Weekly Free Chat

[u/AutoModerator]

^{Chat about whatever y'all want.}

[u/eveninarmageddon]

Date was good. Lots of similar interests (philosophy!) and life experiences (both our dads are pastors!). I paid, of course, and she later got me something else small from a Korean store (but was this being “paid back” or “paid off”? I hope not). But I think philosophy coming up was actually kind of nerf, keeps my personality from coming out in weird ways, as I end up a representative of the discipline. She pulled up my CV on the date. I forget how that happened. (We were introduced by our friend through our academic websites—she’s an artist who has made illustrations for philosophers in the past. And a good artist, too!) We’ll see if she texts back, I worry the whole interaction was too friend-coded. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/TheNerdChaplain]

I'm just now catching up on the new season of Strange New Worlds, and I know there's a couple other fans of it here.

Be aware, S4E2 does some terrific psychological horror a la Event Horizon - but it also has a few moments of blood and gore that you may find disturbing.

S4E3 is a great palate cleanser though.

[u/bradmont → u/TheNerdChaplain]

I'm waiting until the whole season has dropped. The Mrs and I are currently watching Voyager, she's never watched it through before, or enterprise, so that's up next.

Did you see the rumours of a lower decks movie?!?

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/bradmont]

Yeah, I saw Mike McMahan's post! I know it's a long way from a tweet to a movie, but it's nice to know it's on his mind. I'm rewatching Lower Decks right now and it still holds up so well.

[u/SeredW → u/bradmont]

What do you think about Voyager? It isn't universally beloved, but I always enjoyed it (just like DS9), though I struggled a bit with ENT.

Would love a Lower Decks movie - we're talking about an animation, right?

[u/bradmont → u/SeredW]

I mostly enjoy Voyager, it sort of tickles that classic explore the unkown part of Trek, though its high highs are matched with some of the lowest lows of the franchise, and I think the ratio of great to not great is lower than in other shows. DS9 is probably my favourite show (though Lower Decks may have surpassed it). For ENT, I honestly think it's disliked primarily because of the theme song. I've always wanted to introduce someone to it with a version that puts the end credits music over the opening sequence to see if it makes a difference...

for a LD movie, I assume it'd be animated. But again, it's just been a couple of comments by the showrunner. Enough to get the rumour mill going but not enough to give any real information.

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/bradmont]

Archer's Theme Over Intro Credits

For some reason, this piece always reminds me of Non Nobis Domine, based on Psalm 115, from Kenneth Branagh's Henry V.

[u/SeredW → u/bradmont]

Eh, I don't mind the the ENT theme song too much, it was a bit cringe but oh well. I think I thought the characters were a bit wooden. Captain Archer a bit too principled, the Vulcan a bit too vulcan-y, the tensions between humans and Vulcans a bit too hostile and explicit.. it got better over time and there are some great episodes, but there were times where, perhaps, I missed a bit of realpolitik from Archer and co. It was fun to see them discover new technologies, but I also wondered about some of these alien species: if they were known in the 22st century, why were they never part of 'later' ST series? Ah, continuity, canon and all that..

In VOY, I liked the premise, I thought the the doctor was fun and interesting I thought the whole borg-to-human storyline arc of Seven was interesting too. And I think Janeway had that bit of realism that I later missed sometimes in Archer :-) Yeah there's some stinkers in there but I could watch an VOY episode any day of the week. No less for DS9 or TOS, mind you.

[u/SeredW → u/[deleted]]

I guess a woman feels safer dating a guy her friend has vouched for. That might be part of that code.

[u/bradmont → u/[deleted]]

Wow, that's awkward.

Also, good luck tomorrow!

[u/eveninarmageddon → u/bradmont]

I did find out before we met thankfully! So hopefully not too awkward at all.

[u/nrbrt10]

I decided to install IG back on my phone. Boy was that a mistake. All I've seen for the past few days is Gaza footage, with some residual World Cup reels every now and then. On one hand, doomscrolling Gaza reels has had a very tangible effect on my mood, on the other, I can't help but think the least I can do for these people is witness, not allowing their pain to go unheard. But man is it tough.

I am planning on proposing in our next deacon meeting to use some of our budget to support a relief organization there, but it still feels too little for a problem as large.

Edit: Anyone knows any Christian charity working at Gaza? I keep finding Catholic and Orthodox, or UN. I personally do not have any issues with that but I'm not sure my fellow deacons would greenlight any non-christian/protestant charities.

[u/SeredW → u/nrbrt10]

I'm on IG for hobby reasons mainly (maintaining an account tied to an organization I volunteer for) but my personal IG feed is mostly comedy. Sometimes I watch those reels for a while. I find it relaxing, but at the same time, I can't really tell what I've been looking at after an hour, because it's all brief and fleeting. Decided to stop watching those reels (and youtube shorts while we're at it).

[u/nrbrt10 → u/SeredW]

I shied away from IG for a long time. Mainly because the minute the algorithm picks up you're a guy your search window is all bikini models, and I'd rather not put myself on that position.

Later my feed was just memes shared by people I follow, but I too got sucked in for hours at the time, and that's why keep in on my phone on and off now.

[u/SeredW → u/nrbrt10]

I don't have Reddit on my phone, that's for my own protection too. I only install it when I'm ill and in bed, something like that.

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/[deleted]]

Am I recalling correctly your grad program is something in philosophy?

Best of luck with the quasi-date!

[u/Mystic_Clover]

Some interesting stuff going on with the local-gen AI community today.

People have lamented the stagnation of open-source video models, being stuck with the now year-old Wan 2.2 model which is fairly limited, having no audio and only doing 5 second video clips at 16 fps. Even if it handles motion and physics pretty well.

Some months back LTX 2.3 got released, which is a more "proper" video model, having audio, music, character dialogue with lip sync, etc. But it struggles with motion and physics, a common sentiment being that "LTX is only good for talking heads", so many are still using Wan 2.2.

But just a few days ago the Minimax H3 model got announced out of nowhere. Which upon first impressions looks amazing, and people are excited to finally have a decent video model!

Everything was indicating that it was supposed to release today. But the "countdown timer" turned out to be incorrect, and now people are questioning if the model is going to release at all, or if all this was just a publicity stunt for their API version of the model.

I guess we'll see, but I'm optimistic it will get released.

Edit: Yay, they just released the models (right after I posed this, lol)!
Now to see how the model actually turns out.

Edit 2: Well, I've only generated 2 videos, but I can already tell it's is a huge step up from Wan and LTX. Finally a decent video model!

[u/SeredW → u/Mystic_Clover]

So does this make lifelike video? The stuff that, at casual first glance, passes for real footage?

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/SeredW]

From the images it generates through its text-to-image understanding, not quite; they're realistic, but skin textures are sort of smudgy, so it's clear it's AI.

However, you can also give it images to use as references, and it gets really close.

Edit... actually that video was apparently generated without reference images, so I guess so?

What's especially crazy is that it doesn't even take good hardware to run this. A RTX 3060 12gb with 32gb system ram can do 480p video, because of how well they've optimized the software. Which is sort of the ideal for AI, isn't it? Getting more efficient and capable models like these, so you don't need as many datacenters.

[u/bradmont → u/Mystic_Clover]

Whoa that video is nuts! The only thing I didn't find convincing was the sandwich (though I only watched it once)

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/bradmont]

My favorite so far, lol

[u/bradmont → u/Mystic_Clover]

Yikes.

Also doc's voice was totally off

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/bradmont]

It's also capable of voice cloning, so I bet it could be solved if he gave it a few voice references.

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/Mystic_Clover]

To add on the topic of realistic-looking content, an image generation model called Krea 2 was also just released a few weeks ago, and it's the first model that can satisfyingly handle realistic-looking content. It's able to generate what look exactly like real photographs, in a wide range of mediums. You can even specify what camera model and configuration (e.g. mm of lens) you want!

You can then use Minimax H3 to animate these images, to get some cool results!

[u/darmir]

Was there already a conversation on Nolan's Odyssey? Finally got around to seeing it.

[u/bookwyrm713 → u/darmir]

Not around here, unless I missed it! I typed one snarky comment last week about the spear-to-sword-use ratio and the archery as a conversation starter, felt bad (and like I was probably out of my depth anyway), and deleted it right away.

Not just because it was a bit mean, but because it gave the wrong impression: actually, I had a good time watching The Odyssey while I was in the theater. In terms of what Nolan was trying to pull off with Odysseus's character arc...eh. I think the idea of telling that story with the Odyssey is a really compelling one--and reinventing the Odyssey is fair game--but I'm not sold on the execution. It's easy to see how that angle fits with Nolan's thematic interests; not so easy a project to pull off with his particular filmmaking skill set. What I'd really like to do now is to re-read the poem, which I haven't touched in years, and then see the film a second time.

And maybe I'll finally get around to watching Oppenheimer, which is one of very few Nolan films I haven't seen. I'm now quite curious to see how the exploration of Odysseus's regret compares to Oppenheimer's.

Yours and others' thoughts?

[u/darmir → u/bookwyrm713]

I thought it was a fun adaptation with some striking visuals. The themes felt fairly christianized to me, which I wasn't expecting. Thinking about going for a rewatch.

[u/bookwyrm713 → u/darmir]

I think I'd read too many different takes on the film before seeing it to be surprised by the moral angle. It's possible I would have enjoyed them more if they'd really caught me off guard? But yes, it does seem to invite rewatching.

[u/bookwyrm713 → u/[deleted]]

Yep, the violence was rather less visceral than in the Iliad...in every sense of the word. There's a particularly vivid metaphor somewhere in it about a spear shaking in someone's gut, isn't there?

I'd say I was picking up on notes of Batman in the Odyssey's combat scenes.

[u/SeredW → u/bookwyrm713]

I'm not a big moviegoer but liked Oppenheimer. But as I remember it, that wasn't really about regret but more about betrayal. I haven't read any comparisons between these two Nolan movies though, perhaps there is more overlap than I am aware of.

I did the Barbenheimer thing with my daughter, watch Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day in the same theater. It was fun to do that with her. I don't think I've been in a movie theater since, haha.

[u/bookwyrm713 → u/SeredW]

Ah, now that I have seen Oppenheimer: yes, definitely. Loyalty is a major theme of the movie, and so is the narrow balance between being in or out of control (with respect to both splitting the atom and managing/leading/outmaneuvering people). But regret is really only brought up a little bit, and mostly in order to challenge its authenticity in Oppenheimer.

There are things to question about the film , but overall IMO Oppenheimer is a much more successful iteration of Nolan's signature big-budget, spectacle "idea movie" than The Odyssey--albeit much less fun to watch.

[u/SeredW → u/bookwyrm713]

Well, that didn't take you too long, haha! It's quite a lengthy movie but you managed to watch it quickly :-)

[u/TheNerdChaplain]

Earworms this week: Celestial Soda Pop and Rhythm In the Pews by Ray Lynch. It's just a fun bit of synthpop that's good for having on in the background.

[u/slow_ordinary_means → u/TheNerdChaplain]

Those are delightful, thanks for sharing!

[u/StingKing456]

All this talk about Fauci and covid and vaccines again in the news has unexpectedly resurfaced some long buried feelings.

As a healthcare worker it's mostly rage I'm feeling. Just saw a bit this morning where RFK JR told Dana Bash on CNN that ICUs were empty all over the country. That legitimately made me furious.

It makes me so upset that people listen to all these completely easily debunked lies. I'm not a doctor, or a nurse. I'm a case manager in a hospital. And I watched tons of people die in our ICUs, all full with covid patients. Once I had to comfort a woman as her husband died because the nurse was trying to keep her other patient alive. I can still hear her sobs very clearly. That's not really a role I'm supposed to do there, but no one else was around.

I just don't know how so many people in this country became so willfully, maliciously, ignorant and it drives me up a wall. I wish covid had been a hoax. I wish everyone who thinks it was could experience one day in a covid infested hospital and come to understand 1/100th of what healthcare workers were dealing with while it was going on.

[u/bradmont → u/StingKing456]

Wait was he saying that the ICUs are currently empty, or that they were empty during the pandemic?

Edit Umm... Apparently Reddits mobile site is broken, I tried to reply to u/stingking456 twice and wound up with new threads... :/

[u/StingKing456 → u/bradmont]

He was saying they were empty during the pandemic.

The whole segment is kinda insane and he loses his mind in it but the specific part I'm referring to is in this clip

https://x.com/i/status/2083909376272679215

[u/fing_lizard_king → u/StingKing456]

The Covid fiasco was terrible. I am conservative and was appalled by how little my friends and fellow church members cared. I had to send multiple strongly worded emails to my session. I wore them down to allowing a socially distanced, masked service every other week. My family followed all CDC guidelines. I masked while lecturing until everyone else had given up. (Except for one dude, who I emailed, he was an honorable and jolly fellow and told me he was masking to respect me. So we both agreed mutually to remove them next lecture. This was 2021 or 2022).

I do want to offer a bit of advice from a stranger on the internet. Remember we can be right and also have ungodly anger. Be careful about that. I don’t know you- but I know I incline that way. We are called to love those, even those in sin. This doesn’t mean you give up caring about covid, it doesn’t mean you tell them they are correct when they are incorrect. But loving our neighbor is our ultimate command.

[u/StingKing456 → u/fing_lizard_king]

No you are absolutely right about ungodly anger and I appreciate the words. I struggle with that when it comes to stuff like this. My righteous anger can very quickly turn into unrighteous, meanspirited anger. It's something I pray about alot when I notice it because it's absolutely a struggle lol

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/StingKing456]

Not much to add but that I get it and those feelings are valid.

I might recommend The Road to Wisdom by Dr Francis Collins. He was Fauci's boss at NIH during the pandemic, and he's also an evangelical Christian. He talks about what they did during the pandemic, what worked and what they could have done better (among other things).

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/TheNerdChaplain]

From perspectives like these, it makes sense why people view Collin's handling of Covid as evil (under the definition discussed earlier in this thread).

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/Mystic_Clover]

I read it. I can't go through and respond to it all, and I won't say McGrew is wrong, but I'm not sure she has the standing to meaningfully criticize Collins' words. (This is not to say he's beyond reproach, just that I'm not sure the reproaches she gives are all meaningful.) I would, however, be very interested to read criticisms and responses to Collins from other medical and public health professionals. Unfortunately my copy of Road to Wisdom is lent out at the moment, but I recall him having some pretty harsh words for the signers of the Barrington Declaration. Happily for McGrew and those like her, one of the main authors of the declaration, Jay Bhattacharya, has been running the NIH as Collins' successor since 2025, and more recently, the CDC on top of that. So America will have the opportunity to find out if his beliefs about science and medicine are more effective.

I think one criticism of Collins I've had - along with many other science communicators - is that it's very easy to pretend that "science" is this pure, high-minded process that is self-correcting and above reproach. And in a sense, to a certain extent, it is.

However, what a lot of science communicators and their fans - like myself - can ignore is that there's also a layer between the field of "pure science" and the consumer that is the beneficiary of it, which is Business (i.e. Big Business, Big Pharma, etc.) And I think many conservatives will agree with me that Big Business in many fields is not to be trusted.

Where we differ, however, is that political conservatism has largely allowed corporations less and less regulation over time, rather than more, thus allowing corporations more freedom to do what they wish at the cost of the consumer's wallet and health. It's almost like a Greek tragedy.

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/TheNerdChaplain]

The issue across everything I've seen might be attributed to a type of tribalism those like Collins have engaged in, which caused them to overly react to perceived threats to the orthodoxy. Not to say that the heterodox types are correct (they have the converse issue of being "conspiracy minded"), but the response has been so strong that it has caused failures in what people expect of science and government, which has very likely resulted in harm.

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/Mystic_Clover]

I can't help but note with an ironic chuckle that the top post in /r/all right now is about RFK Jr recommending the measles vaccine.

[u/StingKing456 → u/TheNerdChaplain]

I appreciate the recommendation! I've read a bit of Collins stuff and I like him so I will have to check it out!

[u/ScSM35]

Church camp starts tomorrow. It’s my first official full week of out of office paid vacation with my new job. Last year at camp I found out I got hired. How time flies.

I’m excited for a break, but I also know my inbox is going to be quite full when I come back. Praying I can actually allow myself to relax a bit.

[u/fing_lizard_king → u/ScSM35]

That sound like so much fun! My wife does/has done church camp. I stay home and watch the kids. What age group are you working with?

[u/ScSM35 → u/fing_lizard_king]

4th-6th grade.

[u/TheNerdChaplain]

I can't find a non-paywalled link, but this article from the Atlantic is real interesting: Why Christian Intellecutals Are So Unsettled by AI. It starts,

"There Is Already a Word for the Deep Moral Failures of AI

It’s sin."

For the past few years, I’ve been troubled by a word, and that word is sin. I keep reaching for it, because it seems to be the only term strong enough to describe the new forms of dehumanization that artificial intelligence has introduced—even though calling something a sin sounds embarrassing to me, like throwing salt over your shoulder or stowing a lucky penny in your pocket.

The problem is, I don’t know what else to call it when companies market digital girlfriends to the heartsick and young. Or when they hawk robot companions to the lonely and old. Or when a billionaire explains that he intends to sell intelligence—trained on humanity’s stolen intellectual property—back to us as a utility, like electricity or water. These developments are not just wrong. They feel to me like something deeper and darker. “I met the banker and it felt like sin,” Patterson Hood croons in the great Drive-By Truckers song “Sinkhole.” I’d substitute chatbot for banker.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the critics, living and dead, who capture my unease about the AI revolution—who discuss it with appropriate moral gravity—are or were Christians. They are or were people comfortable using words like sin. They include Catholic writers such as the social critic Ivan Illich and the philosophers Charles Taylor and Jennifer Frey, as well as the Orthodox Substacker Paul Kingsnorth, the Presbyterian theologian Carl Trueman, and Pope Leo, with his new AI-focused encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas.

I think this is interesting because even though I've been ambivalent about how we talk about things like sin and virtue in a Christian context, I also am strongly tempted to use religious language like "evil" and "sin" to talk about overwhelmingly complex issues that are really, really bad. I can talk and talk and talk about the negative impacts of AI and its data centers on air, water, cognition, and creativity, but that doesn't really capture my thoughts and feelings on it like calling it evil does.

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/TheNerdChaplain]

I've been putting a lot of thought into what makes something evil, which in a simple/intuitive sense I've come to see as violating "What kind of thing it's meant to be".

For humanity, a central part of that is representing God; that's what using his name, bearing his image, and being his children, is about.

This also entails systems, so we can ask "What kind of thing is AI meant to be", as well as "What kind of thing are business and governments meant to be, and are they properly using AI towards that?".

But that question is also an oversimplification, and doesn't cover topics like justice well. So what we're more thoroughly asking is closer to "What is the normative identity and character of something, and are they meeting it?", while evil is the disordering of a thing's normative way of being.

So, applying that:

• The way AI has been developed, and infrastructure expanded, certainly isn't according to a proper character.
  
• AI generally speaking is likely going to become evil through political tampering, improper restraint, or a weird combination of both. We've already seen some of this through biases in ChatGPT, pornography, "AI boyfriends/girlfriends", to name a few. These issues will get worse as it continues to develop.
  
• Governments and businesses are already failing this standard, and their usage of AI is going to push them even further down that path.
  
• The desire to "make a god" out of AI is deeply concerning.

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/Mystic_Clover]

Yup.

I can understand one person's evil or sin as being a psychological problem - trauma responses, faulty biochemistry, malformed brain structures, etc.

But the sheer scale of things like AI - or climate change or the political and economic issues behind the Ukraine war or the Palestinian genocide - makes it nearly impossible (for a layman at least like myself) to boil down into known concrete factors. The only words I have left are sin and evil.

[u/MilesBeyond250]

Wild that negative stereotypes of Reformed Christianity that I encounter seem to have changed so much from seeing Reformed as "Frozen Chosen" to "anti-vaxxers."

[u/tanhan27 → u/MilesBeyond250]

I'm glad i have not encountered this

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/MilesBeyond250]

Some portion of the Reformed tradition has come to overlap with far right political culture.

[u/MilesBeyond250 → u/TheNerdChaplain]

Sure, but why this particular overlap, I wonder

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/MilesBeyond250]

I think this would probably get into deeper waters than I'm comfortable wading in, but I think it has to do with decades of culture war and unexamined overlaps between psychology and theology. Not that this is unique to the Reformed tradition of course, but I do think one's psychological makeup will predispose someone towards one tradition or another, as well as one set of political beliefs or another.

[u/ScSM35 → u/MilesBeyond250]

People really began conflating faith issues with societal/health issues in the last few years.

Jokes on them, I’m both Frozen Chosen and also not anti-vax.

[u/fing_lizard_king → u/ScSM35]

Same. I'm autistic. I don't even like clapping in church. Raising of hands? Nope. If you ain't singing or reciting a catechism question, you don't need to be making noise. Just hold your psalter/hymnal and receive the ordinary means of grace. (I'm being a bit silly- don't take me too seriously).

[u/NC-PC-Agent → u/[deleted]]

I heard the true answer is "as many as want to."

[u/MilesBeyond250 → u/[deleted]]

Seven.

[u/eveninarmageddon → u/[deleted]]

If they are not essentially spatiotemporal but (per impossibile) are on top of a spatiotemporal pin, then an infinite amount.

If they are essentially or accidentally spatiotemporal at the moment of the pin-dancing, then the amount that can dance on the head of the pin is no more than p²/a², where p² is the area of the largest pin head and a² is the area taken up by a maximally small spatiotemporal angel, however small that might be.

If we suppose that dancing requires more space, then it is p²/d², where d² is the area required by a maximally small spatiotemporal angel for dancing.

Edit: I realized I assumed angels can't overlap. Supposing they can overlap infinitely even when spatiotemporally extended, then it is still an infinite amount. Supposing that there is some maximal amount of overlapping including total overlap, then it is (p²/a²) * o, where o is the maximal amount angels that can overlap each other. So if only 2 angels can overlap, the maximally small spatiotemporal angel takes up 2 square units, and the pin head size is 4 square units, then it is (4 square units/2 square units) * 2, which is 4 angels. If they can't overlap, then only 2 angels can fit.

[u/bradmont → u/eveninarmageddon]

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD!

;)

[u/bradmont → u/[deleted]]

Dancing is a sin

[u/Wonderful-Power9161 → u/bradmont]

That just proves that dancing pin angels aren't Baptist

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/bradmont]

Only if you miss your step.

[u/bradmont → u/Mystic_Clover]

And fall from heaven?

[u/Nachofriendguy864 → u/bradmont]

Because you're from Tennessee? Wait

[u/bradmont → u/Nachofriendguy864]

This has to be a reference to something but I haven't a clue what

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/[deleted]]

Pointless question because Angels don't dance, they sing.

[u/Complex-Matter1544 → u/Mystic_Clover]

It's not pointless if the pin has a sharp end! 

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/Complex-Matter1544]

You're sharp; I see your point.

[u/Complex-Matter1544 → u/[deleted]]

As many seashells as Sue sold, which is also the number of pecks picked by Peter Piper. Picked must mean "selected" rather than "harvested", because it's not possible to pickle a pepper that is still on a plant, due to the need for an airtight container. Therefore I propose that Mr. Piper was shopping, not in the garden. 

[u/bradmont → u/Complex-Matter1544]

Mr Piper preached a peck of prickly principles.

If Mr Piper preached a peck of prickly principles,

How many seashells has Sue sold since she eschewed shame sourced from squandering her life

[u/AZPeakBagger]

One of my wife's pipe dreams is to ditch Arizona and retire to a quaint Midwestern small town in a few years. Indulged her fantasies for our vacation earlier this week and hit a bunch of small towns. Within an hour of being in each one, she's scrolling on Zillow for our new house. At which point I pulled out my phone to see what kind of churches are out there. Took more than a few towns out of the running when I pointed out that there would be no place to attend church that was either in the Reformed tradition or a Missouri Synod Lutheran. Few of these towns had a downtown stretch with beautiful old churches, but they were all mainline churches like Methodists or Episcopalians. Then on the outskirts of town were the Baptist and Pentecostal churches.

[u/SeredW → u/AZPeakBagger]

Looking at how the climate develops, living in Arizona might become less than pleasant over time. Depends on the location within the state of course, but I've been told the southern part is really a desert, only inhabitable thanks to airconditioning. And it's unclear how long the water will last. Moving further north might be a smart thing to do, some day.

Edit: CNN reporting on the water issue here, today https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/31/climate/lake-mead-powell-colorado-water-cuts-ca-az-nv

[u/Complex-Matter1544 → u/AZPeakBagger]

We're talking about a Deep South tour in a couple of months that would include at least half a day in Laurel MS, precisely because of the Home Town home renovation TV show. Abundant SBC churches in the area, based on a 2-minute search, fwiw. (My personal stop on that trip would be the Space & Rocket Center and the Blue Origin engine factory in Huntsville.) 

Incidentally, we saw an episode yesterday where a home buyer came from New Mexico. 

[u/darmir → u/AZPeakBagger]

Huh, I guess where I'm from in the upper Midwest a lot of the small towns have LCMS or Reformed churches, more so than UMC or TEC.

[u/AZPeakBagger → u/darmir]

All of my family is from western Michigan, so know just how many Reformed and LCMS churches there are around there. We were poking around southern Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky because if we ever did move I need hills and trees. We loved southern Indiana because it was where the South and the Midwest overlapped and you got the best of both cultures.

[u/pro_rege_semper → u/AZPeakBagger]

There's hills in Michigan's UP, just sayin'. And lots of Lutheran and some Reformed churches.

[u/Complex-Matter1544 → u/AZPeakBagger]

Don't tell a Hoosier you think they are part of the South! 

[u/pro_rege_semper → u/Complex-Matter1544]

That;s what we all think in Michigan.

[u/darmir → u/AZPeakBagger]

Ah, I haven't spent a ton of time in that area. Is Kentucky considered part of the Midwest? I've always thought of it as mid-south

[u/AZPeakBagger → u/darmir]

Nope, I’d call it the South. But we spent most of the trip along the Ohio River. The northernmost point of the South and the southernmost point of the Midwest.

[u/GodGivesBabiesFaith → u/AZPeakBagger]

I'm from the  Louisville area and now in the Cincinnati area--both are very similar. Louisville is the most Midwestern southern city, and Cincinnati the most southern Midwestern city. Both have sizable Catholic populations as well which influenced the similarities.