you while they’re doing it?

I’m afraid that that information has had to be [redacted]. Choose another path.

Oh, they’re being cute with this. You need to pay money to get what reddit is calling “gold” (formerly known as coins), which you can use to give awards with. But one of the old awards you still can’t give is the old-style reddit “gold” (premium). So they want ever more money without even giving the minor account boost you used to get, just for some skin for a comment. Fuck those guys.

This isn’t going to go well for the Taliban’s effort to increase tourism in Afghanistan.

The US has been Hamas ever since they said they were holding back bombs that might be used in Rafah.

the aid trucks will be unloaded on the shore in an area secured by Israeli forces […] Israeli forces will be in charge of security on the shore

Right … those same Israeli forces that have refused to let aid trucks into Gaza, have refused to let aid trucks move through Gaza, who have let Israelis loot burn and destroy aid trucks, who have deliberately and repeatedly targeted aid trucks and aid workers, repeatedly killing them? Those Israeli forces? I’m sure this’ll be fine …

There have been decades of tensions on the archipelago between Indigenous Kanaks seeking independence and descendants of colonizers who want to remain part of France. […] The unrest started on Monday with a protest over France’s efforts to expand voter lists that would benefit pro-France politicians on New Caledonia and further marginalize the Kanak people, who once suffered from strict segregation policies and widespread discrimination.

Sullivan said that the Israeli state had hindered aid deliveries in the recent past but had improved the flow sufficiently, so as not to be subject to restrictions on military aid that might have been required under US law.

So they’ve found that sweet spot, have they? Just enough aid ‘let through’ to pacify the Americans, and nowhere near enough to help the Palestinians.

I wonder what his position is on who should pay to rebuild Gaza …

When you check in, just tell the desk that you don’t want housekeeping sitting your stay.

Clever human!

But there are too many people with huge sums of money invested to allow a cataclysmic event to happen, and for swathes of cities to become ghost towns. […] vacated commercial buildings are set to be updated, transforming areas formerly packed with office workers during workweeks, and nearly deserted over weekends, into “hybrid destinations” filled with greater green spaces, pedestrianised areas and leisure options that keep a more consistent weekly footfall. […] Developers might be forced to the cliff edge to be creative, but they have around five years to prepare, mobilise and get ready for the future that’s coming.

Lol, this guy imagining that they’re going to spend their time accepting massive losses and making plans to convert their buildings, instead of spending massive amounts of time and money re-writing laws and codes so they don’t get stuck with the losses.

I mean, I could see what he’s saying if this was one city, or some percentage of cities. But this is every city, plus half the suburbs, all at the same time, all trying to offset the same trillions of dollars of losses.

From what I understand, you can convert a lot of buildings that were built before the middle of the century; it’s the massive onees that are the issue. Older buildings were designed to let in light and air from the outside. If you break them into apartments, you can get something that’s a reasonable size with windows.

But if you try to convert one of those massive square skyscrapers, you run into issues. You could break each floor into a set of massive apartments, but there aren’t enough people who can afford them. You can make really long, thin apartments with windows at one end, but most people don’t want to live in something that’s 10-15 feet wide, a third of a city block long, with windows at one end. Or you can put the apartments around the edges and then do something with the center space; say, put tenant storage space every 3 floors, a gym every 8 floors, a play area every 5 floors, etc. But that raises the cost of the apartments and incurs monthly fees to clean and maintain those areas.

Why would anyone listen to anything said by the man who singlehandedly created Brexit?

For years, the site had a standing policy that prevented the use of generative AI in writing or rewording any questions or answers posted. Moderators were allowed and encouraged to use AI-detection software when reviewing posts. Beginning last week, however, the company began a rapid about-face in its public policy towards AI.

I listened to an episode of The Daily on AI, and the stuff they fed into to engines included the entire Internet. They literally ran out of things to feed it. That’s why YouTube created their auto-generated subtitles - literally, so that they would have more material to feed into their LLMs. I fully expect reddit to be bought out/merged within the next six months or so. They are desperate for more material to feed the machine. Everything is going to end up going to an LLM somewhere.

Serious Trouble, by the further hosts of (and essentially a continuation of) All the President’s Lawyers.

Nocturne, by Vanessa Lowe. A podcast about the night, and things that happen during the night. Favorite episodes: Night ways about what ancient people use to do at night and how archeology and anthropology are changing their perceptions; Finding the Void about a guy who lived inside a mall; On the North Face about a guy who got lost while climbing Mount Shasta; What’s Would You Do about the fear of night.

I usually check in on The Daily like once a week to see if anything interesting has been covered.

And This Week in Virology, which I got into during the pandemic. Usually the weekly update on Friday on what contagious diseases are currently circulating, and about half the time their Sunday episode.

destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities

"scuse us while we move some goalposts here …

and ensure that Gaza does not pose a threat to Israel in the future

And suddenly it’s not ‘Hamas’ that’s a threat, but ‘Gaza’. More moving goalposts, and revealing Israel’s real aim: the elimination of Gaza itself. Except, like the Republicans, who constantly have to create a new threat to ‘defend’ themselves against, after Gaza it’ll be the West Bank. And after that it’ll be something else …