Jack William Bell @jackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com

> Inside the War Between a UFO Influencer and Alien-Friendly Streaming Company
CHARISMATIC COLLAPSE? The UFO community has exploded in lawsuit drama invoking ‘Luciferianism,’ deep state villains and benevolent blue aliens.https://www.thedailybeast.com/ufo-community-explodes-in-lawsuit-drama-accusations-of-luciferianism?ref=home

Holy fuck is there a lot of crazy happening here.

The TL;DR? A guy is suing an Internet streaming company at least partially because they are making up crazy shit based on the crazy shit he previously made up. But that doesn't cover the half of it!

Why are autoplay videos still a thing?

Seriously. For one thing, I have autoplay turned off in Firefox. (See screenshot.) Yet I still have video playing on websites, even in the background when the video isn't visible.

I suppose for most people this is a minor annoyance. For me it's literally stealing my money! I live in the middle of nowhere and have satellite Internet with bandwidth limits – if I exceed them I have to pay money to buy 'Data Tokens' for more bandwidth.

Fuckers.

Today I built two different pallet garden shelves using nothing but pallets and scrap wood. Both quite sturdy.

#projects

It occurs to me they missed a trick when they made the 'The Prisoner' reboot a decade ago: The remake should have re-imagined The Village as a computer simulation game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner_(2009_miniseries)

That way 'Number Six' could shout out, "I am not an NPC!"

Of course, its' possible 'computer simulation' was what they had in mind, but the reboot flopped before they got to the reveal.

But I think would have been more fun – and provided FAR more plot possibilities – to make it explicit.

Local Craigslist (not bothering to link because it will go stale right away) has an ad for a complete solar power system mounted on a trailer.

This is a GREAT idea and one I wish I had thought of. By making the system mobile you can use it at home or take it camping or even bring it to disaster areas.

There could even be a monetization strategy here: make it available for rent to people who need temporary power somewhere, but don't want to run generators all the time.

#making #energy

Oh, and regarding savory doughnuts – yes I know about the bacon-maple bar from Voodoo Doughnut in Portland. https://www.voodoodoughnut.com/

But that's basically your bog-standard maple bar with a strip of bacon on it. Delicious, yes, but not really savory.

Besides, bacon IS the candy of meats.

My first post with the #COVID19 hashtag was one year and one week ago. I've tooted hundreds since then; as have many others.

It's quite amazing to me that, sometime in the next week, I'll be getting my second vaccine shot and the CDC just released guidelines for vaccinated people.

We aren't out of the woods yet, but it feels like the path is getting easier to follow. Still, with over half a million dead, untold others dealing with 'Long COVID', and entire states still in denial…

Spent all day tearing down an old Thelin Parlour pellet stove (mine looks like the red one in the pic) and putting it back together. Replaced some missing screws and cleaned sensors.

However, it still seems to be feeding the pellets too slowly. I replaced the fan motor a couple of days ago, now I guess I'm going to have to replace the pellet auger motor as well?

That sucks. Especially because the parts are ridiculously expensive.

To the good, the new screws have fixed some vibration noise.

And I'm only talking the US here. When you start looking at the worldwide totals the numbers become even more impossible to visualize. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_and_territory

The total number of deaths worldwide is more than two and a half million–two and one half GIGADEATHS–approaching the population of Kansas. Or, if you prefer, surpassing the population of Namibia.

If an asteroid struck and killed this many people all at once we would be beyond horrified.

Why should statistics on a chart affect us less?

Ten months ago the US #COVID19 death count hit 20,000. At the time I asked people to visualize the number in terms of a local outdoor music venue with that capacity. I wanted to give a visceral sense of scale to what is otherwise just a number. A statistic.

https://rustedneuron.com/web/statuses/103986753160594392

Well, here's a new number for you: 500,000. One half a million people dead. This time, instead of an amphitheater, imagine an entire city the size of Miami or Oakland.

An entire city, gone. An unimaginable disaster.

Meanwhile, Trump has excoriated McConnell for McConnell saying what he actually thought after going to great lengths to protect Trump from his own words and actions.

> Trump Blasts McConnell And His Leadership In Lengthy Response To Recent Criticism. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/968475230/trump-blasts-mcconnell-and-his-leadership-in-lengthy-response-to-recent-criticis

I swear, Trump is such a flaming asshole. Not that McConnell isn't, but two wrongs don't make a right. (However, three lefts do.)

In any case, I send a hearty 'Fuck You!' to both of them.

Here's the oldest #COVID19 post of mine I can find. From Feb 23'd 2020.

Another thread from back then.

https://rustedneuron.com/web/statuses/103755140280166742

That first #COVID19 tweet of mine was actually a short thread. https://rustedneuron.com/web/statuses/103749413692457022

I was posting a *lot* about the pandemic back then, because I felt people weren't paying proper attention to a serious problem. Some other posts from March 2020 include my noticing all the birdsite bots claiming it was no worse than the flu (and debunking it) and a couple of predictions of low expectations that entirely came true.

It's been a year since we had our first indications #COVID19 was a local problem and not just something happening to other people 'over there'. After all, the first USA cases were reported right here in Washington State.

I went through the Rusted Neuron archives and found my first post using the hashtag was March 1, but I know I was posting about it before that. https://rustedneuron.com/web/timelines/tag/COVID19

I think we can expect a lot of pandemic retrospectives in coming weeks. Let us not forget the toll in lives.

Now, you can save some Delta-V with aerobraking. However it can be a dangerous maneuver and requires a heavier and more highly engineered spacecraft.

Moreover, once you've reached the asteroid belt the Delta-V for inter-asteroid transfer is essentially free.

Finally, access to raw materials and energy is significantly easier and cheaper. Once again, no gravity to deal with (to speak of) and no atmosphere or day/night cycle interrupting solar power.

RE gravity wells: the attached image is a Delta-V map of the solar system, allowing you to calculate the energy required to visit different planets and moons.

The Delta-V for reaching the asteroid belt is essentially the same as required for Earth/Mars Transfer, but without the added Delta-V for landing on Mars and returning from Mars. Calculated (one way):

* Earth/Mars Transfer – 13

* Earth/Mars Landing – 19

As you can see, you save about one third Delta-V by avoiding Mars altogether.

Can you lick the #science?

Oh? Also, Pew Research's new poll shows this recent approval drop is largely made up of Republicans…

> New poll shows Trump’s support dropping sharply among Republicans. Many Republicans are fed up with Trump as impeachment looms. https://www.vox.com/2021/1/15/22232847/poll-trump-approval-29-percent-republicans-support-collapsing-impeachment

So, yeah, Trump has his delusional fanatics. But he doesn't have the regular people with more than a tenuous connection to reality. No matter *what* team they're on.

If you've checked FiveThirtyEight's Trump approval poll tracker lately, you've noticed his approval rating when into freefall after the DC Riot. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo

It SERIOUSLY hockey-sticked, dropping ten points from the low forties in only a few days. Disapproval numbers have increased by 10 points in the same period.

Note that these *are not* trump's worst numbers during his presidency. During his first year his approval numbers dropped slightly below today's.