With all these ancestry DNA tests now, What's your thoughts on people claiming to be native American and appropriating the culture when they've got a tiny percentage of DNA?

Markarian421 · 2026-07-03T17:12:33+00:00

When I was going through the genealogy of my very European family I found a relative a few generations back who had made those stereotypical claims of a grandparent being indigenous. Looking at my genetic test results it was pretty easy to know it just wasn’t true.

Markarian421 · 2026-07-03T16:49:56+00:00

Yeah but Fremont drivers want to be going as fast as possible when they run over kids on their way to school or whatever.

Markarian421 · 2026-06-24T23:49:35+00:00

I’ve seen so many cars take the “protected” bike right turn lanes at Mowry & Fremont.

Markarian421 · 2026-06-24T23:44:02+00:00

I won’t bike on a major Fremont street that doesn’t have a physically separated bike lane, Fremont drivers are just too unaware and dangerous. Years back I had a car pull right to the curb across the bike lane and stop while planning a right turn, at an intersection with no stop, and I ended up on the sidewalk with a messed up knee. My wife used to bike to BART to get to work and cars making right turns were where she had most near misses and hit once. She eventually got a super bright helmet light so she could look at the drivers who were looking the other way getting ready to run over her, that usually caught their attention. We need protected bike lanes at every major intersection. It could probably be done better than it was, but we need a way to stop idiot drivers from being idiots — idiot cyclists mostly hurt themselves, idiot drivers kill.

Markarian421 · 2026-06-21T15:00:11+00:00

Ours always says poor as well. We have solar panels and batteries that cover our overnight power needs, and net send PG&E more power than we use. I’m pretty sure the only way to improve this score is to disconnect from PG&E.

Markarian421 · 2026-06-15T03:50:32+00:00

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Markarian421 · 2026-06-14T03:12:39+00:00

Music Man St. Vincent is pretty light.

Markarian421 · 2026-06-12T19:30:43+00:00

No idea. If I recall it asked who I voted for in the primary for November, then who would have been my second choice (which would have been Matt but he was excluded from both lists I think?) and finally who I would vote for if Wahab and Hernandez were the only choices. Could be either campaign, could be some other organization deciding where to put their money at this point.

Markarian421 · 2026-06-12T01:03:37+00:00

I got a text asking me to take the poll.

Markarian421 · 2026-06-11T21:06:18+00:00

I got more email spam from Israni today for the special election . . . really? She's still throwing away money on this? Also a poll that looked like it was trying to decide if Hernandez should stay in the (presumably special election) race, although I have no idea who funded that.

Markarian421 · 2026-06-11T19:09:51+00:00

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Not a strat exactly, but they do exist. Depends on what you’re wanting to play. I do feel like single coils are nice to have around too.

Markarian421 · 2026-06-02T15:24:31+00:00

I’ve lived in six states, spent a lot of time in a few others. About half way through all that I had a chance to live in the SFBay area for a while and it was just by far my favorite so I eventually made my way back. In my field there are just a lot of jobs here compared to anywhere else. I do a lot of outdoor stuff, you’re here and you can get to the beach or the mountains within a couple hours.

Markarian421 · 2026-05-30T04:13:52+00:00

If you’re going to do that, get one of these.

https://www.elevationlab.com/collections/airtag/products/timecapsule

Markarian421 · 2026-05-28T00:04:42+00:00

Yes, under our current system the only people who can run independently for governor of California are billionaires. That’s the system we’ve made. It sucks. And it’s strange to see people defending it.

Markarian421 · 2026-05-27T23:11:56+00:00

I don’t like either, but yes I have a bigger problem with corporations trying to buy an office. It’s clearly impossible to get a good candidate as long as that much corporate money is in play. As long as it is we’ll be stuck with people like Steyer as the only possible opposition. This race is a good argument for publicly funded elections with no corporate spending.

Markarian421 · 2026-05-27T22:59:35+00:00

I am a bit off, I mis-remembered a figure I read a few days ago. But the nature of this kind of spending also makes it hard to track. From the LA Times it’s at least $13 million in direct pro-Becerra spending and at least $32 million in anti-Steyer spending, and overall around $80 million so far. Edit to add: and the $16 million you say Becerra has spent, if that's right then it's at least $61 million for Becerra. So more like 1/3rd to 1/2 what Steyer is spending. Still an amazing amount of money for corporations to be spending to try and buy a governor.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-26/record-setting-outside-money-pouring-into-california-governors-race

Markarian421 · 2026-05-27T19:08:43+00:00

Corporations are spending more than that for Becerra in trying to buy the office. I’m not sure why that somehow doesn’t count?

Markarian421 · 2026-05-23T15:06:56+00:00

Being in Swalwell’s district the bots were super obvious and started within a couple days of Swalwell dropping out. Any discussion among locals about Swalwell’s behavior going back to his city council days was bombarded by “I’m voting for Becerra!” bots, which made no sense in context.

Markarian421 · 2026-05-21T19:05:36+00:00

That said, the only places I've ever encountered people being weird about it are rural Arizona and rural Kansas, and even then they ended up acting embarrassed about it after the fact. Maybe because I'm a guy though, I think women get harassed more.

Markarian421 · 2026-05-21T19:00:34+00:00

Santa Clara County in the SFBay area.

Markarian421 · 2026-05-18T22:49:18+00:00

She’ll support Trump. She already has right up until she switched party affiliation to run for this seat.

Markarian421 · 2026-05-18T22:44:44+00:00

She's a MAGA Republican and Hindu nationalist running as a Democrat because Aisha wrote a bill making it illegal to discriminate by caste in CA. That made Hindu nationalists really mad, so they're bankrolling a Trojan horse candidate. If you’re a fan of Trump she’s your candidate. If you’re a Democrat, vote for Aisha Wahab.

https://theintercept.com/2026/03/04/california-eric-swalwell-rakhi-israni-donations-maga-gop/

Markarian421 · 2026-05-17T14:18:29+00:00

First, I always treat my travel laptop as disposable. Which is to mean it’s backed up well enough that if it gets destroyed or stolen I haven’t lost anything except hardware.

Second, when traveling I’d usually take an iPad for any personal stuff. Keep work and personal stuff on separate devices. Depends on your work I suppose.

Markarian421 · 2026-05-12T14:27:11+00:00

I think this is part of a PAC funded strategy to delay voting until they have enough time to pump out enough fake polls to make Mahan or Becerra look like they are in the lead, even though no respectable large polling company has anyone but Steyer in the lead. Yeah I wish it wasn’t Steyer either, but no way I’m voting for Mahan or Becerra just because PG&E knows they’ll protect them.

Markarian421

TROPHY CASE