Given the examples cited in the article, it sounds like personal injury.
Eg, "by boarding this rocket, you acknowledge that rockets are inherently dangerous, and are taking your life into your own hands. Even perfectly built and maintained rockets sometimes blow up on the pad, or roast spacefarers alive inside the capsule. We are not responsible for your safety beyond what is within our limited capacity to provide, and you accept this by riding."
From what I am reading, that isn't what they are asking for.
They are asking for this protection:
"If we perform every possible safety contingency available with our launch activities, and an accident occurs anyway, such as a cabin fire, or the like, we want mitigated liability via the use of passenger wavers."
Not "we want to shoot big bottle rockets, and not be liable for where they come down."
[Clarification: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. The above statement refers to the solidarity shown by said interest group in stonewalling the liability reform.]
There's a special interest group --for lawyers-- to pressure lawmakers to make laws --for the benefit of lawyers-- to maintain an intractible wall of legal liabilities, so said lawyers will never run out of people to sue?
And we are taking it.... seriously?
For real?
Coming from an industry that makes flagrant use of offset liabilities and liability law loopholes (the legal profession), this seems to be not only pathologically stupid and self destructive, but also blatantly hipocritical.
Similarly here, but I inline a fucking bible full of humorous and self-disparaging comments with the code, and criticise it myself, because I already KNOW that the functions are ugly, unelegent, and not in line with best standards and practices.
Then again, I am essentially the only one in my dept that can even *write* these macro functions anyway.:D (scripts to extend functionality of CAD software, using its publicly exposed APIs.)
I was just being a little bit thoughtful for the next slob that has to maintain the damned things.
(I don't need the lecture about how bad my code is; I already *KNOW* how bad it is! Sometimes I wonder how it even compiles at all!)
A vehicle with forward facing sensor cameras will "percieve" that the road "suddenly ends" when cresting a very steep hill, because the top of the hill obstructs the camera's view of the road surface, and the road sharply descends after the crest. (Think, colorado, or just mountains in general.) Also, sharp turn in road behind visual obstacle. (Tall building, rock cliff wall, concrete abuttment, etc.)
To prevent the car from stopping dead on the highway, the vehicle has to make an educated guess about if it should proceed or not.
Does the map say the road goes through? Does the miltiaxis accellerometer say the vehicle is embarking a steep incline? Are there special "helper" metadata fields available from the map to Improve autodrive functions? (Like, say in TomTom maps, where there is data about speed limits, toll charges, et al.)
The vehicle has to decide if it is going to stop and rouse the drunken/sleeping driver when it approaches the crest of the steep incline, or rounds the very sharp turn of the bypass's cloverleaf off-ramp. (Or on-ramp)
Users will be 'upset' if the car whines too frequently. As such, stopping in the road and whining is a good way to get bad customer reviews. This means the car will do absolutely everything it can to determine if it should simply just go or not.
The malicious cyber-terrorist (gawd I hate that term btw..) would have done his/her research before going to the expense and legal jeapoardy of doing the DNS poison + false map server exploit. His maps will be jammed full of metadata to assure the vehicle's logic that it should "just go", and that being unable to see roadway after the cutoff of the deadly trap on ramp is "expected", and "normal". The car will dutifully follow its heuristic program, and drive off the edge, fully confident that its data is reliable and safe.
Even if the vehicle balks, if it is going at highway speeds, stopping in time to avert disaster is not garanteed, especially if inclement conditions (like ice) are present.
Sometime last night though, I had an idea for how to perform a specific user attack, via a locally present middleman.
A malware infected android smartphone.
The smartphone enables its hotspot capability, or bluetooth capability, and then serves as the connection over which the vehicle attempts a map update. The malware already likely has access to the local phonebook store (so many legit titles demand that for some reason!), and can use that information to identify a specific target, for a specific map delivery.
Unlike a carbomb, this does not require physical access to the vehicle by the attacker, but only requires the victim to carry the phone inside the vehicle themselves, as many people already do. The smartphone has a much larger attack surface than does the vehicle's navigation system, and so is easier to compromise remotely.
(However, if you wanted to target, say, a senator, you should use a bogus iOS app instead.;) )
One major vector that would be ripe for abuse would be a combination of "self driving car", + "malicious GPS map update".
Eg, the self driving car would have sensors to determine it is on an actual road, of course. But that doesn't stop the car from autodriving off an unfinished bypass rampway, when its map software says the road is finished.
This wouldn't necessarily be able to target a specific vehicle without a pretty sophisticated man in the middle attack, (how you would do that is questionable in and of itself, perhaps if you put the middleman directly ON the car? Malicious android device, or a raspberry pi? But if you do that, why not just put a pipebomb like normal terrorists would?) But would work with a remote DNS injection attack against an entire vehicle product line, with disasterous effects all over. The attacker just needs to know when vehicles contact the map server, poison the DNS for the server, and then serve the malicious maps to updating vehicles when they connect.
Clearly, you have never actually been personally placed into a situation where youmust interact with government officials and law makers on a candid basis.
It really is as bad as advertised. The one suffering from being niave, I fear, is yourself.
In this case, let's look at the one party consent with a different viewpoint:
You really DO pay all your bills, and make use of automatic bill payments via your banking institution.
One day, you get a call from a collections agency. They inform you that they are calling on behalf of some organization that you have never heard of before, and that they are authorized to collect an obscenely large debt. (The exact mechanism of how this has come about is insubstantial. Could have been identity theft. Could have been straight up wire fraud. Does not matter. A debt was created, it wasn't created by you, it has gone to collections, and the collections people have your number.)
You politely inform them that they must be mistaken, that you did not create said debt, and further do not have ay relationship whatsoever with their client.
They become beligerent, and make demands. Start telephone harrassment.
You live in a 1 party consent state, so you elect to capture their abusive telephone practices as evidence.
They call, you press record.
They continue their beligerence, insisting upon your culpability for the debt. You inform them that you are going to seek the services of an attourney, if they continue to harrass you. They rudely assert that their telephone activities are not harrassment, and persist on the hardliner of your owing a debt, and demand to know when you will be making payment. You tell them to stop calling you, and to please send all correspondence by mail, say goodbye, and hang up.
They call back immediately. You press record.
For the next few days, as they continue their nonstop harrassment, you repeatedly tell them to cease telephone communications, and to correspond by mail, until they tell you that they don't have to comply with that request, until they have received a letter from you making that request in writing. Thank them for the information, and ask why they didn't reveal it sooner. They get beligerent again, and hang up rudely.
You will have by this time contacted an attourney, and established a legal relationship. You also mail them the written letter stating that they are to preform all contact via writing with your attourney, the address of his office, and the case number, with postal service reciept confirmation.
They call you. You press record.
You inform them that the letter to cease telphone collections has been mailed, and inform them about the attourney. They become beligerent, and essentially call you a deadbeat debt holding liar.
Harrassing telephone calls continue. You record them.
The postal service mails you deliery confirmation on your written letter.
The call you. You press record.
They demand to know when you will pay, and state that they are considering legal action. You inform them that they are in violation of consumer protection laws by contacting you directly, after having received written instructions to preform all collections by mail via your attourney. They assert no such letter has arrived. You inform them that you have delivery confirmation from the postal service asserting that it most certainly did, along with the tracking number, then demand the contact information for their attourney and the case number, concerning their threatened legal action. They become beligerent, call you a liar again, and hang up.
Harrassing telephone calls continue.
You present your collected telephone conversations to your attourney.
He sues the living fuck out of the collections agency on your behalf.
Without the one party consent recordings, you would have no documentation or evidence of the abusive practices of the collections agency, and would not have a case.
With them, you nail their testicles to the wall as a monument against abusive practices.
Naturally, a debt collector would *NEVER* consent to being so recorded, EXACTLY because of this potential liability. This is why 2 party consent for telephone recordings is very bad for average citizens, seeking legal remedies, and very good for abusive institutions. One party consent allows either end to record telephone calls for illegal and abusive behaviors, and to seek legal remedies as appropriate.
Already enacted "zero tolerance" policy + "OMG! Kids were shot! Do something!" == "well, we have run out of sensibled things to do to increase security a long time ago, so...."
Essentially, we have locked down schools that are essentially jails for children, coupled with officious authoritarianism as the established policy, being told to "do something! Kids aren't safe! OMG!"
Epoxy coated magnetic stirer placed in the bottom of a 1 liter wide mouth beaker, placed inside a large glass bowl filled with dry ice and alcohol.
A weighted portion of glycerol is poured into the beaker, and then placed into the chilling bath. The icebath is placed on top of a magnetic stirring machine, which is then turned on at the lowest possible setting.
A glass laboratory thermometer is used to monitor the temperature of the glycerol. When it reaches 0C, a buret containing a calibrated and measured solution of dilute nitric acid is slowly dispensed through the valve in 1mL increments, every 10 to 20 seconds.
If the temperature of the glycerol exceeds 2C at any time, tittration should be halted until it has returned to 0C.
Continue titration until all of the calibrated nitric acid solution has been dispensed.
I see several unmarked plastic jugs lined up neatly, and an unidentified white powder in a rubber animal dish.
Could it be explosive? Maybe-- many nitrate based explosives look like that.... could it also be powdered talc or baking soda? Possibly.
Could the bottles be empty? Sure they could.
Is this evidence he was making bombs? Is there explosive residues in the bottles? Is the powder a fully developed high explosve in a makeshift watchglass? Did they test it?
Or did they just see a suspicious looking substance, and violate a kid's rights?
Oh no! They found out that I have a bag of flour in the pantry and some old party baloons and a book of matches in the junk drawer! OH noes! They found the funnel!
(Clicky)
Oh noez! I hope they don't find the bottle of dilute battery acid (sulfuric) in the automotive supplies cabinet in the shed! Why, they might think I intended to concentrate it and mix it with sugar! Certainly not to top up my wet cell automotive batteries in the summer at all! (Like it says on the bottle.) (Clicky!)
Oh NO! Not the 9v battery and the steel wool! Oh shit, they found some wire too! (Clicky)
No, they found the scott's brand nitrate grass fertilizer! They are asking me all kinds of questions about being a terrorist, with all this stuff in my house!
Trenching is kind of a blue-collar word... not exactly proper english.
It is a verb, specifying the activity of digging a trench, usually to lay buried water pipe, or utility lines.
A trencher is a deisel powered piece of heavy earth moving equipment that resembles a giant chainsaw. A common brand name for trenchers is "ditch witch". (Though, like "John Deer", they also make a wide range of industrial and agricultural equipment.)
Specifically, "trenching" is the act of using such a "trencher" to dig a trench.
In this case, the trencher normally gets all kinds of mud stuck in it, due to its chainsaw like construction. It has been so dry lately, that this does not happen. The trencher comes out merely dusty.
Some conventions make more sense to me than others.
Some conventions say only the first letter of variables should be capitalized, for instance.
$Therepistname
Some say the whole word should be capitaized...
$THERAPISTNAME
Some say not to include a type descriptor, so that variables can be cast as new types on the fly as needed...
Therapistname
Some say that each word in the variable should be capitalized...
TheRapistName..........
Personally, I like to include the type descriptor prefix, and capitolize each word in the variable, ad use all caps for functions, routines, and commands.
But that is just personal preference. I don't like having to explain ambiguity over named variables, when I can clearly convey the intent with $Therapist and $TheRapist.
Trust me. Answering those questions can get quite akward!
However, many young farmers here in flyoverland have forgotten about the dust bowl, and pulled out the windbreaks. (So they can till another 2 to 5 acres.)
The problem with blowng dust is that it is erosive, and once it starts, it damages windbreaks and groundcover that would otherwise hold, and thus continues to blow.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the examples cited in the article, it sounds like personal injury.
Eg, "by boarding this rocket, you acknowledge that rockets are inherently dangerous, and are taking your life into your own hands. Even perfectly built and maintained rockets sometimes blow up on the pad, or roast spacefarers alive inside the capsule. We are not responsible for your safety beyond what is within our limited capacity to provide, and you accept this by riding."
From what I am reading, that isn't what they are asking for.
They are asking for this protection:
"If we perform every possible safety contingency available with our launch activities, and an accident occurs anyway, such as a cabin fire, or the like, we want mitigated liability via the use of passenger wavers."
Not "we want to shoot big bottle rockets, and not be liable for where they come down."
One is sensible. The other is not.
[Clarification: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. The above statement refers to the solidarity shown by said interest group in stonewalling the liability reform.]
There's a special interest group --for lawyers-- to pressure lawmakers to make laws --for the benefit of lawyers-- to maintain an intractible wall of legal liabilities, so said lawyers will never run out of people to sue?
And we are taking it.... seriously?
For real?
Coming from an industry that makes flagrant use of offset liabilities and liability law loopholes (the legal profession), this seems to be not only pathologically stupid and self destructive, but also blatantly hipocritical.
Seriously, an association for trial lawyers?
Similarly here, but I inline a fucking bible full of humorous and self-disparaging comments with the code, and criticise it myself, because I already KNOW that the functions are ugly, unelegent, and not in line with best standards and practices.
Then again, I am essentially the only one in my dept that can even *write* these macro functions anyway. :D (scripts to extend functionality of CAD software, using its publicly exposed APIs.)
I was just being a little bit thoughtful for the next slob that has to maintain the damned things.
(I don't need the lecture about how bad my code is; I already *KNOW* how bad it is! Sometimes I wonder how it even compiles at all!)
Consider the following:
A vehicle with forward facing sensor cameras will "percieve" that the road "suddenly ends" when cresting a very steep hill, because the top of the hill obstructs the camera's view of the road surface, and the road sharply descends after the crest. (Think, colorado, or just mountains in general.) Also, sharp turn in road behind visual obstacle. (Tall building, rock cliff wall, concrete abuttment, etc.)
To prevent the car from stopping dead on the highway, the vehicle has to make an educated guess about if it should proceed or not.
Does the map say the road goes through?
Does the miltiaxis accellerometer say the vehicle is embarking a steep incline?
Are there special "helper" metadata fields available from the map to Improve autodrive functions? (Like, say in TomTom maps, where there is data about speed limits, toll charges, et al.)
The vehicle has to decide if it is going to stop and rouse the drunken/sleeping driver when it approaches the crest of the steep incline, or rounds the very sharp turn of the bypass's cloverleaf off-ramp. (Or on-ramp)
Users will be 'upset' if the car whines too frequently. As such, stopping in the road and whining is a good way to get bad customer reviews. This means the car will do absolutely everything it can to determine if it should simply just go or not.
The malicious cyber-terrorist (gawd I hate that term btw..) would have done his/her research before going to the expense and legal jeapoardy of doing the DNS poison + false map server exploit. His maps will be jammed full of metadata to assure the vehicle's logic that it should "just go", and that being unable to see roadway after the cutoff of the deadly trap on ramp is "expected", and "normal". The car will dutifully follow its heuristic program, and drive off the edge, fully confident that its data is reliable and safe.
Even if the vehicle balks, if it is going at highway speeds, stopping in time to avert disaster is not garanteed, especially if inclement conditions (like ice) are present.
Sometime last night though, I had an idea for how to perform a specific user attack, via a locally present middleman.
A malware infected android smartphone.
The smartphone enables its hotspot capability, or bluetooth capability, and then serves as the connection over which the vehicle attempts a map update. The malware already likely has access to the local phonebook store (so many legit titles demand that for some reason!), and can use that information to identify a specific target, for a specific map delivery.
Unlike a carbomb, this does not require physical access to the vehicle by the attacker, but only requires the victim to carry the phone inside the vehicle themselves, as many people already do. The smartphone has a much larger attack surface than does the vehicle's navigation system, and so is easier to compromise remotely.
(However, if you wanted to target, say, a senator, you should use a bogus iOS app instead. ;) )
One major vector that would be ripe for abuse would be a combination of "self driving car", + "malicious GPS map update".
Eg, the self driving car would have sensors to determine it is on an actual road, of course. But that doesn't stop the car from autodriving off an unfinished bypass rampway, when its map software says the road is finished.
This wouldn't necessarily be able to target a specific vehicle without a pretty sophisticated man in the middle attack, (how you would do that is questionable in and of itself, perhaps if you put the middleman directly ON the car? Malicious android device, or a raspberry pi? But if you do that, why not just put a pipebomb like normal terrorists would?) But would work with a remote DNS injection attack against an entire vehicle product line, with disasterous effects all over. The attacker just needs to know when vehicles contact the map server, poison the DNS for the server, and then serve the malicious maps to updating vehicles when they connect.
Clearly, you have never actually been personally placed into a situation where youmust interact with government officials and law makers on a candid basis.
It really is as bad as advertised. The one suffering from being niave, I fear, is yourself.
In this case, let's look at the one party consent with a different viewpoint:
You really DO pay all your bills, and make use of automatic bill payments via your banking institution.
One day, you get a call from a collections agency. They inform you that they are calling on behalf of some organization that you have never heard of before, and that they are authorized to collect an obscenely large debt. (The exact mechanism of how this has come about is insubstantial. Could have been identity theft. Could have been straight up wire fraud. Does not matter. A debt was created, it wasn't created by you, it has gone to collections, and the collections people have your number.)
You politely inform them that they must be mistaken, that you did not create said debt, and further do not have ay relationship whatsoever with their client.
They become beligerent, and make demands. Start telephone harrassment.
You live in a 1 party consent state, so you elect to capture their abusive telephone practices as evidence.
They call, you press record.
They continue their beligerence, insisting upon your culpability for the debt. You inform them that you are going to seek the services of an attourney, if they continue to harrass you. They rudely assert that their telephone activities are not harrassment, and persist on the hardliner of your owing a debt, and demand to know when you will be making payment. You tell them to stop calling you, and to please send all correspondence by mail, say goodbye, and hang up.
They call back immediately. You press record.
For the next few days, as they continue their nonstop harrassment, you repeatedly tell them to cease telephone communications, and to correspond by mail, until they tell you that they don't have to comply with that request, until they have received a letter from you making that request in writing. Thank them for the information, and ask why they didn't reveal it sooner. They get beligerent again, and hang up rudely.
You will have by this time contacted an attourney, and established a legal relationship. You also mail them the written letter stating that they are to preform all contact via writing with your attourney, the address of his office, and the case number, with postal service reciept confirmation.
They call you. You press record.
You inform them that the letter to cease telphone collections has been mailed, and inform them about the attourney. They become beligerent, and essentially call you a deadbeat debt holding liar.
Harrassing telephone calls continue. You record them.
The postal service mails you deliery confirmation on your written letter.
The call you. You press record.
They demand to know when you will pay, and state that they are considering legal action. You inform them that they are in violation of consumer protection laws by contacting you directly, after having received written instructions to preform all collections by mail via your attourney. They assert no such letter has arrived. You inform them that you have delivery confirmation from the postal service asserting that it most certainly did, along with the tracking number, then demand the contact information for their attourney and the case number, concerning their threatened legal action. They become beligerent, call you a liar again, and hang up.
Harrassing telephone calls continue.
You present your collected telephone conversations to your attourney.
He sues the living fuck out of the collections agency on your behalf.
Without the one party consent recordings, you would have no documentation or evidence of the abusive practices of the collections agency, and would not have a case.
With them, you nail their testicles to the wall as a monument against abusive practices.
Naturally, a debt collector would *NEVER* consent to being so recorded, EXACTLY because of this potential liability. This is why 2 party consent for telephone recordings is very bad for average citizens, seeking legal remedies, and very good for abusive institutions. One party consent allows either end to record telephone calls for illegal and abusive behaviors, and to seek legal remedies as appropriate.
One party consent makes a shitton of sense.
*must be showing my age...
Those look like really OLD prestone bottles, made for large shops.
Look again. Those aren't gas cans. Those are radiator fluid cans, with the labels peeled off. Looks like Prestone yellow packaging to me.
You'll find similar in many vehicle enthusiast's garages filled with old motor oil. Often in similar quantities.
Might even find the black rubber pet dish in there too. They work GREAT for washing parts in.
Oh, without question!
Producing PETN from formaldehyde is much safer. (And the result is much less touchy, but far more explodie too.)
Of course, its so hard to get good, clean formaldehyde these days.
Indeed. Youtube is a playground of fun and dangerous chemistry that can go really, terribly wrong.
Already enacted "zero tolerance" policy + "OMG! Kids were shot! Do something!" == "well, we have run out of sensibled things to do to increase security a long time ago, so...."
Essentially, we have locked down schools that are essentially jails for children, coupled with officious authoritarianism as the established policy, being told to "do something! Kids aren't safe! OMG!"
Potassium nitrate works too. :D
You can get it at agricultural supply stores in BB sized prills, for use as a stump remover.
Actually I did.
I was pointing out that even if that indeed was a picture of the kids's basement, (which I find doubtful), a picture is not evidence.
Scary bottles and mystery white powder are not bombs.
You actually have to identify that the bottles were used to make explosives, and that the mystery white powder is in fact explosive.
Fun fact, crushed up aspirin with some baking soda in a tiny ziplock bag looks a lot like an ounce of crack!
Does that mean being caught posessing one should get you arrested for posessing crack, when in fact, no crack at all is in the bag?
Epoxy coated magnetic stirer placed in the bottom of a 1 liter wide mouth beaker, placed inside a large glass bowl filled with dry ice and alcohol.
A weighted portion of glycerol is poured into the beaker, and then placed into the chilling bath. The icebath is placed on top of a magnetic stirring machine, which is then turned on at the lowest possible setting.
A glass laboratory thermometer is used to monitor the temperature of the glycerol. When it reaches 0C, a buret containing a calibrated and measured solution of dilute nitric acid is slowly dispensed through the valve in 1mL increments, every 10 to 20 seconds.
If the temperature of the glycerol exceeds 2C at any time, tittration should be halted until it has returned to 0C.
Continue titration until all of the calibrated nitric acid solution has been dispensed.
Chill for 24 to 48 hours.
But somebody needs to have the knowledge, in order to know what is too dangerous for people to know!
And if it is too dangerous for people to know, then we can't allow them to know it, so we can protect the children...
But they need to know it in order to know what is too dangerous to know....
(Head asplode!)
I see several unmarked plastic jugs lined up neatly, and an unidentified white powder in a rubber animal dish.
Could it be explosive? Maybe-- many nitrate based explosives look like that.... could it also be powdered talc or baking soda? Possibly.
Could the bottles be empty? Sure they could.
Is this evidence he was making bombs? Is there explosive residues in the bottles? Is the powder a fully developed high explosve in a makeshift watchglass? Did they test it?
Or did they just see a suspicious looking substance, and violate a kid's rights?
Oh no! They found out that I have a bag of flour in the pantry and some old party baloons and a book of matches in the junk drawer! OH noes! They found the funnel!
(Clicky)
Oh noez! I hope they don't find the bottle of dilute battery acid (sulfuric) in the automotive supplies cabinet in the shed! Why, they might think I intended to concentrate it and mix it with sugar! Certainly not to top up my wet cell automotive batteries in the summer at all! (Like it says on the bottle.)
(Clicky!)
Oh NO! Not the 9v battery and the steel wool! Oh shit, they found some wire too!
(Clicky)
No, they found the scott's brand nitrate grass fertilizer! They are asking me all kinds of questions about being a terrorist, with all this stuff in my house!
Seriously, WTF.
Trenching is kind of a blue-collar word... not exactly proper english.
It is a verb, specifying the activity of digging a trench, usually to lay buried water pipe, or utility lines.
A trencher is a deisel powered piece of heavy earth moving equipment that resembles a giant chainsaw. A common brand name for trenchers is "ditch witch". (Though, like "John Deer", they also make a wide range of industrial and agricultural equipment.)
Specifically, "trenching" is the act of using such a "trencher" to dig a trench.
In this case, the trencher normally gets all kinds of mud stuck in it, due to its chainsaw like construction. It has been so dry lately, that this does not happen. The trencher comes out merely dusty.
Some conventions make more sense to me than others.
Some conventions say only the first letter of variables should be capitalized, for instance.
$Therepistname
Some say the whole word should be capitaized...
$THERAPISTNAME
Some say not to include a type descriptor, so that variables can be cast as new types on the fly as needed...
Therapistname
Some say that each word in the variable should be capitalized...
TheRapistName ..........
Personally, I like to include the type descriptor prefix, and capitolize each word in the variable, ad use all caps for functions, routines, and commands.
SORTPERPLIST ($NamesOfPerps())
ADDPERP ($TheRapistName, $NamesOfPerps)
Etc.
But that is just personal preference. I don't like having to explain ambiguity over named variables, when I can clearly convey the intent with $Therapist and $TheRapist.
Trust me. Answering those questions can get quite akward!
It was both.
However, many young farmers here in flyoverland have forgotten about the dust bowl, and pulled out the windbreaks. (So they can till another 2 to 5 acres.)
The problem with blowng dust is that it is erosive, and once it starts, it damages windbreaks and groundcover that would otherwise hold, and thus continues to blow.
Here's a nation wide drought map based on soil moisture measurments evaluated agains annual mean values.
See anything disturbing? I do.
I know anectdotes aren't data.
So, here's a little data for you
Note the hugely impacted area.
It's dryer than an old woman's cunt out here.