When I was a tween-teen my mom and I would thoroughly decorate our front yard and porch every year (for 5 or 6 years running) as a mini-haunted house. A lot of homemade decorations including a coffin my grandfather built for us. Then Halloween night I'd be in the coffin (which was on our porch) and she'd be there tending her cauldron or whatever worked for costume that year. When kids would come to the house she'd lift the coffin lid and I'd be in there with the bucket of candy. There was spooky music / sound effects, and some gloomy lighting. It was a mildly spooky vibe.
Very little kids (3 or 4) were often too scared to come up to the house and so one of the adults would have to come get their candy for them. I remember that, the last year we ended up doing it, one of the parents came up afterward and told us that their kid had been too scared to come up the year before and they talked about seeing "what was up there" on-and-off all year. And that year there were very proud to have gotten their own candy.
It's fun to think that my mom and I are part of that family's holiday memories.
I had a HS science teachers in the early 90s who was very insistent that, "day-ta is a name, dah-ta is information." And between Star Trek and The Goonies, that made sense to me.
Alternatively you could buy from a dollar store where it's 12 times the price but in a smaller package so it seems cheaper.
You know if a candy line has a fruit punch flavor you're in for an iffy time.
If they're taking Moo Ding anywhere, I hope it's on a trip to meet Pesto the giant penguin chick. And I hope they decide to make a buddy cop style movie together.
My wife and I contribute to a few local organizations on a regular basis. They all offer donations on their websites. There's a clinic we donate to. The shelters where we got our cats get regular small donations. We also donate to the local food panty plus warming centers in the winter.
We also exchange donations in lieu of gifts with our parents at the holidays. We're all in positions where we don't need more stuff, and it's a nice way to still exchange something. My mom encourages donations to the rescue where she got her dog. I ask that she makes a donation to an organization that maintains and protects a local river basin.
Is Vaughn Armstrong purple stuff?
A North Carolina dam failure is imminent after water levels at the Broad River rose 10 feet in only a few hours from Hurricane Helene.
> Some North Carolina cities were forecasted to receive 10 times their monthly rainfall amount.
> The emergency flash flood warning issued by the NWS says that at least 3,000 people are at risk of emergency flooding downstream of the Broad River and Lake Lure Dam
This is in additional to the flash flood warnings happening all over the state.
My initial thought was, "that title can end after the 3rd word."
I could never put a finger on it, but kids felt like an expensive 18 year punishment is because of child seats. The seats for high school aged kids are a nightmare.
Cellular modems with lifetime contracts from a telco are also increasingly common.
The is Lemmy Shitpost, the lower the quality the harder I click upvote.
I mostly use the clipboard for moving images around, but I guess DL'd this gif when Linda Ronstadt was last in the news. I don't remember if I posted it anywhere.
I thought about it, but I'm inclined to leave it. Especially because, unlike Reddit, Lemmy users are understanding... and I kind of like my retirement "joke."
"I think mail in ballots aren't secure, so I'm taking away the boxes that are a more secure option than the mail." Their excuses for election interference make them look like idiots but the media is happy to go along with it.
Thanks to Costco fueled bulk buying, between the last time I bought deodorant and this week, my deodorant changed from the Scent of Adventure to the Scent of Cypress.
So is Cypress the sum total of adventure or an overdue respite?
I don't know why my brain connected Trump's "a concept of a plan" and his obsession with Hannibal (Lecter, but I went with Smith), but here you go.
I used to think Bob was right, "a lot of numbers are divisible by 3" and so its a bad mnemonic. But, on the other hand, I have an easier time remembering the Belcher's anniversary than my own.
Surprisingly good quality for something from 80's cable TV.
In 2024 the first thing that struck me was that I can barely remember the last time I cared about what was in the mailbox.
A very early performance from TMBG, back when Letterman was still on NBC. February 1989 performing They'll Need a Crane
I love their old TV performances. Especially the Conan appearances. If there's an audience for it I'll post the best (video/audio) quality ones I can find, from time to time.
Heated platforms and purge towers are among Stratasys' infringement claims.
Stratasys is claiming infringements on patents it owns (included ones acquired from Makerbot) on things like purge towers, heated beds, and force detection. Many of them things common to most FFF/FDM 3D printers.
Its an interesting coincidence that this lawsuit against one printer maker is happening on the same day as a new product announcement (the Prusa MK4s) from another major printer maker.
> In two complaints, filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, against six entities related to Bambu Lab, Stratasys alleges that Bambu Lab infringed upon 10 patents that it owns, some through subsidiaries like Makerbot (acquired in 2013). Among the patents cited are US9421713B2, "Additive manufacturing method for printing three-dimensional parts with purge towers," and US9592660B2, "Heated build platform and system for three-dimensional printing methods."
> There are not many, if any, 3D printers sold to consumers that do not have a heated bed, which prevents the first layers of a model from cooling during printing and potentially shrinking and warping the model. "Purge towers" (or "prime towers" in Bambu's parlance) allow for multicolor printing by providing a place for the filament remaining in a nozzle to be extracted and prevent bleed-over between colors.
Global Alliance for Responsible Media disputes X lawsuit but stops operations.
The SLAPP seems to working as intended.
> An advertising industry initiative targeted by an Elon Musk lawsuit is "discontinuing" its activities and has deleted the member list from its website.
> Stephan Loerke, the CEO of the WFA, wrote in an email to members, seen by Business Insider, that the decision was "not made lightly" but that GARM is a not-for-profit organization with limited resources.
> Today, the House Judiciary GOP's official account on X called GARM being discontinued a "big win for the First Amendment" and a "big win for oversight." X CEO Linda Yaccarino also applauded the news.
SpaceX to the rescue?
Originally set to return in mid-June, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams may be on the station until February, 2025.
> During a press conference today, NASA representatives confirmed they have a contingency plan to bring astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams home from the International Space Station (ISS) early next year. If theyâre unable to leave sooner aboard the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that brought them there
> Tests conducted at NASAâs White Sands Test Facility pointed to deformed Teflon seals being a potential cause of the Starlinerâs thrusters failing, but the agency isnât expected to make a final decision on whether or not Williams and Wilmore will return using Boeingâs spacecraft until mid-August.
I used the phrase "the unusual one" this morning, and half way through I started to hear it in Jen's voice.
What are some other favorite Jen moments?
Back in the 00s there was a Canadian nature show called The Nature Nut (hosted by John Acorn) that did an episode of dedicated to beavers. It featured a catchy kids tune Big Wet Rodent Day that got some internet attention back then... mostly in kids music circles- never mind what age I was. At some point people decided this celebratory day was July 26th and we'd celebrate the beavers, nutria, coypu, and alike every year.
Full Episode of the Nature Nut episode in question\ Same episode, timestamped to the original song
With beavers large and muskrats small\ We stop to celebrate them all\ The glory of a beaver dam\ That makes you say I am (that makes me say I am)\ A big wet rodent fan.
> Biden delivered remarks from the Oval Office outlining his decision not to seek reelection, his first on-camera remarks since making that announcement on Sunday. In addition to explaining why he is ending his candidacy, he listed off his priorities for his remaining time as president.
> âAnd Iâm going to call for Supreme Court reform, because this is critical to our democracy,â Biden said.
> Multiple outlets have reported that Biden is considering proposals to establish term limits for Supreme Court justices and an enforceable ethics code for those on the high court.
Iâm an AWS Serverless Hero, principal engineer at an AWS centric logistics company, and I build and maintain the AWS News Feed. Itâs fair to say that I am very interested in everything AWS does. BuâŚ
As an AWS focused solutions/systems architect, I've been feeling this for the last 10ish months too. I attended the first 9 re:Invent conferences (up until Covid upended things) but I was glad I didn't attend last year; and re:Inforce sounds like it was even worse.
While Europe has some of the most advanced data privacy legislation, businesses are also collecting biometric data, without our knowledge.
> These days, our biometric data is valuable to businesses for security purposes, to enhance customer experience or to improve their own efficiency.
> Facial recognition technology [...] scans images or videos from devices including CCTV cameras and picks out faces.
> From supermarkets to car parks and railway stations, CCTV cameras are everywhere, silently doing their job. But what exactly is their job now? > > Businesses may justify collecting biometric data, but with power comes responsibility and the use of facial recognition raises significant transparency, ethical, and privacy concerns.
> If your password gets stolen, you can change it. If your credit card is compromised, you can cancel it. But your face? Thatâs permanent. Biometric data is incredibly sensitive because it cannot be altered once itâs compromised. This makes it a high-stakes game when it comes to security.
A pregnant female was spotted in May and the kit has been filmed swimming, the National Trust says.
> "We are thrilled that after an absence of around 400 years we now have beavers back and breeding." > > She added: "The beavers have put a lot of effort into building and maintaining their lodges and getting their family settled, showing great perseverance and resilience during their relocation and then during the floods weâve had over the last year,"
Former 'Bob's Burgers' voice actor Jay Johnston has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges stemming from his role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
> ... sentencing guidelines suggest a from eight to 14 months in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 7.
Back on June 25: > Former Bobâs Burgers voice actor Jay Johnston agreed today to plead guilty to federal charges stemming from his participation in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The 55-year-old actor [...] faces multiple charges including civil disorder and disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.
Scalpers have reverse-engineered how Ticketmaster creates tickets, and are now generating and selling them on their own parallel infrastructure.
> A lawsuit filed in California by concert giant AXS has revealed a legal and technological battle between ticket scalpers and platforms like Ticketmaster and AXS, in which scalpers have figured out how to extract âuntransferableâ tickets from their accounts by generating entry barcodes on parallel infrastructure that the scalpers control and which can then be sold and transferred to customers.
> By reverse-engineering how Ticketmaster and AXS actually make their electronic tickets, scalpers have essentially figured out how to regenerate specific, genuine tickets that they have legally purchased from scratch onto infrastructure that they control. In doing so, they are removing the anti-scalping restrictions put on the tickets by Ticketmaster and AXS.
So Ticketmaster and AXS are suing to maintain their monopoly on scalping?
We recently had an unfortunate situation where an external magnetic hard drive was dropped while spinning. I knew before we even checked that the heads were gonners, and sure enough the drive seems dead. Unfortunately this was a drive inherited from a deceased relative that were starting to backup at the time the accident happened and now a lot of family photos are inaccessible if not gone forever.
I'm just getting my feet wet trying to find potential recovery services to get quotes, but I thought it was worth asking you fine folks if you have any experience that might help out. Companies to avoid or who may be worth it even if their quote is high.
One specific question I have pertains to what's recovered (since most of these services seem to charge based on the amount recovered): We're only concerned with photos but this was, at one point, the single drive in Mac, so there's tons of OS and other files we don't want or need. Are we likely to get charged for it anyway?
It owes money to Universal, Sony, Lionsgate, Warner Bros., and more.
> informed employees of the filing late Friday [...] that it had filed for a debtor-in-possession loan â a way for companies that are reorganizing after filing for bankruptcy to secure additional working capital to meet payroll. [...] employees have been waiting for paychecks since June 21st [...] itâs not certain that the company will be able to secure such a loan.
> Chicken Soup took on $325 million in debt when it acquired Redbox in 2022 and has since been sued over a dozen times over unpaid bills.
