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Cake day: August 4th, 2023

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  • 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.





  • 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.



  • 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.





  • Nothing other than common decency stops a president from executing all rivals of their party, pardoning all those involved, then resigning from the office, turning it over to the VP, before Congress could impeach. Now if the only remaining members of Congress belong to the President’s party, the odds of impeachment diminish significantly. In any case, only one person - the President - could ever be held responsible.

    But anyone dumb enough to try this would start Civil War 2.0.


  • 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.




  • This is the closest to the correct explanation. The reason televisions based on AM radio reception showed static is because of a circuit called the AGC (Automatic Gain Control) which worked like a robotic volume control. Its job is to keep the recovered video signal within a certain amplification range. As long as there was a carrier (the TV station was “on the air”), you’d see whatever the station broadcast. But when they turned off their transmitter, the signal strength would fall and the AGC would increase the amplification until what you see is white noise, mostly due to the random motion of electrons in the electronic components. We can minimize that by cooling, but it can’t be totally eliminated. Audio amplifiers often come with a “hiss” specification that tells you how much of this kind of noise you can expect at normal operating temperature.

    BTW, modern digital TVs -will- show a noise picture if they lack a video muting function when no carrier is detected. I have an LG bought in 2019 that does this, and it’s hella annoying when I accidentally hit the input selection button on the remote, switching from HDMI to TV reception.