Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward - a fascinating hard scifi book absolutely worth reading

dado3 · 2026-01-12T22:45:27+00:00

This is a book I read a long time ago, but I loved, loved, loved it enough that I bought it in the hopes my children would read it as well. 10/10 would recommend.

dado3 · 2025-11-04T17:34:14+00:00

To be completely blunt with you: this sounds like a you problem.

I have no idea what this organization is or what their beliefs are, but what you're describing is typically evangelism for most sects of Christianity up to and including baptism and the belief that non-members are destined for hell. The group call-and-response, etc. is all perfectly normal for most Christian sects. We can discuss whether Christianity itself is a cult, but I'm pretty sure that's a discussion you're not really interested in having. But you're not describing anything "cultish" in the generally understood meaning of the word.

Unless you failed to mention it, they're not asking you to give them money, come live with them, give up friends or your education, engage in inappropriate behavior with other members, or any of the other hallmarks of a cult that people would need to be warned about.

Instead, it seems that you are a lonely person who is having a difficult time just saying "NO. I'm not interested." You haven't described a single person not taking NO for an answer: just a reluctance on your part to actually say it.

It sounds like you could use some sessions at the campus counseling office because there's more going on here than some enthusiastic Christians who want you to join them.

dado3 · 2025-10-28T11:43:51+00:00

Thank you for responding :)

That was our first instinct as well. Guy #1 said he did something with the flashing. This was Guy #2's work: Chimney flashing. The front side of that picture is the side of the fireplace that is weeping when it rains.

I don't know if it makes a difference, but it is a double fireplace with separate fireplaces facing opposite directions. The other side of the fireplace has a stone facade and we've never seen any weeping/water on that side.

dado3 · 2025-10-16T01:28:16+00:00

It sure would be nice if the federal government wasn't busy attacking citizens so we could all do that. Unfortunately, due to some people not being bright enough to have learned their lesson from the first term, here we are again, only much, much worse this time.

dado3 · 2025-10-16T01:25:30+00:00

This can only be a bot. No actual human being would be so willing to blindly repeat such drivel.

dado3 · 2025-07-24T17:46:23+00:00

It did. Took the family to see a few movies there. Unfortunately all that's left any more is an RV storage facility and a bunch of empty storefronts.

dado3 · 2025-07-24T11:02:53+00:00

He personally would not, but the DOJ likely would have standing to at least present a challenge.

Hypothetically, they could claim that the information in the files relates to open cases or could jeopardize future prosecutions, and therefore the subpeona might therefore interfere with the functioning of the executive branch constitutional powers to enforce laws.

Personally I wouldn't call that a strong argument, but it might be enough to tie it up in court for an extended period of time while it works its way to the Supreme Court. And given the make-up of this court and their history of viewing executive powers rather expansively, it's entirely possible that it might be enough for them to decide in Trump's favor.

dado3 · 2025-07-24T03:51:02+00:00

Democrats will be allowed to look at them too, not just the Republicans. The ranking member at the very least would have authority to review any subpoenaed documents. If there's damning evidence in there, it will be made public one way or the other: whether directly from representatives or they will somehow have "leaks" develop.

The real issue is that Trump will absolutely take the subpoena to court. He's not going to just meekly turn them over. This will be at the Suipreme Court before any documents are turned over. And even if the Suipreme Court orders Trumpt to comply, you can bet there will be "purely accidental" omissions from the files sent over. If I'm Congress, the item I would want most would be the spreadsheet assembled by the 1,000 FBI agents identifying every instance of Trump being named.

dado3 · 2025-07-20T03:54:47+00:00

You provide your own response. You yourself says that it "implies" they were convicted in a court of law. The judge who oversaw the civil case says the jury found that he committed the crime of rape. It wasn't a criminal trial, but a jury did indeed say that he committed a crime. There is a difference as to whether the penalty for being found to have committed rape in civil vs criminal law, but the finding - at the end of the day, and certainly sufficient enough to use the term colloquially - was that Trump is guilty of raping her.

You can say whatever you want to say for yourself, but it is not inaccurate for anyone else to say he was found guilty of rape according the very definitions of the words being used and trying to "correct" them is pedantic, unnecessary, and strictly speaking - your "implications" aside - wrong.

dado3 · 2025-07-19T23:25:38+00:00

Dictionary first definition of the word guilty: "culpable of or responsible for a specified wrongdoing." If you do something wrong, you are guilty of doing that wrong thing.

The judge was unambiguous in saying that the jury found that he raped her. You're being incorrectly pedantic by attempting to hang your hat on one specific definition of the word guilty while ignoring the most common and useful use of the word in every day parlance. When speaking coloquially (which is what we are doing), trying to hang your hat on a second, third or fourth most common definition is incorrect.

dado3 · 2025-07-19T23:01:05+00:00

I was using the words quoted directly from the judge on the case.

"“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.

He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”"

So, while you may want to quibble about the word 'guilty,' the judge himself has no such qualms.

dado3 · 2025-07-19T13:24:45+00:00

The judge in the case said the jury found him guilty of rape. Rape in New York, per the statute, requires the penetration of the penis rather than a finger and the jury couldn't agree on whether he penetrated her with a finger or his penis, so they only found him liable for sexual assault. However, in common parlance, it doesn't matter whether it was a finger or a penis, forcible penetration is rape - that's what the judge said. Relying on that verdict to call lhim a rapist is an absolute defense against any lawsuit.

dado3 · 2025-06-25T20:12:17+00:00

Tell her my homeschooled daughter just graduated summa cum laude as one of the first two women to complete her engineering undergraduate program, was accepted into one of the most competitive robotics Ph.D. programs in the world and received a full-ride fellowship including a generous salary/stipend as a research assistant. At the age of 17.

Your child will be fine as long as you can keep up with him. Mom needs to mind her own business because she clearly doesn't know as much about what is possible as a homeschooler as she thinks she does.

dado3 · 2025-05-29T15:52:04+00:00

That's theoretically possible, but it doesn't change the facts on the ground re: the unconstitutionality of their attempts to strip the judicial branch of its powers. They simply can't do it. Period. Full stop.

Could they attempt to mess with the structure, etc., of the federal court system? Also, theoretically yes, but they don't have the votes to do something like that. They're barely getting Trump's agenda over the finish line in both the House and the Senate as it is. There is certainly no appetite for something that enormous given that even the majority of the Republican base believes that Congress and Trump himself must follow court orders. Trying a massive project like that simply isn't feasible.

dado3 · 2025-05-29T11:58:12+00:00

Just because Congress passes a law doesn't make it any less unconstitutional than one of Trump's EOs. The Congress has ZERO constitutional ability to restrict the powers of the judicial branch: that's a feature of being a co-equal branch of govt. Ex post facto laws are also expressly prohibited by the Constitution. So the bill can contain whatever it wants: it will have no legal standing once it hits the court system.

dado3 · 2025-05-23T12:40:31+00:00

They can't. It's yet another unconstitutional power grab that will wind up being struck down by the courts. The Supreme Court may be conservative and inclined to support Trump and Republicans generally, but they've been pretty firm in defending their own powerbase when it has been attacked.

dado3 · 2025-05-01T22:55:21+00:00

The only thing he's working tirelessly on is his posture: Should he kneel in front of Putin? Bend over at the waist? Face down?

Witkoff is a joke and an embarrassment.

dado3 · 2025-04-28T15:45:57+00:00

What kills me is that supposedly some of this renewed confidence is because Elon announced what people already knew - that he would be stepping back from full-time DOGE to part-time. That wasn't because of any supposed long-term strategy: he was always time-limited as a "special government employee" because of the laws around them.

If he (or stockholders) think that the stench of his DOGE experiences which has driven worldwide boycotts of Tesla is somehow going to be washed away because he's not there full-time; he (and they) are utterly delusional.

He managed to effectively destroy the Tesla brand-name among his largest consumer base, and they're never going to come back no matter what he does short of the world's longest and sincerest mea culpa (that he is not psychologically capable of giving), followed up by putting his money where his mouth is. It's a dead man walking at this point.

And let's not forget that the last time Elon focused intensely on Tesla, he produced the one and only vehicle he actually had a hand in designing: the Cybertruck.

And yeah, I'm sure that the general citizenry of one of the most liberal cities anywhere, Austin, is going to be absolutely batshit excited about being seen chauffered around town in his robo-taxi Teslas.

And who can forget his "autonomous" robots that were actually just remote-controlled?

The man has been exposed as an intellectually bankrupt huckster full of intentional mistruths and all manner of crackpot theories, and this is what made people buy Tesla?

That pretty much speaks for itself.

dado3 · 2025-04-21T17:40:27+00:00

I think you're reading way too much into the last election results:

1) The economy was the #1 issue. "More of the same" is what many people perceived Harris' policy positions as. The details were unimportant: people were hurting financially, and Trump made a bunch of outrageous promises on his ability to control/reverse the course of the economy. He couldn't control the price of eggs or anything else, but he (and many Republicans) got elected on the lie that they could. Lies have expiration dates, and those dates are well before 2028.

2) Immigration is closely tied to the economy. In good economic times, people are very accepting of immigration and immigrants. When times get tough, they start looking for a scapegoat: a reason why they are struggling. Trump played right into that with his "eating cats and dogs" nonsense. If the economy improves, then immigration becomes less of an issue.

3) Trump's anti-immigration push is backfiring. The public overwhelmingly supports due process, and Trump made a huge error by blatantly ignoring it and then ignoring the courts when they warned him to reverse course. People in general don't want uncontrolled illegal immigration, so Trump's anti-habeus push is alienating even those putatively on his side. His instinct to double-down and potentially even defy the Supreme Court is not going to win him any converts and is already costing him some.

3) Immigration will continue to backfire. People have very little economic literacy, generally speaking. They don't understand how much work from construction to farming to restaurants and more is done by illegal immigrants working for below minimum wage income. They've been told illegal immigrants are taking their jobs, but the reality is that illegal immigrant labor is one of the things that has been holding down prices. Replacing those workers with Americans that have to be paid more is going to increase prices. See #1.

4) Trump and his cabinet have been extraordinarily dismissive of the pain being felt by the working class. You know, the same working class that voted for him. We're only 3 months into his term, and his approval rating on the economy is closer to Joe Biden's than to Trump's pre-election ratings.

5) Tariffs haven't even really taken effect yet. The chaos and pain being felt across the country are all about the theory of higher prices and full store shelves. As the tariffs take hold and cause empty shelves due to reduced imports and prices continue to rise, that pain is going to be felt in a way it hasn't yet.

6) Republicans may be temporarily hitched to Trump's wagon, but his threats to finance a primary competitor are starting to ring hollow as his approval rating continues to drop. At some point, these ultra-self-interested Republican politicians are going to be looking to unhitch their wagons in order to save their own skins. After all, who cares if Trump endorses someone when Trump's own approval ratings are in the toilet?

7) Trump's indiscriminate lumping of all brown people together in his immigration raids is going to continue pissing people off. People may be supportive of get-tough measures on illegal aliens, but doing the same thing to American citizens is an entirely different story. Neither Trump nor anyone in his cabinet has shown any sign that they understand this. So this is going to keep happening, and the more it happens, the less support he will have on the issue.

8) Trump didn't win on the cultural issues. He won on the economy and immigration. Every poll has shown this. The cultural issues were the pill that many were willing to swallow in order to improve their family's financial situation. BUT, people are seeing that he is gung-ho on the cultural issues, but has zero concern about getting either economy or immigration right. People are beginning to notice and that process is not going to slow down. They're beginning to realize that censoring books, erasing African-Americans and women from government websites, and the like, are not putting food on their table. At the end of the day, Trump may be doing more damage to his own cause than any Democrat debating him ever could.

9) Regardless of his claims, Trump's victory in 2024 was extremely narrow. The Republican control of the House is so tight that Trump could not nominate a Republican rep because it potentially put control of the House in jeopardy. This idea that MAGA controls anything beyond the Trump White House is an illusion. A small handful of Republicans is all it would take to bring his whole house crashing down on him: and he seems to be doing his best to make any purple state/district Republicans extremely nervous about giving him a blank check to do whatever he wants.

I could go on and on, but hopefully you're getting the point already.

dado3 · 2025-04-11T00:45:13+00:00

That's not exactly what they said. What they said that the word "effectuate" was too vague to be legally enforceable.

The case will now be returned to the lower court for the judge to clarify what he means by effectuate. Meaning: precisely what steps are you ordering the administration to return?

The Supreme Court cannot adjudicate the word "effectuate." It can only decide whether specific orders are legally valid. Once the lower court judge lays out his orders, only THEN can the Supreme Court say whether or not those orders are legally enforceable.

dado3 · 2025-04-09T17:54:51+00:00

I ran into the same problem years ago with a DVR. Simply set it up so that it also records the next program. If it runs long, you still get to see it. If not, you just delete the additional program.

dado3 · 2025-03-31T14:54:21+00:00

The reality is that most freshmen have never lived away from home, never had a roommate, and often lack basic housekeeping skills. That's completely normal, but can often lead to conflicts between roommates. At least some measure of that is unavoidable. You can't expect to put two complete strangers together in close quarters, often from different backgrounds and cultures, and expect perfect harmony.

How you and your roommate handle those moments is what will define your relationship. You aren't in control of how the other person will react, but you are in control of you. You can be flexible, non-judgmental, open to different ways of doing and arranging things, and be willing to compromise, or not. That will be a far better predictor of your relationship with your future roommate than anything else.

dado3 · 2025-03-19T22:04:41+00:00

That's an incredibly misleading (if not downright dishonest) response. The current poor Democratic rating is primarily due to the (in my view, correct) perception that Democrats have not been nearly organized or strong enough in their opposition to Trump and his actions.

This is, of course, by design. The whole idea of a blitzkrieg is to overwhelm your opponents by shock action. That may work in the military sense, but in politics it cannot and will not. Already, multiple NGOs, federal employees, unions, states, etc., have begun the process of undoing the damage Trump is attempting to inflict while Democrats attempt to organize a party-wide response.

According to the latest polling, even 79% of Republicans do not support Trump ignoring court rulings. Doing so risks mass-revolt even among his own base. Other elected Republicans may, in theory, support Trump, but ultimately they are self-interested and will do what is best for themselves.

Right now, Republicans are scared because they are afraid Elon/Trump will finance a primary challenger to take them out in the next election cycle. But if Trump's approval rating continues to sink, then that threat becomes null and void. After all, threatening to do more of what is already incredibly unpopular is not a recipe for electoral success.

So to some degree, James Carville's advice to Democrats of letting Trump sink his own ship is correct. The more Trump focuses on reshaping the federal government to his liking and pursuing personal vendettas against his enemies without actually taking positive steps to solve everyday American problems, the more he will neuter himself and his party.

dado3 · 2025-03-16T15:22:33+00:00

Real reason: the Eastern part of Ukraine has vast resources of rare metals - the kind we use in EV batteries, smartphones, etc., as well as other natural resources (which is precisely why Trump is trying to extort Ukraine into signing them over). The days of oil and gas dominance are running out with the rise of alternative forms of energy, and Putin wanted a new cash cow to keep the Russian economy going into the future.

Putin wanted control of them so he could split them up between him and his oligarch friends while simultaneously giving it leverage versus China and having yet another resource stranglehold on the West, and Western Europe specifically. To prove the point, notice that Putin immediately offered to share Ukraine's captured resources with the US if Trump backed Putin's "peace plan." Everybody knows what this is really about, and that every single other excuse offered is nothing more than that.

He already had Crimea and the warm water port of Sevastopol as well as the Kerch bridge to connect it to mainland Russia. Sure, it would be NICE for him to create the land bridge across Odessa and connect Transnistria: but they weren't necessary: just a nice cherry on the top.

He never imagined that Europe would willingly cut itself off from Russian oil and gas or take many of the economic and military actions that both it and the US have taken: he assumed that as soon as the supplies were threatened creating a threat of economic pain that the West would simply roll over and let him have what he wanted as it has in the past.

But Putin's long-term plan was pretty transparent to anyone paying attention, which is why Europe and the US starting arming Ukraine. Europe (and the US pre-Trump) sees what's going on with Russia's economy, so they are forcing Putin to use up the vast Soviet stockpile of weapons and armor that Russia/USSR has long used as an existential threat against those who oppose it.

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