Indeed. I’m pretty sure whatever is being communicated is probably interesting, but I can barely grasp it.

Going to regret putting the generators at the bottom if there’s any sort of flooding. Ask Memorial Hospital in Louisiana.

If truth in advertising is what you seek, I’ve got bad news for you.

Lately I’ve been going to bat for audiophiles. People get really shrill about how unpractical their gear is and how much smarter they are for knowing that cheaper cables exist. But ultimately it’s a hobby. They like the exotic expensive stuff because it’s fun. The value is largely extrinsic.

Is a really nice fountain pen worth a couple hundred dollars actually 2000 times better than a bic? Is a collectors vehicle safer, faster, or more practical than a modern one? Is the story better if it’s a first edition?

Ultimately audiophile stuff is more like collectibles than tools. Sounding good is important, but also important is just geeking out on something. And don’t think there aren’t function-first audiophiles who buy purely utilitarian gear and get super deep into room treatment and such. But there are also people who value aesthetics too. Branding, finish, novelty. And ultimately they’re rich. Splurging on audio equipment for them would be like a regular person splurging on expensive stadium food or something. Or perhaps even more appropriate, stadium beer, which is the exact same beer that can be purchased much more easily and cheaply under different circumstances.

Connection between the human development index (HDI) and total fertility rate (TFR)

The human development index has three components -GDP per capita is one of them, life expectancy is the second and the education level - the third. As all these factors are negatively correlated with fertility

When FBI agents raided Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion upon his July 2019 arrest, they used a chainsaw to open a metal safe.

Inside, they found a pile of loose diamonds, cash, passports with the disgraced financier’s photo under different names, and several hard drives and CDs.

Because the agents didn’t have a warrant to seize the safe’s contents, they left them in the middle of the floor with the hard drives and binders piled on top, agent Kelly Maguire testified at the criminal trial of Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

4 people who have seen the Epstein files say nothing suggests he was a spy

Five days later, when the FBI returned to the mansion with a new warrant in hand, the safe’s contents were gone.

Later that day, the items were handed over to the FBI in the form of two suitcases by Richard Kahn, Epstein’s longtime accountant.

…

“When the FBI broke into Epstein’s home, they broke down his door, so his door could not lock and the alarm could not set properly,” Kahn told the committee. “When Merwin, the house manager, was at the house, he realized that these items were not safe to be left alone.”

Kahn, who wasn’t in New York City at the time of the raid, said he took possession of the items “three or four days later.” He testified that he brought the two bags into his apartment and didn’t look inside them.

“I never touched them. I never opened them,” Kahn said. “I left them in my dining room.”

A day or two later, Dela Cruz called Kahn again to say the FBI was looking for the stuff they had left behind, Kahn told the committee.

That’s when he grabbed the bags from his home and brought them to the FBI agents at Epstein’s house, Kahn said.

So, days of unguarded hanging out on floors and in dining rooms unsupervised. Even if they really didn’t tamper with them, this feels like a means to deliberately create the option to claim they had been plausibly tampered with due to pants on head custody chain.

Huh?

I would drink this at least once.

I’ve always understood this debate as a veiled religious thing. Chicken = religion, god creates chickens; or Egg = science, animals are products of evolution, and thus naturally the egg must come first.

Right? How about:

Earth Must Die publishers say steam launch “unclear” after an “alien orgy depicted as gyrating lump of the floor”

How hard was that? Frankly “publishers of earth must die” would be a better sentence even still, but I understand putting the subject first for a headline is a functional thing.

I know a guy who got served a hot pocket under ravioli while in jail. He said it was pretty good. He was a sushi chef.

They want people to debate about the trees to distract from debating about the forest. The more energy we expemd quibbling about pedantic details, the less energy is available to be focused where it counts.

Well in the movie he has super powers, so his vision no longer needs correction. So his own glasses actually are detrimental to his vision. It doesn’t make perfect sense, but that’s what’s depicted. Typically people do not honor this relationship, but OP did, which I find heartening.

Kudos for getting the relationship of the glasses correct.

Der Wilde Planet

Are you a glass half full, or a glass half empty kind of person. 'Cause half of your dream is almost certainly going to happen.

She said ‘This was why I couldn’t get off and stay off. Just as the cliché warns. I literally wasn’t keeping it in the day. I was adding the clean days up in my head.’ She cocked her head at him. ‘Did you ever hear of this fellow Evel Knievel? This motorcycle-jumper?’

Gately nods slightly, being careful of a tube he now feels. This is why his throat had had that raped feeling in it. The tube. He actually has an old cutout action picture of the historical Evel Knievel, from an old Life magazine, in a white leather Elvisish suit, in the air, aloft, haloed in spotlights, upright on a bike, a row of well-waxed trucks below.

‘At St. Collie only the Crocodiles’d heard of him. My own Daddy’d followed him, cut out pictures, as a boy.’ Gately can tell she’s smiling under there. ‘But what I used to do, I’d throw away the pipe and shake my fist at the sky and say As God is my fucking witness NEVER AGAIN, as of this minute right here I QUIT FOR ALL TIME.’ She also has this habit of absently patting the top of her head when she talks, where little barrettes and spongy clamps hold the veil in place. ‘And I’d bunker up all white-knuckled and stay straight. And count the days. I was proud of each day I stayed off. Each day seemed evidence of something, and I counted them. I’d add them up. Line them up end to end. You know?’ Gately knows very well but doesn’t nod, lets her do this on just her own steam. She says ‘And soon it would get… improbable. As if each day was a car Knievel had to clear. One car, two cars. By the time I’d get up to say like maybe about 14 cars, it would begin to seem like this staggering number. Jumping over 14 cars. And the rest of the year, looking ahead, hundreds and hundreds of cars, me in the air trying to clear them.’ She left her head alone and cocked it. ‘Who could do it? How did I ever think anyone could do it that way?’

-Infinite Jest

Trump’s about to make the ice cream flavors he doesn’t like illegal and it will be upheld by the supreme court.

I prefer to parse it: Honk Jesushonk (gee zuh shonk)