The fact that you launch into some part of your day doesn’t change that it’s gauging your mood on her end.

Maybe not, but the fact that me launching into that is an accepted and expected part of the response does.

If a manager calls me about a project and asks how I am, they don’t want me recounting an earlier frustrating interaction. As you say, they’re trying to gauge my mood, but ultimately my mood or how it came to be are irrelevant because we’re here to talk business. If I omit my headache, they don’t care.

If my GF asks me, she actually wants a response. If I omit my headache and she finds out later, she’ll be upset: “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

That expectation is the difference.

Sauron still has a physical form during the events of LOTR. Frodo sees him through the tower window when walking towards Mount Doom, and Gollum remarks he was personally tortured by him, and that his hand has 4 fingers.

I tended to interpret that more like “appearing as a spirit”, but you may actually be right. It would explain how he was able to orchestrate and dominate his forces. There is no precedent I’m aware of that any of the Ainur would be able to influence the physical world without a physical presence.

When Isildur slew him, I believe his physical form was destroyed, but as long as a token of his power remained, it makes sense that he would be able to eventually recover enough strength to reincorporate.

Either way, without the Ring, his power was still limited. I’ll update my comment, thanks for pointing that out.

For PC, extra functions should be in the context menu in my opinion. For mobile, that’s a little tougher, but maybe tapping on the selected text should bring up the options? Selecting on mobile is a tough thing anyway, and any solution is probably going to be a problem for someone else.

Actually, that’s probably true for any UI design choices. There are some that are generally a good idea (like defining a reasonable navigation order for your elements or making design respond to viewport sizes to ensure that everything actually fits), but interaction options can get really muddy.

If a colleague asks me “Hi, how’re you doing?” it’s small talk and I’ll respond something like “Oh you know, the usual.” If my partner asks me “Hi, how was your day?” it’s a genuine question and I will respond “That fucking dickhead at work that always plays nice and personable came around with another set of “urgent” requests and no fucking clue what he’s actually asking for, whether it’s possible or why I told him last week it isn’t.”

The difference is in how serious I take the question.

One of my colleagues will even occasionally ask me “Heading for a smoke, wanna come along?” I just love chatting with him, I’ll try to stand upwind so I don’t catch as much second-hand smoke, he gets some company too, everyone’s happy.

It does, in fact, turn humans invisible too. Isildur being the obvious example, but even the nine rings given to humans had that effect, shifting them to the spiritual / unseen world. That’s a whole different ramble, but for now, let’s sum it up that there is an unseen world not everyone can sense and influence, but the Maiar (including Sauron) are inherently spiritual beings that took physical shape in the seen world in order to interact with it.

For Sauron, so much of his power was poured into the One Ring that the continued existence of the ring meant that he could survive destruction of his physical form and eventually take shape again¹, though its loss in the War of the Last Alliance obviously robbed him of much of his strength and he had to hide for a long time to slowly regain his strength and renew his efforts.²

Through the Ring, Sauron had also dominated the nine human Ring bearers and bound them to him, moving them into the spiritual world. As his form was destroyed, so did they lose theirs. As he returned, so did they.

The reason they could still “see” Frodo is that they were attuned to the unseen and could sense him there, with their power over it manifesting in them stabbing his physical form even though it was invisible to mortal eyes.

There is still the question of the Dwarven rings. They were forged first, and it’s possible they weren’t as refined yet, though the dwarves are also described as more resilient at resisting the dominating effect. My guess is that the fact they were created by Aulë, Smith of the Valar, rendered them less susceptible to the craft of a lesser spirit (Sauron), but I have no evidence.

1: This paragraph and the following one originally read that Sauron could no longer take shape without the ring. I stand corrected on that, see the responses.

2: After his first destruction during the Fall of Numenor, his spirit managed to escape with the ring. 110 years later, he had enough strength to launch a strike against the nascent Gondor and start another war that lasted 13 years. He was destroyed again, this time losing his ring, and it took him a thousand years to become active again.Per the correction, he will probably have regained his form, though he was still too weak to fully reveal himself and start another open war for two thousand more years.

I think that’s where the world of art appreciation is now quite visibly breaking along a divide that has existed for a while. Some have always just valued the product: means be damned, if the end is enjoyable enough. For others, the process matters; for some even more than the result.

The latter group seems larger, though they may just be more passionate about their views and accordingly vocal (personally, I suspect both are the case, but I don’t know of any solid evidence).

Such is the way of new technology: it challenges traditional values. That doesn’t mean those values are without merit or have to be overturned, but I think it’s valuable that they’re challenged at least.

Here’s to hoping they stand the test.

Let’s put an end to the discussion

lol
lmao

Is it me or does that post author name look like a lot of the bots named “WordWordNumber”?

Edit: let me rephrase. Your original comment didn’t mention what you did. You made a snide remark about reading comprehension when you didn’t even reread your own comment. That’s just hostile for no reason.

– Original reply:

Because that’s what the other person asked. “Secluded myself” isn’t really an answer. I can seclude myself counting leaves in the forest, lay down and stare at the ceiling, walk circles around my room and try to make them perfectly circular…

It’s not that you have to tell; saying “I don’t know” or “I’d rather not say” would be an answer too. But you made a snide remark regarding the other person’s reading comprehension (why?) and fail to properly comprehend their question (or mine).

…and what did you do while high?

Not me. I don’t care. The version of me that I’ve got right now is alright, I’m in no hurry to “find myself”. Either I’ll come across myself by chance or it can’t have been that important.

huffs excessive amounts of Copium

You mean brainunalive?

Do you mean the victims or the instances of SCP-3008-2? I don’t think the anomaly itself is curable.

Summary for those not familiar: SCP-049 is a plague doctor that seeks to violently “cure” anyone afflicted with some nondescript “Pestilence”.
SCP-3008 is an endless and nearly inescapable IKEA, where the “Staff” (labeled SCP-3008-2) are entirely unresponsive during the day but become violent at night towards anyone still in the store after closing time.

SCP Foundation is a fictional (I hope) organisation with the mission to Secure, Contain, Protect various anomalies catalogued with numbers (SCP-#) which are thus also referred to as SCPs. These anomaly descriptions are available on https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/

Some of the anomalies are references to other fictional things. If you’re familiar with Slenderman, for instance, you may enjoy SCP-096.

I can see the Onion headline: High-Tech Warfare not as simple as military genius on the internet thought

COMING DOWN THEY TURNED THE TIDE

Hey, they might actually manage the cold! This is brilliant!

And just like your mother, she’s wrong and doesn’t deserve what she spurned.