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When Technology Meets Poultry—and Fails Spectacularly
How are you all holding up? Most of you guys won't notice anything different. But it really is.
Facts...
We just went though multiple world-line slides in rapid succession. With more on the way.
Think of reality as a deck of cards. and our consciousness is in every one of the cards. but the cards that have the highest percentage of our consciousness is the top card on the deck.
Now, the cards are being rearranged.
Our percentages are staying the same. You are still the top card, and then the second card, and so on and so forth.
But (for your consciousness) the top card is no longer "The Joker", it is the "King of Hearts".
For other people it still might be "The Joker" and they are living though world war III. But not you.
So you might feel a little dizzy, but that's far better than living inside a world that is in the middle of a world war. So everything is sliding.
So the table analogy still stands. The "table" is the "top card" in the deck of cards. Confused? Don't be. It's all pretty simple.
Reality is shifting, and your is getting better.
I think the worst of the shifts are over.
I do not know who is doing this, but I do have an idea as to why. -MM
Today...
Sir Whiskerton and the Robot Chicken Cheating Scandal
Or: When Technology Meets Poultry—and Fails Spectacularly
Introduction
Welcome, dear reader, to a tale of academic ambition, technological tomfoolery, and poultry-based pandemonium. In today’s story, Ditto the Echoing Kitten finds himself in hot water during his kitten-version of the Chinese Gaokao (高考). Desperate for help, he turns to Professor Quackenstein, who unveils his latest invention: a robot chicken programmed to assist with exams. Unfortunately, this clucking contraption only knows one word—"BANANA"—and promptly blue-screens mid-test.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ducky seizes the opportunity to sell the robot’s "answers" as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), sparking a farmwide frenzy over what is essentially digital gibberish. So buckle up—or should we say "peck up"—for Sir Whiskerton and the Robot Chicken Cheating Scandal.
Act 1: The Birth of the Clucking Genius
Ditto sat nervously at his desk, staring blankly at the exam paper. His tiny paws trembled as he whispered to Sir Whiskerton, “I can’t do this!”
“Fear not, young apprentice,” said Sir Whiskerton, adjusting his monocle. “Professor Quackenstein has just the solution.”
Enter the professor, dragging behind him a shiny, futuristic chicken-bot adorned with blinking lights and a nameplate reading Clucktron 9000.
“This marvel of modern science will guide you through your test,” declared Professor Quackenstein proudly.
The robot whirred to life, tilting its metallic head dramatically before declaring in a monotone voice:
“BANANA. BANANA.”
Ditto blinked. “…That’s it?”
Before anyone could respond, Clucktron’s screen flickered wildly before displaying a bright blue error message:
ERROR 404: INTELLIGENCE NOT FOUND.
Act 2: The Great Banana Boom
As Ditto struggled to make sense of the situation, Mr. Ducky waddled into the scene, clipboard in wing. Spotting the malfunctioning robot, his eyes lit up like fireworks.
“Rare digital knowledge!” Mr. Ducky announced, slapping a price tag on Clucktron’s side. “Limited edition answers, folks! Only 50% off today!”
Within moments, the entire farm descended into chaos. Animals gathered around, waving their hooves, paws, and flippers to bid on the robot’s "wisdom."
Chef Remy LeRaccoon scratched his head. “But all it says is ‘banana.’”
Mr. Ducky leaned in conspiratorially. “Exactly! It’s abstract. Avant-garde. Post-modern genius!”
Even Bessie the Tie-Dye Cow couldn’t resist joining in. “Ooh, I’ll take three bananas’ worth!”
Amidst the madness, Ditto stood frozen, echoing the robot’s endless refrain:
“Banana! Banana!”
Act 3: Resolution Through Reflection
Sir Whiskerton finally intervened, herding everyone back under the old oak tree for a moment of clarity.
“Friends,” he began gravely, “we must ask ourselves: What are we truly seeking here? Is it wisdom? Or merely shortcuts disguised as progress?”
Porkchop snorted. “I’m just here for the snacks.”
Ignoring him, Sir Whiskerton turned to Ditto. “True learning comes from effort, not shortcuts. Even if those shortcuts come wrapped in shiny metal chickens.”
Ditto nodded solemnly. “So… no more banana bots?”
“Precisely,” Sir Whiskerton replied. “Unless they’re serving fruit salad.”
Post-Credit Scene
Mr. Ducky stood triumphantly beside a glowing billboard advertising Clucktron 2.0. Beneath the slogan “Smarter Chickens, Better Grades!”, a new robot clucked monotonously:
“WATERMELON. WATERMELON.”
Chef Remy sighed. “At least it’s seasonal.”
Cue horrified squawks.
Moral of the Story
Shortcuts rarely lead to success—and sometimes, they just leave you hungry for bananas.
Best Lines
- “BANANA. BANANA.” – Clucktron 9000, philosopher-chicken extraordinaire.
- “Rare digital knowledge! 50% off!” – Mr. Ducky, master marketer.
- “Banana! Banana!” – Ditto, accidental parrot.
Starring
- Sir Whiskerton (Voice of Reason)
- Ditto the Echoing Kitten (Accidental Cheat)
- Professor Quackenstein (Mad Scientist of Poultry Tech)
- Mr. Ducky (Hustler Extraordinaire)
- Clucktron 9000 (Blue-Screening Genius)
Summaries
- Moral: Hard work beats shortcuts every time—even if the shortcut involves robots and fruit.
- Key Jokes: From Clucktron’s existential crisis to Mr. Ducky’s absurd sales pitch, laughter abounds.
- Future Potential: Could Clucktron evolve into a sentient being? Or will Mr. Ducky start selling glow-in-the-dark bananas next?
Until next time, may your exams be fair and your bananas ripe. 🍌
How do you emotionally handle going to more funerals than weddings as you age?
My reaction and processing of grief has changed as I have grown older. I guess it has happened so much that I am “getting better at it.” Both parents, all siblings save one are gone. Many dear family members and close friends have died. I almost lost my dear husband in a freak accident a few years ago. Beloved pets, treasured colleagues, crib deaths/ still borns, military conflict, overdoses, suicides, car accidents, cancer, even murders— I have seen it all.
I even co-wrote a book for very young children “Everyone Dies,” to help children start to process this fact of life.
When in my 20s-30s, I felt the loss more keenly: maybe it was because I was looking ahead to a long future without that person, and wondered how I would cope? Now that I am almost 70, it is very different. Experience has taught me coping strategies, and there is no long future yawning ahead. In fact, I am now processing and preparing for my own inevitable death. I believe in an afterlife, and so am looking forward to reconnecting with those who have gone before me, if that’s possible. My feeling about death is more anticipation and wonder than fear.
At funerals you see people comforting the bereaved spouse/parent/child/sibling, who is generally weeping and exhausted, bereft. The younger they are, the more profound the reaction. I have noticed that when the bereaved is very old— 80 or more— they are usually hugging and comforting the attendees! Pats on the back ,“There there dear, it will be alright.” They seem more resigned, calm, at peace. By this time they understand that death is a normal part of life, and somehow they will go on.
This is a generalization, and not true in all instances. But it is true for me and my own circle of friends and family. It is a great blessing of old age. We feel grief, but we feel it differently.
Are Iranian missiles as good as the Chinese ones?
China conducts as many hypersonic flight tests in one year as the US does in ten. Moreover, the success rate of China’s hypersonic tests is surprisingly high - there’s never been any news of a crash. Guess why that is.
Have you ever heard of a wind tunnel?
It’s as crucial to missiles as a ruler is to drawing a straight line. Of course, you could build missiles and rockets without wind tunnel for testing, but you’d have to fail so many times that your economy couldn’t possibly bear the cost.
Most countries can build ordinary wind tunnels, The ones which blowing cars, for example, 0.2 Mach, and all you really need is a civil power supply.
There are bigger ones too. Take the US, for example, they built a tunnel last November that could reach 10 Mach, which is about what China could do over 20 years ago. Russia’s fastest wind tunnel reaches 8 Mach, the US claims to have theoretical tunnels capable of 15 and 30 Mach once, but they’ve never actually used them.
As for China, maximum speed, 33 Mach, named as JF-22.
Wind tunnels are the only way to realistically simulate conditions for rockets and hypersonic missiles in a lab, and running a single test costs a huge amount of money. Both France and the European Space Agency have tried to get access: France applied for a Chinese 10-Mach tunnel, with a price tag of €200 million, and ESA for a 20-Mach tunnel, asking €500 million, but for various reasons, the deals never went through. The US even tried to access Chinese facilities via Japan, with a non-discounted price of $5 billion. Of course, all of this is based on the premise of data sharing.
It's difficult to build. Once the wind gets fast enough, you can’t just use mechanical blowers. Back when China first started experimenting with wind tunnels, we actually used explosions to create high-speed winds. The guy behind this was Yu Hongru, a total legend. He’s already in his 90s. And apparently, designing that wind tunnel wasn’t cheap at all, well, an entire lab building got blown up by him in the process.
Fortunately, China is a country that’s really good at building, and that’s not all China excels at, it also has a widespread and stable power grid.
The Chinese wind tunnel capable of 33 Mach can reach a peak power consumption of 15 GW, which is equivalent to about 70% of the total installed capacity of the Three Gorges Dam, yep, the very dam that US media once claimed was slowing down the Earth’s rotation.
Dell Fires 25,000 Workers - TECH LAYOFFS GET WORSE
Chrono BnB
Written in response to: "Center your story around someone who has (or is given) the ability to time travel."
VJ Hamilton
* * *
Lancaster’s next email arrived late on Friday. “Hey, Caleb. I sense you’re a guy who loves adventure. I can get you a discount Chrono BnB circa 1850 (prairie pioneers) for your next one-week vacay. Here’s a link to some more info on the special nature of Chrono BnB.”
I stared at the date and thought: sodbusters. Stern, sad people. Little House on the Prairie. Could I cope with those dudes for a week?
I read the article he attached.
7 Dos and Don’ts for Chrono BnB
Science has finally solved the problem of the fourth dimension. Along the way, there were a few kinks to work out. Now we can travel back in time just like we zip to Las Vegas for the weekend. But take it from me, the best way to time-travel is through a spin-off of the AirBnB model.
The bed-and-breakfast arrangement overcomes the difficulties the earliest time-travellers experienced. Chronoporting only moves your DNA, not your clothes or other stuff. Eyeglasses, tooth fillings, pacemakers: none of these time-travels with you. A chronoported person could theoretically materialize in the middle of, say, a crowded marketplace. They would have no clothes, no money, no place to stay. Worst of all, they would have no story to explain their abrupt appearance.
Let’s think about this from the historical person’s standpoint. Why should you accept a stranger who has suddenly materialized from out of the blue? Especially if that stranger shows up buck-naked and babbling some incomprehensible language? “Give me take-out and charge it to my credit card.” What does that mean to an ancient Roman?
The results, as we saw in several early time-travel incidents, were tragic. Depending on the era, a chronoported person could be beaten, run out of town, or tortured to death.
Fortunately, the ChronoPort Retail Development team got busy. Marketing liaison people went back in time, decade by decade, smoothing the way for ordinary time-travellers. They persuaded enterprising inhabitants of different eras they could make a few shekels on the side using the AirBnB model. They would just have to welcome the occasional time-traveller into their home, provide the amenities, and give safe cover.
Here are seven dos and don’ts for maximizing your medieval mead-swilling in a responsible and time-sustainable way.
Bone up on the language. Bone up on the era. Thanks to time travel, Classics professors are seeing a 700% increase in the enrolment in Latin, ancient Greek, and Sanskrit. Salve, sum amica!
Don’t try to show off. Sure, you can say, “I think someone’s hiding in that fancy Trojan horse” but then some guy will look at you funny and say, “Really? How did you happen to know that?” just before he points you out to the mob.
Don’t try to make money. Think you can short-sell the 1929 stock market? Wrong; it was a completely different regulatory regime. Just “be in the moment” and save your money-grubbing ways for present life.
Don’t be fast to pass judgment. Yes: sexism, slavery, homophobia, classism, colonialism, and so on should bother you. Paradox: you descended from a long line of that stuff going on all over. So just be an observer. If someone hands you a musket, politely refuse.
Don’t f*** with the locals. Also, don’t f*** the locals. Impossible to list the number of ways this could mess up. Just don’t do it.
Stay safe. A broken leg nowadays is manageable. During the chaos of the French Revolution? Not so much. Note: if you have been exposed to smallpox or bubonic plague, let your healthcare provider know immediately upon your return.
In the words of Dale Carnegie, “Do not complain, criticize or condemn.” So the food isn’t what you expected, and the beds are lumpy lice-ridden bundles of straw shared by many, and even the good-looking folks have pox-scars and rickets and dental monstrosities in their mouths. You’re just visiting! Soak up the vibe and be glad you’re just passing through.
The enthusiasm of the travel writer was contagious. I’d had enough of gambling in Macau and gator wrestling in Florida. I wanted the experience of time travel… done while keeping safe with an intermediary. I signed up with ChronoBnB and went to their company headquarters. First I had to complete an online tutorial that went over all the things in the article, in a much more ho-hum way.
Then I had to sign a lot of forms pledging not to spill the beans about the terrible war coming in 1861.
They said my BnB “host” in 1850 would be similar to me—a young man named Wilbur.
* * *
The next thing I knew, I was swimming through a tunnel and bobbing up in a group of four young men, who were crawling out of the swim-hole. It was a hot day and our naked bodies glistened in the sun. Theirs: lean and ripped. Mine: not so much. Lots of chuckling and teasing as they got dressed. The fifth pile of clothes was claimed by no-one, so I took it. The clothes weren’t the cleanest and they were scratchy. No elastic in my underwear! No zip in my pants—instead I fumbled with buttons and drawstrings.
“Hello, Cousin Caleb. I am Wilbur.”
I was relieved to meet my ChronoPort contact right away. He was about my age, with freckles and a wide-open friendly face, blushing as fiercely as he was smiling. I instantly took a liking to this 1850s early adopter.
Wet-haired and shivering, the five of us guys ran to a homestead in the middle of the prairies. Wilbur gave me a tour of the yard, including the outhouse. The rough wooden farmhouse was full of clanking and women’s voices. We seated ourselves at the table where I counted 18 people, from Baby to a 60-ish patriarch. One girl sawed pieces of coarse bread and another ladled meat and gravy on it. Darn, I forgot to ask about vegan alternatives. After everyone received a plateful, the old guy recited a rambling prayer of thanksgiving.
Wilbur announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and gals, please welcome Cousin Caleb, who is visiting us for a week from down east.” There was some snickering and jostling that quickly subsided as I looked around, nodding, saying “how-d’you-do” a few times. Then we fell to the serious business of eating. A woman said, “Cousin Caleb, you have not touched your pot roast. Are you feeling poorly?”
“Um…I’m still full from my morning smoothie and avocado toast,” I said. From her look of bewilderment, I might as well have breakfasted on eye of newt.
Wilbur said quietly, “If it be not to your liking, may I have your beef?”
After lunch, every guy and a few gals bolted outside. Everyone knew what they were supposed to do, even the five-year-old girl carrying the slop bucket out to feed the pigs. Not wanting to look clueless, I grabbed what I thought was a hay rake. I wished I had my sunblock SPF 50 and my Ray-Bans. I started off for the meadow, but Wilbur approached me and said, “With two, this will go faster.”
“With two, many things go faster,” I said.
He blushed. But the joke was on me. It was not a hay rake but a stable rake, designed to collect manure from barn stalls. After ten minutes I had blisters. Wilbur was startled when I asked for Band-Aids.
“Bandages? For what injury?” He stared at my soft white palms covered with red polka-dots.
The slop-girl Rachel came over to look. Her hands were lean, nut-brown, with toughened pink palms. “Yer socks kin proteck yer hands,” she said.
I untied my heavy shoes.
“Be you Shadrach’s brother?” Rachel asked.
“Caleb is what you call a shirt-tail cousin,” Wilbur said. “Now, git!” As she sauntered away, he muttered, “That one is too curious for her own good.”
“Curiosity is natural,” I said, smiling.
“Maybe ‘bout some things,” he said and quickly looked away.
“Curiosity is no sin,” I said. I put my woolen socks on my hands, feeling thankful no cameras were there to record Caleb the Sock-handed Softy. I held the rake and continued mucking out the stable. The thick leather shoes rubbed on my bare-skinned feet and I could feel blisters forming there, too. I aimed to keep up with Wilbur, and soon we were hot and sweaty. I kept thinking about that swim-hole. The day wore on. Despite my regular gym work-outs, the burn of my shoulder muscles began to outweigh the pain of my blisters.
“Good job!” Wilbur said when the barn was clean at last.
Supper consisted of savory slop and lumpy dumplings followed by heavy pie, which we ate right in the middle of the gravy-smeared plate. Not anything Instagrammable, that’s for sure. Mirthless women took up sewing or knitting by the kerosene lamps. Grim-faced menfolk carved or repaired jingly harnesses. Wilbur read aloud from Papa’s Bible. I began to worry about sleeping arrangements. From what I’d seen, guys were in one room, gals in another, and the marrieds and babies would be in the lean-to. Good-bye, privacy!
After a lull, Rachel said: “Cousin Caleb, kin you tell us a story?”
I tried to remember a fairy tale, but I only came up with past episodes of The Simpsons.
Rachel yawned. “Brother Wilbur said you had an innerestin’ dream o’ the future.”
“Well… yes… I dreamed that in the future people weren’t using horses to get around. They have horseless carriages called ‘cars.’ I dreamed that our country and Russia had a mighty contest to see who could send a man to the moon first—"
“Who won?” a kid’s voice piped up.
“We did! Things became very, very good for us—doctors learned how to cure some diseases and fix the pains in our teeth. People invented all manner of things—moving pictures, instant music, and… and….” I tried to stop, but I was seized with—dare I say it?—a nostalgia for the future. “I lived in a building that had 30 floors stacked on top of each other!”
Wilbur guffawed. “Who in God’s creation would want so many stairs?”
“It would take all day to git up to your bedroom,” Rachel said.
“No, in the future, there will be, like, a vertical ‘car’ that runs up and down the side of the tall buildings,” I said. “The car is called an ‘elevator’ because it can elevate you—”
“Ell-eh-vay-tor!” People tried out the word. “Elevator? Elevator!” They chuckled and brayed; the shoulders of even the sternest folk were heaving with laughter.
I began to laugh, too.
* * *
The week passed as quickly as a raft over a waterfall. I learned everyone’s name and assigned chore. The pioneers weren’t all the jolly simple folk I used to think they were. They had their own intrigues, delights, and stolen moments of pleasure, chiefly boy-girl kisses in the milk-house. We menfolk were mainly building a cattle-fence. Wilbur arranged some fun things for me like playing with kittens in the hayloft (dusty, scratchy, and better than 100 cat videos) and milking a cow (invasion of the cow’s personal space to do rude things with her mammary glands). And yes, those shy but saucy guys had excellent fun cavorting at the swim-hole. As a visitor, I was allowed the first wash in the shared Saturday night bath. Afterward Wilbur caught some gals spying on me and “gave them a drubbing,” he reported later.
“Did they see anything … shocking?” I said, thinking of my body piercings.
Wilbur was at a loss for words. How I loved making him blush.
On my final morning, Wilbur shook me awake. “Now you’ll see what folks around here do for real fun!” Oh great, the annual church picnic.
We rode there all crammed in a wagon that jolted along a deeply rutted road. And me with my motion sickness and Gravol not yet invented… I could barely keep it together. The ride was made worse by the pinching match that broke out among the women over who would get to sit beside me. I turned my greenish face away to escape the B.O. of Tabitha. (I don’t know how she coped with my B.O.).
I was a head taller than most guys at the picnic, so I expected to win prizes for speed, but this wasn’t like my morning jog. They had wacky events like races where you had to hold an egg on a spoon. Rebecca sneakily clutched at my body and Hepzibah “accidentally” brushed against me. Noah shoved me roughly and Gideon threatened me with a “knuckle sandwich” when I mistook his potato pie for my own.
“No problem,” I said. “Take your piece—and you can have mine, too!” They even had preschoolers trying to ride piglets. The day resounded with giddy laughter, and I felt drunk on sunshine and exhaustion.
On the way home, I volunteered to ride in the hayrick. Picture, if you can, a slow-moving haystack, barely held in place on a wagon with minimal side boards.
“The hayrick? Are you sure?” Wilbur said, forgetting that I was clueless.
“My last night,” I said with a shrug. His face reddened and he jumped aboard, too. There were about ten of us who rocked and swayed while the conveyance bumped over the cow paths. As we bounced on the springy fragrant hay, my mind swirled with thoughts of kitten nests and barn stalls and swim-holes and piglet rodeos—and BANG!
I fell off the hayrick.
I staggered to get up, trying to clutch my elbow, knee, ankle and chin.
“We’ll put Miss Elizabeth there beside you, to keep you awake,” the hayrick driver said, with a wink.
“No, please!” I said. The others laughed. Wilbur crossed his eyes at me. I crossed mine back at him, with a little smile. The hay was so slippery that I had a devil of a time hanging on. Wilbur helped hold me in place. Now there was one sweaty hard body! He tried not to look at me, but we could both feel undeniable pleasure as we moved against each other.
Happiness surged in me, despite my sore muscles and numerous shaving cuts.
“Thank you for visiting, Caleb,” Wilbur said. “I enjoyed hearing about the future. I wonder if all the people there are as … fun to be with?”
“Yes, the future is even better than that,” I whispered in his ear. “Elevators going up and down…”
“You’ve got me real curious now,” he murmured.
Wilbur felt so tempting, as we rode that bumping hayrick home while the sun was going down. If we were men of the twenty-second century, I would have made my move. But I remembered the ChronoBnB instructor saying that we owed our hosts “utmost respect” which meant we weren’t supposed mess with their minds or interfere with their bodies; it could drive them insane “because they have no context for you, the visitor from the future.”
That last night I lay on my pallet listening to the snores and breathing of a roomful of others. I felt more connected to Wilbur and his people than I had ever felt to my contemporaries. I guess I’m just an old-fashioned boy at heart.
Wilbur was a special young man, a rare soul. A part of me feared for his future safety. I also feared the harsh life might suffocate his sensitive nature. I felt so sad at the thought of leaving. I knew, but was prohibited from mentioning, that war that would soon tear the country apart.
The teleportation of my body would occur tomorrow. To disguise my departure, Wilbur would take me back to the swimming hole. I decided to return to this exact locale two years into his future—1852—and tell him to expect me.
In the meantime, I would return to my “home era” and make some radical life changes so I would acclimate faster when I returned. I’d get rid of the smart phone and learn old-style carpentry.
I fell asleep planning to learn to ride a horse. I dreamed Wilbur and I would escape to the territories, and live as a pair of eccentric confirmed bachelors.
Girlfriend Expected Boyfriend To Keep Taking Her Back, Has Crying MELTDOWN When He Dumps Her By Text
Mediterranean Chicken
Fire up some Italian flavors with this quick and easy chicken dish. It’s bursting with zesty flavors and healthy antioxidants. Best of all, it’s ready to serve in under 30 minutes.
Prep: 6 min | Cook: 15 min | Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 1 cup College Inn® Culinary Broth White Wine & Herb
- 1 can Del Monte® Diced Tomatoes with Basil, Garlic and Oregano-No Salt Added
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into cubes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons rosemary minced
- 1 cup frozen artichoke hearts
- 1/4 cup black olives
- Rice
Instructions
- Cook chicken in oil in a large skillet over medium high heat for 3 minutes.
- Add rosemary; cook for 2 minutes.
- Stir in tomatoes, artichoke hearts, olives and broth. Simmer for 10 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink.
- Serve over couscous or rice.
Attribution
Recipe and photo used with permission from: Del Monte
Is the steel used on Teslas really stainless? They rust readily, yet I know of a stainless steel manhole lid on a storm drain which is regularly covered by the tides. After 20 years it hasn't rusted. Isn't stainless steel supposed to be rustless?
I’m a metallurgist. Dealing with corrosion is a huge part of my profession.
I was on a layover overnight somewhere between the US and Australia and I got into a conversation with a geologist, who asked, “what does a metallurgist do?”
I thought for a moment and responded, “All metal used to be dirt. It will be dirt again. My job is to make sure that happens AFTER we’re done using it.”
At least on this planet, metal doesn’t want to be metal …. when better (lower energy) options are available. It would much prefer being an ion, bound into an oxide, or nitride, or sulfide or sulfate, or just a solute in water.
Don’t think of “stainless steel” as stain-less. It’s corrosion resistant - a better technical name is “corrosion resistant steel,” even though professionally I still call it Stainless Steel. It can corrode under the right circumstances. But surface staining isn’t much metal loss. Something like road salt won’t make it fall apart but can cause staining and pitting. However, where aesthetics are critical like on the fashion statement that is the Cybertruck, even a fingerprint gets noticed.
Some stainless steel versions are much more resistant to chloride (which seawater has a BUNCH of). Type 304, nope. Type 316 is much more resistant to pitting and staining - I think the Cybertruck shell is mainly based on a modified Type 316 composition - but still not perfect.
Your stainless steel manhole lid might not be stainless steel, it might be Monel (looks a bit like SS, but it’s actual a nickel-copper alloy highly resistant to seawater) or maybe a duplex SS or high-nickel alloy. Or it gets cleaned off regularly, I don’t know.
All the nuance of corrosion is complex enough that multiple industries spend immense amounts of money understanding and preventing it. Probably a single- or low-double-digit slice of the entire global economy is dedicated to preventing corrosion or repairing the damage.. You can have an entire career in the field, so it’s not something that can be fully answered in a Quora post.
Why might future Chinese leaders be more aggressive, and how should the world prepare for that possibility?
Because as China grows stronger, Chinese are rediscovering confidence in China.
While Westerners often associate Communism with China, please do not forget that Communism is a Western ideology. And in the eyes of the Chinese, the Soviet Union was, and Russia still is, a very Western country. We Chinese adopted Communism because we admired the West.
However, nowadays Chinese are becoming more Chinese again.
Girls are wearing Hanfu instead of Western dresses.
Boys are playing BlackMyth Wukong and Easy Red 2 instead of Call of Duty.
Nezha 2 became the top grossing animated film of all times because of the new found Chinese interest in our own culture.
Travelling in China has become more trendy than visiting Maldives or the Alps.
BMW and Porsche are being replaced by Chinese EVs.
Military enthusiasts stopped admiring American weapons and are now simping for Chinese gear.
Chinese politicians are quoting classical Chinese literature more than Marxism.
This last one, you see, is a bit of a problem.
Here’s a comparison of Chinese territory:
The yellow part is China of 2200 years ago.
The grayish brown region is China of 150 years ago.
The line within the brown region is China’s border today.
You see, despite how the Western propaganda says that Communist China is aggressive blablabla, the fact is that China grew from 2200 years ago until very recently, but has ONLY SHRANK since it adopted Communism.
Why? Because Communism says we’re all brothers and sisters amongst workers of the world, and humanity will become stateless. So Communist China didn’t care that much about state territory and had been generous and willing to give away territory in border settlements with friendly nations.
The traditional China OTOH, is much more nationalistic. It considers China the center of the world and king to all humanity. It called foreigners barbarians, and it judges people by their Chineseness. It’s in that sense similar to the Roman Empire.
A good example would be the different attitude to Japan, the country that caused the death of 35 million Chinese leading up to and during WWII.
The Communists would say that the Japanese were victims to their own militarism too, and we’re all brothers and sisters and would only protest when right wing Japanese try to whitewash history.
The typical non-communist Chinese would say, why haven’t we nuked Japan flat yet? Why are Japanese allowed to live and brag about their killings? Why are we even alive for, if not to avenge our ancestors?
See the difference?
As Chinese become more Chinese, so will Chinese politics. And future Chinese leaders might become less Communist and more "China First".
The world should prepare by:
1. Be respectable with China. For as vindictive as the traditional China is, it also never forgets a friend. For example, China straight airdropped medical supplies to grandchildren of John Rabe in Germany during Covid. Because Rabe was responsible for sheltering 200–250k Chinese from Japanese massacre in WWII, we must have his grand children, grand grand children and whoever stems from his family line covered. This is a very Chinese thing, not a Communist thing.
2. Becoming more socialist/Communist. Play to the idealist part of Chinese Communism that we’re all family and keep it alive for as long as possible.
3. Learn more about Chinese culture and history. A Chinese speaking foreigner, or one who respects Chinese social norms and taboos will be viewed as superior to other foreigners.
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Scientists Say the Universe Might Be a HOAX — Here's Why
What are the signs that an economy is just in a recession rather than on the brink of collapse?
Boom is when money flows into the economy from all the cellars, vaults, nooks, crannies and mattresses
Discretionary spending is at its peak
Recession is the opposite
Money flows back from the economy into the cellars, vaults, nooks, crannies and mattresses
Discretionary spending is at its bottom
The money spent on Cars, Vacations, Jewelry and Spa Treatments
Recession is formally declared if the Gross Domestic Product shows negative to no growth for 2 consecutive quarters
There are five signs of Recession
- Auto Sales (Automobile, not the yellow three wheeled vehicles you see in Chennai) will show a drastic reduction
- Jobs growth will be negative
- Unemployment will rise
- Home Sales will show considerable decline
- Bond Yields will rise significantly, Interest rates will rise correspondingly
All of the above, must happen without any external factors and together, for the economy to be in recession
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The word ‘Collapse' is used interchangeably with ‘Recession’ , often used to denote a more severe version of recession
Often it is used to describe an economy , where the central bank has defaulted (bankrupt economy) on local debt. This is incorrect. That is economic default or bankruptcy.
It is a word bandied by the Media for sensationalism
An Economy collapses only when the currency of the economy loses value completely and there is no alternate equivalent tender to which value is assigned
Losing value completely means the currency of the economy is regarded as being only worth the paper it is printed on
Without a proper tender, Goods and services no longer have a mechanism to be valued at , and get valued by barter systems such as being paid for work with food , clothes, jewelry, sexual services or begging
The only true economic collapses in the 20th and 21st centuries occured in Russia just before the Russian Revolution in 1917 and in Germany during the 1920s and Zimbabwe in the late 2000s
They are extremely rare
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So the day someone robs you , asks for your watch but says “Keep the wallet. Don't want it”
That's when the economy is in collapse
Trump Charging $100,000 for H1B Visas
At the China Victory Day parade on September 3rd, all the soldiers moved with such uniform precision that they seemed almost machine-like. Wouldn't Chinese people find this somewhat strange and contrary to human nature?
You are right. But the military itself is a deeply inhumane institution.
Doctors take pride in how many lives they save, while the military’s “achievements” are often measured by how many people it kills.
The military is not normal by its very nature.
When I was in school, I went through two months of military training, and many parts of it truly felt meaningless.
(For example, the beds had to be arranged in a specific way. Some people bit the sheets with their teeth, others sprayed water to set the shape—everyone had their own tricks.)
I’ve watched some American war films, like Full Metal Jacket, and it seems the U.S. military also has a great deal of pointless rituals.
But whenever I remind myself that the military is, fundamentally, a very abnormal human organization, I find it easier to accept.
That said, perhaps China’s collectivist spirit is indeed stronger.
After just two months of training, I dare say Chinese university students’ precision in parade marching surpasses that of 90% of the world’s regular armies.
During my own training, something nearly disastrous happened.
In one “exercise,” some idiot derelicted his duty and actually loaded live rounds into an AK-47. Only when dust and rocks flew from the impacts did the officer realize they were real bullets!
(Since no one was injured, the junior officers conspired to cover it up, and their superiors never knew. We students also understood the officers’ fear, so nobody reported it. Otherwise, who knows how many people would have faced extremely harsh punishment!)
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I was just looking at the military training kids have nowadays—honestly, it looks pretty fun. Back in our time, it was rough: every day was high-intensity physical training, forced marches with heavy packs... But it also depended on the province and the school. In Guangxi and Yunnan, those two border provinces, they actually start military training from kindergarten—that’s just absurd.
Is tarping really as bad as flatbed truckers say, and why do some seemingly durable products need to be covered during transport?
So, anyway, I was involved in lawsuit about 25 years ago, just going through the deposition transcripts and summarizing them.
The plaintiff in Canada ordered some rolled coils of galvanized steel from a supplier in the United States. The instructions clearly said the rolls had to be tarped. They were too heavy to load onto the back of an enclosed semi so they had to sit on top of a flatbed.
Long story shot there was a massive rainstorm leading up to the Canadian border, and then the truck was delayed at the border for about eight hours because some of the paperwork was wrong.
So, when the load arrived, water had one way or another seeped past the tarp and gotten into the rolls. There was obvious corrosion everywhere. It’s called “white rust”
The rolls had to be completely scrapped. White rust indicates the zinc coating is coming off, and that exposes the underlying steel to the possibility of rust. No-one wanted to eat the cost of the ruined metal, not the plaintiff, not the trucking company and not even the insurance company.
Now, here’s the kicker. White rust only forms when there’s no oxygen, like in a tightly wrapped steel coil. Once it’s made into a product, water can’t hurt it.
So, yes, even durable things can be hurt by adverse weather conditions, and sometimes putting them into an enclosed trailer just isn’t an option. That’s why shipping instructions go on the bill of lading.
Mexican Chicken Skillet
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 (10 3/4 ounce) can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
- 1 (4 ounce) can green chiles, diced and peeled
- 1 chopped onion
- 2 1/2 cups cooked chicken, diced
- 2 (6 ounce) packages yellow cornbread mix
- Milk
- 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
- 2 cups corn tortilla chips, slightly broken
- 1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese with jalapeños
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a large cast iron skillet.
- Combine sour cream, soup, chiles, onions and chicken.
- Make cornbread batter (with milk) following the instructions on the packages.
- Add grated cheddar cheese to the batter.
- Cover the bottom of the skillet with the broken tortilla chips.
- Sprinkle the grated Monterey Jack cheese over the chips.
- Spread sour cream and chicken mixture over the cheese and chips.
- Carefully spread cornbread batter over the chicken layer.
- Bake at 400 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.