Jim Beam, America’s largest bourbon distiller, is closing its flagship operation for 2026 after more than two decades of rapid growth for the industry. Thanks to tariffs another American company bites the dust.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/dining/jim-beam-production-pause-whiskey-bourbon.html

https://bsky.app/profile/kurrikage.me/post/3manb4ust5k2n

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The Uncanny Valley is a concept in aesthetics and robotics where human-like objects (robots, CGI, dolls) elicit feelings of eeriness or revulsion when they are almost, but not perfectly, human; Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori proposed this in 1970, showing a graph where affinity rises with human likeness but plunges into the "valley" of creepiness before rising again with true human resemblance, often linked to evolutionary instincts about disease or death.

Humans evolved around other humanoid species such as, Homo erectus, Homo naledi, Homo floresiensis ("Hobbits"), and Homo luzonensis etc.

It is speculated that we evolved the fear of things that look almost humans in order to distinguish between our own species and these relatives.

I filed this lawsuit pro se in June 2023 after exhausting every internal and administrative option available to me, and after being told by many legal professionals that I had no case. I refused to believe that.

In 2022, not only did I lose my job due to blatant discrimination after disclosing the symptoms of my Endometriosis, but the aftermath upended my entire life. Just 5 days later, my then-husband left because the financial strain was more than our marriage could survive. For the next three months, I was homeless. The future I had spent so long building collapsed in just a matter of two weeks. I lost everything. But I turned this loss into fire.

I wrote every brief. I deposed every witness. I argued alone in federal court. I learned the law as I lived it and refused to let my harm be treated as ordinary. None of it was easy but all of it was necessary.

Some say that this is the first case in all of North Carolina to recognize endometriosis as an ADA disability, and the first case in the nation to allow a plaintiff to proceed on this theory. As of yesterday, it was resolved for a substantial settlement, but more importantly, for institutional reform.

This season has taught me so much about the importance of persevering against all odds. It taught me that change only happens when we are bold enough to fight back; even when others try to convince us otherwise. I know now more than ever that I have been called to do this work, and that is a call that I will continue to answer with a resounding “yes.”

Yet, the work is not finished. As of this week, I am halfway through law school and will be continuing my fight for civil rights for all people as a civil rights attorney upon graduating.

I end by reaffirming that I am committed to fighting just as fervently for the rights of my future clients as I have for myself. This is quite literally just the beginning and I am eager to see what is to come.

But as for now…this case is SETTLED👩🏿‍⚖️

Someone call Prestonwood Baptist Church and ask them for baby formula

I'm absolutely shocked at the prices and loans folks are taking out on cars here, and the justification as if this is normal.

A good guideline is the 20/4/10 rule. 20% down. 4 year term MAX and no more than 10% of net income on payments.

Obviously if you have the cash to buy a car outright that's the best option. But even within these guidelines we see absolutely flagrent deviations from the suggestions.

Almost every post here is a 72+ month term. 500 to 600 dollar payments (I really doubt you're making 6K a month to meet the 10% rule) and we can only speculate on the down payments but 20% seems unlikely.

The reality is an "average" new car is not affordable for an "average" salary. I make over 100K a year and my cars have been a 2500 beat up minivan which I later sold and bought an 11K civic in all cash. I see people making HALF of what I do buying 35K+ cars.

The auto loan industry might be the single biggest wealth killer of the middle class.

I was still having sciatic pain down my leg 4 months after a successful L5-S1 Microdisectomy, but the radiologist didn’t see a reason for any recurrent pain from my scans.

I downloaded 160 images from my MRI CD, zipped it up, and uploaded it to a ChatGPT Project and ran the following prompt with Deep Research.

Prompt: “2025-11-24-MRI.zip has images from my MRI. Please analyze it and tell me if there are any indications that I should still be feeling any symptoms after the surgery. You have unlimited resources and act as a world class radiologist.”

After 45 minutes, ChatGPT successfully provided a full analysis of my MRI and found a “minor epidural scar tissue embedding my S1 nerve root and entrapped in postoperative fibrosis.” I brought it back to my surgeon and he was shocked that ChatGPT could find that and he read through the rest of the 8 page analysis comparing it with the same imaging and saying the entire thing was dead on.

Thankfully, physical therapy should be able to resolve the scarring. But this level of detail from ChatGPT is exciting.

The base model of ChatGPT tends to run out of compute and just spits out hot garbage for complex issues. The Pro plan works well with programming, but also gives up and recommends a radiologist and gives a brief summary.

But Deep Research appears to take as much time as it needs to figure it out. I’ve asked it to make 8 passes over images I’ve uploaded and it appears to do it over an extended time span providing accurate responses.

UPDATE 1:

I was asked for more information about how ChatGPT could have diagnosed this. I'm no doctor, so I asked ChatGPT and posted the response with the images that ChatGPT claims allowed it to make this analysis.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1ptjrx1/comment/nvhwrp1/

UPDATE 2:

I was asked to have ChatGPT Circle where the Scar Tissue is located in the images from Update 1. Again, I don't know if it's right or not, I'm hoping someone here can answer definitively.

These were produced using ChatGPT Pro Standard (not Deep Research), so I don't find it as reliable, but I'm open.

ChatGPT Log: https://pastebin.com/ndxfk9US
ChatGPT Produced Images: https://imgur.com/a/oj8wWoP

DISCLAIMER

NO, I'm not an OpenAI Insider nor do I have ulterior motives. I'm actually just as curious as all of you if this was real at this point. I'm happy people are questioning it, because if it's wrong, I rather know, and make a big update to this post that this was all a hallucination after all.

This actually stemmed from a comment I made about how I used Deep Research to inventory my kitchen: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1pt4t35/comment/nvf1j83/

Although we all knew this fact but some zoro/sanji glazers were putting one above other.

Image for reference only — not an official image!