The Stupid Thread

[neonzx]

And Joe Camel says "all the cool sixth graders smoke unfiltered Camels".

My first cigs were made from bubble gum. Even came in a pack.

Yep! Those were cool. Teach them young!

[qbawl]

And Joe Camel says "all the cool sixth graders smoke unfiltered Camels".

My first cigs were made from bubble gum. Even came in a pack.

Yep! Those were cool. Teach them young!

Candy cigarettes in the early to mid '50s: chalky white peppermint slightly undersized sticks with a bright red tip in little cardboard packs nearly duplicating the big national brands but often with a one letter off name. As you said "Teach them young!" and establish brand loyalty. Bubble gum was reserved for the older, more macho "cigar" aficionados.

[poplove]

My first cigs were made from bubble gum. Even came in a pack.

Yep! Those were cool. Teach them young!

Candy cigarettes in the early to mid '50s: chalky white peppermint slightly undersized sticks with a bright red tip in little cardboard packs nearly duplicating the big national brands but often with a one letter off name. As you said "Teach them young!" and establish brand loyalty. Bubble gum was reserved for the older, more macho "cigar" aficionados.

I remember the flavor being a little more wintergreen than peppermint. We would buy them and other candy from the liquor store. I also remember getting toothpicks infused with cinnamon that you could suck on for hours without losing the flavor.

[Suranis]

Yep we had "Sweet Cigarettes" when I was going up too. They were damn tasty as well.

[pipistrelle]

Nostalgia candy stores still have them, and of course Amazon.

World's King Size Candy 'Cigarettes' ,0.01 oz,24 Case

[Frater I*I]

Candy cigarettes in the early to mid '50s: chalky white peppermint slightly undersized sticks with a bright red tip in little cardboard packs nearly duplicating the big national brands but often with a one letter off name. As you said "Teach them young!" and establish brand loyalty. Bubble gum was reserved for the older, more macho "cigar" aficionados.

In my day, after yours, the stick were also gum as well...

[keith]

Yep! Those were cool. Teach them young!

Candy cigarettes in the early to mid '50s: chalky white peppermint slightly undersized sticks with a bright red tip in little cardboard packs nearly duplicating the big national brands but often with a one letter off name. As you said "Teach them young!" and establish brand loyalty. Bubble gum was reserved for the older, more macho "cigar" aficionados.

I remember the flavor being a little more wintergreen than peppermint. We would buy them and other candy from the liquor store. I also remember getting toothpicks infused with cinnamon that you could suck on for hours without losing the flavor.

I used to make cinnamon toothpicks, put 'em into alfoil packs of 10 and sell them on the school bus for 25cents. Then the school clamped down on it because we didn't have a health dept permit.

[RTH10260]

Vintage signs causing trouble in Marquette

KSNB Local4
12 Jul 2024

Vintage signs causing trouble in Marquette

[bill_g]

Well, I see the problem. They adopted codes from another village and didn't review them enough to uncover unintended consequences like this. Those would have gone through at least three public hearings over a 90 day period before being voted on in Oregon.

Sign code is near and dear to me. When I was on our local planning commission, signage was a common issue for us to decide. I have no idea what Nebraska land use regs are like, but in Oregon if this had appeared before me, I would have recommended the applicant modify their request to a conditional use permit that gets reviewed every ten years.

Some people call them waivers or exceptions. They can be. Waivers are permanent - one-n-done. CUP (conditional use permit) are temporary. They eventually expire needing review and renewal on a regular basis.

This allows the local authority to keep an eye on a project. If minor complaints come in, (IE: not requiring immediate enforcement) they can be saved for the review board years down the road. Then they go through the whole process all over again.

Once approved, if the applicant's project isn't a crap magnet attracting a lot of negative public attention, their renewal application will probably be handled administratively meaning they will be listed with a group of other applications, approved en masse, and gaveled through at a public meeting.

It's at that time someone with standing can request the CUP be reviewed in an open public hearing on a date certain determined by staff and announced at the next meeting. Standing is guaranteed for an immediately adjacent property owner. All others need to either approach one of the adjacent owners to act as their proxy, or establish their own standing for future CUP renewals (which may be two to ten years away).

Once the applicant starts the CUP process, I can visit the site prior to the hearing, and write up a list of discrepancies (or lack thereof) that I think need to be addressed to move the approval forward. We would discuss my requested changes in a motion before the board. Eventually we would arrive at what could be approved, and have our vote on the matter all during a single evening of public debate.

[bill_g]

Continuing along these lines of code enforcement pissing the public off, one of my favorite was for Penske Truck Rental. That property had been a truck maintenance yard under several names through the years. The use had not changed. So, code changes had not applied to a grandfathered property. But, Penske wanted to expand their operation. They purchased the empty lot next to theirs effectively tripling their footprint.

The empty lot was already zoned for commercial use. The issue was parking lot trees. Penske's application was for a large contigous paved area for trucks and trailers. There was no code that directly applied to truck and trailer lots. So, the staff applied shopping center parking lot code, and that required a number of shade trees per square foot of paved lot. There is a calculation for the number, a specification for spacing, curbing, irrigation, height, and species limitations.

For trees.

In a parking lot for 18 wheeler trucks and 54ft trailers. That would work as good as a screen door on a submarine.

We went round and round on this one eventually agreeing to increase the depth of planting around the perimeter of the new property line such they allowed for planned expansion of the roads. No trees or curbed planting areas for trucks, trailers, and forklifts to navigate. And it was a permanent waiver. No CUP reviews.

[RTH10260]

there is another bridge that ...

[neonzx]

there is another bridge that ...

https://youtu.be/Sc2SGOx9kcY

Still, after all my years, I have not figured out why bridges required roofs back the bygone days.

[roadscholar]

AFAIK, it was to keep snow and ice off the bridge, which will freeze before the dirt road.

[Volkonski]

In the days of wooden bridges they were covered to protect them from the elements to slow their wearing out.

[neonzx]

AFAIK, it was to keep snow and ice off the bridge, which will freeze before the dirt road.

Yeah that does make some sense. Couldn't they have just put up cautionary signs to alert drivers? Oh wait, they don't read nor heed to signs.

If you any and all have never visited old bridges, they are a treat for a day outing.

[northland10]

There is a one-lane covered bridge not too far from where I am. After one truck heavily damaged it, they rebuit it with a steel frame so now the damage is mainly to the vehicle with only superficial damage to the structure.

No trucks or box trucks are allowed on that road minus local ones serving houses before the bridge and there are a bunch of signs from the turn onto the road and before the bridge. They even raised it slightly on the rebuild. It still gets hit many times a year.

Drivers are not paying attention.

[RTH10260]

TikTok tourists trample on Angkor Wat in viral Temple Run recreation

By K. Oanh Ha Bloomberg
Aug 26, 2024

One of the hottest viral trends, where people sprint, leap and crash around Cambodia’s historic Angkor Wat and other temple ruins in the Southeast Asian nation in a live recreation of a popular video game, has conservationists aghast, with several saying the race for views denigrates the almost 900-year-old sculptures and risks irreparable damage.

Short videos of visitors running down narrow stone pathways and vaulting over passageways — often overlayed with sounds from the popular Temple Run video game — have been making the rounds on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms. Some videos have received more than 2 million views and inspire copy cat versions daily.

Simon Warrack, a conservationist who’s worked for three decades to preserve the nearly millenia-old ruins at Angkor, is troubled by the potential damage as well as the cultural and religious insensitivities being trampled on.

"You wouldn’t run through St. Peters in Rome or any western church — so why is it okay to do it in Cambodia," said Warrack. "It's not just potential damage to the stones by people bumping into them and falling or knocking things over — which is real — but it’s also damage to the spiritual and cultural value of the temples."



https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/ ... ngkor-wat/

[RTH10260]

‘Someone is going to get hurt or killed’: 14 people arrested for illegal hiking in Hawaii

By Lilit Marcus, CNN
Published 1:05 AM EDT, Mon September 9, 2024

CNN — Hawaii’s most controversial nature spot has once again become a center of concern, with 14 people recently arrested for accessing the Haiku Stairs on the island of Oahu according to officials.

They are beautiful but unexpected: 4,000 metal steps, built by the US Navy during World War II and abandoned not long after. Located in a remote area of Kaneohe, the only way to access the stairs is via a dangerous and unsanctioned hike.

“It’s incredibly disrespectful and self-centered for anyone to be on the Haiku Stairs, or on the Middle Ridge Trail, when it’s been made abundantly clear that these areas are off-limits for safety and natural resource protection reasons,” Jason Redulla, chief of Hawaii’s Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) said in a statement, which bore the ominous warning that “someone is going to get hurt or killed.”

According to DOCARE, all the people arrested in the past week have been charged with criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor that can result in up to 30 days in jail. Eight of the 14 were arrested on September 3, although it’s not clear if they were hiking together.

“It is dangerous for people to enter the construction zone and dangerous for them to try to descend the ridge. They need to think about the consequences if someone gets hurt, or worse, and needs rescue. It is a difficult place for first responders to reach, which could delay medical treatment,” said Redulla.

The Haiku Stairs, sometimes called the “stairway to heaven,” were closed to the public in 1987. But social media has brought the unlikely destination a degree of fame, with intrepid YouTubers and Instagrammers raving about the gorgeous views from atop the 2,800-foot mountain trail, with the stairs sometimes appearing to disappear into the mist above.



https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/09/trav ... index.html

[RTH10260]

re: above

Tourists continue to visit Hawaii’s Haiku Stairs even as it gets removed for overtourism

By Lilit Marcus, CNN
Published 12:42 AM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024

CNN — The soap opera surrounding the Haiku Stairs, a disused staircase in a remote part of eastern Oahu that has become popular on social media, continues even as the local government has begun removing the famed landmark.

The staircase, which was built during World War II by the US Navy, has remained a tourist site despite being officially closed to visitors since 1987.

On April 23, five people were arrested and charged with first-degree trespassing, according to CNN affiliate Hawaii News Now.

In addition, police say that they gave out 60 warnings to hikers, eight citations for second-degree trespass and 25 parking enforcement actions over the weekend of April 20 and 21. Second-degree trespassing is a misdemeanor.


https://edition.cnn.com/travel/haiku-st ... ue-arrests

[Whatever4]

TikTok trends are a thing these days. The latest: thousands of people in the past week or so fell for a “glitch” at Chase Bank, where you could write a check to yourself, deposit it, then immediately withdraw cash at an ATM. People posted themselves withdrawing tens of thousands of dollars. (I’ve seen estimates up to $200 million total.)

But as wiser heads know, banks are notorious for not liking people who get the bank’s money fraudulently. Now the aftermath is going viral.

That Viral TikTok Chase Bank Money 'Hack' Was Actually Check Fraud

Knowingly writing a check for money you don't have is a form of check fraud, which is a felony.

Last week a viral money hack made its rounds on TikTok, claiming you could get extra money from an ATM if you have a Chase Bank account. If you fell for this scam, it’s actually fraud and Chase will be removing the funds from your account.

People were able to write checks to themselves and deposit them at ATMs, according to stories shared on Reddit. The glitch allowed people to access the money immediately, letting them withdraw the funds before the bank could identify the error. Typically, you can’t withdraw money until the bank verifies the check is legit, which can take a few days. It’s not only a bad idea, it’s actually illegal.

“We are aware of this incident, and it has been addressed,” a Chase spokesperson said. “Regardless of what you see online, depositing a fraudulent check and withdrawing the funds from your account is fraud, plain and simple.”

While people who participated may have enjoyed the extra money, the bank quickly caught on and started correcting balances. When the glitch was fixed, the checks bounced and customers saw negative balances. The end result was inevitable, according to Alaina Fingal, a member of CNET’s Expert Review Board and founder of The Organized Money.

“It’s tempting to try to keep the money, however, banks have systems in place to catch these types of errors,” Fingal said. “It may take them a few days or possibly even a few weeks, but they will realize the error and reverse the deposit.”

https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/b ... eck-fraud/

[northland10]

Hiking Haiku Stairs
It's very disrespectful
Arrested you'll be

[Foggy]

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Haiku is not stairs,
Ascending or descending.
Haiku is poems.

[northland10]

Haiku is not stairs,
Ascending or descending.
Haiku is poems.

[RTH10260]