The left lane, and how no, it’s not for going as fast as you want to drive.

I used to know a woman named April, and her two daughters are May and June. (Both still under age 12.)

Back in 2020, I read op-eds from several pundits who worried that choosing Biden was a mistake, as he ran on a platform essentially of returning politics to “normal.” They worried that once he won, people would settle back into the old routines, and forget about the simmering fascist threat and do diddly about it. I remember this well, because I feared the same.

That’s pretty much what happened. Credit to the House January 6th special committee for finally forcing Merrick Garland to get off his ass and do a something about the insurrection… 2 years later. (Which made it easy to delay the trial until after the next election.) That’s about it, though. Hell, this wasn’t difficult to predict, given the way that Obama decided to “look forward” and not hold Bush administration officials accountable for their crimes.

That is to say, if Harris wins, I predict more of the same. Folks on the blue side will breathe a sigh of relief, make excuses for why they can’t act, and do their best to forget about it until the next most-important-election-in-history. We (Americans) don’t have a plan to deal with it, and they’ll instead just get angry and call you and me disingenuous, or Russian bots, for pointing it out.

That really hurt the elephant’s feelings to be always singled out, so no wonder.

Maybe it’s genetic, but also, my skin improved vastly after I stopped doing the things that harm it, primarily long, hot showers, scrubbing/exfoliating, and overuse of strong soaps. Plus, bonuses like no more oily hair, no more stinky socks, and greatly reduced pit odor. These things are backed up by good science; I just saw a WaPo article the other day with these recommendations from dermatologists. I see a lot of talk about exfoliating, and I know from experience that most people take long, hot showers, so I figure it’s worth passing that information along.

That is my answer, though. I shower in lukewarm water and a little bit of dilute Castile soap where needed, and wear wide-brimmed hats in the sun. I get compliments on my skin softness, people guess that I’m 10 years younger. Honestly, it seems to me that a good half of people’s elaborate skin-care routines are just trying to undo the damage caused by the other half. Our skin is really remarkable in taking care of itself, if you let it.

Clarke’s third law is that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I have the notion that any technology becomes uninteresting and not cool once reaches the level of magic. We are tactile and inquisitive creatures, so objects that appeal to our hands and perceptions are cool. Once we can no longer grasp the parts, literally or metaphorically, they’re no longer alluring.

Phones, cars, screens, computers, anything. Why is Amiga HAM mode fascinating to many people still, even when they’re emulating it on a 32-bit-depth screen that can concurrently play high-quality video streamed over the Internet? That’s why.

Think you’re really righteous?!

I’ve put some effort into improving my visualization since learning about aphantasia. Upon reading the prompt, I was able to imagine a colorless ball, but with shading to indicate a 3D shape, like a preview render in a CAD program. That’s progress! It didn’t have a size inherently. For the table, I could picture a white, rectangular plane hovering in a black void. If it was a normal dinner table size, then the ball was something like a softball or basketball.

And that’s it. That exhausted my ability to visualize. No person, no push, no motion. Best I can do is to see the white rectangle after the ball has rolled off of the edge.

Did anyone tell you that his daughter had recurrent health issues, and had two forms of pneumonia at the time of her death, either one of which could have caused the symptoms that the hospital thought could have indicated “shaken baby syndrome”?

No? Actually, nobody told the jury at his trial, as well. This case was a mockery of justice from the start.

Found the physics teacher.

All I got was a cracked screen.

Pulao, I’m assuming Punjab-style: Brown half a chopped onion in oil in the pressure cooker, toss in some spices from the dabba to let them get fragrant, then add basmati rice and chopped veggies. Put the cover on, get it up to pressure for a couple of minutes, then natural release. Top with a couple spoonfuls of curd (yogurt), and it’s delicious.

I saw a melanistic eastern grey squirrel this summer, which Wikipedia tells me has a prevalence of about 1 in 10,000. It was just pokin’ around my campsite when I woke up one morning. Oh! And I just remembered seeing eyeless fish and salamanders in caves.

It’s not the worst book I’ve read, but Anthem is close. I never had the urge to read Atlas Shrugged after that. The details of the evil, collectivist society are just so over-the-top, and the plot is just such obvious author-wish-fulfillment jack-off-ery. In my head canon, there’s an epilogue to the story which picks up a year later: Gaea has died in childbirth due to a breech baby, and Prometheus is crippled from a broken leg that healed badly. Hey, maybe there are benefits to society after all, y’know?

My grandmother died.

I took the Empire Builder train, then walked into Glacier National Park. But, then, the only way to get up Going-to-the-Sun Road was by shuttle bus, and we got stuck in a mile-long traffic jam on the side of a mountain. So ridiculous.

Oh boy, if you’d named just about any other cheese, this sentiment would make sense, but Colby gets its orange color from the annatto added to it. Without the annatto, it’s very similar to Monterrey Jack.

First thing that came to mind is a song by a band that I can’t even find online. I have the song as an .mp2 file. How’s that for obscure?

Here’s one that is online: Technical Jelly (Live) - Honor Among Thieves

It’s like they want OTA TV to die off.