Makes sense. I’ve always been disappointed that instead of using better processing power to make bigger, more complex games, we used it to make the same games with more complex animations and details. I don’t want a game that only differs from its predecessors through use of graphical upgrades like individual blades of grass swaying in the wind, or the character starting to sweat in relation to their exertion; I want games with PS1-PS2 graphics and animation quality, but with complex gameplay that the consoles of that era could only dream of being able to handle.

This looks really cool - I put in my beta tester registration!

Keep it around so you can stick it on any particularly stubborn bananas or oranges later on.

You’d think so, right?

Negative change worms it’s way in through small defeats. The first DLC’s were a small price for a lot of content, the first YouTube ads were only a single ad that was just a few seconds long, the first video game preorders came with amazing rewards, etc. When you allow for 2 seconds, then what’s 3 seconds? What’s 4, 5, 6? What’s 30 seconds? What’s 2 minutes? We’ve seen examples of this all throughout capitalism’s history; to ignore them is, well, ignorant.

I’m not discouraging at home novelty tests like ancestry and 23andme, I’m discouraging their use in the situation you’ve described, because that’s not what they’re intended for. I’m very sorry for your situation, and I hope that you find the information that you’re looking for, but you’re more likely to find it with actual paternity tests than trying to glean information from a test that’s not meant for that.

As for the medical comments, ancestry isn’t meant to provide that. It’s not actually sequencing the DNA, it’s just checking for specific sections of DNA that are known to vary between different ethnicities. Some health information can be assessed in that way, but its inclusion in at-home tests was made illegal because those sorts of results need to be handled with a genetics professional so that they can explain the complex results and their impact on the individual and their family. Some at-home tests have added medical information back in, but that’s legally dubious, and considered to be dangerous by genetics professionals.

If there are any medical concerns, a different DNA test should be used, and should be ordered by a genetic counselor or geneticist. Situations like these are one of the reasons why genetic counselors exist - please don’t believe that adding a medical professional to the mix is a bad thing - genetics is a very complex topic, and having someone trained to understand and explain it is invaluable. Please let them help you in your endeavor.

Well, the Ancestry test only really gives stuff like… ancestry. It’s not useful for much else, and for good reason - it’s meant to be a neat novelty, not a medical or paternity test. I’m a former genetic counselor, and we generally don’t suggest getting DNA tests for children unless it’s important for health reasons, or if they’re old enough to give their own consent for it - that sort of information is very personal, and often people don’t want it to be available in their health records.

If you are simply wondering about ancestry, you could always get the test yourself - anything the test shows for you would at least give that side of the kids’ ancestry. Obviously parenthood verification can be useful, but from your other comments you seem to be aware that a mother doesn’t need such a verification, and it’s generally not recommended that you use ancestry tests for that purpose anyway. If you’re concerned about any genetic issues in your family, I’d highly recommend talking to a genetic counselor; they can help organize the family history and see if there’s anything you’ll want to be cognizant of.

You want a DNA test because your kid doesn’t share the same interests in video games that you do? Sure, there’s likely a set of genes somewhat contributing to preferences and interests in humans, but even if we knew them, we’ve already got plenty of evidence that biological children frequently have different hobbies than their parents, so we know things like that are most heavily determined by all of the other things people are influenced by in life, outside of genetics.

I’m definitely in support of A, regardless. I only know complex words from having seen them used correctly in the wild; how could anyone be expected to learn them otherwise?

The ability to find an approximate definition of a new word using context - and slowly whittle it down to the actual definition over subsequent encounters - is invaluable for gaining better language comprehension.

You know the sound right when it starts to rain?

There’s a tap on the roof or the window, then a few more, and you think “Oh, is that…?” and, sure enough, the taps continue, getting more and more frequent until they blend together into the soothing patter of rainfall. Now imagine that, but instead of light taps, it’s a dull “phomp.”

I imagine someone in an alternate universe hearing that first phomp, and running to grab a cup of tea before sitting by the window to watch the manfall.

Yeah, exactly. Many republican voters think that everyone should vote for their own goals, and that the biggest group should win, so they’re terrified of not being the biggest group in any given demographic (religion, race, etc.). What they fail to realize is that most people vote for how they’d like the country itself to be run, which includes smaller groups just as much as larger ones, so losing that majority footing wouldn’t impact them very much if at all.

Most republican voters I know, boomer or otherwise, simply view voting differently than most their lefter-leaning constituents. I often hear them say that the point of voting is to simply choose what benefits you the most, and that if everyone simply chooses things that specifically align with their own wants and needs, that the biggest, most important groups will get what is needed. It’s not even that they understand that they’re being selfish by only voting in their own best interests, they just honestly believe that considering the needs of others when voting undermines its effectiveness.

Now, it’s obvious that they’re wrong - smaller groups deserve just as much of a say as their larger counterparts, and the country benefits when they do - but they don’t think about it that way. I believe it’s also why republicans are so concerned about becoming a minority - they honestly believe that voting should specifically only benefit the largest group, and are desperately trying to maintain “their people” as the largest group.

This is a great point. The results of an IQ test aren’t really measuring a person, they’re measuring a byproduct of that person, which is significantly less informative.

It’s important to define was “equal” is in this context. Some people hear “equal” and think they must measure exactly the same in every test, but that’s not how the word is being used in this context. It’s more that people are so varied from one person to another that no test can truly judge them well enough to differentiate them when it comes to inherent worth.

One person might measure above another in one test, but there are surely many others where the results would be flipped. There are so many different things you could test a person on that in the end none of them really matter; any one measurement is like trying to figure out what an extinct animal looked like from a single tiny piece of a fossil.

That’s what the IQ test is doing - it’s taking one tiny piece of human intelligence, which itself is one tiny piece of what might be said to make up a person’s value, and trying to use that to extrapolate information about them that simply can’t be taken from such a 1-dimensional test. It’s not worthless, but it needs to be paired with a bunch of other tests before it can really say anything, and even then it wouldn’t say much.

I’m not saying to get overly bright lights. I have no idea why you keep talking about overly bright lights. When I’m not driving for work, I drive a '94 corolla with stock headlights. But even with those, I can see dark obstacles that are way ahead of me on the road. I’ve encountered deer, turtles, pedestrians, and all sorts of random stuff that fell off of people’s cars. There’s so much on the road that needs to be illuminated, even if all the other cars have working lights. The fact that you can so nonchalantly bring up a scenario in which you can’t even see another car, much less all the other stuff that might show up on the roads, makes me highly concerned for the state of your vehicle. That scenario is so insanely rare and dangerous that I can’t understand how you can just throw it out there like it’s no big deal.

It’s NOT NORMAL to be unable to see a car on the road that’s close enough to you where you need to see where their blinker are. Please, if you drive in that scenario often enough to bring it up like it’s a realistic thing that someone could reasonably encounter more than once in a lifetime, bring your car to a mechanic before you cause a huge accident.

You’re absolutely right that circumstances aren’t always perfect… Which is exactly why you need a vehicle that can maximize safety in all situations. A union jack blinker is dumb, but if you’re EVER in a situation where you can’t tell what side of a car a blinker is going off on, you’re in a situation where you need to pull off to the side of the road, turn off your car, and call for someone to pick you up.

I’ve driven for tens of thousands of hours in my lifetime so far, and I’ve never even been close to a situation like what you’ve described. Even in a snow squall or dense fog I’ve always been able to see where other nearby cars on the road are, and where their blinkers are. Not being able to do so goes well beyond “not ideal;” that’s well past the line of too dangerous. And the fact that THAT is how extreme your scenario has to get before the union jack becomes a considerable issue shows how much more concerning your scenario is than that one.

You think that headlights that can illuminate cars ahead of you are the equivalent to those shitty aftermarket LED floodlights? Really? If your car can’t see a dark car on the road with its lights off, you’re a much, MUCH bigger idiot than someone with a union jack blinker…

Dude, if your headlights aren’t enough to illuminate what’s in front of you, then it’s not that an upgrade would be too much, it’s that an upgrade would get you to the bare minimum… You literally NEED to be able to see what else is on the road with you at ALL TIMES. You’re complaining about the risk that a vaguely arrow-shaped blinker causes in the specific case where you literally can’t see the car it’s attached to. There’s a much bigger risk there, and while it’s not your fault, it’s definitely something your vehicle needs to have the tools to deal with.

There have been times where I was driving near someone who forgot to turn their headlights on at night. But that’s the thing - I knew they were there; I could see their car with the light from my headlights, and even in that dangerously-low vision, I could easy tell which side of their car a blinker came on from. Yes, I got off the road and waited a bit to make sure they weren’t near me anymore, but even in the time that I had to drive with them, I had the tools to resolve the situation safely for me.

If you’re driving in the dark with someone whose entire taillight system is out to the point where you can’t immediately tell if his blinker is on the left or the right, you need to hit the brakes and put as much distance between you and them as you can… Then get better headlights, because even in that situation you should still be able to see them pretty well just with your own lights.

Yeah, I could see it being an issue for some less-common type of indicator, but everyone who drives knows what a blinker looks like. Nobody would mistake it for anything other than the right hand turn signal.

Hell, I wouldn’t even notice the shape of the light; all you need to notice while driving is the presence of a flashing light on the right side of the vehicle - if you’re looking intently enough to notice the shape of the light, you’re not paying enough attention to everything else on the road.