BenVimes

The scent of my grandparents' house.

It had a very distinctive sweet aroma. I was never sure what is was, and I never asked. The scent followed them when they moved into a condo in a retirement facility. The last time I visited them in their condo was 2019, and they've both since passed away.

They gave me a book many years ago, the pages of which used to smell like their house. I know if I dig that book out of storage, it might still have a trace scent in it. But otherwise, it is now just a memory.

I'm tired of hearing about approval numbers. People can disapprove of a politician and still vote for them, and unfortunately I think there are depressing number of Americans who disapprove of Trump but would still vote for him because they think anyone else winning would be even worse.

I'm starting a master's in a few weeks, and because most of the courses involve group work, I'm concerned about someone in my group sinking a project for everyone else by using an LLM for their portion.

And given the program, I wouldn't be surprised if there are more than a few AI boosters in the courses who will try it, above the normal number of such people you might find in postgrad studies.

Disclaimer: am Canadian, will be discussing using that lens.

On a daily basis, most people I interact with are about where I am. I probably have different reasons for believing and voting how I do, but if an election were to be called tomorrow, all my friends and most of my co-workers would be voting in roughly the same direction as me.

My family is a mixed bag. On the one hand, my father has never voted for anyone further left than the old Progressive Conservatives, and has even voted for the Christian Heritage Party on occasion. My mother also normally votes conservative, though she has confessed to be that she finds American-style conservatism in general and Pierre Poilievre in particular to be too odious to stomach and so I think she may have been spoiling her ballots recently. I don't know how my one sister votes, but her husband is a also an outspoken conservative, being a card-carrying member of the CPC.

On the other hand, my other sister has never voted for anyone further right than the NDP, and her husband is apathetic - he thinks all politicians are the same and doesn't bother voting.

Holidays are generally fine, as political opinions are generally off-limits, though inevitably at some point my father and brother-in-law (the CPC one) have an extended grouse session about the state of the country and how much they hate the Liberals.

I find Spotify is weird about lyrics sometimes. There's a song on my playlist that has obviously wrong lyrics assigned to it. The vocals aren't 100% clear, but you just need to listen to it once, and read the nonsense lyrics Spotify has assigned to it, to know that it's wrong.

Every single time the song pops up in my playlist (and I'm not driving), I flag it for review. It's been years, I must have flagged it dozens of times, and the lyrics are still wrong.

Now, this is not some huge pop hit. It's an obscure indie song from an artist with less that 50k followers. The is a not insignificant chance I am in the top 1% of fans of this song. But it still bugs me that such obviously wrong lyrics are left up. I'm pretty sure even Spotify's deplorable AI could figure this out.

I don't really know what's going on. Maybe they've understaffed the department that manages lyrics and they can't be bothered to fix something so obscure. Or maybe they only fix lyrics if the artist themselves contacts them. Either way, it bugs me.

Except the demon is also an idiot because she doesn't have a tail and is way less agile than she thinks she is.

I simply don't like the taste of many things. I've never been officially tested, but I suspect I may have extra sensitivity to certain compounds, such that no matter how many other things are in a dish, I can still taste that one thing that I don't like. I also suspect that I am more sensitive to all tastes in general, as there are many foods that have been described to me as "mild" that I find are quite strong.

Now, I'll still try most things once. There are limits, mostly involving spiciness,, but I wouldn't want to be thought of as ungrateful or close-minded. It's just that I've disliked far more things than I've liked when trying new foods.

I also resent the common refrain of, "You just haven't had good [food in question] yet!" Actually, I probably have, and I still didn't like it. It has nothing to do with how it is prepared or what other ingredients are in the dish, that food still has its fundamental taste that I don't like.

It's not food, but I like using wine as an example. It doesn't matter whether it's the cheap boxed stuff from the supermarket or some expensive vintage at a fancy restaurant, because both taste like overripe grapes in addition to whatever other flavours present, and I don't like the taste of overripe grapes.

Right, I'm mostly familiar with Canada (my own country) and the USA (by cultural osmosis).

Still, the legal burden on the grandparents to get access to their grandkids seems sufficiently high. It's far cry from the idea many people seem to have of grandparents' rights, i.e. the right of the grandparenta to see their grandkids supercedes that of the parents to control who the kids interact with.

If you read the article, it's mostly about visitation to maintain an existing relationship after a divorce, rather than mandating visits between toxic grandparents and their grandkids above the objections of the parents.

Grandparents' rights are not what many people seem think they are. It's not a court ordering a couple to let estranged/toxic grandparents have access to their grandkids above the objections of the parents.

Rather, it is adjusting custody arrangements during separation/divorce so that grandparents can maintain an existing relationship wth their grandkids. For example, if a couple is separating and the mother gains primary custody, the father's parents can apply to get visitation rights with the kids. It's not automatic, as they would have to meet the burden of, "in the best interest of the children," to the satisfaction of the judge.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but this is my understanding of the issue from reading discussions and papers (including the one linked in another post in this thread).

Yes, I know some of those are technically pronounced differently, but the average English speaker can't tell.

But honestly, as someone who learned French as an adult, the biggest hurdle is knowing which combinations of letters make which sounds. Many are completely illogical - the 3rd person plural verb conjugations are particularly weird - but there is less inconsistentcy than English. The harder part is actually trying to get your English tongue to say words like "aéroport" or "heureux" or "accueillir" properly.

There are always some outliers, like "oeuf" (egg) being pronounced "uhf" while the plural "oeufs" being pronounced "oo", but you get used to those.

I think it's the case with most Slavic languages. My wife's native tongue is Serbian, and knowinf when and how to use articles was one the hardest parts of learning English for her.