Pretty sure they do. They still own Clearwater, Florida (including the police department) and have a significant presence in East Grinstead, England, plus at least one mega-yacht in international waters. All they need to do is relocate you there then ‘handle’ the investigation when you come up missing.

Shelly is still missing to this day.

e: they may have toned down the crazy publicly because they were attracting too much attention, but I don’t think their power has diminished.

On the age scale, they’re barely a blip. On the size scale, they’re massive enough to disappear people with zero accountability.

They’re a full-blown religion.

You’re right, and that’s fair. I guess I was talking about general atheists in one breath, then the specific vocal atheists OP seemed to be talking about in another.

I shouldn’t generalise like that. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god – any god. And there are many gods. You can be atheistic about any of them.

Scientology is pretty new, and pretty big.

I think you’ll find vanishingly few even fervent atheists who wouldn’t be persuaded by actual evidence. I know some percentage of fervent atheists would say if real evidence of a god were presented, they wouldn’t follow it because it’s a monster (I’m in this camp), but I don’t believe any real percentage would stick their fingers in their ears and say lalalala. That’s kind of the opposite of what atheism is about. It’s literally about evidence.

You can’t really blame people who were raised in religious environments and have newly discovered intellectual freedom, though, right? Sure, they can be obnoxious sometimes, just like we all are when we learn a new thing that’s blown our minds. They’ll grow out of it, and we should have patience, like in all things.

Some, sure. Most, no.

Atheism is simply the state of nonbelief in a deity. It requires no declaration nor even conscious thought. I don’t believe in leprechauns, but I don’t belong to an anti-leprechaun cult.

e: you’re likely atheist about Ra, Thor, Sheba, and Quetzalcoatl, right? Most atheists feel the same about Yahweh, and aren’t likely to bring it up unless you do. Most will even hold out for dozens or hundreds of times. Many Christians seem oblivious to how often they reference their religion in casual conversation. Often, Atheists only have to say it once.

The only difference between religions and cults is the size.

Oh good lord no.

Those are almost universally built on religion, and most are very cult-like. If that’s your take on them, I suspect you haven’t had more than a superficial interaction with them.

The Lost City with Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, and Daniel Radcliffe. It seems like a tropey romance-action flick, but is more a parody of genre clichés. The writing, acting, and humour are pretty good.

Or never let Windows touch anything. There are alternatives. Treat Windows like the virus it is.

This sounds like literal wizardry to me. I love it, but I don’t get it.

Relevant XKCD

Get extra sauce. The whole point of bread is to carry sauce.

You’re absolutely right, but as a UxD, until these platforms learn UxD, they’ll never work. They can’t.

It doesn’t matter how great they are, the vast majority of people won’t learn. And they shouldn’t have to. That’s why big commercial apps are better – good designers need to eat, and big companies can pay for their eggs.

It doesn’t matter how good your model is, without great UxD, you’re dead in the water.

I was senior UxD on the most popular screenshotting software from around 2002-2012 with more than 10 million users, on windows and Mac (I designed the 1.0 Mac interface). It’s software many of you have likely used, especially if you’ve ever done documentation.

I was also the designer and DbA for two of the largest government grant programs in the early 2000s, including management software for dept of education and dept of justice.

But my most significant project was definitely my son. Releasing a whole person makes everything else pale by comparison. He’s nearly 30 now, and I’m very proud of him.

It sounds like there wasn’t an extra coating that I removed, but that I just etched the fired coating, making it dull rather than glossy – so it’s the same outer coating that existed, it’s just not glossy anymore. In theory, it’s still as food-safe as it was, but it’s porous now (it kinda feels like silicone).

Thank you!

Oh no.

Thanks for letting me know. I may have access to that kind of furnace, but I’m not sure I could convince them to put my stupid little colander in there, because that’s silly.

I appreciate your insight, even though it makes me sad. I kinda thought that might be the case, though. Cheers.

That’s a great point. The dishwasher itself isn’t usually the problem, though, right? It’s letting things air dry in there, so water sits in crevices. If you take things out immediately and towel-dry them, they’re fine.

I don’t typically wash things with metal crevices in the dishwasher because I’m too lazy to be hawkish like that, and cookware/lids and knives are strictly forbidden anyhow. If I have to work to restore this thing, I’ll never let it air dry again.