Yep.

In short, it is an incoherent conspiracy theory that spreads wide and far, not paying any attention to boundaries of time, space, or area of expertise. “Which is all to say that another piece of flagrant nonsense has ascended to the highest levels of U.S. politics and media,” writes the Atlantic’s Daniel Engber. “To call it a conspiracy theory would be far too kind, because no comprehensive theory has been floated to explain the pattern of events. But then, even the phrase pattern of events is imprecise, because there is no pattern here at all. Given all the people who could have been roped into this narrative but weren’t, any hope of finding meaning falls away. Barring any dramatic new disclosures, the mystery of the missing scientists has the dubious honor of being a sham in every way at once.”

• https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/04/missing-scientists/686885/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20260422172202/https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/04/missing-scientists/686885/

The Atlantic: High Credibility, High factual reporting rating, left-center bias. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-atlantic/

This appears to be part of the “Parents Decide Act”

Sure would be nice if parents would decide to parent their own kids instead of making it everyone else’s problem.

We kind-of fell out of the tradition during and after COVID, but for almost 20 years now my friends and I would always do a spring and autumn camping trip out in the absolute middle of nowhere where there’s no cell service at all. Best weekends of my life and from 2015 on, were largely for the reasons mentioned in the article.

Sounds about right. I held onto my 16:9 OnePlus 3 until the battery completely gave out in 2023 or so. It was the perfect size, and I hated the 2:1 ones that came after. Tried a OP Nord N200 for about a week but returned it.

Daily driving the Minimal Phone now. It’s not the highest resolution by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s 4:3 and makes current phones look even skinnier than when I was used to 16:9.

The only thing preventing me from looking into this further is it’s yet another tall-skinny phone. I don’t know which manufacturer popularized that ridiculous aspect ratio, but I hate them and everyone who followed suit.

Crime the US fell upward in 2025. Will the trend continue?

Well, the door is right there so don’t let it hit you in the diaper on the way out (because we don’t want any skidmarks on our door).

Also, this still counts as your second term.

It’s almost to “PTSD” since I twitch every time I see a sparkle emoji.

Like another commenter said, polarization and cemented, frequently extreme, views. You’re not going to change their mind on anything, but they’re constantly trying to change your mind on everything. I consider them shills and hit that block button.

I also block people who are here “on a mission” for whatever cause. Social media has enough activists, and even if I agree with them, I’m still thinking “will you shut up, man?”.

I also block people who intentionally take others out of context as an excuse to attack them or inject drama into every interaction. There’s plenty of that to go around, and thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be a limit on the number of blocks I can issue.

Basically, I’m not here for drama or activism or circle-jerking any political cause or to suffer immature edgelords. I just wanna talk about cool stuff with rational people. Blocking helps separate the wheat from the chaff in that regard. Anyone who has a pattern of making this place unenjoyable gets blocked

Don’t call them out, report that shit.

Doesn’t matter what ideology you subscribe to, that’s just toxic, shitty behavior.