megane-kun

Okay, so that’s like two-thirds of the earth’s surface (centered at the antipodal point), and it’s a random person. It’s almost certain that I don’t know this person (aside from the info just given to me), and that the easiest way I can help save them in 24 hours is to warn them online.

First off, how can I be sure that those premonitions are real? They’re of a random person that may or may not have an obiturary available to me after they’ve died. Worse, these obituaries might get published days after the death. Making sure that I’m not going crazy (or being driven crazy by those) would be pretty hard.

Listing the deaths (never in a computer, at least at this early stage) with all the details available to me would be a good start. The following details would be the most helpful:

• real name of the person
• the time of premonition
• date of the printed obituary (or the date of the newspaper where the obituary is printed on)

If there’s enough data to convince me that it is indeed real, and be able to tease out the rules of this power, I can start saving people.

First off, I’ll filter those forseen deaths. for those judged “bad”, I’ll keep the info to myself. I am assuming that part of this judgement is my morals, so I do have a hand in the deaths I fail to prevent, whether or not they’re judged “good” or “bad”. At any rate, this would likely be instantaneous, and would happen as I record the premonition and its details.

Second, I’ll create a website, a very secure one for obvious reasons, with effort done to isolate myself (any information that can lead to me) from this website. In this website, there’d be a page listing all the premonitions I decided would be published. Marked as “impending” (or something equally ominous) would be the premonitions I witnessed within the past 24 hours. Another page would list all of those ones (and where people could be alerted). Heck, maybe I can establish an RSS feed for this.

I guess, it’d be like techno Death Note, but I have zero control over the details.

Of course, that’d not be a very effective way of getting the information out. Relatives and friends of those people listed might even suspect the page has something to do with the deaths. I’d expect law enforcement to be on to me, tracing me via the hosting services, the ISP, etc. that I use to publish the website. And in the event they do get to me, and if I’m afforded any trial, people might not even believe what I tell them (even if I tell the entire truth).

If I do nothing, none of that will come to pass, but I’d be racked by guilt over the “good” deaths I am not able to prevent. On the other hand, even just getting that information out, even if no one ever benefits from it, is already putting myself and those around me at danger.

Personally? I don’t have the skills to create that website, let alone do it in such a way that it isolates me well enough to at least not get me arrested within a week of the site operating.

My closet has five drawers and an open space that has three layers next to it. The items in the drawers are arranged according to function.

• Drawer 1 (topmost): accessories This contains my handkerchiefs, face towels, bandannas, but also some headwear and gloves.
• Drawer 2: socks and underwear Pretty self-explanatory, I guess? I put this high up so that I don’t have to bend down, exposing my bare ass into the air when I need to get a change of underwear.
• Drawer 3: shorts Along with the next drawer, this is where I store my “housewear” which is just shorts and simple shirts (or undershirts)
• Drawer 4: undershirts Yep, undershirts and other simple shirts. This can also contain some old “outside shirts” repurposed to become housewear.
• Drawer 5 (bottom-most): cold weather clothes This contains my jackets, pajamas and other “cold weather clothes”. I live in a very warm place, so these see very rare use, hence, their position at the bottom drawer.

For the other space, it’s “outside wear” shirts organized by color for the top two layers. The top layer has shirts with simple, round-neck collars, and the middle layer has the shirts with less-than-simple collars. The bottom layer has my jeans, pants, and other “outside wear” clothes that are not shirts.

Those among them lacking in morals would make bank (or influence, whatever is afforded to them) justifying that government’s actions according to US constitutional law.

Five on Lemmy, one each on Mastodon and Pixelfed (techincally two each, since I moved instances). So that’s seven in total. More if other Fediverse services capture my fancy.

A horrible accident involving a pair of eyeglasses.

I bet the views of the Alps are majestic from there!

And yeah! I imagine the trip would be so much fun (though a bit exhausting). It’d be combining two of the things that fascinate me: mountains and trains.

I sometimes fantasize going from the northern tip of Scotland all the way to Singapore on a train. Not non-stop, of course, but maybe going from one city to another, spending some time on a city until I get my fill, and then hop on the train to the next one. All the way until I run out of land. Maybe from there (Singapore), I can do island-hopping across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Then road trip in Australia. But that’s really stretching it, not just in terms of logistics and planning. At the pace I do things, do I really want to spend like five years crawling through Europe, Asia, and Australia? Even if money’s no object, I don’t think I can do that.

Sorry for the ramble. Given the scope of the question, yeah, a cross-Europe mountain train trip is perhaps my limit (that’d be like, two weeks? maybe a month if I take my time to really enjoy each place I visit?)

Switzerland. Having grown up in the coastal plains, I just have this fascination with mountains. I don’t t have the physical condition to climb one, but just seeing them up close already makes me feel things. Being on top of one, even more so.

Maybe I can do even better and do a train journey from France, and then Switzerland, then across Austria, all the way to Hungary and Romania, making sure that I cross as many mountains as I possibly can.

In most urbanized areas, even in suburbs, you can buy daily necessities (food, personal hygiene, medicine, etc) in just a short walk. If in a subdivision, like in a suburb, there would be some houses with an attached corner store. Failing to find what you need there, a convenience store would be a bit further (either still inside the subdivision, or just out the gate).

If you need to do your groceries, you can use public transport to the market. Even within subdivisions (with some exceptions, like those for the wealthy), there usually would be some form of public transport that could take you to the main highway, and from there, to the market.

That’s just one that immediately came to mind upon reading the prompt. Not sure if there are others, but it’s the most striking to me, and one that I’ve taken for granted until hearing about the US’ suburbs.

Nothing will get done.

Well, not exactly. My clones could probably make a decent guess on what to do, but they’d procrastinate on it and do something else given what’s available to them. Before long, everyone starves to death.

• Publish prematurely in an attempt to take advantage of the momentum.
• Notice that there are grammatical, spelling, and typographical mistakes.
• Edit, attempt to explain the edits, while also introducing more mistakes.

Rinse and repeat.

It’s okay if there are patch notes, right? Right??

As I am right now? Hell no!

But there’d be a question gnawing at the back of my head: “If I am the chosen one, why?!” I’d probably hold on to that question as I try to do what I can to save the world. There must be a reason, right? There must be something that I can do.

Moreover, if it’s known to everyone (or at least to the ones that are powerful enough to make a difference), I’d leverage that fact to have them do something. Like, “Yeah, the Chosen One needs you to be his companion” or some cheesy shit like that. And in that case, I’d probably end up more as someone inspiring (or pushing) others to save the world rather than the actual person saving the world (not that I believe any one person can, tbh).

Petty and minor, huh?

• Dates are now YYYY-MM-DD (2025-02-25) for the short form, and dddd, YYYY mmmm DD (Tuesday, 2025 February 25) for the long form.

• Time is now written in 24-hour notation (14:44:41)

• The first paragraph in a section doesn’t have indentation, but all succeeding paragraphs do. For example:

  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.  Vestibulum quis velit aliquet, accumsan eros id, tincidunt lorem.  Integer ac arcu elit.  Sed efficitur mi vitae viverra egestas.  Quisque sed varius nisi.  Vestibulum in cursus diam.  Ut pharetra quis nibh at semper.  Integer dictum leo eu velit condimentum, a varius mi tempor.  Sed at nunc lacinia, consequat eros sed, fringilla quam.  Proin pulvinar ante ac ipsum suscipit dictum.  In libero augue, tristique iaculis libero in, bibendum eleifend massa.  Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.  Suspendisse a risus non lacus pellentesque molestie congue non risus.  Quisque ut condimentum dui.
  
      Aenean dictum leo at commodo accumsan.  Vestibulum ullamcorper diam et arcu bibendum maximus.  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.  Suspendisse porta libero sed nisi aliquam volutpat.  Nam rutrum, odio quis ultricies blandit, elit metus pulvinar diam, non condimentum tellus arcu sed eros.  Praesent nunc tellus, aliquam vitae leo sed, pellentesque placerat ex.  Aenean tincidunt libero magna, sed sagittis neque facilisis id.  Vivamus quis lectus nunc.
  
      Donec lacinia, dolor sed eleifend volutpat, massa dui elementum risus, congue sagittis tortor sem sed neque.  Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.  Pellentesque tempor risus arcu, a dapibus risus tristique in.  Ut sapien est, placerat ac lectus non, scelerisque feugiat nisi.  Nam nec luctus nibh.  Aenean id ultrices risus.  Phasellus magna enim, sodales sit amet nisi id, interdum interdum neque.  Sed scelerisque scelerisque lobortis.
  

• There are two spaces after a full stop, except when occurring at the end of a paragraph where there should be none.

• They will be used as a generic non-gendered pronoun and will be the default along with one. For example:

  • “Someone sent me an e-mail, but I am not sure they meant to send it to me.”
  • “Really, one should make sure the e-mail address is correct before sending an e-mail.”

• Functions that are called in other functions will be declared before any function that calls them.

• Functions should be around twenty lines long, and at most have three levels of nesting. Functions that are too long or have too much nesting should be revised and broken up into two or more functions.

• Code indentation (tabs) should be set to four spaces.

• Code will be formatted as follows.

  function (params) {
      // code
      }
  

EDIT:

Formatting

For those people like me thinking “WTF is a worry stone?”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worry_stone

Worry stones are smooth, polished gemstones, usually in the shape of an oval with a thumb-sized indentation, used for relaxation or anxiety relief.

Something one would fidget with when worried, I suppose.

I reacted to a comment to a meme about parents having the power and the right to withhold what their children’s privileges relating to some trauma I’ve got.

The comment I replied to went:

We take away what each kid values the most. Works well. If they complain or don’t stop whatever got them in trouble we start adding days.

In hindsight, taking the context, it’s kinda reasonable, but I was triggered by the “what each kid values the most” remembering a painful part of my childhood, which lead me to be way less open to my mother.

I commented:

Wouldn’t that end up with a kid who values nothing, not even their own life?

My mom used a similar technique to get me to do what she wants me to do, and I ended up, well, the way I am right now. I hide a lot of things from her, and if necessary, only pretend to show interest in things I don’t give a damn about just to have a semblance of a personality. Worse, even if I‌ die right after this comment, I wouldn’t mind one bit.

Admittedly, that last part is totally unnecessary.

That response became my most controversial and downvoted for understandable reasons.

Saglit lang! Sino po sila? (A moment please! Who are they?)

Lol! Yes!! That’s exactly it! I never really thought much about it until this post. It’s one of those things people just do, without thinking much about it.

some cultures need visitors to declare themselves human when knocking at your door.

I didn’t think that much about it until this post. People here, me included, basically call out “(I’m a) human!” while knocking on the door.

That last paragraph of yours just made things click for me.

I’ve been wondering what kind of government will potentially do this. While it’s a pretty good idea in general, I don’t think any government will be able to shoulder the costs while earning the ire of the companies (media companies, etc.).

I mean, yeah, I also dislike having to restrict access, but I’ve just accepted it as a fact that such an institution must face. The decision on those restrictions would fall on the library/archives institution, so long as they are not running afoul of laws. So, I guess in the US, it’d be on the Library of Congress or in the case of the UK, the British Library.

Of course, it doesn’t do a thing to address your concerns, which as far as I am concerned, is very valid. And this is why I think piracy should exist, to keep such institutions honest. Sure, the national library here won’t allow me to research xyz, but other sources exists.

In a more philosophical POV, such institutions existing along with other entities (pirates, or what have you) allows for a check, and provides future historians a means of verifying information.

To be clear, I also fundamentally disagree on the concept of restricting access to information. And I think a lot of librarians and archivists agree with both of us. But for such an institution with such a service to exist, restricting access might be an evil they’re forced to accept.

I guess, to be honest, I don’t think such an institution will be allowed to exist, even with such restrictions in place.

EDIT: Typos and minor changes.

This would have been the job of the national archives and/or the national library.

Where I live, the government has a law stipulating that one copy every published material has to be submitted to the national library. I suppose a similar law exists for a lot of other countries, and extending this law to non-print media (like movies and TV shows) shouldn’t be controversial.

Regarding material deemed harmful and/or illegal, I think it should still be collected, but access would be restricted. If need be, access could be restricted to “premises-only” like what is done in a lot of university libraries.

Having this online library of material doesn’t have to mean that pirates have to be stamped out. I think this works best with the pirates keeping the government-sponsored media library honest.

However, what I think would be more plausible is an offline library of all the media that country has produced, with limited off-premises access afforded to researchers and others. That much, I think, would be allowed by the real powers that be.