A lot of negative comments. I went through a divorce last year (male, mid 40s), and used dating apps when I was ready to start meeting people. I was apprehensive going in but ended up shocked by how positive the results were. After a week or two I would have several matches and pause searching while I talked with those and planned in-person meetings. Most profiles you’ll never get a reply. Of those you match again, half likely never respond to initial introductions / questions. But, if you live in a major metro area there’s still plenty of people looking for relationships if you’re willing to filter through that. I’m now happily in a relationship for the past few months so I’ve stopped using these apps.

I tried 3: eHarmony, hinge, and bumble. Here’s my feedback from best to worse.

Hinge: encourages discussion as an initial match prompt. I met the most people on this app and many matches led to in person dates. Met the person I’m currently dating seriously on here.

Bumble: costs money to send a comment / question, free to “just swipe”. Kept showing me profiles for people currently within my search distance, but who have listed another major city as their home (I guess they’re connecting through the airport and on the app?). Went on multiple dates with matches, fewer than hinge.

eHarmony: where I originally met my previous wife ~20 years ago. Now had the fewest matches and worst experience (and highest cost). I stopped checking this one after about a month. Went on only 1 date.

Feedback from my matches about the app: many men are using it to find people to cheat with / aren’t serious about a relationship. All of them told me actually holding a conversation on the app put me in the “top tier” of their matches. Many shared that matches just gave super short answers then asked for a phone number. Several noted that half the time they shared a number they almost immediately received dick pics. Multiple said matches tried to get them into crypto (?!?!).

For me (busy work schedule, and still spend half my time with kids) the experience was far better than any dates friends or co workers suggested. The profiles are not super deep… Yes everyone loves live music, travel, and The Office. I wanted to connect over something more specific than that. At least the people you match with are also looking for a relationship. Meeting people through my hobbies at 40+ most are in long term relationships or not interested in starting one. The apps are largely superficial… Half the first dates I went on one or both of us decided not to have a second date. Which is honestly expected… Even after filtering through the profiles and messaging in app you still only know the basics for most people.

For you specifically: many matches took issue with the recent timing of my divorce. If you’re separated (not divorced) expect that to be a deal breaker for many.

No need for a meme. Just say happy mother’s day. A personal anecdote will mean more… Give one example of why you think they’re a great mother.

I have a few close friends who are mothers I sent a note today. If you’re close enough you’d wish them a happy birthday it’d be kind to do the same on any other holiday that applies. And ultimately this is all about being nice to people you care about. If it would make their day a little bit better: do it!

The same applies for days that aren’t holidays too … This is part of how you make and maintain friendships. Send a nice message every once in a while just to let them know they matter to you and you think highly about them. People love to hear others appreciate them. They’re more likely to do the same back if you do, and I always find it uplifting to get a random compliment from a friend.

Music videos! Bingeing some of the live sessions posted by artists is a healthier time sink than most everything else on YouTube.

Celery salt is made from celery seed and salt. It’s not as salty as table salt: https://www.allrecipes.com/article/what-is-celery-salt/

Mid 40s. I feel older than I used to; but can still do everything I love so I’d not consider myself “old”.

If you’re looking for convincing arguments; read through the responses from this panel of experts: https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/tariffs/ (from 2024) and more recently: https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/tariffs-reciprocal-and-retaliatory-2/

Many of the responding professors provide detail on why they vote a certain way. For example to the 3rd part of the question from 2024: “The gains for the American economy from tripling the tariffs would measurably outweigh the losses.” you get replies like:

Protectionism via tariffs creates well-understood aggregate losses in efficiency. This is so even if China “unfairly” subsidizes its steel. Political motivations aside, actual distributional impacts are modest, ill targeted, and better handled with other more direct tax tools.

With links to further background information: https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/publications/CW 04-15-22.pdf & http://www.econ.ucla.edu/pfajgelbaum/tradewar_1203.pdf with more detail to read.

Not sure if this will convince you or not; but it’s at least a cache of relevant information.

British band “Jungle” has been in heavy rotation for me the past ~6 months. Specifically watch their music videos and the dance choreography. I suggest playing the entire album “Volcano” as one video.

My facts were provided and cited? I’d argue your positions are the ones not related to the facts:

aerospace and military manufacturers are saying there are certain components they simply can’t manufacture here without importing from China

This is a media statement, not a fact, and not reflected in industry data nor historical examples. There’s a cost they don’t want to pay, not a hard block. Manufacturing has historically been more than able to adjust, but at a cost. In the event of a war we’d likely pay that cost, in the face of tariffs it’s up to those individual manufacturers to decide. So we might see them choose to keep importing instead of replacing certain components… But that does not then mean they couldn’t do so.

I don’t understand how you have maintained this perspective of interruptions and shipping affecting the US more than China

I didn’t claim this at all? And I won’t argue it as relevant since interrupting shipping globally is not a relevant equivalent to bilateral trade halting.

I don’t feel like you’re making arguments in good faith, or you are disregarding my claims and raising straw man arguments… Apologies in advance as I’ll likely not continue this thread.

US manufacturing output is far larger than the amount we import form China.

US manufacturing made about $2.5 Trillion in 2021: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/manufacturing-output

US imported from China about $0.5 Trillion in 2021 (all goods, not just manufacturing): https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html

China could defeat most western countries without firing a single shot, just by cutting off their access to Chinese exports.

I disagree with this assumption!

We don’t rely on China, we benefit from trading with them. Some of our goods go there, we get some of their goods. If a war breaks out and that trade stops; we have plenty of manufacturing capacity. And the point of having allies is that we would expect assistance in the event of a war, so we don’t expect US manufacturing to even completely fill the gap (similarly our allies would expect the US to help if China were to target one of them… except that the current administration is alienating everyone but Russia…).

If you look another level down into what each country manufactures; the US makes a lot of military equipment, and imports a lot of consumer goods form China. Our military would not lose much capacity by a loss in trade with China, but US consumers would lose some of their consumption options. Guess which one matters when it comes to war?

I don’t support tariffs as a tool to increase American manufacturing jobs because they don’t accomplish that goal. This is not a political belief; it’s derived from evidence. Many sources available, here’s one: https://files.taxfoundation.org/20180627113002/Tax-Foundation-FF595-1.pdf

Using tariffs as a diplomatic tool is only effective in extreme cases. Diplomacy is difficult and so many things are interrelated. If a tariff threat makes China capitulate to our position on Taiwan, why not just use a tariff threat to bring China completely into line on every other position? Tariffs are blunt, and cause harm (economic and diplomatic) to broad areas of both countries unrelated to the specific issue. Topical example: sanctions on Russia did not change their position on Ukraine, even though those were far more severe than just a blanket X% tariff and were supported by many other countries (multi-lateral as opposed to uni-lateral). If we want to influence China’s position on Taiwan, diplomacy is more effective than tariffs.

I don’t care about being “sexually desirable” to as many women as possible; I only care about being desirable to enough people that finding someone to start a relationship with is a practical possibility. This post is about my lack of understanding of how sexual attraction fundamentally works. I’m essentially asking if sexual attraction is highly polarized—targeting either strong masculine or strong feminine presentations—with minimal reaction to more androgynous presentations.

Added emphasis, as it kind of answers your own question. Being sexy to someone isn’t universal. There’s certainly things more women tend to find sexy; but it’s not an absolute by any means. Think of all the happily married people you have met (assuming you live in a fairly large community). Or even consider all of those in long-term relationships. Not every man in every relationship is super fit and sexy, right? Nor were all the men such when they first met their partner. It is not a requirement! And if you know enough such couples you’ll realize appearances of the men in them run the gambit from hot-bod to dad-bod and beyond. And if fact most people in happy relationships are far from the media archetype of “sexy male” as you allude to in your original post.

Not every woman is a lingerie supermodel; not every man is a bodybuilder or Hollywood heartthrob. Yet so many people are able to find relationships where they each find each other sexually desirable. Just randomly scroll through strangers (real poeple) on a social media of your choice and you’ll see happy couples with all variety of body types and appearances.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. -Mark Twain

I’ve been to protests; and I’ve volunteered for political campaigns. The second actually flipped a (US House) seat from red to blue (obviously the work of many people; I’m not thinking I was the deciding factor but it was a close election). The first left me with a pink hat and no noticeable change in how elected leaders acted.

I need to be convinced the protest will achieve measurable changes; otherwise I’ll spend my time looking for the upcoming elections where there are close enough margins to feel my actions make a difference.

Nice!

Yes, if this is an issue you have: you should start taking steps to address it!

There are a number of online services to get you started, or see a therapist for personalized help from a professional. Mental health issues are real, but can be addressed with the right treatments. They won’t likely go away on their own, you’ll need to find the right strategies that work for you and then put in the effort & time to address it.

Given he put tariffs in place his prior term, good chance he actually does it again.

Things that can be done via executive order are highly likely … Because one of his staff will draft it and he’ll sign based on what they tell him it’s about.

Some lackey: “this is that tariff thing”.

Actual EO: contains whatever

Also use a towel or cloth on top of the rubber band so it’s gentler on your hand / skin.

Why it works: this fixes the problem of poor friction; metal doesn’t grip well against skin (especially if your hand is wet or oily). The rubber band grips well against the metal of the lid and your skin (or towel).

60% Local; 30% All; 10% Subscribed (still building out my subscribed list)

Use a secret manager?

Cert is a secret, add a small agent to your containers that pings your secret manager and gets back the current cert. Then saves / imports it (or whatever is appropriate).

Hackers and hobbiests will persist despite any economics. Much of what they do I don’t see AI replacing, as AI creates based off of what it “knows”, which is mostly things it has previously ingested.

We are not (yet?) at the point where LLM does anything other than put together code snippets it’s seen or derived. If you ask it to find a new attack vector or code dissimilar to something it’s seen before the results are poor.

But the counterpoint every developer needs to keep in mind: AI will only get better. It’s not going to lose any of the current capabilities to generate code, and very likely will continue to expand on what it can accomplish. It’d be naive to assume it can never achieve these new capabilities… The question is just when & how much it costs (in terms of processing and storage).

Your vote is sending a signal to future elections. If Ohio has a 20-point red margin, it’s unlikely to get any attention from blue candidates. If it has a 5% margin, that changes, and suddenly the next campaign considers spending time & money to try and move the needle.

Remember the old Roman adage: “you’re not defeated until you admit defeat”. If you don’t vote: you’ve lost. If you vote, you might still lose that election but there’s a better chance to win in the future.