In the US bad clot shot batches were sent to rural Kentucky that had 19 times as many adverse reactions as California. Japan returned bad batches because they tested them before injecting their people.
A woman went to the doctor’s office and was seen by one of the new young doctors.
After about four minutes in the examination room, she started screaming and ran down the hall.
An older doctor stopped her and asked what the problem was, and she told him her story. After listening, he told her to sit down and relax in another room.
The older doctor marched down the hallway to the back where the first doctor was and demanded: “What’s the matter with you? Mrs. Thomas is 67 years old, she has four grown children and seven grandchildren, and you told her she was pregnant?”
The new doctor continued to write on his clipboard and without looking up, said: “Does she still have the hiccups?”
Our refrigerator just died... again. This is our second refrigerator in ten years. It was a Whirlpool, a "plain Jane" model with no bells, no whistles, and no fancy screens. We bought it for its simplicity, thinking it would be the one thing in our house that just worked.
It lasted five years and one month, exactly thirty days past the warranty.
The repairman’s verdict? A dead compressor. But the real diagnosis... it was Built to Break.
Under the guise of "green" regulations and "energy efficiency," we’ve traded tanks that lasted thirty years for plastic-heavy shells that barely last five.
We are forced to pay a premium for "high-efficiency" tech that saves ten cents a month on electricity, only to be told to throw the whole $1,500 + unit into a landfill when a single internal component fails.
It’s a racket. The government mandates the specs, the manufacturers cut the quality, and the consumer is left holding a bag of spoiled milk. We don’t own appliances anymore; we just lease them from the scrap yard.
Grok - Modern refrigerators typically last 10-15 years now, compared to older models that often exceeded 20, due to energy efficiency regulations mandating complex components like digital controls and variable-speed compressors, which are harder to repair. Cheaper materials (e.g., plastic over metal) and added features also contribute to more failures. However, some studies show lifespans haven't drastically shortened overall, with perceptions influenced by survivorship bias and increased usage.
Grok - Old refrigerators used CFCs like R-12 (Freon) as refrigerants, which were effective but depleted the ozone layer, leading to their phase-out under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. They were replaced by HFCs like R-134a (no ozone impact, but high global warming potential), and now increasingly by eco-friendly hydrocarbons like R-600a (isobutane).
Compressors: Older models had simple, fixed-speed reciprocating types, built durably with metal parts. Modern ones use variable-speed (inverter) designs for better efficiency, but they're more complex with electronics, potentially reducing lifespan.
I've been hearing a lot about that lately by a bunch of people. My old refrigerator's defrost drain tube is plugged and the water is ending up under the crisper trays.
I took out one of the trays and put an old bath towel in it's place and change it out every couple three weeks.
I think the tube might just be frozen, but getting to it is a problem. I think the freezer will have to have all the inside panels removed to get to it.
Getting the old unit out and getting a new one in is gonna be a real bitch.
I might be related to that guy; the explanation is self-evident we see it every minute of the day good people doing actual good things and evil people doing evil things. the problem these days is to find good people. the trough from which they feed is what is called news but there is never anything new about it, these are the days of those days of Noah.
I did only sensible thing and dropped $47,000 getting HVAC/Water heater/softener, and most of the plumbing replaced when I moved in here. I'm still ascared to go down into crawlspace, but might back the Corrolla out of garage next nice day to fool with the pull down ladder thingy.
"I got my appointment – of course; and I got it very quick. It appears
the Company had received news that one of their captains had been killed
in a scuffle with the natives. This was my chance, and it made me the
more anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards, when I
made the attempt to recover what was left of the body, that I heard the
original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens. Yes, two
black hens. Fresleven – that was the fellow’s name, a Dane – thought
himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to
hammer the chief of the village with a stick. Oh, it didn’t surprise me
in the least to hear this, and at the same time to be told that
Fresleven was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two
legs. No doubt he was; but he had been a couple of years already out
there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the
need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. Therefore he
whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people
watched him, thunderstruck, till some man, – I was told the chief’s
son, – in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab
with a spear at the white man – and of course it went quite easy
between the shoulder-blades. Then the whole population cleared into the
forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen, while, on the other
hand, the steamer Fresleven commanded left also in a bad panic, in
charge of the engineer, I believe. Afterwards nobody seemed to trouble
much about Fresleven’s remains, till I got out and stepped into his
shoes. I couldn’t let it rest, though; but when an opportunity offered
at last to meet my predecessor, the grass growing through his ribs was
tall enough to hide his bones. They were all there. The supernatural
being had not been touched after he fell. And the village was deserted,
the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures. A
calamity had come to it, sure enough. The people had vanished. Mad
terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, through the bush,
and they had never returned. What became of the hens I don’t know
either. I should think the cause of progress got them, anyhow. However,
through this glorious affair I got my appointment, before I had fairly
begun to hope for it.
"I slapped him on the back and shouted, ›We shall have rivets!‹ He
scrambled to his feet exclaiming ›No! Rivets!‹ as though he couldn’t
believe his ears. Then in a low voice, ›You … eh?‹ I don’t know why we
behaved like lunatics. I put my finger to the side of my nose and nodded
mysteriously. ›Good for you!‹ he cried, snapped his fingers above his
head, lifting one foot. I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck. A
frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the
other bank of the creek sent it back in a thundering roll upon the
sleeping station. It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up in their
hovels. A dark figure obscured the lighted doorway of the manager’s
hut, vanished, then, a second or so after, the doorway itself vanished
too. We stopped, and the silence driven away by the stamping of our feet
flowed back again from the recesses of the land. The great wall of
vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves,
boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting
invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested,
ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of
his little existence. And it moved not. A deadened burst of mighty
splashes and snorts reached us from afar, as though an ichthyosaurus had
been taking a bath of glitter in the great river. ›After all,‹ said the
boiler-maker in a reasonable tone, ›why shouldn’t we get the rivets?‹
Why not, indeed! I did not know of any reason why we shouldn’t. ›They’ll
come in three weeks,‹ I said confidently.
"But they didn’t.
Instead of rivets there came an invasion, an infliction, a visitation.
It came in sections during the next three weeks, each section headed by a
donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes, bowing from
that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims. A quarrelsome
band of footsore sulky niggers trod on the heels of the donkeys; a lot
of tents, camp-stools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would be shot
down in the courtyard, and the air of mystery would deepen a little
over the muddle of the station. Five such installments came, with their
absurd air of disorderly flight with the loot of innumerable outfit
shops and provision stores, that, one would think, they were lugging,
after a raid, into the wilderness for equitable division. It was an
inextricable mess of things decent in themselves but that human folly
made look like the spoils of thieving.
"This devoted band called
itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn
to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it
was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel
without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious
intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these
things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the
bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the
back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the
expenses of the noble enterprise I don’t know; but the uncle of our
manager was leader of that lot.
"In exterior he resembled a
butcher in a poor neighborhood, and his eyes had a look of sleepy
cunning. He carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs,
and during the time his gang infested the station spoke to no one but
his nephew. You could see these two roaming about all day long with
their heads close together in an everlasting confab.
"I had given
up worrying myself about the rivets. One’s capacity for that kind of
folly is more limited than you would suppose. I said Hang! – and let
things slide. I had plenty of time for meditation, and now and then I
would give some thought to Kurtz. I wasn’t very interested in him. No.
Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had come out equipped
with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all, and how
he would set about his work when there."
#1: Esso To: All (#0)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 09:47:12 Reply Private Reply
#2: Horse To: Esso (#1)
Horse posted on 2026-02-17 10:27:18 Reply Private Reply
#3: Esso To: All (#1)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 10:43:23 Reply Private Reply
#4: Esso To: ghostrider (#3)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 11:42:47 Reply Private Reply
#5: Esso To: All (#4)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 12:39:57 Reply Private Reply
#6: Esso To: Dakmar, ghostrider (#5)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 13:41:08 Reply Private Reply
#7: Esso To: All (#6)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 16:32:57 Reply Private Reply
#8: Esso To: ghostrider (#7)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 17:05:47 Reply Private Reply
#9: Esso To: All (#8)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 19:07:26 Reply Private Reply
#10: Esso To: All (#9)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 19:21:55 Reply Private Reply
#11: Esso To: ghostrider (#10)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 20:45:10 Reply Private Reply
#12: Esso To: All (#11)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 21:46:03 Reply Private Reply
#13: Esso To: All (#12)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 21:48:01 Reply Private Reply
#14: Esso To: All (#13)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 21:48:59 Reply Private Reply
#15: Esso To: All (#14)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 22:18:28 Reply Private Reply
#16: Esso To: All (#15)
Esso posted on 2026-02-17 22:38:09 Reply Private Reply
#17: ghostrider To: Esso (#4)
The patient says, "Father."
The psychiatrist says, "Love?"
The patient says, "Hate."
The psychiatrist says, "Vagina?"
And the patient says, "Saskatchewan."
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-17 23:20:29 Reply Private Reply
#18: ghostrider To: Esso (#11)
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-18 10:15:28 Reply Private Reply
#19: Dakmar To: Esso (#6)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 19:15:02 Reply Private Reply
#20: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#18)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 19:17:41 Reply Private Reply
#21: Esso To: Dakmar (#19)
Esso posted on 2026-02-20 20:07:27 Reply Private Reply
#22: Dakmar To: Esso (#21)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 20:10:30 Reply Private Reply
#23: Dakmar To: Esso (#21)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 20:13:51 Reply Private Reply
#24: ghostrider To: Dakmar (#20)
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-20 20:59:34 Reply Private Reply
#25: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#24)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 21:11:45 Reply Private Reply
#26: ghostrider To: Dakmar (#23)
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-20 21:20:35 Reply Private Reply
#27: Esso To: Dakmar (#19)
Esso posted on 2026-02-20 21:24:34 Reply Private Reply
#28: ghostrider To: Dakmar (#25)
I had issues making the hyperjump this should make it easier for any other time travelers
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-20 21:27:21 Reply Private Reply
#29: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#28)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 21:38:48 Reply Private Reply
#30: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#28)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 21:39:35 Reply Private Reply
#31: ghostrider To: Dakmar (#30)
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-20 22:42:52 Reply Private Reply
#32: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#31)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 22:48:32 Reply Private Reply
#33: Esso To: Dakmar (#32)
Esso posted on 2026-02-20 23:00:11 Reply Private Reply
#34: Dakmar To: Esso (#33)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 23:02:58 Reply Private Reply
#35: Dakmar To: Esso (#33)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-20 23:18:12 Reply Private Reply
#36: ghostrider To: Dakmar (#32)
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-21 00:31:14 Reply Private Reply
#37: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#36)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-21 00:40:23 Reply Private Reply
#38: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#36)
"I slapped him on the back and shouted, ›We shall have rivets!‹ He scrambled to his feet exclaiming ›No! Rivets!‹ as though he couldn’t believe his ears. Then in a low voice, ›You … eh?‹ I don’t know why we behaved like lunatics. I put my finger to the side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. ›Good for you!‹ he cried, snapped his fingers above his head, lifting one foot. I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck. A frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the other bank of the creek sent it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station. It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up in their hovels. A dark figure obscured the lighted doorway of the manager’s hut, vanished, then, a second or so after, the doorway itself vanished too. We stopped, and the silence driven away by the stamping of our feet flowed back again from the recesses of the land. The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence. And it moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached us from afar, as though an ichthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river. ›After all,‹ said the boiler-maker in a reasonable tone, ›why shouldn’t we get the rivets?‹ Why not, indeed! I did not know of any reason why we shouldn’t. ›They’ll come in three weeks,‹ I said confidently.
"But they didn’t. Instead of rivets there came an invasion, an infliction, a visitation. It came in sections during the next three weeks, each section headed by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes, bowing from that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims. A quarrelsome band of footsore sulky niggers trod on the heels of the donkeys; a lot of tents, camp-stools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would be shot down in the courtyard, and the air of mystery would deepen a little over the muddle of the station. Five such installments came, with their absurd air of disorderly flight with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provision stores, that, one would think, they were lugging, after a raid, into the wilderness for equitable division. It was an inextricable mess of things decent in themselves but that human folly made look like the spoils of thieving.
"This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don’t know; but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot.
"In exterior he resembled a butcher in a poor neighborhood, and his eyes had a look of sleepy cunning. He carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs, and during the time his gang infested the station spoke to no one but his nephew. You could see these two roaming about all day long with their heads close together in an everlasting confab.
"I had given up worrying myself about the rivets. One’s capacity for that kind of folly is more limited than you would suppose. I said Hang! – and let things slide. I had plenty of time for meditation, and now and then I would give some thought to Kurtz. I wasn’t very interested in him. No. Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all, and how he would set about his work when there."
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-21 01:16:54 Reply Private Reply
#39: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#36)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-21 01:48:53 Reply Private Reply
#40: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#36)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-21 01:51:08 Reply Private Reply
#41: Dakmar To: Esso (#33)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-21 02:07:20 Reply Private Reply
#42: ghostrider To: Dakmar (#41)
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-22 15:33:22 Reply Private Reply
#43: ghostrider To: Dakmar (#41)
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-22 15:48:51 Reply Private Reply
#44: ghostrider To: Dakmar (#41)
ghostrider posted on 2026-02-22 16:05:24 Reply Private Reply
#45: Dakmar To: ghostrider (#44)
Dakmar posted on 2026-02-23 18:11:50 Reply Private Reply