In some states, it’s ilegal to shut off utilities in a way that creates a threat to life. You can’t shut off the power to a house that needs to run medical equipment. You are limited to what you can shut off in the winter because people could freeze to death.

In most of those cases (from what I know) people are still responsible for the bills. It’s like the covid period where they banned evictions but back rent would still accumulate. I’m sure they’ll also tack on interest or fees.

There needs to be statutory limits on what can be done in these situations, and they need to prevent creating health hazards. I know people are wary of triggering a free rider problem, and on the other side it’s entirely too easy to get a conservative judge to sign an eviction order (depending on where you live). I know the problem is exacerbated by the drive for profits even by “public” utilities, and I know that we have yet to achieve a post-scarcity society where creating potable water and maintaining the infrastructure is essentially free.

Even given all that, though, what you’re describing is ridiculously over the top and counter-productive. If it’s important enough that they will send people with guns to physically destroy critical infrastructure in someone’s home, you’d think that they should try something like putting in individual meters first. That’s the kind of thing the law should compel, if nothing else.

You have all of my respect for doing what you did. I also quit a job that was becoming morally ambiguous, but I was able to do so with time to set up my next position. What you did took real moral courage.

TFW when all of your bugs are like cockroaches that run away from the light but hide in the dark where you can’t see them.

I definitely support the furry community. I also support the scalies and whatever other subcategories there are. Are people wearing slug or earthworm Jim style outfits slimies? I stand behind them. Are there chitinies from the insect fanbase? Do we need separate categories for The Tick and the Mothman? I think everyone should live their best lives and I’ll use whatever collective nouns are appropriate.

But I cannot accept the Snake of the Lake having hands. Snakes very intentionally got rid of their hands in evolutionary time and it just feels like it’s breaking a rule. I could go for a Skink of the Lake - they’re pretty snake-like. It’s just that snakes are one of very few groups of animals that said “Fuck legs, they just get in the way of slithering,” and I think we need to accept that.

Just want to point out that, depending on your state, you may have the right to change the lock, especially if it gets broken as a result of needing the door opened. Even if you don’t have that as a legally secured right, your landlord might let you do it if you’re upgrading to something with a key code or a smart lock, since it’s basically free for them. If nothing else, some smart locks can work with existing locks without having to change them out. If it’s a big company rather than just a landlord, you might need to investigate your rights or go with one of the ones that works with existing locks, but I wanted to throw this out there for anyone who runs into or worries about this problem.

Just a reminder for when you listen to people being presented as trans persons who regret their surgery:

Norma McCorvey - Jane Roe of Roe v Wade - was presented for decades as a devout Christian (evangelical and later Catholic) who regretted her decision. She was used as a prominent voice in the anti-abortion movement and in the attempts to overturn Roe.

She revealed on her deathbed that she was being paid to take that position. The narrative was also complicated by her 35 year relationship with Connie Gonzalez, later claiming that she was no longer a lesbian before confessing that she was paid to say that as well.

Also remember that when they call the child survivors of school shootings “paid actors,” it’s because that’s exactly the tactic they engage in.

Sue.

Do you think this is outside of the expected number of deaths at this point?

Israel usually kills 10-20 Palestinians for every Israeli killed, so we can expect about 15-30k total Palestinian deaths from this, most of whom will be civilians.

I expect the number of deaths per day is going to ramp up once the hospitals and food centers run out of resources.

I’m not even sure what he’s talking about. Open access journals are the ones who charge authors to publish.

If you publish in a journal that has closed access, there is generally no fee to publish. If you want your paper to be open access, you can tack on an additional open access fee so that your paper doesn’t end up behind a paywall. The last time I looked - and this was several years ago - the going rate for making your paper open access in a closed access journal was about $2-3k. We always budgeted for publication fees when we were putting together our funding proposals.

The fee structure is similar for open access journals, except that there’s not a choice about paying them. For researchers whose work isn’t grant funded, it generally means they’re paying out of pocket, unless their institution steps in.

I had a paper published in a small but (in its field) prestigious journal, and the editor explained to me that he only charges people who can afford it, and uses those funds to cover the costs of the journal. He explained that he had a paper from a researcher who couldn’t cover the publishing fee, and he let me know that I was helping out the other person, too.

What I don’t understand is how anyone how has gone through academia doesn’t know this.

Not the OP, but since the post is a picture I’m going to make a guess that the meant they couldn’t shoot pictures, not shoot a firearm. Given the fact they’re calling the vehicle a ute and it has non-US plates, I think I’d go further and say that it’s extremely unlikely that the person is armed with a firearm.

This is revisionist heresy. Gary Gygax, who is expected to be cannonized via a trebuchet in the next couple of years, explicitly said that the official books are more like guidelines than actual rules.

And I mean that I actually had beverages with Gary at a science fiction convention back in the early 90s, and he said stuff like “If you want to pack a healing kit that heals +5 damage, do it.” Being serious now, it’s about the story, not the rules. I know that’s the point of the joke, but it’s been almost 50 years now and people we are still arguing about rules lawyers.

I always thought the White Wolf games that called the DM the Storyteller and explicitly made dice rolls optional were the apex of the interactive story idea.