Chewbacca Defense

I could not help but LOL when he did that. Par for the course... We had an eclipse in Atlanta when I was in 5th or 6th grade and it was the exact opposite. We all went out side with strict instructions to not look at the sun, and all the teachers had pinhole cameras and pointed out how you could see the eclipse in shadows cast by leaves on the trees. I didn't really think too much of this one until I realized that this is the last eclipse I can reasonably expect to see in my lifetime. I'll be in my 70's then and while I sure as heck hope I'll still be walking the earth then, that's getting on up there. So with that, I had a little FOMO, but it sounds like it is going to be an absolute sh*tshow with traffic, no doubt all the rude "me first" jackwagens will be out in full force, so I'll just go about my day here at home.

That almost sounds like....group think....

I struggle more than most in reading a writer's true intentions on social media, and I have struggled to figure out if you are a hard core troll or really believe everything you are saying. I now realize you have gone full potato.

Probably because it is a straight up bullsh*t story to pander to people like you and Andrew. This policy has been in place for DECADES. But hey, any little thing to stir the conservative pot and keep your panties in a bunch.

Low of 38 this morning, and we got .39" of rain out of last night's system

That really sucks man, I'm sorry you are going through this. Insurance companies are so ridiculous. When I was in urgent care this weekend for my eye the MA who took my vitals happened to be the MA for my Primary care Doc. We were talking about my insurance issue, and she said it seems like all they do now is fight with insurance companies. Hopefully someone at some point will recognize a year's worth of your prescription is less expensive than a hospital stay!! I doubt it, insurance companies are too f*uckin' stupid.

I went the redneck irrigation route. I bought the Hinter pop up sprinker heads, mounted them on a sprinkler spike base with an adapter, and daisy chained them together. I used a wifi faucet timer, and hid the whole set up in the landscaping. It worked really good last year for the front yard. I need to figure out the backyard this year as I'll be completely redoing the grass back there in the next few weeks. In the fall I drain the hoses, roll it up and throw the set up on a hook in the garage. It cost me $100-150 or so with the most expensive part being the wifi timer. It will probably cost me about $200 or so for the backyard.

Looks like things got pretty entertaining on the forum yesterday.. I got a hair cut Saturday and ended up with a hair clipping in my eye. Said eye got extremely pissed off, and I now officially have permission from my wife to talk like a pirate thanks the abrasion on my eyeball and eyepatch I am now wearing. Anyway, felt like crap yesterday and couldn't really read up on things. Ended up being a lot more cloudy up here Saturday and Sunday than I had anticipated, though it was nice and sunny the first half of Sunday. We had frost Saturday and Sunday morning, and we did make it up to 65 on Sunday though. 42 this morning under cloudy skies.

Your post is amusing. We do live in a world where there are a lot of bad actors. Granted immediately jumping to the conclusion that it has to be a bad actor is out of hand, but I think it should always be at least a part of the discussion. Hopefully, 9.9 times out of 10 it is a 30 second to 2 minute discussion (literally) and then the subject is put to bed and investigators move on. We of course know that terrorism is very real. Cyber attacks are also very real. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/attack-colonial-pipeline-what-weve-learned-what-weve-done-over-past-two-years https://www.aha.org/news/perspective/2024-02-29-supporting-hospitals-and-patients-after-cyberattack-change-healthcare https://www.securityweek.com/canadas-rcmp-global-affairs-hit-by-cyberattacks/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-06/dutch-intelligence-blames-chinese-state-for-cyber-espionage-in-the-netherlands Here is a fun little list for you (some of the ones above are in this list: https://www.csis.org/programs/strategic-technologies-program/significant-cyber-incidents I could not find anything of machinery or equipment being "hijacked" yet, but I have no doubt they are trying to figure it out. Did you know that this is happening? https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2024/03/12/your-driving-data-may-be-sold-to-insurers-general-motors-reveals/?sh=45c7451856ef Some automakers already download software over wifi/cellular, and I believe Telsa is a major user of that functionality. I believe commercial aircraft can download their flight plans wirelessly. With that being said, please tell me how there is no risk of modes of transportation potentially being corrupted by a bad actor.

Absolutely, and I would be more than a little disappointed if they did not run down that line of investigation. That said, I think the chances, while not to the level of a "black swan event", are extremely small. Everyone working in and around the port has to have a TWIC card, which requires a TSA background check. So, there is some level of screening for all employees in and around sea ports. Heck, when I did my brief stint working in the refinery business, I would have been required to get a TWIC card to go on the refinery property. It had a dock for unloading crude off of tankers, and was technically a "sea port"

I hate to say this, as it kinda feeds into the tin foil hat theory... Major ports and waterways have travel lanes set up just like a road for us land dwellers. The tides and currents are pretty well known and predictable, and that is in fact one of the reasons they require harbor pilots on the ship. Those pilots know all of the nuances of the local waters, and they get paid insane amounts of money...they start at $73k and can easily go upwards of $200k, and in some cases up to $400k. I'm guessing the Columbia bar pilots that handle the mouth of the Columbia River fall in the "north of $200k" pay range. When I ran jet boats on the Willamette river, you had to take a certain line through parts of the river because of the currents, or steer in some correction to get the desired track through a cross current or up-welling. it's no different with the big boats. On the Washington State Ferries you can sometimes feel when you are going through a big eddy or up-welling. Even docking a boat, a lot of times you are using power up to a certain point then cut power and drift into the dock, and if you know what you are doing, you can do it so you run out of energy right as the side of your boat is kissing the dock. Bearing all of that in mind: Hypothetically....I think an experienced mariner could determine a point along the journey based on a time/current *could* in theory make something like this happen. I've let my marine map/current tracking apps expire and I am no ready to start them up again, but here are some screenshots off the app store of information you can get on your smart phone. The thick magenta line at the top of the first image is a traffic lane. The other image is showing the currents and strength of the currents

Definitely a possibility, but for the claims to come out within six hours....on "TwitterX" and Andrew Tate being one of the sources....not buying it for one second. *IF* it were a cyberattack, the Government would be keeping it under wraps as long as possible while they tried to understand who did it and how they did it, and how to prevent it again. If we start seeing/hearing about new security protocols being rolled out for the maritime industry, then we know something is up. I started working in Commercial Aerospace in 2003, specifically retrofitting commercial aircraft interiors. After 9/11, the company I work for and all of our competitors got into a very heated race to get a ballistic flight deck door to market. Unfortunately, my company was in the process of being sold, so there was an unwillingness to front the development costs and we lost out. I sat in a few secure briefings between 2003 and about 2008-ish where we were informed of measures the "bad guys" were trying to take to get a repeat of 2001. Those meetings were pretty chilling. It was all about trying to stay one step ahead of the "bad guys" as we worked on new designs for interiors. I've never seen or heard mention of the topic of these meetings in the public domain which is pretty impressive. I would anticipate the same thing would happen in the maritime industry. It may be a lot trickier though, as most of the ships are registered/owned by countries with very lax regulations. I believe the FAA can dictate regulations on foreign flag air carriers wanting to fly over US airspace (i.e. requirement for a ballistic cockpit door, maintenance and security requirements), but its a little easier in that area because basically 1/2 of the aircraft in the air are made in the US or Canada, and almost all of the other half are made by Allies/trade partners of the US. Not sure that is the case in the shipbuilding world.

At least there's hump day!

The tin foil hat wearing folks would have you thinking that the ship was subject to a cyber attack, thus the crew would be unaware of what was *really* happening, and would have just been a pawn in the game.

Bozeman is incredible, I would love to live there, but housing is so ridiculously expensive. Renting *might* be a little better, but you are probably looking at 7 figures to buy a house worth living in. I even looked at Livingstone which is about 30 minutes or so up the highway, and even there the prices were quite high. Good luck with your job search!!!!

Gonna start calling you Randy "Ban Hammer" Mossman.

That just sucks man, lamotrigene is one of the only, if not *the* only anti seizure meds that does not have horrible side effects. I remember when we were going through the medication options when my daughter got diagnosed, and holy hell it was awful. We felt very fortunate when lamotrigene worked for her. The side effects for everything else were that much worse for women. They pretty much guarantee (70-80%+) any pregnancy would have serious birth defects, and that's assuming the child even survived to term. I think for a couple of meds we were told we would have to sign an agreement guaranteeing she would be on birth control. I really hope your insurance company comes through for you or you are able to figure something out.

If you get serious about it, be careful on your housing search. Parts of Helena has badly contaminated groundwater, and have to rely on bottled water for drinking, cooking, etc. I can't remember the area, but learned about the issue when we looked into moving back to Montana a few years ago. If you are struggling to find info on it let me know and I can hit up family we have living in Great Falls.

I'm sorry to hear that, I am also fighting a losing battle over a prescription right now, and while its not for something as critical as seizures, I still need my medication to function. The crappy thing is that they approved it last year, but they switched pharmacy managers and now the new pharmacy manager won't approve it. My daughter is on lamotrigene for her epilepsy (along with one or 2 other drugs) and the combined out of pocket if she didn't have insurance would be ~$2,000 per month. You can live in a really nice house in a good chunk of the country for that kind of money. I hope you can get it figured out. From my own personal experience, there should be a way to fast track the reviews/approvals. For my insurance company, it was for the doctor to mark the request as "urgent" Unfortunately, for me it just meant them telling me "NO" that much quicker. My prescription is $5k per year out of pocket, not something I can really afford to do.

What in the hell is the "first four" and why I am I in that group #notabasketballfan #dontfollowmarchmadness

A couple of rumbles of thunder and some small hail up here IMBY. Looked like there was an impressive thunderstorm over Bellingham Bay with a couple dozen lightning strikes.

Dude....your reading comprehension sucks....he said his wife went into the Navy to become a nurse. The Navy doesn't really give you a choice on where you are going to live.

Just need to fire up the otto pilot

Just watched a video by someone in the shipping industry, and he pointed out that when you throw a single screw ship hard in reverse, the stern will walk sideways and turn the ship (I had forgotten about that.) That also takes water water flow off the rudder, so it loses its effectiveness. He said in all likelihood if they had left it in neutral and steered (assuming they had rudder control) they might have been able to avoid hitting the bridge. There are pilings around the pier, and maybe they would have held up to a glancing blow. It almost sounds like a Titanic type situation. I've read that if the Titanic had not turned, it would have hit the iceberg head on. The forward 1-2 bulkheads would have been compromised but most likely the ship would have stayed afloat, or at a minimum stayed afloat long enough to evacuate to another ship Also, it looks like the crew in Baltimore dropped the port anchor in an effort to get stopped, which is a common practice.

Just watching a discussion on all of the issues/resignations within the Republican Party right now, and one of the people said "the Republican Party is so dysfunctional right now they wouldn't even be able to name a Post Office after Donald Trump" So true.... I think if the republicans could grow some stones and kick MTG to the curb, they would be a lot better off. Goetz has enough problems on his own, I don't see him rocking the boat too much if MTG is gone.