Y'all know the phrase "Not the flex you think it is?"

None of these are Photoshopped.

 

https://www.threads.net/@sweet_leaf718/post/DB1_WWXvHWS?xmt=AQGzH5NI0wJUVXlNe4T2gWaljR6duNzcYknXVMWJLXRCyw 

Obligatory.

 

Valencia, Spain has experienced some biblical flooding and mudslides.

I wasn't expecting any coverage in the US.

5 minutes ago, Torpedo said:

I wasn't expecting any coverage in the US.

Trending on Reddit, search for "Valencia"

Also NPR 

 

Spain flooding: Photos show the devastation in Valencia : The Picture Show https://www.npr.org/sections/the-picture-show/2024/10/30/g-s1-30937/valencia-spain-flooding-photos

Flood devastation in Valencia, Spain, can be seen from space https://www.npr.org/2024/11/02/nx-s1-5176508/spain-valencia-chiva-flood-map

 

Edited November 2, 20241 yr by Grahame

All this happened last Tuesday. Looks like it becomes interesting or remarkable when the deaths account is over 200.

On 11/2/2024 at 10:05 PM, Torpedo said:

All this happened last Tuesday. Looks like it becomes interesting or remarkable when the deaths account is over 200.

It hit the UK news within hours. A year's rain in 8 hours; absolutely nothing can prepare a population for that, even if forecast.

6 hours ago, robm321 said:

 

I was surprised recently to find that the average pooch can recognise over 150 human words. It has the vocabulary of a toddler. Police and search and rescue dogs get up to 250 words and up. A record breaking border terrier got up to over 1000 recognized words.

Cats on the other hand rely on their chimp to recognise what their vocabulary of meows, chirps and grunts mean. Basically feed me, cuddle me, play with me. Then once those options are exhausted, sleep for 18 hours a day. 

I put this image in my Slow Forum folder last June and I haven't the foggiest idea as to why.

 

Could it have been the corgi?

5 hours ago, Voltron said:

Could it have been the corgi?

It was 100% the corgi.

Gives me so much anxiety... 

10 minutes ago, mikeymad said:

Gives me so much anxiety... 

Anxiety intensifies 

 

 

17 hours ago, Knuckledragger said:

4 hours ago, Grahame said:

Anxiety intensifies 

 

 

And that, gentle folks, is precisely why I invested in a lid for my deck. Our monster 5.4kg cat could have endless fun precisely as above!





 

 

Edited November 5, 20241 yr by Craig Sawyers

Catchy tune!

 

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Carl Sagan

And Earth imaged by Cassini during its mission to Saturn

The densest planet in the solar system - here; the Earth. Kind of figures - there are lot of dense people living here.

Least dense planet in the solar system - Saturn. It is less dense than water. So if you had a bucket of water large enough (and that would be vey large indeed!) Saturn would float.

Factoids of the day over and done.

Microsoft, as part of the latest security update, sneaked in a link to Copilot, shoving a link on the bottom ribbon.

What is Copilot? Well it is an Generative AI thing, that they have named Prometheus.

I knew that I remembered something about Prometheus.

Well he was one of the Greek Titan gods. And he bestowed fire for humanity - which I guess what was in Microsoft's mind, intelligence being a metaphor for fire.

What they entirely missed is the Zeus was so pissed off with Prometheus that he had him chained to a rock. Each day, an eagle would come and eat his liver. Overnight the liver would grow back, only to be eaten again. So Prometheus was sentenced to permanent agony and torment.

I guess the marketing team at Microsoft failed to spot the problem inherent in the name!