My elderly dad called me a few years ago to let me know that we'd have to change up all the security stuff for our family phone plan because he gotten scammed. He said he got a call from someone claiming to be a representative of the phone company who said they'd like to lower our monthly bill. I stopped him and said "well, that should have been your first clue... when in the last decade of us using them has that ever happened? When was the last time our bill went down instead of up?"
Sure, the scams like pig butchering look dumb from the outside, but never think shit like this can't happen to you. There's TONs of ways scammers can trick you, but usually they'll seek out vulnerable people. Sure the gullible are vulnerable, but just because you're not vulnerable right now, doesn't mean you won't be at some point in the future. Desperation can make scholars into fools.
My first thought also. I get people not wanting to get the police involved (i.e. some officers may share the sibling and father's sentiment), but this is definitely a situation where authorities should be contacted. This really feels like we're going to hear in like two months a local TV reporter say the words: "from a FOI request, we've learned that the two suspects were on police radar for months."
Wait... Ronald Reagan didn't "didn't do any of [add government]" just because no new "three letter'd" agencies got founded under his tenure. In 1982 (or 83... I forget and am drunk right now), he almost doubled spending for the Department of Defense.
That's... that's a Pornhub category right? "Watching people watching porn" has got to be a tab on that site. It's sounds too much like a kink to not be a kink.
The danger of the transporter is not really talked about in TOS, outside of accidentally sending folks to the Mirror universe. Wait, I'm just realizing... so, on top of possibly causing untimely (not instant enough for my liking) death and nonconsensual cloning, any old transporter can also accidentally create a portal to fully up-and-running interplanetary fascism. It's just a dangerous technology all the way down.
In the first film, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," a horrific transporter accident occurs in the first act. It's kind of a plot point as the Chief Science Officer (a Vulcan we only briefly meet at Starfleet HQ) is killed along with another poor soul, necessitating Mr. Spock's return to his seat. It's fairly graphic, you hear screaming and see deformed humanoid shapes in the transporter "light show" on the ship's platforms... the transporter technician says "oh no, they're forming" shortly before what's left of them is beamed back down to San Francisco. Starfleet ground control then confirms to Kirk and Co that "what made it back didn't live long."
Later (like only three or four scenes later), we are told that Dr McCoy doesn't want to use the transporter to board the ship -likely because of the obvious inherent danger of the device- but is ordered to beam aboard by Kirk. His worry is then played for laughs... as if not an hour ago two people got melted and died. It's a bizarre shift in tone, only made weirder by the framing of Bones as an old Luddite for being scared to use it.
There's all these iconic photos of Walt Disney where he's pointing at stuff with a two finger point. I've heard that some within the company say that this is the example by which their resort employees always use the two finger point to direct guests.
In reality, he was holding a cigarette and the photos have been airbrushed. He died of lung cancer in 1966. Pointing with two fingers is just seen (kind of universally across cultures) as being non-accusatory. Like, say you saw someone talking to someone else and you cannot hear them (or it's in a language you don't understand); they're pointing with one finger in your direction, you may be inclined to think they're talking about you. If they're using the two finger point, you're less likely to think that... it's the same for airliner flight crew.
"Alien" (1979) still gets me every time I watch it. The slow build, the pops of horror, the delectable suspense of the Big Chap hunting. I know every scare, every moment of terror, every death by heart... but it still gets my circulatory system going. All other home invasion/haunted house movies can go home, Alien nailed it.
The racist joke was made in October.