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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)CE
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2 yr. ago

  • That's indeed what he was saying. If there's any actual concept of Justice on a cosmic level, then "eternity" is certainly not a "just" punishment for anything done by a mortal, subject to circumstances and born into a world they had no choice in. In a "just" universe with a punitive afterlife, Hitler would get back an equivalent amount of suffering to that which he caused. So maybe a few hundred million years worth of suffering, but not eternity.

  • That's consistent with Sam's station as a humble gardener, not a member of the loose aristocracy class like Frodo or Merry and Pippin, who had the leisure and wont to go out a-walking just for fun - and also those latter had relatives near the south of the Shore, and so would have reason to visit the area.

  • I laud your devotion to accuracy, but I also offer some middle ground. Tobacco itself is known to possess psychoactive properties, and Middle-earth, insofar as it can be said to be a precursor to the modern world at all (for Tolkien himself drifted away from this idea later in his life and work), is eons in the past, when many things were heightened. So it's not so far a leap to imagine that pipeweed could have had as much in common with modern strains of marijuana as it did with what we call tobacco.

    After all, our own tobacco originated in the Americas, probably somewhere in the region of modern Bolovia, and was not commonly used in Europe until the 16th Century. If one allows the conceit that Middle-earth represents a primordial version of modern Europe, then it follows that pipeweed itself also originated in the West (for was it not said to have been imported from Númenor, that land blessed by the Valar?). If indeed it was a strain of nicotiana, then it must have been of a varietal so pleasant to smoke that even the Valar themselves partook of it. At some point, it died out in the lands of Men, and was forgotten until its rediscovery by colonial exchanges with the indigenous people of the Americas.

    TL;dr: Pipeweed is not weed, nor is it something modern people would recognize as garden variety tobacco. It's better than either of those things.

  • As in everything, moderation is good. Relax a little, but don't make it your whole thing. Work a little, but don't make it your whole thing. Dose a little, drink a little, dance a little, fart a little, enjoy cats and dogs a little, but my god man, change it up a little.

  • Best case scenario at this point is one of them croaks before November. It's insane to me that Biden even contemplated a second term, when the whole point of picking Kamala Harris as his VP was so she could be the young fit successor. It's time to roll out plan B, guys.

  • Weekend discharges occur less frequently than discharges on weekdays, contributing to hospital congestion. Artificial intelligence algorithms have previously been derived to predict which patients are nearing discharge based upon ward round notes. In this implementation study, such an artificial intelligence algorithm was coupled with a multidisciplinary discharge facilitation team on weekend shifts. This approach was implemented in a tertiary hospital, and then compared to a historical cohort from the same time the previous year. There were 3990 patients included in the study. There was a significant increase in the proportion of inpatients who received weekend discharges in the intervention group compared to the control group (median 18%, IQR 18–20%, vs median 14%, IQR 12% to 17%, P = 0.031). There was a corresponding higher absolute number of weekend discharges during the intervention period compared to the control period (P = 0.025). The studied intervention was associated with an increase in weekend discharges and economic analyses support this approach as being cost-effective. Further studies are required to examine the generalizability of this approach to other centers.

  • The contemplative and slower tone of the coda really highlighted what was lost in switching to shorter seasons with a long serialized arc to babysit. Imagine if we had those arcs but with a handful of bottle episodes peppered throughout.