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Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Tue 24 Oct , 2017 2:12 pm
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https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ox/543621/
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Why Is This Deer Licking This Fox?

A cuddly island mystery

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Tue 31 Oct , 2017 3:10 pm
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For Halloween, stories of former first ladies, Lincoln's ghost and other specters in the White House:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ret ... -and-pets/
Quote:
On a lonely night in 1946, President Harry S. Truman went to bed at 9 p.m. About six hours later, he heard it.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound against his bedroom door awakened him, he wrote to his wife in a letter that is archived in his presidential library and museum.

“I jumped up and put on my bathrobe, opened the door, and no one there,” he wrote. “Went out and looked up and down the hall, looked in your room and Margie’s. Still no one. Went back to bed after locking the doors and there were footsteps in your room whose door I’d left open. Jumped and looked and no one there! The damned place is haunted sure as shootin’. Secret Service said not even a watchman was up here at that hour.”

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Thu 02 Nov , 2017 7:34 pm
The Grey Amaretto as Supermega-awesome Proud Heretic Girl
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Those are neat stories! :)

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Jude
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Sun 05 Nov , 2017 2:19 pm
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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Sun 05 Nov , 2017 4:33 pm
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Onion quipped that Amazon's new service will send people who will go into your house and kill you. Although the Assassin's Guild may have something to say about it.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Mon 06 Nov , 2017 2:20 pm
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Someone in The Atlantic thoroughly panned this idea, too. He suggested that if you're worried about your packages being left on the front porch, installing a box with a padlock would be a lot cheaper and safer than giving companies the keys to your house.

I noticed that they will charge you a fair bit for this "service" (while no doubt also including much legalese to avoid liability). :)

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Alatar
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Mon 06 Nov , 2017 4:01 pm
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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Tue 07 Nov , 2017 2:58 am
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That would work, for sure.

Rawlplugs? Hmmm, I call them mollies. Others call them anchors. (As I look this up, I may have been given the incorrect term all along. Sadness.)

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Wed 08 Nov , 2017 8:00 am
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There's not enough Whisky (or whiskey) for this Tango Foxtrot.
Rand Paul is not a perfect neighbor, says community developer
Quote:
[Kentucky Senator Rand] Paul suffered five broken ribs and lacerations on his lungs after his neighbor, 59-year-old retired doctor Rene Boucher, allegedly tackled the politician last week, according to an arrest warrant obtained by the Courier Journal.

...

While there's no official word on what caused the fight, Skaggs suggested it might have stemmed from Paul allegedly blowing lawn trimmings into his neighbor's yard.

...
Paul "was probably the hardest person to encourage to follow the (homeowner's association regulations) of anyone out here because he has a strong belief in property rights," said Skaggs, who is the former chairman of the Warren County Republican Party.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Wed 08 Nov , 2017 2:20 pm
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What amazes me is how a neighborhood dispute becomes major news, these days, when one of the participants is well-known.

Gated community HOA? While I'd never blow grass clippings on a neighbor's lawn (besides being hard to do when we use a rake :) ), I can just imagine the HOA rules in one of those. They probably include "acceptable" colors on siding, "acceptable" forms of landscaping, no clotheslines allowed, no working on your own car in the driveway, etc. Unfortunately, it's hard to find a neighborhood without HOAs, these days, unless you live within the city limits - and often not even then. We looked hard because I can't stand the things. They typically go well beyond the reasonable "don't do things to bother your neighbor" and into mini-dictatorships of rules.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Wed 08 Nov , 2017 3:25 pm
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I used to work for a company that sold property management software to HOAs across the country. Some sounded like genuinely great places to live. There was one retirement community for rich people where a front desk guy would call for support and tell me their best stories. Another was near my work and I looked into buying there but couldn't afford it.

Others were infested with petty jerks, based on the violation letters they were sending.

Overall, I'd prefer a property without one, mostly because of the risk of a sudden large expense being passed to the owners. They tend to under-insure. But I've seen some good ones.

Regardless, if you buy in one, you can't just ignore the bylaws and pretend it's your little house on the prairie.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Wed 08 Nov , 2017 4:39 pm
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I rather hate them, too, and hope that if I ever have to live in one, it's the benevolent kind and not the dictator kind. I've seen the rules on some of them, and I know I would completely hate it.

And I'm stealing the "not enough Whiskey for this Tango Foxtrot" line. :D

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Wed 08 Nov , 2017 5:54 pm
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If you ever think of buying in one, read the bylaws! And ask about insurance. And special assessments. And the percentage of absentee owners.

It's possible to find a good one. I have a friend living in the one I was considering, and she's happy as a clam (at high tide). They have the pool, and all sorts of classes that she takes, and don't mind her cats.

But yeah, it's a risk. You could get a Republican Senator for a neighbor. =:)

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Wed 08 Nov , 2017 7:47 pm
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Most of the HOAs in our area have no community facilities or events like classes, just a committee to keep their neighbors in line. Practically every little collection of streets has an HOA established by whatever company developed that property.

I've lived in 2 developments with HOAs and found that the bylaws were moderately useless in predicting which ones would be OK. We avoided anything with picky clauses ("paint must be of a color approved by the current committee...") but found that even when the rules look OK, it all depends on who's running the HOA committee.

The first one was a nightmare and constant source of stress, where the actual rules ended up being whatever the long-time residents (AKA "old conservative guys") wanted. We never knew when we'd run afoul of some unwritten nitpicky rule. We've never had a run-in or notice from the second one, though I do know of some people who regularly get "weed your garden" letters from the powers-that-be.

I much preferred living in town, where the same regulations apply to everyone and you know where you stand.
Quote:
Regardless, if you buy in one, you can't just ignore the bylaws and pretend it's your little house on the prairie.
Actually, some people do just that and seem to live happily enough in them. They claim it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission all the time and seem unfazed by getting HOA notices.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Thu 09 Nov , 2017 7:17 pm
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There is no HOA where I live. Neighbors average 1/2 mile away or so. The most trouble we've had so far was last night. One of the SW neighbor's cows decided she liked our herd better and jumped the fence. :roll: She looks just like one of my heifers, only much bigger, so I didn't even notice at first. My husband finally pointed out that she had an ear tag and couldn't be ours!

So we had to separate her from our herd and get her into a pen by herself. Fortunately, we had the portable corral already set up, so it was a relatively simple task. Then we had to wait until the guy got home and got his trailer hooked up to come get her. 1.5 hours later, he finally shows. :suspicious: He acted like it was normal that one feed the kids before going to collect a trespassing cow. :scratch: :roll: ;)

Anyway, it kind of blew what we had planned for the evening.... but, since we've been on the other side of the strayed livestock problem- it was forgivable.


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Wed 22 Nov , 2017 7:19 am
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This man is about to launch himself in his homemade rocket to prove the Earth is flat
Quote:
“It’ll shut the door on this ball earth,” Hughes said in a fundraising interview with a flat-Earth group for Saturday’s flight. Theories discussed during the interview included NASA being controlled by round-Earth Freemasons and Elon Musk making fake rockets from blimps.

Hughes promised the flat-Earth community that he would expose the conspiracy with his steam-powered rocket, which will launch from a heavily modified mobile home — though he acknowledged that he still had much to learn about rocket science.
As someone pointed out, Hughes' conversion to the flat earth beliefs may have been driven by his failure to get funding from anyone else.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Thu 23 Nov , 2017 2:52 pm
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I don't remember who said it, but this man is going to kill himself. :roll:

So he'll at least provide proof of natural selection, right?

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Sun 26 Nov , 2017 2:26 am
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I really hope either he can do it safely or someone stops him.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Mon 27 Nov , 2017 2:47 pm
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I grant him his right to take the risk for himself - as long as he doesn't hurt anyone else on the way down.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Weird and Unusual News Stories- Join In.
Posted: Sun 17 Dec , 2017 3:35 am
A green apple painted red
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Panasonic created a fridge that drives to you when called

https://t.co/km2Niu5pQK

Via Joss Whedon, who commented, "So excited for the wall-e prequel where his grandfather turns us into hover-tubbies."

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