It’s really shocking how many Philip K. Dick stories have been made into films. Off the top of my head, the ones I can remember are:

Total Recall (two versions)

Blade Runner

Screamers

A Scanner Darkly

Paycheck

Imposter

The Man in the High Castle (a streaming series, not a film)

The Minority Report

…And I’m sure that I’m missing at least some. If he hadn’t died so young, he would have been insanely wealthy from how many times his stories have been adapted into major films.

I’ll keep that in mind. I live at a high enough altitude that I’m literally in the clouds pretty often (e.g., when it’s overcast everywhere else, I’m in pea-soup fog), so cedar is one of the prime choices for anything that’s going to be outside, just to keep it from rotting.

Sadly: no attic. I need try making an attractive bat roost for them. I wonder how bats feel about cedar, since cedar is rot resistant?

If I remember correctly, Republicans in Georgia have consolidated voting locations in Atlanta–which is heavily Democratic–despite there being long line and hours of waiting in 2020. Is it intentional? 100%. In the rural parts of Georgia–and I’m pretty rural–you’re in and out in only slightly longer than it takes to read the ballot.

About 45 minutes, as I recall, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I think that was the year that marriage equality (e.g., gay marriage) was on the ballot in Michigan. (I just looked it up; it was a vote to amend the state constitution to ban civil unions and marriage equality.) That was in 2004. Since then, I don’t remember ever having to wait more than 10 minutes when voting in person.

I love seeing the bats coming out at night in the summer; I can see them in the front clearing, swooping around after moths. I’ve got a bat house, but I think that it’s been vacant for years; I need to find a better way to attract them to my home.

In the US, you would need to start off by determining that the care was below standard before you can sue for malpractice. In the case of the dentist, it sounds like the dentist did what he was capable of doing; unless there were oral surgeons that were on-call, what would you reasonable expect? In the US, that wouldn’t be an emergency, because it’s not going to kill you to wait–in pain, admittedly–for 12 hours for an oral surgeon. I suspect you’d have a hard time winning a malpractice claim under US law. (Malpractice usually has to be pretty egregious to win.)

Sure, you can sue. But my guess is that most attorneys are going to look at that, and charge you, rather than working on contingency. That means that you pay up-front, rather than them taking a percentage of winnings. That’s what usually happens when they don’t think they’ll win.

The police also broke my rights and abused me, and the supreme court sided with me.

That would be quite rare in the US. The overwhelming majority of police abuse cases are decided in favor of the police, and when they aren’t, someone is usually dead or permanently crippled. The financial payout is usually going to the survivors. Wrongful arrest? That’s usually met with a shrug. People regularly die in police custody in the US, and the police investigate and find themselves innocent.

Is it bullshit? Of course. Police should be trustworthy. Doctors should be trying to offer the highest standard of care at all time. Wealth and power shouldn’t play into any of that, and it’s despicable that it usually does. Is what Finland has still better than what the US has, and is likely to have (esp. if Trump ends up winning)? Absolutely. Would I emigrate to Finland if I had a job that was in-demand and thought there was any possibility I could learn Suomi fluently, even if it meant conscription? Absolutely, without hesitation.

I’m very surprised that you haven’t heard of Ghost of Tsushima; it has been a highly successful game.

But maybe I am mistaken? I would swear that I had to accept EA terms and conditions to play, but it’s by Sony and Sucker Punch. I dunno.

Currently I recommend bupropion and atomoxetine, but once I get an appointment with a psychiatrist, I’ll probably recommend lisdexamphetamine.

Modafanil is pretty great too.

In re: medical -

I’m uninsured because the only insurance I had available to me at the time was about $11,000 annually if anything happened where I needed insurance (that’s between the premiums, the annual deductible, and the out of pocket maximum). I have a torn rotator cuff. It was >80% torn when I got an MRI in late August. It might be fully torn now, because it doesn’t hurt very much anymore. I tore it in May of this year, and yeah, it took me a few months to be able to get an MRI, and then a few weeks for them to deliver the results (even though that should have been under a week). I need surgery. I got a quote for $16,300 and managed to pony up the cash from long term savings. Then surgery was cancelled by the clinic. I rescheduled and it was sent to a hospital instead of a clinic; the new quote was $49,000. That was three weeks ago. I have another consult next week.

It’s been about six months since I tore my rotator cuff. I should have been able to get in to see a doctor and get an MRI immediately, but I couldn’t have afforded and ER visit on top of all of the rest of this. I don’t even know if it’s repairable at this point.

Complaining about long waits, given the alternative, seems really, I dunno, privileged?

In my experience–and I’m very solidly middle aged, so take that with a double handful of salt–the young women in the deep south trend fairly centrist/liberal, while the young men trend hard right. The women that tend to be Trump supporters appear to be middle aged and older, and usually don’t have any significant college education.

Eh, I dunno, I’m currently really enjoying Ghosts of Tsushima, although strictly in off-line mode. And I enjoyed the first Jedi: Fallen Order, again, solely off-line.

Depends on the application. A dirt bike? Absolutely not; too much torque and horsepower means that you’re going to spin your wheel regularly (and this is why most dirt bikes are thumpers, too). A conventional street bike, touring, or dual sport? You can probably go a little lower, but probably not a lot for a large touring bike like a Gold Wing. A sport bike? That’s low, by at least 20bhp; 100-ish bhp is about the lowest you’ll see for a 600cc-class sport bike. I can’t say for certain what the tops competitive 1000cc supersport bikes are putting out, but it’s probably close to 200bhp. And all of that power needs to be in a very light package, because you need the maneuverability to quickly negotiate s-curves. (I live in the mountains; there are a number of s-curves near where I live. I’ve seen the aftermath of cruisers crashing because they misjudged corner speeds.)

To paraphrase Nietzsche, that which doesn’t kill you psychologically scars you and leaves you with a lifetime of therapy bills.

Hey guys, def. do not decorate your firearms with anything. No pro-cop stuff, and def. not anything like “This machine kills fascists” either. If you ever use that firearm in an ostensibly defensive manner, a DA can and will use that decoration as evidence of ‘state of mind’.

Also, Trump was in favor of seizing guns without any form of due process; he is not friendly towards the rule of law or rights in general.

According to Mormons, god is literally male, with (perfect) male genitalia. There is also a god–the-mother, who is female, and is both secret and sacred (they really don’t like talking about her), and also utterly subservient to god the father, because of course she is. According to Mormon theology, both gods were once mortal, and were raised up to godhood by their godly parents; Mormons–if they’re good enough–can go to Mormon super-heaven, where they will also become gods in their own right. Before everyone was born physically, they were born spiritually, in… More or less the same way babies are born now, except in heaven, to a heavenly mom. And there were hundreds of billions of spirit babies, so I guess that god the dad and god the mom really like sex or something? The implications start getting really, really weird, very fast. Which is part of the reason why Mormons don’t usually want to talk about stuff like this with people that aren’t Mormon.

I believe that the quote is, “As man is, so once was god. As god is, so man can become,” or something like that.

Source: was Mormon for >25 years.

Ooooo! Can I play?

Let’s say that you have a pro-genocide Republican, a pro-genocide Democrat, and an anti-genocide 3rd party candidate, but the anti-genocide candidate also wants to give all school children machine guns and grenades, and require cars to intentionally run down pedestrians?

Or or or let’s say that the anti-genocide candidate’s campaign is so bad that her own party is telling her drop out? .

Most people in the military do a basic qualification that is pretty easy to pass (23/49 targets, at ranges from 25 to 300m); these aren’t head shots, these are just on the target. Once you’ve done that, and graduated from basic, depending on your specialty, you may rarely touch a rifle. Lots of former military people think that they’re good, just because they managed a single qualification, and that they know a lot about guns, but it’s often just fudd-lore. Spec ops guys and Marines tend to be more proficient overall, because they spend more time practicing. (TBH, a lot of the spec ops are very mediocre as far as competitive shooting goes, but they have a lot of other skills that are relevant to the military, and tend to refuse to give up.) Cops are often even worse; their qualifications are at short distances, with very lenient time standards.

Bear in mind that the kill-to-bullet ratio in Afghanistan was about 1:300,000; most shooting in the modern military is suppressive, rather than directed at a specific target.

Compare that to someone that’s a USPSA B class shooter, or someone that regularly shoots PCSL 2 gun matches; they will tend to outshoot a lot of retired military, because they tend to practice, and practice on a shot timer, a lot.

Without claiming outright magic […]

…We’re still talking about zombies, right? Animated corpses that have an overwhelming need to consume human flesh, and can only be killed with overwhelming brain damage? I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of magic right there. If you’re talking about something like the cordyceps fungi–which, to infect humans, would still need some kind of magical power–you still have a very, very finite limit on how long a ‘human’ will survive (about four weeks without food, give or take), so you should be able to just wait them out, rather than needing to proactively kill them.

That zombie horde will be a lot less dangerous and easy to clean up once it’s crawling on the ground with all the speed of a toddler.

Less dangerous, yes. Not not dangerous, depending on which version of zombies you’re talking about specifically.

You haven’t shot with people that were in the military, have you? :P