Volpone
Zombie Hunter
A few things in the news make me want to briefly diverge:
The first is the missing Titanic sub. A lifetime ago, I got SCUBA certified. Never really did anything with it because it is expensive, equipment-intensive, logistically complex, and requires at least 1 other person to do safely. On top of that Northwest Airlines lost my mask, fins, snorkel, and dive log when I went to work in Hawai'i for a couple years. At first I thought I'd just somehow forgot to pack them, but when I got home and went through the storage, I was able to confirm they were lost in transit.
Anyway, the point is, that diving is dangerous. And it gets more dangerous the deeper you get. Basically, every 33 feet you are underwater, your air supply is cut in half by pressure and you wind up breathing twice as much nitrogen. A novice recreational diver can fairly safely go down around 70' without too many worries about decompression or nitrogen narcosis. Around 150' is the absolute "safe" practical limit for SCUBA--and you'd better REALLY know what you're doing that deep. Our instructor said it is smarter to stick to 100' max. "When you go in the water, you're putting one foot in the grave. When you go past 100' you're pretty much jumping in with both feet." The context was that I did my open water certification in Lake Superior. Some divers had explored wrecks down past 200' using SCUBA. The way they did it was they planned everything out, cached extra tanks at decompression stops on the way up the line to their support vessel, specified what (very limited) tasks each diver would do while on the wreck, rehearsed the crap out of it, and looked out for each other. Even then...one of the guys' job was to secure an anchor line. When it was time to go back up, he was missing. They went to check on him and he was right where he was supposed to be, tying a huge knot at the bottom of the line. He'd gotten loopy from the nitrogen. So yeah, there's no way I'm going 2 miles underwater in an untethered submarine built by Some Rich Guy From Washington State.
In local news, a woman just...the jury declined to indict her on manslaughter charges for shooting and killing an employee at a veterinary clinic. There was apparently a dispute about the bill for her dog. The local news ran a portion of the security footage and the employee, a young guy punched her. No audio, so I don't know what was being said, but he clearly threw the first punch and then squared off and started bobbing and weaving and throwing feints like he was Glass Joe in Mike Tyson Punch-Out. At this point the woman is cornered in a narrow hallway so she pulls a pistol out of her purse. In response, the guy...tries to grab it or slap it out of her hand, while continuing to prance around with his fists up. Eventually, he gets backed out the door and they cut the video. Apparently what happened next is, he picked up a traffic cone and tried to clobber the woman with it when she tried to leave so she shot him. And my response is "play stupid games..." Seriously. First off, you never attack a customer. If a customer attacks you and you have no other option, you fight back with the intent to kill them, but you NEVER throw the first punch. Hell, you don't even nonverbally escalate. And if you're in a fight and someone takes out a guy and all you have are your hands, you do like the Lynrd Skynrd song and get the hell out of there. They interviewed The Idiot's dad and their attorney of course and he was like "My son is dead over a dog." And I'm literally laughing and thinking "no, your son is dead because he was a stupid shithead."
You don't ever want a fair fight outside a sporting event. Sean Connery is right in "The Untouchables." In Marine doctrine, you don't want to get into a fight unless you've got 3 to 1 odds in your favor. You don't ever want to have to fire a rifle. You just want to blow the shit out of the Bad Guys with close air support and/or artillery and then come in and accept the surrender.
My parents were not big proponents of going to foreign countries. When I was little, my Dad went to a WWII reunion in Belgium. But there was no way in Hell either of them would go to Russia--not even Mexico. Ask Brittney Griner what can happen to you when you leave the US and our Constitutional protections.
If I previously seemed like someone who takes risks, this may seem like a disconnect. But I take very safe risks. I like to stack the deck in my favor as much as possible and don't like to take a risk unless there's about 3 different ways to win--or at least break even.
The first is the missing Titanic sub. A lifetime ago, I got SCUBA certified. Never really did anything with it because it is expensive, equipment-intensive, logistically complex, and requires at least 1 other person to do safely. On top of that Northwest Airlines lost my mask, fins, snorkel, and dive log when I went to work in Hawai'i for a couple years. At first I thought I'd just somehow forgot to pack them, but when I got home and went through the storage, I was able to confirm they were lost in transit.
Anyway, the point is, that diving is dangerous. And it gets more dangerous the deeper you get. Basically, every 33 feet you are underwater, your air supply is cut in half by pressure and you wind up breathing twice as much nitrogen. A novice recreational diver can fairly safely go down around 70' without too many worries about decompression or nitrogen narcosis. Around 150' is the absolute "safe" practical limit for SCUBA--and you'd better REALLY know what you're doing that deep. Our instructor said it is smarter to stick to 100' max. "When you go in the water, you're putting one foot in the grave. When you go past 100' you're pretty much jumping in with both feet." The context was that I did my open water certification in Lake Superior. Some divers had explored wrecks down past 200' using SCUBA. The way they did it was they planned everything out, cached extra tanks at decompression stops on the way up the line to their support vessel, specified what (very limited) tasks each diver would do while on the wreck, rehearsed the crap out of it, and looked out for each other. Even then...one of the guys' job was to secure an anchor line. When it was time to go back up, he was missing. They went to check on him and he was right where he was supposed to be, tying a huge knot at the bottom of the line. He'd gotten loopy from the nitrogen. So yeah, there's no way I'm going 2 miles underwater in an untethered submarine built by Some Rich Guy From Washington State.
In local news, a woman just...the jury declined to indict her on manslaughter charges for shooting and killing an employee at a veterinary clinic. There was apparently a dispute about the bill for her dog. The local news ran a portion of the security footage and the employee, a young guy punched her. No audio, so I don't know what was being said, but he clearly threw the first punch and then squared off and started bobbing and weaving and throwing feints like he was Glass Joe in Mike Tyson Punch-Out. At this point the woman is cornered in a narrow hallway so she pulls a pistol out of her purse. In response, the guy...tries to grab it or slap it out of her hand, while continuing to prance around with his fists up. Eventually, he gets backed out the door and they cut the video. Apparently what happened next is, he picked up a traffic cone and tried to clobber the woman with it when she tried to leave so she shot him. And my response is "play stupid games..." Seriously. First off, you never attack a customer. If a customer attacks you and you have no other option, you fight back with the intent to kill them, but you NEVER throw the first punch. Hell, you don't even nonverbally escalate. And if you're in a fight and someone takes out a guy and all you have are your hands, you do like the Lynrd Skynrd song and get the hell out of there. They interviewed The Idiot's dad and their attorney of course and he was like "My son is dead over a dog." And I'm literally laughing and thinking "no, your son is dead because he was a stupid shithead."
You don't ever want a fair fight outside a sporting event. Sean Connery is right in "The Untouchables." In Marine doctrine, you don't want to get into a fight unless you've got 3 to 1 odds in your favor. You don't ever want to have to fire a rifle. You just want to blow the shit out of the Bad Guys with close air support and/or artillery and then come in and accept the surrender.
My parents were not big proponents of going to foreign countries. When I was little, my Dad went to a WWII reunion in Belgium. But there was no way in Hell either of them would go to Russia--not even Mexico. Ask Brittney Griner what can happen to you when you leave the US and our Constitutional protections.
If I previously seemed like someone who takes risks, this may seem like a disconnect. But I take very safe risks. I like to stack the deck in my favor as much as possible and don't like to take a risk unless there's about 3 different ways to win--or at least break even.
You understand that Social "Security" is inherently not sustainable. It is literally a Ponzi Scheme. Those are illegal for anyone but the Federal Government because they will ALWAYS fail. The Government is able to stack the deck a little bit: It doesn't have to go out and find voluntary suckers to buy into it, it can just force anyone who works for a paycheck to pay into it and take the money before they even see it. But even so, it will fail one day as people live longer and/or less people join the workforce. It would've failed already if EEEEEEEVIL Republican Ronald Reagan hadn't revamped it back in the '80s. No, of course you don't understand that. I might as well be explaining this to my dog. At least she'd be happy for the attention, even if she had no idea what I was talking about. 