For all of us Aeropress junkies, here’s a deep rabbit hole: https://aeroprecipe.com/. I hope y’all have as much fun as I did playing around with the recipes and results options.

I miss lawn darts, but the ban made sense. Holy hell, people were stupid with those things.

I’m actually kicking my past self for not trying it sooner it’s so good.

This right here. For most of my cooking life, I thought this salad sounded disgusting, or at best, a waste of ingredients. Oh, so many summers I missed out on this tastiness because I was stubborn. If you enjoy any of these flavors individually, do yourself a favor and give this a try. There is a lot of leeway and flexibility with the ingredients, so you can swap in different components to use what you have in the fridge.

It’s sofa king exhausting. Craft a cover letter and tweak the resume for each application. And still get crickets.

For the entirety of my engineering career (25+ years), I’ve been accustomed to getting an offer for every position to which I applied. This time around, something is way off. I’m at 78 applications, despite being a perfect fit for almost all of those applications. There have been only two responses, and those were for interviews, still in progress. The fake listings makes a lot sense, but I can’t help but feel that the problem is way larger than this article indicates.

Monterey sea lemon, Hood Canal WA USA

Ask and ye shall receive! Giant nudibranch, Sinclair Inlet, Bremerton WA USA

These nudis are very common on the docks where I moor my boat. This picture has the saturation punched up, but still fails to convey just how trippy they, and most other nudibranchs, look in person. The iridescence in the rhinophores and cerata is something that can be tricky to capture with imaging. Here is a different angle of the same species.

Oh, right! I forgot about all of the LIDAR-equipped planes in maritime communities! Those are way more economical to fly than any sUAS. /s in case that wasn’t obvious.

In case you, or anyone else, were vaguely interested in learning:

-kelp extent mapping needs to be done in repeatable fashion, specifically at low tide; we can put up an sUAS any time

-the communities most in need of monitoring absolutely cannot afford to send planes up monthly

-many of the kelp beds in the PacNW are in restricted airspace; it is much easier to get an FAA clearance to perform low-altitude surveys using sUAS

-that restricted airspace I mentioned? Some of these kelp beds are on approach paths for the airspace. Even if a plane were the preferred choice for surveying, the planes are unable to fly in the pattern we need

-(drifting a touch off your point of LIDAR-equipped planes) satellite imagery with the required resolution is prohibitively expensive

-most construction projects wouldn’t use a plane for tasks such as volumetric or area analysis

Consumer drones are quickly becoming the preferred, economical means for kelp health analysis, especially for communities that can’t afford planes or purchasing satellite imagery.

This “lonely adult” uses drones for aerial mapping and survey. This Summer’s huge project is a workflow I developed to map the extent of PacNW bull kelp forests in order to provide year-over-year health metrics. Using sUAS for this is way more automated, economical, repeatable, and granular than using airplanes and satellites, therefore within reach of those communities monitoring kelp health.

DJI hits the sweet spot of capabilities, compatibility, and cost. Skydio (go USA!) has abandoned the consumer/enthusiast market that built their business. And even before they turned their back on the consumer market, Skydio couldn’t come close to DJI’s hardware. Additionally, Skydio, in true capitalist fashion, locked capabilities away behind software licenses, capabilities that are already built into the drone.

It’s important for countries to have domestic drone manufacturing in the current conditions. But the USA’s actions here smack of protecting companies that just can’t hang.

Any other country with that free access to high quality guns would have their politicians afraid of just fucking die. Republicans act as they were invulnerable demigods.

Total anecdote, so take the following with the Internet grain of salt that it is.

I was at a dinner party in the 90s. A Columbia University law professor, by way of long, meandering conversation, asked me (paraphrasing) “Why do you think we, the general populace, are allowed to own firearms?” Uh, I’m just a rural New York bumpkin. I just want to protect my livestock and keep the deer from destroying my small plot of crops. “Sure, JayleneSlide, that’s a great general reason. But in the US, it’s for killing cops and politicians.” 0_0

So, yeah, clearly not enough politicians in proper fear of the constituency here, despite their willingness to sell us out for the tiniest pittance.

Stainless steel that gets coated is no longer stainless steel. Stainless steel requires exposure to sufficient oxygen in order to maintain the protective oxide layer.

These are rudder bolts from the same gudgeon on my sailboat. The black stuff is anoxic corrosion.

One of my ex-GFs was fond of saying “Men are good for three things: heavy lifting, outdoor cooking, and sex.” Welp, two out of three ain’t bad.

In most jurisdictions, a note could be put on the driving record. If a pattern on aggressive driving were to be established, a prosecutorial or civil suit effort would have an easier time of litigating against that driver.

In my case, yes, there was paint damage from my bike, which would be evidence.

Edit to add: this was a bit before camera phones.

Fear indeed. I went to college in a very… provincial small city. Riding my bicycle around, I was regularly harassed by insecure assholes in pickup trucks, and run off the road twice. The one time I managed to get a license plate, the police claimed that without witnesses, they couldn’t do anything. ACAB.

I added my 1911 to the strap of my messenger bag, at the top of my left shoulder, where the stainless frame would be plainly visible. I was suddenly given plenty of space on the road and even got occasional compliments when waiting at stoplights. It’s disgusting that I would be a target for bullying without my pistol, but suddenly I was an okay guy with my penis extension where douchebag drivers could see it.

So yeah, I’m living proof that non-military open carry is only for scaredy cats.

It’s interesting how most invasive species seem to be not good eating for humans.

Fully agreed! However, invasive lionfish buck this trend in tasty, tasty fashion. I daresay it’s the best tasting fish, bar none. I liken it to albacore sashimi with Kerrygold butter put together, but even better.

If one grilled cheese is a problem, have you tried cutting them in half? Diagonally only, of course.

A lot of people in the comments are lamenting their physical pains. I feel ya, y’all.

TL;DR: yoga, Pilates, McKenzie Method physical therapy.

Some background first, then a low- to zero-price solutions. My partner and I are both 52 years old. She had Stage-IVb cancer two years ago, the treatment for which left her with ongoing issues. I abused the hell out of my body starting in my early teens:

• dirt biking (crashes)
• mountain biking (crashes)
• road bicycling (been hit by cars seven times, MCL tears, cervical disc herniation)
• software engineering (sedentary, ergonomically shit offices, postural issues, cervical radiculopathy, sciatica, RSIs)
• open ocean sailor (yeah, all of it is just brutal)

Despite all of that, we are both regularly clocking PBs. She’s a competitive rower, triathlete, and mountain biker, and I’m a long distance cyclist. AND we are 90 to 99% pain-free, depending if we did our maintenance work.

Doing yoga, Pilates, and McKenzie Method physical therapy (MMPT) keeps you going at full tilt. You can start for free with yoga and Pilates, just find a zero-equipment YT channel that appeals to you. We’re partial to “Yoga with Adrienne” and “Move with Nicole.” Start slow and easy.

For the MMPT, “Bob and Brad” on YT are MMPTs. Robin McKenzie’s books are worth owning, or just check them out from the library. Memorize the exercises, and don’t stop doing them just because the pain dropped below threshold(!!!). I…uh… might have direct experience there. :D

Use or lose it, take care of the hardware and software, and all that. With a little care and maintenance, you can rock the hell out of your body for a very long time. I didn’t believe it until the first time I met a 70 year old downhill mountain biking champion. His age class starts at 55, so he was beating professional racers 15 years younger than he. He was the one who taught me about yoga, Pilates, and MMPT being the key.

If any of this blather helps even one of you just a little, it was worth the insomnia, typing-on-phone hell. :D

<Chicago pizza has entered the chat>

Scuba diver and sailor here. Above a certain size, boats have watertight bulkheads and pumps to remove water, like fire hose levels of water. May I suggest a thermal lance? Works great underwater, cuts through metal better than a drill, and can cut a slice long enough to cut past multiple bulkheads.

The rifle on the right is at least a .338 Lapua, but probably .50BMG. The former cartridge was explicitly designed to reach out 1000 meters, penetrate military body armor, and still have enough energy to make the kill. The .50BMG can reach out at least 1800 meters and still serve much of its antimateriel design intent, antipersonnel to about 3000 meters.

Those numbers would put quite a bit within range of the Statue of Liberty.

Source: I target shoot with both of these cartridges, along with .308 Winchester.