Mister Knauf 👹🌎

I am getting profoundly sick of women (many of whom possess advanced degrees in subjects that require several years of graduate study) who hate stwelve-year-old boys, explaining to the rest of civilization how we need to relate to them. Now, before anyone gets carried away, I am also a woman. I have been one for more than fifty years. I was never a boy. I am a tomboy, which means I spent a fair amount of my childhood doing things that would cause a modern Gender Studies department to call an emergency faculty meeting. The difference is that I don't have a PhD in anything, (worthless or otherwise) so I haven't developed the intellectual confidence necessary to believe I know absolutely everything. I'm kind of dumb that way. For example, I have this radical theory that boys should be encouraged to read whatever the hell interests them. For a great many boys, this will be... (Please sit down. This may be upsetting.) BOY STUFF. Sports! Soldiers! Hunting! Explosions! Airplanes! Tanks! Dinosaurs eating other dinosaurs! Some boys will prefer chemistry or astronomy. Some will love cooking. Some will be fascinated by fashion. Some will want to read about ballet, and some will want to read about a Sherman tank driving through a ballet recitle while firing its main gun at a home ec class. THIS IS FINE. Nobody is proposing that we issue every male child a football, a rifle, and a copy of The Art of War at birth, then arrest him if he expresses an interest in soufflés. We're suggesting that if you want boys to read, it might help to give them books about things they actually want to read about. They probably know what interests them better than the woman who spent 8 yearas at university, and written tons of papers about how awful men and boys are. I realize this is a controversial educational theory, requiring another $400 million in federal research grants. But here's something else I've noticed. Whenever the subject of boys comes up, an astonishing number of women immediately begin explaining how boys need to be understood, engaged, reimagined, reconstructed, and possibly returned to the manufacturer for a firmware update. You know who might have some useful insight into what it's like to be a boy? MEN. Yes! MEN! Those strange, hairy creatures who were (in most cases) ACTUALLY BOYS at one point! I know. It's an outrageous suggestion. Now, being a woman, I don't have firsthand experience with boyhood. But I've discovered this remarkable intellectual technique called LISTENING TO PEOPLE WHO DO. It's fascinating. You ask someone about their experiences, and then (and this is the really important part) you SHUT UP long enough to hear the answer. Sometimes you even learn something. One thing I've learned is that a great many boys enjoy traditionally masculine things. Not all boys. Not every boy. Not every minute of every day. But enough boys that pretending otherwise requires a level of deliberate obtuseness normally associated with government procurement. Thank you for attending my TED Talk. That'll be $650. I'm kidding. It's free. I haven't figured out how to get a university to pay me for stating the obvious. I'm not a Democrat anymore. But seriously. We've spent two generations "rethinking how we engage with boys." Judging by the educational and social problems facing young men, I think we're entitled to ask whether some of that rethinking has been an enormous, expensive failure. Maybe it's time to stop treating ordinary boyhood like a defective social construct requiring professional intervention. Maybe it's time to let Grandpa, who was once a boy himself, take the kids fishing. Or shooting. Or teach them how to rebuild a carburetor, throw a football, or make something useful with their hands. And if one of those boys wants to learn ballet or bake a cake instead? LET HIM. MAYBE THEN we can find someone (most likely a woman) to help him otu. That's the entire point! Give boys opportunities. Give them books. Give them good male role models. Let them discover their interests without turning every preference into an ideological emergency. And for the love of everything holy, STOP ACTING LIKE ACKNOWLEDGING THAT BOYS AND GIRLS OFTEN HAVE DIFFERENT INTERESTS IS SOME KIND OF CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. I'm not suggesting women have nothing useful to contribute to raising or educating boys. I'm suggesting that perhaps, just perhaps, we should spend a little less time lecturing men about what boys need, and a little more time asking men what being a boy was actually like. It's a crazy idea, I know. But after fifty years on this planet, I'm beginning to suspect that the people who insist they know the most about boys are frequently the people least interested in listening to them.

Five young men drove sixty miles in the wrong direction into a blizzard, abandoned a fully operational car with gas in the tank, and hiked into a mountain trailer stocked with a year's worth of food and heat—where one froze to death wrapped in eight sheets while military rations sat untouched feet away. The reason might surprise you. On the evening of February 24, 1978, five close friends from Yuba City and Marysville, California, Ted Weiher (32), Jack Madruga (30), Bill Sterling (29), Jack Huett (24), and Gary Mathias (25), drove to Chico to watch the UC Davis basketball team play. Four of the men had mild intellectual disabilities or psychiatric conditions, while Mathias was being treated for schizophrenia. Despite their challenges, they formed an inseparable bond, calling their community basketball team the "Gateway Gators" and preparing for an upcoming tournament game the very next day. After the game, they stopped at Behr’s Market in Chico at 10:00 PM, buying snack cakes, candy, and soda. They were expected home within an hour. They never arrived. Four days later, a US Forest Service ranger spotted Madruga’s turquoise 1969 Mercury Montego abandoned seventy miles away on a snow-covered logging trail high in the Plumas National Forest, at an elevation of 4,400 feet: The car sat far off any logical route home. It had no mechanical damage: the keys were missing, but the engine started immediately when hot-wired, the gas tank was a quarter full, and the tires had not lost traction. Five healthy young men could have pushed it easily. The men were dressed in light basketball jackets and sneakers, completely unprepared for a Sierra Nevada winter storm that dumped feet of snow overnight. Search and rescue operations were launched, but blizzards halted ground searches for months. When the snow thawed in June 1978, motorcyclists entered a deserted US Forest Service trailer at a campground nineteen miles past the abandoned car: Inside, they found the emaciated body of Ted Weiher tucked into a bed, wrapped in eight sheets. Weiher had survived between eight to thirteen weeks in the freezing mountain cabin, losing nearly 100 pounds before succumbing to starvation and hypothermia. His feet were severely frostbitten, and his shoes were missing. What puzzled investigators was the cabin’s survival provisions: a propane heating unit was intact with full valves, but no one had turned it on. A locker held dozens of C-ration military meal cans; only twelve had been opened with a P-38 can opener, while thirty-six full cans and matches sat within arm's reach. Over the following days, searchers recovered the remains of three other men along the trail leading to the trailer: The skeletal remains of Jack Madruga and Bill Sterling were found halfway between the car and the cabin, having collapsed from hypothermia. Madruga’s car keys were still in his pocket. Days later, Jack Huett’s remains and clothing were located two miles from the trailer, scattered by wildlife. Gary Mathias was nowhere to be found. Only his tennis shoes were recovered inside the trailer, suggesting he may have put on Weiher’s larger leather shoes and walked deeper into the mountains. His body has never been found. The core enigma that earned the tragedy the title of the "American Dyatlov Pass" is the complete absence of logic: What compelled Jack Madruga to steer his prized car seventy miles up an unpaved mountain switchback in a blizzard after an ordinary basketball game? A local man named Joseph Schons reported seeing the Montego that night while stranded in his own car, claiming he saw several figures around the vehicle who ignored his calls for help, followed by a woman holding a baby, a detail never substantiated.

Long post worth the read. I have a close friend who flies private jets. He flew Lear 60 for over 15 years and now flies a Gulfstream. This is a copy and paste of his response to me asking him if he thought Ice was the issue. “We always fly in ridiculous cold temperatures.” “Usually you get the bad ice when the temperatures are like 0 to negative 20. Believe it or not, there's a point where it gets too cold for ice. At negative 40, you pretty much can't get ice. Besides that, the airplane is equipped with hot wings and hot tail.” “I flew the Lear 60 for like 15 years. It's a no joke airplane and probably the most dangerous airplane I've ever flown. It has a super critical wing. The airflow has to be perfect. When it gets into rough air and turbulence, it will easily stall. It has stalled on me at 41,000 feet just because we got into some turbulence. (On the way to Palm Beach as a matter of fact. ) we recovered and got her flying again around 30,000 ft. Scary But here's the problem. This airplane has a terrible coffin corner. (At high altitudes) what that means is, you fly in a really narrow window where if you lose 20 knots, it stalls. And if you gain 20 knots, it goes into overspeed. The air goes supersonic over the wing and it goes into a high speed stall, or worse, a Mach tuck. So if you stall, the normal recovery is to push the yoke forward to lower the nose and gain air speed again. At low altitude, you can push really hard and recover quickly. But in the 60... if you push hard, it will gain air speed and go into a high speed stall, it doesn't take much. It's very sensitive. The 60 has super short wings that don't make much lift. So then you high speed stall, and the computer is yelling at you... OVERSPEED! So then you pull back and enter a low speed stall. And you go back and forth trying to keep it in the air speed window. This whole thing is pretty scary. And you should recover basically by using your finger tips using super small corrections. You can't over do it. If you try to muscle the recovery, she gets mad and will become unrecoverable. If she enters a mach tuck. You're done.” “I taught the Lear 60 to other pilots and mentored them. I told them... this airplane has a soul and it's trying to kill you. Do not ever try to top the weather. Don't go over a thunderstorm. Go around it. If it means a half hour longer, then do it. Going over the thunderstorm will go into turbulence that you might not recover from. These pilots went right over a thunderstorm. I think it stalled which caused them to drop down into the thunderstorm and ended up in mach tuck. They picked up so much speed that it ripped off the horizontal stabilizer. At that point... chuck Yeager can't fix it. These same pilots did something similar a couple months ago. ATC got mad at them. They poked the bear one too many times. This is not a beginner airplane. The Gulfstream would never do this. It has HUGE margins of error and won't stall like that. But then again... it's got HUGE wings. It's a pussy cat. The Gulfstream is like driving a 4 wheeler. The Lear 60 is like riding a uni cycle.”

Asking my AI teacher how to spell seventeen

They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could network their freezers and connect them all to Internet that they didn’t stop to think if they should

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Today I turned 37. I was once insane, lost, occasionally homeless, angry, the world darkened to a dim and blinking light at the end of a shuttered hallway. But today I am married, have a beautiful daughter, am a published author, run a cheese company, and wake up everyday happy to be alive. Everyday the aperture widens. Everyday more light comes in. Here are 37 things I’ve learned. One for each of 37 years. 1. There is nothing more important than understanding you have the free will to steer your life in the direction that you want. Free will is the most precious thing you possess, and the only thing that cannot be stolen, beaten out of you, borrowed, or destroyed. 2. If you run away from your responsibility, you are not running into freedom. You are only making the decision that you will now be the slave of your hedonistic desires and impulses, instead of their master. 3. The only way to truly lose is to give in to despair. 4. If we’re not doing it all for the children and their future, then what is it all for? 5. A terrifying proposition: Everything you do matters. Nothing is inconsequential. Not a moment. Not a sip. Not a glance. Not a sigh. It is not easy to accept this. Cling to the edge of the abyss with your fingernails if you have to. Crawl across the floor if you have to. But make sure at all times that your intentions and actions are aligned with this understanding. 6. A nice leather jacket really does make everything better. 7. Work and move in silence. Show only the results. You want to be a swan, floating ethereal on the top of water like glass. Frantic, churning, and working hard beneath the surface in the invisible depths. 8. It’s supposed to be fun. Sometimes it’ll be tough. And sometimes it’ll be boring. But if you’re not having fun at least some of the time, you’re doing something wrong. 9. Unfortunately for many of us, God is real and yes he does love you. 10. The demons, spirits, dead Mesopotamian gods, ghosts, and angels are real too. You can ignore most of these, though. Most of their power over you comes down to being loud and obnoxious. 11. Gratitude is the secret to happiness. In fact, it may be the only path to achieving happiness. The Russian novelist Solzhenitsyn learned to find this gratitude while he starved in a Soviet gulag. “Bless you, prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul." 12. Life goes by fast. Do not compromise on what is sacred to you. Not a single time. Not for a single second. That is how your life disappears underneath you, one little insignificant moment at a time, until you look back one day and realize you’ve wasted the entire thing, and you’re on a road you don’t recognize toward a destination you never wanted. 13. The battle of good and evil is fought inside every human heart. But the battle can be won. Remember that. 14. Sometimes sunlight and a walk in nature can do more for your mental health than a hundreds therapy sessions in dark, cramped rooms wearing slumped shoulders on a sinking couch while you stare absentmindedly at a seashell collage on the wall behind your therapist's head. 15. One day you will have to come back home. 16. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" Open yourself up to the possibility that there’s more out there than you’ve allowed yourself to perceive, and you’ll soon discover that what you “know” about the world is like the thin meniscus of pond scum on the edge of dark waters that go on down forever. 17. Find a husband or a wife who will tell you “no” sometimes. We become delusional and ugly tyrants under the conditions of 100% compliance. The word “No” refines you into a better person. 18. You might be surprised how many problems cease to be actual problems when you stop thinking about them and giving them oxygen. 19. The world will treat you better if you open your heart and give the world permission to wound you. 20. Listen to Francis Bacon. “Nature to be commanded, must be obeyed.” 21. If you’re feeling miserable and unloved, the easiest way to make yourself feel better is to destroy your resentment by doing something for someone who has hurt you. 22. If you want to truly love yourself, you have to make yourself into someone worth loving. And you start by deciding that is what you will become. 23. I have beef with Marcus Aurelius, but he was right when he said “At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’” Get out of bed, human. You’ve got a job to do. 24. Don’t try. The second you “try,” you’ve already lost. You decide to do the thing and you do it. 25. Life really is beautiful. We’re living in a miracle and we’re so used to it many of us don’t see it. We complain about the dirt on the floor, the playdoh smashed into the upholstery, when in truth if we could see the full power of the beauty of the world we inhabit, it would burn our eyes. 26. Remember that you’re a moron. You don’t know a fucking thing. When you accept this, maybe you’ll actually be able to learn something. 27. All states are temporary. The happiness will go away, but so will the sadness. And it will come back, again and again. In eternal recurrence. As Bukowski once wrote, “Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.” 28. Don’t get so distracted by work and what you “have” to do that you forget your health, beauty, recreation, your children, all the things that nourish your spirit and enrich your soul. These things are more important than being able to work for a few more hours. 29. Grace is the one thing that cannot be earned. But it’s not rare. It’s all around you, waiting to be received. Don’t forget it’s there. In Jacob’s dream, the angels descend up and down the ladder, from earth to heaven and back. You don’t have to struggle up the ladder yourself. Grace is the gift that comes to you. 30. If you look in the mirror and you don’t like what you see, then fix that. 31. Sometimes your existential crisis is really just a need for a nap and a bowl of pasta carbonara in disguise. 32. Your art, your work, doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be alive. Don’t stop until you feel the heartbeat. Tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump. Feel it? That’s the pulse that’s going to carry you from the inside of your skin to the end of the earth. 34. Demons don’t know how to take a joke, and their laughter is cruel and pointed at your pain. Humor keeps your spirit uplifted and your pain in its proper hierarchy. 35. It’s okay to get messy. You’re alive, and if you’re not making mistakes, then you aren’t growing and learning. 36. Dreams can become reality. Someone just has to have the courage to bring them into being. To wrestle flight from the birds. To make machines from glass and sand that sing made up languages and connect the entire world. To down the acid and discover the spirals inside all life called DNA. You can be that person, too. 37. God looked upon this world, past and present and future, with everything it contained, all its ugliness and evil, its rape and abortion, its tragedy and nuclear bombs and its cancer, and he still said, “It is good.” Then he entered it. Remember that. Remember when despair wants to take you, that there is something so precious and beautiful and valuable about life that ultimately it is all worth the pain. Even if you can't see it.