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Cake day: March 5th, 2026

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  • There’s a lot of debate on that, if you want to get into the academic side. I think the best definition for it (when I was studying it in college) was based on four primary ‘focuses’ of evangelism. The wikipedia article on the scholar that laid them out explains them in brief: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_W._Bebbington
    I’ve seen them cheekily laid out with the ‘-centrism’ part in every one, as in ‘biblicentric,’ ‘crucicentric,’ ‘conversioncentric,’ and ‘activity-centric.’ The wikipedia page on evangelicalism itself is a pretty big slog, but talks more in depth about them.

    What those four things mean in practice is very interesting, again in an academic manner, in how neatly they lay the groundwork for MAGA/this shit we’re seeing. The biblicentric primes them to reject the authority of more ‘traditional’ sects when there exists conflict between beliefs (even between different evangelical churches), because the bible is ‘always right’ and you can always find something in the bible to contradict something someone is saying, and is a major part of why evangelicals that move will church shop for a while (so they can find one that fits with their beliefs, highlighting, of course, that their beliefs are not necessarily based on much more than vibes). Crucicentrism isn’t as big, but it’s a part of their ‘us vs. them’ mentality that pops up. The emphasis on conversions and activism is part and parcel of why so many of them want to force their beliefs on others (think abortion bans and such).

    Now take those religious aspects, and throw them at politics (where politicians specifically target them). They’re already primed to reject logic, even christian logic, so republican (well, fox news style propaganda even more so) calls to reject what the other side says finds fertile ground. Use their desire to spread their beliefs in controlling, political manners, and you’ve roped in every one of them that wants to ‘do christianity’ with all the guilt they have built in about not improving anything suddenly being assuaged.







  • I mean, the comic shows a skeleton, but I’m reasonably certain that the skeleton wouldn’t be intact by the time it looks like that. The jumpsuit might (big might there) keep some of it in place, but there’s no way the hands are still gripping toggles and the skull is there, looking upwards in horror. I think we can give everything we’re talking about some pretty big leeway and make things work.

    Plus we could always give our freefaller some superspeed by making him want to practice his speed competitions. World record right now is somewhere around 374mph, I think. That’s over 500fps, and probably means we could expect him, with a little pack of water, to be alive for long enough to reach ludicrous distances compared to the canopy pilot. Even if he’s only a wannabe speed star, I’m betting the scenario is plausible. Not from what we see, obviously, with him doing cannonball rolls and belly falling.


  • That, barring it being trump and therefore being done in the most idiotic way possible, is a real danger, considering how the president now ‘can’t be a criminal’ in his ‘official duties.’ He really could call for attacks on the opposition in federal places, and pardon them from the federal crimes if they get fail and get caught (and not shot). Sure, he couldn’t do state crimes, but how many states do you think are going to stand up to a january 6 amount of people that are actually attacking as a riot/insurrection this time*?

    *Not saying here that january 6th wasn’t an insurrection, just that it wasn’t a big coordinated para-military (lol, like even half those fatasses and larpers were trained, fit, or even healthy) movement with everyone ready to shoot opposition.


  • That parachute looks comparatively tiny, but the typical wing loading for a newbie will have you descending at 15-25mph (20-40 feet per second, approximately). I think I remember an advanced canopy instructor mentioning that with his high wing loading, he could hit 100mph or so (150 feet per second, give or take) in a diving turn. Interestingly, if there is no landing with the bottomless pit, you could give newbies advanced canopies without too much worry. Sure, there’s a chance they fuck up the lines and ruin the experience, but they could just cut away and then enjoy the freefall.

    Let’s just say this fella was given an appropriate newbie-sized canopy for his weight, and is at the lower end of the spectrum. A typical fall rate for a belly-to-earth orientation (which is the beginning orientation taught, as it’s the most stable and easiest to manage) will be between 100-125mph (150-180ish feet per second). That’s a difference of ~1:4, which means if your fastest decomposition occurred, our freefaller would be a week in his fall already, and probably dead himself… IF the canopy dude had died immediately upon entering. That would make sense, seeing as how it’s a bottomless hole, not an entire world. He’s probably bounced off the sides a few times. Hitting a cliff face is the beginning of death for most base jumpers, so it could be our friendly pilot’s cause of death here.

    BUT let’s not jump to conclusions too quickly. If this dude is decomposed, that means quite a bit of weight is gone. My search history has probably just gotten mildly spicy for an investigator somewhere. A quick search showed a graph of decomposition reducing weight by approximately 70-90%. That means our pilot here might have gone from a conservative wing loading of 0.8 to something like 0.2. That’s going to be suuuper floaty. The vast majority of the weight comes off after bloating stops and the active and advanced decomposition sets in. So let’s say by day 15 (to make the math easier), the canopy pilot is only falling at a rate of 8 feet per second. I don’t want to actually break out the calculus, so simple arithmetic and algebra here. We’ll take the difference between 8 and 20 feet per second and multiply that by 15 days worth of seconds, then see how long it takes our freefaller. So by day 15, canopy-man is at 18,144,000 feet in the pit. He’s now descending at 8fps, compared to the fastest 180fps of the freefaller. The freefaller gets to 18,144,000 feet in 28 hours. The canopy is another 806,400 feet down. In another ~1.3 hours, the freefaller catches up. I think our comic is a possibility now.

    We could also say that our freefaller is quite experienced, or very inexperienced, and is vertical more often, which typically sees speeds closer to 180mph, or around 250-300fps. That changes things again (and really makes the scenario easy), but meh. Do the math yourself, nerds.


  • In Denmark possession of CSAM was made illegal and it lead to police being forced to prosecute people who accidentally uncovered CSAM and wanted to report it. I haven’t heard of specific cases, but if you want to report existence of CSAM on a CD that is in your hands which you found in the attic of a home you just moved into the police will tell you to destroy it immediately and forget about it because the law can’t distinguish between the owner of the CSAM and the current temporary person that possesses it and reports it.

    The fuuuuuck? Even in america, the stars would have to align for that to happen. The cop would have to dislike you, the prosecutor would have to dislike you (or be gunning for a higher political position and you’re an easy mark for being tough on child criminals), the jury would have to hate you (or be really dumb and not believe you took the material to the cops in the first place), AND you would have to be dumb enough to not realize how hated you are in your local area and still give them the rope to hang you with.



  • I think every service in the eastern half of my state uses the one I listed, and it’s probably about a 90/10 split on plain english / 10 codes. Most of the 10 code usage is in the extremely rural areas. And god, don’t get me started on 10 codes not being standardized. At least most of the major things seemed to be close. I haven’t traveled to the western side for work, so can’t speak to there. It is definitely interesting how things shake out in regards to agencies following recommendations.


  • “Have to be” is a pretty strong verbiage… but like the others have said, it’s about both parties already knowing the alphanumeric replacement of choice. That’s why any military boy will roll their eyes and probably have some silly comment if you start using random words like apple, boy, or dennis.

    Civilian side radio users, like fire, ems, or police, have a different one

    spoiler

    Adam, Boy, Charles, David, Edward, Frank, George, Henry, Ida, John, King, LIncoln, Mary, Nora, Ocean, Paul, Queen, Robert, Sam, Tom, Union, Victor, William, X-ray, Young, Zebra; if you were curious

    that they use, and you’ll always hear someone firing back on the radio about not calling in an airstrike when a former military member slips up and uses the military version.


  • If we considered '24 as a single point, then regression to the mean (thinking, as is pretty accurate across most states, that the split between d/r is often a few points off of 50/50) would suggest a large swing back towards ‘neutral’ from a +14 point advantage.

    So, even discounting the idiocy that is the current american administration and its effects on voters, yes, I would expect most places to vote more democrat.


  • Bodies cool fast enough that unless you died in a public place, you’ll probably be room temperature. As the meme reply suggests, your body is close to the slow cooker, almost assuredly on the counter of your home/apartment.

    So… a tepid, stinky, far-too-chewy bag of rotting fat, or some delicious potatoes (pronounced like so)? POtatOES!