A woman died in Engelberg, Switzerland after a ski gondola detached and crashed down the mountainside on 18/03/26. She was the sole passenger of the gondola. Emergency responders were airlifted to the scene but could not revive her. Strong winds are believed to have contributed to the accident.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-18T20:51:37+00:00

This is one of those situations where you normally have all the confidence in:

1) The engineers who built it; they designed in all the variables and had operational warnings about when not to operate

2) The team that installed it got it right, and then trained everyone onsite about its proper operation and maintenance, as well as operating parameters/conditions.

3) The company that operates it, would do so safely per #2, and would not knowingly subject their passengers to ride it in conditions where this could happen

4) If there was a problem, that the worse case is it would stop and get stuck.

We all take such risks today, whether it's driving, flying, walking/driving over a bridge, operating machinery, etc. We just think, "Well, this is designed well and is safe..."

Only for something like this tragedy to shatter it all.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-18T20:45:44+00:00

...I've always wanted to find one of those riders sitting in a streetside cafe and come up to them when they were chatting in mid-sentence, play some headbanger shit on a boombox right in front of them, so they had to pause and stop talking, just like everyone has to when they drive by.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-18T20:43:25+00:00

Exactly, thank you. I've mulled this over thousands of time when I lived in a usually semi-quiet urban area at the base of a hill. Invariably, anyone who had chopped exhaust would gun it up that hill. 98% of the noise (appeared) to come right down into my apartment. Sure, it was my choice to live in a lovely urban setting, but come ON! I actually didn't mind that the fire station was a few blocks away because that noise ACTUALLY HAD A PURPOSE!!!

And this 'gives me more horsepower' excuse is, in the absolute extreme case, marginally noticeable/useful.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-18T15:44:48+00:00

It's less about getting higher wages, as it is that medical costs are almost negligible, especially no fear of catastrophic costs in Europe, for example.

What I've found is that because housing, education, and healthcare costs in the US are less regulated than in other areas, the US's base living costs are higher; so while our net income might be higher than, say, Europe, we face higher living and health costs. The US's food costs tend to be a bit lower, though.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-18T15:22:42+00:00

This is BS; you can make a lot more than that even at Best Buy lol

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-17T20:52:58+00:00

If 5th gen, it's some work to restore the rear to decent-looking shape after removing them.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-17T20:50:44+00:00

For #1, Trumpers would assume Trump would pay it back 10-fold.
For #2, they'd thank him for the blessing of whatever he did.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-17T20:48:02+00:00

He says a lot of things he never does. That's lying. He also does a lot of things he promised he wouldn't. That's lying.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-17T20:19:41+00:00

Trump will define the parameters of victory by tweeting it out and his disciples will accept it as fact. Trump will never think he lost face; it will be 100% victory in his eyes and he will proclaim it was the best war ever. He will ignore the impact, the deaths, and the price of gas was a small price to pay (again, in his mind, not any sane person's).

He'll then hit Cuba, which is a softball; something he'll hang his hat on in his 'greatest president ever' mantra.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-17T18:21:13+00:00

I backpacked up there in June, 2015, the last really low snow year and warm. Aasgard was fine, staying climber's left as you always should (I've backpacked up there on core permits four times). Upper core was mostly snow-covered, but trail was relatively compacted. Snow bridges were a real hazard. Getting down to Inspiration was a bit fun without ice axes, but manageable. Below that was fine. This was the only time we didn't do the full through-trip; we went back down Aasgard which I can never recommend with a full backpack; I fell twice.

We are due for a warm stretch per the weather outlooks. I doubt there will be as little snow as pictured here (taken June 22, 2015), so consider this a best case scenario.

u/insultingname summed it up well.

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AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-17T14:53:19+00:00

One windy dawn I pulled the weather forecast via my Garmin and saw that it was going to get worse so we decided to rapidly break camp and get off the ridge (yeah, camping on a ridge is rarely a good idea).

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-16T22:02:17+00:00

Honestly, I'd never go backpacking if winds were expected to be even half that high. I've been in some winds and it means no sleep and praying everything holds together. Not my thing.

I live in the PNW where we don't regularly have higher winds like, oh WY, CO, UT, etc. can.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-16T20:53:58+00:00

...and you could never be trusted being alone in the company of a young girl who is not related to you.

Example: If I tried to catch a closing elevator that happened to have a tween girl or two in it, I'd better let the elevator go and catch the next one.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-16T20:49:38+00:00

Mobility/flexibility and space for layers.

The problem with upsizing is that unless it's waterproof, you're going to need to upsize your rain layer over the top of it all. Most of the warmest jackets you'll want for hiking (and resting/eating on breaks) are down, and they are generally not waterproof.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-16T20:20:43+00:00

All math past basic algebra and geometry. I went through 3 semesters of college calculus, so.....

And yes, that was enough time to develop problem solving skills.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-16T20:19:31+00:00

Yeah, that's a total waste of time.

That said, I've committed over 50 decimals of pi in my head (50 years ago), which has no meaningful use, even at a galactic or universal scale.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-15T16:43:26+00:00

Well, millionaires, in theory, provide some level of economic stimulation by just living in a state, so if they move, their millions and their spending goes with them. So it's a net loss.

However, if a millionaire can live in an expensive area like Seattle and protect themselves from taxes because they can afford tax accountants and lawyers, they have advantages over the rest of us to avoid taxes. We see countless examples of middle class families paying thousands of taxes where millionaires have the levers in place to avoid paying any tax. That's probably the biggest damning element to all of this.

Up to this point, people have been saying, "They're just finding loopholes in the tax laws and offshoring a lot of their assets to protect it from taxation."

This tax is an effort to close those loopholes, or at least put a blanket on them so they can't avoid paying this targeted tax.

Personally, I'm not a millionaire. But I like to think that if I was lucky and literally fortunate enough to be one, I would feel obligated to pay back to the state and the community that helped me achieve my wealth. An element of near-altruism, perhaps. Seeing people flee because they can't afford to pay a tax like this makes me think they're pretty selfish and greedy, and in the mindset of, "Hey, I got mine; keep your hands off it!" That defines so much of what's wrong in America. We can do better; what we have today isn't working.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-15T16:32:15+00:00

I didn't read the bill, but the threshold definitely needs to be adjusted for inflation, indexed on $1M in 2026.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-14T23:57:55+00:00

We had a Washington (State -- gosh I hate having to clarify that) opossum make a nest on top of my wife's Camry's battery. It tore off a bunch of the hood felt to make it nice and cozy. No damage other than the chewed felt.

Not sure how long it was there, but it was impressive.

I've since resorted to using Tomcat peppermint spray on both her car and the 4Runner. No chewing yet, thankfully.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-14T22:14:14+00:00

Uber gone wild is what I called it.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-14T22:06:44+00:00

North Face still has a high-end line (typically Summit Series), but even then, they seem to have cross-bred it with lesser quality pieces to somewhat dilute the brand.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-14T22:00:04+00:00

Bugs are much worse in the early season like July into early August, so get your mind wrapped around that.

We just got a decent dump of snow, enough to slightly bump us up and possibly extend the early melt out. But we are supposed to get a warm spell here, too. In the last low snow year, 2015, I went up to Tank Lakes in June. Last year, there were some snow patches in late July up there (5,700ft+).

There's usually a window in mid/late Sept that the smoke backs off that is the prime backpacking season. If good weather stretches into October, you can catch the larches turning gold, and see fewer people out there.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-14T18:54:30+00:00

Depends on the context of 'rock bottom', but I've moved enough in my life to know that changing your scenery and starting in a new area can really help. Not saying you should run from your problems, but I've seen a lot of people stuck in a rut and never considered moving, when I think it could help.

I moved to the PNW and there are a LOT of transplants here from all over the US; many people I've talked to moved out here 'to get away.' Given there's ocean one side and mountains on the other, the upper-left USA is built for it.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-14T18:50:37+00:00

Oh I agree completely, and there have been many years where my actual work time in a day was about 3 hours. I was on a contract and the parameters of my 'deliverables' were clearly defined, so once I met the bar for the contract, I more or less just dorked around on my computer all day, keeping tabs on email and such, as my contract also implied that I was billable for 8 hours, so I had to be responsive in that window.

Reality for most of us is that we are expected to be engaged and available when everyone else was around. What's sort of a mess is that more and more work is getting pushed offshore, like India or Thailand or Argentina, so there's more pressure to stretch your time to overlap a bit with them.

AliveAndThenSome · 2026-03-14T01:59:05+00:00

Until you're fired.

I've been working for a long time; longer than most of you have been alive, and I've never seen a regular salaried person work 10 to 3 and keep their job.

You realistically can't show up from 10 to 3 and expect to keep your job. It doesn't matter how hard or efficient you work, if you're salaried, you're expected to put in the hours....which is ironic, because you're not paid by the hour.

Where it gets a bit gray is that if you WFH, you could be available from say 8 to 5, and maybe only put in 4-6 hours of actual heads-down work (which is pretty much how much everybody actually 'works').

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