My go-to easy party thing is buffalo chicken dip, I basically never measure anything so if you’re not comfortable eyeballing stuff there’s a million recipes out there to get you in the right ballpark.

The way I do it is requires maybe about 5 minutes total of actual work

Cook some chicken. I just throw some chicken breasts in the pressure cooker. Crock pot should work fine if you have the time, or bake them in the oven, poach them on the stove, hell just buy pre cooked chicken if you want, a lot of grocery stores near me even sell pre-shredded chicken which would be ideal. Whatever’s most convenient for you. Pressure cooker or crock pot lets this be a one-pot kind of deal, and you can serve in it to keep it warm.

I just throw the chicken in there, little bit of salt & pepper, maybe some cayenne if I know people can handle the spice, some garlic and onion powder if I actually like the people I’m going to party with and it’s not just a work function I’m half-assing things for.

Shred the chicken. I just go to town with a hand mixer. Use whatever method you like.

There’s usually maybe a cup or so of liquid that cooked out of the chicken in the pressure cooker, I just leave it. If you’re using other methods you may need to add or drain off some liquid - water, chicken stock, whatever. I think some added liquid is good and help it stay “dippy” even if you can’t keep it warm for serving.

Add some cream cheese, Frank’s red hot (or your preferred buffalo wing sauce,) and crumbled Bleu cheese

I like to shred some carrots and celery into it with a grater. Totally optional, but I think it kind of helps get the full experience of a basket of wings with a cup of blue cheese dressing and a couple celery sticks.

Mix it all together, easiest to do if it’s still warm of course so the cream cheese can melt.

A lot of recipes call for shredded cheese, I don’t think that adds to the flavor profile here, and just kind of makes the dip stiffer and less dip-able.

Serve with your preferred dipping chips, pita/naan, etc.

I’ve also used basically the same exact recipe as a filling for things like pierogi or rangoons. In those cases I do usually drain off the liquid from the chicken so that it’s a bit thicker.

My computer is basically the same computer my wife built around 12 years ago, as she did upgrades over the last decade or so I just saved her old components and eventually stuffed them into a new box. It was a beefy rig when she built it, and still runs most of what I throw at it with (what I think is) pretty acceptable performance and settings.

So that old motherboard and processor aren’t windows 11 compliant and with the windows 10 end of life I decided it was time to make the switch. Don’t quite have the wiggle room in the budget for a major upgrade right now.

And truth be told, even if I were to do a major upgrade, I probably was looking at Linux anyway. I don’t like the AI bullshit and a lot of the other dumb crap Microsoft has been pulling with 11. I want to get away from the corporate overlords in general. I’ve always been pretty big on FOSS, so really it was just gaming that’s been holding me back and I felt like proton and such the state of gaming on Linux has finally reached a place I can be happy with.

And not for nothing, it’s free, and I’ve always felt like MS charges too much for windows. I’m a bit of a cheapskate, if I can save a buck I’m going to. The F in FOSS is a huge draw for me.

And I’ve had half-baked plans to turn this current rig into a home server/NAS whenever I get around to building a new rig, so that meant Linux was in the cards for it at some point anyway, and I might as well start getting my hands dirty with that now in preparation.

Savage Daughter by Sarah Hester Ross comes to mind

Couple weeks back, but this is still one of the things I’m most proud to have ever done in my life

My friend works security at a bar. He texts me a pic of a guy sitting at the bar wearing a shirt with some SS lightning bolts, and said the girl he was with was wearing them too.

They’re not otherwise causing a problem, so the manager won’t let my friend kick these guys out, but he really wanted to.

I’m at work, probably 5 miles away, and I can’t leave to go start a ruckus. But I like this bar and I’ll be damned if I let Nazis get a foothold there.

So I think through my options. I remember that the bar has a jukebox with an app you can queue songs up on. I open up that app and see that I, for some reason, have a ton of credits on there.

And even better, you don’t actually even need to be at the bar to play songs there.

So I begin queuing up every anti-nazi, anti-fascist, anti-racist song I could find.

According to my friend, after a couple songs he got visibly frustrated and steps outside to have a cigarette as All You Fascists Bound to Lose comes on (sadly the jukebox did not have much Woody Guthrie, so I had to settle for the Billy Bragg and Wilco version)

He comes back inside and is created with Youth Against Fascism by Sonic Youth.

I keep it up. I find a version of Bella Ciao to play, Racist Friend by The Specials, This Is America, etc.

This bar has their jukebox set to a family friendly mode, since they also operate as a restaurant during the day. This limited my options somewhat, but I managed to put together a pretty solid dozen or so songs.

He starts looking around the bar, trying to figure out who is playing all this music obviously targeted at him. Of course I’m not even in the same town, so he finds nothing. My friend is keeping busy checking IDs and such at the door and occasionally texting me an update.

At some point in the middle of this someone queued up a single kid rock song, and I strongly suspect it was them.

It only took about an hour and they decided to close out their tab. He walks out to Michael Jackson’s They Don’t Care about Us.

But that’s not the end of this. I’m on a warpath now. I fire up a throwaway Google account and leave a 1 star review of the bar complaining about the Nazi. This causes a bit of stir with the management, and my friend is successfully able to argue for more authority to throw Nazis out.

Nazi punks can fuck off.

All good, I always feel like it’s 72 hours, and I think the equivalent in most states is only 72 I think we’re the odd one out on that, and I feel like in most cases patients managed to get stabilized enough to be discharged after the 72 hours.

I kind of feel like the extra two days are mostly so there’s time to get everything set up for a 303 in case the patient tries to fight it and it goes to court. I had to be a witness for that over a call I took once, I only got like a day or two’s notice because it all has to happen on such a condensed timeline

A 302 can actually be up to 120 hours

303 is up to 20 days

304 is 90

There’s also a 305, which I believe is up to 180

And technically a 306, but that has to do with transferring involuntary commitment patients to another facility or something.

Like I said in another comment I work in PA and my wife happens to work at a psych hospital so I get to hear all about this stuff.

It is and it isn’t

Certain things absolutely need to be standardized

But in other cases it can just kind of bog things down.

I remember one training thing we had to do to keep our certifications up to date, part of it had to do with fire dispatch.

And at the beginning of that, our instructor basically said “Almost nothing in this course is at all relevant to us. But it’s a national standard and we have to teach this to you”

It had a lot to do with wildland firefighting and some other specific situations that have nothing to do with how things operate in our area or with the kinds of situations we deal with.

It was interesting, I learned some fun facts, but I haven’t yet had any reason to use any of the knowledge I picked up from that training.

And that time could have probably been better spent doing something else.

Funnily enough, I actually work in an agency that’s very close to Philly and deal with my counterparts in the city fairly regularly.

I don’t get (or want) to listen to a whole lot of PPD radio chatter, we have plenty in our own county to keep us busy, so I don’t know for certain if they’re actually still using 10-codes or any other similar system or not. I can’t think of any time I’ve heard a Philly officer or dispatcher use one with me, but it’s certainly possible that they’re still in use there internally.

Also even though we’re using plain language, there’s still some weird miscommunication that happens.

I remember one time needing to advise Philly of a report of gunshots we received that might have been relevant to them, it was near their border.

So I called over to their dispatch and advised them that “we received a report of shots fired in the area of…”

Which kind of sent their dispatcher into a bit of a tizzy because in Philly dispatch lingo “shots fire” basically means an officer has fired their gun, but to us it’s just any report of gunshots (which, more often than not, means fireworks or something that the caller mistook for gunshots)

Just as an aside, most police codes aren’t really standardized across different agencies.

There’s a handful of 10-codes that are pretty much universal, like “10-4”

67 isn’t one of those codes. A lot of departments do use it for a report of a death

But it’s also commonly used to advise of an important incoming message

And other agencies may have other uses for it

And other agencies use other systems besides 10 codes, I believe some departments in CA have been known to use penal code numbers

But so because of that, there’s been a big movement in emergency service to use plain language over codes for the last decade or two, mostly since Katrina since different agencies using different codes lead to a lot of miscommunication there.

I work in 911 dispatch, at my agency and pretty much everywhere around me it’s all plain language. One or two 10-codes linger around, more as informal slang than anything that gets official use. 10-4 sometimes gets used, but that’s practically just part of the English language now.

10-96 also kind of lingers around in my agency, which in the set of 10-codes they used before I started was for a subject with mental health issues. We’re not really supposed to use it but no one has really come up with a better shorthand for it so it still pops up from time to time, mostly from our officers.

A fridge stocked full of Orbitz

I don’t even remember if it was any good, and the handful of times I had it I’m pretty sure it was already discontinued, I remember getting it from a discount grocery store that sold a lot of stuff that was damaged or near its expiration date.

But it left a mark on my childhood.

Not a fan of the bait and switch, and I haven’t really looked into her beyond this article so I can’t say if this is the case

But I kind of wonder if this isn’t actually a pretty good strategy.

A whole lot of Texans aren’t going to vote for anyone who doesn’t have an R next to their name, regardless of if they actually like their policies or not.

So maybe if you just do everything as a Democrat would do but register as a Republican and don’t talk about it too much, you can slip one by them and get the idiots to vote for an actual RINO.

Of course the trick is getting the word out there to get Dems to vote for someone without a D next to their name as well without clueing in the Republicans that that’s what’s going on. The Republicans are a little more used to listening for dog whistles than Democrats are.

I think a whole lot of “maker” type channels have all stayed pretty solid, off the top of my head

This Old Tony
Adam Savage
Xyla Foxlin
Clickspring
Blondihacks
Colin Furze
Inheritance Machining (though compared to some of the others he’s relatively new)
Stuff Made Here
Jeremy Fielding

Branching out a bit

How to drink
Caitlin Doughty (ask a mortician)
LockpickingLawyer
NileRed (and NileBlue)
Tasting History
Townsends
Useful Charts
EDIT: Almost forgot Technology Connections

Some of them have changed their format a bit over the years, I don’t think that’s been a negative for any of them. Also due to how YouTube revenue works these days a lot of them have had to rely more heavily on sponsors, patron, merch etc. don’t hate the player for that, hate the game.

I believe you’d still be controlling the player character, you’d just be seeing through the eyes of the enemy

I don’t know how well it would work as a game mechanic, but I could see a cool take on this in a cyberpunk setting where the player character is blind, but can hack into other people’s eyes to see, so you go around seeing yourself from different viewpoints

I imagine it would get weird

You shoot someone and suddenly you can’t see through their eyes any more since they’re dead. Or maybe their bionics are still powered for a while but they’re not facing any useful direction, maybe they fall face down and all you can see is the floor tile they’re laying on, or they’re facing up and all you can see is the ceiling until you walk right over their corpse

Maybe after you kill a room full of enemies you need to lug around a corpse or maybe just a severed head so that you can find the exit because none of them fell looking the right direction.

I’m not normally much of a writer, but that idea actually inspired me a bit, so here’s a little short story I guess

I walk into the lobby and I begin to see through the eyes of the security guard seated at the desk. He’s reading a newspaper - an actual ink-on-paper newspaper. I didn’t know they still made those.

The door chime beeps and his eyes are immediately on me, zooming in, trying to get a read on me. I see my own features, distorted by the fisheye lens of his implants.

These security types always have some high-end bionics- night vision, thermal imaging, zoom, image stabilization, extra-wide field of view, facial recognition, the works. They think they can see everything but somehow they never seem to see it coming.

A notification pops up in his vision “Unrecognized person detected, check ID” the angle changes as he begins to get up. I see the back of his hand as he raises his arm in a “stop” gesture. He’s wearing a wedding band. That’s unfortunate.

I see movement in the bottom corner of his vision. He’s doing something with his other hand but I can’t tell what. Is he reaching for his gun? Is he smoothing out the wrinkles from his shirt? Is he just trying to put the newspaper away?

Maybe that’s why he reads an actual newspaper. He’s supposed to be alert and paying attention, if he read on his phone or tablet like anyone else his employers could track it, they’d know he was slacking off. Smart.

Through my own ears I hear him ask for my ID.

Through his eyes I see myself reach into my coat pocket he zooms in slightly. I love it when they zoom, it makes what comes next so much easier.

I see my gun come out. The angle changes abruptly but strangely smoothly, that image stabilization is doing some heavy-lifting as he tries to duck for cover and reach for his own gun.

His eyes are fixed on it, he’s staring right down the barrel, I can even just about line the sights up through his eyes, he’s making it too easy.

A flash. A loud bang heard through my own ears. Flashing warnings at the corners of his vision reporting critical vital signs.

The angle changes again, I think he’s fallen backwards and is propped up by his chair. He’s not looking straight up at the ceiling, but he’s not looking straight forward at me either. I can catch glimpses of the top of my head here and there as I stumble blindly towards him.

My face comes into full view as I make my way around the desk. I start going through his pockets looking for a key card to let myself into the elevator.

I find a rectangular piece of plastic on a lanyard stuffed into his pocket, and hold it in front of his eyes to confirm that it’s what I was looking for. I tap it on the sensor on the desk and hear the elevator doors slide open.

I point his head towards the elevator so that I can see where I’m going. A message notification pops up in his vision from “Bae💜” asking if he’ll be home for dinner. I see myself sigh as the door closes behind me.

The steel and concrete of the building sever me from his ocular feed as the elevator starts climbing and everything goes black once again.

There was a thread I saw not too long ago where someone brought up a little conspiracy theory I think I may subscribe to

There’s a new Alzheimer’s treatment, Lecanemab/Leqembi, that was given accelerated approval in the US by the FDA this year in January, so just as trump took office.

It’s given by IV every 4 weeks. Trump has been seen with what looks like makeup thats covering up bruising from an IV

It also seems like he has highs and lows where he declines for a couple weeks then perks back up a bit before declining again, and you can maybe kind of match those up to a similar 4-ish week cycle.

And it also calls for regular cognitive tests and MRIs to monitor if it’s effective, and, well, trump has been doing that.

They have 3 different peelers (4 if you count the left and right handed versions separately, 5 if you count the julienne peeler.

We have the swivel peeler which comes in left and right handed versions.

And on that note, think about how you peel. I tend to do long things like carrots and cucumbers in long strips away from myself, which is the opposite direction from what the right handed peeler can cut.

Round things like apples or potatoes though, I generally peel towards myself like a paring cut, which is what the right handed peeler is designed for.

If you’re splurging on a peeler for yourself, you could do like we did and just get both to cover all bases. Otherwise it may be worth taking an extra moment to consider the person you’re gifting it to’s handedness and what they’re likely to be peeling with it.

The stabby looking one should, I think, be ambidextrous. I haven’t used that one, I suspect it’s probably a cut above the cheap peeler you may have in your drawer now, but I can’t actually vouch for it. It also doesn’t look like the blade is replaceable on that one so I’d be less inclined to splurge on something that’s ultimately going to be disposable once it gets dull unless you want to get really fiddly trying to sharpen it. That said I think it’s probably going to be made of better steel than most regular peelers and will probably last a good long time before getting dull.

Or get the crosswise peeler which also has the replaceable blade. Can’t quite vouch for that one myself either, but we do have the julienne peeler which seems to be essentially the same but with a (non-replaceable) julienne blade, and I’ve been quite happy with that as well (though I do feel that it could have been designed to use the replaceable blades) the crosswise basically seems to be the julienne peeler but with the replaceable swivel peeler blades, so I’m pretty confident that it’s also a solid piece of kit, just not my preferred style of peeler.

Final note, the plain cylindrical steel handles may not be everyone’s aesthetic or ideal ergonomics. I like it just fine or even prefer it, but that’s just me.

My wife worked in a fancy kitchen store for a while, and has strong opinions on just about every kitchen tool or utensil you can imagine, and to her credit I agree with most of them.

A while back she ordered a Rösle vegetable peeler and due to a shipping error, instead of one single peeler we were sent, what I assume to be, one entire case’s worth of peelers.

Having now used it for several months I strongly believe this is the best vegetable peeler I have ever used. Also the blade is replaceable, which is, I think, pretty damn cool.

So since we have a bunch of them, pretty much everyone we know is getting one for Christmas.

They’re pricey if you’ve got a bunch of stockings to stuff, but not outrageously so if you only need to get one or two for people you know enjoy cooking. And they’re the kind of thing a lot of people probably wouldn’t spend the extra money on themselves. If it weren’t for my wife I’d probably have whatever the cheapest peeler in the kitchen aisle at target is, and it never would have crossed my mind that there was room for improvement.

Otherwise, I’ve never personally been disappointed to find a flashlight or pocket knife in my stocking.

My wife and I are on-and-off casual magic the gathering players, so a pack or two of that often finds its way into our stocking, substitute whatever your trading card game of choice is there.

Or various other small card or dice type games. It’s kind of nice having some little game you can carry around in your backpack or purse and bust out when you have some time to kill with friends.

Small Lego sets

Fidget toys

Snacks

Soaps, lotions, lip balm, etc.

Couple months ago I found myself needing to stop at a McDonald’s in probably one of the worst neighborhoods you can find outside of the inner city. Nature was calling and it seemed like my best option.

It was for paying customers only, fair enough, I made a token purchase of a McChicken and some fries, and got an employee to unlock the door for me.

I was greeted with that eerie blue light that bathrooms in places like this use to deter drug use because it makes it harder to find a vein.

It gave off an all-around really unsettling vibe, but I will admit that, at least as far as I could tell given the lighting, it seemed to be immaculately clean.

Real tree

I don’t really want to do a tree to begin with but if my wife’s gonna make me do it I’m going to do it right.

Also I don’t have to wrestle the damn thing up and down the rickety ladder to my attic, it’s bad enough that I have to do that with the bins of ornaments.

And I get the catharsis of getting to burn the damn thing after the season is over.

Also it gives my house a slight piney scent.

That is just not the case.

The case that people tend to cite when this comes up is Burdick vs United States, that determined that people can choose to decline a pardon.

And one of the reasons they gave for why someone may choose to refuse a pardon is because it can be seen as implying guilt.

Basically, some people will see you take the pardon and think “if he’s innocent, why is he taking a pardon instead of seeking exoneration?”

But of course, if you know anything about the US “justice” system, that argument falls apart pretty fast.

Actually admitting guilt is not part of accepting a pardon, it’s just that a lot of people think that it means you’re guilty, and the pardoned people don’t want to have people think that about them.

And of course spreading this kind of misinformation only makes that issue worse.

This is probably going to vary a lot depending on where you’re applying, every state has their own regulations and every department their own standards, so there’s probably not going to be a one-size-fits-all answer for you.

At the very least, if it comes up, it’s probably not going to be seen as a mark in your favor. If, hypothetically, the hiring choice came down to you, or an otherwise identical candidate who isn’t autistic, 9/10 times they’re probably going to go with the other guy.

If at all possible, don’t bring it up. If it comes up on a form or something, don’t lie, if you get caught in a lie that’s probably gonna be an automatic disqualification, but if they don’t ask, don’t tell them. Don’t volunteer the information that you’re autistic unless it’s specifically asked for. If there’s a question anywhere along the lines of “do you have any conditions that will prevent you from carrying out your duties as a police officer?” The answer is “no” unless you do believe that your autism will be an impediment, in which case, don’t be a cop.

Also, between stuff like this and the potential of RFK wanting to send people to work farms, I think it’s very important for people to ask themselves before pursuing a diagnosis for autism (and other conditions) “how do I stand to benefit from a diagnosis, and how will it potentially hurt me?”

If you’re at the high-functioning/low-support-needs/however-you-want-to-phrase-it end of the spectrum, what kind of additional resources and support will a diagnosis actually unlock for you and do you really need them? Or will it just come back to bite you in situations like this? Unfortunately people really do need to be weighing that.