It really isn’t hard to imagine how much Lovecraftian dread pre-scientific man would have experienced when looking up at something like this.

And it’s an amazing testament to the human appreciation for beauty that we can still experience a similar sense of awe and wonder, even though we know the naturalistic explanation for the phenomenon.

someone has to cut down a tree

Especially a peanut tree! They’re already so rare that most consider them to be a plant of myth.

Maybe you’re right. But I don’t really bother to try and read too deep into the motivations of any kind of corporation. I assume they’re all primarily motivated by profit. And my point is that individuals who have the capital to buy millions of dollars of real estate are functionally no different from a corporate investor, be it a REIT or a “housing company” motivated solely by “providing service.” They’re all going to do the bare minimum as required by the market to stay competitive and government regulation.

It should be illegal for LLCs or trust funds to purchase housing of any kind.

I completely agree that LLCs, REITs, and institutional investors shouldn’t be able to buy single family homes (and maybe even duplexes), but I don’t know about “housing of any kind.”

Large, multi family units like apartment buildings serve a vital need in the affordable housing market. Private individuals who have the capital to purchase a multi million dollar apartment building aren’t any more likely to be a conscientious landlord than a corporation. At that point, it all boils down to effective enforcement of tenant rights laws.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/business/bill-melinda-gates-divorce-epstein.html

That WHO study is highly problematic. It has some fairly serious methodological flaws. It’s been disputed by the FDA. It is biased due to the panel comprising:

eight WHO panelists involved with assessing safe levels of aspartame consumption who are beverage industry consultants who currently or previously worked with the alleged Coke front group, International Life Sciences Institute (Ilsi).

Source

How would this work though? You’re not ordering your food via the QR code link, you’re telling the waitstaff. Unless they ask you what price your saw, how are they going to correlate their variable price to a particular customer?

However, this would make it a lot easier to implement “peak pricing”. Their menu could automatically update based on time of day, or day of week, and certainly holidays.

Personally, I find all the other eschatological possibilities much more disturbing. The heaven/hell dichotomy is unnerving on a lot of obvious levels. Reincarnation seems fraught with neverending suffering. And the idea of becoming a “ghost” or a spirit, forever consigned to haunt some old place is as terrible as it is ridiculous.

I’m looking forward to my hard earned non-existence, thank you very much.

some functionality will be restricted without a paid license

I think that’s why. But maybe I’m just overly cynical.

This is a minor quibble, but I’ve never been charged a fee for an extra plate. They usually only charge when you request to “split the order”, meaning the kitchen splits the entree onto two plates for you.

Not on a “per calorie” basis they aren’t. And I’m not really sure by what other metric you can compare them. But look at how many calories of broccoli $3 gets you compared to potato chips. Then you have to add in the time of preparation.

Additionally, many impoverished people tend to live in “food deserts”, areas without grocery stores, but many fast Food locations.

The deck is definitely stacked against the impoverished.

Just because a slur appears with a definition in a dictionary, does not make it acceptable. And maybe it was acceptable at one time, but things change.

Do not try and bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth… there is no spoon. Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Because the major export product of the United States is American culture. UFO/alien abduction/government cover-ups are kinda baked into American popular culture at this point. Just the idea that the government is simultaneously incompetent yet able to successfully hide far reaching evidence of alien visitation is as American as baseball and apple pie.

I’ve no doubt people are looking up at the night sky all over the world and seeing things that they think are possibly alien craft. I’ve also no doubt that there are stories and folklore about abductions in every country on earth. But American culture is insidious and infects just about everything. This forces every other event to be reframed in reference to the American UFO phenomenon.

Considering the numerous comments I’ve read in the last few days saying something along the lines of, “What!? Cargo shorts are out of style? I’m never giving up my cargo pockets!”

I’m guessing that currently there isn’t a lot of overlap between those two communities. But I’m hopeful that a MFA and a Frugal MFA take root here soon!

There have been three accidents related to nuclear power generation, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukashima. There were a total of 33 deaths attributed to those three incidents (32 from Chernobyl and 1 from Fukashima.)

There are 58 deaths per terawatt-hour attributed to coal alone, mostly due to air pollution.

I’d say that nuclear power is very close to completely harmless in comparison. Certainly in contrast to its perception among the general public.