The church my mom took me to as a kid usually had the option to take a very small (single sip) cup of grape juice instead of the same size small cup of wine during the communion part of the service.
But sometimes on rare occasions I went to a service outside the church proper (for example, one was to my uncle’s house where my grandmother was dying of cancer) and usually for that kind of thing they only brought the wine, so I had to take some.

I was mostly joking about it putting me off religion (plenty of other factors there). But it really did taste extremely nasty, and every time I’ve tried alcohol since then reminds me of it, so it might really be part of why I don’t like alcohol.

Communion wine on an occasion that the grape juice wasn’t available.

I think it may have been part of what put me off of both alcohol and religion.

And didn’t forget the original Gamespot review.

No other game has ever been so trashed in so few words.

1. Perhaps Japan?
2. I feel like the US is getting really close to this honor, but I would still name a different one. Not sure which.
3. Germany being all anti-nuclear-powerplant without (in my opinion) good reason.

It’s a quantum spin 1/2 object, like electrons. 360 degrees is half a full rotation for it, so that’s what’s needed to switch it to the right state to fit. If you spun it 360 more degrees it would be back to the original state and not fit.

Paying literally hundreds of dollars per month as soon as I no longer have income isn’t a reasonable expectation either.

If a freak accident like this happens while I don’t have a job, I’ll just go bankrupt and likely become homeless, then die. I’m counting on that not happening.

Lately?
Dealing with UPS (and I don’t mean backup power, although I did also buy one of those recently.)

I ordered a laptop from a foreign country (I’m in the US), and UPS didn’t tell me I needed to tell them my ‘Tax ID’ and there was no way to input it online. So I had to call (and be on hold) a bunch before I could finally supply it, while my package was on hold.

Then they didn’t tell me I had to pay the outrageous tariffs (thank you voters) until I noticed it wasn’t moving and called them again.

Then most nights it said it was ‘on the way’ and would be delivered the next business day, until it reverted to ‘In Warehouse’ (code for held by customs) 4-5 hours later. So far it’s done this for over a week: Each day sending out alerts that I’d get it the next day, then silently taking that back. I’ve been on the phone with them a lot.

Tonight it finally actually said that it cleared customs. I’ll believe that when I see that it’s left Kentucky. Still says it will be delivered tomorrow (technically today) which seems unlikely regardless.

Update: Tracking still says it will be delivered today, and it’s actually nearby now, but that I owe the tariffs again!
Phone support says they see the earlier payment, so I don’t owe, and the website just hasn’t updated… From over a week ago. She also said it won’t be delivered today anyway. Why do they have separate systems that apparently don’t talk to each other‽

Update 2: Sure enough, the driver arrives and asks for a check. My new laptop is right there. I told him I paid, I show him a screenshot from my credit card, he calls his office, they don’t see it. I call customer support on my own phone while the driver is talking to his office, support gives me a confirmation code! Driver’s office doesn’t accept it. Their system has to be given notice of payment through some internal channel or something, and that should have happened automatically, but didn’t. I’m given a number to call and told what number to press.

That department is closed now (Friday evening). Opens Monday.

The driver offered to accept a check and said they would refund the part already paid.
Absolutely no way I’m trusting them after what I’ve already seen. Trying again on Monday it is.

Update 3: Besides ruining my mental health, now they also ruined the plans my wife and I made for today (…Saturday.) I got a notification this morning while out and about around 40 minutes away by freeway that the package was out for delivery. So I called again, and the phone system even said it was out for delivery today, Monday. Today is not Monday. And once again customer service could see that I paid. She did say she’d call ‘the facility’ and give them the authorization. She also said she would call me back, but my phone didn’t ring while I was rushing home. I called back when I got there and miraculously got the same agent, who said that she did get ahold of them, and gave them the code. But couldn’t reach the driver or something.

I got home and waited. And waited. Eventually the UPS truck did arrive, and of course the driver asked for payment, and I said I paid and asked her to call in.

Then the miracle happened.

Apparently the support agent had actually managed what none of the others could do, and and got the left hand to know what the right was doing. The driver’s manager (handler? Whoever) actually was able to confirm to her that I paid.

The little scanner thing she had however still wouldn’t let her actually take my signature* and close out the delivery. Even with her contact trying to walk her through it. Thankfully she decided to leave the package with me and deal with it later. I really hope she doesn’t get in trouble for that, but her contact didn’t seem to mind that plan, and many hours later it’s showing as delivered.

The laptop seems fine after all that. I expected it to be all kinds of mangled by this malfunctioning machine called UPS.

*Side note: the entire time, the tracking site said
"At the request of the shipper, pre-signing your package is not available.

Signature Required Sign Now

Not going to be home? Pre-sign for your package so your signature isn’t required…" - I didn’t test if it would let me. I knew I’d have to talk to the driver anyway.

Who are all these people in the photographs you inherited from your own parents, then I did from you? How were they related to me?

Supplies!

Florida Rat

Deleted? I’m seeing status 404 on that link.

That’s basically newsletters, forum digests, podcasts, etc.

Ok then.

Thanks, you too!

Of course Lemmy and such inherit some of that design even without the money behind it - there’s certainly a little dopamine hit when I see that one of my comments has gotten a reply, or when I check and see that it’s been upvoted.

Not having the incentive to enshittify is good though.

… More like 2.5*10^728 grams. Which would be like taking the number of particles in the (observable*) universe, making a new universe for each one, then taking the number of particles in all those universes and making a universe for each one… 9 levels deep. That many grams.

(*Every time I say universe I mean observable)

Edit: Oops, I forgot it’s 20 years, not just one. I think that’s Multiply both the 728 and the 9 by 20.

Yeah, got better numbers from a better calculator:

1.8e14665 grams
That’s 183 levels of universes of universes.

What would happen is entirely your responsibility as the author of the scenario.

Some options may be more “realistic” than others, but since the existence of a working time machine is already beyond what seems to be feasible physics (requiring ridiculous amounts and density of negative energy for example, where not even any has been shown to be possible to make) the scenario becomes soft sci-fi, or in other words magic, and that means it’s up to the writer to make up the rules.

Here is a post I found with many of the options you can choose from.

Even knowing that everything happens every way in some other branch of the wave function (other universes) doesn’t really affect our own little section of it. There’s no communications or travel, so other universes if they exist have the same meaning to us as if they don’t. Except in time travel stories like this.

Besides, the same “irrelevance” of decisions and events comes free with even one single universe given that it’s deterministic - as physics seems to be. (Yeah there’s quantum randomness, but random doesn’t help either)

That said I still believe in free will and the importance of decisions. I just think it has to be defined so weakly that it still works in a deterministic universe. (So I have free will, but so do dice and pocket calculators.)

Not everyone knows the keyboard shortcut though. I bet you can find people hunting for it using the mouse every time.