And it’s an act of constant, willful effort by yourself and your community.

One neighbor is a rental, they are a large immigrant family and are barely getting along. Property owner lives out of country. Another neighbor thought it would be a fun idea to feed neighborhood stray cats. They wound up creating a very healthy breeding family of raccoons out the run-down garage of the rental. For years their offspring have wreaked havoc in our neighborhood. Every fall I’ve had to call a pest control company to trap the tiny raccoons that are small enough to climb downspouts (the big ones aren’t) and destroy the siding and soffits of my neighbors houses. The cat food guy moved away, I figured out how to occlude the raccoons from my downspouts with ample and unsightly flashing, and along with other neighbors, have built or repaired fencing in in our backyards (mostly because of pets and trespassing neighborhood kids, honestly).
It seems like the raccoon misadventure has finally concluded. I’m now stuck with damaged soffits that squirrels have moved into (on account of a looming walnut tree that lives in a neighbors yard and is so large it overhangs my roof), and a repair estimate that was $5k a year ago, when I had the garage roof redone but wasn’t sure I’d gotten the raccoon problem licked, so I didn’t want to proceed with those repairs. Who knows what it’ll be now. … yay.

I know. I was just seeing if you would notice. awkward laughter

(But thanks, I was trying to wing the conversion and started off with 3.3ft =1m and then did the numbers meme while my fingers typed gibberish.)

I have an FDM printer (Ender 3 clone) that is mostly 2020 aluminum extrusion as the frame. A few years ago I found some 2020 on sale and built a set of shelves for my wife’s plants out of it. (Now - I know. It’s not the most economical use of materials, but it was the middle of winter, and I didn’t want to go work in the garage. Plus the 2020 was on sale.) It’ll support a slew of plants over a 4-foot span (~1.2m) without any sagging or other concerns. It can be wobbly side to side, but that’s a matter of bracing and connectors.

hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion

This means anyone who wants to tear down separation of church and state is a terrorist. …. right?

Most people haven’t even tried the soap box.

The limited-time rebrand to Maxwell Apartment […] is one of two [marketing] campaigns debuting from the coffee brand

It’s just advertising.

This 2021 article paints a damning picture.

Oklahoma coach preyed on players while school looked the other way, lawsuit alleges — The Oklahoman

Back in the bad old days of the 2009 recession, I got caught in the churn and wound up at a temp agency to make ends meet.
One of my assignments was driving about 6 hours a day, from gas station to gas station to “buy” cigarettes. I never actually bought anything. What I did do, however, was wait until they asked me for either my ID or money. If they asked me for ID, they got a green card. If they asked me for money with no sign of ID’ing me, they got a red card.
It was a voluntary program by Philip Morris to curtail underage smoking. I don’t know what actually happened to the cashiers. I was told no one got punished. (And folks reacted with disappointment, but not sadness or anger. Folks with green cards reacted happily, though. So I assume it was an Incentive-based program.) These interactions got logged, and I turned in the log sheet at the end of the day.

Because we’re victims of our own experience, that immediately came to mind. I feel like we need to start blindly testing if mandatory reporters are reporting things they witness. I mean - no idea how that gets worked out. Seems horrible.

I bought a pair of overalls, a long-sleeved green shirt, and a pair of sunglasses with an attached Luigi hat and mustache.

Not a group outfit, but I get a feeling it’ll be a pretty solid way to gauge people this year.

I honestly have no recollection. It was about 10 years ago. I probably just used like half the seasoning packet with salt and pepper. (Because that seems like something I’d do.)

I once forgot about it in a crock pot using the fast cook method and basically boiled the whole thing into mush. It made for a delicious bean dip.

So you’re saying fatal strokes cure Alzheimer’s?

(Let the record show this was a joke comment.)

I tried to find the current location of the iceberg and was met with a sad reminder of how much data the U.S. government contributes. Basically, all the location updates came from NOAA, and those haven’t been updated since March.

I play it when I’m really depressed.

I would say that I enjoy the game and feel that the developers have invested a lot of effort into building a panacea of a game that is sort of low stress and maybe a little repetitive, but it gives me something to do, and I can set goals for myself that are… well, absolutely batshit.
My current goal(s) are to get my settlements to S tier (pretty close on this one), swap all my frigates over to supply ships (If you repeatedly assign the same ship to the same sorts of missions, it will level up just that stat, so you can have a supply ship that has a high combat stat, etc), and build resource bases so that I can automatically collect every kind of automatically collectible resource in the game. I’ve also visited about 20 universes, and think it might be fun to put a resource collection base in each universe (that I have the patience to visit) and then just go hang out at the anomaly so folks can use the teleporter to fling themselves to universes unknown.

It’s tricky, because the dates are sort of spread out, and we don’t know what their life was like.

My sister separated from her husband a few years ago. They’re still on good terms. They’re great friends, in fact, and each other’s closest confidant. I don’t think either actually want to divorce or ‘move on’ - She’s in her early 50’s, and he’s in his mid 60’s. They now live separately but have dinner together at least once a week, sometimes more. They do cook for each other, too.

Anyway - the dates for the poisonings are several months apart -

• November 2021 - Tupperware of pasta
• May 2022 - Curry during shared camping trip (The one that nearly killed him)
• September 2022 - Vegetable wrap during a vacation together
• February 2023 - He’s already suspicious and did not eat a batch of cookies that were left for him
• June 2023 - He skipped out on the meal that killed his parents and aunt, after warning his dad. (He assumed they would be fine.)

I could see if they were still taking vacations and going on trips that were friendly, perhaps he really didn’t suspect her. Or, perhaps more darkly, (and purely speculatively) either she didn’t want to let go of him, or he refused to divorce her or leave her life.
We just do not have a clear picture of their dynamic based on this article, which tells the facts given in the trial, as well as some information regarding evidence not admitted about her efforts to poison him, but offers no information about their reasons for splitting, or social life after the split.
Wondering heavily if perhaps there’s some unknowns here that would have altered the prosecutions case, had motives for the wife trying to poison the husband been established.

He also gave an interview about the experience of failing to upload his selfie. I think you’re right about him not caring about his privacy.

This will surely make housing more affordable in the U.S!

Many years ago, I discovered that my then-employer’s “home built” e-commerce system had all user and admin passwords displayed in plaintext at home/admin/passwords.

When I brought this to the attention of leadership, they called the “developer” in and he said “oh, well, that’s IP locked, so no one on the web can access it!” When I pulled it up on my phone, he insisted my phone was on the work WiFi, despite it being clearly verifiable that was not the case. (The same work WiFi that had an open public connection, which is the one my phone would have been on, if it were on it…)

He did fix that, but many other issues remained. Eventually a new COO hired someone competent as his ‘backup’, replaced our website and finally suggested he pursue other employment opportunities before he could no longer voluntarily pursue them. (There was concern he might sabotage.)

I want a phone I can hold comfortably in one hand. I don’t need a larger screen, I need to remember to call the eye doctor.

No. I know. These phones aren’t for me. They’re for people who want to replace their laptop with a phone. The market is moving toward an all inclusive device, and the only way to make that work is dorky VR headsets, awkward projectors, or venti phones.

OldManYellsAtCloud.gif

Second Life already failed. Lego Second Life won’t succeed either.

INTERNATIONAL CRIME RING AFOOT!?

Over 100 left shoes stolen from Albuquerque shoe store