I read that as courting. Which honestly… Yeah?

Really interesting – thanks for sharing!

America, given the spelling of neighbour!

Yeah – has the commenter above seen literally any civil war ever? It’s the leftists that show up

But there’s no cigarette :(

Speak for yourself – I’ve never seen the theatrical edition

I’m not sure that’s an enjoying it face.

They are kissing. Sloppy style. Boobs squishing etc.

Damn, I came to post this. Fun thought experiment of a book, and the ebook is (by necessity) free!

Sung to the tune of Iron Maiden’s ‘Hallowed be thy name’

Tbh any turbine likely has the potential to be blocked, if two come along at once, making one become trapped between the turbine blade and the wall.

For maximal efficiency, I would suggest a spring-loaded ring of rollers inside a solid metal ring, conforming to the shape of passing Linux users. The dynamos would need to be calibrated such that the stiction of passing users is enough to slow their fall to match the current flow rate of entering users (n.b. is this doable? If not may need to use the spring pressure for this) to ensure maximal energy extraction for available user flow.

Just want to say I entirely agree with you and that I’m really not sure why the other person doesn’t get it. Any musician knows tone/timbre is really important. I play the violin; you can play really fast and that takes skill, but there’s also a hell of a lot of skill involved in getting a nice sound out of a sustained note.

I don’t know quite why you seem to be so hostile to the blues, or anyone that wants to defend the skill of the musicians that play it. If you want to see a skilled blues guitarist doing all the twiddly bits, then I’ll happily point you in the direction of Gary Moore, or blues-adjacent Steve Vai.

And if you’re a metal fan, then maybe you’ll find Metallica’s respect for Gary Moore persuasive.

His sound was not over-processed. It was very, very basic. It basically was a guitar, an amp, a fuzz box and his hands. I remember seeing him in Copenhagen in 1984 or 1985. We were recording Master of Puppets. He was playing a Strat, which is known for a clear, somewhat thin sound. But the sound he was getting out of that Strat was so thick and so full and just so raw. This was before you had all these guitar processors that could make the cheapest guitar sound like the most expensive guitar, so I kinda deduced that most of the sound was in his hands.

That being said, for anyone in the UK who is interested in getting into foraging, the wild food UK YouTube channel is really good for showing what to look for in wild mushrooms, and there are certain mushrooms that are reasonable to go out and ID (for edible vs inedible, not necessarily down to species) from those videos. Hedgehog mushrooms, for instance, I’d consider incredibly safe for someone that’s seen one of those videos to go out and look for.

No substitute for an in person teacher, but it can be really good to get up to speed before going on a course.

I do feel like mushrooms get a bad rep compared to plants – there are certain mushrooms (in the UK at least) that are very safe to forage. Boletes (if you check for staining and red on the stem), agaricus, hedgehog fungi, blewits, shaggy inkcaps…

Others I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, even if I’m 99% sure. Any of the small white funnels (miller etc.) I’m not interested in, and likewise amanitas I won’t go near.

But obviously the point stands that using AI, rather than books or trusted sources, is a non-starter. Always use multiple sources when foraging (message for a general audience).

Depends on the mushroom; certain mushrooms (e.g. beefsteak polypore) are incredibly distinctive, while others require microscopy to tell apart.

One thing you didn’t mention that I think is a major drawback with id apps is smell. If you’re looking at agaricus for edibility, yellow stainers are distinguished by smell if it’s cold and the staining is less obvious.

Other things they can’t use for id are texture (slimy cap Vs waxy etc.), staining (so you know what to look for – boletes it’s necessary to check for blue staining), brittle gills/stem (does it snap?)… All sorts!

I don’t want another animal taking my Freudian pleasure. The erotic joy of voring a verdant, fleshy succulent. Feeling the crunching snap of brutality as an innocent plant is ground between my glistering molars. The swallow; the mulched, peppery bolus peristalted down a wet, hungry, pulsing oesophegus. The conversion of what was once a marvel of evolution, a being that could harness the power of a living star, into fodder for my next bowel movement. From stoma to stoma.

This is not some cool, by-the-numbers optimisation. This is raw, visceral, hungry cruelty.

The old adage can be given greater, poetic specificity. Revenge is a dish best served cold. And it is a salad.

And have still shuddered when I fucked every single dollarydoo.

Of course; it’s a faux medieval fantasy setting where they don’t have gunpowder yet ;)

Well… depends on whose account of the War of the Ring you read:

Eskov bases his novel on the premise that the Tolkien account is a “history written by the victors”.[2][3] Mordor is home to an “amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic”, posing a threat to the war-mongering faction represented by Gandalf (whose attitude is described by Saruman as “crafting the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem”) and the Elves.[2]

(The Last Ringbearer)