A
I don't cook chili myself and I don't plan to try anytime soon. Relying only on my instinct for food preparation and my experience as a food consumer, this is my made-up short list of "secret ingredients" that might add depth/sophistication/intrigue to the taste of chili:
If anyone has tried any of the above, let me know how it turned out.
@Mik said in 14.6 inches:
We just had a neighborhood kid shovel our rather long - 100 feet and 12’ wide - driveway. By himself. Couldn’t be more than 13. He was a trooper. Asked for $40, I gave him $80. He was pumped, but damn - he was out there hustling for four hours. Wants to be an Eagle Scout.
***asking discretely...***
@Mik said in Mildly interesting:
poetically translated by engineers as “My battery is low and it’s getting dark.”
Bah, they spoiled it with poetry.
I want to read the original message, presumably in status codes, in binary if I have to, along with the relevant decoder keys.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/27/trump-south-korea-trade-tariffs/
South Korean officials found themselves scrambling on Tuesday morning after waking up to a social media post from President Donald Trump announcing a fresh hike in tariffs on their country.
Trump said he would raise levies from 15 percent to 25 percent on autos, lumber, pharmaceuticals and all other goods affected by “Reciprocal TARIFFS” that are shipped from South Korea to the United States, citing the South Korean legislature’s failure to approve a trade deal he had reached with Seoul in July. “Why hasn’t the Korean Legislature approved it?” Trump wrote in the post.
FoxNews op-ed on the aforementioned university scientific research output ranking:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/harvard-gets-schooled-china-americas-universities-choose-activism-over-excellence
It seems to boil down to "Harvard bad, DEI bad." It acknowledges China's state funding for scientific research, but silent on the Trump administration's cutting of scientific research funding.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/01/26/chatgpt-health-apple/
WaPo tech columnist have ChatGPT and other AI services access to his large trove of Apple Health data and clinical records asking the AI services to grade his overall health, and found that the answer varied wildly from query to query, even from the same AI services.
The takeaway message seems to be that AI is not ready for prime time when it comes to giving personalized healthcare advice.
@Doctor-Phibes said in Alex Honnold to free solo Taipei 101:
That doesn't seem like a particularly useful trait from an evolutionary perspective.
Presumably there aren't many people with that trait.
Just came back from the first snow shoveling session.
Didn't clear the whole driveway, just enough to accommodate pedestrians.
Not too bad here, not even six inches of fluffy show powder.
But looking like it's turning into sleet for the rest of today.
Sleet typically sucks more than snow. 
He named the property "La Fin" ("The End" in English). Very inauspicious. Enough to keep the Chinese bidders away,
Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China.
China's official name is the People's Republic of China.
Nothing confusing about that, right?
@jon-nyc said in ICE kills a US citizen in Minneapolis:
You’d get absolute majorities signing up for that.
But not a Senate filibuster proof majority, much less a Presidential veto-proof majority. I'd venture to say that an "absolute majority" among the GOP base voters oppose #4. You cannot even get someone like @mik to support all 4 points (he opposes #3). The electoral math is not there for an immigration reform "grand bargain."
Thanks, @bachophile ... I don't have the patience to watch all 91+ minutes of it, so I am grateful that you shared the 10-minute time-lapsed video.
Fake news! The 2024 Westminster Dog Show's Best in Show was named "Sage."
Trump threatens 100 percent tariffs on Canadian goods over China deal
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/01/24/trump-canada-100-percent-tariff-threat/
... Trump on Saturday threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on all Canadian goods if the country “makes a deal with China,” a week after he said Prime Minister Mark Carney striking a trade deal with Beijing was “good” and what he “should be doing.”
“If Governor Carney thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “China will eat Canada alive, completely devour it, including the destruction of their businesses, social fabric, and general way of life.”
@89th said in ICE kills a US citizen in Minneapolis:
I think if everyone saw what was really happening (or again, just go on reddit) …
Republicans choose to consume different media. E.g., they may choose FoxNews-like outlets that air segments on government welfare fraud rather than ICE activities in Minnesota. You may not be effective at getting the Republicans to see “what was really happening.”