Pitch pans have been used since the nineteen-hundreds in construction to weatherproof roof penetrations. You need some electrical conduit or some such on the roof, esp. a flat commercial roof, you'd build a sheetmetal enclosure and fill it with pitch after extending the conduit through the roof plate.

Some of the pitch always drips through the roof eventually, sticking to everything in sight, but never quite as well as to human clothing and skin. One contractor I knew would'nt allow it on his job sites, referring to it as the black death.

I generally just imagine what a Hollywood supervillain would be plotting.

Then I imagine US developing that, and the Russians catching on later, per usual.

And I think we've been developing Satellite disruption tech for nearly 70 years, since Sputnik was launched in 1957. That's right kids, the Russians launched the 1st artificial satellite. We've been working on anti-satellite shit since about 15 minutes after hearing it.

Irony?

Wait. Meta is Facebook??

That's insightful, right there, I don't care who the mods are.

I'm not surprised a company like Flock exists to monetize the surveillance state.

I'm not surprised at law enforcement's reckless disregard for those pesky personal freedoms that are always hampering their investigations.

I'm a little surprised at how willing we seem to be as a species to catalog our daily movements for anyone with access to the surveillance databases; otherwise, AI might be blind to our shenanigans in a dystopian future. Sending drones into potential crime scenes ahead of humans is a recipe for what, exactly?

Well, as long as some heads roll. right?

I mean, the whole scheme of things nowadays is to identify a scapegoat, shame him/her profoundly, and move along.

It gives one armor?

As our AI overlords proclaimed us, humans formerly qualified/needed to learn this trade.

Two dead out of 455. That's just a bad afternoon at the Brontosaurus Steakhouse in Omaha, on Wednesday, when the fried ice cream cutlets go two for one.

An incidence of 0.0043956.

Or for you, not exactly mathletes out there, less than 1/2 of 1%.

Clearly, AI is the new cholesterol.

Ah, Poop.

That's hitting a little close to home, mate. 'Wrenching on stuff that slept outside in the English countryside and was seldom used' describes me and most all of my 2a.m. calls.

Since I was a wee lad, swearing felt good; and not for the all too obvious taboo, I shouldn't be using these words motive. No, swear words are purer than that, in that they warn the whole brain and body that some superhuman response is necessary immediately, if not sooner, in order to rectify a very recent miscalculation.

I'm no financial adviser, yet it seems like a rectifiable conundrum for a fellow earning that far above the poverty line.

"I'm not sure what happened, but here's $500 to cover the damages until we figure out what happened."

Maybe righteousness got in the way?

They mailed a dollar in cash with the brief survey, and promise five more clams after they receive the completed survey.

This is how the populace's information used to be collected, and I do suppose, at least the interested parties were paying me directly.

In an unrelated years ago event, although no one was shot or shooting at other humans (went postal), I was asked to fill out a Nielsen survey this week.

The demarcation between responsible representative democracy and oligarchal kleptocracy is as thin as the legislation regulating political contributions.

Privatizing profits while socializing risk and cost? Hell, that's practically the blueprint for multinationals nowadays.

It is not a foregone conclusion that the die is cast, but the future's prospects are dimming.

It appeared for the longest time that humanity might rise above its base instinct for self fulfillment: perhaps rejecting tribalism for the species greater good.

Worst case scenario? Whatever is coming won't get us all. We're a resilient creature, and may survive in the numbers necessary to muck this all up again.