Ah yes, the logical endpoint of any quirky hobby - becoming so invested in it that your family simply has to smile and nod approvingly while they pray it doesn't spill over into the living room.
That said, if you're that skilled with a lathe, it should probably be considered a useful life skill.
It's perfectly reasonable to harvest thousands of photos of unknowing people and then accost them based on faulty software that can produce an erroneous match? How so?
They are, sure, but they're really fun and some of them caught on. I think it's the exact kind of funny little thing we should encourage, language doesn't have to be serious.
This gives me a chance to bring up my favorite collective noun for a group of animals: a bloat of hippopotami. Although a "dazzle" of zebras comes a second close. One of my favorite quirks of English, don't think other languages have our penchant for giving animal groups special names.
$400, damn. Although, to be fair, that book does look to be the size of a hefty fantasy trilogy. If the printing quality is up to snuff, it should be a gorgeous and very interesting read.
This isn't a bad metaphor altogether and I appreciate that the post advocates for one thing that all too many such ideas ignore: talking to people and asking them what matters to them. You can never know if your kid finds something truly important until you ask them and damaging your relationship with your family is never worth the marginal or even huge successes at work.
Possibly because nobody who actually reads scientific articles recreationally or for work will read the comments or at least won't consider them a serious discussion. However, leaving the comments off would likely cause those disagreeing to claim it's an "echo chamber" and push them to spread the article with quote tweets about how bad it is, causing much more of a storm. Letting people air their crazy theories is easier than having to deal with them getting built up until your publication is flooded with letters asking to stop whatever perceived malicious agenda you've got.
That said, if you're that skilled with a lathe, it should probably be considered a useful life skill.