>I've personally been acquainted with parents that didn't give a shit about their own kids.

Being a foster parent, so have I.

In fact, just being an active parent, I've seen it. When the littlebopper was young, and there were school events, you always knew which kids had parents that didn't care because they didn't show up to the school events.

And having been in family court more times than I can count, it always dumbfounded me how people showed up dressed for court. Spandex pants or dirty, torn jeans. T-shirts, often inappropriate. I mean, you're going before a judge who has the power to permanently rip your family apart, and you can't be bothered to go to the local thrift store like Goodwill or the Salvation Army and buy some presentable clothes for the cost of a pack of cigarettes and a 40 oz beer?

I always wore basically my work clothes, decent slacks and a button down shirt. Except on Adoption Day, when I wore my suit and the distaffbopper wore a nice dress.

Crud. I better start working on mine.

I just got a Splenda packet that says "Create your own sunshine". These two things are a sign I need to start working on my improvised nuclear device now.

I ended up there once. It was drafty and cold as Hell.

Honestly I prefer Buffay the Vampire Layer.

You absolutely can own them, many people do. But if you fly between 18,000 feet and 60,000 feet, you must fly under IFR rules, and be in contact with air traffic control.

Above 60,000 feet is uncontrolled airspace, however, so you're free to do what you want if you can reach those altitudes. Good luck getting an aircraft that will fly that high, however.

One of the few aircraft I know of that can operate that high is the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, and there are 15 privately owned ones in the FAA registry. Most seem to be owned by a couple of corporations, but a handful look like they are either owned individually, or perhaps through an LLC (common for very expensive aircraft).

This is true, but it's also irrelevant if you live in, say, Topeka, Kansas and Aunt Edna lives in Stevens Point, Wisconsin or Abilene, Texas.

The topography required for that kind of soaring requires both the right topography and the right weather conditions.

I mean, sure, the Perlan 2 sailplane beat the altitude record set by the U-2 spy plane. That doesn't mean the USAF is going to start using sailplanes for photoreconnaissance flights.

It's a bad film that would be relegated to the dustbin of bad movies along with Plan 9 from Outer Space and Manos: Hands of Fate if not for the fact that it's got a bunch of really good songs.

The plot is bad, the acting is bad, the jokes are bad, and the film is fairly aimless. If it wasn't for songs like Dammit, Janet, The Time Warp, Sweet Transvestite, Hot Patootie - Bless My Soul, and Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me, along with Science Fiction Double Feature, the film would well and truly suck.

And even then, it seems like most of the good songs are in the first half of the film.

​

I think the only real way to enjoy the film is to get wasted on the intoxicant of your choice, and see it in a theater with audience partici..........

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Pation.

Electric aircraft do not have the range and likely will never have the range of liquid fueled aircraft. That is, as long as we rely on batteries or some kind of capacitor technology.

That inherently limits their usefulness as a mode of transportation.

Sure, they might be fun to buzz around the field for 45 minutes or an hour, but you're not taking a battery powered Future Cessna to take the family to visit Aunt Edna for Thanksgiving, 500 miles away.

Having said that, if you are talking "electric" in the widest sense, then there might be room for aircraft powered by fuel cells. Those might have enough range, or if not, then a quick stop at an airport midway between to refuel would probably be acceptable, because it wouldn't take long to accomplish.

On the other hand, if you've got an aircraft that comfortably cruises at 88 knots in still air, and has comfortable range of 130 nautical miles, you're going to have to make 3 stops to recharge on the 435 nm trip to Aunt Edna's. Figuring a quick 45 minute recharge and 15 minutes for approach, landing, taxiing to and from the runway, etc., you're adding at a minimum around 2.5 hours to the journey.

So your 5 hour flight is now 7.5 hours long. That works out to about 67 MPH, which puts it in the reach of using a car instead.

Huh. I didn't hit it. Try opening it in an incognito tab.

It mentions that in the article I linked to. Saint Rose is in Albany, NY, so the Albany Times Union is a more local source than The Verge.

Remember this the next time you read an article about something with which you are not familiar.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you

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>Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
>
>In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

Must have been worth it to that guy.

They don't talk about a motive in the article, but he must have held some kind of a grudge against the college. That's not the kind of thing you randomly do just for a lark.

She was round at the quarter and bluff at the bow....

>how much explosive can you put in a usb stick?

Enough to maim.

The USB killer thing was done at a college in my region a few years ago. Former student went through the computer labs and killed 66 computers, then bugged out to North Carolina. He was seen and identified using the surveillance cameras, though, and arrested, convicted, and sent to prison.

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Saint-Rose-grad-gets-prison-for-using-USB-14304163.php

All I know is that I wanted to be very distant when my wife was fully dilated.

Shazbat!

Chickens mature relatively quickly.

If you have to kill your entire flock of chickens and replace them with newly hatched chicks, they'll be laying in just over 4 months time.

Plus, if people stop buying eggs because of cost, it's not like you can store them and sell them later. So prices tend to go down faster than something that can be stored, like wheat or corn.

If you want a really subtle anti-war film about a fictional conflict, check out the original Red Dawn (1984).

WTF am I saying?

Watch the entire film. The "Wolverines" suffer 80% casualties and the only two survivors do so by running away. The "bad guys" aren't one dimensional, with the singular exception of zampolit General Bratchenko.

The one character who undergoes the most personal growth in the entire film is bad guy Colonel Ernesto Bella. He goes from being proud, to being disgusted with what he's become, and finally resolves to resign and return to his wife in Cuba. In the end, he lets Matt and Jed Eckert go, saying "Vaya con Dios" ("Go with God"), a strange thing indeed for a committed Communist to say.

Plus, don't even know if the US won the war at the end. The ending narration is ambiguous about the matter:

Erica: [closing narration] I never saw the Eckert Brothers again. In time, this war - like every other war - ended. But I never forgot. And I come to this place often, when no one else does. "... In the early days of World War 3, guerillas - mostly children - placed the names of their lost upon this rock. They fought here alone and gave up their lives, so that this nation should not perish from the earth."

The USA still survives, and the area around Calumet is apparently back in US hands, but that doesn't necessarily mean the USSR and its allies were completely thrown out of US territory, the only real way you can define a "win" when you've been invaded. Calumet was only about 40 miles behind enemy lines. USSR could still occupy much of the plain states and that ending narration would still be true.

Also, that particular ending was tacked on at the insistence of the studio, who wanted a "happy ending" unlike the ambiguous one John Milius wanted. He still managed to make it ambiguous.

Math, medicine, and time travel.

One million power outages, or one million people effected by power outages?

True. But in Vermont, it's a felony punishable by 7 years in prison:

Title 13: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

Chapter 1: General Provisions

§ 5. Accessory after the fact

A person not standing in the relation of husband, wife, parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother, or sister, by consanguinity or affinity, to an offender, who, after the commission of a felony, harbors, conceals, maintains, or assists such offender with intent that he or she shall avoid or escape arrest or punishment therefor, shall be imprisoned not more than seven years or fined not more than $1,000.00, or both.

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However, she was his wife, so that doesn't apply either. If she wasn't otherwise related, the State would have 3 years to charge her before the statute of limitations ran out.

However, if they find out that she did anything to actually help him in any way prior or during the actual crime, they could charge her with the homicide:

§ 3. Accessory aiding commission of felony

A person who aids in the commission of a felony shall be punished as a principal.

Then there is no statute of limitations.

>The statute of limitations would've run out on that a long time ago.

There is no statute of limitations on murder.

https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/13/151/04501

§ 4501. Limitation of prosecutions for certain crimes

(a) Prosecutions for aggravated sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault of a child, sexual assault, sexual exploitation of a minor as defined in subsection 3258(c) of this title, human trafficking, aggravated human trafficking, murder, manslaughter*, arson causing death, and kidnapping* may be commenced at any time after the commission of the offense.

I believe that's true for every state, and also for federal murder charges.

Because human memory is fallible and gets worse as the period of time increases. Witnesses die or move away. The ones that don't can misremember things. Forensic evidence degrades, goes missing, or simply was just based on crap science to begin with.

Having said that, there is no statute of limitations on murder.

Would be better if it was “Then I ate her face”…