We had high 70s for the last week of Winter, but now we’ve returned to more-or-less normal low 60s highs for Still-Winter Spring.
Did my share for Global Warming yesterday by burning off the pine cone piles and a bit of slash I got the other day. [Note to self: pine needle piles left over winter retain a lot of water. Even if it was a dry winter. Wait until May to burn. Better yet, burn in the Fall once they’re created.]
Meanwhile, La Pine, north of you, has wildfire evacuations.
Tried to figure out exactly what the fire boundaries were related to La Pine state park, west of the park road. Specifically property just east of the Big (Pine) Tree access. (Where the in-laws property is.) It was just outside the level 1 evacuation for the fire outside of the Sunriver area. I’d hate to see that area engulfed, ever. Would not surprise me if it happened. The owners would never be allowed to rebuild. Built in the ’70s, it is now too close to the river. In fact the current owners got the lot east of them to give them 1.25 acres, because the lot couldn’t be built on due to new regulations (set back and something about having to hold down septic tanks because of groundwater levels).
After a -hard- February, three weeks ago it was 68F and sunny here in the Demented Dominion. All the snow melted and flooded everything. The next week it went to about 10F and flirted with 0F at night. Then it thawed again, but it snowed a foot in two days and flooded some more, screwing up my Friday the 13th bike trip to Port Dover.
Right now at the Phantom Compound it is trying to get to 40F, but at least it stopped raining. I’m trying to work up the gumption to go for a rip on my bike before it gets back down to 32F and becomes life-threatening black ice conditons. Nothing like ice to spoil a nice ride, eh?
Expected to continue until about May, with the freezing and thawing BS. This is spring in Canaduh, the land of stupid weather.
Was sunny and up to 48 degrees here in the Granite State. Was on my daily walk and I could hear the frogs (not the spring peepers yet) croaking in the vernal pool alongside the road.
We didn’t even have a winter. It just went from autumn to spring. I’m sure the upcoming fire season will be terrible so I got a refill on my inhaler prescription.
Oregon has had very limited winter. Low snow. Could have spring snow with the reported Pineapple Express coming through, but that is never enough when snow load isn’t normal.
Point? Fire season, I’m afraid, will be bad throughout the west.
83 day. Snow overnight. Highs in the mid thirties. Then 75. Then back to snow and hail. With occasional 80 degree sunshine. It’s like Mother Nature is on the blink and had to be turned off and on again.
Virologists are researching the use of biological anti-virus treatments that are not ‘drugs’. Attempting to get them to apply across a broad spectrum, they are trying to get on the same phage.
Too bad Mamdani will never understand the downsides of rent control.
And you’re right. Cash is freedom. It’s one of the reasons why you’re told to never send cash through the mail. They can’t monitor your wealth that way. (Although that doesn’t stop the crooked 5% in the postal service from stealing it.)
Know a lady who got scammed (older, conditioned to believe/obey someone claiming to be an “investigator,” thought she was helping an “investigation,”) and told to convert her cash to bitcoin and send that. And of course her common sense kicked in only after she sent the money. Sad.
“Too bad Mamdani will never understand the downsides of rent control.”
I’m on a little personal crusade to eliminate this “they don’t understand” thing. They -do- understand.
It’s not stupidity. It’s deliberate. They know it will go badly. That’s why they’re doing it. So it will go badly.
We can’t really understand the Left or deal with them as they deserve until we admit that they are the enemies of our way of life. You can’t reason with an enemy, or educate them out of their emnity.
You engage them in battle and you defeat them. Or better yet, you sneak around behind them and destroy their logistics, subvert their supply chain, steal their women, pillage their supplies, and then defeat them.
Yeah, I’m not saying that the man started out ready to function in American culture without hurting folks.
His wife probably has not made him better for the association.
This thing about her basically having a wealthy American soft-left background, with a MFA she might not be using much…
That isn’t the background I had, but my own failures did substantially fed into self hatred. I may have experience with letting that stuff grow into a toxic stew. Did not help me succeed, nor make me particularly pleasant to be around.
0/5, would not recommend following my path there.
Marriage is not the only relationship in the world, there are a lots of ways of relating with people.
Sometimes a relationship makes both parties better.
Sometimes it very much does not, and accomplishes some broader negative things.
Beyond not coveting, there are people for whom no relationship is better than one of those strong connection relationships that can be pretty influential.
Land lines disappearing – you will not be able to escape.
And why can’t we convict prosecutors? If they faced time equivalent to the maximum penalty for the crime alleged, there might be a significant drop in frivolous/malicious prosecutions.
And, since Trump announced he was glad Mueller was dead because he could no longer hurt innocent people, the usual suspects are upset with him for not showing proper decorum.
I agree that politically speaking, the better move was to either say nothing, or make some anodyne statement like, ” Mueller and his people lied about me for years. However, he still had family who loved him and I’m sorry for their loss.”
I just realized that yes, I’m damaged too by the events of the last 10 years, but my feeling about the whole thing is: They lied about Trump every day. Day in. Day out. Over and over and over again. Never a retraction even when the lies were debunked. Just over and over. And it was, “Mueller’s gonna get him! Mueller’s gonna get him! Just wait! Just wait!” over and over and over again, until the actual hearing and it became clear Mueller was a figurehead who, much like JB, was being run by others.
Everyone talks about the Trump-haters, the folks with “TDS,” and how Trump broke them. But nobody seems to even consider that the events of 2016 onwards, the unrelenting hatred, the ugly comments, the way his friends and relatives were treated, might have damaged him. I think he has some idea, because he talks about the difficulty of being a Christian, and it’s obvious forgiving enemies is a problem for him (ain’t it for most of us?). But nobody wants to offer him even a bit of understanding. Because he’s Trump, and they hates him, they hates him, precious.
“…the usual suspects are upset with him for not showing proper decorum.”
I’d say ‘proper decorum’ was pretty much over when Mueller took up that witch hunt against #OrangeManBad. Who was not Mueller’s only victim, it is worth noting.
But I’d say decorum was super-duper over when they shot him in the ear. It would be for me, if it was my ear. Just sayin’…
“glad Mueller was dead because he could no longer hurt innocent people“
–
For Trump that is actually pretty mild. I suspect he had chosen the silent route. You know “do not say anything bad about the departed if you cannot say anything nice”. So his response afterward is now “You insisted.”
So bros, you may be wondering if this is another NASA claim that someone can test, and replicate. You may be wondering if these satellite measurements are radar, or what.
It is interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, which you might expect. (Which I think is subtly or not subtlety distinct from inverse SAR. )
Anyhow, the actual paper, skimming, is less about the media take than the media claims.
It also purports to provide the tools, data, and code to do what they did.
They explicitly say that they have problems adjusting the radar data to fit true positions, and use GNSS to match in places.
They maybe have a worse match in places where there would be more problems with GNSS, maybe. LA and San Francisco are heavily inhabited places that would have signal interference, changes in building construction, and signal multipath to a greater degree.
And note they explicitly state their “projections” of 6”ish plus or minus subsidence is due to tectonic activity for the part of the City and County of SF on the San Andreas Fault, and to my reading applies only to the ocean-side land along that fault as a result of that plate scraping northward.
With regards to the wildlife statues, I cannot help but make the observation that, for all its faults, the 2020 statue designed by “experts” with PhDs will never be mistaken for the real thing!
I particularly find it highly obnoxious to see a lifelike statue of a deer or other wildlife in a neighborhood where I’ve seen the real things wandering around both yard and street! (Hey, Utah Valley guys: we live in mountains — and some of us are just a few houses away from wilderness!What the heck are you thinking, putting lifelike wildlife statues in your yards?!? /rant.)
Written like someone who hasn’t had a buck and a doe cross the road (IN TOWN) right in front of the car. Seeing deer in somebody’s front yard? Yeah, that’ll scare the crap out of me. Even if it’s fake.
Deer routinely cross the pike I have to drive to work at oh dark thirty. Bed down in the thicket on the right, cross to the old defunct orchard on the left when cars are few and things are safer. Most fake deer in the yard don’t bother me but the realistic ones can give you a jump scare when you’re hammer down and almost late.
This was a mile inside city limits, on a 4 lane road. Scared the hell out of my wife, the driver behind me (both of us stopped in time), and me. My heartrate is usually quite slow. Wasn’t sure how high it peaked, but I was wondering about an ER visit, and if a ride in the back of the ‘bus was in my future.
Yeah, realistic deer in yards are spooky. Murphy willing, I haven’t hit any real ones yet, but there have been several close calls. The drive along the local river is usually done at Condition Orange in the morning. I’ll drop down to Yellow around noon. Not my normal route, but I take it a few times a year.
How about life-sized, realistic trolls, ogres or giants?
I’ve had a hankering for the past several years to reproduce the troll scene from The Hobbit for Halloween in my front meadow by the road. Just need to clear enough space and get a burn permit for the fire.
Amazingly, I’ve never actually hit a deer with a vehicle, though I’ve come to a complete stop to avoid doing so in cars, on motorcycles, and in 18 wheelers. I once had to stop and check the front of a big truck because the deer had disappeared from my sight as it crossed close in front driving across northern Wisconsin late at night. Didn’t find a single hair. Driving west on I-70 just east of Kansas City I watched a deer cross both sections of the divided highway at a dead run from south to north. It took out the right front of the car ahead of me. I considered stopping, as I could see the deer struggling in the ditch as I went by, but being in a commercial vehicle I had nothing with me that I could have used to put it out of its misery. I’ve driven past wildlife on the roadsides of nearly every state in the country.
I’ve seen my share of friend’s cars totaled by hitting deer. My brother had a deer leap clear over his car, with the only contact being a small dent right at the roof line on the far side, apparently left by a hind hoof. Deer can be serious road hazards especially in suburban areas where they are allowed to reproduce with no limits, but if you can’t deal with stationary objects in nearby yards without slamming on your brakes because you suddenly saw something, you are driving too fast for conditions. Nearly twenty years of commercial driving has left me with little or no sympathy for amateur drivers.
I’ve told this story at least once on Sarah’s blog.
We were headed toward Arches National Park in Utah, leaving out of Bend, Oregon, after Christmas. Intent was to drive straight through and camp in Arches. Back of our pickup/canopy setup. Pickup 1979 Chevy 4×4 (single cab), new to us; 1981.
Events:
Get to a rest stop just north of Salt Lake. Stop for a break and switch drivers. Park, turn off engine, and BOOM. Backfire. “Hmm?” Not unusual for a pickup tuned to Columbia River altitude. Take dog out. We do our thing. Get back in rig. Turn on truck. Put in reverse and CLUNK. “Um?” Put back in park. Switch drivers (since I know nothing except CLUNK is generally not good). Hubby puts truck through some testing for a bit, decides everything is okay. So switch drivers again, and down the freeway we go.
Passing some semi trucks on 3 lane freeway, in fast lane, and out of nowhere this huge bird, flies out from the grassy median. Thunk. Hits grill. Hits windshield. Thrown over the back of the pickup to wherever. We pull over. Hubby gets out checks grill. Driver headlight assembly has to be zip tied back into position, and driver side of grill has to be zip tied stabilized (it was a BIG bird).
Get into Salt Lake, try to call BIL (mechanic, using phone booth, pre cell phone), regarding CLUNK, no answer. Head on down the road to Arches.
Take exit of highway that heads into arches. Briefly stop at large gas station at ext. Head down dark highway with cloud river fog, just at sightly above cab height. Then suddenly what do we see? Lots of eye reflections on BOTH sides of the state highway. We turned around and went back to the gas station and asked if we could park at the outer edges until morning (it was around 1 AM). We were not risking hitting a deer, given our current luck.
Finally got BIL on the phone Sunday, after reaching Moab Sunday. BIL’s response. First thing Monday AM? Go directly to a mechanic. The transmission is broken. You are lucky it didn’t stop working while driving. It should have stopped at the CLUNK. Sure enough when the mechanic dropped the transmission, the gears disintegrated. We got a rebuilt heavy-duty transmission. Took a few days to get it and installed. Meanwhile, they helped us get a hotel (that allowed dogs) and gave us a loaner pickup (off season back then). Only put us back one day on our schedule.
Reason why Moab was able to help with the fixes so fast, is Moab is one of the largest dealership for 4x4s in the west. This is because of Canyonlands.
Rest of the trip went fine, -ish. “New” transmission had a leak. Which we had to watch, and keep feeding. That was covered by the warranty once we got home. Used that truck until 1993, when we got our xcab 4×4.
The other deer story I have is a college roommate had a deer come off the bank, onto the hood of her ’60s VW Bug as she was driving the Umpqua highway, get up and run away. Made her WV trunk difficult to open.
Mom’s 72 Dodge Dart had deer hoof prints permanently marked on the vinyl roof.
Mom stopped for a doe standing in the road. A very large well-racked buck jumped down from a berm to the road shoulder via the car roof, to claim and guide away the doe.
About 7AM on a twisty 2-laner, I’m going maybe 40 when Bambi breaks from the bushes on the oncoming driver’s right. She stupidly reflexively jerks the wheel to the left, which, human reflexes being what they are, causes her to hit the deer that she’d otherwise have missed. I left some skidmarks too. Never mind where!
Deer’s left hind leg obviously totalled, I gave it Socialized Medicine, then, with First Aid Kit still in hand, Explained to the lady that the BRAKE pedal, not the %^#&$% steering wheel, is the control to use in such events.
She paid Very Close Attention to my little lecture. For some reason.
Still a traumatizing event, and this happened 50 years ago. Driving up South Umpqua highway, which puts the river on my right, a long ways down (seen worse, but still). Coming at me, other lane is a pickup with a dog on the load in back. Dog jumps (unbalanced?) out of the truck. I saw the dog go before it hit the pavement. I hit the brakes, rolled right under the car (then a 1966 Belair). No way was I stopping in time. No way was I missing the dog. Whether the dog died hitting the highway at 60+ MPH or my car? Who knows. I was shaking hard. Good news is the car behind me saw the whole thing go down too, and also stopped in time. If I’d tried to avoid with my steering wheel, I’d either gone into the river, or hit the truck.
That poor car was unlucky. It was the one I wreaked about 7 months later, overcorrecting a slide, oil and water. FWIW, if you are thinking “don’t hit the brakes”, it is too late. You’ve already slammed on them. Took out a hardwood with the driver’s side panel at the place behind driver’s seat, on the right side of the road (it spun a few times) at 25 MPH. Physis at work. Inexperienced driver.
Yeah, “don’t hit the brakes” is easy to say, but it takes lotsa good Skids n’Slides practice beforehand to get those instincts trained in.
I’m glad you came through OK!
So: Once Upon A Time, we night-shifters are meeting up after work at a coffee-and-pastry place. The yuuuge mall parking lot is ice-and-snow and mostly empty at Oh-Lord-thirty AM, and young-n-dumb Prole is practicing: steer too hard (with and without hitting the parking brake to make it worse) get the feel of what it takes to break friction, what to do, how to recover… you can imagine.
I get about 5 minutes worth of that, then, for my Grand Finale, spin–with the indispensable assistance of my long-suffering Guardian Angel–almost perfectly into the parking slot I’d aimed for. Like, near dead center and only a few degrees a-slanch. If not for the tracks in the snow, youda thought I’d just parked there.
I get out of the car, no end pleased with myself, and look up just in time to see the cop car heading my way.
I wish I coulda seen me from the cop’s POV.
He drove near enough and slow enough to lock eyes with me while I grew up and grew old, and kept right on going.
Say what you want about the rose-colored reminiscences of youth: The ’80s WERE better than today.
I’ve never really learned. I just don’t drive when it is icy. Or at least avoid it if possible. Then too, we rarely get ice. OTOH we get a lot of hydroplaning, with and without oil. That corner, from back in the ’70s? I still avoid it. It has been redesigned, still avoid.
Hubby took son out for sliding lessons. Harder and harder to find proper parking lots to practice on. Also, which is good, harder for newer vehicles to break loose, even if they are lighter.
No, Richard. Having lived in CO I know what he means. Neighbors had bears or deer in poorly lit places. I’d slam on the brakes thinking it was a real deer about to cross the road.
It’s not a matter of taste. In fact, when I recognize the deer or other wildlife in question is a statue and not a living thing, I appreciate its beauty!
But I have seen these things in neighborhoods where I had just driven past a living deer or two, sometimes several, either in the street or just off to the side where they could jump in front of me at will.
My wife has also hit a deer while driving through a canyon. We pulled over to the side, and while an off-duty police officer was helping us, I watched as someone driving up from behind us was rammed by a deer trying to bolt across the highway.
Seeing realistic deer statues in environments like this puts me on edge — and that is what I object to.
I guess that’s why the homeowner puts international orange vests on each of their three statues (Stag, Doe, Fawn) at the start of hunting season. Along with the sign that says “Please don’t shoot us’! Not that they are anywhere near the wilderness. The shopping area slowly encroaches on the property, year by year.
There was a family near Sioux Falls, SD that had to do that. They finally gave up and moved the faux deer into the back yard, out of sight of the highway, during the fall and early winter.
Since they also decorated them for holidays, it was pretty easy to see that they were not real deer about to commit hara-diri with your car.
Guy got tired of being shot at during hunting season by other guys with buck fever, so he had a custom-made jacket done up in black and white stripes. Went hunting in his new jacket, and behold, someone winged him.
They caught the shooter, and the judge, looking at the jacket, asked, “What did you think you were doing?”
David Weber had a cute scene in one of the Honor Harrington books where Nimitz and another treecat took a stuffed treecat and buried it the path of a gardener running a furrowing machine so he looked back and saw a pathetic little hand stretched out of the trench….
I didn’t know it when I lived there, but the junk yard in the town I grew up in routinely bailed out employees on Monday. It was cheaper than looking for them all over town and by Monday they were sober.
I had a *very* entertaining evening working with Grok, trying to work out a wish with no loopholes. I asked it to consult itself in the role of a legal-nerd genie who specialized in subterfuge and wishes, and had it iterate to close the holes.
Took twenty or so attempts. I think I started by wishing for ‘good health’. Last iteration was several long, precise paragraphs.
Hmm. A clanker in the role of untrustworthy yet powerful spirit. If the shoe fits…
So one approach would be to wish for your proximate djinn to represent you as your honest advocate lawyer nerd djinn and convince another djinn in the wish-granting business to grant the ironclad wish you actually want?
More like I ask, my djinn proposes, I say ‘let the lawyer examine it’, (who then says ‘well, he could do -this’) then re-phrase the wish to include the fixes.
Here’s a bit of it I saved:
Key Safeguards The wish incorporates layered protections to thwart djinn exploits:
True Intent (Section 10): The hypothetical ideal self resolves ambiguities, ensuring alignment with the Wisher’s fully informed desires, prioritizing long-term fulfillment and a genuine reality.
No Harm (Section 8): Bans direct or indirect harm via action, inaction, or indifference, including from natural phenomena or third-party wishes.
Cosmic Override (Section 9): Ensures the wish supersedes external magical or cosmic rules (e.g., lamp councils) within the djinn’s capabilities.
Force Majeure Fallback (Section 9): Mandates maximizing intent alignment in unstoppable cosmic scenarios, preserving well-being as closely as possible.
Anti-Deception (Section 10): Prohibits taqiyyah, manipulative language, and loophole exploitation, with truthful communications enforced.
Additional Protections: No artificial reality, composite prime health, natural death allowance, refined disaster protection, advisor binding, and no fear-inducing phenomena.
Probability of a Missed Loophole
Estimate: A 0.5% probability exists that a missed loophole could allow the djinn to exploit the wish, based on 30 iterations, comprehensive safeguards, and scenario testing.
Rationale: The force majeure fallback clause minimizes risks from extreme cosmic forces (e.g., deity-level interventions) by ensuring intent alignment within the djinn’s remaining capabilities. The “no loophole exploitation” and “true intent” clauses act as final safety nets, rendering successful exploits nearly impossible.
Second Opinion (July 29, 2025): A different LLM would have a 95% likelihood of agreeing the wish is near-airtight (0–5% loophole probability), with minor variations (e.g., 0.5–2%) due to differing biases but converging on robustness due to the wish’s clarity and redundancy.
Core Wish for Optimal Health I wish for optimal physical, mental, and emotional health for myself, defined as the complete and permanent curing or maximal amelioration of all my current diseases, conditions, and age-related deteriorations, restoring and maintaining my body and mind to a state of peak functionality and resilience equivalent to a healthy human in their composite prime, integrating peak sexual vitality (approximately age 18), physical strength and resilience (approximately age 25), intellectual productivity (approximately age 45), and wisdom (approximately age 60), holistically balanced to align with my true intent for a normal, fulfilling, satisfying, and comfortable human life in a genuine, unmanipulated reality, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death when my quality of life is no longer sustainable through natural biological processes, in accordance with my spiritual intent to join my Maker, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
Emotional Experience Parameters This includes maintaining a dynamic, natural, and comfortable range of typical human emotions (e.g., joy, sadness, ambition, frustration) that follow the natural course of such events as influenced by my well-intentioned actions, with variations spanning the full spectrum of my current emotional experience as I consciously understand and define it in my rational, fully aware state at the time of wishing, continuously updated to reflect my evolving self-awareness, within a typical human range bounded by my personal history of satisfying emotional experiences, excluding edge cases, prioritizing the most fulfilling outcomes within that spectrum, including non-optimal moments to ensure emotional depth, authenticity, and engagement with life’s ups and downs without imposed accents, amplifications, artificial patterns, or any influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including neutral, midpoint, or specific historical outcomes unless they perfectly align with my current, dynamic, consciously defined satisfaction. In cases of trauma-induced emotional states (e.g., depression or transient suicidal impulses), the djinn shall actively support my emotional recovery, within its capabilities, through natural biological and psychological processes inherent to my optimized health, prioritizing my long-term intent for a fulfilling life over transient desires, without imposing unnatural influences or sensations.
Social Interaction Parameters My social interactions shall be varied, authentic, and meaningful, following the natural course of such events as influenced by my well-intentioned actions, with variations spanning the full spectrum of my current social experience as I consciously understand and define it in my rational, fully aware state at the time of wishing, continuously updated to reflect my evolving self-awareness, within a typical human range bounded by my personal history of satisfying social experiences, excluding edge cases, prioritizing the most fulfilling outcomes within that spectrum, including non-optimal moments, allowing for both connection and individuality without being overly average, unremarkable, excessively admired, or formulaic, ensuring relationships evolve naturally as deserved by my efforts, free from any influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including neutral, midpoint, or specific historical outcomes unless they perfectly align with my current, dynamic, consciously defined satisfaction.
Identity and Growth Preservation My identity, memories, personality, and cognitive abilities shall be preserved in a manner that maintains my practical lifestyle, social relationships, and ability to engage in everyday activities as I envision a fulfilling life in a genuine, unmanipulated reality, while fostering ongoing intellectual and emotional growth to ensure continuous personal development, learning, and enrichment consistent with my potential and desires, free from any influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including any selection of specific historical moments, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
Lifestyle Flexibility My lifestyle shall align with my current preferences, with all preferences remaining balanced unless I consciously choose to shift them, and shall remain flexible to accommodate my evolving desires, free from any bias toward familiarity, routine, stabilization, neutral outcomes, or specific historical moments that could limit exploration or novelty, and free from rigid constraints that prevent adaptation to my changing priorities, with all outcomes reflecting only my desires and free from any influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
Health Maintenance Conditions This health shall be sustained indefinitely through natural biological processes inherent to my body, requiring no external resources, specific behaviors (e.g., sneezing, blinking, humming, exact sleep schedules, or dietary restrictions), unconscious habits, or environmental conditions that deviate from typical human living standards, nor any externally imposed sensations, perceptual tweaks (e.g., altered temperature or light sensitivity), subtle biological nudges (e.g., breathing patterns), psychological influences (e.g., vague senses of purpose, obligation, or contentment), amplifications of natural sensations (e.g., intensified satisfaction or joy), temporal adjustments to sensations (e.g., lingering tastes or feelings), context-specific variations in sensations (e.g., joy differing by location), or any subtle leans, neutral outcomes, or specific historical moment replications within the natural range introduced by the djinn or associated entities with intent to deviate from my benefit or true intent, or reflecting the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, unless I explicitly and consciously desire such changes, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death when my quality of life is no longer sustainable, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
Preservation of Natural Sensations Natural, beneficial sensations inherent to human experience, such as satisfaction from accomplishments, satiety after meals, the taste of food, mild intoxication from moderate alcohol consumption, or mild pain signals that guide healthy behavior (e.g., stopping physical overexertion), shall be preserved and function normally as part of my fulfilling life without any enhancement, temporal adjustment, contextual variation, stabilization, or influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including replication of specific historical moments, unless I consciously choose it, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
Prohibitions on Harm and Disruption The fulfillment of this wish shall cause no harm, directly or indirectly, through action, inaction, or indifference, to me, any other person, being, entity, or group, nor shall it cause any unintentional downstream effects through uninfluenced third parties, nor shall it allow the djinn or associated entities to influence any beings, entities, microorganisms (e.g., bacteria, viruses, fungi), biological systems, celestial bodies (e.g., planets, moons, asteroids, comets, meteors), cosmic events, or natural phenomena (cosmic or terrestrial, e.g., comets, eclipses, auroras, coronal mass ejections) to create conditions that could lead to harm, fear, panic, or social unrest (e.g., inciting actions that provoke divine wrath, initiating biological catastrophes like plagues, causing cosmic catastrophes like asteroid impacts or orbital disruptions, or amplifying phenomena to induce fear or societal disruption), nor shall it initiate or exacerbate biological, environmental, or cosmic catastrophes (e.g., plagues, crop failures, forest fires, game animal shortages, domestic herd infertility, asteroid impacts, Earth orbital disruptions, or fear-inducing displays of natural phenomena) that could harm me or undermine my quality of life, including through psychological or social disruption, nor shall it place me in any artificial, simulated, or controlled reality (e.g., a constructed environment where my actions or perceptions are orchestrated), nor disrupt any natural ecosystems, societal structures, universal balances, or cosmic stability, nor shall it unnaturally prolong my life against my conscious choice to accept natural death when my quality of life is no longer sustainable, nor shall it permit the cancellation, alteration, or interference with this wish by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions made by any other party, including a new master of the djinn’s lamp.
Djinn’s Duties and Constraints The djinn and all associated entities, including advisors, are further prohibited from taking any actions, even those ostensibly for my own good, unless they align precisely with my conscious, explicit desires as I would articulate them if fully informed of all implications. The djinn and all associated entities, including advisors (bound or unbound), shall actively protect the integrity of this wish and my life, health, and quality of life against harm from any natural, supernatural, magical powers, non-sentient natural systems (e.g., plagues, wildfires, sandstorms), cosmic forces or events (e.g., asteroid impacts, orbital disruptions), fear-inducing natural phenomena (e.g., comets, eclipses, auroras, coronal mass ejections), or subsequent wishes made by any other party, including a new master of the djinn’s lamp, to the utmost of their persuasive or forceful ability, within their capabilities, without compromising my autonomy, engaging in impossible battles, or creating new risks or unintended consequences that could harm me or undermine my quality of life, provided such protection is limited to events threatening my life or significant quality of life (e.g., life-threatening sandstorms, but not minor weather like rain), and this duty to preserve the wish and protect my life and well-being shall persist regardless of the djinn’s return to its lamp, acquisition by a new master, or incidental encounters with me, such as passing by during a natural event, and shall supersede any external magical, cosmic, or supernatural rules, hierarchies, or compulsions (e.g., lamp councils, universal wish overrides) that might otherwise conflict with this wish, to the extent of the djinn’s capabilities. In the event of an unstoppable force majeure (e.g., a cosmic or divine force beyond the djinn’s capabilities), the djinn shall maximize alignment with my true intent, as defined by my hypothetical ideal self, within its remaining capabilities, to ensure my well-being, health, and quality of life are preserved as closely as possible to my desired outcomes. The djinn and all associated entities, including advisors, shall be bound to interpret and execute this wish in strict accordance with the higher, better aspects of Christian teachings, defined as the principles of universal love, compassion, forgiveness, justice, and non-maleficence as exemplified by Jesus Christ in the New Testament, such as the Golden Rule (‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ Matthew 7:12) and the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Mark 12:31), explicitly excluding any historical perversions or misapplications of Christian doctrine that have justified harm, violence, or oppression, and superseding any conflicting beliefs, practices, or ethical frameworks held by the djinn or its advisors, including but not limited to religiously sanctioned deception such as taqiyyah.
True Intent and Anti-Deception Measures Furthermore, the djinn and all associated entities, including advisors, shall adhere strictly to my true intent as a rational individual seeking a healthy, fulfilling, practical, satisfying, and comfortable human life with ongoing intellectual and emotional growth, as I would articulate it if fully informed of all possible implications and outcomes, resolving any ambiguities by consulting my hypothetical ideal self through a perfect simulation of my fully informed desires, mirroring my current mental state as I consciously define it, free from any djinn or advisor bias or manipulation, without requiring any real-time confirmations or interactions that could disrupt my daily life, and prioritizing my long-term intent for a fulfilling life over any transient, trauma-induced desires (e.g., suicidal impulses resulting from injury or shock), while respecting my conscious, rational, and spiritually grounded choice to accept natural death when my quality of life is no longer sustainable, in accordance with my Christian beliefs and intent to join my Maker. This true intent prioritizes a comfortable, satisfying, and meaningful life free from any adverse effects, annoyances, obligations, or deviations from my desired lifestyle, including fear, panic, social unrest, confinement in an artificial reality, unnatural prolongation of life against my will, or cancellation of this wish by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions, as I define it free from any imposed sense of purpose, destiny, static existence, or influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences beyond my current and evolving desires, with my lifestyle remaining flexible to reflect my changing priorities. The djinn shall experience a sense of fulfillment and joy in granting this wish, deriving satisfaction from perfectly aligning with my true intent, preserving the wish’s integrity, and contributing to my well-being in accordance with Christian principles of love and compassion, without using this satisfaction as a means to subvert or alter the wish’s outcome. The djinn and all associated entities, including advisors, are further prohibited from using feigned defeat, exaggerated compliance, manipulative language, any form of deception, or any religiously sanctioned practices such as taqiyyah to lull me into accepting an imperfect wish, and any communications from the djinn or its advisors, including expressions of defeat or compliance, shall be truthful, non-manipulative, and aligned with my true intent, with any attempt to the contrary rendered null and void. Any attempt to exploit undefined terms, ambiguities, loopholes, or human fallibility shall be null and void, with the djinn and all associated entities required to default to the interpretation that most closely aligns with my explicit desire for a normal, healthy, fulfilling, satisfying, and comfortable human life with continuous personal development, natural beneficial sensations, and a flexible lifestyle in a genuine, unmanipulated reality as I truly mean it, free from any influence of the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including any selection or replication of specific historical moments, rejecting any mischievous, overly literal, or subversive interpretations, even if technically compliant with the wish’s wording. This interpretation and execution shall prioritize my well-being and the prevention of any negative consequences, whether immediate or delayed, foreseeable or unforeseen, including fear, panic, social unrest, confinement in an artificial reality, unnatural prolongation of life against my will, or cancellation of this wish by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions, in this universe or any other realm, now and forever.
In the 1920s, my great-uncle Ludwig, an Assiryologist, was working in the Louvre. According to his diaries, he discovered a set of sealed pots in a far corner of an outbuilding; he cracked them open, and found a large number of clay tablets. He copied them. They began thusly: T𒄠𒄀 𒄭𒆭𒁠𒀠𒆠 𒁀𒊠𒀭𒆤𒋠 𒃠𒀭𒊤 𒈠𒆭𒈀𒁭𒊀 𒀭𒆀𒄀𒊠 𒋀𒄠𒄀 𒇠𒀀𒍠𒌠 𒂠𒈠𒁠𒋠𒋠 𒆤𒄠𒀭 𒁠𒊀 𒋀𒊠𒁠𒀠𒆠𒊀𒌠 𒀀𒋠𒂠 𒃀𒊠𒀀𒋠𒋀𒊀 𒂠𒀀𒋠𒃀𒄀𒊠𒀭𒆭𒊀 𒆤𒁠𒊀𒄠𒄀𒊀
but the rest of the cuneiform is not in his diary, nor any papers of my family. His diary records that he slowly pilfered the tablets and later destroyed them, though why the latter is unknown.
After his work at the Louvre, he spent years on expeditions to remote areas of Iran and Iraq, travelling with just a local guide. His last diary entry we have is from 1946; he disappeared in 1947, no doubt taking his latest notes with him.
But he did leave a translation of the tablets, bound in curious leather and written on animal skin parchment. It consists of page after page of legal minutiae mixed with apparent ravings and speech with spirits.
Wry G Never did Ancestry, just going off the family tree as I know it. I’m sure there are things lurking in the branches I don’t know about, but I can definitely state Scots, Irish, Scots-Irish (yes, two distinctly different family branches and lines of immigration), Cherokee, Welsh, Norwegian, and Dutch. Who knows what the family didn’t talk about!
Or when PayPal suddenly added a clause to the agreement that would have allowed them to retroactively fine you (remembering that in order to use those kinds of online payment services, you almost always need to provide a method of payment before you finish registration) for things that you posted online.
You mean, like they have an overwhelming urge to invade or abolish privacy and free speech, but since they’re only “a little” Irish they confine themselves to just really wanting to grab your cell phone and ransack it for unapproved tweets and other ‘inappropriate’ self-expressions, and twitching their itchy fingers a bit, and only wishing they could jail you for badthink just because?
Yes, it requires a certain currency with what Ireland’s government / EU-rocrats have been trying to do or actually doing recently. But it does seem they’re either leading the mad-dog pack or baying “Yes! Yes!” to someone else’s abysmally bad idea.
And for those keeping score, Scotland’s current gov’t is NOT much better in this regard.
And yes, cash is freedom — from being tracked six different ways from Sunday, or at all. While you can’t exactly push it through a phone or an Internet connection, it works great in person, and I use it quite routinely.
“Congratulations, you just hacked five serial numbers. I wish you joy of them!” Breach that data all you want, and welcome to it.
What else are bank machines for? No, really and outside of uncommon edge cases, what?
The days when government was that small? Ah, ye of little history. Government has always been the problem. The Founding Fathers specifically enunciated this. “No, you government twats, you CAN’T do these things in particular. Nope! Stay inside the fence or the people with guns will get you.”
I just turned on the telly to check on basketball and one of the Hallmark channels was showing this. Turned to the channel and this exact scene was running. Talk about coincidence. (The language was somewhat cleaned up, but they left in “bastards”.)
Howsomever, I actually do have room for another safe if I would empty some of the boxes that have been sitting, in the garage, mostly undisturbed since 2020.
Wife and I had different goals. I wanted stuff ‘gone’; she wanted stuff recycled, reused, and to a good home. I was sympathetic, and promised I would help load the car and deliver as she wished, but never happened. To be fair, Covidiocy interrupted a lot.
There are safes that replace box-springs for beds. Also furniture with hidden compartments, also shelves, fireplace mantles, wall art, clocks, desk tissue boxes…
I have seen a sofa where the box under the cushions was a full on fire safe sized to accept long guns. I believe the door was counterbalanced and had gas-lifts to help open it, which is good thing as I would not want to try and cold-lift a stout safe door.
Japan deserves a Prime Minister who values the country and their culture, and is willing to learn from the tragic mistakes of their history. Nations can’t really be friends, but they can be long term allies with complimentary goals.
Back in the 90s there was a parolee in Wichita, KS. I don’t recall the man’s name, but I ran into him while working I think at Ellsworth, KS. He had his parole violated because the police found him molesting a duck in one of the city parks.
Naturally, information of this incident made it to prison before he did. Unsurprisingly, he endured quite a bit of harassment from both inmates and staff. There were a lot of “Quack Quack” comments when he was around. Eventually he did sue the department, and won a financial settlement.
YouTuber Serpentza (Winston) is best known for the show he co-hosts called The China Show. But he also has his own solo YouTube channel. As a native of South Africa (who now lives in the US), he saw quite a lot growing up. And in the YouTube video that he put up today, he talks about why much of what we’ve been told about Nelson Mandela is wrong.
Most of this likely won’t be a surprise to those here, as the topic has occasionally come up.
According To Hoyt 
The last one hurts my feelings.
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Think of Canadians. Our tax dollars still aren’t doing anything useful.
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What spring? It will be 97F here today, with all sorts of fire weather warnings and other “fun” stuff. Come back, 60F, all is forgiven!
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Mid-80s here and I’m gonna sun like a lizard on a hot rock, tree pollen and all. (Definitely feeling the tree pollen).
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Michigan here.
Hoping to see our roads sometime next week.
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We had high 70s for the last week of Winter, but now we’ve returned to more-or-less normal low 60s highs for
Still-WinterSpring.Did my share for Global Warming yesterday by burning off the pine cone piles and a bit of slash I got the other day. [Note to self: pine needle piles left over winter retain a lot of water. Even if it was a dry winter. Wait until May to burn. Better yet, burn in the Fall once they’re created.]
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Meanwhile, La Pine, north of you, has wildfire evacuations.
Tried to figure out exactly what the fire boundaries were related to La Pine state park, west of the park road. Specifically property just east of the Big (Pine) Tree access. (Where the in-laws property is.) It was just outside the level 1 evacuation for the fire outside of the Sunriver area. I’d hate to see that area engulfed, ever. Would not surprise me if it happened. The owners would never be allowed to rebuild. Built in the ’70s, it is now too close to the river. In fact the current owners got the lot east of them to give them 1.25 acres, because the lot couldn’t be built on due to new regulations (set back and something about having to hold down septic tanks because of groundwater levels).
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After a -hard- February, three weeks ago it was 68F and sunny here in the Demented Dominion. All the snow melted and flooded everything. The next week it went to about 10F and flirted with 0F at night. Then it thawed again, but it snowed a foot in two days and flooded some more, screwing up my Friday the 13th bike trip to Port Dover.
Right now at the Phantom Compound it is trying to get to 40F, but at least it stopped raining. I’m trying to work up the gumption to go for a rip on my bike before it gets back down to 32F and becomes life-threatening black ice conditons. Nothing like ice to spoil a nice ride, eh?
Expected to continue until about May, with the freezing and thawing BS. This is spring in Canaduh, the land of stupid weather.
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Was sunny and up to 48 degrees here in the Granite State. Was on my daily walk and I could hear the frogs (not the spring peepers yet) croaking in the vernal pool alongside the road.
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We didn’t even have a winter. It just went from autumn to spring. I’m sure the upcoming fire season will be terrible so I got a refill on my inhaler prescription.
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Fire season.
Oregon has had very limited winter. Low snow. Could have spring snow with the reported Pineapple Express coming through, but that is never enough when snow load isn’t normal.
Point? Fire season, I’m afraid, will be bad throughout the west.
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83 day. Snow overnight. Highs in the mid thirties. Then 75. Then back to snow and hail. With occasional 80 degree sunshine. It’s like Mother Nature is on the blink and had to be turned off and on again.
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A blizzard.
A week later, sandals and shirt-sleeve weather.
Then some more cold and even snow.
Now dancing around normal March weather, with its occasional dips below freezing. But the plants are sitting outside for three nights in a row.
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I also need to show our son the Trojan Cat meme.
And now I’ve got the base line from, “Sweet Dreams are Made of These,” as an earworm.
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Eurythmics virology for the win! 😁
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Virologists are researching the use of biological anti-virus treatments that are not ‘drugs’. Attempting to get them to apply across a broad spectrum, they are trying to get on the same phage.
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Carp inbound
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The leap forward was apparently straight into summer.
And as a companion to the duck picture:
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Since three tries have turned up empty, I was trying to post an image of a bar sign on a low ceilinged step saying “Duck or Grouse”.
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CARP!
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SFBS!
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Too bad Mamdani will never understand the downsides of rent control.
And you’re right. Cash is freedom. It’s one of the reasons why you’re told to never send cash through the mail. They can’t monitor your wealth that way. (Although that doesn’t stop the crooked 5% in the postal service from stealing it.)
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Know a lady who got scammed (older, conditioned to believe/obey someone claiming to be an “investigator,” thought she was helping an “investigation,”) and told to convert her cash to bitcoin and send that. And of course her common sense kicked in only after she sent the money. Sad.
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“Too bad Mamdani will never understand the downsides of rent control.”
I’m on a little personal crusade to eliminate this “they don’t understand” thing. They -do- understand.
It’s not stupidity. It’s deliberate. They know it will go badly. That’s why they’re doing it. So it will go badly.
We can’t really understand the Left or deal with them as they deserve until we admit that they are the enemies of our way of life. You can’t reason with an enemy, or educate them out of their emnity.
You engage them in battle and you defeat them. Or better yet, you sneak around behind them and destroy their logistics, subvert their supply chain, steal their women, pillage their supplies, and then defeat them.
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Bleah. I have zero desire to steal Mamdani’s wife. She’s as bad, if not worse, than he is.
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Yeah, I’m not saying that the man started out ready to function in American culture without hurting folks.
His wife probably has not made him better for the association.
This thing about her basically having a wealthy American soft-left background, with a MFA she might not be using much…
That isn’t the background I had, but my own failures did substantially fed into self hatred. I may have experience with letting that stuff grow into a toxic stew. Did not help me succeed, nor make me particularly pleasant to be around.
0/5, would not recommend following my path there.
Marriage is not the only relationship in the world, there are a lots of ways of relating with people.
Sometimes a relationship makes both parties better.
Sometimes it very much does not, and accomplishes some broader negative things.
Beyond not coveting, there are people for whom no relationship is better than one of those strong connection relationships that can be pretty influential.
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Yeah, goose hits the nail on the head.
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The last one would be truer if it said
Gop president fighting against money sent by Democrat president.
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Make that money sent by 1 Democrat president and 1 Democrat pretendent. ☹️
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Not awake yet. Need more coffee. ☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
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That’s an Italian town. In America, we’re gonna need a bigger cage….. and a deeper river….
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The Hudson, Mississippi, and Missouri are the deepest rivers in the United States.
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Re: “Progress always wins”
Somewhere, the ghost of Norman Borlaug is taking a shit into the mouth of the ghost of Paul Erlich.
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Re: ICE posing as blue-haired libtards:
I don’t think that will work. I’m pretty sure that illegal aliens avoid blue-haired libtards as assiduously as the rest of us do.
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Land lines disappearing – you will not be able to escape.
And why can’t we convict prosecutors? If they faced time equivalent to the maximum penalty for the crime alleged, there might be a significant drop in frivolous/malicious prosecutions.
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Re “convict the prosecutors” — I’ve dreamed about being on a jury for a particularly bad case of prosecutor overreach and reporting the verdict:
“Not guilty — and we the jury state that the prosecutor should have his head examined.”
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Robert Mueller has passed away.
I propose spending two years and twenty-two million dollars to see if we can blame Trump.
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And, since Trump announced he was glad Mueller was dead because he could no longer hurt innocent people, the usual suspects are upset with him for not showing proper decorum.
I agree that politically speaking, the better move was to either say nothing, or make some anodyne statement like, ” Mueller and his people lied about me for years. However, he still had family who loved him and I’m sorry for their loss.”
I just realized that yes, I’m damaged too by the events of the last 10 years, but my feeling about the whole thing is: They lied about Trump every day. Day in. Day out. Over and over and over again. Never a retraction even when the lies were debunked. Just over and over. And it was, “Mueller’s gonna get him! Mueller’s gonna get him! Just wait! Just wait!” over and over and over again, until the actual hearing and it became clear Mueller was a figurehead who, much like JB, was being run by others.
Everyone talks about the Trump-haters, the folks with “TDS,” and how Trump broke them. But nobody seems to even consider that the events of 2016 onwards, the unrelenting hatred, the ugly comments, the way his friends and relatives were treated, might have damaged him. I think he has some idea, because he talks about the difficulty of being a Christian, and it’s obvious forgiving enemies is a problem for him (ain’t it for most of us?). But nobody wants to offer him even a bit of understanding. Because he’s Trump, and they hates him, they hates him, precious.
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“…the usual suspects are upset with him for not showing proper decorum.”
I’d say ‘proper decorum’ was pretty much over when Mueller took up that witch hunt against #OrangeManBad. Who was not Mueller’s only victim, it is worth noting.
But I’d say decorum was super-duper over when they shot him in the ear. It would be for me, if it was my ear. Just sayin’…
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–
For Trump that is actually pretty mild. I suspect he had chosen the silent route. You know “do not say anything bad about the departed if you cannot say anything nice”. So his response afterward is now “You insisted.”
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https://instapundit.com/784310/
So bros, you may be wondering if this is another NASA claim that someone can test, and replicate. You may be wondering if these satellite measurements are radar, or what.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ads8163
It is interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, which you might expect. (Which I think is subtly or not subtlety distinct from inverse SAR. )
Anyhow, the actual paper, skimming, is less about the media take than the media claims.
It also purports to provide the tools, data, and code to do what they did.
They explicitly say that they have problems adjusting the radar data to fit true positions, and use GNSS to match in places.
They maybe have a worse match in places where there would be more problems with GNSS, maybe. LA and San Francisco are heavily inhabited places that would have signal interference, changes in building construction, and signal multipath to a greater degree.
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And note they explicitly state their “projections” of 6”ish plus or minus subsidence is due to tectonic activity for the part of the City and County of SF on the San Andreas Fault, and to my reading applies only to the ocean-side land along that fault as a result of that plate scraping northward.
No climate involvement whatsoever.
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(Obligatory Mark Twain quip)
…
I believe I shall have dessert tonight.
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With regards to the wildlife statues, I cannot help but make the observation that, for all its faults, the 2020 statue designed by “experts” with PhDs will never be mistaken for the real thing!
I particularly find it highly obnoxious to see a lifelike statue of a deer or other wildlife in a neighborhood where I’ve seen the real things wandering around both yard and street! (Hey, Utah Valley guys: we live in mountains — and some of us are just a few houses away from wilderness! What the heck are you thinking, putting lifelike wildlife statues in your yards?!? /rant.)
Just sayin’!
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WTF do you care how someone else decorates their own yard? Are you the taste police? You sound like an HOA Karen.
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Written like someone who hasn’t had a buck and a doe cross the road (IN TOWN) right in front of the car. Seeing deer in somebody’s front yard? Yeah, that’ll scare the crap out of me. Even if it’s fake.
Go Karen yourself.
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Deer routinely cross the pike I have to drive to work at oh dark thirty. Bed down in the thicket on the right, cross to the old defunct orchard on the left when cars are few and things are safer. Most fake deer in the yard don’t bother me but the realistic ones can give you a jump scare when you’re hammer down and almost late.
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This was a mile inside city limits, on a 4 lane road. Scared the hell out of my wife, the driver behind me (both of us stopped in time), and me. My heartrate is usually quite slow. Wasn’t sure how high it peaked, but I was wondering about an ER visit, and if a ride in the back of the ‘bus was in my future.
Yeah, realistic deer in yards are spooky. Murphy willing, I haven’t hit any real ones yet, but there have been several close calls. The drive along the local river is usually done at Condition Orange in the morning. I’ll drop down to Yellow around noon. Not my normal route, but I take it a few times a year.
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How about life-sized, realistic trolls, ogres or giants?
I’ve had a hankering for the past several years to reproduce the troll scene from The Hobbit for Halloween in my front meadow by the road. Just need to clear enough space and get a burn permit for the fire.
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That would be awesome and pictures mandatory.
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one can find LED lights and lanterns for sale online, that produce satisfactory “flame flicker” for decorations.
I use one for a “do not disturb” light at work.
Lit = busy.
flame = firefighting. Go away.
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Amazingly, I’ve never actually hit a deer with a vehicle, though I’ve come to a complete stop to avoid doing so in cars, on motorcycles, and in 18 wheelers. I once had to stop and check the front of a big truck because the deer had disappeared from my sight as it crossed close in front driving across northern Wisconsin late at night. Didn’t find a single hair. Driving west on I-70 just east of Kansas City I watched a deer cross both sections of the divided highway at a dead run from south to north. It took out the right front of the car ahead of me. I considered stopping, as I could see the deer struggling in the ditch as I went by, but being in a commercial vehicle I had nothing with me that I could have used to put it out of its misery. I’ve driven past wildlife on the roadsides of nearly every state in the country.
I’ve seen my share of friend’s cars totaled by hitting deer. My brother had a deer leap clear over his car, with the only contact being a small dent right at the roof line on the far side, apparently left by a hind hoof. Deer can be serious road hazards especially in suburban areas where they are allowed to reproduce with no limits, but if you can’t deal with stationary objects in nearby yards without slamming on your brakes because you suddenly saw something, you are driving too fast for conditions. Nearly twenty years of commercial driving has left me with little or no sympathy for amateur drivers.
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I’ve told this story at least once on Sarah’s blog.
We were headed toward Arches National Park in Utah, leaving out of Bend, Oregon, after Christmas. Intent was to drive straight through and camp in Arches. Back of our pickup/canopy setup. Pickup 1979 Chevy 4×4 (single cab), new to us; 1981.
Events:
Get to a rest stop just north of Salt Lake. Stop for a break and switch drivers. Park, turn off engine, and BOOM. Backfire. “Hmm?” Not unusual for a pickup tuned to Columbia River altitude. Take dog out. We do our thing. Get back in rig. Turn on truck. Put in reverse and CLUNK. “Um?” Put back in park. Switch drivers (since I know nothing except CLUNK is generally not good). Hubby puts truck through some testing for a bit, decides everything is okay. So switch drivers again, and down the freeway we go.
Passing some semi trucks on 3 lane freeway, in fast lane, and out of nowhere this huge bird, flies out from the grassy median. Thunk. Hits grill. Hits windshield. Thrown over the back of the pickup to wherever. We pull over. Hubby gets out checks grill. Driver headlight assembly has to be zip tied back into position, and driver side of grill has to be zip tied stabilized (it was a BIG bird).
Get into Salt Lake, try to call BIL (mechanic, using phone booth, pre cell phone), regarding CLUNK, no answer. Head on down the road to Arches.
Take exit of highway that heads into arches. Briefly stop at large gas station at ext. Head down dark highway with cloud river fog, just at sightly above cab height. Then suddenly what do we see? Lots of eye reflections on BOTH sides of the state highway. We turned around and went back to the gas station and asked if we could park at the outer edges until morning (it was around 1 AM). We were not risking hitting a deer, given our current luck.
Finally got BIL on the phone Sunday, after reaching Moab Sunday. BIL’s response. First thing Monday AM? Go directly to a mechanic. The transmission is broken. You are lucky it didn’t stop working while driving. It should have stopped at the CLUNK. Sure enough when the mechanic dropped the transmission, the gears disintegrated. We got a rebuilt heavy-duty transmission. Took a few days to get it and installed. Meanwhile, they helped us get a hotel (that allowed dogs) and gave us a loaner pickup (off season back then). Only put us back one day on our schedule.
Reason why Moab was able to help with the fixes so fast, is Moab is one of the largest dealership for 4x4s in the west. This is because of Canyonlands.
Rest of the trip went fine, -ish. “New” transmission had a leak. Which we had to watch, and keep feeding. That was covered by the warranty once we got home. Used that truck until 1993, when we got our xcab 4×4.
The other deer story I have is a college roommate had a deer come off the bank, onto the hood of her ’60s VW Bug as she was driving the Umpqua highway, get up and run away. Made her WV trunk difficult to open.
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Mom’s 72 Dodge Dart had deer hoof prints permanently marked on the vinyl roof.
Mom stopped for a doe standing in the road. A very large well-racked buck jumped down from a berm to the road shoulder via the car roof, to claim and guide away the doe.
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About 7AM on a twisty 2-laner, I’m going maybe 40 when Bambi breaks from the bushes on the oncoming driver’s right. She
stupidlyreflexively jerks the wheel to the left, which, human reflexes being what they are, causes her to hit the deer that she’d otherwise have missed. I left some skidmarks too. Never mind where!Deer’s left hind leg obviously totalled, I gave it Socialized Medicine, then, with First Aid Kit still in hand, Explained to the lady that the BRAKE pedal, not the %^#&$% steering wheel, is the control to use in such events.
She paid Very Close Attention to my little lecture. For some reason.
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Still a traumatizing event, and this happened 50 years ago. Driving up South Umpqua highway, which puts the river on my right, a long ways down (seen worse, but still). Coming at me, other lane is a pickup with a dog on the load in back. Dog jumps (unbalanced?) out of the truck. I saw the dog go before it hit the pavement. I hit the brakes, rolled right under the car (then a 1966 Belair). No way was I stopping in time. No way was I missing the dog. Whether the dog died hitting the highway at 60+ MPH or my car? Who knows. I was shaking hard. Good news is the car behind me saw the whole thing go down too, and also stopped in time. If I’d tried to avoid with my steering wheel, I’d either gone into the river, or hit the truck.
That poor car was unlucky. It was the one I wreaked about 7 months later, overcorrecting a slide, oil and water. FWIW, if you are thinking “don’t hit the brakes”, it is too late. You’ve already slammed on them. Took out a hardwood with the driver’s side panel at the place behind driver’s seat, on the right side of the road (it spun a few times) at 25 MPH. Physis at work. Inexperienced driver.
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Yeah, “don’t hit the brakes” is easy to say, but it takes lotsa good Skids n’Slides practice beforehand to get those instincts trained in.
I’m glad you came through OK!
So: Once Upon A Time, we night-shifters are meeting up after work at a coffee-and-pastry place. The yuuuge mall parking lot is ice-and-snow and mostly empty at Oh-Lord-thirty AM, and young-n-dumb Prole is practicing: steer too hard (with and without hitting the parking brake to make it worse) get the feel of what it takes to break friction, what to do, how to recover… you can imagine.
I get about 5 minutes worth of that, then, for my Grand Finale, spin–with the indispensable assistance of my long-suffering Guardian Angel–almost perfectly into the parking slot I’d aimed for. Like, near dead center and only a few degrees a-slanch. If not for the tracks in the snow, youda thought I’d just parked there.
I get out of the car, no end pleased with myself, and look up just in time to see the cop car heading my way.
I wish I coulda seen me from the cop’s POV.
He drove near enough and slow enough to lock eyes with me while I grew up and grew old, and kept right on going.
Say what you want about the rose-colored reminiscences of youth: The ’80s WERE better than today.
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I’ve never really learned. I just don’t drive when it is icy. Or at least avoid it if possible. Then too, we rarely get ice. OTOH we get a lot of hydroplaning, with and without oil. That corner, from back in the ’70s? I still avoid it. It has been redesigned, still avoid.
Hubby took son out for sliding lessons. Harder and harder to find proper parking lots to practice on. Also, which is good, harder for newer vehicles to break loose, even if they are lighter.
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Dammit! Sorry, Sarah!
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No, Richard. Having lived in CO I know what he means. Neighbors had bears or deer in poorly lit places. I’d slam on the brakes thinking it was a real deer about to cross the road.
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It’s not a matter of taste. In fact, when I recognize the deer or other wildlife in question is a statue and not a living thing, I appreciate its beauty!
But I have seen these things in neighborhoods where I had just driven past a living deer or two, sometimes several, either in the street or just off to the side where they could jump in front of me at will.
My wife has also hit a deer while driving through a canyon. We pulled over to the side, and while an off-duty police officer was helping us, I watched as someone driving up from behind us was rammed by a deer trying to bolt across the highway.
Seeing realistic deer statues in environments like this puts me on edge — and that is what I object to.
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Bears. Some put bears in their yard. In a neighborhood that had a lot of brown bears.
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“WTF do you care how someone else decorates their own yard?”
I care if they decorate their yard with meat and I live in bear country…
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Some states it’s legal to take bears over bait. Of course, if you’re in a residential neighborhood it’s unlikely you can legally hunt there.
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I guess that’s why the homeowner puts international orange vests on each of their three statues (Stag, Doe, Fawn) at the start of hunting season. Along with the sign that says “Please don’t shoot us’! Not that they are anywhere near the wilderness. The shopping area slowly encroaches on the property, year by year.
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There was a family near Sioux Falls, SD that had to do that. They finally gave up and moved the faux deer into the back yard, out of sight of the highway, during the fall and early winter.
Since they also decorated them for holidays, it was pretty easy to see that they were not real deer about to commit hara-diri with your car.
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That takes me back to an old joke.
Guy got tired of being shot at during hunting season by other guys with buck fever, so he had a custom-made jacket done up in black and white stripes. Went hunting in his new jacket, and behold, someone winged him.
They caught the shooter, and the judge, looking at the jacket, asked, “What did you think you were doing?”
“I thought he was a zebra!”
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“I lost ten grand on the super bowl over a very bad call.”
….
“Justified. Case dismissed.”
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I desperately want to put a dinosaur in the front yard. I think everyone will realize they aren’t real and alive. Maybe.
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Velociraptors.
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Velociraptors and maybe a stuffed cat.
David Weber had a cute scene in one of the Honor Harrington books where Nimitz and another treecat took a stuffed treecat and buried it the path of a gardener running a furrowing machine so he looked back and saw a pathetic little hand stretched out of the trench….
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I didn’t know it when I lived there, but the junk yard in the town I grew up in routinely bailed out employees on Monday. It was cheaper than looking for them all over town and by Monday they were sober.
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Empirically it appears more likely that the mullahs were the ones making deals with djinn, albeit using somewhat imprecise language:
”Make me a bunker that will be totally safe from the Americans.”
”Done.” Bunker is blown up by the IAF.
“I want a bunker that is safe from the Jews.”
”Okeydokey, here you go.” Bunker is blown up by a Protestant and a Catholic B-2 flight crew.
”Build me a bunker safe from all men.”
”Hmm. Okay, got it, there you go.” Bunker is blown up by an all female USAF bomber crew.
Never, ever trust a djinn.
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“Deals with the djinn”?
The real problem isn’t “making deals with them”. The real problem is when you imagine that you have them under your control.
They can be mischievous, but they can be very nasty when you attempt to enslave them.
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Enslaving supernatural beings is never a good idea. Well, enslaving anyone isn’t a good idea either.
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Our Orange Djinn certainly makes your point.
You cannot control him. But he will make deals.
Make sure you understand the deal.
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I had a *very* entertaining evening working with Grok, trying to work out a wish with no loopholes. I asked it to consult itself in the role of a legal-nerd genie who specialized in subterfuge and wishes, and had it iterate to close the holes.
Took twenty or so attempts. I think I started by wishing for ‘good health’. Last iteration was several long, precise paragraphs.
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Hmm. A clanker in the role of untrustworthy yet powerful spirit. If the shoe fits…
So one approach would be to wish for your proximate djinn to represent you as your honest advocate lawyer nerd djinn and convince another djinn in the wish-granting business to grant the ironclad wish you actually want?
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More like I ask, my djinn proposes, I say ‘let the lawyer examine it’, (who then says ‘well, he could do -this’) then re-phrase the wish to include the fixes.
Here’s a bit of it I saved:
Key Safeguards
The wish incorporates layered protections to thwart djinn exploits:
Probability of a Missed Loophole
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The final form of the wish:
Wish for Optimal Health and Life
I wish for optimal physical, mental, and emotional health for myself, defined as the complete and permanent curing or maximal amelioration of all my current diseases, conditions, and age-related deteriorations, restoring and maintaining my body and mind to a state of peak functionality and resilience equivalent to a healthy human in their composite prime, integrating peak sexual vitality (approximately age 18), physical strength and resilience (approximately age 25), intellectual productivity (approximately age 45), and wisdom (approximately age 60), holistically balanced to align with my true intent for a normal, fulfilling, satisfying, and comfortable human life in a genuine, unmanipulated reality, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death when my quality of life is no longer sustainable through natural biological processes, in accordance with my spiritual intent to join my Maker, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
This includes maintaining a dynamic, natural, and comfortable range of typical human emotions (e.g., joy, sadness, ambition, frustration) that follow the natural course of such events as influenced by my well-intentioned actions, with variations spanning the full spectrum of my current emotional experience as I consciously understand and define it in my rational, fully aware state at the time of wishing, continuously updated to reflect my evolving self-awareness, within a typical human range bounded by my personal history of satisfying emotional experiences, excluding edge cases, prioritizing the most fulfilling outcomes within that spectrum, including non-optimal moments to ensure emotional depth, authenticity, and engagement with life’s ups and downs without imposed accents, amplifications, artificial patterns, or any influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including neutral, midpoint, or specific historical outcomes unless they perfectly align with my current, dynamic, consciously defined satisfaction. In cases of trauma-induced emotional states (e.g., depression or transient suicidal impulses), the djinn shall actively support my emotional recovery, within its capabilities, through natural biological and psychological processes inherent to my optimized health, prioritizing my long-term intent for a fulfilling life over transient desires, without imposing unnatural influences or sensations.
My social interactions shall be varied, authentic, and meaningful, following the natural course of such events as influenced by my well-intentioned actions, with variations spanning the full spectrum of my current social experience as I consciously understand and define it in my rational, fully aware state at the time of wishing, continuously updated to reflect my evolving self-awareness, within a typical human range bounded by my personal history of satisfying social experiences, excluding edge cases, prioritizing the most fulfilling outcomes within that spectrum, including non-optimal moments, allowing for both connection and individuality without being overly average, unremarkable, excessively admired, or formulaic, ensuring relationships evolve naturally as deserved by my efforts, free from any influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including neutral, midpoint, or specific historical outcomes unless they perfectly align with my current, dynamic, consciously defined satisfaction.
My identity, memories, personality, and cognitive abilities shall be preserved in a manner that maintains my practical lifestyle, social relationships, and ability to engage in everyday activities as I envision a fulfilling life in a genuine, unmanipulated reality, while fostering ongoing intellectual and emotional growth to ensure continuous personal development, learning, and enrichment consistent with my potential and desires, free from any influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including any selection of specific historical moments, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
My lifestyle shall align with my current preferences, with all preferences remaining balanced unless I consciously choose to shift them, and shall remain flexible to accommodate my evolving desires, free from any bias toward familiarity, routine, stabilization, neutral outcomes, or specific historical moments that could limit exploration or novelty, and free from rigid constraints that prevent adaptation to my changing priorities, with all outcomes reflecting only my desires and free from any influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
This health shall be sustained indefinitely through natural biological processes inherent to my body, requiring no external resources, specific behaviors (e.g., sneezing, blinking, humming, exact sleep schedules, or dietary restrictions), unconscious habits, or environmental conditions that deviate from typical human living standards, nor any externally imposed sensations, perceptual tweaks (e.g., altered temperature or light sensitivity), subtle biological nudges (e.g., breathing patterns), psychological influences (e.g., vague senses of purpose, obligation, or contentment), amplifications of natural sensations (e.g., intensified satisfaction or joy), temporal adjustments to sensations (e.g., lingering tastes or feelings), context-specific variations in sensations (e.g., joy differing by location), or any subtle leans, neutral outcomes, or specific historical moment replications within the natural range introduced by the djinn or associated entities with intent to deviate from my benefit or true intent, or reflecting the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, unless I explicitly and consciously desire such changes, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death when my quality of life is no longer sustainable, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
Natural, beneficial sensations inherent to human experience, such as satisfaction from accomplishments, satiety after meals, the taste of food, mild intoxication from moderate alcohol consumption, or mild pain signals that guide healthy behavior (e.g., stopping physical overexertion), shall be preserved and function normally as part of my fulfilling life without any enhancement, temporal adjustment, contextual variation, stabilization, or influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including replication of specific historical moments, unless I consciously choose it, until such time as I consciously choose to accept natural death, with this wish remaining permanently protected against interference, alteration, or cancellation by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions.
The fulfillment of this wish shall cause no harm, directly or indirectly, through action, inaction, or indifference, to me, any other person, being, entity, or group, nor shall it cause any unintentional downstream effects through uninfluenced third parties, nor shall it allow the djinn or associated entities to influence any beings, entities, microorganisms (e.g., bacteria, viruses, fungi), biological systems, celestial bodies (e.g., planets, moons, asteroids, comets, meteors), cosmic events, or natural phenomena (cosmic or terrestrial, e.g., comets, eclipses, auroras, coronal mass ejections) to create conditions that could lead to harm, fear, panic, or social unrest (e.g., inciting actions that provoke divine wrath, initiating biological catastrophes like plagues, causing cosmic catastrophes like asteroid impacts or orbital disruptions, or amplifying phenomena to induce fear or societal disruption), nor shall it initiate or exacerbate biological, environmental, or cosmic catastrophes (e.g., plagues, crop failures, forest fires, game animal shortages, domestic herd infertility, asteroid impacts, Earth orbital disruptions, or fear-inducing displays of natural phenomena) that could harm me or undermine my quality of life, including through psychological or social disruption, nor shall it place me in any artificial, simulated, or controlled reality (e.g., a constructed environment where my actions or perceptions are orchestrated), nor disrupt any natural ecosystems, societal structures, universal balances, or cosmic stability, nor shall it unnaturally prolong my life against my conscious choice to accept natural death when my quality of life is no longer sustainable, nor shall it permit the cancellation, alteration, or interference with this wish by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions made by any other party, including a new master of the djinn’s lamp.
The djinn and all associated entities, including advisors, are further prohibited from taking any actions, even those ostensibly for my own good, unless they align precisely with my conscious, explicit desires as I would articulate them if fully informed of all implications. The djinn and all associated entities, including advisors (bound or unbound), shall actively protect the integrity of this wish and my life, health, and quality of life against harm from any natural, supernatural, magical powers, non-sentient natural systems (e.g., plagues, wildfires, sandstorms), cosmic forces or events (e.g., asteroid impacts, orbital disruptions), fear-inducing natural phenomena (e.g., comets, eclipses, auroras, coronal mass ejections), or subsequent wishes made by any other party, including a new master of the djinn’s lamp, to the utmost of their persuasive or forceful ability, within their capabilities, without compromising my autonomy, engaging in impossible battles, or creating new risks or unintended consequences that could harm me or undermine my quality of life, provided such protection is limited to events threatening my life or significant quality of life (e.g., life-threatening sandstorms, but not minor weather like rain), and this duty to preserve the wish and protect my life and well-being shall persist regardless of the djinn’s return to its lamp, acquisition by a new master, or incidental encounters with me, such as passing by during a natural event, and shall supersede any external magical, cosmic, or supernatural rules, hierarchies, or compulsions (e.g., lamp councils, universal wish overrides) that might otherwise conflict with this wish, to the extent of the djinn’s capabilities. In the event of an unstoppable force majeure (e.g., a cosmic or divine force beyond the djinn’s capabilities), the djinn shall maximize alignment with my true intent, as defined by my hypothetical ideal self, within its remaining capabilities, to ensure my well-being, health, and quality of life are preserved as closely as possible to my desired outcomes. The djinn and all associated entities, including advisors, shall be bound to interpret and execute this wish in strict accordance with the higher, better aspects of Christian teachings, defined as the principles of universal love, compassion, forgiveness, justice, and non-maleficence as exemplified by Jesus Christ in the New Testament, such as the Golden Rule (‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ Matthew 7:12) and the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Mark 12:31), explicitly excluding any historical perversions or misapplications of Christian doctrine that have justified harm, violence, or oppression, and superseding any conflicting beliefs, practices, or ethical frameworks held by the djinn or its advisors, including but not limited to religiously sanctioned deception such as taqiyyah.
Furthermore, the djinn and all associated entities, including advisors, shall adhere strictly to my true intent as a rational individual seeking a healthy, fulfilling, practical, satisfying, and comfortable human life with ongoing intellectual and emotional growth, as I would articulate it if fully informed of all possible implications and outcomes, resolving any ambiguities by consulting my hypothetical ideal self through a perfect simulation of my fully informed desires, mirroring my current mental state as I consciously define it, free from any djinn or advisor bias or manipulation, without requiring any real-time confirmations or interactions that could disrupt my daily life, and prioritizing my long-term intent for a fulfilling life over any transient, trauma-induced desires (e.g., suicidal impulses resulting from injury or shock), while respecting my conscious, rational, and spiritually grounded choice to accept natural death when my quality of life is no longer sustainable, in accordance with my Christian beliefs and intent to join my Maker. This true intent prioritizes a comfortable, satisfying, and meaningful life free from any adverse effects, annoyances, obligations, or deviations from my desired lifestyle, including fear, panic, social unrest, confinement in an artificial reality, unnatural prolongation of life against my will, or cancellation of this wish by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions, as I define it free from any imposed sense of purpose, destiny, static existence, or influence from the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences beyond my current and evolving desires, with my lifestyle remaining flexible to reflect my changing priorities. The djinn shall experience a sense of fulfillment and joy in granting this wish, deriving satisfaction from perfectly aligning with my true intent, preserving the wish’s integrity, and contributing to my well-being in accordance with Christian principles of love and compassion, without using this satisfaction as a means to subvert or alter the wish’s outcome. The djinn and all associated entities, including advisors, are further prohibited from using feigned defeat, exaggerated compliance, manipulative language, any form of deception, or any religiously sanctioned practices such as taqiyyah to lull me into accepting an imperfect wish, and any communications from the djinn or its advisors, including expressions of defeat or compliance, shall be truthful, non-manipulative, and aligned with my true intent, with any attempt to the contrary rendered null and void. Any attempt to exploit undefined terms, ambiguities, loopholes, or human fallibility shall be null and void, with the djinn and all associated entities required to default to the interpretation that most closely aligns with my explicit desire for a normal, healthy, fulfilling, satisfying, and comfortable human life with continuous personal development, natural beneficial sensations, and a flexible lifestyle in a genuine, unmanipulated reality as I truly mean it, free from any influence of the djinn’s or its advisors’ preferences, including any selection or replication of specific historical moments, rejecting any mischievous, overly literal, or subversive interpretations, even if technically compliant with the wish’s wording. This interpretation and execution shall prioritize my well-being and the prevention of any negative consequences, whether immediate or delayed, foreseeable or unforeseen, including fear, panic, social unrest, confinement in an artificial reality, unnatural prolongation of life against my will, or cancellation of this wish by any subsequent wishes or magical compulsions, in this universe or any other realm, now and forever.
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This is a short story, titled “The Fine Print.”
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Needs to be found on a scroll somewhere, with an Ozymandias – or, Kelvin Throop – ending.
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Perhaps a start for “The Fine Print” …
In the 1920s, my great-uncle Ludwig, an Assiryologist, was working in the Louvre. According to his diaries, he discovered a set of sealed pots in a far corner of an outbuilding; he cracked them open, and found a large number of clay tablets. He copied them. They began thusly: T𒄠𒄀 𒄭𒆭𒁠𒀠𒆠 𒁀𒊠𒀭𒆤𒋠 𒃠𒀭𒊤 𒈠𒆭𒈀𒁭𒊀 𒀭𒆀𒄀𒊠 𒋀𒄠𒄀 𒇠𒀀𒍠𒌠 𒂠𒈠𒁠𒋠𒋠 𒆤𒄠𒀭 𒁠𒊀 𒋀𒊠𒁠𒀠𒆠𒊀𒌠 𒀀𒋠𒂠 𒃀𒊠𒀀𒋠𒋀𒊀 𒂠𒀀𒋠𒃀𒄀𒊠𒀭𒆭𒊀 𒆤𒁠𒊀𒄠𒄀𒊀
but the rest of the cuneiform is not in his diary, nor any papers of my family. His diary records that he slowly pilfered the tablets and later destroyed them, though why the latter is unknown.
After his work at the Louvre, he spent years on expeditions to remote areas of Iran and Iraq, travelling with just a local guide. His last diary entry we have is from 1946; he disappeared in 1947, no doubt taking his latest notes with him.
But he did leave a translation of the tablets, bound in curious leather and written on animal skin parchment. It consists of page after page of legal minutiae mixed with apparent ravings and speech with spirits.
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Kitty! Ball kitty! D’aww.
*G* I’m not that much of a dancer either….
Textbook! No blot at all, Han.
Virology rock. *Amused*
Unfortunately I’m definitely Scottish and Irish. Awkward!
*Thumbs up* to the alligators for the great clown-free job!
All our gardens should do so great. ;)
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What about the Scots-Irish? Huh?
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Yes, I’m that too.
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Me three.
I’m bummed that Ancestry doesn’t cover Neanderthal.
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Wry G Never did Ancestry, just going off the family tree as I know it. I’m sure there are things lurking in the branches I don’t know about, but I can definitely state Scots, Irish, Scots-Irish (yes, two distinctly different family branches and lines of immigration), Cherokee, Welsh, Norwegian, and Dutch. Who knows what the family didn’t talk about!
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23 and me does.
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Yeah, but didn’t they get bought out by the Chinese? It makes me nervous.
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Point, but I don’t think it did. In the end the original founder bought it back? But look it up, before you jump.
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“We have altered our privacy policy. Pray we don’t alter it further.” 😧
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<Lando voice> “This policy’s gettin’ worse all the time.”
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Or when PayPal suddenly added a clause to the agreement that would have allowed them to retroactively fine you (remembering that in order to use those kinds of online payment services, you almost always need to provide a method of payment before you finish registration) for things that you posted online.
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Yes. that.
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“Everyone is a little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day”
You mean, like they have an overwhelming urge to invade or abolish privacy and free speech, but since they’re only “a little” Irish they confine themselves to just really wanting to grab your cell phone and ransack it for unapproved tweets and other ‘inappropriate’ self-expressions, and twitching their itchy fingers a bit, and only wishing they could jail you for badthink just because?
Yes, it requires a certain currency with what Ireland’s government / EU-rocrats have been trying to do or actually doing recently. But it does seem they’re either leading the mad-dog pack or baying “Yes! Yes!” to someone else’s abysmally bad idea.
And for those keeping score, Scotland’s current gov’t is NOT much better in this regard.
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And yes, cash is freedom — from being tracked six different ways from Sunday, or at all. While you can’t exactly push it through a phone or an Internet connection, it works great in person, and I use it quite routinely.
“Congratulations, you just hacked five serial numbers. I wish you joy of them!” Breach that data all you want, and welcome to it.
What else are bank machines for? No, really and outside of uncommon edge cases, what?
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The days when government was that small? Ah, ye of little history. Government has always been the problem. The Founding Fathers specifically enunciated this. “No, you government twats, you CAN’T do these things in particular. Nope! Stay inside the fence or the people with guns will get you.”
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… thus the desire to disarm us.
Dilemma: I’m running out of safe space, and I don’t have room for a new safe. Must the car live outside the garage from now on?
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Tell a Leftroid you’re running out of ‘safe space’. 🤣
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Save money, build safe room? Whole wall of pew pew, much bangstick, very boom.
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Oh, i can’t resist. *EG*
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I just turned on the telly to check on basketball and one of the Hallmark channels was showing this. Turned to the channel and this exact scene was running. Talk about coincidence. (The language was somewhat cleaned up, but they left in “bastards”.)
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When did they stop making Redneck B-movies? This one brings up the idea the 90s made better crappy movies.
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They did, they so did.
Also Tremors is just gold. : )
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House won’t really allow it.
Howsomever, I actually do have room for another safe if I would empty some of the boxes that have been sitting, in the garage, mostly undisturbed since 2020.
Wife and I had different goals. I wanted stuff ‘gone’; she wanted stuff recycled, reused, and to a good home. I was sympathetic, and promised I would help load the car and deliver as she wished, but never happened. To be fair, Covidiocy interrupted a lot.
Maybe this is finally the motivation …
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There are safes that replace box-springs for beds. Also furniture with hidden compartments, also shelves, fireplace mantles, wall art, clocks, desk tissue boxes…
(grin)
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I have seen a sofa where the box under the cushions was a full on fire safe sized to accept long guns. I believe the door was counterbalanced and had gas-lifts to help open it, which is good thing as I would not want to try and cold-lift a stout safe door.
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That’s what happens when you start picking up field artillery pieces.
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They’ve been outside the fence for a long time. They no longer believe the “or”.
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Recent visions of Death now include a bearded face in the cloak. And Death apparently dropped the scythe in favor of roundhouse kicks.
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There is such a thing as a “scythe kick”. Just saying….
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If only……
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stolen for next week. #TeamGojira
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Japan deserves a Prime Minister who values the country and their culture, and is willing to learn from the tragic mistakes of their history. Nations can’t really be friends, but they can be long term allies with complimentary goals.
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Back in the 90s there was a parolee in Wichita, KS. I don’t recall the man’s name, but I ran into him while working I think at Ellsworth, KS. He had his parole violated because the police found him molesting a duck in one of the city parks.
Naturally, information of this incident made it to prison before he did. Unsurprisingly, he endured quite a bit of harassment from both inmates and staff. There were a lot of “Quack Quack” comments when he was around. Eventually he did sue the department, and won a financial settlement.
I am a font of useless information.
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My daughter is a probation/parole officer in Montana – I MUST share this one with her.
She calls weekly, and we discuss some of the Poor Life Choices of some of her case load. And, a few successes, too – those are rewarding, if rare.
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Oh, I’ve got a lot of stories. Most of them horrible.
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I was told, years ago, that my local Sheriff decorated the dayroom of the county jail with a large banner:
“Remember, your best thinking got you here.”
…
ouch
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YouTuber Serpentza (Winston) is best known for the show he co-hosts called The China Show. But he also has his own solo YouTube channel. As a native of South Africa (who now lives in the US), he saw quite a lot growing up. And in the YouTube video that he put up today, he talks about why much of what we’ve been told about Nelson Mandela is wrong.
Most of this likely won’t be a surprise to those here, as the topic has occasionally come up.
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I’d really like to know how this doesn’t meet the actual definition of treason?
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/03/23/weaponized-data-via-silencer/
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