It sounds like the donor had requirements. From The Tribune:

The University of Chicago has received a $100 million gift from an anonymous donor to support free expression, marking what may be the largest-ever single donation to support such values in higher education, the university announced Thursday.

And:

Discussions surrounding the donation have been ongoing for over a year, according to a university spokesperson.

From https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2024/09/26/university-chicago-donation-free-speech-expression-forum :

The gift was ridiculed by advocates involved in the encampment that highlighted abuses against Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas War and torn down by the university in the spring.

“It’s truly a slap in the face,” said Yousseff Hasweh, a U of C grad who’s diploma was withheld by the university for two months, allegedly for his involvement in the protest.

That is so pretty!

I’m fine with removing the Audubon name from any group – not because of John Audubon himself, but because the current Audubon Society seems to be an unscrupulous, anti-union, money-grubbing, greenwashing mess.

You can adjust them, but it is better if you get them adjusted wherever you bought them because they know how to do it properly. In particular, the spot where they touch your nose might get sore, and maybe moreso on one side than the other. That’d be a sign to get them adjusted. Some people even have one ear slightly lower than the other, needing an adjustment to the arms.

Glasses have an optimum focal point so your glasses were meant to be a particular distance from your eyes and over adjusting might change that. On the other hand, the change is going to be so small that it probably only matters to the people selling glasses rather than the wearers.

Reminds me of the incident in February where a waymo tried to get through a bunch of street revelers, and their response was to set it on fire. From the old pcmag story :

San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson noted that it had tallied 55 incidents where self-driving vehicles had interfered with rescue operations in the city.

Edit: unrelated to above quote, pc mag also says:

In some cases, residents have put orange cones on the hoods of cars, which makes them temporarily immobile.

(see also the autopian story it references)

Reminder that Palantir is the same company whose bosses are deep in bed with AmericaPAC – which got big write-ups (link is to one comment, but you can read more there and lots of places) because Elon Musk is gathering voter data seemingly for that PAC to target swing state voters with canvassing efforts.

I’m also not an expert, but that was my thought, too.

More than that, even if a tail is undamaged, including it is not giving useful imformation because tail size can vary out of proportion to the main body and is pretty standard for other animals as well. For example, no one is measuring a horse to include the tail length, nor a dog, cat, and generally not a bird, either.

That said, I expect an news story about alligators on the golf course or catching invasive snakes to measure the whole body for the NEWS story and let the experts worry about the booper2pooper length in their own space.

I knew about the police getting access, but I missed that home insurance companies were checking properties with drones. I guess I don’t mind them spending their own money to send their own drones to verify properties they insure, but I agree that using MY camera that I bought to get info or sell MY data is at least unethical and ought to be illegal. It should be required that they get my explicit consent to that sort of thing for each instance of data collection or sale.

Who? The Senators? I think they’re genuinely interested in stopping the practice (obviously it also gets them good press, possibly even votes, but they coulda probably got cash if they did nothing).

I think the car companies are just trying to make money anywhere they can.

Myst can be a bit esoteric, especially the older versions.

Did they rewrite it in later ports? Also curious as to where you stand on Zork.

I know a lot of people never got past the the total re-write of … well, everything. I understand that. If you go in wanting the source material or you will be horribly disappointed. If, instead, you go in saying, “Alright, I know the fans are in revolt, but let’s just see why this got made if it is so far from the source,” then I think you will see that yes, every aspect is changed, and the story mash-up misses the original points, but… But – BUT as a show, it was a change of pace (within what limits TV allows) and still retained a feel of a Watch novel. It wasn’t a clone of Game of Thrones or Black Adder, or anything else – and, true, it certainly wasn’t a clone of Night Watch, either. It was its own thing, and I’m a bit bummed out that the hatred means it will never get another season.

Double-plus upvote for The Good Place! It is a long story arc. There IS an ending (it doesn’t just trail off). It has an episode on the Trolley Problem! What more could you ask for!?

GoT

You did NOT like GoT. Take that back!

But there’s a lot of good recommendations already, so I’ll re-affirm a few of them that I both saw and enjoyed (exclusions are probably because I didn’t see the shows):

• Black Mirror
• The Last of Us
• Three Body Problem
• The Foundation
• Hacks (for a change of pace from the rest)
• Mr. Robot

Some alternate ideas:

• The new Dr. Who – but only the first … maybe 3 seasons, then STOP before you get into another GoT debacle.
• The Watch – low budget adaptation of Terry Pratchett that made some fans FURIOUS by its re-imagination, but pretty grounded in Pratchett-ness if you can get past that. Probably for fans only. I’m told it is required that Pratchett fans watch Good Omens but can opt out of viewing The Watch.
• Resident Alien – is low budget, low humor, and stupid. I watch it anyway.
• Upstart Crow – wanted to be Black Adder, but… not quite. Still a pretty good riff on Shakespeare.

I can’t argue with you on that.

I actually DO have some hope it will be rewritten, but I figure we know about it and maybe contact someone? https://usun.usmission.gov/mission/ ?

Well, Salon published the article; I just agreed with it – but I’m glad you like it :-)

– but moisture isn’t the problem. From Serious Eats:

As the bread cools, however, those starches begin to slowly regroup into a more ordered, crystalline structure again, and it’s this gradual return (“retrogradation”) to the crystal state (“recrystallization”) that causes bread to harden and grow stale. This process is so central to staling, in fact, that even bread that has been hermetically sealed to prevent all moisture loss will still harden and turn stale.

Yay!!!

I can’t get myself to click a twitter link, so in case others feel the same, here’s an alternate piece that basically says the same thing (I can’t yet find an article with detailed info): https://www.ign.com/articles/bethesda-game-studios-microsoft-game-studios

i’m chilling slo mo to Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator. No adrenaline needed.