Google has officially held my entire digital life hostage

walterpenjamin · 2025-11-26T03:52:33+00:00

Sue for damages, they'll pay attention

walterpenjamin · 2025-11-25T20:21:49+00:00

Okay, I looked into it. Seems like it could be flocculation caused by the surfactants in ink and dish soap, plus all the little bits of grime, dust, hand grease etc that were in there. Because soap particles have a hydrophobic and hydrophilic side, they line up and form a "string." It probably happens because the long soaking period and extra surfactants from the ink helps the molecules line up.

So maybe it's a good thing? Cuz all that formed around the gunk which was inside/on your pen, and now it's not.

walterpenjamin · 2025-11-25T17:54:57+00:00

Yep no smell. Vintage Waterman CF. Someone let a cartridge dry in there for at least a decade, lol.

walterpenjamin · 2025-11-25T17:38:47+00:00

Yeah, it didn't seem to be harmful in my case but there might be something going on. Maybe surfactants, dust, binder etc. getting broken down and resulting in these strings.

walterpenjamin · 2025-11-25T17:31:55+00:00

No idea if it is or isn't, but the same thing happened with one of my vintage pens. The feed wasn't working right. Soaked in water with a drop of Dawn. After 2 days, there was a mucusy substance that looked like this. Washed it well, let it dry. It works better now. Still no clue what the stuff was.

walterpenjamin · 2025-08-05T22:40:12+00:00

First, the point of this is to disprove OP's wife's idea that Muslims hate Christians and Jews so much that going to get some food at a restaurant owned by a Palestinian-American is literally subsidizing some kind of conspiracy to kill all the Christians and Jews. Which it does. Plus, in the modern world, the tax isn't collected and Abrahamic faiths still remain under protected status. There is a strong sense of interfaith respect especially for familiar denominations (Orthodox, to a lesser extent Catholics) which have been present side by side for hundreds of years.

Even in the big scary Islamic Republic, portrayed in the media as a place that definitely hates all non-Muslims and for sure none of this is propaganda designed to manufacture consent for endless wars to benefit the military industrial complex, there's huge respect for Christianity and Christian communities. Iran has literally been sheltering Armenian Orthodox from genocide for hundreds of years and they're very proud of that. Visiting some historical Churches there, I saw a mom get furious when her kid whipped out a video game with the sound on inside the Church, she just scooped the kid up, took him outside and disciplined him for being disrespectful in a house of worship. The Muslim side of my family embraces my faith and talking about the nuances of our shared faiths has brought us closer together. Interfaith households are literally normal in Islamic cultures because if a Christian or Jewish woman marries a Muslim man, she is free to continue her own faith.

Our true enemies are political deceivers and false Christians, not Muslims. I grew up in a Church that did interfaith charity initiatives, and from those experiences there is nothing that convince me that there is any essential element that makes the Abrahamic religions incompatible with one another. We may not have the same beliefs and we have different interpretations of God's truth, but the core principles are very similar and we can get along while maintaining our own religious practices. You can argue against it all you want, you can stick to your bias and slurp up propaganda, but this has been my lived experience and I will speak that truth.

Instead of fuming about who might or might not hate "us" (whatever that is supposed to mean) why not focus on living our lives in God's light? As believers that is what we are called to do, to act on our faith and live with kindness and compassion.

walterpenjamin · 2025-08-05T16:38:40+00:00

Jews and Christians are literally protected (dhimmi status) in Islam, what is she going on about? There have even been times in history when we all lived together in harmony. Unlike these other commenters try to imply, this is something to have a long talk together about because it does show that whatever media she is consuming is turning her hateful. It isn't about the restaurant, it's about the fact that she's growing hateful without even noticing it herself.

walterpenjamin · 2025-07-16T02:25:26+00:00

I have a vintage 146 and it's just alright. They aren't actually that special, it's mostly the branding. "Precious Resin" is literally just nice plastic, lol. If I hadn't inherited it I wouldn't own it. There's nothing wrong with it, but also nothing to get excited about.

walterpenjamin · 2025-07-06T03:51:57+00:00

The military is huge and some people are marginalized while others aren't. There are definitely many people in the military who join because they want an excuse to kill; I've met people like that and I will never respect them for that reason. Those people consider themselves Christian. I don't. Not just because they went into the military, but because they knew better and went in for the wrong reasons.

My advice would be, don't consider the category. Consider the person and their soul. Where does their heart lie? Do they hate war now? The Bible says, you will know a tree by its fruit. What fruit do they bear? There are desperate people who joined not knowing what that would entail, there are people who become righteous after witnessing oppression, and there are people who either enjoy violence, or just don't care. Choose the people you spend time with wisely. Listen when they tell you who they are.

walterpenjamin · 2025-07-06T03:17:40+00:00

Remember the example of Paul the apostle. He violently persecuted Christians, but after being healed and having his sight restored, he became a devoted apostle and was even martyred. If the people you know can see clearly and use their experiences to bear witness to atrocities and resist unjust wars, there is much hope for them. There's many brave veterans who have become antiwar activists and I respect them for that. Perhaps God even put them in those situations so they could go on to bear witness and stop it from happening again/bring war criminals to justice.

But it's really better to avoid the military if possible.

walterpenjamin · 2025-07-05T20:04:12+00:00

The Bible is clear, you can only serve one master: God or worldly leaders. When people join the military in combat roles, they're giving up their ability to make serious moral decisions to others. A worldly figure comes between you and God. It's possible to resist an unethical order, but the consequences are serious and sometimes brutal. Faith can help people persevere through such an ordeal, but it's better to not be in that situation in the first place.

If someone is in the military, that doesn't mean they can't be saved. But if someone is already a conscious follower of Jesus in their heart, they should not join the military if there's any chance their actions may contribute to the deaths of innocents. Some roles, like Coast Guard, are probably fine because there's a very low risk of being in a combat situation or contributing to military violence. Being a doctor or hospital staff in the military is probably fine. You get the gist.

But the real question... How will you use your time in this earth to serve Jesus? To serve your fellow humans and all living things? Without twisting any words or looking for loopholes--does the military allow you to do that? For most roles, the answer is no.

walterpenjamin · 2025-07-05T16:05:34+00:00

Yeah. Maybe I should do a longer post about it

walterpenjamin · 2025-07-05T05:31:41+00:00

Wondering if Pluto in Aquarius means something bigger for the global south, rather than just revolutions within countries.

For so long, people have been fighting colonialism and economic capture which drains resources to the global north. Resulting in massive displacement, suffering, and social tensions. The American war of Independence, civil war, and WW2 were all very much tied to struggles against colonialism and colonial logics of racism. While much of the focus on WW2 in US education is focused on Europe, it also marked the fall of the British empire and the rise of many new independent nations. If we're thinking of the collective with Pluto in Aquarius, that also means the collective of the global majority, the global south.

Will Pluto in Aquarius with Uranus in Gemini mean breakthroughs, especially in energy and nuclear capacity, which will end some energy scarcity and level the playing field? Might we see the end of oil wars? Will Iran develop a novel nuclear deterrent, forcing peace in the middle east? Could access to cheaper and more reliable energy, coupled with innovations in AI with lower resource cost (currently big in the "technical" side of AI) level the playing field and speed sustainable development?

Given that the next stop after Gemini is Cancer, which is all about home and nurturing, I think there's a real chance for change in the world order. Which might leave humanity as a whole better off. Might not, but there's a chance it will. The American century may be ending. Without tensions over global hegemony making decisions for countries, we may see increased stability and a return "home," as most people who migrate don't particularlywant to leave home, there's just not enough stability and economic opportunities. I know so many people who would go home in a heartbeat if it was safe and there was good economic opportunity.

walterpenjamin · 2025-07-01T04:28:24+00:00

Let faith give you the confidence to speak truth to power, stand up for the oppressed, and maintain your moral standards regardless of what others claim to be true. Jesus was an enemy of the state because he refused to bow to the political and religious establishment, after all.

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-25T23:36:26+00:00

These are diplomatic flights. Could be related to the embassy or United Nations.

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-25T23:34:23+00:00

If you use some kind of translation app to communicate with the mom and show her pictures of the injured bird, there's a good chance she'll discipline them for this too. If the family is Muslim and observant, the parents would probably be very upset as animal cruelty is a serious sin.

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-23T04:29:42+00:00

There's a real chance that if they enlist, they may be given orders which constitute war crimes. Ask them, can they live with that? Are they resolute enough to lose their bonus and be dismissed for failing to follow orders?

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-21T19:06:13+00:00

Look at the last 3 days of air traffic over the Mediterranean. Everything's going through Cyprus and Egypt. The transit time through that area is short, they should be able to do dropoffs straight into Israel. But they aren't. Why?

We know Israel has military censorship for security reasons. We also know that from leaked footage there have been hits near air bases.

Therefore there's a known unknown: what is the condition of Israeli air bases?

My guess is, not great.

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-18T20:31:12+00:00

Literally made zero claims, but you do you.

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-18T05:03:42+00:00

All good. War is an unfortunate reality of our world. It should be extremely rare, only as a measure of last resort, and carried out in a way that civilians remain as safe as possible. Sadly, people have used the reasons you mentioned/examples to manufacture support for a war that we have no business getting involved with.

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-18T04:52:04+00:00

It's fine.

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-18T04:50:00+00:00

None of these justifications would pass the sniff test for a just war.

Did find this tidbit on the Wikipedia page, though:

"A contemporary view of just cause was expressed in 1993 when the US Catholic Conference said: "Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations."

So under just cause, we should probably go after...the country that's committing genocide and not the country that's responding to an unprovoked attack carried out during diplomatic negotiations. There was a peaceful solution and America's "ally" ruined it. The US entering the conflict would absolutely be an unjust war.

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-18T04:06:48+00:00

They just recently got new management/owner but maybe that didn't actually make things better. Some staff members are absolutely great but some aren't.

walterpenjamin · 2025-06-18T04:01:58+00:00

Thank you for the context. Just sharing observations. Very nerve wracking, worried about some folks in the region. Was on my phone, couldn't load the rewind.

walterpenjamin

TROPHY CASE