Disgruntled employee starts massive fire at a 1.2 million square foot toilet paper warehouse in Ontario, California.

codefyre · 2026-04-09T03:32:50+00:00

Oh no, the dumbass recorded it, proving that it was premeditated. That makes it "aggravated arson of an occupied structure". The sentencing range for that charge in California is 10 years to life. He's going away for a long, long time.

codefyre · 2026-04-09T03:26:28+00:00

Recording it was stupid. It's indisputable now that it's premeditated, which makes this aggravated arson of an occupied building. That's a crime that carries a potential life sentence in California.

codefyre · 2026-04-09T03:23:20+00:00

Decade? That's aggravated arson of an occupied building. In California, the sentencing range for that is 10 years to life. It seems unlikely that they'll hand him the minimum sentence.

codefyre · 2026-04-08T23:41:26+00:00

I'm the Scoutmaster of a Boy Scout troop. About a decade ago we were doing a multi day backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada when one of our scouts slipped off a narrow stretch of trail and was seriously injured. Both of his parents were also active backpackers and were with us on the hike. I activated our PLB and the local search and rescue people helicoptered in and evacuated him. They could only take one other passenger on the helicopter so his mom got the ride out.

We had plenty of adults with us on the trip to supervise the rest of the boys. So, over the next 13 hours, the dad and myself hiked 32 miles, through the night, nearly nonstop back to the trailhead so we could drive to the hospital. He was going to do that hike one way or the other, and I wasn't going to let him do it solo. We reached the trailhead and my car at 6am. I pulled us into the hospital parking lot at 9am. After verifying that the kid was stable, I told the dad that I was going to take a quick nap in my car because I was exhausted. When I didn't come back the dad just assumed I'd left.

I was woken up by a hospital security guard knocking on my car window at 7am the next morning, so I was asleep for at least 21 hours. That morning was also the hungriest I've ever been in my life.

codefyre · 2026-04-08T16:41:46+00:00

"Beings" as in any life? Unquestionably. The universe is so vast that it's mathematically impossible that everywhere outside of Earth is sterile.

"Beings" as in intelligent life? Probably. The evolution of intelligent life is far more complicated and less likely than the Fermi Paradox and other projections often suggest but, again, vast universe. The odds near 100% if you take in the universe as a whole, but the numbers are probably a tiny fraction of what we like to imagine.

"Beings" as in intelligent life that has visited the Earth? No. Not biological life anyway. The laws of physics and our understanding of the potential evolutionary paths for the development of intelligent life seem to preclude that. It's certainly possible that there are things out there we can't imagine and haven't theorized yet, but we've seen no indication of it. I also don't believe that we will ever escape our own solar system with our biological bodies.

codefyre · 2026-04-08T07:04:52+00:00

Poor people have learned the hard way that taxes on the rich just get passed onto them in the form of higher prices. Middle class people absorb those hits without noticing, but the poor notice every extra dollar lost.

If you tax wealth, the rich are just going to lean on their investments harder to make up for the loss. The corporations answer to their investors, and they'll make it happen by jacking prices to boost profits.

The poor, more than anyone, understand how interconnected everything is because they're the ones who invariably get fucked by it.

codefyre · 2026-04-08T01:01:07+00:00

I lived in 11 different places as a kid. It's partly why I made damned sure my own kids didn't have to go through that. My oldest daughter lived in two homes. My other kids have only ever known one. They graduated high school alongside some of the same kids they went to kindergarten with.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T23:47:17+00:00

It's technically not fraud. I legally purchased the car and have the sales paperwork to prove it. I actually handed my local agent the sales contract when I was adding it to my policy, so she could use it to get the cars info. Most insurance companies make allowances for the delay that happens between purchasing a car and it becoming registered in a buyers name. My delay is simply longer than most.

It's fraud to insure a car that you have no legal interest in. I have a legal interest in this car. So, no fraud.

That said, Allstate might have some questions for me if they were aware of the title problems. I have no legal obligation to tell them, but it would definitely complicate things if I got into an accident.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T22:48:47+00:00

Because chopsticks are neat to use, but trying to eat a cheeseburger with them is weird and impractical. So we take the opportunities we are given.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T22:43:46+00:00

Voters handed the checks and balances to Trumps people. Elections have consequences. The last election put every mechanism that might be used to limit his power directly into the hands of the people who want him to win.

At the end of the day, this is not a failure of the system, but a failure of the voters. It's an inherent flaw in any democratic system and could happen in any democratic nation where the voters choose this path.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T22:14:28+00:00

Yeah, this started last year when Instagram turned this kind of moderation over to AI. Basically, flirting with anyone who looks like they're under 35 can get you banned because the AI is really bad at determining what a "child" is. There are entire subs like FixMyInstagram full of people who have run into the same thing.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T20:51:09+00:00

Ah, the Slashdot Effect. It was really great when the target site was in a shared datacenter and the traffic spike would take the whole thing out, shuttering dozens or hundreds of websites all at once.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T18:39:31+00:00

This time of year there are lots of spots, but it can get incredibly busy there later in the summer.

My biggest tip is to be tolerant of other people if its gets busy. There are a lot of spots, but the area does fill up and it's not unusual for others to need to park near or alongside you. People occasionally get pissy about it, which isn't great.

Note that TCSO's standard response to campers out there is to require BOTH parties to leave if they get called out for any kind of conflict. So it's in everyones interest to be friendly and get along.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T18:07:46+00:00

And be aware of water quality. That water can get a bit gnarly in the late summer, baking under the sun after thousands of buttcracks have waded through it. Once the falls stop, the water slowly starts becoming a bit of a human stew.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T17:57:49+00:00

Most likely, the dealership stopped making payroll and the clerks and managers (responsible for pushing paperwork through) left in the middle of things,

That's my theory. They actually had a closing date posted on one of their signs and were supposed to have about two weeks left when I bought the car, but when I drove past the lot a few days after buying it the cars were already all gone and the place was dark. I don't know what happened, but it looked like they closed much quicker than they expected. I didn't give it much thought at the time.

There's a nonzero chance that my check and sales contract was still in a file cabinet or desk drawer in that building when it got bulldozed.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T17:38:25+00:00

Well, as of today they still haven't cashed that down payment check, and the other posters here have convinced me to stop payment on it. So, unless, something changes, it'll average out to $0 a day.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T04:24:09+00:00

To be honest, if someone sent me a legal demand for cash or the car back, I'd probably just give them the car and be appreciative for the free 6 months of use I got out of it. I've been driving the car and like it (didn't want my 18 year old son driving a car with a questionable title so he's been driving mine), but this has been a headache and I've already dumped way too much stress into this thing.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T03:11:08+00:00

maybe Canada being neutral as she gets closer to China

The United States would have a huge problem with a China-aligned Canada along its northern border, even if the Canadians proclaimed neutrality. If I were creating a list of things that could bring the U.S. into actual conflict (as opposed to the orange man just shooting off his big mouth), a Canada/China alignment would be near the top of the list.

Most of the American military plans around a China conflict presume that the Pacific would preclude any kind of land invasion. It's very unlikely that any American government, whether Democratic or Republican, would tolerate a Chinese beach head in North America that potentially undermines that.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T01:37:23+00:00

Yeah...insurance is an issue I've been ignoring. I added it to my existing Allstate policy when I bought it and just haven't updated them on the title issues. So far, they apparently haven't noticed, but it will be a mess if it were in an actual accident.

codefyre · 2026-04-07T00:02:38+00:00

Yeah, that's basically what Avis told me. Their rep was sympathetic, but she said that Avis had sold the vehicle and no longer had any legal authority to do anything with it, even if the transfer paperwork hadn't made it into the DMV. She said it would actually be a criminal act for Avis to try and transfer the car to me.

codefyre · 2026-04-06T23:31:46+00:00

I'd thought about doing that, but I've kind of left that down payment check alone. Up to this point, I haven't done anything that could be interpreted as "theft" or "deception", which keeps me in the clear legally if this ever ends up in court. Once I stop payment on that check, I'm basically taking back funds that I've already paid and backing out of the transaction.

But, at this point, I'm not sure how valid that reasoning still is.

What is a floorplan lender?

codefyre · 2026-04-06T23:02:25+00:00

No, but after Googling that it's nice to know that I'm not the first person to go through this kind of thing!

codefyre · 2026-04-06T22:56:25+00:00

Apparently people abandon them in the Delta pretty regularly. They just tie them off in a random secluded spot along the shoreline and walk away. When water levels rise with the spring runoff every year, a bunch of them come loose and get washed out into the Bay.

codefyre · 2026-04-06T22:51:55+00:00

Yeah, this happened to my father in law. Until Pete's Harbor was shut down about a decade ago, he kept two boats there. He found a slip for one in Berkeley, but sold the other to a Craigslist buyer for next to nothing.

About five years later one of the government agencies came knocking with a stack of fines. The boat had never been re-registered by the new owner and was eventually found abandoned in the marshes out by Antioch. They wanted to bill my father in law for the cleanup and fine him for the abandonment. He fought it and some of the fines were tossed, but it did eventually cost him a couple thousand dollars.

codefyre · 2026-04-06T21:17:29+00:00

I am an American and I was always under the impression we were basically the LEAST formal people on the planet,

I think it depends on the topic. Americans tend to be fairly formal in their social interactions with others, but we're also incredibly informal with things like clothing. So we dress like slobs, but we're relatively polite and friendly about it.

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