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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • It began in earnest in the early 1960s, when a group of scientists embarked on a mission to drill down from a floating barge, called Cuss I, to the border between the crust, the Earth’s outermost layer, and the mantle, the next and thickest layer. Project Mohole, as it was known, was recorded by the novelist and amateur oceanographer John Steinbeck in an article for Life magazine. “This is the opening move in a long-term plan of exploration of the unknown two-thirds of our planet that lies under the sea,” he wrote. “We know less about this area than we do about the moon.”

    A scientific endeavor started over 60 years ago, that has been producing real invaluable scientific data to model our changing climate, is being axed.

    The NSF attributed its decision to end its funding to rising costs and a lack of financial support from the International Ocean Discovery Program’s partners. But many see the expenditure for the ship as paltry compared with its benefits. To put it in perspective, the total NSF budget for 2023 was close to $10bn (£7.5bn); the $71m spent on the Joides is 0.7% of that.

    For the amount of discovery we’re getting from the Joides, the cost of running it seems paltry in comparison.

    A bill proposed to the House in July asked the NSF to use $60m to continue operating the vessel for at least three missions next year.

    Hopefully this passes!


  • When I was a kid I did gymnastics, and skateboarded/rollerbladed. This combination of activities meant I was falling on my ass all the god damn time.

    It also means that I am so accustomed to falling, that even as I age, those instincts survive, and in turn, help me survive. When I fall, I tuck, I roll, I break my fall with any number of instinctual responses. This has lead to me surviving some scary falls I’ve taken whilst home alone (off a ladder, in the shower, fainting once when I got up from a long squat), and I think will help me survive more in my elder years.


  • In August, the Fraternal Order of Police lodge that represents Chicago cops filed a lawsuit accusing Kersten and her top aides of leading dubious investigations and imposing unfairly harsh discipline on officers.

    Later that month, Kersten fired two high-ranking COPA officials: Deputy Chief Administrator Matthew Haynam, a former CPD staff attorney, and Garrett Schaaf, one of several supervising investigators at COPA, who worked for years as a deputy sheriff in Osceola County, Florida.

    Last month, Haynam filed a lawsuit claiming his firing was retaliation for raising alarms about COPA bias. A letter reportedly signed by 16 former or current COPA staffers said Kersten had “manipulated investigations to align with her own policy agenda” and retaliated against staffers who have complained about “bias and mismanagement.”

    This sounds like an Onion article. Cops complaining to their oversight committee that their investigations are biased and unfair.

    Like, Ok, Coppers 🤡

    “Transparency isn’t always comfortable,” Kersten added.

    I like this Andrea Kersten.










  • I don’t. I’ve since found out that it’s a trauma response. When people want me in a sexual way, I feel obligated to acquiesce. Childhood PTSD gave me a heavy freeze/fawn response, because you gotta do whatever you can to survive, and once ingrained, it never really lets go. I’ve been working on it a lot though, and think after a few years of celibacy, I may be ready to start dating again! Just gonna have to take things slow, and be ready to say “No.” But I believe in myself and that I am worthy of love! Self-Pep talk go!



  • You’re probably right about it being closer to 150, I do remember turning my head and feeling the air push my head hard, fighting to get back into the lowered, hugging-the-engine position I was in. T’was nuts. never again! Maybe if I’m on the salt flats with mad protective gear, but not on roads, not on a new-to-me bike. That was just a flash of brilliant, youthful, death defiance that I’m likely never to repeat. Might as well bounce on a trampoline under whirring helicopter blades 😅


  • Went to Sturgis for the motorcycle rally in the late aughts. Went to the Harley Dealership that was offering free test drives on all it’s latest models. The guy leading the test drive said that anyone who wanted to go fast should be right up in front behind him. I wanted to go fast, so I was second in line, right behind him, on a brand new V-Rod (I think it was the 2007 almost 1300 CC engine).

    He lead us on a dirt road parallel to the highway for a minute, going like 65 mph, which wasn’t so bad, but I peeked behind me and the cloud of dust we were trailing was impressive, I wondered how the guys behind me were even keeping sight of us! Then, he turned and got on the highway. Man he opened his up so fast, I almost lost sight of him. I gased that V-Rod so hard just to keep him in eye sight, that the segmented white lines between lanes just turned into one solid line to my vision. I checked my speedometer and swear I was around 160-180mph. That shit was unreal, passing cars going highway speed like they were standing still, on a bike I had never ridden before.

    And that’s why I won’t let myself buy a crotch rocket. Give me a 90’s model sportster that maxes out at like 90mph, because I’m scared if I have a machine that can go that fast, I may be tempted to try it again, and the idea of becoming a meat-crayon isn’t something I aspire to.

    My Dad is a doctor who would bring home pictures of gnarly cases he worked on, and every single one of them would be motorcycle accidents. Doesn’t stop him from riding one, and with a fake-DOT helmet (if one at all), but it sure stopped me from ever wanting to emulate those speed-demons that go over 100 weaving through traffic and shit. Those people are insane to me.



  • When I’m deciding on a show to watch, I am far more likely to choose a show that has 3 seasons or more, because, like, why get invested in characters and their arcs, just to have them disappear before they complete their journey? Netflix is so short sighted with this. There’s so much to watch these days, you don’t have to re-watch anything, you can find original, quality shows to watch endlessly. And with that in mind, it means that while we may not pay attention to a show that just came out, that doesn’t mean I won’t revisit that same show after a few years and a few more seasons.

    If a show is good enough to make, and you believe in it, then let your creators make more.

    Shows these days don’t need to be watched immediately to have an impact, and it’s in the later years of a show, when you hold the streaming rights, that it brings in money. It’s not even that their counting their chickens before they hatch, it’s like they’re counting their chickens, before the hen has even finished laying the eggs, and preemptively slaughtering the hen because it didn’t lay enough eggs quick enough. Putting bean-counters, propped up by AI-fueled investment calculators, in charge of programming will only ever result in continued disappointment. To their bottom-line and to the art produced.


  • Nice to know that he at least can acknowledge reality?

    But behind it is a state dept that is ignoring it’s own studies rank indictment of isreals murderous actions in order to keep feeding the beast. Maybe it’s some far-flung plan to give isreal and netenyahoo all the rope they need to hang themselves, becoming global outcasts, which would then force them into accepting a two-state solution… Or the problem is a lot simpler.

    The records and interviews also show that the pressure to keep the arms pipeline moving also comes from the U.S. military contractors who make the weapons. Lobbyists for those companies have routinely pressed lawmakers and State Department officials behind the scenes to approve shipments both to Israel and other controversial allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia. When one company executive pushed his former subordinate at the department for a valuable sale, the government official reminded him that strategizing over the deal might violate federal lobbying laws, emails show.

    Weapons sales are a pillar of American foreign policy in the Middle East. Historically, the U.S. gives more money to Israel for weapons than it does to any other country. Israel spends most of those American tax dollars to buy weapons and equipment made by U.S. arms manufacturers.

    Don’t forget, while Biden and his state dept. is in charge of investigating and ensuring the proper use of these weapons, it’s congress that’s approving it. A congress that is balls-deep invested in U.S. weapons manufacturers.

    For Israel and NATO allies, if the sale is worth at least $100 million for weapons or $25 million for equipment, Congress also gets final approval.

    The most widely held defense contractor stock among senators and representatives is Honeywell, an American company that makes sensors and guiding devices that are being used by the Israeli military in its airstrikes in Gaza. The second most commonly held defense stock by Congress is RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, the company that makes missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome, among other weapons systems. - Sludge Article