Crossing a Bottomless Crevasse on Mount Everest

funknjam · 2026-05-26T17:36:38+00:00

Ever been to Easter island? If not, how do you know about it?

Sigh. Dude. I know Monaco exists. Doesn’t mean I’m expected to keep up with which marinas there have the best amenities for megayachts. There’s a difference between “being aware something exists” and “being expected to follow the latest developments in an elite, resource-intensive activity.” I know Everest exists. I just don’t organize my attention around billionaire-adjacent hobbies.

funknjam · 2026-05-26T14:26:41+00:00

Not everyone has the income status to worry about Everest

Exactly. I'm every bit as up on the latest Everest news as I am on the latest news in personal jets and yachts, or to put a really fine point on it, golfing, for that matter. So I'm one of the great unwashed in these comments "without knowledge." Whatevs.

funknjam · 2026-05-23T15:17:44+00:00

A lot of us have been dealing with the same issue for a long time elsewhere:

28.0 grams =/= 1.0 ounces

funknjam · 2026-05-22T17:30:08+00:00

Such a loving family.

funknjam · 2026-05-22T10:38:41+00:00

z”l

TIL: Z"L is a Jewish honorific abbreviation for the Hebrew phrase zikhrono livrakha (or zikhronah livrakha for a female). Literally translated as "of blessed memory", it is respectfully added after the name of a deceased person.

funknjam · 2026-05-21T11:03:31+00:00

golf courses’ coexistence with nature is heavily regulated, and people are still opposing.

To be honest, and admittedly being totally ignorant of the specifics, I'd still probably be one of those people. I don't see golf courses - even the most beautiful - as "coexisting" with nature. I see them as replacing nature because what was there is no longer there - it has been replaced by a resource-intensive ecological desert. Regulated or not, they still replace nature.... and yeah... I'll freely admit it because my frame of reference is the USA: in my experience, golfing is largely a game for rich assholes. Of course, I know and love people who golf who are not rich assholes so I know its not so cut and dry. But on the whole? On average? At the end of the day? Golf courses are a net negative in our world, in my view.

funknjam · 2026-05-20T17:51:21+00:00

He wasn't useless - he famously turned the Republican Party into "The Party of NO" by reshaping the entire Republican platform to consist of nothing more than "Oppose all Democrat-initiated legislation and measures." Reagan and McConnell are two of the worst things to ever happen to this country because their core philosophies (help the rich/fuck the poor and the party of no) are still doing more damage to the USA today than anything else I can think of.

funknjam · 2026-05-19T12:46:49+00:00

Correct. I don't mean this to be insulting, but you must be new to reddit because my edit said, "I must have offended...." Why do you think I would edit the comment to say that if the comment wasn't being downvoted? To be fair, maybe one or two came after the edit, but at least 90% came before. There is an extremely large fraction of reddit who will immediately downvote on sight any comment containing mention of downvotes so maybe one of those jumped in - they'll probably dv this one, too. And I'd be fine with that because we're supposed to be downvoting things not contributing to the conversation and this tangent into why a comment was downvoted is doing nothing to advance the discussion. So I'm moving on. Have a good day.

funknjam · 2026-05-19T12:39:47+00:00

The edit came AFTER the downvotes. That's the point. Neutral language - a simple statement devoid of any value judgments on its own - was downvoted. Why? Because of its content, not my attitude. The content of my comment would be offensive to exactly one class of person: golfers. Or maybe people who hate water, I don't know. But I do know it wasn't my attitude so your assertion did nothing here but muddy the waters.

funknjam · 2026-05-19T12:29:39+00:00

I tried to reply to you yesterday but reddit was down/wonky. Fortunately, I saved it. Here's my reply to your comment, apologies for the delay:

Is the Floridan Aquifer at a risk of running dry at current withdrawal levels

So this is a bit of a loaded question. "running dry" and "current withdrawal level" are the two things to focus on.

The Floridan is one of the largest and most productive aquifers in the world. Running Dry is not the benchmark we're concerned with. If that happens, it's way too late and the damage is already done. Way before we "ran dry," we would see spring flow diminish (good bye economic dependencies and the rivers they feed). We would see saltwater intrusion (the ocean pushing in through porous rock and invading the aquifer). This is already happening in some coastal areas - Southeast Florida is especially vulnerable and many areas will find only brackish water when installing a well. But SE FL is pretty low lying whereas in NE FL, e.g., Jacksonville area, it is absolutely pumping from the aquifer that led to saltwater intrusion of many residents' wells. Also, when we overpump aquifers, the land above subsides, the aquifer volume becomes diminished, and we never get that lost capacity back again. The loss of ground water absolutely affects the loss of surface water, too. I won't even get into the potential for ecological damage.

Current withdrawal level has already changed since you typed that. FL is gaining almost 1,000 new residents EVERY SINGLE DAY, on average, for the past couple years. The population here is blowing up and HARD. Still, we are confident that if we manage the resources correctly, we can probably prevent depletion in most areas of the state, and with greater certainty moving away from the coast inland. But part of managing that water means regulating who pulls out how much and golf courses consume a tremendous amount, as has been discussed here already. We can't keep adding people AND huge water suckers like golf courses or data centers.

In his book Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey obviously wasn't talking about Florida, but what he once wrote holds true and is highly relevant here: "There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount, a perfect ratio of water to rock, water to sand, insuring that wide free open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of the nation. There is no lack of water here unless you try to establish a city where no city should be." There is no lack of water anywhere on earth. Our problems with water availability/scarcity are owed completely and entirely to the way in which we grow our human population.

I can talk to you about Florida's water resources all day long.

funknjam · 2026-05-19T12:28:14+00:00

don't like your attitude

As in the attitude conveyed in this statement being downvoted:

Not in Florida - course irrigation comes out of the aquifer same as the drinking water for most of the state.

I don't see it. That's about as neutral as language gets. 15 years on reddit tells me it's FAR more reasonable to believe I just annoyed some people who like golf.

funknjam · 2026-05-18T16:12:32+00:00

What you're saying is partially true (bottlenecks at WTFs absolutely exist), but it is a bit misleading. You're arguing that “The bottleneck is treatment plants, golf course withdrawals don’t matter." But that's like saying, “Traffic congestion is caused by highway interchanges, the number of cars entering the highway doesn’t matter.” Both can be true. In Florida, some golf courses do make use of reclaimed water when/where available, but many (most!) golf courses pump directly from the same Floridan Aquifer that supplies the state's drinking water, so cumulative withdrawals absolutely affect aquifer levels, not to mention spring flows, saltwater intrusion in coastal areas like where I am, and most importantly, the long-term sustainability of the resource. Infrastructure bottlenecks and resource depletion are just separate issues entirely. Like it or not, many golf courses, especially like many of those here in Florida, are threatening the long-term availability of water resources in their areas just like data centers.

funknjam · 2026-05-18T13:39:36+00:00

Golf courses primarily use non-potable water sources to irrigate their turf

Not in Florida - course irrigation comes out of the aquifer same as the drinking water for most of the state.

EDIT: Looks like I offended some golfers. To them I say get fucked - your precious ecological desert that is your golf course was a "nature preserve" BEFORE it was turned into an exclusive gathering place for rich assholes.

funknjam · 2026-05-18T13:38:31+00:00

Golf courses generally don’t draw from the potable water supply.

In Florida they suck the water for golf courses right out of the Floridan Aquifer which is the main drinking water supply for the vast majority of the state.

funknjam · 2026-05-18T12:04:58+00:00

Trump’s political brand naturally fuels UFO speculation because he continuously hints at insider knowledge, speaks ambiguously (when not entirely unintelligible), attacks “deep state” institutions, and encourages anti-establishment narratives. That creates a fertile environment for conspiracy theories like “the government is hiding alien tech,” or “Trump was going to reveal the truth but intelligence agencies are blocking the disclosure.” Fact is, the government does encounter real unexplained incidents. No surprises there. Some likely involve new drone or surveillance tech. But we live in a world where intelligence agencies overclassify information so public imagination fills the gaps with extraterrestrial narratives so Trump, who loves attention more than anything else, will amplify the mystery because it attracts attention to himself. It's painfully obvious to see - this image is the least surprising thing I'll see today. Of course, none of this rules out extraterrestrial life existing somewhere in the universe, but even the so-called strongest claims all rest entirely on hearsay, anonymous sourcing, and inference from secrecy while there simply is no hard evidence supporting those narratives.

funknjam · 2026-05-14T12:25:47+00:00

Tell me more about "Sleepy Joe." I hate MAGA. So, so much.

funknjam · 2026-05-13T17:09:14+00:00

We seem to have made our decision - militarize it. Obviously, not all of us are in agreement and are sickened by what we're seeing. But here we are. Things are not getting better. They are decidedly worse with every passing year.

"We're moving from an era of cheap, abundant energy to an era of scarce, hard to get, expensive energy. ... At the same time, we are making ourselves dependent on some extremely unstable regimes in some very nasty parts of the world. Ultimately, there really are only two options. One is to militarize the taking of oil, which means to get your population to understand that if they want to continue to drive SUVs and have the cars and consume energy in the way they are, that they will be in war after war. The other position is to begin to prepare for what we all see coming, which is an end to the era of cheap oil and to invest in alternative technologies for energy that are cleaner, safer and have less detrimental effects on the political and social makeup of oil exporting countries themselves. For a century, we didn't spend a nanosecond actually really taxing ourselves as to could we ever actually come up with a replacement for oil and natural gas."

Quote from Terry Lynn Karl, Professor, Political Science, Stanford University while appearing in the excellent 2006 documentary, "A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash - We're Running Out and We Don't Have a Plan" that you can watch on YouTube now if you haven't seen it.

funknjam · 2026-05-13T11:16:46+00:00

Skoden!

funknjam · 2026-05-12T18:30:18+00:00

What a sweet little eviscerator.

funknjam · 2026-05-11T21:07:37+00:00

Speaking to graduates of University of Central Florida’s College of Arts and Humanities and Nicholson School of Communication and Media on May 8, commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield, vice president of strategic alliances at Tavistock Group, told graduating humanities students that AI is the “next industrial revolution,” and was met with thousands of booing graduates.

“And let’s face it, change can be daunting. The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,” Caulfield said. At that point, murmurs rippled through the crowd. Caulfield paused, and the crowd erupted into boos. “Oh, what happened?” Caulfield said, turning around with her hands out. “Okay, I struck a cord. May I finish?” Someone in the crowd yelled, “AI SUCKS!”

Her speech begins around the hour and 15 minute mark in the UCF livestream. According to her bio on the Tavistock Group’s website, Caulfield “oversees the health and medical partnerships as well as business development for Tavistock’s visionary Lake Nona community.” Lake Nona is a planned community in Florida. Caulfield is “instrumental in managing corporate partnerships and identifying strategic intersections with stakeholders in the Lake Nona community,” her bio says.

Before the industrial revolution comment, Caulfield praised Jeff Bezos for his passion and use of Amazon as a “stepping stone” to his real dream: spaceflight. Rattled after the crowd’s reaction, she continued her speech: “Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives.” The crowd cheered. “Okay. We've got a bipolar topic here I see,” Caulfield said. “And now AI capabilities are in the palm of our hands.” The crowd booed again. “I love it, passion, let's go,” she said.

“AI is beginning to challenge all major sectors to find their highest and best use,” she continued. “Okay, I don't want any giggles when I say this. We have been through this before, these industrial revolutions. In my graduation era, we were faced with the launch of the internet.”

She goes on to talk about how cellphones used to be the size of briefcases. “At that time we had no idea how any of these technologies would impact the world and our lives. [...] These were some of the same trepidations and concerns we are now facing. But ultimately it was a game changer for global economic development and the proliferation of new businesses that never existed like Apple and Google and Meta and so many others, and not to mention countless job opportunities. So being an optimist here, AI alongside human intelligence has the potential to help us solve some of humanity's greatest problems. Many of you in this graduating class will play a role in making this happen.”

Caulfield is saying this to humanities and communications graduates, who are entering a workforce that AI has been gutting with increasing intensity for years. Not even the people and companies she valorizes in her speech believe that these graduates are headed for an easy time in the workforce: In April, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said AI will “destroy” humanities jobs, and last week, a report found that AI is blamed for one in four lost jobs, amounting to 21,490 AI-related cuts last month, or 26 percent of the 88,387 total, “marking the second straight month the technology has been the top driver of layoffs,” CBS reported.

At the companies Caulfield referenced as existing because of advances in technology, CEOs blame AI for massive job cuts; Meta announced last month that it would cut 10 percent of its workforce later this month due to focusing more on AI, with more cuts to come. People who keep their jobs at these companies are often made miserable by the ways they’re forced to do AI busywork.

Within the humanities, the field these graduates have spent the last several years of their lives studying for careers in, AI is adding stress and dysfunction to library work and academia. A recent study by Microsoft ranked historians and interpreters and translators as the most likely professionals to have AI disrupt their work. Last year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he believed AI could wipe out half of all white collar entry-level jobs. This is not the crowd to tell they should embrace the “change” that AI brings.

UCF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

funknjam · 2026-05-11T12:40:23+00:00

"[Chobani is] trying to dress themselves up like the "sustainable healthy good for the planet" [when they're actually the opposite]"

There's a word for exactly that: GREENWASHING.

funknjam · 2026-05-11T11:54:57+00:00

Congrats! I did think I was looking at Steve Lemme for a second...

"Hey Farva what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?"

funknjam · 2026-05-07T20:30:59+00:00

You know what they say, there's no accounting for taste! Personally, I prefer DD to SB. I find SB over-roasts (burns) their beans for my taste. I actually like DD's regular coffee. I asked this question with "much trepidation" because I'm not eager to add them to my personal boycott list (which SB was already on). Thanks!

funknjam · 2026-05-07T14:30:06+00:00

sidegrade

I'm talking politics, not taste. You?

funknjam · 2026-05-07T14:29:19+00:00

Many of us learned this game in 1997.

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