1. The New Madrid fault is a slow beast, but not to be taken lightly. There are large lakes in that region that exist solely because of earthquakes changing the path of the Mississippi River.
2. I once drove through Cooter, Missouri on my way to a wedding in northwest Tennessee specifically to send my wife a cheeky postcard, and those motherfuckers didn’t postmark it until they’d carted it over to the next town with a larger post office. My disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined.

Pretty sure this is Jacksonville Florida, my hometown, and generally an accurate sense of of the vibes there.

It’s close, though. IIRC, you can’t say the same thing about Miami.

Having attended several red state universities, I chose to take it as a statement that alongside the ubiquitous plaza preachers, who are never affiliated with the school and are generally no one’s favorite campus characters, there’s also plenty of standard college silliness and shenanigans. Apart from the big blue cities, the college towns of the south are generally the most educated and forward thinking enclaves of their red states, hence the huge pressure campaigns from their governors to being the schools themselves to heel.

In addition to FecEx and Dominos, there’s other restaurants, Amazon, UPS, newer Chinese-owned final-mile carriers, Uber including Eats/Pets/Courier/etc., Lyft, Doordash, medical couriers, legal couriers, etc. etc. It’s tougher outside the cities, and it’s all kind of a neo-Victorian dystopia of poor wages and no support, but if what’s you actually want to do, “driving places cuz other people can’t or won’t” is a very doable job-description in the US. Just make sure you’re factoring in car expenses if you do the gig-based ones.

Assuming all is above board, the main concern I have is if it’s worth that much to them, wouldn’t it be worth that much to me?

Yes, and then some. It sounds like you’d do better randomly selecting a realtor to throw it up on MLS “as-is,” and even better if you followed the usual, admittedly annoying, process. These companies are not literal “risking jail” scams, but they’re not your friends either, and they will not be offering you anywhere close to market value. My sister and I looked into a couple of them when our dad passed, and the offers were far below what we pulled with a Realtor, even priced to move and with a kind of costly “turnkey” arrangement where they arranged cleanup and inspections.

I have a halfway decent woodworking setup, plus a 3D printer and a cheap laser, but metalworking is just not really an option. The space dedication, plus the oils and the fire hazards and the scraps/shavings/slivers/chaff/god-knows-what-else all being completely incompatible with sharing a space with the rest of it. Sigh, just not likely to happen until and unless I can get in with the makerspace mafia. I am thinking of trying to figure out designing for mills and using metal-bending workbenches in CAD, though, and sending more designs off to be fabbed.

I call it replicator chicken. It looks perfect, striking you as having been cooked in pristine oil, is consistent and properly fried, but then when you taste it you get the world’s blandest recipe. It’s really like a well-meaning computer’s idea of chicken tenders.

The sauce is decent, and utterly necessary, but it’s really not worth it, even within the space of fast-casual chicken fingers. I prefer Layne’s or even Zaxby’s.

I agree with the general takes here, and can add one for specific situations. I have some very old keyboards, and frankly even my newer ones rely on designs that are over 40 years old. In this particular case, I find the old tech superior, because they simply feel nicer to type on, and that’s what a keyboard is for.

I also have quite a few fountain pens, but whereas with a little effort the keyboards are as good or better than an average modern model, I’ll admit there is a fussiness and mess with fountain pens you have to weigh against the nicer writing experience.

Good for the recall folks, though I’m sure there’s a share of pure NIMBYs in there and some folks definitely having the day they voted for. That’s funny that the supporters think the 1000 construction jobs will be for locals and not the specialized oilfield-like firms that are already staffed up to work these projects, or that Google will have 200 permanent staffers tied to the location and contributing to the town’s tax base.

“Gravity plating!” As long as there is floor, you’re good.

Also, won’t anyone think about the fact that Trump literally makes energy policy based on the fact that he thinks wind turbines are ugly?

Based on the number of anoles, skinks, geckos, and Texas spinys in our yard, I’m guessing that little display was for someone else.

My brother used to catch them and let them bite down on his earlobes.

Weird dude.

It’s at about 43:00 in the embedded video, and yeah, that’s probable, but the question was posed to the panel about what their characters would explore in a hypothetical Legacy show, so unless she’s been right on top of it, it feels like a fair assumption for her to have made that they’d be among the leads.

As an aside, I think I would absolutely love hanging out with Marina Sirtis for exactly one day, and I would be utterly exhausted at the idea of spending any longer than that. In her interviews, she is always a delight, but also a lot.

While they’ve got it apart, they can make sure to use a high quality battery!

Experts report the alloy was unmoved by the masterful prologue to Pixar’s 2009 classic Up.

That one’s not actually a problem. The flag is always “hoist side forward” to symbolize a no-retreat mentality. We shall ignore Vietnam and Afghanistan, and how that goes in the reign of President “why they no helping me?!?” remains to be seen.

I believe the correct adjectives are “spongy” and “bruised.”

“For the warfighter.” I suppose there’s a certain clarity of assholery, but jesus, the marketing direct to Hegseth and Trump’s 80s rom-com bully personas is nauseating.

Also, while it’s always been hypocritical to soft-pedal what the most powerful military on the planet is for, the mere act of opening yourself up to accusations of hypocrisy moves the discussion to a place that culturally asserts some level of civilian control, which also implies some limit to the barbarity. People are inherently assholes and will seek the bottom; lowering the bar in advance just encourages even worse behavior.