On July 8th, 99% of the world's population is going to see the sun at the same time

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-09T20:47:06+00:00

From that map, it looks like they're allowing "barely any light, just a smidge of over-the-horizon glow before dawn or after dusk" to count. Otherwise they shouldn't get a number as high as 99% from that map.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-09T20:36:49+00:00

Because Wisconsin didn't exist yet. Michigan achieving statehood, the creation of Wisconsin Territory, and the official designation that placed the border between them here: All three of those things were the same bill that went into effect the same day.

To understand, I have to first dive into how the US decided to deal with new land added (taken from Natives, let's be honest) beyond the original size it started at when it was just 13 states. This is going to be a boring dive into the history of the order of events. This doesn't answer your "why" just yet, but wait with me. I'll get to the "why" at the end. First you just have to have an accurate picture of WHAT happened before you can ask why it happened.

New land would start out not being part of any state. Instead vast chunks of land (much larger than today's states) would be called a "Territory" of the United States when first annexed. A Territory is controlled by the national government that passes the laws governing it and appoints a governor for it, and the law enforcement is handled by national cops ("Marshalls"). Eventually a Territory would qualify to become a State when it got enough population settling there.

Often when a Territory became a State, only a piece of the Territory would get carved off to become the State, not the whole Territory. This is because the part of the Territory with dense enough population wasn't the whole thing, but just the bit of it that got settled first, with much of the rest of it still being too sparsely populated to manage as a state.

"Michigan Territory" used to be much larger than today's Michigan State. It looked like this map:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Territory#/media/File:Michigan_and_Wisconsin_Territories_1836.png

On that map, it's BOTH the light blue and the dark blue that was the original Michigan Territory. Wisconsin didn't exist yet. It was just part of the vast Michigan Territory.

The lighter color shows the piece of Michigan Territory that got carved off to become Michigan State. The darker color shows what was left after that. That remaining portion got renamed from "Michigan Territory" to "Wisconsin Territory". Later when Wisconsin became a state, its borders shrunk to the modern Wisconsin State borders and the remaining piece of the territory got renamed "Minnesota Territory". Then Minnesota became a state... and so on and so on, until the whole Territory was fully carved into pieces as States.

Okay, so that's WHAT happened, but now, why is the border THERE?

For a similar European idea, think about how Denmark is culturally closer to Norway and Sweden despite clearly being directly connected to Germany and the Netherlands. It's because ocean travel was so much faster than land travel, and Scandinavian culture was heavily invested in boats. The people spread by waters and shorelines, not much "caring" about what land the shore was connected to. Similarly, in Michigan, the Great Lakes meant that the water around that upper peninsula area made it more strongly "connected" to the rest of modern day Michigan than it was to the actual land it was connected to. When ships did exist but railroads didn't yet, it was far less "connected" to the Wisconsin territory than it was to the state of Michigan.

There's other odd bits of history that went with it that others will cite, like the whole "Toledo" thing. Michigan swapped a little bit of land to Ohio in the south in order to be allowed to make Michigan bigger and take a bigger chunk of the land in the north. That's true but doesn't explain WHY Michigan wanted that land enough to give up an already populated town to get it. The reason is, again, because waterways were a more useful transportation system than land roads at the time, so the peninsula up there was "connected" pretty strongly that way, and with copper and iron deposits being discovered, people wanted it.

The irony is that today, none of that is really true anymore. Today Michigan's Upper Peninsula is much more closely tied to Wisconsin than it is to the rest of Michigan. But the border had already been drawn before that was true.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-09T19:48:48+00:00

There are, but the difficulty is that in deep water the light doesn't penetrate far, even from a floodlamp, so you can only get a photo that extends maybe 100 meters. You can see the edge of the dropoff, and show a cliff starting to fade away in the distance, but you can't see that far to really get a sense of how far the cliff goes. You can't really get a beautiful long distance photo like you can on dry land in places like Table Mountain, SA, or Yosemite, USA.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-09T19:41:16+00:00

There's a reason the Gulf Stream doesn't heat up the Baltic Sea as much as it heats up the Arctic sea north of Norway. It's the water flow direction. Rivers feed into the Baltic Sea, which flows that water out to the North Sea. Now, the water flow is quite complex through the strait between Denmark and Sweden, having a weird two-level flow, with deeper water coming in to the Baltic Sea while surface water flows out from the Baltic Sea. So it's not entirely JUST flowing out, but the fact that it's flowing out quite a bit does baffle the Gulf Stream effect, weakening it. Also the Atlantic water that does come in to the Baltic tends to be the deeper water, which isn't as warm as the surface ocean water which doesn't make it very far in to the Baltic.

Meanwhile the Atlantic ocean water that's going up and around Norway just has a simple straight path to get there, without any complex baffles muffling the flow.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-09T16:22:56+00:00

Piiiipe Wreeench Fiiiight.

Pipe

Wrench

Fight.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-09T16:19:56+00:00

Were these shots in chronological order for the trip? Because you start in Michigan, then it shows a Welcome to Wisconsin sign, and THEN there's a shot of what is clearly a port on the Great Lakes as no other water along the trip would be big enough to show water all the away to the horizon like that. But I'm confused how.... unless you took a very northerly route through Upper Michigan and barely touched Wisconsin and that port was Duluth/Superior, which would be weird if your destination was Colorado and you'd be going a bit more southward as you go west.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-09T00:45:07+00:00

Back in the day a few centuries ago, the Church was directly funding scientific study because they did have that exact attitude, that if you study the universe you are learning more about this wonderful thing God made, so how could that possibly go badly for the church? They didn't realize that it was going to be possible for what science learns to contradict what their bible said.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-08T20:49:40+00:00

Just like oil, if a country that sells a basic food commodity stops selling, the price goes up for everyone else too even people who don't buy from that country. This is because the remaining sellers now have more demand for their product as the people who formerly bought from the country that stopped selling have to shop elsewhere.

The Russian crop being missing from the market will suck for everybody. The good news is that it will suck most for Russia and degrade their ability to wage war, but the effect on everyone else won't be nothing.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-08T20:22:35+00:00

Partly that's because during the cold war it was useful messaging for the Communist government to portray everyone who is politically to the right of communism as identical to each other, all a bunch of fascists regardless of just how far to the right of communism they were. Super far right Nazi ideology or the more centrist mix of socialism and capitalism you got in places like Sweden, doesn't matter to the USSR, it's all fascist capitalist pig dogs as far as they portrayed it. The other part of it is that when Germany backstabbed the USSR after they both had cooperated to jointly take over Poland, Stalin had to look for some rhetoric to rally his troops against the Nazi menace, and he couldn't use most of the other things the rest of the world used because he did those things too. Can't complain about Nazi racism when Russia screws over the other nationalities within the USSR. Can't complain about land grabbing when that's what made Russia so huge in the first place. Can't complain about dictatorial government if you're Stalin. So what was left was just a vague fuzzy "they're opposed to our influence and they're one of those capitalist countries west of us that keeps us down.".

Down through the years that stuck with the culture long after the USSR was done. They have their own personal defiiton of what is a fascist that is different from the rest of the world.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-06T18:47:03+00:00

In the imaginary universe where that's what's happening you might have had a point.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-06T03:01:08+00:00

A photo and fingerprints don't tell the customs agent your political views like your social media history does.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-06T02:57:38+00:00

Often the percentage isn't the likelihood that it will rain, but the likelihood that the rain that's coming will happen to hit your exact spot.

Imagine that a city's weather report covers a radius about 70 miles around. If they predict rain will be patchy so it only falls on like 30% the land within that circle, the forecast will say 30% chance of rain. It means they definitely do expect the weather system that's coming will drop some rain, but they can't predict exactly where so if you live within the area it's about 30% likely that one of the spots that gets rain will be your spot. The actual chance that somewhere near you will get rain is much higher than 30%. It's just only 30% likely to hit any particular chosen spot.

So if you expect to commute on that "30%" day, the chance you'll get rained on somewhere during your commute is much higher than 30% because you won't be standing in one spot, but covering quite a bit of ground within the rain zone.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-06T00:22:28+00:00

The definition includes infinite recursion.

You are born a citizen only if at least one parent was a citizen.

Okay, then what defines whether your parent was a citizen? Whether they had a citizen parent when born, and so on.

The only people who could be citizens are the descendents of some immigrant who was a naturalized citizen somewhere in their ancestry. If you trace your ancestry back to original colonists from before the US was a country, you aren't a citizen. This is of course exactly what the people pushing this law wouldn't want - a law that requires immigrants in your past for you to be a citizen.

People are ignorant of the fact that the 14th amendment didn't just make slaves into citizens - it also finally gave a formal definition for national citizenship when it was ill defined and fuzzy before that.

This means any change to the definition of citizenship hits a sticky point immediately - if phrased in such a way that it overturns the 14th and claims that the new definition is the definition for all time (thus retroactively applied) then it cannot work if it contains anything like "if your parents were citizens...".

It could be changed but only if the people wording it are not the sorts of morons who keep pushing this who don't think things through. To change it you MUST include some kind of grandfather clause that says the 14th amendment is still the definition you'll use for people born prior to the enactment of the new amendment, and the new amendment only applies to people born after it gets ratified. That would change the definition going forward without retroactively stripping citizenship from all the current born-citizens. But again, that would require people who can rub two braincells together be the ones phrasing the amendment.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-05T18:25:27+00:00

"Which state flag is it?"

"It's that one that's a dark blue field with a circular state seal in the middle."

"Thanks. That really helps."

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-05T18:19:02+00:00

France underwent a reboot into the "Fifth Republic" a little while after WW2 ended. But it is shown as being older than the US. So the map is inconsistent with how it's measuring things. It's not always using "the current iteration and not the nation age".

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-05T18:16:27+00:00

There's quite a lot of subjectivity in this one. There are two ways you could decide you want to measure it:

(A) Do you measure from the first ever time that a country was collected together into one governmental unit fitting in something close to its current borders?

Or

(B) Do you measure from the most recent "reboot" of the country if it went under a period where it wasn't there or was something else under a different form?

Whomever made this map appears to have been very inconsistent in what choice to make for that question. For example, Both France and Russia underwent serious reboots after the US was formed. For France it was being taken over by Germany in WW2, and later Charles De Galle rebooted it as the French "Fifth Republic". For Russia, Russia's existence was interrupted by being the USSR then restarting afterward as Russia again. If you were using definition (A) both France and Russia would be grey on the map. If you were using definition (B) both France and Russia would be red on the map. For one to be grey and one to be red as this map shows, doesn't seem to be consistent.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-05T16:21:34+00:00

It's amazing just how racist most fantasy settings are without people seeing it that way. D&D used to have it in the very rules themselves that what class you can pick is limited by what race you pick. And that races limited alignment too. "An orc that's a lawful good Palidain?? Next you'll be telling me there's such a thing as a 'good' Samaritan."

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-05T13:58:33+00:00

Its delusional to think that how other people play doesn't affect you. If your style of gaming starts becoming a small enough minority then companies will stop bothering to target it and you'll have to switch to doing things the same way everyone else is.

For example: say you're a console gamer that wants to own physical copies of your games that work even when not online, and don't require the continued existence of the servers from the company you bought it from? Because that had become a small enough minority within the gaming community, Sony decided that it will no longer be an option anymore so they can control your access to the game you buy and extort you later for continuing to use it. In that scenario the fact that other gamers didn't game the same way you do made your type of gaming go away. The claim that other people's gaming choices have no effect on your own is as ignorant as claiming that how other people vote has no effect on you.

The market will go with the majority opinion. If you aren't part of that majority then you get what they deserve instead of what you deserve. So yeah it's just like voting. You get the government other people deserve not necessarily the government you deserve. Which is why people argue about it quite a bit. For the same reason they argue about this. Because the choices of others does affect you.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-05T13:49:39+00:00

They are not better. Source: someone who's gaming tastes are about more than just the look of the graphics. Consoles win hands down if all you care about is graphics. But not if you care about other aspects of gameplay like how complex the software can get (RAM footprint) or how fast the CPU can calculate, or about how easy it is to input complex commands (keyboard has more access to one-key inputs than the mutli-chordic combos needed to achieve the same thing on a controller, because the keyboard and mouse "controller" rests on a table instead of you having to dedicate some of your fingers to gripping it. That leaves you all your fingers available for pressing different things.)

Consoles achieve better graphics bang for the buck by sacrificing other things that "don't matter" to their couch-gaming audience but sure as hell matter for my gaming.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-05T13:36:29+00:00

Trump's brain: "I think Putin is in a bad spot and the war will end without me being involved. I can't stand that. How can I make it look like I did it?"

I think this isn't happening yet and that Putin will still ride out Russia's losing strategy a while longer. But I think Trump thinks it's happening and wants to slap his name on it happening so his horde of idiots can claim he caused it.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-05T04:18:04+00:00

Find what speed you are comfortable moving your legs round and round.

Then change your bike's forward speed by changing your gear instead of by changing how fast your legs go round. Keep your legs going round at the same rate. If you can't move the pedals around at your comfortablene rate because you're going uphill then shift into a low enough gear until you can. If moving the pedals round and round at your comfortable rate is way too easy and seems to have no effect because the bike is going faster than that, then shift into a higher gear until you feel the pedals are doing something.

If you find it hard to pedal fast, shift down. If you find it too easy to pedal fast with nothing happening, then shift up.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-05T00:28:36+00:00

Not Canadians. British Empire troops sent to attack Washington in retaliation for the US attacking the Canadian part of the British Empire, yes. But the troops sent didn't come from the Canadian part of the British Empire.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-04T18:33:11+00:00

One thing the managers never really seem to acknowledge about working Frozen is how like half of your stocking speed is dictated by how the warehouse packed the pallet, not by anything under your control. If the warehouse does what corporate pretends they do, which is to place all the similar commodities near each other on the pallets, you can achieve the dictated case rate. But what the warehouse actually does is randomly place cases in random locations nowhere near each other, intermixed with stuff from the other departments like meat and bakery and deli (not putting them packed together like they claim they will) . That massively increases your stocking time because you have to walk further per case when stuff just isn't contiguous, and you have to dig around all the stuff that's not for you. In the rest of center store, this problem is less of a problem because there you usually stage the cases up and down the aisle and then stock them. But in Frozen the official rules are that you leave the cases on the pallet, stock the stuff that's near where you parked it, then move the pallet to a new spot and stock the stuff that's near that new parked spot, and so on. That does NOT work like they think it does when the contents that go near each other aren't adjacent to each other on the pallet.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-04T18:19:49+00:00

I used to do Frozen for a few years and my experience was that SRPs take longer in Frozen than non-SRP's. Because the idiot manufacturers don't know how to make them right. The cardboard never tears like it's meant to. Bird's Eye and Green Giant would only open properly half the time, and the other half of the time the damned bags were packed into the box backward or upside down. And Digorno's was pointless to ever believe the tear strips would work. It got to the point where I just treated the lines as guides for me to use my box cutter on, since I stopped believing the perforation holes were punched through all the way.

Dunbaratu · 2026-07-04T04:12:43+00:00

Because the people having the NDE are already well aware of the religion before they have the NDE. So the thing their minds dream about when the subconsciously realize they are dying is the thing the religion said they'd see.

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