Totally been Bea this whole time

"What if Stratt didn't force Grace to go?" Then the Earth dies.

"What if Yao and Ilyukhina had survived?" Then they all would have died in space, not enough food to get to Earth or Erid

If the Taomoeba hadn't escaped then Grace would have never seen his best friend again. Returning to a world he loves but no longer recognizes.

If the stars weren't dying then Grace never would have met his best friend at all. Living content but alone.

Project Hail Mary is a hopeful story. It is a story of friendship and what it means to be brave. It's a story about saving the world.

Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.

Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.

It can not always be about your preferred topic.

Autistic mom of two autistic kiddos here. I do something with my kids called playing the good friend game. I have them ask me a question like “what did you do this weekend” and then I respond with something they don’t like ie: “I ate some sushi for dinner on Saturday! It was delicious!” Their job is to not make a gross face and not to yuck my yum. They have to ask me a follow up question! Minimum one about what I liked about the sushi or who I went with or what I ordered etc. and they have to be kind. I change up what I answer with for the initial question and for all follow ups. It’s incredible!

You can learn how to chit chat about things because you care about the people around you. Small talk is banal and boring but the people in your life are real and lovely and nuanced. Get to know them. You can do it. You’ll build relationships that last. Don’t do it for the sake of small talk. Do it because you’re deeply invested in learning how to see the people around you as whole pictures.

I used to be *good* at search. It was a whole thing - I found people's "lost songs" or their unknown-source childhood stuffed toy or whatever from Google.

Now, you can't search for the exact brand/design name of something and get accurate answers. It drives me spare on Amazon - if I search for XYZ and you don't have any, or you only have 2, tell me that.

I used to be able to search for recipes and easily eliminate unwanted ingredients with a -. For example I'd look for low-carb desserts but without the zillions that use peanut butter simply by searching for something like:

low carb chocolate dessert recipe -peanut

And I'd get a slew of on-point suggestions. For some time now if you do -peanut Google ignores the - and assumes you want recipes stuffed with peanuts.

Where it's even worse now is now you get directed to sites full of bogus AI recipes that don't even make sense. But they have peanuts in them.

I used to be able to use reverse image searches to find out who made that awesome art so I could give credit in my share. They've removed that ability entirely and replaced it with Lens, which is AI BS just showing you more like what you looked for. (Rebecca Watson complained about this in her recent video about JD Vance jizz cup rumours and I apologise for that sentence but...yeah. Watson is great, go find her on Youtube and subscribe because she went into detail about how Google has become less and less useful for debunking.)

This isn't just about Google inserting shopping ads instead of what you wanted to learn about. That's bad. But the results now are just *broken*. The tools we used to have to make searches better have been removed. Google no longer wants us to find the answers we seek, but the answers they want us to have, and that's super creepy and dangerous.

And the alternatives are either using Google in the back end or have other significant barriers to use.

"Whose Larva Is This?"

Jesus was fond of telling his followers not to worry about how they’d afford food tomorrow because God would provide. But Jesus told them this while handing out free bread and encouraging them to help people who were in need, making them the outlet through which God would provide for others

My mother was a waitress, we live in an area that has a lot of Christians and people would often stiff her on tips. Instead they’d leave a pamphlet with quotes from Jesus saying not to worry because God would provide

Jesus’ message was never that God would magically put food on people’s tables. God would provide opportunities to help each other, like the boat captains offering to help the dying man. That only works if people actually help each other