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A whale of a float... choking on plastic
https://laughingsquid.com/giant-whale-choking-on-trash-parade-float/

I'll just keep caring about the poop on my plastics for now.

Double thanks

I rather suspect that there isn't a single answer, and that it depends on the type of plastic and the fragment size. Melamine for instance is harmful if it's ground up to a powder, but not directly because it's toxic by itself but rather that it becomes toxic and causes kidney damage when it reacts with cyanuric acid inside the body.

*doublepromote *quality info, even if it barely scratches the surface of this food web destroyer.
This seems like our backup Armageddon. If the effects of climate change don't wipe us out, the survivors get to die slowly of petroleum poisoning.
I hope those disposable forks were worth it.

I was surprised he didn't mention all the plastics we eat intentionally, like any toothpaste with sparkles for instance....that's just bits of plastic we are fed on purpose.

So, after months of issues including plastics both leaving the capture area through the entrance and just going directly under the "curtain", the device has broken catastrophically and was returned to port for repairs today, barely 3 months after deployment. Disappointing.

I'm glad they're trying something, but in reality even working perfectly this device could only clean the ocean surface like a single parking lot vacuum truck could clean and decontaminate the entire mid West. We would need hundreds of thousands of these working 24/7 to make a significant difference, and that would undoubtedly cause new insurmountable problems.

Besides, enormous amounts of plastics have degraded enough that they no longer float at the surface. These devices could never harvest that plastic, and that's the plastic entering the food web at the base, contaminating everything from phytoplankton up.

I wonder where all those plastic DVDs went.

It's like being inside the lungs of some giant plastic person.
*quality weirdness
*promote

Ramirez acknowledged that there are significant gaps in her memories of the evening, and that, if she ever presents her story to the F.B.I. or members of the Senate, she will inevitably be pressed on her motivation for coming forward after so many years, and questioned about her memory, given her drinking at the party.

In a statement, two of those male classmates who Ramirez alleged were involved in the incident, the wife of a third male student she said was involved, and three other classmates, Dino Ewing, Louisa Garry, and Dan Murphy, disputed Ramirez’s account of events: “We were the people closest to Brett Kavanaugh during his first year at Yale. He was a roommate to some of us, and we spent a great deal of time with him, including in the dorm where this incident allegedly took place. Some of us were also friends with Debbie Ramirez during and after her time at Yale. We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it—and we did not. The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett. In addition, some of us knew Debbie long after Yale, and she never described this incident until Brett’s Supreme Court nomination was pending. Editors from the New Yorker contacted some of us because we are the people who would know the truth, and we told them that we never saw or heard about this.”

She says it took her six days of hard thinking and speaking to her attorney before she decided she believed that she was positive it was Kavanaugh. Again, no other witnesses are backing her up and the couple that did say they heard of some sort of incident involving a plastic penis and a party think they heard Kavanaugh's name mentioned but they weren't present at the party.

I have to say, there was far more credible information against Clarence Thomas and a panel led by Democrats voted to pass him on to the senate. It is worth investigation? Maybe, but how do you prove it? Both accusers admit they were heavily intoxicated at the time and both have no credible witnesses. If you do have an investigation and he is found innocent, would a Democratic senate even still consider him for SCOTUS? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Sadly, it looks like he may be fucked even if he isn't guilty.

I love that they are trying and have admirable goals.

I'm somewhat skeptical about the effectiveness. Presumably some of the data that they are going to collect will include retention rates -- if pieces of plastic of various sizes *enter* the C-shaped area, what percentage of them *stay* there until they can be intentionally removed? Also, how often will they become "full" to an extent requiring a tow to shore and offload operation?

The devices themselves seem like they'd actually be quite cheap to produce. Towing and offloading operations will be expensive, particularly in man-hours. Recycling the collected debris crap into plastic products for resale will be low-yield and unsustainable from a purely capitalistic pricing standpoint -- people will only buy that "merch" as a form of contributing to the project; not because the stuff they make will be competitively priced.

However, none of that makes their endeavor not worth doing/trying. Hopefully their retention rates are good enough (not much plastic or any particular size bracket escapes around / under the devices), and they can make enough through selling merch to fund the offload costs and deploy enough devices to meet their goals!

They seem to have a good shot. Most of their critics were just saying that we need to stop the influx of plastic, like what these folks are doing is detrimental to that process or something. Derp.

*promote

Well, the "not a flamethrower" is a roofing torch wrapped into the plastic furniture of an airsoft gun. Its purpose is to fortify the cultishness of The Musk, and maybe extract some more cash out of the followers of the Cult of Musk on the side.

I think there are 3 real issues with 3D printed guns that are genuinely new dangers worth being concerned about.

1. They completely avoid background checks.

2. They're untraceable to a gun seller.

3. They could lead to relatively inexpensive and unregistered fully automatic weapons.

It does seem that plastic guns are not worth worrying about because they're so terrible. But, metal shaping CNC Mills aren't that expensive and can do a decent job of printing guns at home.

I can't really buy the argument that no one will be interested in printing out machine guns because of the existing criminal penalties. If someone is planning a murder or bank robbery or terrorist attack, they're already expecting a life sentence if they're caught. And, even if they plan to get away with it, a gun that can do the job really well, has no history to trace, and can be destroyed or disposed of right after could just make the crime easier to get away with.

The tricky thing about full auto is that most people avoid it primarily because of the severe penalties. Simply owning one that isn't registered and taxed is opening yourself to up to 10 years in federal prison plus a fine of up to 250k. If you commit a crime with one, they will hit you for the crime and the NFA penalty.

It isn't difficult at all to modify most current semi auto rifles into full auto. Heck, some of the older ones like the SKS can actually duplicate full auto fire by accident via slamfire. People don't do it because of the heavy penalty if you get caught, but it 'is' doable.

Of course, that doesn't take into account international concerns over automatic weapons, where access is usually limited to the military style rifles.

As an aside, you will see people here exploit loopholes like the bump stock to simulate full auto because they can't be subject to the NFA. Personally I think that is a bigger issue than printable guns, at least in the US. I think we still have something like 400-500k of those still floating around. To me it is far more of a 'sky is falling' issue than plastic printed guns, but that's just me.

Good point, but not exactly right.
Plastic guns, yeah, not so scary here in the U.S. where anyone can get an unregistered gun in hours, but in other countries where guns are rare, this gives criminals access to better weapons than the general public, or in many cases better than average police carry.
Also-
There are both 3d printers that can print metal and the guy putting the plans out has a business making small cnc milling machines that can mill guns from his plans in steel. That means these guns can be exactly the same quality as licenced manufacturers make. I would bet there are or will be plans for fully automatic weapons as well.