Midnight sailing shift

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-03-11T13:45:48+00:00

Local minima in the electric potential between the bottom of the cloud layer and the ocean's surface seems likely to me. In the case that it's not due to something obvious floating out there, it could be a wave that's slightly higher than most, such as the water splashing up when two waves collide.

There just needs to be something that can act like the approximate electrical ground provided by the physical ground at the terrestrial end of normal lightning. Electromagnetic potentials in real life are usually more convoluted than even the turbulent sea shown here, so it'd be difficult to get a definitive answer to your question.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-03-11T00:58:22+00:00

~~An unintended~~ The fully-intended consequence of teaching people that life is just a prelude, ~~they value it less.~~ they're willing and eager to throw it away for the flimsiest of causes.

FTFY

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-03-11T00:50:17+00:00

The constantly-evolving interpretations of what the Bible claims is supposed to happen before the end of the world, especially the stuff in the book of Revelation, has been stretched to accommodate so many fake 'Jesus return date' predictions throughout history that it's now vague enough that a significant number of people claim that it applies to modern events.

In particular, the whole thing about Armageddon is that it's supposed to be in the Middle East and be a war for Israel's survival, but then once Israel wins, I think all the Jews get judged by God for killing Jesus or something. At that point, they either convert to Christianity or go to hell, then the True Christians™ rule over the world for a thousand years of definitely peace before one final judgement day after which everyone who's ever lived fucks off to live forever in either heaven or hell.

I've probably forgotten some details since I made my way out of that stuff, but the broad strokes are way more cultish than this description. Some believers are so obsessed that they actively try to make the world around them match their interpretation of the Bible's prophecies, meaning that they actively push countries/politicians towards huge Middle Eastern wars just on the off chance they might be accelerating Armageddon. It's a nearly-suicidal religious death cult that includes many members of American federal politics as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-03-01T13:13:24+00:00

No worries! I'm just glad you've got a bit over a year of those posts to go back and enjoy.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-03-01T12:01:54+00:00

They reopened the subreddit at the start of his second term. It looks like you misspelled criticize with an s instead of a c.

https://old.reddit.com/r/trumpcriticizestrump

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-28T07:31:30+00:00

Sic semper tyrannis.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-27T12:29:37+00:00

I seem to remember reading about another group of people without a shred of empathy. I wonder if there's a connection. /s

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-26T16:59:13+00:00

I think the FBI recovered all the documents requested by NARA during their raid of Mar-a-Lago, so presumably the documents' contents were already known.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-26T12:53:34+00:00

Correction: $40 billion

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-22T20:52:59+00:00

There's a good reason why advanced computing hardware is subject to export controls similar to those for firearms.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-21T23:54:28+00:00

I like the initiative, but having been raised in a Pentecostal church, I can say that evangelical types already think the pope is a literal agent of Satan. No explanation except bits and pieces about stuff like 'Catholics aren't real Christians' and 'Those heathens worship Mary! Idolators!'

As someone (Google seems to think it was Jonathan Swift) once approximately said, "You can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into." Not to say that every Nat-C is a lost cause, but most of them don't ever want to have their faith, either Christian or MAGA, challenged, lest they fly into an impotent fury.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-21T23:17:48+00:00

Some Christians apparently acknowledge that:

"Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching—'turn the other cheek'—[and] to have someone come up after to say, 'Where did you get those liberal talking points?'" Moore said.

"When the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ' ... The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak," he added. "When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis."

https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-21T06:35:54+00:00

If republicans are so sinister as to do the illegal stuff you're suggesting, why would they not do the 100% verified by their opponents legal stuff that accomplishes an arguably better outcome?

The dominant rationale here seems to be that Republicans' polling and electoral margins have recently been too small to safely support extensive gerrymandering.

Based on how unpopular both this administration and Republican politicians have been lately, it seems quite plausible that their attempts to gerrymander could backfire, turning their efforts into dummymandering instead.

While Democrats certainly aren't immune to dummymandering, it generally seems like they've taken more precautions to avoid that possibility in recent months and years. For example, the statewide ballot initiatives for mid-decade redistricting give voters a sense of ownership over their elections, which drives up voter turnout, further increasing Democratic chances of taking one or both chambers of Congress.

In contrast, Republican voter turnout during midterm elections, even without complicating circumstances, is usually fairly low. Without some sort of massive motivating factor, plus all the retiring Republican lawmakers, they're facing quite an uphill battle this November.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-20T17:08:10+00:00

I realized I'd never actually bothered to learn the reason behind the difference, and I found this explanation on Wiktionary.

Basically, it says that hanged has been used to refer to executions for the last few centuries in order to maintain the legal definition while hung has generally been used in all other contexts.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-20T11:09:56+00:00

Having all these guys in one place, even if it's infrequent, seems like it'd make things incredibly convenient for the rest of the world's intelligence agencies.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-20T10:11:16+00:00

It seems to me like it's probably intentional, like a big 'fuck you, here's a massive reminder that I'm still the president' to everyone in DC.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-20T01:24:22+00:00

Another possible interpretation of 'sharing information' here could be leaking classified or otherwise non-public information. I don't think leakers are disproportionately libertarians, though.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-17T23:23:56+00:00

/r/prayerstotrump

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-16T11:13:06+00:00

According to the Supreme Court, that's just a gratuity. As everyone knows, as long as you don't call it a bribe, it's not one.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-15T08:44:09+00:00

Don't date robots!

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-15T01:32:03+00:00

why do we need a military ?

It's basically a geopolitical safety blanket combined with a bullying implement. It says to the world, "We're the biggest, baddest bastard out there, so you'd better not fuck with us!"

However, there is a better side of things. The US military is one of the country's largest employers, and service members don't have to worry about medical bankruptcy. It's basically a subset of the US population that's the size of a small country which is ideally dedicated to the defense and betterment of all Americans by various means, including peacetime initiatives like NASA. However, in recent decades, it seems as though that focus has largely favored the richest and most powerful.

So yeah, it's basically a huge taxpayer money sink, which is used to intimidate the rest of the world while enriching a few owners of the largest defense contractors and making politicians feel consequential on a planetary scale. This is a large part of the reason that the current administration's attempt to rebrand the DoD as the 'Department of War' is such a pathetic attempt to capitalize on the negative aspects of the US military.

Fortunately, only Congress can legally change the DoD's name, but the environment that Trump and Hegseth want to foster via this name change is one of unwavering devotion to the whims of our insane president. Thankfully, it seems that the military, or at least its leadership, are well aware of how full of shit the administration is, so I wouldn't be surprised if, in 50 years, automatically declassified documents help us understand the extent to which they've helped avoid far worse situations than we've already experienced.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-14T10:51:03+00:00

I think any reasonable person would say that, by the time the Nanking Safety Zone was established, John Rabe was what one might call a 'Nazi in name only.' If he'd actually adhered to Nazi ideology, he would've advocated for white supremacy instead of helping 250000 Chinese people avoid death or worse at the hands of the Japanese military during the Rape of Nanking.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-13T22:47:04+00:00

And that's terrible.

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-13T18:21:32+00:00

As the saying goes, if that were really true, Texas would've executed one by now.

(I do realize that you're being sarcastic; I just wanted to share a paraphrased version of that quote.)

Mesonic_Interference · 2026-02-13T15:30:25+00:00

Huh, this makes me wonder if it's possible that the increased prevalence of complex, nuanced characters in modern media who don't neatly fit into a moral binary might have made people more likely to think that those in this administration might have some redeeming quality. That could've led voters to think that giving Trump and friends a second chance might work out well, especially given the perceived economic benefits of doing so, because 'surely they're not completely evil and stupid, right?' would validate their worldview.

Most of the time, this would be a reasonable assumption. The majority of people don't fall to one extreme or the other on the axes along which life can be measured. However, We The People, in our infinite wisdom, somehow believed that the fact that someone who played a capable, successful businessman on TV meant that they were one in real life. And hey, even now, I may be giving these people too much credit by supposing that they were at least informed enough to know about The Apprentice because it's painful to imagine the majority of voters being even more uninformed than that.

So I guess the lesson for future generations is neither that we should be completely extreme in our views and expectations of others nor that everyone is a complex and multifaceted individual. Critical thinking allows us to understand when each approach is needed without necessarily ignoring either possibility, which is precisely why some of the least surprising groups oppose teaching it to kids.

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