It truly is amazing to watch Americans fall prey to the propaganda of the Trump administration as they claim to support the Second Amendment while attacking it at every given opportunity instead of eliminating unconstitutional infringements upon the people’s right to keep and bear arms. Derrick Broze has the story at The Last American Vagabond. …

There are multiple “largest” balls of twine, and all you have to do is travel to the Midwest to find them. We break down the history here.

If you’re a Millennial who reacts to a knock on the door like it's a "jump scare" from a horror flick, you’re not alone. Comedian Jake Lambert nailed that particular form of anxiety in a new Instagram video titled "how different generations react to the doorbell," in which he acts out stereotypical responses from Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. The Boomer reaction is simply asking, reasonably, "Who’s that?" and walking over to the door. For Gen X, it’s wondering, "Who’s that?" and checking the security camera. The Gen Z move is apparently ignoring the sound entirely. But only Millennials, according to Lambert, react to a doorbell with genuine fear—in this case, appearing totally stunned and sliding off the couch into a puddle on the floor. The clip is hilarious, but it also appears to have touched a nerve. A large chunk of the top comments come from that demographic, with people pointing out the video’s accuracy. See on Instagram Millennials say doorbell phobia is realHere are some highlights from the flood of responses: "Look, Millennials were locked up in the house alone when our parents were at work, we were told under NO circumstance were we to open the door for stranger’s. ?#strangerdanger⚠️""100% accurate on millennial ?❤️""Millennial here. I definitely hide immediately and try not to make any noise""Millennials are not home ever unless you text first and give them hours notice. Facts.""Yep, as a millennial, I can confirm that if I'm not expecting anything or anyone, there's no way I'm answering the door. The same applies to phone calls. Leave me alone. I don't exist. You don't need my time, and I yours.""Millennial here. I've even removed my doorbell ?""Millennial running quickly to the bathroom to hide hoping I wasn’t seen. I thought it was just me ?""Millennials were latch key kids who were left home alone and told to never answer the door under any circumstances. We weren’t even supposed to let anyone see we were home alone, hence staying away from windows, closing the blinds, staying silent, etc. That was a large part of our childhood.""And we stuck to it! ?""Millennials are so anxiously traumatized ? I love us!""I'm a millennial and I feel so seen, but also attacked.?""That millennial was quite accurate if I could disappear completely I would??"Safe spaces for this specific Millennial anxietyThis isn’t the only online safe space where Millennials have expressed their knock/ring stress. Ethan Lapierre (@Withethanlap) spoke "for all Millennials" in a funny and fascinating video, saying, "If someone rings the doorbell, we’re basically treating it like it’s a home invasion." See on Instagram What’s interesting, Lapierre says, is a perceived shift in how this generation has interacted with that particular sound: "It’s so crazy because, growing up, someone ringing the doorbell was exciting. It meant one of your friends was coming over to see if you could go play or someone was selling, like, wrapping paper or Girl Scout cookies, you know?...Now [when] someone rings the doorbell, it’s like panic and anger. It’s like, 'Who even knows where I live? Who has the audacity to ring my doorbell right now?’ You start asking yourself, 'Do I even have the capacity to have a face-to-face conversation with another human?'"But this response, Lapierre says, is "insane" because of how many Millennials were raised: "[A]ll of us are very well-versed in small talk, in pleasantries. That’s how we grew up. But somewhere along the line, we started needing a head’s up before you came to our house. Like 'Text me, call me, send a carrier pigeon—I don’t care. Just let me know before you come over.’ Because, for some reason, that ringing of the doorbell or that knock at the door is triggering a fight-or-flight response. It’s so wild because we grew up answering landlines without hesitation, but now we treat the doorbell ring like it’s a jump scare.""I have no desire to open the door when I don't know who it is"This same topic even launched a thread on the /Millennials subreddit' user rethinkingfutures wrote that they don’t answer the door unless they know someone is coming over. "Do other millennials not answer the door if they don’t know who it is? Even with a peep hole?" they asked. "I have no desire to open the door when I don’t know who it is or if I’m not expecting anyone. It’s not even that I’m a single woman who lives alone; I just hate answering the door for people whose arrival I’m not anticipating."Lambert even touched on a similar topic in a video about how different generations show up to people’s houses. "Millennials will have hoped that the plans would've been canceled," he says in the clip. "There’s no reason that a millennial will ever actually want to come to your house…They will arrive late, but they will text you to let you know they're on their way, just as they're about to get into the shower. And a millennial will never knock on your door. You'll just get a text either saying 'here' or 'outside,' and that's your cue to go and let them in." - YouTube www.youtube.com

Poets and philosophers have been using metaphors and analogies to try to define love for millennia, so it seems like we would have heard them all by now. But Penn Badgley, whose role as serial killer Joe in the TV series You couldn't be further from his real-life persona, has shared a metaphor for relationships that is hitting home.Badgley has been married to his wife, Domino, since 2017, and he shared on the Mighty Pursuit Podcast some thoughts on the difference between falling in love and being in a real, long-term relationship. He explained that the initial experience of falling in love is "a total dream state that does not last." See on Instagram "It's like the 'falling in love' energy," he says, "and if you go real hard and fast, then you'll burn through it quickly, and if you go slow it might last two years." But the physiological addiction of love, the infatuation period, always comes to an end. "And then, what are you left with?" he asks. He talks about allowing your partner to be a whole person, with qualities that might be unattractive or uninteresting or imperfect. "Love on those terms is completely different," he says. "You know, you go to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. It's gorgeous. Being in love—falling in love—is like walking through the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Maybe you've gotten a free ticket. You walk in, you're like, 'Wow, this is beautiful.'" Bluebells at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Rhododendrites/Wikimedia Commons "I think being in a relationship is more like being a gardener at the Botanical Gardens," Badgley says. "It's like, you know how this all works. And you got to do some work, but that should be joyful, because you're making it beautiful. You go from being a passive person visiting a garden exhibit to becoming a master gardener. You really have to understand things about the soil, just the diversity of the plants that affect one another.""The ecosystem of one person's interior and another is like that," he continues. "It's like the interaction of ecosystems. They have to find balance. And when they do, there's this really lovely, new kind of perfection." The analogy is a powerful one that might help people who may be familiar with the falling in love experience but not so skilled in the being in a relationship part. Falling in love is passive enjoyment. Being in a relationship is learning how to create beauty and maintain it, building skills and understanding as you go. — (@) "So many people these days want the botanical garden without putting in the gardening work. I love this analogy???.""Wow the way he explained this is so mesmerizing and relatable.""His example of garden/nature is perfect; relationship/your partner is sacred. It shouldn't be treated as anything less.""This is a very good analogy, most just want to visit daily vs becoming a gardner.""The garden comparison was brilliant, very bright man who knows the hardships and struggles of a relationship but learning how to navigate through it to make it something meaningful and beautiful!!!""Hearing a man talk about relationships in this way gives me hope."For relationships to work, having a comprehensive view of what love means and how you and your partner's "ecosystems" work together is super helpful. Love may not be simple or easy, but when you're dedicated to learning the skills to nurture it, you can go beyond just enjoying the pretty scenery and work to co-create something even more beautiful. Watch the full Penn Badgley interview on Mighty Pursuit here: - YouTube www.youtube.com

ALT HL: When mail addresses are too hard to read, they get sent to this strange and fascinating facilityALT HL: The crack team of 800 specialists that works around the clock to decipher sloppy handwriting on US mailOur handwriting is getting worse. More and more of our writing and communications are being done digitally, and young people, in particular, are getting a lot less practice when it comes to their calligraphy. Most schools have stopped teaching cursive, for example, while spending far more time on typing skills.And yet, we still occasionally have to hand-address our physical mail, whether it's a holiday card, a postcard, or a package.We don't always make it easy on the postal service when they're trying to decipher where our mail should go. Luckily, they have a pretty fascinating way of dealing with the problem.The U.S. Postal Service sees an unimaginable amount of illegible addresses on mail every single day. To be fair, not all of it comes down to sloppy handwriting. Labels and packaging can get wet, smudged, ripped, torn, or otherwise damaged, and that makes it extremely difficult for mail carriers to decipher the delivery address.You'd probably imagine that if the post office couldn't read the delivery address, they'd just return the package to the sender. If so, you'd be wrong. Instead, they send the mail (well, at least a photo of it) to a mysterious and remote facility in Salt Lake City, Utah called the U.S Postal Service Remote Encoding Center.According to Atlas Obscura, the facility is open 24 hours per day. Expert workers take shifts deciphering, or encoding, scanned images of illegible addresses. The best of them work through hundreds per hour, usually taking less than 10 seconds per item. The facility works through over five million pieces of mail every day.Every. Single. Day. - YouTube www.youtube.com The process of encoding the mail is very cool. The electronic system the encoders—called "keyers"—use is connected to real conveyer belts full of mail all over the country.The local mail distributors are counting on the REC to properly process the illegible mail items before they get dumped off the conveyer belt and into a bin that must be sorted by hand.Time is of the essence! That's why the best keyers process an address about every four seconds. Like a library, there's no talking or extra noise allowed in the work room. It's important that the keyers have the utmost focus at all times.Not all of the items that come through the REC are the result of bad or damaged handwriting, by the way. Sometimes, the handwriting is highly stylized. That's why posters displaying cursive letters are hung in every cubicle, next to coding sheets that list state abbreviations, cities, etc.At one point, there were 55 similar sites all across the United States. But improvements in software that can automatically read addresses and the lower volume of handwritten mail and letters going out means the Salt Lake City facility is the last one standing.The REC currently employs about 800 people, but the facility is processing less and less mail every year.Even still, the human keyers are the last line of defense when AI, machine-learning, and fancy algorithms fail. The technology will continue to improve, but human intuition and judgment simply can't be replaced in the toughest cases. - YouTube www.youtube.com What happens if the keyers at the USPSREC can't decipher an address? All is not lost.A local postal worker would retrieve the mail from the "reject bin" and do his or her best to figure it out upon closer, physical inspection. If that fails, the mail would likely be returned to its original sender.However, some postal workers have been known to go above and beyond to deliver mail. One famous viral story out of Iceland shows a sender that hand-doodled a map on the outside of a letter in lieu of an address—and it worked. — (@) In recent years, there's been a lot of supposed "concern" about the U.S. Postal Service not being profitable and losing money each year. It is self-funded and receives no funds from American tax dollars.Amid talks of the USPS's "broken business model," it's easy to forget that mail and package delivery is an essential public service. It keys our economy, our communities, and our democracy.The postal service is in danger of being shut down or privatized, but that would be a major disservice to the postal workers and Encoding Center keyers who work tirelessly to make sure mail gets delivered on time to the right place.

A major regret. The post The album Jimi Hendrix always wanted to re-do: “Muddy” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

"Forget the hyperbole." The post The album that finally made Bonnie Raitt a pop star: “You’re going to the Grammys” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.