Doesn't Make It True

the following events ensued:

1. predictable lively discussion on the preparation of Wienerschnitzel, in which natives and wurstaboos are pro-puff and everybody else is like *confused dog head tilt* why wouldn’t you want the crust to stay ~attached to the thing you put it on? as with other fried foods?

2. thirty “Bad Schnitzel is my band name” jokes

3. thirty “Bad Schnitzel is my stripper name” jokes

4. one “ah yes, Bad Schnitzel! a lovely spa town” joke

5. this absolute masterpiece:

we have lots of lovely bodies of water in the UK, and it would be a shame if we didn't take advantage of them. also, the more people engage with and use their waterways, the more likely they are to care for these bodies of water and engage with conservation and anti-pollution efforts.

also, blanket discouragements don't tend to do much to increase safety because people will swim regardless of warnings. I find it much more useful to provide information to allow people to make more educated decisions regarding their own safety.

for further information, go to the rnli website!

https://environment.data.gov.uk/bwq/profiles/

> disables a new AI feature that was turned on by default

> opens my email

> disables a new AI feature that was turned on by default

> launches a software

Witch’s cat, 16th-century woodcut.

this is the original, as reported in the june 29th 2022 edition of the moorefield examiner, linked here and also here. supposedly this still was taken from an iphone video, which makes sense. notice the motion blur on the lightning strike, and how the red/orange tones in the tree are blown out. the version shared by OP is comparatively much more evenly exposed. at first i thought it might be a separate still from the same video, but the closer you look the more conspicuous differences you notice.

for instance, this is NOT the same bush:

note as well that OP's version has the tree utterly unaffected by wind, where the original is clearly experiencing a strong gust:

there's also the fact that OP's version has more space on the bottom of the frame, which creates a more visually pleasing and balanced composition. but then, what about all that other stuff in the foreground at the bottom right? it's nowhere to be seen:

so, clearly OP's version has been shopped, probably with AI ("set extension" tools were some of the earliest functional implementations of generative image tech to hit the adobe suite iirc). stare at the doctored version long enough and you start noticing all sorts of weirdnesses. like what's going on here exactly?

why are these some of the only tree branches that occlude the path of the lightning bolt? it kind of looks like the tree only has branches on one side, the side facing away from the camera, in order to maximize the photographer's visibility.