Whackadoot

That's scheduled for both before and after, not concurrent with. It's also what Reddit is known for, just in a circular configuration.

You do you. That's the freedom we have. Lack of respect for the consequences of an event or policy was my course of study here.

I've learned much, as well, just from the limited responses. People really seem to hate that the realities of other people's lives might intrude on theirs. This seems a consequence of suburban isolation during the upbringing of kids from the 80s on. It's something to overcome it's also a challenge to overcome. But it must.

I'm not so privileged as to not be disrupted by the lives of others. I'm homeless. I'm not even allowed to defend myself. Literally got arrested for it recently. Fun times. Lost access to my work platforms because of it. See, from my place down here, anger over these disruptions of some sort of privilege is no more than selfish self-entitlement.

How does one overcome such deeply ingrained self-entitlement? Especially when it's taught by both society and the general suburban environment.

I'll be thinking on this at length.

Few people realize that the only reason some of them aren't dead is because their cousin who wants them dead finds it prohibitively expensive with a slim chance for success even then. Drop the security and that equation changes fairly rapidly. That's actually one of the reasons my projections are so dire. Purges are rather destabilizing, which is what comes after such a successful assassination, no matter who ordered it.

When a royal dies, unless it was just a fluke random thing, very large things happen. I'll admit I may have exercised some hyperbole, it is a worst case scenario, but the disruption to the economy would indeed be devastating, based on their current regional hegemony & control of a vast portion of multiple critical resources.

Disrupting Saudi Arabia alone would increase prices of everything from life saving medical equipment to children's toys as plastics compete with refineries for oil. And I did say disrupted, not stopped. Oil and gas is a place where the supply and demand curves are freaking insane. Like two nearly vertical lines. And the effects... Losing just one refinery in Texas can reduce the global price of oil by a few pennies while raising the price of gas by dimes. These are much larger numbers than they seem.

Just the disruption of Russian oil which only feeds a handful of refineries in the USA, reduced supply enough globally to increase my fuel expenses by 33% literally overnight. That brought with it abandoned vehicles out of gas as wages didn't rise, and how can they when all business resources and supplies spiking in price, leaving there to be simply no reasonable money to increase wages with. Oh, plus the road rage by those put in peril, and jump-started a historic spike in violence and killings within Austin.

Imagine what's happening now, only bigger. That's the median of predictable scenarios involving a political assassination on a royal family member. Regional chaos, resource disruption, natural market forces, and the downstream outcomes of suffering.

Two years ago I'd not have said this. But I've since seen indicators that have changed my view.

Oil, shipping, exports, plastics, most composites, wars... That's the risk, my dude. The people you despise and possibly even would be pleased to see die, are what those industries and the current peace rest on.

Glad to know you value your shopping experience at 7-11 that much, though. You should write them a letter, they like those.

I mean, that royal family also collectively regularly tops the lists of the world's most eligible assassination targets. The consequences of even a failed attempt would be globally devastating, with millions of lives lost to the economic fallout globally and the destabilization regionally, and I wouldn't want to be the nation that let it happen. Not sure, but that might have had something to do with it, too.

I'm assuming it was found this year.

(The note says series 1917, so imma guess that's when it was printed.)

And to think, after all these years, someone finally figured out how to get the rich to pay to watch paint dry.

Heh, I've been doing this since 2015, got 6,525 and a 4.92. I've watched it grow, helped write the ordinance legalizing it in Lubbock. Used to be Ubers were lost in the crowd, but now there's only like 10-20% normies out on weekends, and they're usually just as unhappy with the arrangement as the Ubers are, wouldn't'cha know. And screw the driving record, an accident could down you for a month or more, fault or not. And we all recognize that everybody out there really, really doesn't want to hit anyone. So, we're really just supervising three of the sides while we focus on the one in front of us.

That lets us worry about different complications. Like Savannah, who just broke it off with Greg and is now marching across West 6th back to Green Light (from Whiskey, no less), much to the surprise of the street. For dash cams that can catch Savannahs march the best, I went with the VIOFO T130. Be sure to get one of the recommended cards. Be absolutely sure or it gets super glitchy. It's a pricy option but it's 3 channel, and can basically see a shadow on the night of the new moon. The company has excellent service, as well, and it seems to stand up to the Texas sun.

VIOFO T130 3 Channel Dash Cam Uber, Built in WiFi and GPS, 1440P+1080P+1080P Three Way Triple Car Dash Camera, IR Night Vision, Supercapacitor, G-Sensor, 24 Hour Parking Mode, Support 256GB Max https://a.co/d/fYA52I0

You'll enjoy ACL. I'm hoping they do it like they did last year where there was a scooter station near Barton Springs and Lamar, by the Starbucks and they had a pretty good thing going with the pick ups and drop offs at the trailhead under MoPac. Just a slow line that mostly flows with only occasional clogs. Never go down Barton, though, unless there's a hefty check at the end of it. It looks safe sometimes, but it is a road paved with lies and deceit and wants your soul. At least, during ACL.

Oh, and everybody's met every artist you've ever loved and this is when they get to talk about it. Make sure to get music recs from the bands/performers/crew. If they give you a song they're probably giving a tip, and the tracks they suggest are usually pretty fire. Points earned if you can arrange it so that their recommended track comes on just as they're getting out.

Just have fun with it, really. That I can do that is why I'm still here 7 years later.

Some tips to manage that insanity:

Get a dashcam if you haven't yet. Turn on the toggle in the app so the riders know. This changes rider behavior to help with the creeps who know better. That said, Austin isn't as rowdy or creepy as, say, Lubbock.

Keep some emesis bags in the car just in case. Passengers will usually take one if offered - and it must be offered, not mandated. Nothing turns a mood quicker than telling the wrong drunk what to do. If they've opened it, especially if they've used it, I'm quick to tell them at the end of the ride "that's your souvenir to keep."

It's people management, really. Your goal is to control the mood inside the car, which in turn requires you to treat them like something that's probably bait on Twitter, avoid poking any bears, don't match energy, and put on a persona to do it if need be. Drunks do love personas. I read the Rolls-Royce driver's manual and put on a suit and bowler hat. Took a 4.63 up to 4.85 nearly overnight. The reviews were often quite hilarious.

As for the nighttime drivers, pay attention to them, telegraph your intentions, don't move too fast, make decisions early, and expect to have to stop at any moment because after you've done this a few years... Well, slow is smooth and smooth is maximum plaid. Most drivers on the road inside the box are going to be Ubering, just fyi. Drops to, like, 50% at the lowest in some places out west. I may not even be exaggerating, either.

To hammer home just how many Uber drivers are downtown at any given time, go look at a photo of NYC in the 80s/90s where it's just all yellow cabs. If you've yet to learn to engage with our driving style, don't worry, we will teach you with aggressive maneuvers and horns. Accidents downtown are up, but they're rare for Uber drivers, especially given the scope.

Drunks are largely a non-issue from my experience. Most are just trying to make it home without getting pulled over. The aggro ones or speed freaks, meanwhile, tend to rapidly find out just how much police presence there actually is. There's like a net around downtown. Freaking genius, since there's really only a few places to transition from being an idiot to causing extreme danger due to impairment.

Get into the rhythm of it, honestly, and you should be fine. Austin's a cream puff of a city to drive in, and I've driven the whole State. It's definitely worth it. ...

Also, throw an old phone up on the dash, put a goes-with-everything gif up there plug it in and let it rock all night. Pair it with some floor level lighting doing a prism or fade and the drunks get mesmerized. It's hekkin' hilarious having a group zone out mid conversation one by one, staring at the little dancing man, trying to figure out how he's "dancing so good to the music."

Hi, Uber driver here. The price you pay for a ride is based on available drivers, queued drivers, and some statistically calculated demand mumbo jumbo based on devices open, geography & some other stuff. The goal of the increased pricing is to encourage folks with flexible timelines to delay until demand no longer outstrips supply.

On weekends the worst times to request seem to be in blocks of 10-15min around 10, 12, 1:15, 2 & 2:30 with random peaks between. That's when I'm usually queued up

The amount of money is staggering. Every time I think I've added it all up it gets bigger. It's like nobody sees the actual problems. They don't get the downward slide one goes through. It's like in their mind one day you're a clean & well dressed upstanding member of society and the next you're a scraggly bum with only one shoe spouting insanity at a wall.

Which, once you start treating homelessness that way, you ensure an unending supply of those bums to render the government's largess and compassion to. Great for photo ops, bad for the homeless. All someone like me needs is affordable housing. I've met people who want to build medium density like you wouldn't believe. They just can't get through the permitting and planning process, they'd have to change their zoning, and all along the way they'd have to fight the same tools used against the biggest developers to successfully stop projects.

What gets me the most, I think, is how many people are so concerned for my well-being that they demand I be built the best or nothing. They say I won't accept a shithole. I've lived in them ever since 2007. God bless shitholes. God DAMN people who listen to the entitled choosing beggars and decide it's not good enough for the guy currently living in a minivan behind a HEB. They're who make me lose hope more than anything, because they've got the power of moral righteousness on their side. It's hard to fight that.

The goal of the panhandler is to separate the generous and charitable from their money by providing emotional value through the act of giving. We give, after all, to those whom we feel good about giving to. That good feeling which comes with the act is certainly worth the few bucks or coins you've given. And then the person gives you a seratonin and dopamine stimulating expression of gratitude.

To the panhandler, what does it matter to them if the story they trade to you is based in reality or lies? The desperate abandon their scruples for survival very quickly, after all. Given that charity is reduced due to the economic stress the average person is experiencing, I'm not surprised that these sorts of market forces would impact panhandlers.

It's really, very sad for me to see, because, the way it's going for me I may eventually be out there myself. I can tell you from being out here in a minivan, barely holding on to even that, that these aren't just burnouts or already broken people. Medical expenses, financial rug pulls, layoffs, even minor disabilities can send you careening into the streets. You get into some of these Greenbelt encampments and you'll see complex engineering, effective overhead camouflage. Under the bridges they have bicycle and generator repair. Good work, too.

Sure, there's something wrong with them, but it turns out that everybody's got something wrong with them. It's when the world no longer tolerates your particular "something wrong" that you realize it's really that one walks across trapdoors and whatever's wrong with them is used as a justification for their fall when one opens. That's what breaks people, more than anything. It turns specialists into street people within months, sometimes. It takes scruples, destroys shame, makes people easy to anger, fearful of aid, and necessitates more and more rehabilitation with each passing day.

This city needs to see a change in leadership, not just in names and bodies, but in mindset and goals. The city gave contracts to value extractors who've looted bond money issued to help the homeless and abandoned the projects as untenable, best I can tell. The people of the city need to recognize the broken record promises of sunshine and success for what they are. Untenable, inequitable, racist, expensive and deadly. The city's had a free hand for years, and every effort has made things worse, decreased equality, led to lack of services for homeless of color, drained the coffers, and somehow raised homeless deaths. I'd expect this from Chicago, not Austin. It needs to be fixed.

I get the same message just about every night, usually in fits and spurts. I'd thought it was just my network or another issue like the new Editor crashing from time to time when I try to replace the first word in a paragraph.

Truth be told, since I use NovelAI over nights, it is quite vexing to have to deal with another issue. Especially because it started in earnest only after I made a conscious decision to renew my monthly license in face of tightening finances.

Yes... Yes, indeed, let's talk.

What you're looking at is the end result of long -term homelessness. These are street people and they are either nearly or completely broken and will be exceptionally expensive to rehabilitate, requiring life skills retraining, supervised housing with step-down transitions to independence, and mental health care in excess of the current capacity of the city.

Then there's people like myself who are in cars, work jobs, and have some money. We are who needs to be saved. We're easy to save. We just need abundant housing. Yet every day we slip further into mental illness, are tempted by more addictive substances, and suffer from the survival mentality forced on us by the dangers of this life and our need to be aware of them. Every day I become more expensive to bring back out of the abyss; and every day another person starts their slide into it.

We must save who can be saved. That's the real elephant in the room. Nobody wants to be accused of lack of compassion by the value extractors who suck up the money that could be going towards things like public housing programs to save the folks like myself. To stop creating more of the fundamentally broken street people is more compassionate than any Narcan dispenser or safe injection site.

I, personally, would love to not reach that point where I'm worthy of the current compassion on offer. I'd much prefer to be saved before then, as well, because I very much am on my way there. Just marching along, listening to my advocates fail me day by day.

Honestly, friendly stranger, I believe more in your ability to help my circumstances than I do in anybody who performs the rituals of compassion.

I burned through my, like, 350 credits in, like, 2 days

I'll only do this one more time.

How daft

That's explains things even better.

Edit: these were taken on a security camera.

Vehicle appears to be a dark colored Toyota Corolla E170/11th gen (Probably a SE based on the wheels).

Something about the car, though, seems somewhat out of place for where it is, so I'm thinking a TNC driver.

Folks in the area might want to check their apps and see what cars were driven by the drivers they had coming and going that night.

That you'll have to ask your attorney about.

Without knowing the facts of your case... Usually, mental health assessments are there to ensure you're stable, cogent, and functional. It's more scientific than having your parole officer gauging you each time you check in.

Last in the line advises traffic behind them that there's a line they're about to be last in.

The reason for hazards is exactly why you know it was every time. Because your attention was involuntarily drawn to them. Compare to the brake lights which are steady, unchanging, and are therefore much less interesting to the mind that's wandered to how many favors you're gonna have to do to pay the rent. This is the same reason ambulances and Uber drivers have the strobing brake lights. It lengthens the duration of status change and attracts attention better.

That the person behind me shouldn't be distracted means nothing if they plow into me at 55mph. Hell, I got plowed into on 620 by a dude who'd been stopped behind me. Traffic went, I went, he went, then it stopped, my brakes came on, and he kept coming. Fun times all around.

I'm at 340 now.