Well, I had been happy with YouTube music for years, but I’m frustrated by this at the moment:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/songs-blocked-youtube-legal-dispute-sesac-1236017120/

Ugh. We caught a kid doing that in my high school library last May. We radioed for help. The campus supervisor walked him outside, talked to him about it, and sent him back to us to finish the test he was working on. I couldn’t believe it. Later, we told admin about it and had to write witness statements. He was a freshman and said it’s what he does at home when he’s sitting around, and didn’t realize he was doing it. None of the students know, as far as I’m aware. We all kept it very quiet.

There are three subreddits I miss after leaving reddit, and one of them is r/freefolk.

Brando Sando has answered the question a bunch of times, and said he’s not interested at all. Also, GRRM previously said he would never allow it to be finished by anyone else. Who knows? Maybe the publisher will force it.

I love the music for both and both games were part of my teen life, and I replayed Ocarina of Time a lot more… but I agree with FF7. Nobuo Uematsu is incomparable.

Literally same. I’ve gone back and looked at it a few times, and I can’t see white and gold anymore. I think my brain broke.

That’s what happened to us with the Camp Fire, but a guy started the Park Fire (currently at 401,199 acres and 27% contained).

https://sfstandard.com/2024/07/30/fire-started-by-man-pushing-flaming-car-is-californias-5th-largest-ever/

Fun fact! Erin Hunter is a pseudonym for a collective of authors including Tui Sutherland! She wrote Wings of Fire after she stopped writing/editing Erin Hunter books. I found out while I was working in an elementary school library.

Not my favorite, but I recently finished the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas. Nothing in them is original, and she heavily borrows from folk tales and mythology, but she makes it very satisfying. She’s REALLY good at knowing what her audience wants, imo, so it was fun to read.

I just cried again reading it, and I’ve seen the movie 3 times. That speech is so good.

For me, I REALLY related to the entire speech, so I would’ve sobbed anyway. But America Ferrera giving the speech made it even more impactful for me. When she was on Ugly Betty, I remember people were really mean online and harshly judged her looks and body type, so the speech felt personal.

There is definitely room for a similar speech about men and toxic masculinity, and the way men are made to feel like they have to be strong and stable all the time. But the speech in Barbie wasn’t about them. It felt like it was for me, for my teenage daughter, for my friends, and for all the men with women in their lives that they love.

Life can be really hard, and I was stunned by the “I don’t get it” crowd. She spells it out pretty clearly. It’s hard not to get.

It’s not that easy. They don’t have much money, and that’s why they were living where they were. The city nearby where everyone works became too expensive after the Camp Fire (rent has almost doubled) and then COVID. It’s really hard. They would’ve had to start over completely somewhere else without nearby family, friends, or their jobs. It’s just not that simple. Towns burning down is a pretty recent recurrence.

They’re clearly trying to win if they got so scared about polls they strong-armed Biden into resigning. The panic has pretty clearly set in. We’ll see if this works or not.

I was also surprised by that, but I’m still surprised people have them in their living rooms. I guess it’s like upgrading from a baby monitor??

Yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve been working in public school libraries for almost 10 years now and get paid basically nothing, and since I’m not a teacher, my retirement accrues so slowly that it’s basically nonexistent. I’ll probably have to work until I die. I should’ve switched careers a long time ago. One more year and I’m out. I decided to wait until my daughter graduates high school, and then I’ll make big life changes.

Just for some perspective, some companies give stock options to employees in lieu of better pay, so the guy you were frustrated with might also be broke.

I hope things look up for you! For all of us!

That was unnecessarily mean. Are you mad at him because he has stock in the company?

38H (UK sizing) here.

I still don’t go braless even in winter because they hang low, and that embarrasses me. Existing at all embarrasses me, so take that with a grain of salt.

You forgot the implication that black women couldn’t possibly be skilled or smart enough to be hired. Because they’re black. That’s the racist part. It’s devaluation stemming from racism.

Wow! Thanks for the explanation! That’s a really great meme that went completely over my head.

Yeah that message would haunt me for life.

Honestly, I’m at a loss. It’s so hard to get a single school of teachers to stick to one policy, let alone at a district or state level. When I send an all-staff email at my school (and they’re occasionally important with scheduling details), Outlook often tells me that only 67% of them even opened it.

I feel like you’d either have to: a) incorporate cellphones as a tool in class and have standard repercussions (e.g. 1st/2nd time earn a detention, 3rd time earn a Saturday school) for kids texting/on social media, or b) do something like a box on the desk so it’s visible but they can’t touch it.

I just don’t think it’s possible to ban them at school. Too many parents don’t respect any school authority figures after COVID with all the culture war stuff (fight to return to full day school, fight to not wear masks, fight to censor bipoc and lgbtq+ books/lessons/celebrations, etc.). I think either way, it’ll just end up being another shitty part of a teacher’s job.

They were all pretty close to the books except that they cut out a lot of the pointless bickering that kept happening all the time, so I’d blame JK Rowling for those.