Who cares if they’re perceived as the victim? People will forget about Twitter within 6 months if it’s blocked, and during that time, the propaganda machine takes a hit.

I learned on automatic but got a manual about 5 years ago. This past November I went on a trip with friends and we were able to rent a manual car for cheaper because I could drive one and it was the norm in the country we were in. Nice skill to have, but not required. I’d learn manual if you have the option.

As long as they keep letting me back in, I’ll keep vacationing in Canada in solidarity.

You’re never too old to make new friends. I’m mid 30’s and started a new job in a different city last year. Just talk to people casually, say good morning, ask how they are, just simple pleasantries. I haven’t hung out with these people mostly because of living proximity, but I’m chummy with most, we play some games together, and I think we enjoy each other’s company. I have little doubt that if I asked to hang out or grab a drink, people would do so if available. Most of these people are 5-10 years younger, so we do have a gap in life experiences, but I’ve found that the age gap matter less the older I get. I can give wisdom and tell stories of my life and their lives kind of make me feel a little younger again.

As someone that has just been screened for ADHD and waiting for my follow-up, I feel like I can relate to your experience. A lot of what you said resonates with my life other than the coke and Xanax. The weed is real, and unfortunately, the booze for me. I’ve gone through plenty of introspection and have identified places where I know I can be a turd friend. I noticed how I was negative a lot, and have taken conscious steps to not burden my friends. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll piss and moan about things, but I had to make the effort to be better. I’m not good and time estimating no matter how confident I am. If I’m meeting with people setting times, I will for sure over estimate what I think is right so I don’t make people wait. Really, my wife has been extremely invaluable in my adult life, and I’d probably be in a much worse place if not for that support.

I say all of this because as I think that you know, not all all negative actions are intentional or sometimes even recognizable when you’re doing it. I’ve lost sleep over saying the wrong thing or doing something that is a minor inconvenience because I feel so guilty. I feel like from your story, that maybe your friend has issues and isn’t intentionally screwing you. To parrot one of the other posts, I would say talk to your buddy about things that bother you. Don’t come in hot or anything, just ease into it. Anyone that is a real friend will listen to your concerns and at least try to make an effort. Some people are blind to their issues and maybe just needs someone to help them out.

Best of luck my dude. It’s tough out there and I hope you find your way through this one. Don’t be afraid to meet new people.

And in the US. The flag doesn’t deserve any respect as it’s a sign of oppression and Nazis. If I see anyone with a flag that’s not accompanied by a pride flag or something else liberal, I assume they are racist nationalists because that’s all it represents now.

I think some of the more intelligent US Nazis are letting the bozos do their thing and riding the coat-tails and avoiding direct blame if things turn. I’m looking at a good chunk of the House and Senate.

From this US citizen, I’m pulling for Canada and Mexico. I may have to pay more, but I’m comfortable to weather it. I want it to fuck up everything and clearly have it because of the tariffs. Pork, whiskey/bourbon, oil… Hit red state exports first and hardest, then do the rest as necessary. Make it hurt

Those that know, know. I don’t like the extra attention on an arbitrary day. I also don’t message people happy birthday. Only if I see you in person or you’re my wife and I’m away.

One of my managers told me that I need to use words like “will” instead of “should” when talking discovery with clients. I told him only Siths deal in absolutes, which he didn’t like as much as I did.

I’m not a yes man, and I’m not going to lie about something I can’t guarantee. If something goes wrong, I’m the one that looks like a lying failure and gets to fix it. My clients are internal business users, not actual external customers. Words have meanings, and it’s important to use the correct ones when communicating important information.

Ten Speed of God’s Blood and Burial. Perfectly clear.

Most of Coheed and Cambria’s albums follow along with a graphic novel written by Claudio, the lead singer. I’ve never read them and don’t know the story, but if you listen to an album start to finish, you can tell that it’s more than just lyrics.

Their early work was a little too new wave for my taste. But when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism… that really gives the songs a big boost.

That’s different than not knowing anything about OP. That’s not knowing tech or not knowing extreme specifics about OP. The giver knows OP well enough that they thought a tech gift fits them, which makes sense. Most people don’t think twice about smart devices and security because most people are ignorant.

There may have been lots of thought put into the gift, like OP likes tech, perhaps they’re into music, maybe they have a Google phone, or they have lots of fancy gadgets. A popular smart speaker sounds like a good gift for that person to someone that’s not security minded.

I work in IT and my whole family knows I’m privacy centric. None of them would have even thought about the privacy concerns with a smart speaker. That doesn’t mean that they don’t know me, it’s that they are ignorant to tech and cyber security. It’s not a stretch to think that OP’s gift giver knows OP will enough to give them an expensive gift but didn’t think of all of the implications, because that’s foreign to them.

The “something” is where the regex goes. For simple cases contains by itself does just fine, but for almost anything kind of dynamic input, it’s going to not be capable of what regex does.

Assuming “text” in your example is a placeholder for a 5 digit alpha string, it can be written like this in regex: /[a-zA-Z0-9]{5}/

If ”text" is literal, then your statement is impossible.

I think that when it gets to more complex expressions like a phone number with country code that accepts different formats, the verbosity of a higher level language will be more confusing, or at least more difficult to take in quickly.

How do you think that would look? Regex isn’t particularly complicated, just a bit to remember. I’m trying to picture how you would represent a regex expression in a higher level language. I think one of its biggest benefits is the ability to shove so much information into a random looking string. I suppose you could write functions like, startswith, endswith, alpha(4), or something like that, but in the end, is that better?

The good old Oedipus complex, where you mean one thing but fuck your mother.

You should have told him to pull over to let you out, not paid him, and reported him. Bonus points to have recorded evidence first.

Assholes like this, regardless of their current situation, hard times or not, should not be allowed to continue doing this. If I go into work, and push code into production without reviews and approvals, I lose my job or at least get reprimanded. Nothing excuses the behavior you’ve described.

Sam Reich, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Hank Green to name a few. Also Kyle Gass both for what he said in Australia, but then for deleting his public apology shortly after posting it.