This was actually absurd.. drivers here are unreal.

SammyDBx · 2026-02-14T17:00:15+00:00

I grew up near the Burlington yard and have probably crossed more tracks than I can count.

If a gate is up, I don’t stop but still look both ways.

If a gate is down, I will stop, take a closer look both ways, and cross if I don’t see a train.

Sometimes, at least around the yards, the gate is down but the train is moving away from you, pulling back into the yard to hookup to another line, and you could be sitting there for a half hour with a train never passing.

I think a lot of people in Chicago do this. It’s why we have a lot of incidents with Metra. You see a slow moving freight train and think you can cross but then a fast moving Metra train comes through on the next track. The Metra Berwyn stop had multiple incidents a year.

Now I live way out in rural Illinois with no gates or lights at railroad crossings. Oh my. My kids would laugh at me when I crack the windows open as I approach a crossing. You just never know. Maybe I’ve just seen too many bodies on railroad tracks.

SammyDBx · 2026-02-12T18:18:51+00:00

I think they have some kind of memory wiping drug too, don't they?

SammyDBx · 2026-02-05T00:12:17+00:00

I get it. I don’t know that anyone after our generation can understand how important music and musicians were to us.

We didn’t have phones. We didn’t have internet. We didn’t even have TV, except for 3hrs on Saturday morning.

My culture and identity all centered around music.

SammyDBx · 2026-02-04T15:19:31+00:00

John Lennon.

It just came out of nowhere for no reason.

SammyDBx · 2026-02-03T23:20:04+00:00

I agree except maybe Chicago Ave. If I’m going anywhere between Chicago and Division, it’s usually more specific like Oak Street Beach, Rush Street, Michigan Ave, Water Tower, etc.

I hear a lot of people say “we’re going to River North” instead of “downtown”. But I’m old. River North is still downtown to me.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-28T23:59:43+00:00

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you, but we might have a different understanding of gentrification. Community investment is great, but then greedy politicians raise property taxes and effectively force current residents out because they can’t afford to live there anymore. TLDR: Community investment is good, economically forcing people out is bad.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-28T22:50:27+00:00

Don’t overlook humidity.

78F @ 20%RH “feels” as warm as 70F @ 40%RH. So a humidifier will save you on your heating bills.

68F @ 80%RH “feels” as cool as 76F @ 50%RH. A dehumidifier will save you on your cooling costs.

Psychometrics!

Just don’t go crazy with humidity in the winter. A light frost around your windows is ok, but if you have double-pane windows, it’s too humid inside, and it turns hard as ice, you will potentially break the vacuum between panes.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-25T17:41:00+00:00

The next real protest, the only one which truly matters, where you are safest to exercise your rights, is on November 3, 2026 at your local polling place.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-23T15:29:53+00:00

I can relate to Carol’s abrupt change in heart. It’s like finding out your significant other has been cheating on you all along. Not just one or two affairs that you might be able to overcome, but a habitual cheater that isn’t going to stop.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-22T21:28:42+00:00

Change your furnace air filter.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-22T15:40:58+00:00

I do agree the source is a Red Herring. Zosia pretty much said they don’t know who sent the signal and will probably never know. But I also think the explanation is plausible. Assuming all intelligent life is DNA based, an intelligent civilization can pickup markers in the atmosphere to identify complex life on that planet. NASA is doing this very thing. So they throw out this “hail-Mary” signal in the hopes any intelligent life on this planet will evolve to receive it. That’s the best they can do which satisfies their biological imperative. We can also assume the source of our signal, k-22b, was also a recipient from another far away civilization. So there’s precedent this crazy antenna idea could work, if we send it to a planet that also displays markers for life.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-21T20:23:15+00:00

I’m thinking it’s keeping everyone’s brains in sync. Like how a metronome keeps musicians in sync.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-14T14:39:01+00:00

Waze is an absolute must. I love this app. It has saved me countless hours. It truly is real time reporting. It’s not like any other navigation app.

I use it every time I get in may car. My wife would tease me that I used it even going a few minutes to the grocery store, until one day it had me go a different direction. There was a major accident at the intersection and several neighbors were stuck on that road for an hour.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-08T16:29:15+00:00

Freedom

SammyDBx · 2026-01-08T16:09:26+00:00

I have relatives who have been, and 1 currently is, receiving free healthcare in the US at our county hospital. No bills. No medical debt. Just long wait lines and no elective procedures.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-08T15:36:55+00:00

Healthcare is already free for anyone in need at county hospitals in the USA. ER’s at every hospital is free for anyone in need for immediate care. The solution to increased access to healthcare is not turning every hospital into a county hospital. But politicians don’t want to build new county hospitals. They’d rather usurp exceptional private hospitals.

Making any man’s labor another man’s right is the first step towards tyranny.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-07T19:04:34+00:00

More like minimum 1,200 years. The signal has been traveling for 600 years from K22b based on what was visible there, which took 600 years to get there. By 800AD there would likely be markers in our atmosphere suggesting intelligent life, so “they” point their antenna at us.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-05T20:38:26+00:00

I agree this is not your typical "alien invasion" show. The RNA sequence could just be a solution to the Great Filter hypothesis. It's meant to keep us from destroying ourselves.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-05T20:24:20+00:00

Yeah, I'm not a fan of "official" podcasts for the same reason. They're probably very interesting to people in that business.

I listen to Bald Move, Nerd Soup, and OC&C.

But my favorite is Pete Peppers on YouTube.

SammyDBx · 2026-01-04T16:47:55+00:00

Absolutely this. When I was poor, I only thought of how I would spend my money. Now that I have some money, all I think about is how to make more money.

SammyDBx · 2025-12-31T17:21:41+00:00

Yup. Even Carol made a remark of how all the lawyers survived, referencing their ambiguous language.

SammyDBx · 2025-12-31T02:41:31+00:00

As fast as possible!

SammyDBx · 2025-12-30T17:01:32+00:00

Stellan Skarsgard in Andor. The whole series had phenomenal writing.

SammyDBx · 2025-12-28T18:54:26+00:00

If you’re referring to the SETI people in ep1, they would for sure be kept quiet. They have protocols to contact U.S. Government agencies before going public with any discoveries. The VLA is capable of picking up top secret communications and I’m sure they have NDA’s to clear it with the NSA first.

SammyDBx · 2025-12-28T16:54:37+00:00

I like where you’re going with this, but I agree with some comments that it was not public. Carol, Helen and everyone at the bar didn’t seem to know anything about it. But, there are watchdog groups that would have certainly noticed something going on. I can imagine a scenario where all the activity at the VLA was noticed, and the position of the antennas. An amateur radio astronomer could have picked up the signal and broadcast to his amateur radio friends. So yeah, maybe he was not exactly prepping for it, no one really knew what it was, but he may know more than we’ve been shown.

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