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Until this morning I'd been stopped and "randomly" swabbed for explosives on 8 out of the last 10 flights since I got annoyed by it and started keeping score.

Same again this morning. Which puts me on 9/11.

If I wasn't on a list before, I probably am now.

Mark wrote:You find yourself surrounded by 1000 ferocious, man-eating guinea pigs. You are allowed to have one weapon. What weapon do you choose?

Teleportation.

Advil. I love it.

William Foster may not have had it wrong...

We always hear about bad things that happen to good people who didn't deserve it without ever pausing to think that there are a lot of people that get exactly what they deserve.

Dogs about to go dog sledding for the first time must be in for some radical emotional whiplash.

Sent my Dell Laptop back to Dell two weeks ago . . . the internet connection ""module"" - whatever it's called, shit the bed. Along with a couple other hardware devices. It was repaired and returned.

Interestingly . . . to me at least . . . I had done a reformat on the hard drive before I sent it off to Dell.

When I plugged it in to charge it for this mornings reinstallation of stuff (cause I keep a weekly back up on a separate drive) most everything was already on the computer. . . .

I don't know whether I should be happy my job got easier or scared that Dell has all that shit on a cloud somewhere.

ANCFlyer wrote:Stuff

Skynet is real.

GQfluffy wrote:

ANCFlyer wrote:Stuff

Skynet is real.

Spooky it is . . . . not like I care, just saying. Hell, my cell phone tracks me, my tablet tracks me, my computer tracks me, even my truck tracks me . . . and they all remember shit . . . where I was, where I am, how long I spent there, et al.

ANCFlyer wrote:

GQfluffy wrote:

ANCFlyer wrote:Stuff

Skynet is real.

Spooky it is . . . . not like I care, just saying. Hell, my cell phone tracks me, my tablet tracks me, my computer tracks me, even my truck tracks me . . . and they all remember shit . . . where I was, where I am, how long I spent there, et al.

Hell... My bank knows I'm in Texas at the moment. They just sent me an email wishing me a nice time in AUS. How and why do they care? Oh... I haven't used my debit card since I've been here, so that adds to the mystery.

Did you use your debit card to purchase tickets, hotel reservations, etc?

ShyFlyer wrote:Did you use your debit card to purchase tickets, hotel reservations, etc?

Ahhh... That's it. I used my debit card to buy airline tickets.

I have a friend who's a Russian sound technician. I have a Czech one, too. Czech, Czech one, too.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/something-went-wrong-with-the-starliner-spacecrafts-first-flight/

Boeing should have never put MCAS into the Starliner.

Mark wrote:In passing, I told my girlfriend (God, I hate that term) of 20-some years that I seem to love her more now than a couple of months ago. I went on to explain that love is not a constant and is actually a scalable thing. Now she's freaked out by that concept. Well. I have a bird. I love my bird. I love Eileen, too, but it's a different type of love than I have for my pet. The more I try to define it to her, the more freaked out she gets.

Good thing you don't have a pet sheep, that may have been more dramatically misinterpreted.

The main reason why I know that everything is designed and that there is a god... Muffins spelled backwards is SniffUm. (Improvised capitalization)

...and God is a backward dog.

It appears that I am the only one on the planet that drags a "spinner" suitcase behind him rather than using it as some sort of mobility aide as in the picture.

I like to read the comments on the sponsored Facebook posts from E470.



The comments are almost always negative. While there are many legitimate reasons to dislike tolls (either tollways or toll lanes), most negative comments are by people who really don't understand what's going on.

There's the guy who thinks because his tax dollars paid for the road, he shouldn't have to pay tolls on it. Perfectly valid sentiment, but irrelevant since E470, even as a government entity, is self supporting.

Then there's the complaints about other roads, such as C470. Toll roads (and lanes) in Colorado use a common tolling system, which happens to be administered by the E470 folks. CDOT sets the rates on those other roads, but people seem to think E470 is behind the sinister plot to fleece the Colorado driver.

Speaking of C470, there is always someone who mentions the construction currently in progress. CDOT is adding an Express Lane in each direction as well as rebuilding the road and intersections. The "brain trust" however blames the E470 folks for turning a tax payer funded highway (C470) into yet another toll road. CDOT is adding a tolled lane, not converting it to a toll road.

There is always a guy who is mad CDOT sold the highway off to a private company. E470 has been run by a government entity since the beginning. The Northwest Parkway, however, is operated by a private company via a lease agreement but wasn't built by CDOT.

On one post, there was a comically sad exchange between the E470 social media team (or person) and a guy who was mad tolls were charged on "Interstate 36" yet it still fell apart. The highway is actually known as US36 and a portion of it fell apart ( LINK ). Even when the gentleman was reminded that US 36 is built and maintained by CDOT, and isn't completely tolled (just an Express Lane) the guy continued to rant about the high tolls and how they should be used to prevent the road from collapsing and being owned by a foreign entity.

Fortunately, there are a few posts by people who understand life and complain about legit issues such as the tolling prices (they're pretty high) and the odd placement of tolling gates. For example, for me to drive from DEN to my apartment, I can save $1.25 off the total trip by exiting at Parker Road (CO83) for a total of 22.6 miles and $5.65 in total tolls verses Chambers ($6.90/24.4 miles) or Jordan ($6.90/23.6 miles). If I exit at one of the exits before Parker, I'll pay the same price ($5.65) even though I "consumed" less of the road.

It's a great time saver, though, especially during rush hour what with all the cry babies saving money by sitting in traffic idling for an extra 30 ~ 45 minutes.

Shy, E470 was my favorite thing ever back when I was seeing the Mennonite girl. And in fact, just zipping down it to Pena and taking the train into DEN was a blessing.

I went for two years getting no charges, and then that went away. Sad days for me.

What did they charge you with, and was she worth it?

ShanwickOceanic wrote:What did they charge you with, and was she worth it?

Shanwick wins the Internet for the day (05 MAR 2020).

Lucas wrote:I was seeing the Mennonite girl

We have Mennonites here?

A random thought on coronavirus and climate change.

The measures that are currently being undertaken around the globe to stop coronavirus from spreading are pretty much the same ones that scientists and activists demand for years to fight climate change.

People travel less, spend more time at home, and entire industries are being shut down.

As a result, coal consumption is down by 36%, oil refinery output is down by 34%, energy-hungry industries like steel mills have reduced their output by over 15%, air travel went down by around 15% and CO2 emissions in affected regions dropped by over 25%.

Why do global leaders take such decisive action (some might argue, overreaction) against coronavirus, while being utterly inactive and ignorant towards climate change?

Well, most world leaders are 65 years and older.

People who are 65 years and older will hardly experience the immediate fallout from climate change anymore.

But most people who die from coronavirus are 65 years and older.

Isn't it ironic how that lead to a significant change in response to a global crisis?

Dude... Greenpeace invented coronavirus? Mind blown, maaaan...

ShanwickOceanic wrote:Dude... Greenpeace invented coronavirus? Mind blown, maaaan...

Coronavirus was described with perfect accuracy by Dean Koontz in his 1981 novel The Eyes of Darkness. He is either a time travelling sage (nope), routinely capable of predicting details at mathematically proven odds of 40bn-1 (will only happen a handful of times in earth's history, almost certainly never in human existence) or someone who has read his works has invented the whole thing based on a passage in his book they have long since consigned to their imagination (mathematically, the most probable outcome by millions of times that of any other).

But who would do that, and why?
Who is a former book shop owner and self-professed book addict who would dredge such details from their subconscious?
Who would have the means to convince world governments to play along? They would have to have been deep in the inner echelons of global democracy, maybe the CIA's top paid contractor for several years.
Whose company have gained the most from people staying indoors and buying online?
Who currently accounts for around 25% of global investment in credit cards and is benefiting to an almost unimaginable tune from the false rumour that the virus is transmitted by cash handling?
Who recently announced they were about to spend 8% of their massive fortune in a mysterious and unspecified attempt to end man-made climate change?

If your answer to any of those is anything other than Jeff Bezos, you're wrong. The world's richest man will soon be the world's most powerful man. Meanwhile, most people will keep interpreting those headlines about old people that were diagnosed with coronavirus dying as old people die of coronavirus, without ever realising the subtle difference.
Remember to keep buying those face masks and hand sanitizers folks, stock available on Buy n Large Amazon!