Me, from the USA:

Watched The Thing waaaay too young.

I don’t know the exact date but it was a spring day a little over 20 years ago now. I was in my early 20s and spent a lot of my free time hiking, camping, etc. At that time I was really heavily into caving, especially vertical caving where we would use ropes, harnesses, etc to explore chasms.

This particular day I was on a several day camping trip to a really popular area in a national park. In the night a big rainstorm came and everything flooded. I had been there several days with my friend and we didn’t get the memo about the storm coming and were curious why nobody else was camping there when it was usually packed that time of year.

The next morning we awoke and this campground (on the banks of a river) was halfway underwater. We soon learned that our road out was also underwater so we were trapped at the campground. We had plenty of supplies as we had been there several days with intentions to explore caves, etc.

Now from this campground there was a really popular hike through a canyon with stone arches, cool caves, waterfalls, etc that was normally packed. Since we had the place to ourselves we decided to do the hike. I should mention that this was quite dangerous as the first mile or so of the trail was now under 2+ feet of moving flood waters. We had wetsuits (for caving) and ropes so we geared up and braved the flood waters.

Dear reader it felt like such an epic adventure. I knew the landscape well from being there many times but this time was magical. There were massive waterfalls everywhere rushing through the green spring foliage. We had to use our technical rope skills to safely cross rushing white water streams but everything was so beautiful and dangerous.

I haven’t done it justice of course but it was just this perfect day where everything came together. I was young and healthy, I had my best partner with me, we had all of the right gear, the road being underwater meant we had the whole area to ourselves, and everything had been magically transformed into a waterfall adventure park for us to play.

I’m still chasing that feeling of pure joy I had that day.

I believe that it is illegal, yes (I’m not a lawyer). But that is the point. They can “buy” a bunch of cheap useless stuff from him instead of giving him money. That’s the essence of money laundering. Do something that superficially looks legitimate so that you can move a bunch of money that would otherwise be illegal.

For sure. But of course dude tried a coup on live tv and we are having trouble getting the justice system to hold him to account. So getting proof of the NFT scheme that I outlined as a hypothetical is probably going to be harder.

A lot of his value is tied up in assets that aren’t liquid (real estate). Also he is probably not worth as much as he says.

But the main reason is that these “cheap crap” things you mention are probably vehicles for money laundering from foreign actors. The best example are the NFTs he was hawking for awhile. Costs next to nothing to make and foreign states can buy a ton of them to give him money without it being easy to detect. Even if it is detected it is still legal to buy silly NFTs, right? Certainly more so than a foreign government giving a candidate bags of cash for nothing.

You talking about Tortured Poets Department? Jokes aside about recommending a popular artist as an ‘unpopular’ opinion - I actually do disagree. I’m a pretty solid Swift fan but TPD doesn’t really do anything for me. I’ve listened to the whole album a couple of times and I found the songs all kind of samey and forgettable.

If you want to introduce people to Swift, I’d vote for “All Too Well” which I think is just such a brilliant, relatable song about unrequited love.

Edit: Currently relistening to TPD and I have to admit Florida!!! is better than I remembered.

Do you have scoliosis?

The lung motion is be a problem but it is still done in some situations and the radiologist just tries their best with any motion artifacts. Since the blood vessels are so big in the chest it kind of works out, but it turns out better with contrast.

Radiologist here. 👋🏻

You are right it does not require contrast. The scan uses a special technique to reduce signal from tissue that isn’t moving so only things that are moving produce high signal and show up “bright.” Since blood is the only thing really moving in the brain - voila!

Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals — in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials — the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isn’t clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.

making a big deal about it

Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t this sub for posting minor annoyances?

Absolutely! That’s one of the many things you are agreeing to when they have you sign the little electronic pad that has no other text on it as “consent to treat you today.” I would have thought that was obvious!

/s

We’ll gladly accept and responsibly recycle the following:

Adapters & hubs

Apple® AirTag® trackers

Battery backup devices

Cable/satellite receivers

Calculators

Car & wall chargers

CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs & players

Coffee brewers (less than 40 lb.)

Computers & Mac®

Computers

Computer speakers

Connected home devices

Digital & video cameras

Digital projectors

Earbuds & AirPods®

Fax machines

Flash drives

Gaming consoles & controllers

GPS devices

Hard drives

Headphones & headsets

Keyboards & mice

Label makers

Laminators

Laptops & MacBook®

Mobile phones & iPhone®

Monitors (CRT, LED/LCD, plasma)

MP3 players & iPod®

Printers & multifunction devices

Routers & modems

Scanners

Shredders

Small servers

Smart speakers & HomePod®

Smart watches & Apple Watch®

Stereo receivers

Streaming devices & Apple TV®

Stylus pens & Apple Pencil®

Tablets, iPad® & eReaders

USB & Lightning® cables

Webcams

National Conservatives: Ok I concede that housing is not a right. Next question?