I do play games, but I also work on creative projects and watch shows/movies on my computer. I use Illustrator to create typeface designs, graphic design for laser cutting or stickers, 3D modeling and slicing programs for my 3D printer, Google Docs for writing, coding for Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects, et al.
Flirtation is a lot easier and more comfortable when you know the person already likes you. And it can seem creepy to them if they don't already like you. So it might be good to not flirt until you're confident it will be well received and in the meantime just be friendly and sincere. An important aspect of potential relationships is not appearing as if you think someone's only value is if they're a potential partner. People talk to and know other people, so treating everyone well can improve chances of potential partners thinking well of you. Sometimes the best thing you can do to find a partner is to work on yourself.
I coordinate an academic makerspace at a college.
Matthew hit the record button on his cell phone right at the perfect moment, right when the kitten wiped its face with its open paw in an all-too-human facepalm gesture. This was what he had been waiting for. The timer showed he’d been recording the cat for 12 hours straight. Not the longest he’d waited, but certainly up there. Sometimes you have to set the program on auto and go do something else, but the program never quite tracked the kitten right. The framing was always off and the program wasn’t great at determining what people would find most squee-inducing.
Now that it was all over, he cut the video down to the optimal length. Long enough to build up to the moment and only a few seconds after so you’re not straining the attention spans or giving them video to watch when they’re supposed to be smiling or laughing or, preferably, sharing the damn video with their friends and family members and complete strangers at the coffee shop. After that he went straight to YouTube, typed out a brief description that he knew no one would read, and anxiously hit submit.
He sprinkled the link in a few places, the usual meccas of lolcats and cutes and funny videos, and then fast forwarded an hour or two. When he came back, the numbers were starting to climb. 11,232. 14,538. 23,119. The numbers started to climb exponentially once the evening news featured it on the “trending on the tubes” report, because, you know, people need to watch TV to find out what’s going on online. But it certainly helped to get the views of the old people who wouldn’t otherwise see it.
By midnight it hit 12 million. By the next morning, 17 million. He had done it. His video went viral.
Before he could even daydream about the implications of this accomplishment, he decided to check his email account — the one thing he’d forgotten to do this whole time.
He scrolled past the two already-read messages to the legion of unread messages that had marched to his doorstep. He glanced at the unread count and balked. Too many to ever get through. No telling how many were just complete wastes of time. He started to filter his email. Keyword searches for spam terms and swear words took care of a chunk. He set up whitelist filters for emails from the known addresses of internet famous people like Larry Page, Ben Huh, Matthew Inman, and Randall Munroe. Not Zuckerberg though. Once he had a few more filters in place, he started going through the ones that were flagged as potentially important. His eyes brightened as he started to type responses. Hitting send on those responses, acceptances, RSVPs might as well have been an air pump hooked up to his ego.
“Dad?”
He kept typing.
“Dad!”
The program froze in the middle of typing a response.
“Dad, it’s time for your lunch.”
“Sicaria? I went viral… I have to respond… I’m in the middle of… I was gonna do an AMA on Reddit in a few hours. I have to…”
“That’s great, Dad, I’m happy for you, but it’s time to eat now.”
“Sicaria, I have to…”
“It’s Carrie, Dad. Nobody calls me that anymore. Now come into the kitchen. You can finish your Read It stuff later.”
“Reddit!”
“Fine, Reddit. You can finish your Reddit stuff later.”
“But I hadn’t gotten to a save point…”
“I saved it for you, Dad. Now come on. I have some Paleo burritos at the kitchen table for you.”
As Matthew ambled into the kitchen at his own pace, Carrie picked up his glasses and put them in their case. She tried to convince him to just get the retinals, but he insisted on printing the glasses. She wasn’t surprised of course. His generation had a thing against implants. Old farts who couldn’t adapt to new technology, as far as she was concerned. Luddites.
Sergei came into the living room while she was cleaning up and noticed the look on her face.
“Your father still into that game?”
“Yeah. He sits there zoned out all day just staring at glowing rectangles. He gets grumpy when you interrupt the game. He’s spent his whole life doing that since as far back as I can remember. I sat on his lap when I was a kid while he played the Warcraft character he named me after for chrissakes. And now he just sits around all day pretending it’s 2010 again and he’s having made up conversations with internet trolls and posting first on discussion boards.”
“What’s this game called again?”
“Viral.”
“Oh, right.”
"The simple idea of a 13-month perennial calendar has been around since at least the middle of the 18th century. Versions of the idea differ mainly on how the months are named, and the treatment of the extra day in leap year."
Generally, no, but context and approach matter.
The ability to notice a flaw isn't the same as the skill, experience, and background that might be necessary to design a useful solution for a particular issue, especially complex issues. It's generally reasonable to say, "I don't know of a better solution, but I can predict that x and y problems will likely result from your proposed solution."
It's especially valid to warn someone when their proposed solution will harm people or make things worse. You don't have to have a better solution to try to prevent someone from doing something ill-conceived or hasty or reckless.
If the stakes are low or the person proposing a solution is likely to be sensitive to criticism, it might work better to try to approach your response as an attempt to help them refine their solution, rather than just opposing it outright. Be considerate of their feelings and make it clear you're working together.
The easiest answer is that the plot and themes required it. The same way horror movie victims do stupid things like splitting up or checking on noises in a dark basement. It's necessary to advance the plot or maintain the status quo of the character relationships. Mulder needed a foil to his eagerness to embrace aliens and conspiracies as the explanation.
No, I read yesterday (Lightning McQueen) as juxtaposed with today (Thomas the Tank Engine), as if you were implying that Lightning McQueen predated Thomas the Tank Engine and TTTE was a newish show.
This glowing rectangle presentation was adequate to hijack my executive function for the duration of its runtime.
You have it backwards. It actually used to be the standard.
"Until the 18th century, the apostrophe was extensively used to indicate plural forms. Its use for indicating plural "possessive" forms was not standard before the middle of the 19th century."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe
But in language, generally, usage can alter standards, so you may see a shift of grammarians saying it's acceptable if enough people see it as valid.
Have you considered that maybe you are a bot? Have you taken a Turing test lately? Voight-kampff?
You were excited to get email because it was almost always from a human being who put meaning and intent into their message. It was like getting a handwritten letter compared to all the random terms of service update emails from a service you haven't used in four years and emails from a service you didn't sign up for because someone else thinks your email address is their email address and the outright spam in the filter.
When one hard-boiled officer by the name of Benedict was asked to comment about the egg poaching, he said, "I don't think this theft will go over easy."