To be fair, my research is decades old at this point.

Some slight ramdom paper reading, back in my uni days. Though I’ve ran across it via other sources over the years since. Unfortunately I don’t have any links to hand though.

It might better be described as people put numbers into categories. Most people have a 10-20 category. 19.99 fits. 20.00 gets bumped up to the next box. It’s a sub/semi conscious thing. If we use our higher thought process, we can deal with the numbers. That takes effort however, by default, we chunk. The price just abuses a common rollover point most people share.

It’s a subconscious thing. It’s how our brain is wired. It’s a bit like advertising. Most people don’t like ads. However, when confronted my 2 similar products, we will go with the familiar one. The source of that familiarity is irrelevant, ads make it familiar, just the same as using it, or a recommendation.

It’s possible to override both of these effects, but that requires a level of conscious effort. I can almost guarantee you’ve been caught by both at different times. You just didn’t notice (since noticing would allow you to correct).

Basically, $19.99 is in the category “under $20”. $20.00 is in “over $20”. Without conscious correction, you act on this.

It was originally to force the cashier to open the till.

Say an item was $20. If the customer paid with a $20 note, then the cashier could, intheory, pocket it, without it showing up on the rocords. If it was $19.99 they needed to open the till to get a cent out. This meant it was recorded, and so the till wouldn’t balance.

Most people round down. Their brain locks on to the 1 of 19.99, and approximates it to 10.00. We need to actively counter this to see it as 20.00. It’s a skill most people don’t apply all the time, and a number can’t even do.

Once you can do it reliably, it’s mind-boggling that others can’t, but it’s still a learnt skill, that needs to be applied.

It takes some practice to beautify it. You’ll also spend more time doing that than the whole time taken to build the core.

My minion is still too young for that. I plan to wind them up mercilessly however. Right now, dad jokes are the height of humour to them.

• “I’m hungry”
• “Hi hungry, I’m dad!”
• “Nooooooo, I’m not called hungry!”
• “So why did you tell me your name was hungry?”
• …

I’ll be a little sad when it finally gets old.

I know a few teachers, the “cringy and bad” is the goal, not a mistake. It’s apparently quite therapeutic watching the “cool kids” squirm. How bad can you make them, but not make it obvious what you’re doing?

The fact that it also helps a lot of kids remember it is almost just a bonus.

The ork waaaaaagh requires enough orks to function. It’s sort of an average belief. Even the warpheads (their psykers) just channel the collective waaaaaagh energy.

The matrix power plant hack was the exception. In the movie, it’s just a screen of code flying past. If you slow it down, it’s a legit hack.

Trinity checks the software version, to see it hadn’t been updated. She then implements a real hack that that version was vulnerable to. It resets the admin password to a default, letting her log in as admin.

Simple, stark is a semi latent technomancer. His arc reactors might actually work, but the mini ones don’t. They are effectively conductors for magic. They turn magic into electricity with zero heat output. This also explains the suits momentum damping capabilities, and why they can’t be copied easily.

My head canon, at least with Superman, is his powers. He doesn’t have multiple unrelated powers, but only 1 main one. Instinctive momentum control.

• Flying - Momentum control

• Bullet proof - Momentum stopped at the point of contact.

• Heat beams - Changing the momentum of particles he’s focused on.

• Holding a plane by a thin aluminium sheet - Adjusting the momentum of the plane directly.

• No sonic booms, or massive wind - momentum nulling on the nearby air.

In this case, catching a falling person safely makes complete sense. He just nullifies their momentum before they hit.

I’ve dodged similar collisions a couple of times, over the years. Unfortunately, this time, she didn’t even touch the brakes. I was hit with a 50 mph differential, and no warning whatsoever.

I was rear ended, HARD once. That distance gave me the space to control both my vehicle, and the one that hit me. It turned a potential multi car, multi lane pileup into a 2 vehicle wreck, either 1 more dinged car.

The space isn’t for the 99.999% of the time, but that 0.001% OH FUCK time.

We have “family film nights”. We all have dinner together, then get out some beanbags, on the floor. We then all watch a film together, cuddled up on the beanbags.

The films are ones our daughter hasn’t seen, and can often push her boundaries. E.g. we watched “Monsters Inc” together. She was a little bit scared, but with mummy and daddy there, she loved it.

It’s definitely one for building memories together. We are too often distracted, even when present. Having dedicated family time makes a huge difference.

Oh, and she also doesn’t watch much paw patrol, even when around friends. Apparently “Daddy doesn’t like it” is quite enough to put her off it. A classic “respect over fear” situational win for me.

On a side note. The screen time correlation goes away, when you correct for the child’s parenting and lifestyle situation. It’s not “screens are bad” but that kids in worse situations watch more TV, etc. The causation is backwards.

Various events around the universe occur on human timescales. If time stopped for use, we would effectively skip ahead on the view of them.

I actually think we could reliably catch 1 second time stops. Scientists monitor various pulsars. They spin multiple times a second, throwing off radio wave pulses. If all of them suddenly went out of sync with our clocks, it would definitely be noticed. It might take several, however, to prove it wasn’t a weird hardware glitch.

More like farming them.

Tend them and care for them so they grow big and strong. You only want to pluck them when they are perfectly ripe.

6 months later, not a pirate is to be found, dead or alive, and not a single ship taken. Meanwhile, none of the crews will talk about “Trevor”. All they are willing to say is that “Trevor is a very very nice man, we were very happy to host him.” Always spoken with a monotone 1000 yard stare.