AP telling the same story. Looked like Reuters was, as well, at a quick glance. So I guess this is confirmed.

What a terrible thing.

What denomination, primarily, were you? Did you manage to get anyone out with you? (I was unable.)

Oh, hey. That whole mind expanding thing really isn’t a joke. I look back, sometimes, on who I used to be.

I know, but let me have my happy thoughts.

That does seem less than optimal, doesn’t it?

Now, forcing him to take auyahausca with a real hard ass of a shaman to confront him might have utility. Then, maybe he should have to live a life of service. Cleaning and caring for the elderly and infirm in a third world slum, some of his billions could be used to pay to have this be supervised.

That might be good.

No doubt! They are powerful medicine and should be used with guidance, especially at first.

I really like the trip guide method. An experienced person can shepard a person or small group through a trip. There is counseling before hand, maybe goals or problems to be considered during, counseling/discussion in the weeks afterwards. Screen for familial psychosis/schizoid disorders.

Medicine that should be respected, not really something to party with.

Those are true, non-addictive, psychedelics and the world would be a better place if more people were given them with a proper guide. Ketamine is significantly different and addictive.

I only made it through like one season of Handmaid’s Tale, it was too real.

Crazy. That’s effectively prohibition, and we all know what that does to black and grey markets.

I have given up on trying to fight my nicotine addiction. Vape with homemade liquid because I’m cheap and I want to know what’s in it. Smoke pipes and occasionally a cigar as I really love tobacco. May grow my own tobacco at some point just to play with it. (From the US)

Anyhow, potato vines contain useful amounts of nicotine that can be extracted and used in e-liquid. Atomizers can be easily made from nichrome wire. If you can’t get it direct, guitar strings can be a source of wire after burn off. Vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol are easy to get anywhere.

Holy shit! At that point, you could probably turn a profit growing shitty tobacco in a greenhouse and selling it black market.

US made things that are the best or in a small group of the best:

Hand tools, power tools, machine tools, alloys, plastics, clothing/footwear, hardware, firearms, whiskey, porn, movies/shows, glass/ceramics, camping/outdoor, and all sorts of luxury items.

Affordability is a different issue. There are usually options that are good enough and cheaper.

Not original to me. Totally stole it.

Novel inbound. Don’t think I’ve ever written this down.

I hadn’t heard of the big mountain lion from Florida, I’ll have to look into it. Nifty.

I have heard that the lions in Florida experienced a bad genetic bottleneck and are inbred and won’t survive long term without intervention. There has been discussion about bringing in fresh breeding stock to try and help them, don’t know if its been instituted.

I saw mine deep in the woods, about 10mi north of a place called Cougar Holler. (I heard about that holler after this.) I saw the cat in Skyline WMA in North Alabama. Was 2mi from a road, no trail, after dark, coming up the side of a holler.

On a flat spot up the side, almost to the top, I saw what looked like green headlights coming towards me. It was confusing because you couldn’t even get a four wheeler in there and it was quiet. Realized it was eyes as it got closer, we were moving towards each other. Got to about 20 yards and realized it was a giant cat. LED lamp, so color isn’t great/lot of green, but it looked like gold/tan fur and white belly. Its tail was proportionally shorter than a house cat and longer than a bobcat. End of the tail was squarish, almost tufted. Face was blocky and a little flatter than a common housecat. It was twice, maybe three times the size of a bobcat, so probably a juvenile.

The way it moved was like a snake slithering. It was up on a deadfall, and it kept sliding out of my light. It slid off the log towards me. At that point I drew my handgun and started growling and hissing. It stopped and stared at me and I kept moving towards it. It turned back the way it came and just casually slithered away. It wasn’t afraid of me, just no longer interested.

I know bobcats and house cats. This was not that.

I will never, ever, forget its eyes or the way it moved. The entire event is burned into my memory. Adrenaline was up, but I wasn’t scared, living in the moment, excited. Got the shakes when I made it back to my truck and sat down.

One of the peak experiences of my life.

Yup. Unfortunately, once released, the magic smoke is gone and cannot be replaced.

All electrical components contain magic smoke that was put into them at the time of manufacture. If that smoke is released, it doesn’t work anymore.

Some broken or malfunctioning machinery respond to incantations projected with emotion. Cuss a machine hard enough and it will start working again.

Another one I’ve personally experienced, but don’t know of any studies for: the main casting of machining equipment such as mills or lathes is a big crystal with unique properties. Each machine has different frequencies it resonates at when cutting. You can hear and feel the vibration when cutting and tune the machine/program for more efficient cutting and tool life. Sort of like taking a guitar that is out of tune and tuning it to a pleasant chord. Two identical machines will need different tunings. This tuning can change over time due to wear, temperature, humidity or maybe the phase of the moon.

Unrelated to machinery: there are mountain lions in the deep south in the deep woods. I had one check me out once. The state wildlife agency denies the modern existence of mountain lions and I didn’t believe in them until I was face to face with one. I had to growl and hiss at it to convince it that I wasn’t interesting.

I have a pi 4 server that hangs up after a few days. Tried to track down what was causing it but didn’t go to extremes. Most expedient solution was to force a reboot.

Have a cron job that reboots the pi at 3:00 AM each day. Easy work around, lazy was better.

I dug into ‘Creation Science’ for a while as a result of the cognitive dissonance. Trying to square reason and science with religion and belief in an inerrant Bible. Ultimately, I lost my religion and had an existential crisis that lasted about a year.

It was terrible. Panic attacks and circular thinking. An existential crisis is depression’s cousin. Painful, frightening, and eventually exciting. I’m free now. I got rid of the slavery that was pushed into me as a child. Still have to fight the guilt and bad thought patterns.

I was not successful in bringing any friends or family with me from before. I tried. I have regrets, but would do it again.

Mike Johnson is way scarier than Trump. He’s a true believer, total hypocrite, and smart. His ideal society would be similar to The Handmaid’s Tale and he will pursue that agenda and believe he’s righteous when they build camps and dig trenches for the bodies.

Mike Johnson scares the fuck out of me. Watch him.

Just a note on the efficacy of activist messages in FOSS.

In the Aughts, I was learning to play with microcontrollers. PIC microcontrollers were free as well as the JAL language. I ordered a hardware programmer from the Dutch guy who created JAL: Wouter van Ooijen. Probably my first purchase online. There was a statement in the license, to the effect of, the language could not be used to develop arms.

Looking back, that was a turning point for me. I was machining arms for a living and continued to do so for years. It got me to thinking about what it was that I was producing with my hands. Weapons for killing people.

I thought about it a lot. All these things I was making with blood and sweat being used to kill people. Running machines on night shift gives you time to think.

His statement was, at minimum, at least partially responsible for me changing my mind. I grew past the bad religion and far right ideology that I was taught.

I’m going to send him a thank you note.

Did you read the article? If you have a problem with the political messages he is adding to the releases, you’ve probably been brainwashed by a government or a political party. He’s not saying anything controversial, mostly just “Hey y’all, genocide bad.”