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Harris and Michelle Obama
Harris and Michelle Obama
Pulling out all your money or selling your home and possessions would give you away. And a pauper with a boat would be a red flag for any investigator. You’d have to be willing to give it all up. Your family would have to believe you died.
A better option would be to slowly siphon off money and be seen frequenting a casino, or become known as a drug addict. Once you’ve liquidated everything and racked up tons of debt, fake a suicide. Become aberrant or hyper-religious/political. Tell everyone that you’re going on a hike to “find yourself” or that you’re volunteering to fight in Ukraine. Never come back.
Bigelow or Stash double bergamot Early Grey, or Hime Genmaicha. I’ve tried brands that cost more or less and always come back to these three.
Not sure it counts as tea, but I’ve also got a taste for Yerba Mate.
Yes, AI contribution is an area that needs legal clarification. I know you brought the question up for graphic arts, but the same thing is happening with music. I can use an AI tool to generate tracks, tweak them to my taste, then supply lyrics that are also at least partially generated by AI. But if I never admit that I used AI, it’s probably impossible to detect.
What makes this really interesting is that entertainment industry workers went on strike partly because of AI fears, yet would the resulting productions be copyrightable?
I’m a bit confused. If I use AI to generate an image, then modify it, can I claim copyright? And how would anyone know if I used an AI? I know there are telltale signs that computer algorithms were involved, so I guess the question is how much does the artist have to contribute before it’s no longer considered non-human art? Or does any use of AI tools invalidate the copyright?
I don’t know how much your electric rate is, but a router or server that sucks down a hundred watts 24 hours a day may be a concern. An arcade machine would be my choice.
Home and garden center, hardware store, or Amazon.
Use bug bomb(s) first to kill the existing spiders. Then apply permethrin diluted with water to a 0.5% solution, spraying at all entry paths to the garage, edges, and dark areas.
The idea is to not just prevent spiders from returning. It’s also to deprive them of a reason to return by removing their food supply. Permethrin is a wide-spectrum insecticide and repellant. It has very low toxicity to humans, most mammals, and birds. Not good around cats or fish. It has good persistence (6-8 weeks).
If it’s just one room, use a tower air purifier. Mine is set up in my workshop at a window. I cut a piece of fiberboard to adapt the purifier to the window frame, but cardboard works.
I like this method better than the box fan/filter combo because it provides greater air flow and removes pretty much everything with the HEPA and carbon filters. It’s saving my sanity right now with all the pine tree pollen and smoke from debris pile burning.
For a whole home, place a window fan in one room pointing out. Then put air filters in the windows of other rooms. This has the benefit of keeping the noisy fan in an unoccupied room while you’re trying to sleep. Alternatively, if you have an attic, you can get a fan that fits the attic access. This works better because you’ll be cooling your attic as well. You can also consider a dedicated attic fan which can knock 10 degrees off the inside temperature on a hot day.
Look up how to debate. Success is not measured by how bad you make the opponent look. That may work on one person, but you have to repeat it for every person who advances the same argument. Instead, take apart their argument, reveal underlying motives, expose untruths with irrefutable documentation, uncover false logic and bad assumptions, and respond without attacking the messenger.
For instance, “The economy is terrible! Everything is so expensive.” Well, stuff -is- expensive. But is the economy really the reason behind it? The US stock indexes are at record highs. Most companies have been beating the expected earnings per share. Isn’t it more likely that things are expensive because companies are taking more profit to give to their shareholders? Which candidate do you believe is more inclined to change that?
The object is not to defeat the opponent. It’s to prevent others from being convinced by their arguments.
Keep doing what I have been doing - dragging MAGA fence sitters back from the brink one by one. The ones who have adopted Trumpism as their religion are too far gone. But there are a lot who just need to be taken by the hand and shown a better path.
When you see MAGA BS, challenge it with well-reasoned arguments. The object really isn’t to change the mind of the poster. It’s to prevent them from changing the minds of others.
The same things were said when industrial robots replaced assembly line workers, when farm equipment replaced agricultural labor, and now with AI systems. People still need jobs. But looking at the big picture, those improvements made sense. Most displaced workers found other employment.
Our medical system costs much more than it needs to, creates anxiety about long term medical needs in “at will” employment, has forced millions to declare bankruptcy over medical debt, destroyed the financial security of millions more, and in some cases, has lead to patients who opted to forgo medical treatment because it wasn’t covered. And when payment for care is tied to a job, that leads to age discrimination - older employees cost more to insure.
Taxes were meant to pay for things everyone needs. I can’t think of a better example of that than medical care.
(Edit for clarity)
This. Absolute game changer. If my job gave me the money they spend on my behalf for the crappy health insurance they provide, it would likely result in an actual increase in my net pay after the increased taxes to pay for the program. Cut out hundreds of thousands of parasitic middlemen, like insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. Throw out the crazy quilt of non-doctors who decide what medications and procedures are are covered. Reduce billing staff because of the major paperwork reduction (don’t need to deal with hundreds of different insurance plans). And do away with coding - the letters and numbers on a bill that can drastically change a procedure’s cost to the patient.
No gold. It’s what they charge us privileged Californians.
It’s $210 a month plus $30 in taxes and fees for 400 mbit internet with a 1.2 TB usage cap and a mid-tier programming package renting one cable box (required) and one cablecard for the Tivo box. Some months I exceed my internet cap and have to pay $10 for every 50 GB over the limit. Welcome to California living.
Remember when TV used to be free, except that you had to watch commercials? I pay $2800 a year to this company for Internet and TV - and I still have to watch commercials. What’s wrong with this picture?
If data reliability is high on your list, but speed is not, use a NAS running RAID 1 (mirrored drives), so one drive can fail without compromising the data.
I used to do RAID 5 on an 8 drive array, but had a failure of the NAS motherboard. And wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t make that model anymore. No easy way to get the data back out of the RAID. I finally paid to recover the data, but learned my lesson. It’s MUCH cheaper to buy duplicate drives than it is to recover data later. If the RAID motherboard failed tomorrow, I would pop the working drive in my computer and it would just work.
Using drive mirroring pretty much eliminates the concern over premature drive failure. If it’s in warranty, pop out the bad drive and send it in for repair/replacement. The NAS will still work. Buy another drive or wait with sweaty palms until the faulty drive is fixed. Rebuild the array.
Most of us still have the pandemic quarantine fresh in our mind. What if the next pandemic is something deadly, like airborne ebola? You may need several months of food. 200 lbs of beans, 300 lbs of rice, 160 lbs of sugar, 300 lbs of corn flour, etc… All vacuum sealed in 5 lb mylar bags with oxygen and moisture scavenging packs, stored inside sealed steel garbage cans to keep out the rodents. The bags are numbered. Certain bags contain poisonous substances, and should not be eaten. So if they’re taken by force, karma will be a bitch.
Don’t wait. I got everything for under $500 by purchasing wholesale from overstock warehouses. Had to dip into it once a few years back when we were snowed in for two weeks, so it’s not just for the zombie apocalypse. Stay away from canned goods unless you’re very good at rotating inventory. Most only have a two year shelf life before the flavor will go “off”. If they do spoil and you eat them, there might not be any medical services.
Speaking of medical, hit up your local feed store for some antibiotics. They’re much cheaper than the human variety and don’t require a prescription. Print out what each is good for and required dosage. They’ll last for several years past the expiration date if you keep them in a cool place. A triage kit is another essential, and learn how to use it.
Finally, learn what edible plants grow in your area. You may be surprised at how many “weeds” can be eaten. They can help round out your diet.
Put up a sign that says, “Pursuant to ordinance 347-1236, a sexual predator resides here”
They sell the ramen seasoning separately. It’s the same stuff in the little packets. If you can’t get it locally, Amazon has it. Search for “ramen seasoning”.
This conversation reminds me of when I discovered I can buy the Mac and Cheese powder for a lot less than buying the box. I love it on popcorn and homemade tortilla chips. Also can be used to make Mac and Cheese for cheap.