My quick web search says California outlawed conversion therapy in 2012. Since then there has been attempts to side step it since the language restricts "mental health providers", which is a licensed group. But others can still try to convert people, such as at a camp. Now they can't say they are providing treatment legally, so it seems like California can and did outlaw it, but they are playing whack-a-mole, with people trying to get around the law on language technicalities. CA should definitely plug those holes, but really no one should be believing what these not licensed quacks are trying to sell either.

Yeah it's a shame because there was a time that Toms hardware was so good and often neck and neck with Anandtech in terms of great articles to read, but at some point it became more sensationalist and the line betweens tom's guide and tom's hardware blurred (with tom's guide seeming to take over). There are still nuggets that are okay, but just not like it used to be.

This one exactly. But don't lose hope, the word doesn't really convey figuratively other than online people who mostly sound foolish trying to push buttons. It is usually used as an emphasis when someone wants to say how close to the actual literal situation things were (even if not literally the same). People who use it as "figuratively" are in decline, kind of like people that throw a fit over "moist" and as long as we keep pointing out how ridiculous they are (both moist dramatics and literal confusers) their relevance will continue to fade.

May want to read you own article before posting it....from the article at 11:35, a few minutes after the gunman entered the school....

" Three Uvalde police officers rush to the same door that the gunman used to enter, which was closed. Surveillance footage shows the officers all have pistols, and two of them have rifles. One officer has external armor, and two are wearing concealable armor."

They had armor, pistols and 2/3 had rifles.

This is a tragedy any way you slice it. There is so much gun reform that needs to happen, and police did not handle things well here. People with guns are hard situations to handle, but police handled a bad situation on a way that made it worse.

You can usually call or check out a website rather than driving. Most people save them up, then take them all at once or take them when they are going there anyway with other stuff to dispose of.

Also be really careful if one breaks (get everyone out of the room and air it out first).

https://www.epa.gov/mercury/cleaning-broken-cfl

Don't wonder to hard, many of the things discussed are common and not necessarily a disorder. And when they might be it's often paired with the wrong disorder (this would be depression, not really ADHD for example). Take most of these meme and a humor communities with a giant grain of salt (or skepticism).

And then he gets mad :(

Yeah that's not quite it. Placebo is actually present for most/the majority of people, but they (researched of various kinds )are looking for effects that are above and beyond the level demonstrated by the placebo alone.

One fun thing to think about is that most (maybe all) treatments include some degree of placebo effect inherently.

What does the fox say?

(Uhee ahee ahee)

Apparently Apple backed it.... Color me confused.

I'll add on as someone that works with trans folks preparing for hormones/surgery, FFS is usually less common compared to other procedures, and is itself a cluster of surgeries that people may choose to do any combination of. Some of those surgeries are less drastic some are pretty intense (graphic warning: basically peeling back a portion of your face from your skull, changing bone and slapping that face back on). The more intense options are understandably not for everyone. FFS (and most other surgeries) usually comes into play after people give hormones a few years to do their thing and see where things end up. Let the canvas stabilize before working on it.

Looks like someone wasn't paying attention then.

Edit: okay that was a little harsh. But maybe I will still say if that was what you focused on and took away from the pandemic it seems like you missed the bigger picture of politics and perspectives of who was actually using science to guide choices and who has people's best interests in mind.