stray

Everything about biology is a random effect. Even a mutation that's selected for wasn't planned; it just happened by chance. Like if you're an aquatic species maybe you'll end up being a strong swimmer over generations, but the water doesn't pressure you towards that on its own. You have to coincidentally develop flukes that make you a stronger swimmer before those traits can be selected for.

Sometimes traits that get passed down aren't beneficial at all because they don't make an impact on reproduction. Think of an animal that comes in many colors like a house cat or certain fish species. In such cases it's clear that the color of the animal doesn't have any bearing on its ability to reproduce, so a variety of colors are passed down for no particular reason.

I would love to learn why this isn't completely stupid, if anyone has a way of explaining. We'd be down entire genres of games if developers didn't copy each other's homework.

The only thing I use Reddit for is porn, and my feed isn't empty, so either they're doing this in stages or there's some other criteria they're using beyond just being NSFW.

I've just read An Immense World by Ed Yong and learned that what seems to matter in birdsong is the way the notes change, like mid-note.

Is that still the case if you're only microdosing?

That's such an apt description.

Seems to be working just as well as regular voting.

If copyright law were sensible no one would have to involve him or DC Comics to make whatever Sandman work they wanted.

I think they mean on mobile as opposed to PC. I can't find any option besides the dashboard-style homepage offered by default. I can customize it, but I can't make it a specific URL.

Doesn't it matter though? Isn't delivering the promised product the correct reparations for failing to deliver a product? Pretty sure it was easy to get a refund back then, too.

There's lots of bad pacing and horrible acting in movies today though. You can obviously watch or not watch whatever, but I think you're limiting yourself unnecessarily if you put too much weight on the year of release.

None of that makes any sense. An old book and a new book aren't different in the way a rotary phone and a smartphone are. They are functionally the same object: text on paper.

You could have, for example, a story about someone stranded on an island, and the era it was written in would make almost no difference at all because technology doesn't have any bearing on the story, and we haven't changed as a species. The culture of the author would influence things, but that's true even of media today since we don't all share the same culture.

Old media can also be very illuminating when it does affect the story because it can teach you something about the era in which it was made. You might think to yourself, "Gosh, people used to be able to feed and house their families on a single paycheck? Why can't we do that today?"

And yeah, having stuff in black and white is less visually interesting, but I'm not going to rule out something I might find enjoyable just because of that. I watched quite a few old sitcoms in my childhood that I enjoyed just as much as the modern cartoons, and I still enjoy some of those cartoons today alongside modern TV.

Do you think the Home Alone sequels are better than the original?