When I was a kid, my (pot-dealing, irresponsible as hell) grandmother would take me fishing early in the AM. Before the sun would come up, sometimes we’d set off roman candles in a line. She insisted that I be several yards away, the roman candle be properly set up on level surfaces, everything by the book.

My ‘responsible,’ upper class inlaws have a 4th of July party where all the kids and grandkids are given roman candles to hold in their hands, with the instructions “try to point them away from people.” Of course they hold them in their dominant hands, too. Sigh.

For some reason that just made the ol’ Maytag Man seem a little lonelier. There was no Maytag Dog 😢

It’s funny how as adults we become interested in elements of stuff we were taught and found boring before. But I’m not sure how you’d teach science without “shoving it down people’s throats” because most teenagers simply don’t give a shit about any of it, so pretty much anything you teach will be shoving it down someone’s throat. The better solution would be explaining why electron structure is important foundational stuff. About 98% of the time, in HS, they didn’t explain why we needed to know it, how it would be contextualized in later life - it was simply “learn this so you can pass next week’s test.” And for me, knowing why is crucial to me caring enough to learn.

Apparently bobby is all grown up, this is his son.

Cheese is weird because someone had to be like, well let’s go ahead and store some milk in the stomach of an animal, but also they forgot about it under a chair for 3 months and then, upon finding it, thought, “well let’s have a go anyway, despite it changing forms.” And then eventually someone realized if you stuck it in certain caves it became delicious. So much human history just in that one food product there.

for real, today Sex Raft would have 55 seasons and 3 spinoffs.

Researchers sequenced his DNA recently from a bloodstained couch cushion, we’ve been getting glimpses into it lately.

Yes. I would have no issue with all my neighbors having local systems like I’m switching to. But putting a cloud camera out on the sidewalk, where it’s not pointing at your entrance, but just filming passersby (my new neighbor)… eek. I am thinking of leaving him a note, just politely asking why he feels the need to record me walking my dog every day. At least put up a privacy notice we can all read and sign before crossing the public easement that people are totally allowed to walk. Let me know how me and my dog’s facial structures are going to be used to train mysterious backroom Planitir AIs. Like good neighbors do.

I used to be so honest about this. My lung collapsed, repeatedly and they had to carve up my insides and glue it to my ribcage with scar tissue after having a drain tube sucking out my thorax into a bloodbox for 10 days, so like, I have a threshold for “10” that is a bit higher than other folks, and I tried to explain that (this meme is about me apparently) and generally got zero drugs. Now they ask and I say “10” and they give me drugs. Lesson learned.

Yes and no, other day I was trying to figure out 17% of a number like 65, and I’m like “Oh it’s just 65% of 17!” Which really wasn’t helpful.

It works with small numbers on one side tho.

And here’s evil Mickey Mouse just to fuck with you

It’s bees all the way down

You can make a hole with your fingers and see the patterns of very bright lights above you, stadium lights etc. It’s just a vertical camera obscura. I remember the 90s solar partial eclipse really well because I was riding home from school, the leaves and even the spokes on my bike projected moons everywhere, it was completely magical.

Nest bricked my security system (after magically installing Assistant on it [oh by the way it has an undocumented microphone]), at least they gave you $100… in gift cards to the fucking google store. Logitech isn’t even that smart.

Blaming consumers for the behavior of corporations is a fallacy of capitalism… consumers act in their best interests, not necessary in everyone’s best interests, so we all suffer if everyone does that.

It’s because we allow property and the homes that sit on it to be a speculative market. We encourage it. The only way for property values to be high, well, it’s a supply and demand thing. If you glut the market with anything, you drive prices down. And people whose entire retirement is built on that won’t be having it, let alone the conglomerate owners…

China is trying to steer into the opposite with laws against it. Not sure how well that’s working, but they can acknowledge the issue at least.

My elderly neighbor doesn’t exactly follow rules. She had a colonoscopy earlier this year. They sent her home because she “wasn’t clean.” She had to repeat the process later, and I can’t imagine she was a Sunny Country Road, but they at least completed the exam that time. I am still mortified for her, my first colonoscopy was last year, I spent a full day on the toilet prepping. Nearly slept in the bathtub.

I have yet to find a way to explain to my dog that he must not veer off the sidewalk lest his paws get burnt.

I love the assumption there though

Ugh we have people doing that in our neighborhood and it’s godawful. I think they think they’re “xeriscaping” but this is Arkansas and the incredibly hot sun makes those rocks too hot to touch or stand on (for my doggo), kills the plants that are planted near it, etc. But they aren’t going to admit their mistake and undo it.

They’ve gone back and forth. I think if you large-picture it, it’s pretty OK, something like 15% of bird and bat diets come from mosquitos. But at the micro level, some species may not cope. I am very fond of bats so I am ambivalent about this.