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Madelaine McMasters

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Everything posted by Madelaine McMasters

  1. Madelaine McMasters
    While out on a solo flight during the summer I learned to fly, I encountered a swarm of Mayflies over the marsh on the downwind leg of my landing approach. By the time I got through it, I could barely see out the windshield. I had to open the door and peer out the side window to line myself up for final approach. I encountered the same swarm on the motorcycle on the way home from the airport.
  2. Madelaine McMasters
    I mostly remembered. Ptooey!
  3. Madelaine McMasters
    I never tethered a June bug, but I did make quite a few housefly aeroplanes. Mom wasn't terribly happy about finding "engines" in the freezer, but they're a lot easier to glue down when they're stiff.
  4. Madelaine McMasters
    The more I learn about ecosystems, the less I know about ecosystems.
  5. Madelaine McMasters
    Combing those little rascals out of your ponytail is no fun either. The aerodynamics of that still baffles me.
  6. Madelaine McMasters
    Dad once gave me a little crockery jar labeled "Dead Flies", to keep things in. Years later, one of my colleagues spotted the jar in my office and opened it. "Jesus Maddy, this jar is full of dead flies!" I really gotta wonder about some people.
  7. Madelaine McMasters
    They are large and you can actually feel them if they fly in to you -- and the way they crunch under your feet. Makes me cringe just thinking about them. I am sooooooooo glad we don't have them here in Colorado. You people. Mac has four bug zappers hanging his cavernous garage. June bugs are too big for the zappers to vaporize, so they spiral to the ground with their wings on fire, reminiscent of old Movietone newsreels of WWII. Last week, his vent fan pinned a moth to the intake grill that would have been a match for the hummingbirds that routinely get lured into his skylights. He has a jug of hummingbird nectar and a "rescue dish" he puts the exhausted birds in once they drift down from the ceiling. We watch their tiny tongues lap up the calories, see the life come back into them, and watch them dart off. Nature puts on quite a show.
  8. Madelaine McMasters
    See, now I'm intrigued by this. What about . . . This ain't polar opposite, but could it be dudebro adjacent? And this is maybe kitty corner?... ETA: "Drive" is my aspirational song. I'd have to give up my love of absurdity to live it, so I'll just dream it.
  9. Madelaine McMasters
    Ooooh, aspirational misogyny? That works.
  10. Madelaine McMasters
    Let My Baby Ride is the sort of tune that could earn me a speeding ticket, but not before this one gets me...
  11. Madelaine McMasters
    Here's one for us sisters Glamour doesn't seem dudebro to me, but what do I know. I'm thinking of something hard driving and gritty...
  12. Madelaine McMasters
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  16. Madelaine McMasters
    Noooo, "mountain straps" and "jock climbing equipment".
  17. Madelaine McMasters
    I played with ELIZA on Dad's PDP-11. I've been encountering her ever since, even in this forum.
  18. Madelaine McMasters
    Connecting-the-dots is big data's superpower and humanity's weakness.
  19. Madelaine McMasters
    I'm a huge fan of stupid AI, like Siri telling me it's "Time to Stand" while I'm driving, or my spendy car disabling the rear view camera while I'm backing up to warn me that I should not be distracted by its intelligent driving aids. Truly intelligent AI is as frightening as the idea that someone loves me. The last thing I want is to mash those together.
  20. Madelaine McMasters
    I've never used Facebook. Still, years ago I noticed that search results done by my "home self" were evidencing some knowledge of my "work self", and vice versa. I'd been (I thought) fairly careful to keep my lives separate, using different computers on different networks (home self-VPN, work self-dedicated IP). Somewhere along the way, the "system" had observed enough of my two selves to conclude they were both me. That was an interesting discovery. I don't believe I can be careful enough to avoid detection and exploitation, nor can I be certain that I've been harmed by it. I see the potential and remain wary.
  21. Madelaine McMasters
    I don't care what you think, you've basically joined a cult for nerds and I think it's hilarious. That comment was for everyone else. It's often the case that engagements with other people are not for the purpose of influencing them, but for leveraging them to influence others. Sometimes you luck into someone who's unwittingly happy to help. The unwitting make an attractive market.* *I'm probably proof.
  22. Madelaine McMasters
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/facebook-data-privacy-advertising.html
  23. Madelaine McMasters
    You DO realize I'm nefarious? Had I been a little more present, I'd have linked this, which is where I first heard Baby Elephant Walk, in my barn, probably 45 years ago... This morning in my yard, I've been watching a doe watching the antics of her two fawns (they're a hoot) and a little rafter of turkey moms watching over their chicks. The chicks are transitioning into "marauding teens", the point at which they cease being adorable and start being fugly and destructive. They're making a racket in the rafters (high branches of my trees), knocking dead twigs into my lawn. They're also kicking my freshly laid mulch out into the grass and leaving little trails through my sweet woodruff. Though I can't see them, I know there's a mischief of mice under the woodruff, as I can see the plants wiggle as creatures scurry along paths under their cover. The best part of watching all these children is knowing they're not mine.
  24. Madelaine McMasters
  25. Madelaine McMasters
    Love, you're forgetting that most male and female avatars are... ...meeeeeeeeeeee!!!
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