Rio Arriba County, New Mexico (Española)

Our neighbor has a piece of land that is directly adjacent to our house. It is only separated by a small wire fence. He is currently using heavy machinery to knock down trees, dig into the ground, pour out sand, and other things (we're not 100% sure of everything he's doing, but those three things have been the most problematic). He is intending to make a road on the land that leads from his backyard to our street. He is maybe 100 feet away from our house while he's doing this. Our whole house has been vibrating and shaking all day.

Is there anything we can do, specifically in regards to the heavy vibrations and shaking? We are also worried about the possibility of trees falling onto our property. We have a few buildings in our backyard and the trees that he's tearing down (not using a chainsaw, just knocking them down with a backhoe) are right up against our property.

I just start the course and is impossible to get the book in less than 2 weeks so I'm looking if is possible to get it in a PDF

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MANTID FREE WORLDS

How are you, Cyb?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

We are... surviving.

Casualties were extreme across Terran Descent Human members of the consensus.

But, as we welcome any who are more metal than flesh, we still have many members.

Whole worlds, though, are empty.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Are you all just going to ignore the religious epiphanies all of you had?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

No. That was startling, to say the least.

These are strange dark days indeed.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

My people are angry. We just met humanity, fought, and then began to become friends with them.

Now they are almost gone.

Yet their remainder, and their allies, fight to liberate and protect my people.

But we are angry, like something was taken from us before we really knew what it was.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We get it.

>sighs

We have no idea what's going on with the Sol System, almost all of the TDH worlds are empty, TDH space is just... empty.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Wait, I thought that the kids, because of the neural plasticity in their cyberware, weren't being affected as much by this.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We've checked. The planets are empty.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

Wait, what happened to the kids?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

Where did they go?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

We're not sure. There were two million TDH children under the age of sixteen on Rigel alone, two days ago, they just vanished. Most of the apartments are locked from the inside, some of them vanished from inside taxis or high security creches.

Just... gone.

Even their clothing was left behind.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

This just gets weirder and weirder.

Some kind of Terran black box project?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

It changes nothing. TDH gave us the tools and the will to fight. We have to stand up for ourselves and each other. The Atrekna are not here as conquerors, not here as enslavers, they are here as devours.

*little bird is yellow

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CAPTAIN'S PERSONAL LOG

Stardate 8536.173

The Dakota had made dock at Starbase-19 in order to undergo refit and repair after a four month sweep looking for refugees. Engine updates and repairs, including some additional modifications to the Dakota were necessary. I ordered the removal of the infantry assault transporters, with the exception of a single one of that size, and additional troop lodging and assault shuttle berths.

Additionally, with the SUDS being red-dotted, I have ordered all personnel aboard the Dakota will no longer carry SUDS. I cannot explain why in any logical manner to my Spock's satisfaction, but my Riker and Worf agree with me.

This must be another prong in the enemy's attack against humanity. Not just the Terran Confederacy, but against the Federation and all other human organizations.

I've put out a call for Redshirts. Three years ago I would have been laughed at, now I saw ship Captains swapping out to Redshirt uniforms. I was able to add another full Regiment of Redshirts before the other Captains began putting out a LFM Call, where I was able to pick and choose.

Interestingly, I have a full company of Klingon Battle Ragers and a Company of Romulan Assault Marines. They arrived the day after we did and their leaders sought me out with an LFG request.

Additionally, I was informed that the Dakota has been entered in Starfleet ship registry as an "Murica Class Warship" with my Scotty and LaForge credited with the improvements and design.

So the Dakota is now canon to act as an Admiral's flagship for major fleet engagements.

How weird.

We hope to leave Starbase-19 within the next thirty days. Precursor attacks as well as Unified Council battlegroups are swarming Federation and Harmonous Cluster space.

--Admiral Jeff Picark 8873

CAPTAIN'S PERSONAL LOG

Stardate 8536.262

LOCATION: Borg Collective RP Space

This is the third Borg Cube we've found drifting with all hands lost.

McCoy stated something about massive cyberware and bioware rejection, including synthetic flesh rejection. My Pulaski concurs, pointing out massive genetic degredation far beyond anything we've ever seen. My Beverly has pointed out that the Hive

I wear a lot of hats. Today my hat is “find CE rated parts we can substitute for our UL parts”

I’m having a little luck with some things. Others, not so much. It’s a machine we’ve built several times for UL standards. This will be the first CE.

Are there any resources that make this easier than just looking for mfg data sheets?

As everyone knows, 2020 gave us some bizarre examples of mass double-speak coming from corporate media, to the extent that I wouldn't be surprised if George Orwell's estate saw an uptick in sales. Widespread rioting broke out contemporaneously across multiple cities. The corporate media networks, despite failing to cover most of it, certainly weren't shy about broadcasting images of burning car dealerships and other acts of widespread arson. Yet outside of conservative media, the rhetoric mostly focused on aggressively putting everything into perspective: "Yes, this looks bad, but remember, most of the protests are peaceful; only a tiny percentage break out into rioting."

Apart from broader interpretations associated more with the political extremities, there's generally been two "centrist" interpretations or narratives concerning these events:

1. The "optimistic" (corporate approved) hypothesis: we need to keep things in perspective because the majority of protests were peaceful; the perception of widespread chaos is a result of media selection bias
2. The "cynical" hypothesis: it's all a political game to make Trump look bad; as soon as Trump is out of office, Democrat cities will crack down on rioters.

Let's briefly go over these.

The "Optimistic" Hypothesis: Most Protests were Peaceful

I realize refuting this is mostly preaching to the choir here, but I thought a brief analysis might be useful. Basically, the claim that "most protests were peaceful" is true but analytically fallacious because it compares an unusual local maxima with a global average. It's similar to saying: "9/11 wasn't that bad at all; of the thousands of commercial flights that morning, only four of them were hijacked. But the media never focused on any of the thousands of commercial flights that weren't hijacked. The reality is that 99.999% of all commercial flights on 9/11 were entirely peaceful."

Most people intuitively grasp that such an analysis is absurd, but perhaps they can't express exactly why. The reason is because it's pointless to compare some local maxima or minima against a global average when we're trying to reason about local phenomena. It's the same reason you wouldn't generally see a graph comparing the number of annual births in Cleveland with the number of annual births on Earth, unless the data is normalized somehow (e.g. you were comparing rates rather than raw counts).

Compared relative to the local average, the riot

#Full Stay at home order text here

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/answers-to-top-questions-about-ontario-s-new-stay-at-home-order-1.5378157

this CTV story specifically confirms that "LCBO locations will remain open during the stay-at-home order but will have capacity limits."

PARTIAL LIST OF RESTRICTIONS HERE

https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/61029/ontario-enacts-provincial-emergency-and-stay-at-home-order

State of emergency declared

Stay at home order in effect for 4 weeks minimum. Starting midnight tonight.

Non essential retail must be curbside

Big box stores must only sell essentials in store, food, medicine, cleaning, person care items, pet care items.

Residential eviction suspension

Full regulation to follow.

Similar to previous stay at home order.

#FULL LIST COMING SOON. CHECK BACK.

Effective Thursday, April 8, 2021 at 12:01 a.m., the government is issuing a province-wide Stay-at-Home order requiring everyone to remain at home except for essential purposes, such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy, accessing health care services (including getting vaccinated), for outdoor exercise , or for work that cannot be done remotely.

#Retail

• Limiting the majority of non-essential retailers to only operate for curbside pick-up and delivery, via appointment, between the hours of 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., with delivery of goods to patrons permitted between 6:00 am and 9:00 pm, and other restrictions

• Restricting access to shopping malls to limited specified purposes, including access for curbside pick-up and delivery, via appointment, with one single designated location inside the shopping mall, and any number of designated locations outside the shopping mall, along with other restrictions

• Restricting discount and big box stores in-person retail sales to grocery items, pet care supplies, household cleaning supplies, pharmaceutical items, health care items, and personal care items only

• Permitting the following stores to operate for in-person retail by appointment only and subject to a 25 per cent capacity limit and restricting allowable hours of operation to between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. with the delivery of goods to patrons permitted between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.

• Safety supply stores

• Businesses that primarily sell, rent or repair assistive devices, aids or supplies, mobility devices, aids or supplies or medical devices,

No Difficulties Here

Aldi somehow managed to blend exhaustion, irritability and body aches into a single vocal inflection. "So, what's the problem?"

"Did you not hear the-" Tinker paused in the middle of using the large pulldown workspace. On the left she had a callout showing incoming drone waves, with distance markers and terrain overviews on the right. Both windows had a lot of notes and highlighting. In the background several expanded charts of numbers guesstimated how fast drones were multiplying. There was even a nicely curved graph line with the upper end annotated "We Are All Screwed". It wasn't pretty.

For the last fifteen minutes she'd been going nonstop, with occasional interjections from a short man in a heavily oil-stained set of overalls and an absolute monster of a bearded guy. Aldi recognized the size and beard, although the clothes were different: Harland, he thought. Or Hale? He wasn't sure which. But the man moved like a confrontation in progress and he obviously knew Tinker somehow. Which was interesting enough all by itself and Aldi would really like to talk a bit. After about a year of sleep and enough hot water to boil his skin off.

In the meantime he was in some sort of... combat briefing? It felt like one. There was a lot of recording footage, some horrifying up close images and a couple of red countdowns. Or perhaps it was an Emergency Coordinator thing? Either way Tinker was presenting the whole haphazard rundown inside an impressively equipped machinist facility. Which happened to be attached to what looked very much like a drone operations setup; another detail to check on later. It seemed fascinating. If only he wasn't so incredibly exhausted.

So when the short woman paused for breath he threw in the relevant question.

At his interruption she stopped, then practically slumped in the only chair with both hands over her face. "Okay, where did you lose track? I'll just... start over from there."

Harland raised a hand, then put it down to pat Aldi on the shoulder in an encouraging way. "Drifted off towards the end. Around the exploding part, I think."

"Okay. Right. So, we're identifying approaches through the canyons." Tinker flipped the workspace images back to a topographical map of the area, then highlighted gaps between clusters of lines. "We're going to blast them closed and delay the flood longer. But we need-"

It was a mark of how tired he was that Aldi actually interrupted. "No, I got that. It's demolitio

Here is a link to part 1 posted yesterday which covered Prophecies 1-6. This is Part 2, which will cover the remaining, second half of the Prophecies. Without further delay:

Beyond Light

West of Sunfall 7

(1) A spark of knowledge with each fall, (2) the purpose of the endless youth.
(3) No longer shunned, dark's nameless call (4) now brings about tenebrous truth.

The sun sets in the west, thus sunfall would be in the west. The sun is also the origin of light, so to go West of Sunfall literally means to go Beyond light as the world you were once apart of befalls to darkness.

Yes I know, this one's name is a bit on the nose, and it occurs during season of the hunt - the same as the last prophecy with regards to Uldren's return as Crow - but this prophecy is still incredibly important and relevant.

• (1) - the spark of knowledge with each fall could refer to a few things in regards to beyond light. It could be referring to the small tastes of stasis we receive after killing each of the House Salvation Barons. It could also be referring to the bits of knowledge we received on the darkness each time a guardian has historically given ear to the Darkness' call; Yor, Drifter, Eris, Us. The Darkness had already given us the too-long-absent gibbous sparks of a knowledge during Shadowkeep, and it directed us to Europa after Eris, Drifter, and ourselves fell further to heading its words in Arrivals. It did the very same thing to Clovis who sought out knowledge of the Vex, the Darkness, and eternal Life, and was directed to Europa after communing with the K1 artifact which was exactly like the artifact given to us during Shadowkeep.
• (2) - The purpose of endless youth is referring to ageless and immortal light bearers and the choice between Light and Dark to ensure that endless youth. Guardians don't age so long as they have a ghost. Our purpose is to tip the scales of The Wager in either direction. The Darkness tells us this directly in Unveiling - The Wager:

>But we can be nothing except what we are. You have a choice.
>
>You are the gardener's final argument. It would mean everything if I could convince you that I am the right and only way.

For the Dar

EDIT 1: I mistakenly misread the table that I posted. I was looking at the Commissioner columns rather than the Chairman columns. Chairmen were sworn in on Saturday on 3 separate instances, excluding yesterday. 1969, 1973, and 2012. The information about Chairmen Cook and Casey is still correct. I guess I'll have something to do tomorrow when I figure out why Elisse B. Walter was sworn in on a Saturday in 2012.

EDIT 2: please let me know if you see ANY misinformation in this post. I tried to edit out everything that’s been pointed out to me so far, but I get well could have missed something. What makes this community so strong is the constant verification of every bit of information posted, so do not hesitate fellow apes!! 🦍🚀🌕

EDIT 3: It seems like all of the images from windows snipping tool that I copied and pasted into reddit are down. I'll fix it now, but know that these snippets were all from the articles posted in the body of the post, which all still work. Sorry for the issues! I'll fix it as soon as I'm able.

EDIT 4: The links have all been either deleted and replaced with text, or fixed. This post is now a huge wall of text, and I apologize for that, but removing the images was the fastest way for me to get this done and I'm short on time right now. Please continue to point out anything that seems off!! Ape strong together :)

EDIT 5: I saw a comment that I can’t seem to find anymore inquiring as to the condition of the market following the events of 1973. I’m still new to the markets and I don’t know a ton about the economy in general, so I’m not sure exactly what metrics were around at the time to measure that information, but I was able to check a couple of things. It looks like both S&P500 and Dow Jones both crashed pretty hard from the beginning of ‘73 to the end of ‘75. This is a completely different situation though, and I don’t think you can draw many conclusions from that.

TL;DR: Gary Gensler was sworn in as the Chairman of the SEC on Saturday, April 17, 2021 [EDIT: changed April 18 to 17]. The last time a chairman (or even a commissioner for that matter) was sworn into the SEC on a weekend was on Saturday, March 3, 1973 [EDIT: there was an instance in 2012 that I overlooked, more information at the bottom of the post] due to high international tensions and many monetary crises, including the Watergate Scandal and the origins of the 2008 financial crisis (1973 to 2008 to 2021, full circle). An SEC chairman has been sworn

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NINE HOURS PRIOR: FORTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER LANDING

"I can't get this thing plugged in," the technician said, staring at the cable he was holding in his hand.

Vuxten looked over from where he was looking at a hand drawn map at where the tech was kneeling down next to a holotank that still gleamed wetly from having been hot printed.

"Turn the cable over," Vuxten said.

The tech twisted his wrist and the top of the cable now had a thin yellow line in the middle of the plug. It slid right in and the holotank went live.

"Oops," the tech said, standing up. He brought up the menu and began loading the software needed from the block of molycircs next to him.

"It happens," Vuxten said, still looking at the map.

The forested area was nearly fifty miles across, in a rough bean shape. Casey's drop zone was the dent into the side of the bean. The drones that had gotten the view had all gone offline once they got close to eight thousand feet up, which was enough to give Vuxten a large view, but not enough to know what was going on around him.

"Holotank's coming online, sir," the tech said.

"Thank you, Corporal," Vuxten said, turning from the table and taking his map with him.

The holotank had already gone through the startup menus and loaded up the correct software. It showed a globe, flashed it was missing data, then skipped to the local datasets.

Dozens of icons burned in the smooth bean shape. All of them units of First Telkan, grouped up by company or greater size. Some of the green icons had red borders and/or were flashed, telling Vuxten that they were engaged with the enemy. He looked down at tapped a few controls.

The drones that were still airborne all appeared.

Sighing, he started allocating more drones to cover gaps. He then tabbed up direct action drones, loading in Casey's IFF profiles.

I miss the days of just running through the jungle, he thought to himself as icons started flashing to denote which units were taking control of the drones other units were firing. I've gotta balance who fires the drones, who takes over, who does what analysis according to our limited resources and manpower pool.

Vuxten sighed, remembering just how much of what he wa

The idea, as she explained it to me, was simple enough: I would sit with her, talk to her, and share those few, final moments of her life. She had no family left; she’d outlived them all. The same, sadly, was to be said of her friends and anyone else she would’ve otherwise called on for the task. I remember she told me that the worst part of a long life was the gradual removal of all the things that make life worth living.

I was offered this unusual position whilst applying for a job only tangentially related to the kind of in-house care someone would provide to such an infirmed person. I suppose I had a look of youthful desperation about me, because one of the nurses at the facility, a tired-eyed woman not far from my age, asked if I’d like to make some money in the interim of my application’s review. Naturally, I accepted, and was told about a kind-hearted, ninety-three-year-old widow nearing the end of her life.

During our first phone call, the old woman had asked me to bring a few things: a tea kettle, a blanket, and a book of my choosing. On the morning of that fateful day, while finalizing our plans, she asked if I would read to her—and I happily agreed. I assumed the blanket and tea kettle were merely items of comfort; two things that would in their own ways provide warmth to her, since she had spoken many times about how she’d recently been so cold.

On the phone we had never discussed payment. It had been offered of course, and was, initially, the reason I accepted the somewhat morbid task; fifteen-hundred dollars to sit with an old woman during her final moments of life, a span of time that she assured me would last no longer than a few hours. She mentioned that her physician would of course remain in the house, stationed in another room and ready to “confirm” when it happened.

Due to her condition—the details of which I was never explicitly told—I was not allowed to visit with her prior to the curiously foreknown date of her death. As previously stated, we did however speak on the phone several times, and I learned a few things about her; the most notable being that she hadn’t any surviving family members or friends—was truly alone in the world. She had also explained, briefly and vaguely, her religious beliefs, which as far as I could understand belonged to no regular organized religion, but was a set of spiritual principles and mythic ideas to which she had closely adhered and devoutly followed since childhood. These beliefs, from wha

Goldman Sachs initiated coverage of US steel on April 9th. Unfortunately, their initial report is private and intended only for prime broker clients and their ilk. Fortunately for you all I got my hands on some of their reports.

Their initiation document is ~90 pages long and is quite thorough. It details the landscape of US steel, their take on it, and coverage of the five big companies comprising ~80% of US steel (CLF, SCHN, X, NUE, STLD).

I really wish I could share the document, but it's fingerprinted and I don't want my source to get blown up. I also am fearful of the text itself being fingerprinted (yes, I'm that paranoid) and so I'll paraphrase key parts.

Anyway, here's their bit on CLF:

INTRO

• Initiated CLF with neutral at 12m pt of $20.
• 2020 was a transformative year (two acquisitions) altering the company from a supplier of iron ore pellets to a fully integrated flat rolled steel producer with the largest production footprint in the US.
• Company is now one segment: Steelmaking, which includes upstream iron ore production as well as steel production.
• Looking ahead, the key debates for CLF are: 1) Integration of AK and AMUSA, 2) outlook of automotive industry, 3) ability to strengthen balance sheet.

Transformation in 2020 to a differentiated approach

• As noted above, two acquisitions and transforming to steelmaking.
• CLF's strategy is vastly different than competitors: the company is an integrated steel producer rather than adopting the widely-used EAF tech in the US
• CLF's view is centered around the bet that prime scrap prices will increase relative to historic levels from new EAF capacity in US (of which ~70% of us steel production uses) as well as increasing demand from China (seeking to 2x its EAF capacity)
• Analysts note they have seen scrap prices increasing through 2020 and 2021, but they expect this to moderate as HRC prices normalize as utilization rates recover through 2021

Supply discipline and delivery of integration synergies

• 2021 is the "year of delivery" for CLF.
• "Value over volume" -- CLF expects orders to guide production levels, keeping 6-8 furnaces online at a time.
• They expect $310mn in synergies to be achievable, and may see upsides further in the year as they're integrated.

Automotive industry will be important

• Automotive is CLF's largest market, with 40% of AK steel and AMUSA's sales directed here.
• 2Q20 saw a shutdown of OEMs and idling of 60% of US blast furnace capacity (the

There was recently a post on this topic. I put my best effort into constructing a reply that I thought would be productive for the community, but OP deleted their post. I felt it was worth replying as this is a topic of some significance. I have added a fair amount since the original comment.

What is the difference between American Buddhism and Asian Buddhism?

...

Since this is kind of an identity related question, I'll disclose my identity first.

I'm a white American. I've lived in Asia for, my whole adult life. My wife is Chinese. I practice Buddhism, my (current) teacher is from Tibet, but, I have studied teachings from various sources. My spiritual friends come from various sources, various races. Some are Chinese, some are American, some are Vietnamese, some are Taiwanese, some are Indian, some are Nepalese, some are Middle Eastern, some are Hungarians trained under British who trained under Chinese teachers... I once had a teacher who was a Thai-speaking German.

I know that, emphasis on the contrast between races and cultures is something more increasingly popular so perhaps my view will not be standard to everyone, but here is my view. I feel it's worth expressing this view because I feel that a strong sense of division between groups is a harmful confusion that we, as humans and as Buddhists, have the chance to heal and overcome compassionately.

There's no such thing as American Buddhism and East Asian Buddhism. Anything people do is symbiotic with the culture they are from. But, the American Buddhists I know trained under Chinese teachers, or Tibetan teachers, or Thai teachers (for example). They might not be culturally Chinese or Tibetan or Thai, but spiritually, they learned Dharma from those people and have the skill to translate it across cultures.

People like this are a treasure. Thanissaro Bhikkhu is an absolute jewel of Thai Buddhism, a treasure who brought that Dharma into the English speaking world. Does he teach "American Buddhism?" That doesn't make sense. He is American, he teaches Buddhism. Race, skin color, nationality, these things are anatta, not self. People don't like to hear this, nowadays, about race and nationality, it's kind of deified. But, they are not self. The more strongly people identify with these labels as being central to who they are, the more important it is for them to understand to what extent they are not self.

B. Alan Wallace, is an absolute treasure of Tibetan Buddhism. Yes, he's white, he's

It Doesn't Matter, Now

Twenty-one thousand people was a huge problem.

Aldi stood on top of a shuttle, feeling residual heat slowly bake the bottom of each boot. From up here he could look out over what amounted to an enormous parking lot: Fifty ships, lined up side by side next to an impressively scarred runway. With little time to prepare and no way of knowing the layout at the other end this was the best he could do: Take the last course from each shuttle, reverse it and send everything back here. He'd been betting the automated systems that launched the ships would handle receiving them again, but results were plainly mixed.

True, they made it down. Even better: After landing each one automatically took a left from the end of the runway and taxied to a waiting processing building, clearing the landing strip for the next. Which was a detail he'd completely forgotten about and tried not to dwell on-- fifty completely full shuttles blindly landing and smashing directly into one another would have been a horrific death toll.

But there the good luck ended.

The first ship reached the processing building and just... stopped. No one came out to meet it, no maintenance drones attached, nothing. In fact from the three buildings he could see nearby none of them looked occupied to Aldi. Every light was off, not a single vehicle in sight. Even the jutting traffic control tower at the edge of the field looked completely empty: Black, outward-angled windows looked downward over a miles-long landing strip without a single shadow to indicate someone was watching from inside.

He turned in a slow circle, looking outward at miles of rolling bioengineered wheat surrounding the launchport. Other than a wide road disappearing eastward into the hills nothing else seemed to lead to or from the facility. No vehicles, no air traffic, not even anyone in a jumpsuit walking around looking official. The only things moving were the tips of greenish-gold wheat, blowing in the wind. "Where is everyone?"

Tinker pulled herself up the last few rungs on the hull with a grunt, flopping ungracefully onto the top. Then she cursed and scrambled upright, shaking both hands out. "Damn, that's hot."

He quarter-turned left, scanning the horizon with a worried frown. North was a short stretch of wheat that terminated in broken hills, almost mountainous; rough rock, thrust upwards with patches of terraform lichens stubbornly clinging like green mold. Left again: More biowheat, ro

I know that the feelings on both sides of the gun debate are strong, and foreigners like me are often dismissive to the pro gun side. I promise that my intent with this cmv isn't to just push my opinion but genuinely try to understand where the pro gun, no permits side is coming from. I admittedly grew up in a culture where guns are just very foreign to me. I cant imagine needing a gun or feeling comfortable seeing people walking with one. I can understand it as a fun hobby but I dont understand why you need it outside of a shooting range.

I understand though that US is laid out differently and there are people living in vast empty areas who may have greater need to protect themselves than people in a city. So I can understand wanting to own guns. But let's talk about the no permit part:

1. Driving a car, operating machinery or doing certain jobs all require some permit and training. Your dad can teach you to drive but you still need to prove you can do it before they let you on the road. I really dont understand why a training on how to operate a gun and a basic background test wouldn't be equally required before someone can have access to weapons

2. Even some old American settlements like Tombstone had gun laws (and from what I read this proposal is looser about weapons than any period in US history was even in the south) so I dont really get the founding fathers argument. Also, even if you want to obey their will, doesnt it still make sense to adapt it to time and place since weapons today are very different and deadlier. Even religions have to adapt

3. You really cant deny that US has a mass shootings problem. I dont think that Americans are crazier or deadlier than Europeans so I think its undeniable that easy access to a weapon makes a difference

4. This isn't directly related to permits but why would you be ok with people walking around with a weapon (instead of keeping it at home or using it in places where its permitted). Theres a lot of talk recently about for example how women feel intimidated by men because they're bigger. If the society accepts this concept then how can anyone not be afraid of a person with a gun?

5. Edit (i left this out at first): there is a big issue in US with trigger friendly cops. But the fact that cops are facing perpetrators for even small crimes who likely carry weapons and therefore possess deadly threat makes things much worse. I often think about this side of all the police arguments, I mean these people h

This is a paper from Peter Salonius, a Canadian soil microbiologist which was released October 20, 2008 on the famous The Oil Drum where you can find the Bibliography.

According to Peter, humanity has probably been in overshoot of the Earth's carrying capacity since it abandoned hunter gathering in favor of crop cultivation (~ 8,000 BCE). The problem is that soil needs tightly woven natural ecosystems to properly recycle nutrients and prevent soil erosion. Earth's inhabitants have devised a whole series of approaches to increase the amount of food that can produced, starting first with hand-cultivation and culminating in the last century with the widespread use of fossil fuels. These approaches strip the soil of its nutrients and cause soil erosion. Even Permaculture cannot be expected to overcome these problems. According to the paper, eventually, to reach sustainability, the world will need to reduce its population to that of the hunter-gathers, and go back to living on the resources the natural ecosystems can produce.

Part 1: Life Before Agriculture

The major departure for humans as just another member of the global animal species assemblage came when fire was first used about 400,000 years ago by Homo erectus (Price 1995). The dynamic cyclical stability of complex systems has been shown for most animal populations, except top predators, to depend on predation to dampen overshoot and runaway consumption dynamics of prey species (Rooney et al. 2006). The ability to control and use fire removed the influence of wild animal predators as moderators of human numbers. The use of fire made possible the colonization of cold lands at high latitudes where fuel for heating shelters was available in some form such as animal oil, dried dung and wood. Even though their shelters became more complex and elaborate, they were, for the most part, temporary encampments whose main structural components could be transported across the landscape so as to benefit from variable food availability as the seasons changed.

The bulk of human history has been that of a culture of hunter gathers or foragers. They did not plant crops or modify ecosystem dynamics in any significant manner as they were passively dependent on what the local environment had to offer. They did however domesticate dogs as early as 100,000 BCE (Vila et al. 1997); these animals were useful as hunting aids, guardians, and occasionally as food during times of scarcity. Hu

This morning, I sat down to repair a zipper on a leather weekender bag. It’d been busted for over a year, and I’ve been meaning to repair it and then donate it to one of the local charity shops, but despite having nowhere to go and no obligations except work, it took me 13 months into the pandemic to actually get around to fixing it. As I was stitching the little end cap back onto the bottom of the zipper, I started thinking about how my dad would be so happy and proud to know I had fixed my own luggage like this, so I could donate it and it could get reused, rather than just throwing it away.

My dad is very much a ‘manly man’ on first glance - he’s a farmer and does a lot of his own mechanic work, so he’s sort of constantly grimy when he’s working, he’s got a big moustache, doesn’t really put much thought into his appearance/fashion/etc. (He has a BA in the humanities, still reads a ton of dense academic writing, and is very much into socialism, the history of the civil rights movement in the US , and current social justice justice movements, but you’d never ever know it to look at him.)

When I was growing up, my dad always, ALWAYS expressed, both directly and indirectly, how much he valued my interests that were more traditionally feminine. He did encourage me to be involved in farm work, and helping him fix his machinery, making sure I knew my own basic car maintenance, etc. but I never really got deeply into carpentry or mechanics when I was living at home. I always felt really drawn to textiles (knitting, sewing, embroidery), jewelry making, and cooking. My dad would tell me how his mom was also really skilled as a seamstress and how my being interested in that sort of hobby reminded him of her, and I really felt like that reminder was something that made him very happy. In turn, that would make me feel happy, like I had a connection to my grandmother, who we didn't see very often, and to him and his side of the family by extension. He would buy me birthday and Christmas gifts related to those hobbies. When I was around 12 or 13, I got really inspired by our local Renaissance festival to explore period clothing, and took it into my head to make a corset. I never did finish the corset, but before I lost interest (in my defence, I was 12) he helped me carve a wooden busk for it. I got really into beading and jewellery-making when I was in undergrad, and my gift that year was a set of nice pliers and snips and some how-to books. He would te

When I was a kid, my dad and I used to go to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. You could walk around and explore the ship, which was always very exciting to me.

There had been rumors for years about hauntings on the ship, which eventually led to them hosting a Halloween Haunt starting in the early 2000s. This, however, happened in the mid-nineties.

My dad and I had been walking around down below in what is called Shaft Alley, a series of gangways located down in the boiler room. Each gangway bridges the right and left sides ship, providing a single direct path from one end to the other. As you walk across, you can look down and see all of the ship’s machinery down below.

While we were walking, we noticed a small, stout elderly woman dressed all in white walking towards us. I’ll never forget her face. I was struck by her expression as she had a look of confused terror as she locked eyes on us and slowly staggered in our direction, careful in her steps.

She stopped in front of us and, in a soft British accent asked my dad, “Excuse me, sir, could you please tell me the way out of here?” We were a bit taken aback by her question because the exit sign was directly behind us about 20 feet away. My dad told her, “Sure, just walk straight back this way” and pointed to the exit sign at end of the gangway.

She then looked over, fixed her eyes on me and said, “Thank you”.

Not breaking eye contact, she passed us on that narrow path and started making her way slowly towards the exit. We took a few steps in the opposite direction, then, struck by how strange the interaction was, looked at each other, then immediately looked back.

She was gone.

Now, keep in mind, the exit was about 20 feet away, she was moving at a slow pace and we could not have had our backs turned for more than a few seconds. The gangway is made of a heavy metal grating, so if she had run, we would have heard her footsteps pounding towards the exit. There was no place for her to turn.

My dad, who is usually skeptical about ghosts and spirits, is still to this day perplexed at what we saw.

Construction is a risky industry where managing projects means managing risk. Construction risk can be defined as any threat to the progress and completion of a construction project that creates potential loss exposure. In the construction industry, risk is a part of every stage of the project lifecycle, from preconstruction to project closeout.

The complexity of construction projects of all types and sizes creates an ever-present environment of uncertainty and risk. Risks such as weather issues, safety concerns, budgetary concerns, and project delays, to name a few, can appear in any form at any stage of the construction process. These and many other risks adversely impact project performance, compromising quality, increasing costs, and delaying project completion.

Risk is also expensive. Contractors will likely at some point deal with the controversy that erupts into litigation. Some of the biggest challenges for contractors in litigation include determining who said what and when and locating all the supporting documentation. The proliferation of smartphones and iPads and the many apps on these devices means that information could be buried in many places.

Sifting through these layers and layers of information to determine accountability makes the discovery process like a never-ending, expensive archaeological dig.

Construction disputes, claims, and litigation can quickly turn into a battle of “he-said, she-said,” ultimately eliminating the validity of each party’s claims. These disputes can turn into hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in litigation costs. A 2020 Global Construction Disputes Report by Arcadis revealed that the average value of disputes in North America rose from $16.3 million in 2018 to $18.8 million in 2019. The time to resolve construction disputes in the region also increased from 15.2 months in 2018 to 17.6 months in 2019. The report noted that poorly drafted or incomplete, and unsubstantiated claims became the top cause of construction disputes in 2019.

Construction risk is everywhere and is often found in:

Incomplete contract documents

In the construction industry, document formation is often an inconsistently managed, manual process that can expose contractors to risk.

There are thousands of activities and essential details

• As far as I know, it's never been mentioned before that Mithrax is a Splicer but I dig it. We were told in Rise of Iron that the Splicers were the Eliksni's direct equivalent of Guardian Warlocks so now I get to claim Mithrax as technically a Warlock. Also, it essentially places him in the same position as Mara Sov, Savathun and Amtec for the other races.
• It seems that Splicers are not just Eliksni that graft bionic upgrades to themselves but are also straight-up technomancers that can control/commune with technology. I wonder if this was how the Devil Splicers were able to take control over SIVA and maybe that is how Mithrax is able to splice Vex tech without being converged? This might be one of the biggest weapons we have to fight the Vex. Also speaking of Vex...
• Mithrax being a Vex Splicer gives him some good bonding material with Osiris. It's a shame he never got to meet Asher Mir. Who knows maybe they crossed paths in the past, that could be some lore they flesh out at some point.
• Mithrax being a Splicer adds new dimensions to his beef with the Devils.
• In the new Splicer area in the HELM they have a Servitor strapped to a bunch of machinery, I wonder what the story with that is. DO you think this is finally Kaliks Prime returned?

Sony

($SONY formerly SNE)

Given the GME interest, here is an investment idea. Sony makes & sells games direct to consumers, without relying on a middle man (like Apple). Sony makes & sells the most sought after gaming machine - demand will likely exceed supply all year (at least). They're also into VR (and make & supply the small OLED displays that power VR headsets & viewfinders).

Sony has a well established music & movie studios. They recently signed large streaming deals with Netflix and Disney.

Sony is also the top producer of image sensors - from mobile phones (iPhone) to high end cameras (they also produce their own line of stills & cinema cameras and lenses) to industrial sensors for cars & other machinery (ahem MVIS).

In addition to car sensors, they are now road testing their own EV - way ahead of Apple and many of the recent TSLA-wannabe startups. They are a key supplier for other companies (Apple, Nikon, Panasonic, et al.) and they use their parts for their own products (the competition helps to subsidize their own products like Samsung).

STATS & PEERS

SONY

2020 Revenue $75.4B

Cap $126B

P/E 11.8

AAPL

2020 Revenue $274B

Cap $2.2T

P/E 29.5

SAMSUNG

2020 Revenue $212B

Cap $493B

P/E 21.2

MSFT

2020 Revenue $143

Cap $1.9T

P/E 34.3

NINTENDO

2020 Revenue $12B

Cap $69.5B

P/E 17

TSLA

2020 Revenue $31.5B

Cap $683.4B

P/E 710

CANON

2020 Revenue $29.7B

Cap $24.9B

P/E 24.7

Notable Products

Sony Semi

Sony Car

Sony Cameras

Sony Content

PS5

Revenue & Profits

(in yen)

TL,DR

$SONY - Sony Corp 🚀

Sony is well-diversified, their product pipeline is promising, imaging & semi continue to grow and they are undervalued compared to many of their peers.

I'm not an investment professional, this is not financial advice. Invest at your own risk. Do your own research (please share relevant info).

I own shares of SONY - I like the stock.

(Repost from yesterday because my post got deleted because 2 other Dogecoin posts were in the top 50) This is a revised version of my previous article.

Maybe this community won’t down vote me to crap now that everything I’m about to tell you have been proven correct based on empirical evidence.

Maybe you guys will actually read my entire post instead of saying it’s “too long” -

if after you read this post - you still disagree with what I’m about to tell you - we will do the ultimate test. The ultimate end all be all of if Dogecoin is truly a shitcoin or not.

Simply comment - a remindMe for 4 years and we will see who is correct in 4 years.

Since I got hated on for no TL;DR last time - here you go.

TL;DR - (I will explain mathematically or economically why every point below is true in more detail)

EVEN WHEN DOGECOIN INEVITABLY DIPS - IT’S STILL NOT GOING AWAY.

1. Dogecoin has an 8 year track record of success - even if the price hasn’t necessarily shown it until recently. Dogecoin has survived every major Cryptocurrency bear market and will survive the next.
2. ⁠the myth behind Dogecoin having an unlimited supply is just that, a myth. Dogecoin is not unlimited it has 128 billion supply and 4% Inflation rate
3. ⁠all POW and POS cryptocurrency are also inflationary. Cryptocurrency is inherently inflationary and that is a good thing. Inflation is negligible when under 20%
4. ⁠Dogecoin’s price is not dependent upon Elon musk or Mark Cuban. The price rise has been evident for approximately 8 months. Elon and Mark just sped up a process that was already happening
5. ⁠Dogecoin still have plenty of room to gain price, but due to the relatively high supply don’t expect bitcoin levels per coin. Realistically Dogecoin can reach between the $1-$10 range.
6. ⁠Dogecoin is accepted by more businesses than 99.9% of other cryptocurrency
7. ⁠dogecoin’s mining reward of 10k per block is a great reward for mining and helps to ensure that the cryptocurrency will continue to survive
8. ⁠Dogecoin has cheap transaction fees and has a very good utility at Cryptocurrencies intended purpose of exchanging goods.
9. ⁠the economic fundamentals behind Dogecoin are sound and great for its intended purpose of being a currency
10. ⁠the meme aspect of Dogecoin has absolutely zero impact of the functionality of the cryptocurrency

Almost every single argument against Dogecoin has one of the following flaws

a) lack of understand of economics - misconceptions about the supply,

"The good news is life support still works." Yvian looked up from the panel at her sister's approach. Lissa's voice was annoyingly upbeat, considering the trouble they were in. "We've got air and heat."

"What's the bad news?" Yvian replaced the panel cover. The cover refused to latch in place. She gave it a smack, but the force of the blow sent her spinning towards the other end of the bridge. She cursed, scrabbling for a handhold. Yvian was not used to working in zero gravity.

"The bad news is that nothing else does. No engines, no comms, no artificial gravity..." Lyssa smirked, standing easily in her magnetic boots. They only had one pair between them, and she'd claimed she needed them if she was going to examine the engine. Yvian was tempted to throw something at her, but settled for an annoyed look. She didn't want to make any more forceful motions until they got the gravity working again.

"Do we know the cause? How'd the engine look?" Life support meant they weren't in immediate danger, but it didn't get them any closer to Prisna III. Yvian had scrimped and saved for ten years to make the down payment on The Wandering Lady and load up a cargo. If she didn't deliver before the price went down she'd be destitute.

Lissa shrugged. "Nothing wrong with it that I could see, but it won't power up. And since it won't power up, I can't run a diagnostic. But I think something else is wrong. Even with the engine offline, we should be able to run comms and sensors off reserve power. The way everything's shut down, I think we've got some kind of computer problem."

Yvian cursed. "I was trying to check into that, but the computer won't boot up. Not even after I bypassed the consoles and tapped in directly."

"You think we've been hacked? Some kind of virus?"

"I don't see how," Yvian scratched her head. Then she realized she was floating away from the computer panel she'd been holding onto. "We weren't connected to anyone when it happened." She reached for the panel. Her fingers bumped it instead of grabbing, and she was propelled away. She folded her arms as she floated towards the center of the bridge, slowly turning upside down. Her sister wisely covered her smile with her hands. "No alarms, either. Everything just stopped working out of nowhere."

"Maybe it's pirates," Lissa suggested.

"It's not pirates."

"What if it is?"

Yvian sighed. She reached a hand out to her sister. Lissa latched on and helped her get back to the computer panel. "We're in a major

So about 3 weeks ago I made a post about this shitty Kickstarter [Nimble]

In that post, I gave a few reasons why I think the device is a bunch of nonsense, but as the weeks wore on, it became much more clear that Nimble is still very much in the early development phase, despite what the creators claim.

The history - as I have been able to find it

Nimble started in 2016 in Israel, with the original name being "Nailomatic". In fact, this is the company name under which all their patents are registered. Their trademark of "Nimble" is also registered to Nailomatic, based out of Tel Aviv. Despite claiming to be a NY based company, they only have 1 of their 12 employees working in NY and they just decided to register as a business in NY last week, despite claiming that it is their HQ.

Nimble was started by 3 people, all of whom are listed on the patents. They claim the idea was brought about by CEO Omri Moran's date-turned-wife, who was running late because of a manicure. Couldn't find any evidence he was married or any photos of this wife, but that is immaterial.

Nimble, as Nailomatic, received startup funds from the Israeli government in late 2018 in the amount of NIS 3.5 million ($1mln USD) in a tech initiative. They received venture capital funds from a few other groups, although when they received all this funding is unclear.

Nimble didn't get into the public eye until about 2019-2020, when they started hyping their device on social media. Nimble initially advertised this as a device that could paint any kind of nail on both hands in 10 minutes, and promising to dry your nails as they are being painted. Nimble also was offering free shipping and reservation pre-orders of only $1 where also Nimble promised this device would be launching and ready to be shipped in February 2021. Nimble also had an open sign-up for Beta testers that they were using through [beauty bloggers](https://www.bffwithkimberlycaines.com/post/nimble-a-perfect-salon-quality-ma

I’m a first time homeowner. Our community is being built in phases. The third phase is currently under construction & we moved into one of the first houses of this phase to be completed. This means that there are 4 houses currently under construction (as in one only has the foundation poured, 2 are being framed & 1 is between the foundation & framing stage, & 3 of the 4 houses to my right are having the framing finished, but are not lived in. We have a small driveway & garage with 3 cars, not including potential guests vehicles, so sometimes we park 1 car on the street directly in front of our house. During the day, even on the weekend (we spent our first night here starting Saturday), there are numerous trucks, vans, contractors, equipment/machinery parked all up & down both sides of the street, including in front of my house. It’s a cluster of “who has the right of way, can I even park here, why are they parked here, should we tell them to move?”. Easter Sunday an entire crew showed up to work on the house next door all day with their music blaring, so there are always people parked all around my house, banging, drilling, yelling, loud ass music, plus the crew fish in our lake every day while they work. Honestly I could not care less about any of this, but I got a letter for our HOA today about parking in “common areas”. Like, is the person surrounded by noise & chaos 12hrs/day, 4 houses deep each side really the appropriate person to be handing out warnings to?

But if that’s the case, they better not park a single work vehicle in front of my house anymore bc if I can’t, neither can they.

So yeah, fuck a HOA.

There is a really cool application of representation theory to physics which philosophically explains where mass and spin come from (in a sense at least). Let me try to explain this from the ground up to maybe incentivize more people to learn about physics -- there's some really good math in there!

To begin, in special relativity one equips space-time R^4 with a different inner product than usual: g(v, w) = v^0 w^0 - v^1 w^1 - v^2 w^2 - v^3 w^3 (the upper indices refer to the components of the vectors, as is customary in physic). To briefly see why, consider that g(v, v) = 0 if and only if (v^0)^2 = (v^1)^2 + (v^2)^2 + (v^3)^2, which if you think of this as a velocity vector means you're dealing with something that 'moves as much in time as it does in space', i.e. light (using c = 1). It's possible to push this logic further to show that all observers agree on this inner product. That is to say that the allowable changes of coordinates in R^4 are those which preserve this metric. The ones fixing the origin are automatically linear and form the Lorentz group O(1, 3), whose connected component of the identity is SO+(1,3) (the Lorentz transformations that preserve both time and space orientations). If you also allow translations of spacetime you get the Poincaré group (with connected component of the identity) R^4 |x SO+(1,3) (this is my shitty ASCII attempt at a semi-direct product sign).

Now let's bring quantum mechanics into the picture. In QM, the state of a system is described via a vector in a Hilbert space. So let's suppose we want a Hilbert space which describes the possible states of some type of elementary particle. If we want a relativistic theory, then different observers should agree on the state -- this doesn't mean they see the same state, but rather that given an element of the Poincaré group, there should be a unitary transformation of this Hilbert space that maps the state one of them sees to the state the other sees. This means our Hilbert space needs to come with a unitary representation of the Poincaré group! But actually, not quite -- in QM it makes no difference if you multiply your state vector by some unit complex number. So it should really be a representation 'up to multiplication by a unit complex number', which is called a projective representation. [A t