tal

It’s rained every evening and we don’t usually get much rain save the beginning of Spring, which we didn’t get this year. Very odd.

https://denverite.com/2025/07/22/denver-monsoon-season/

Colorado’s monsoon season is right on schedule (and, as always, we could use the moisture)

The weather around Denver looks pretty familiar this week: highs in the 80s and thunderstorms in the afternoon, including the possibility of localized flash flooding along the Front Range on Wednesday.

It’s a sign that the summer monsoon is delivering rain to the Rockies on schedule.

“We’re still very much on the front end of it,” said Bruno Rodriguez, a forecaster at the local National Weather Service office. “But we've already seen almost daily showers or some thunderstorms for much of the mountains most afternoons, which is really typical.”

The North American monsoon is a seasonal shift in wind patterns. Instead of blowing from the west, some winds can come from the south or southeast, drawing moisture up from the Gulf of Mexico and sometimes the Pacific. It is most prevalent in late July and August.

In Colorado, this means showers and thunderstorms during the summer months and an increased risk of flash floods. The effect is most pronounced in southwestern Colorado but can reach the Front Range. Denver saw mostly dry weather through the first half of July, followed by a spurt of rain last week and more in the forecast this week, according to WeatherSpark data.

This year’s summer rains have been strictly average in the metro, with Denver International Airport seeing about 8.9 inches of precipitation year-to-date. That’s right in line with the norm, according to data collated by Global Warming Cities.

I don't know where Jyrdano is, but easy to search for places that are:

https://www.iamexpat.de/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/when-will-summer-weather-finally-make-reappearance-germany

When will summer weather finally make a reappearance in Germany?

Summer 2025 is turning out to be a bit of a damp squib. If, like everyone else in Germany, you’re suffering from Wetterfrust (weather frustration), you might be wondering when summer might make a reappearance. The answer is: not as soon as you’d hope.

After what feels like weeks of changeable, wet and windy weather in Germany, it’s beginning to feel like summer will never make a proper appearance in 2025. While the forecast for the next few days is much the same, there is a small bright spot on the horizon.

According to Wetter.com, the reason behind this unseasonably wet weather is numerous low-pressure systems over Central Europe, which bring cool temperatures, frequent rain showers and generally unpredictable weather. They are essentially “stuck” over Germany and other parts of Europe at the moment because they are trapped between two high-pressure systems over the Atlantic and Russia and northeastern Scandinavia.

With the situation not expected to change for the next week or so, unfortunately rainy weather will dominate well into August. For Friday, August 1, the German Weather Service (DWD) is forecasting heavy rain, moderate winds and isolated thunderstorms for the entire country. The conditions look very similar over the weekend with what the DWD is describing cheerfully as “permanent rain”.

https://www.thelocal.at/20250730/why-is-this-summer-in-austria-so-rainy-and-how-long-will-it-last

Why is this summer in Austria so rainy and how long will it last?

https://www.lays.com/products/lays-stax-salt-vinegar-flavored-potato-crisps

https://www.amazon.com/Lays-Vinegar-Flavored-Potato-Crisps/dp/B00NGJM3D4

Your local store may not be carrying them, but it looks like Lay's still makes them.

The pictured coffee machine appears to have a 40 fluid ounce carafe.

https://us.moccamaster.com/collections/glass-carafe-brewers/products/kbgv-select?variant=41498100367523

This mug holds 52 fluid ounces:

https://www.amazon.com/Bubba-Classic-Insulated-Desk-Black/dp/B00YG9SQM0

EDIT: (52 fluid ounces == 1.53 liters)

These weren’t obscure, edge-case vulnerabilities, either. In fact, one of the most frequent issues was: Cross-Site Scripting (CWE-80): AI tools failed to defend against it in 86% of relevant code samples.

So, I will readily believe that LLM-generated code has additional security issues, but given that the models are trained on human-written code, this does raise the obvious question of what percentage of human-written code properly defends against cross-site scripting attacks, a topic that the article doesn't address.

First ad that comes out that bitches mouth, I’m taking a 12-gauge to every motherfucking one of them, patch the roof later.

"Further work from our user experience team has resulted in several recommendations, including revising the Google Mini for the North American market to add a Kevlar layer to the case and using data from the accelerometer to treat an abrupt, rapid acceleration with a threshold above a certain level as "undesirable behavior/behavior needs improvement" user feedback to Alexa+'s prior prompt response."

I feel like a piggyback ride should be a person riding on the back of a piggy, and a piggy back ride should be a piggy riding on the back of a person.

I do like the image, though.

It looks like the etymology is a corruption of "picka":

https://www.etymonline.com/word/piggyback

piggyback (adj.)

also piggy-back, "on the shoulders or back like a pack or bundle," 1823, probably a folk etymology alteration of colloquial pickapack, pick pack (1560s) "on the back or shoulders like a pack," which perhaps is from pick, a dialectal variant of pitch (v.1). As a verb, "to ride piggyback," by 1952.

I'd note that "federal land" is federal-government-owned land, like national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges, and so forth. It's not "all land in the US" or something like that. I'm not sure how many projects exist today on federal land, which I don't think are generally open to development, whether it's to sticking solar farms or whatever up.

thinks

Hmm. Maybe offshore wind. If I remember correctly, in the US, territorial waters are under state control up to something like a nautical mile or three out, and then the remainder of the territorial sea, which runs up to 12 nautical miles out, is under federal control.

kagis

It looks like it was the Submerged Lands Act of 1953 that set the line, and to three nautical miles. And there are exceptions for Texas and part of Florida, which managed to get ahold of slightly larger control.

https://www.bsee.gov/guidance-and-regulations/regulations/bsee-governing-statutes

The Submerged Lands Act (SLA) of 1953 grants individual States rights to the natural resources of submerged lands from the coastline to no more than 3 nautical miles (5.6 km) into the Atlantic, Pacific, the Arctic Oceans, and the Gulf of America. The only exceptions are Texas and the west coast of Florida, where State jurisdiction extends from the coastline to no more than 3 marine leagues (16.2 km) into the Gulf of America.

The SLA also reaffirmed the Federal claim to the lands of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), which consists of those submerged lands seaward of State jurisdiction. The SLA led to the passage of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act later in 1953 (OCSLA). The OCSLA and subsequent amendments, in later years, outlines the Federal responsibility over the submerged lands of the OCS.

EDIT: BLM land -- which is mostly fairly dry land in the West that isn't considered to be especially valuable -- is the one that the federal government permits the most free use of by individuals. Like, you can go do dispersed camping on BLM land wherever you want as long as you move every couple weeks, livestock can graze on it, stuff like that.

BLM land:

This page says that they do permit solar projects on some of their land, so I guess that could be significant:

https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/renewable-energy/solar-energy

Across the 245 million acres of public land it manages, the BLM maintains more than 19 million acres as open for potential solar development, subject to a variance process. Solar energy development projects on BLM-managed public lands are authorized as rights-of-way under Title V of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, as amended consistent with appropriate BLM land-use plans. Regulations at 43 CFR 2800 identify requirements for solar development application and permitting. Applications for solar energy uses on public land are subject to paying cost-recovery fees and all proposals are subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act and other applicable laws and regulations.

EDIT2: The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility

which you may have seen an in-game rendition of if you've played Fallout: New Vegas, where it played a significant plot role, is apparently on public land administered by the BLM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beige_box

IBM's early desktop computers (e.g. IBM Personal Computer, IBM PC/AT) were beige, and box-shaped, and most manufacturers of clones followed suit.[citation needed] As IBM and its imitators came to dominate the industry, these features became standards of desktop computer design.

Why would payment processors lie?

This is basically what I said earlier was probably their driving factor.

Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations.

Our payment network follows standards based on the rule of law. Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network. At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.

Payment processors do not care about someone's social norms. Payment processors, however, do not want to get in trouble with a country, because getting their ability to operate in a country suspended would be really bad for them. As a result, countries have lots of leverage over payment processors, which is a good way to apply pressure to commercial websites that use payment processor services.

Collective Shout is in Australia. There are laws against some forms of adult content in Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_in_Australia

With the R18+ rating in place, it is expected fewer video games will be given the Refused Classification rating. Games may still be Refused Classification if deemed to contain material unsuitable for R18+ classification, such as depictions of sexual violence or the promotion of illegal drug use, as well as drug use that is related to incentives and rewards. More specifically, games which may be Refused Classification include:

• Detailed instruction or promotion in matters of crime or violence.
• Depiction of rape.
• The promotion or provision of instruction in paedophile activity.
• Descriptions or depictions of child sexual abuse or any other exploitative or offensive descriptions or depictions involving a person who is, or appears to be, a child under 18 years.
• Gratuitous, exploitative or offensive depictions of: (i) violence with a very high degree of impact or which are excessively frequent, prolonged or detailed; (ii) cruelty or real violence which are very detailed or which have an extremely high impact; (iii) sexual violence
• Depictions of practices such as bestiality
• Gratuitous, exploitative or offensive depictions of: (i) activity accompanied by fetishes or practices that are offensive or abhorrent; (ii) incest fantasies or other fantasies that are offensive or abhorrent

Classification is compulsory, and games refused classification by the ACB are banned for sale, hire or public exhibition, carrying a maximum fine of $275,000 and/or 10 years in jail.

There is some material available on some of these online stores

at least globally, and I'd guess in Australia

that violates those restrictions. Payment processors won't risk getting in trouble with countries.

But I'm not in Australia!

Probably not, but it's also not just Australia that has similar morality laws.

What I'd guess that the online stores are going to most likely do is have lawyers sit down, review the various countries that they sell games in, write up some list summarizing legal restrictions and embed that into their selling policy and add that it's not legal advice, the list may not be current and complete, and that if some published game does wind up violating the law in some country, that they may remove it from sale in that country to conform to the law. Then they're going to re-list the stuff that they're comfortable saying is conformant in the countries where it is conformant. At least some of them have already intended that (a) there's some kind of review process going on and (b) that they expect to be doing reinstatement of games.

Fun fact: they banned encryption on Amateur Radio frequencies.

Are you sure that this is recent?

https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/tge77a/is_it_illegal_to_encrypt_traffic_over_ham_radio/

is it illegal to encrypt traffic over ham radio?

OP, you should probably clarify which country you live in. The rules are different by country, but in the majority of places encryption on ham radio frequencies is not legal.

Specific to the United States, the very short summary is that there are narrow exemptions that allow encryption, but none that will let you legally send an encrypted message to another person, or have an encrypted two-way conversation that cannot be decrypted by someone else. Encryption in the US is only allowed for cases like protecting radio commands being sent to satellites from external tampering.

There are probably ways available to everyone to transmit data in an encrypted form. It sounds like some non-amateur frequencies that aren't that hard to get access to in the UK permit for encryption:

https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/tkbx8f/any_radio_with_encryption_that_is_legal_to_use_in/

Is there ANY handheld radio that is encrypted/has encryption that can be used in the UK

Get a business radio licence. They cost bugger all to get for what you'll need, from as little as £75 for a 5 year licence, and you can get digital radio gear from Kenwood, Motorola or Icom that'll do what you want.

You could use the licence free PMR446 but the range is utter shite.

I assume that given that WiFi exists and is usually encrypted, the unregulated spectrum permits for encryption, unless the UK deals with that range very differently than the US does.

Also, if you want a point-to-point link and can use lasers, I doubt that that's regulated.

Well, if so, I want to see a bloopers film with bats colliding in slow motion.

squeak squeak squeak WHACK SQUEAK SQUEAK

EDIT:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bats-crash-into-each-other-all-the-time-high-speed-cameras-reveal/

Bats Crash Into Each Other All the Time, High-Speed Cameras Reveal

The sight of bats bursting forth from caves at dusk is majestic enough to dazzle any spectator, scientist, or Gotham City billionaire orphan vigilante. Comprised of hundreds of thousands of mammalian aeronauts, these massive clouds of biomass seem to move as one organism, demonstrating the extraordinary coordination of individual bats.

Or, so it would appear to the untrained eye. High-speed video cameras, however, reveal that bats are a lot more accident-prone than they look at first glance. A new featurette from the California Academy of Sciences follows bat biologists Nickolay Hristov and Louise Allen into the field near Hill Country in central Texas, to document the twilight flights of Brazilian free-tailed bats.

YouTube video containing said slow motion collisions

“We expected that they fly around each other and they never have physical contact,” Hristov said. “We have found, shocking to us, that bats crash into each other quite often. It’s a messy situation, but generally it’s very safe and it works very well.”