When I’m out and a kid starts talking to me I generally ignore them. When the parent observes this, a common thing is for her (it’s always a woman) to say, “Oh, don’t you like kids?” (As if this will bring me great shame)
My reply is something along the lines of,”I love my kids more than I can express. Your little bastard, not so much”.
I just now happened to open this thread and read this post, and it strikes me as very astute, and a good explanation of why some people communicate the way they do.
Our first Halloween with our beagle puppy fifty+ years ago, we hadn’t known she’d react badly to the fireworks (we gotten used to our previous dachshund who wasn’t fazed by anything), and our vet said to give her something alcoholic to drink. All we had was beer, and she lapped it right up. She was a beagle. Then, she came into the den and belched at us.
My dad took me to a bar when I was four. He was a letter carrier, and this was a bar on his regular route. I don’t remember exactly why I was with him that day, and I don’t think he was working, but we hit his regular customers (the lumber yard, the Richfield station, and, best of all, the hardware store). I can’t remember if my dad drank anything (it was mid-day), but the bartender made me a Shirley Temple, and I was thrilled. I still carry a vivid memory of that bar. It was the quintessential 1950s bar with leatherette banquets and starburst light fixtures.
Seems like an invitation for adults to bring their kids, park them at the party, drink a bunch of beer, and drive the kids home. Great idea!
Darwin may be thorough, but he is cruel.
Got another tech-related complaint: my cheap-ass Android phone needs to be connected by cable to my PC to transfer files to the PC, because I don’t email from the phone, and am not too phone-savvy so that’s all I know to do – and here are the steps:
I’m a stupe with phones, sure, but I feel like someone is trying to make this harder than it needs to be. If I wanted to transfer a MIDI file specifically, it would be a different setting? WTF?
My last phone, also a cheap Android from the same freaking manufacturer, required none of this. It somehow magically knew that if I connected it to a computer via a USB cable, I might, just MIGHT, want to transfer files! Who’da thunk it.
Phrase it anyway! 
Actually, China OVERcounted (my mistake) the population by 100 million, which makes their demographics worse than everyone thought, so fewer youngsters to care for the huge aging segment of the population, fewer to work and produce, fewer doing domestic consumption, and worst of all, less junk for westerners to buy. Add on their recent retreat from the world and their general nastiness toward their own people (including their 56 ethnicitys) and they won’t be able to attract outside labor to keep them afloat. (Indians? Tibetans) Vietnamese?)
Not that that part of the equation will matter much - Xi has pissed off enough of the world that companies are pulling out and cutting income, which will make it even more difficult for China to buy food, fertilizer, and fuel, so keeping body and soul together.
So my smart-ass post probably had to do with China’s early attempt at AI going the way of all China’s big ideas - thuis one was “Slam the door and kick the westerners out: it’s the only way they’ll respect you.” After all, their AI was trained using Mao’s, and Xi’s, little red books.
Lately, I understand, China has been attempting to present a friendlier face to the rest of us - perhaps their AI has been sneaking looks at the Internet!
That is all! Well, prob not…
Dan
Which is only 56 because they’ve declared that to be the case—a lot of unrecognized groups in that mix.
Not surprising, but give 'em time and they’ll whittle the reality down to below…well, maybe not, they’re going to be pressed for manpower in the agricultural sector.
Start a pool on the last Uyghur sighting?
Dan
I have no idea what an appropriate number would be, but any time you are dividing things into groups, at some point you have to decide you’ve reached the appropriate level of granularity.
China considers Tibetans to be one of China’s ethnicities, or recognized ethnic minorities (to use the official term). Another issue is nobody knows how many “ghost people” are in China’s population. These are those whom the Chinese call Haihaizi. Such people are not elibile for education, medical care, or quite a number of other things necessary for daily life as a human.
Well, if the US has about a third of China’s population, the equivalent would be about 19 ethnic groups, including both indigenous peoples and immigrant groups.
I did the math per worldometer—the US would have 13.35 (so, say 14) ethnic groups if we had the same proportion as China.