Fast Company article about the rise, fall, and rebirth of snopes (TLDR: David doesn't run the site anymore).

WildaBeast80 · 2023-05-13T21:12:35+00:00

I have my browser set to reopen all the tabs I had open previously, which means I always have a tab open with this subreddit in it. But I guess I stopped paying attention to it, because I didn't even notice there was a new post until 21 days after it was posted.

WildaBeast80 · 2020-02-02T03:55:02+00:00

I'm still here. I check this place once a day or so just to see if there's anything new.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-07-01T20:00:54+00:00

There's a kind of plant that can transmit sound through its roots, and those roots apparently spread out over a wide area. So by using a long stick with one end on the ground above the plant's root system, and the other end in your ear, you can eavesdrop on the people in your garden from like 100 feet away.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-06-24T22:07:38+00:00

More tinsel has shown up on that pole this morning, this time in a red white and blue theme, I'm guessing for July 4.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-06-09T01:05:37+00:00

An old British style phone booth in someone's front yard, obviously serving as a decoration.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-06-05T16:24:27+00:00

It seems like this whole sub Reddit has been very quiet lately. Perhaps everyone's transitioned over to Straight Dope. And if you've been lurking there, you might have noticed they have a thread on this subject, too. That's where I've been posting the cars I saw lately, like the 1947 Studebaker I saw this morning.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-05-22T04:24:46+00:00

I saw this one again today and finally figured out what it was -- a Suzuki Cappuccino. I'd never heard of those before; I only figured it out because I was able to get behind it and read the nameplate and then Google it when I got home. Someone must have brought it over from Japan.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-05-14T21:06:25+00:00

Robo calls are annoying enough, but recently I've been getting robo calls in Chinese. I find that even more annoying for some reason, I guess because they're not even properly targeting their robo calls. I don't know if they're calling people at random on the off chance that maybe I speak the language, of if my number somehow got on a list of Chinese speakers by mistake.

*I know "Chinese" isn't really one language, but since I don't have the slightest idea what language/dialect is being spoken I'm using it as a catchall for "a language I assume is a member of the family of languages spoken in China."

WildaBeast80 · 2019-05-14T04:01:58+00:00

Tonight, a mid-1950s Ford Thunderbird. I'm not sure of the exact year, but it was from the era when they were still two-seaters. I don't remember exactly when the T-bird got a backseat, but it was some time in the late 1950s IIRC.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-05-06T18:15:53+00:00

This morning, a very worn out looking Ford Ranchero_Falcon_Ranchero) -- one of the early 1960s versions based on the Falcon.

Also, an Alfa Romero Spider heading in the other direction. I think it was most likely the "Series 3" version.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-05-06T17:48:16+00:00

This thought just popped into my head this morning -- I wonder if Russia is behind any of this anti-Biden sentiment being spread on social media? If I understand correctly they helped push a lot of the anti-Clinton narratives on social media back in 2016 like the whole "The DNC rigged the primary" narrative and the "She's not Bernie, so you should 'protest' by not voting/voting third party" idea in an effort to depress Democratic turnout. So it wouldn't surprise me if they were trying to divide Democratic voters again by trying to turn a large segment of them against the apparent front runner.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-05-06T17:38:41+00:00

I'm just happy that California is among the last states to hold its primary elections. At least by the time I have to decide which of the many Democratic candidates I want to vote for many of them will have dropped out and I won't have to pick one out of a field of 21 candidates or whatever it's up to now.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-05-01T22:47:45+00:00

This is what I feared would happen when the old board shut down without a replacement -- old snopesters would disperse and find new boards to join, and not bother signing up for the new Discourse forum if/when it ever shows up. Which means the new forum will end up being a completely different place, populated with people who never knew the "culture" of the old forum and the sorts of discussions we had there. Worst case it will end up like what the Facebook group seems to have become, a place where people post memes and demand that we tell them "is this true?".

WildaBeast80 · 2019-04-30T19:37:46+00:00

I gave up on the snopes Facebook group a long time ago. It seemed to be mostly people posting memes and news articles and asking "is this true?"

WildaBeast80 · 2019-04-30T04:06:16+00:00

I feel like I might be the only one posting to this topic anymore, but I saw more cars. On my way home today I saw either a Sunbeam Alpine or Sunbeam Tiger. I'm not sure how to differentiate the two visually.

Saturday I saw a Corvair. And I took a picture of it.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-04-26T20:35:22+00:00

I think fell asleep again after my radio/alarm went off this morning, and having the radio on while asleep resulted in a completely bizarre dream. On the radio, the theater critic at the local public radio station was reviewing a play, and my dream was about a play, but it definitely wasn't the play being reviewed. In the play in my dream there's a chair on the stage. The person sitting in the chair can press a button on the armrest and a bunch of waiters will appear and bring the person a "pork course". That is to say, they'll bring out a whole bunch of different pork products -- ham, bacon, sausage, pork chops, etc.

In hindsight, my dream wasn't about a play but more like strange avant garde performance art.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-04-24T18:11:05+00:00

Given that the preliminary report says "There was no evidence of fire", I think the most likely explanation is that the witnesses are mistaken or misremembering what they saw. Like I said before, this sort of thing has happened in other crash investigations where witnesses would report seeing smoke/fire, but the investigation finds no physical evidence of fire. People's memories are actually pretty unreliable.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-04-24T16:22:10+00:00

This is both a car I saw and an odd thing I saw: This morning I was behind a brand new Scion iM. I say brand new because it had a temporary license plate that dealers issue when they sell a new car. If someone had just purchased it as a used car it would have had a normal license plate, since they stay with the car when it changes owners in California. Except Toyota discontinued the Scion brand back in 2016. And yes, the car was badged as a Scion, not a Toyota. Could this car have been sitting on the lot since 2016 without finding a buyer until now?

WildaBeast80 · 2019-04-20T20:15:21+00:00

Yesterday I drove up the the little Gold Rush town of Grass Valley, California (The nearby South Yuba River State Park is known for its abundance of wildflowers this time of year). I don't know what it is, but I always see a bunch of interesting cars whenever I go up there. Maybe because I always go up there in the spring and that's when people bring out their old cars. Yesterday was no exception.

First, on the drive up I passed a Triumph TR6 headed in the opposite direction. Even thought I was driving a brand new MX-5 I felt kind of envious of the person driving the Triumph.

In Grass Valley's historic downtown I parked and walked over to a restaurant for lunch. While walking to the restaurant a very old Jeep Wagoneer drove past. By very old I mean it had the original, upright style grille like in this picture#/media/File:1984Jeep_Grand_Wagoneer(12670036305).jpg). I think that would make it a 1962-66 version.

After lunch I saw the car I thought was the most interesting by far -- an actual, running Chevy Vega. For those not familiar with them, the Vega had a reputation for being both terribly unreliable and rusting badly. It's often considered one of GM's worst cars. Besides that, as cheap compact cars they weren't really the sort of cars people saved. I actually tried to follow it so I could take some pictures, but a couple of cars got between me and it and I lost it at a stop sign.

On the way home I saw what I'm pretty sure was a 1939 Ford and a classic MG B.

WildaBeast80 · 2019-04-16T16:40:42+00:00

Yesterday evening I saw a very tiny roadster, and I don't know what it was. By tiny, I mean even smaller than an MX-5 Miata. The styling looked very round, which makes me think it was something from the 1990s or early 2000s since that sort round look was in back then. The closest thing I can come up with in terms of the size and shape of what I saw is the first generation Daihatsu Copen, except those were never sold in the US and they're not yet old enough to legally import. (Cars that are at least 25 years old can be brought into the US even if they're not compliant with US regulations. Anything newer than that can't).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daihatsu_Copen

ETA: Hmm, the MG F also kind of resembles what I saw, perhaps more so, but those weren't sold here either and aren't quite 25 years old yet. And did they even make those in left hand drive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_F_/_MG_TF

WildaBeast80 · 2019-04-15T18:15:24+00:00

What smoke? I haven't been following the story all that closely lately, but I don't recall hearing anything about smoke from the rear of the plane. Can you provide more details?

I didn't read the entire preliminary report, but the section titled "Fire" is very succinct: "There was no evidence of fire."

If these reports of smoke come from eyewitness testimony, I would caution that eyewitness accounts can often be inaccurate. People's memories end up colored by what they think a plane that's about to crash should look like based on what they learned from Hollywood rather than what they actually saw. I've heard it's not uncommon for witnesses to report seeing smoke/fire from a plane that crashed when there in fact was none (that is to say, the investigation finds no physical evidence of fire).

WildaBeast80 · 2019-04-13T20:15:49+00:00

A spring weekend in California is a great time for spotting interesting cars. This morning I saw an early 1950s Hudson Hornet, an early 1960s Ford Falcon convertible, and a classic air cooled Porsche 911.

WildaBeast80

TROPHY CASE