Inane Musings & Other Nonsense

Her legs and butt are just completely disconnected from the rest of her. I don't think she survived the monsters much less is in any shape to breed.

What is up with her right shoulder?

Where is the lighting on the underside of her right arm coming from?

Is her hair wrapped around her knee or is her knee wearing a toupée?

Why are her bootlaces tucked inside her boot while she is wearing it?

The total dollar value of the trades was somewhere between $600 million and $1.86 billion, according to his financial disclosure for 2025, which lists values in broad ranges. Many of the transactions involve large companies that have business with the federal government.

Trump averaged 85 trades per market day, an analysis of the report shows. Just 10 days accounted for about a quarter of all trades executed in 2025. Many of those came during heightened volatility on Wall Street after Trump had already announced policy changes.

The president raked in cash by issuing new assets—World Liberty tokens and memecoins. But those who bought them at high prices had to suffer as their value went belly up, part of a wider crash in crypto. Political followers and crypto true believers who bought into the Trump brand were left holding the bag. A crypto summer for the president was a crypto winter for them.

seriously what happened to the president at least pretending to put their assets in a blind trust, come on

President Carter was a millionaire, worth about $5 million in 2019 dollars. The trust was worth about $784,000, about $3.7 million now.

Yes I know he has been dead for a while now.

Lookit this thing my home insurance provider wants me to install.

It's a water leak detection system, the idea being you install a 'smart' remote cut-off valve into the main water line. The valve then listens to remote water sensors, little discs you place under sinks & appliances. Anywhere a leak might develop.

AND OF COURSE THERE IS AN APP.

Seems pretty cool, right? Stop leaks before they happen!

But there are sooooo many issues & concerns this raises:

The whole thing is glued together via wifi. What happens if the internet goes out? Power failure?

You're jacking your 'smart' appliance & app into MY wifi, behind the firewall. How do I know your security is any good? I don't know you, AWTOS.

Those sensor discs must be battery powered. Besides being a recurring expense & chore for ME to maintain, what is the failure state when a battery dies? Does it go nuts and tell the valve to shut off the water (y'know, for safety)? I assume I'd get a notification on the app of a dead sensor. But who knows.

That valve is remotely controlled by the App, which means some AWTOS employee at the server level can reach into my device and turn off my water. Do I trust these clowns? What if "The Water Department" in Russia tells them I haven't paid my bill and they need to shut off my water until I send them an Amazon gift card? Don't laugh; shit like this happens all. The. Time.

Someday AWTOS might go out of business. Their servers and App will stop working. Does my water stay turned on?

Oh, and my insurance company is offering this $499 item FOR FREEEEE but it's not clear until you read the fine print that (1) I've gotta pay $150/hour for a plumber to install the thing, (2) those sensor discs cost $20 each and must be bought in packs of five, and (3) the App costs $10/month... forever! Assuming they don't jack the rate.

All of this for a whopping $150 savings on my premium.

On the surface, this looks like a smart thing to do PLUS save some money. But after reading the details, I am telling these people to politely fuck off. I mean, worst case I get a water leak and have to make an insurance claim.

This is a nice sign to look at. 10/10 for composition.

I think I should write a guidebook to go along with it.

No guidebook yet, but hopefully I'll get around to it.

Busy, busy🍎. There's been some unforeseen car repairs, so I've been taking on some extra painting commissions to ease the burden🖌️As such, there's been no extra time for silly things. The only thing I managed to finish are yoshis; enjoy this felted Yoshi

For example, the TOS in the Progressive app lets it record all telemetry from your phone while driving:

Once downloaded and registered, the App will run in the background and collect driving and phone sensor data (“Mobile Driving Data”), which will be uploaded to Progressive. Mobile Driving Data includes, but is not limited to, vehicle speed and location using GPS, time and date information, phone usage and settings, data from the phone’s sensors, your responses to contacts initiated through the Accident Response program, and any other information necessary to enable or support the Accident Response program.

Every sudden stop, every aggressive turn, every time you accelerate 'too hard' gets recorded and (one assumes) uploaded to their servers.

Why? So they can jack your rates or deny your claim or cancel your service if they don't like how you drive.

Encounter a really big pot hole? That looks like you're hitting an object or driving aggressively.

Slam on your brakes to avoid a brake-checking asshole? The app can't tell if you're doing that because you're a brake-checking asshole or not.

Maybe Progressive doesn't like how your GPS shows how often you visit the local weed dispensary or liquor store, or that you're exceeding the speed limit to get there before they close.

Theoretically it can even record your conversations and/or other ambient noises in your car while you drive. It doesn't say it WON'T and "data from your phone's sensors" certainly includes audio, right? So if Progressive decides through 'research' that listening to angry death metal while driving is risky, they could use that against you.

If you DO install the app (because really, it's super convenient to have your insurance agent in your pocket) be sure to revoke all its privileges, like access to sensor data.