Almost at the top of the rope. You won’t have long before a patrol spots you, but long enough to snap a picture and get out. You swing your legs over and look around.

The top of the wall exends into the morning haze in both directions. The view to the other side is blocked by a jumble of small huts, chimneys, floodlights; each one emblazoned with the logo of the Ohio Containment Corp - the block capitals OHIO enclosed in a möebus band. You pick your way through until you see what you came here for.

Disappointment. It’s just the same scrubland, dusty tracks and fields that you drove through to get here. Maybe there’s some settlements way off in the distance? It’s hard to see. Oh well. What did you expect? The whole secret laid bare on your very first view? You snap a picture, and step forward for a better look.

What was that? You heard something! Is there someone else here? You dart back and crouch, out of sight you hope, and try to listen. If there was a guard they would surely have raised the alarm. You creep forward, quietly as you can, then … shit! You see its shadow. Human shaped, crouched, moving slowly, stalking you.

You’ve gotta go. Where’s the rope? You must have got turned around in the confusion but you find it. Swing over and back down. Hand over hand as fast as you dare. Your buddy Flip is still at the bottom where he parked the car.
“Whoa, slow down. You’ll break your neck”
“Flip, we gotta go”
“Did you get the photo?”
“Yeah, but -”
He grins and raises his palm. You fumble the hi-five.
“Flip, someone saw me. We gotta go”
He looks up at the wall, sceptical, but nods. “Hey, are you driving?” He motions you towards the other door. You stumble around and climb in. What is wrong? Something is, you know it.
“Wow, you’re really flustered about something. You’ll feel better with some breakfast.” He hands you a candy bar. You take a bite. It tastes … not bad, but different. It’s some knock-off Snickers bar with its label in a foreign alphabet. Flip starts the car and pulls out left, past the Containment Corp sign. You notice a misprint on the logo - it says OIHO.
“Flip, I don’t think this is the way back”
“Sure it is - it’s the same way we came here. You’re really in a state. What happened to you up there?”

You don’t know. You try to think. You try to reflect.

I think the TLDR bot has its purpose.

Cross posted to /c/bjork@sh.itjust.works, thanks!

If only the virus had a better sense of irony

I’m not sceptical, I see that climate is changing, but I like it 🤷‍♂️

Just explain why we are sceptical

No. You just explain why we should explain a position that moments earlier you claimed to not hold.

Israel and the IDF

Murderers.

Hamas

Murderers.

Hamas supporters are calling for the extermination of all Israelis

Murderers.
Please pay attention

Mine too 🙁. And I think your opinion does have an impact, if only on yourself. I read about this shit, and some part of me really wants to rage and justify one horror over another. And I hate that.

The two sides are murderers, and civilians. If you’re divvying them up by what flag they’re waving then you’ve chosen the side of the murderers.

Yes it was caused by militants

Was it our militants or the other team’s militants?

It literally does not matter

You ain’t going to do a thing against bacteria. You could scour the entire surface and they’ll just be like ‘Welp, time to hang out underground for a couple of thousand years’

From my brief and poorly remembered Christian education, there were at least 3 occasions where the Big J handed out food and drink, and made explicit connection between his god powers, and the catering. So the idea was there in some form from at least the writing of the gospels. But yeah, it would be good to hear from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.

I have only this moment realised that the prayer is referencing the xtian communion giving of bread symbolism, and not just randomly demanding food as if the writer was hungry

Most of the weight is fuel/propellant, which is why most Mars mission plans have you manufacture propellant on-site. An empty fuel tank and some engines isn’t that heavy. Especially if, as you say, you’re able to reuse your lander. Anyway, everything you bring has weight. The issue is, how much and can you budget for it?

If your looking for somewhere to save weight, imo start by getting rid of the astronauts and all their associated life support and living space. Bonus - robots don’t even need frivolous luxuries like getting to return home.

I don’t think Mars colonies are realistic, but not for this reason. Mars has about one third the gravity of earth, and a much thinner atmosphere, so you can return on a significantly smaller rocket than you launched with. It’s true that manufacturing a space rocket of any size would require basically an entire civilization, but there’s no reason you couldn’t bring the return vehicle with you, and only require manufacturing fuel or propellant on site.

The top answer to this stackexchange post goes into a lot more detail on the practicalities https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2820/how-big-would-a-manned-ascent-stage-for-mars-need-to-be

Lex Luthor bought a company for 44 dollars then lost 40?

This is getting out of hand

I just see a row of ‘missing character’ glyphs

I think the only way to get a title edited was to DM an admin. As you can imagine, they didn’t do it often.

Is there an indication when a post has been edited?

Super secret Nazi numbers for the super secret Nazi club. 14 = 14 words of some tedious slogan that they’re fond of, and 88 = HH = Howdly-doodly Hitlerinos