Posts

Posted on

I Posted This In r/Over60 On Reddit Earlier Today

Any Gay Seniors Here?

Just curious. I knew I was gay since I was in high school, but I didn’t come out until 1977, my freshman year at the University of Arizona. I was lucky to have the support of the GSO (Gay Students Organization) and the multitude of friends I made at “the [gay] table” in Louie’s Lower Level on the basement level of the Student Union while threw open that closet door and made my entrance to gay life.

For the most part, I haven’t really suffered by coming out. My family was accepting (my dad admitted to me that summer that he too, was gay), although my mom (who was an interior designer) had some initial difficulty, not being able to reconcile my “butch” demeanor with the more effeminate gays she’d worked with all her life, but after she met my friends she finally came around completely. “I like your friends. I used to worry when you’d go out, but now I know who you’re hanging with and will be safe.”

I also haven’t (to the best of my knowledge anyway) suffered professionally by being out-and-proud. I’ve always felt that my employers and colleagues treated me fairly and with respect.

I moved from Tucson to San Francisco in 1986, right in the middle of the AIDS crisis. Somehow I managed to survive “the horrible 90s,” attending what seemed like weekly funerals, and coming out of it all HIV negative and without an arrest record.

Never forget that those of us who are here today are survivors. With today’s state of the world, and watching my the friends who survived along with me begin to pass from all the usual old age ailments, I sometimes wonder if those who we lost thirty years ago had the right idea by getting out early. But I wouldn’t trade the last 20 years since I returned to Arizona for anything; I wouldn’t have met my husband of the last 15 years otherwise!

Anyway, just throwing this out there and would love to hear your stories.

This has been somewhat edited for grammar and clarity from the original post.)

Surprisingly, the responses have been completely and overwhelmingly positive, with a lot of folks thanking me for sharing. In the cesspool that Reddit can often be, I’ve found that sub surprisingly free of the negativity and unflinching one-upmanship so common throughout many other subs. It is truly refreshing.

1 comments

Posted on

Holy Shit…Are They Thinking About The People Instead Of The Oligarchs For A Change?

The U.S. Department of Energy has ordered AI data centers to stop drawing electricity from the grid to prevent widespread blackouts.

As temperatures spiked past 100°F across the eastern United States, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency directive to ease unprecedented strain on the PJM Interconnection power grid.

The order targets large-scale electricity consumers—most notably the dense cluster of artificial intelligence and cloud computing data centers in Northern Virginia, home to the world’s largest concentration of such facilities.

By forcing these high-demand tech centers to temporarily disconnect from the public grid and rely on their own backup energy resources, officials successfully freed up crucial megawatts so millions of homes could keep their air conditioning running without triggering severe power failures.

However, this quick-fix solution highlights a looming conflict between the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure and local environmental goals. Most industrial backup systems rely on diesel or natural gas, which emit significantly higher levels of local air pollutants than centralized utility plants. Furthermore, with the Mid-Atlantic region lacking the robust battery storage capabilities found in states like Texas and California, grid operators remain highly dependent on fossil-fuel-powered alternatives during sudden demand spikes. As the energy demands of artificial intelligence continue to skyrocket, experts warn that similar emergency measures may become a routine test of America’s aging energy infrastructure.

source: Nilsen, E. (2026, July 2). Energy Dept. directs data centers to use backup generators during heat wave, freeing up power for AC. CNN.

0 comments

Posted on

Speaking Of Scouring Through Photos and AI Image Generation…

I was looking through all my old menz photos to locate this picture:

Back in 2001, it spoke to me for a variety of reasons. I liked it; I liked it a lot. So in a fit of creativity in 2001, I painted it and called it, A Man Who Knows His Place.

For shits-n-giggles, the other day, I uploaded the image of the painting to ChatGPT and instructed, “make it photorealistic.”

I would say it did an eerily accurate reproduction of the original photo.

And while I cannot for the life of me locate the original photo that inspired the next painting I did…

Probably my favorite piece from that whole period.

I do like what ChatGPT did to it with similar instructions:

0 comments

Posted on

So I’m Going Through Old Photos…

…trying to track down something specific in my offline Menz folder. I have everything organized by year and month according to when they were originally downloaded, but that’s not helping me find what I’m looking for.

But while perusing the archives, what I’m discovering is a lot of old friendly, um—faces—that I’d forgotten about. I was also reminded that many of my favorite websites—cough—dudesoffcampus.com—cough—are long gone. I also realized that since I wiped everything in my original blog prior to 2011, I can repost a vast majority of these pictures now and if you ignore the date stamps or the year-specific names, no one will be the wiser.

Yes, I’m evil that way. 😈

Anyhow, one of these favorite faces I used to “chat” with back in the day was this cutie, “BryGuy”

I was going to say at the time I could never understand what this 25 year old found attractive in a pudgy 43 year old, but whatever. We both enjoyed our  “chats.”

Getting information out of him was a challenge (although he wasn’t shy about anything else, if you catch my drift. (out of respect for his privacy I never screencapped those) As I recall he lived in Ontario and worked for a finance company of some kind. So if he was 25 in 2001, that would make him 50 today.  I wonder how the years have treated him.

Hmmm…

After uploading one of the photos to ChatGPT and using the command, “Age him 25 years,” it  offered up this view of him at 50:

Apple’s Image Playground came up something similar (it refused to accept the shirtless pic so I had to use a different one)

Still hot.

 

0 comments

Posted on

You Could Probably Fit Four Of These Inside The Footprint Of A Modern House

With only a few minor updates, this could be a very livable house for a single person or couple in 2026.

I mean honestly, who needs this:

And that’s only the FIRST floor!

And yup…the entire top floorplan would fit inside the Great Room/Kitchen of the bottom plan. SMDH.

WHO NEEDS THIS?!

I case you’re wondering where I’m culling these monstrosities, it’s from reddit.com/r/floorplan.

1 comments

Posted on

Fabulous 50s

I don’t like the idea of having to take my laundry outside to get it into the wash on the top plan. I’d have put a door directly from inside the house, closed off the one to the carport, and ditched that room’s “storage” designation. I also would’ve made it a double carport with storage on the outside edge that runs the length of the carport.

I understand the design philosophy behind the lower plan, but it seems that entry hallway is a tremendous waste of space.

1 comments

Posted on

Someone’s On Crack If They Think They’re Going To Get That Amount

Insanity.

Yeah, at the time of its manufacture, this was Sony’s top-of-the-line high-end player, and even now it’s legendary and highly sought after by audiophiles and collectors—and even I would love to own one—but not at even a quarter of that asking price. Ho one in their right mind is going to pay that amount, even if it has the optional wood side panels and comes with the original box.

0 comments

Posted on

The More You Know

Not a Plant, Not a Sheep. It’s a Photosynthesizing Slug!

But it’s dressed like a plant… and powers itself like one, too.

Meet the Leaf Sheep (Costa­siella kuro­shi­mae) — one of the small­est and strang­est marvels of the sea.

Barely the size of a grain of rice, this creature has black ear-like tentacles, bead-black eyes, and a back covered in tiny green “leaves.”

Those aren’t leaves at all — they’re cerata, filled with stolen chloroplasts from the algae it eats.

Through a process called kleptoplasty, the Leaf Sheep turns sunlight into energy, making it one of the few animals on Earth to photosynthesize.

[h/t to Rick]

1 comments

Posted on

Listen Up ICE Employees, Lawyer Here…

You can and will be charged for murder, kidnapping and child endangerment.

The question is not if, but when.

Prosecution can occur years later, under an entirely different political climate.

You may have a defense (i.e. imminent threat of death) but it will be up to a jury to believe you.

A jury of the public you’ve been brutalizing. Good luck with that.

State homicide, kidnapping and child endangerment statutes remain operative even for federal agents.

The federal supremacy clause may delay immediate arrest, but does not erase state jurisdiction or remove prosecutorial discretion.

And if you’re in a state like Minnesota? You’re cooked.

You should know the law protects those who have moral integrity. Federal civilian employees are protected from retaliation when they refuse illegal orders.

That’s Whistleblower Protection Act, 5 USC 2302(b)(8).

Translation: the law gives you an exit ramp. If you choose not to take it, that’s on you.

Obedience is not a defense when the order was unlawful.

The “I was just following orders” defense died at Nuremberg. The US helped bury it, and domestic law reflects it.

There’s US v. Calley (1976) re the My Lai massacre: obedience to unlawful orders does not absolve criminal liability.

Murdering civilians, abusing detainees, and kidnapping children is illegal under both federal and state law.

You don’t need a JD to know that.

There are also standards under your own field manuals and policies. The ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Policy Manual, Use-of-Force Continuum, and Rules for the Use of Force (SRUF) all establish limits.

You have signed that you reviewed them.

“I didn’t know” is not a defense when your policies spelled it out for you.

There are also standards under your own field manuals and policies. The ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Policy Manual, Use-of-Force Continuum, and Rules for the Use of Force (SRUF) all establish limits.

You have signed that you reviewed them.

“I didn’t know” is not a defense when your policies spelled it out for you.

“Everyone was doing it” “We didn’t have a choiceẠỊ

Well let me introduce you to some more recent history:

During the 2018 family separation directives, some federal employees refused to participate and were protected from retaliation.

Those who complied are now on the wrong side of history, and some of them will likely end up on the wrong side of future investigations.

Pausing in the face of legal ambiguity is not insubordination. It’s prudent self-preservation and self-protection.

This administration will one day collapse. They all do.

Your bosses will resign or retire. DOJ priorities change constantly.

Indictments outlive presidencies.

You can also be sued in civil court for a whole bunch of torts: wrongful death, false imprisonment, intentional

inflection of emotional distress, the list goes on.

Payouts on these claims run in the millions of dollars. The lawyers are already strategizing.

The law will outlast your recklessness.

The people will remember the terror you inflicted on them.

They will be sitting in the jury box.

Act accordingly.

[source]

0 comments