You cannot introduce a human structure to manage water more efficiently than nature

If you actually believe this then there’s nothing anyone can say to help you.

If a naturally occuring spring runs directly into a wide flat area in the middle of the Mojave desert, then it doesn’t naturally reabsorb into the ground as the hard pack just makes it sit on the surface. Since the water is shallow and sitting on the surface, it evaporates instead of being used to water native plants or support native animals.

The golf course in question is not a dam, it’s putting the already available water to use more efficiently. Growing non-native grass, but also native plant species, and providing native insects and animals a way to utilize that water before it would have otherwise evaporated.

Dams destroy native ecosystems by flooding and displacing them, or removing available water downstream. The golf course in question does none of those things.

“Nature is perfect and humans are capable of nothing but destroying it” is a great take BTW. You could have saved a few people some time by leading with that.

You must be trolling.

Birds, insects, and reptiles are common even in the desert. A species can be native to an ecosystem or region, without naturally occuring in an small locality.

If humans manage water more efficiently than nature would have in this locality, it stands to reason that the resulting local ecosystem would be able to attract and support more native wildlife.

This is observable and provable for golf courses which manage their resources with a focus on limiting their natural resource use and increasing local biodiversity.

You just hate golf courses, which is fine, but you sound pretty uninformed.

Golf courses aren’t just grass, they plant all sorts of other vegetation, much of it native. This supports native wildlife that wouldn’t otherwise be there.

Have you ever actually been to a responsibly managed golf course? Many in the southwest US are run this way, and tons more are moving in that direction to reduce water use.

If you’re visiting a country that doesn’t have enough grass to sustain pissing on a tree, you’re going to the wrong places for golf.

I’m not sure I understand? Did you mean county?

It sounds like this course is located at a natural oasis fed by a natural spring. If the course wasn’t there the water would probably feed some plant life and a bit of wildlife. With proper management it’s likely that their water use is more efficient than it would have been naturally. It isn’t unusual for resource aware golf courses to actually improve biodiversity in a region while being water consumption neutral.

I’m going to get all kinds of negative votes for speaking up here. I’m not attempting to defend the various positions I outline below, just to explain why the gun folks see the current situation as the least bad alternative. If gun people in the US actually had their way the laws would be MUCH more permissive than they already are.

Again, I’m not attempting to defend the various positions, only to lend some context (and in the case of domestic abuse, to correct) the talking points above.

If the second amendment is explicitly designed to allow normal citizens to defend themselves against a tyrannical government, then allowing that same government to compile a registry of gun ownership makes no sense. Registration inevitably leads to confiscation, see Australia and New Zealand for recent examples.

(Note; It’s highly suspect that non-military ownership of small arms could effectively fight the US military. Years of attrition in Afghanistan might be the counterpoint here.)

The CDC was examining gun violence statistics in the past, but then ventured outside of the realm of science and into political speech. Most gun people are ok with making science based recommendations determined by facts. But they’re worried that a government entity funded for the purpose of science but controlled by unelected anti-gun bureaucrats will push policy based on politics.

(Note: Any gun policy has some base in science, the question is whether the policy controls the science, or whether science leads the way. Counterpoint: national COVID policy was marginally effective at great cost, both in lives lost and economically)

There are measures to keep “known” domestic abusers from purchasing or possessing firearms. If “known” means “convicted” or under indictment, then those folks are legally prohibited from firearm ownership or possession. This was recently confirmed by a notoriously pro-gun Supreme Court in United States v. Rahimi, by an overwhelming 8-1 majority. Even a restraining order for domestic violence is enough to prohibit purchase or possession.

(Note: enforcement of gun confiscation from prohibited persons is spotty at best, but it’s arguable that this is a problem with policing as the laws are already on the books. The counterpoint here would be the ability in many states to conduct private party transfers without the involvement of a licenced firearms dealer or the requisite background check)

Papaya salad is my absolute favorite Thai dish.

Time to get a few large dogs who don’t like peppers or marigolds, and a rifle.

Yeah I can see that.

Many people have no screens allowed rules at meal time, I think that reflects the sentiment in the comic.

The grill doesn’t sound like fireworks, but using it reminds this human of holidays that are associated with both meat cooked over an open flame and fireworks. 4th of July in the US is what the meme is talking about.

The most vital thing isn’t doing everything the hard way - just being smart about doing it all yourself. It’s the sense that freedom is a function of actual independence, and actual independence is a consequence of ability.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a24399/the-art-of-staying-alive/

We have to pay to have an account on X now?

I’m pretty sure I didn’t mess with systemd, though that would probably be the right way to handle it.

I was able to update a runtime config so if any storage wasn’t available it just halted the service. Then I created a short script I’d invoke manually which decrypted the luks drives and brought the dependent services up. I also added monitoring to alert me when the drives weren’t available for whatever reason.

I guess I was trying to address the parts of your comment where donations cost calories and time. They certainly aren’t paying me for my blood, but personally I feel like it’s a fair exchange, and I get to feel good about doing someone I’ll probably never meet a potentially life saving favor.

Your point is valid. As a counterpoint, when I donate (6-7 times a year) I get snacks and drinks during the donation, and a $5-10 gift card for a local fast food spot to fuel up later. I’m also very lucky that I can take most of my meetings using a headset, so I don’t have to miss work, and the donation truck is at my office, so there’s no travel time to or from my appointment.

I love when CHLA emails me to say they’ll be downstairs in the coming week. I feel good about donating, and get free In-N-Out 😀

I use separate disks for data storage and my OS. That way a headless system can boot and all the services like SSH can become available, and I can decrypt the data drives remotely.

When there’s an unexpected reboot I can still get into my system and decrypt remotely which is nice. I can also move the data storage disks to another system without too much hassle.

I did have to make sure some services were fault tolerant if an encrypted volume was unavailable when the OS booted. An example of this might be torrenting software, I needed to make sure the temporary storage was on an encrypted volume. The software had a sane fault mode when the final storage location was unavailable, but freaked out for some reason when the temp storage was missing.

Once set up the whole thing is pretty easy to manage.

It’s pretty clear to me given the cops shooting, then shouting orders, and Mr. Pink saying he’s been shot, that he does not in fact get away.

I know there’s theories on the Internet about this, and he may not have died, but at the very least he’s been caught and does not keep the diamonds.

None of the thieves got away at the end of Reservoir Dogs.

This is not to say that “good” triumphed at the end either.

Those people panic sober too.

I agree that dehumanizing anyone is terrible and reprehensible. But I think it’s clear that the headline implies Trump was calling ALL immigrants animals, when in fact he was only referring to those with criminal records.

This makes the media outlet running the headline look like they’re biased or lying. Trump says enough crazy shit that they don’t have to sensationalize or stretch the truth. Merely reporting the actual facts would be enough to make their point that Trump is psychotic, without risking their credibility.

I know this is a privacy community, but I’m not sure I’m onboard with the outrage on this particular one. If you rent/lease or go on a payment plan for the device you’re using, then it isn’t yours, it belongs to the entity you borrowed it from.

If I don’t make car payments, the bank can repossess my ride. If I dont pay my mortgage or rent, I can be evicted by my landlord or bank.

If I don’t make my phone payment, the company should have recourse to prevent me from using their device.

This could open up the ability for bad actors to disable my device, and I agree that’s a horrible prospect. But the idea of a legitimate creditor using this feature to reclaim their property is not something I find shocking.