My first thought went to Spike from Cowboy Bebop.

Now I’m wondering: was Spike based on Bugs?

That would be the laryngeal nerve. It’s been with us vertebrates for a long time.

I take your, “for zero reason,” to indicate that it’s silly that it’s so long in a giraffe. And it is, because it connects the larynx and the brain, two bits that aren’t very far apart. You’d never design it that way from scratch.

But the laryngeal nerve’s length has a reason: it loops around the heart and it developed in our fish-like ancestors. At that time, it wasn’t silly for the nerve to wrap around the heart, because fish don’t have necks and thus the nerve was about the same length whether it wrapped around the heart or not. As necks developed, evolution found it easier to lengthen the nerve than to reroute it. So here we and giraffes both exist, having much longer laryngeal nerves than you’d engineer if you were making us from scratch.

This is true of an enterprise/company union. Industrial unions tip the seesaw to the other side.

I did not expect to see a Dane Cook reference today.

I’m partial to Christ Chex myself.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Fred Brooks - The Mythical Man-Month - 1975

I bought my first electric car in December 2023. I ruled Tesla out because of Elon Musk.

Chili and cinnamon rolls. Are you from Kansas?

I’m encouraged that the percentage was that low.

See Deuteronomy 22:5. From what I can tell, Dennis Prager treats the bible as a foundational document in his life. The thought process probably comes from that verse.

The article is about direction, not position.

The report is even already way off regarding Slovakia, who just elected an authoritarian with sympathies towards Russia. Romania is a bit shaky too, they have very little trust in the democratic government, and could probably easily be swayed by a populist who says what they want to hear.

The article uses the report to show that Slovakia and Romania have improved relative to their prior measurement. It is silent on their positions relative to other democracies.

Absolutely. To have the chance at being the first to see and experience what’s out there? Oh yes.

Yes. Bidets should be opt-out at this point.