We went to the zoo this weekend. It seems that the animatronic dinosaur exhibit is leaving after next weekend. I’m really going to miss trying to convince my kids that the dinosaurs are totally real, they are just too dangerous to be out in the open. Then I tried to convince them that Jurassic Park was a documentary.
Microsoft buying TikTok’s American assets seems like a definitional case of regulatory capture. “They can’t negotiate the compliance environment but we can” is the hint.
Well this was just link-bait.
Is there life on Maaa-aaars? Let’s go and find out.
Stay frosty, Mid-Atlantic Glibs. The storm’s a comin’. Hopefully you at least have plenty of toilet paper hoarded.
They should just ban Tik Tok outright.
The general online community knows its a terrible platform. Unfortunately modern tech/mobile platforms just don’t die from no income revenue.
Vine died out for some reason.
Anyway, Tik Tok is basically just a trojan horse.
Didn’t Twitter buy it and kill it?
I think it was dying before that.
Picked it up for 30 million…not bad for dying.
I would guess Vine spent a lot more than that on advertising. As far as I could tell, the app never got any traction.
There’s a limit to the utility of six second videos.
Eventually people will be trained to have sub-six-second attention spans.
Vine was just ahead of its time.
It’s not a tech platform, it’s a spy tool.
Never refuted that, but it is a tech platform its just the revenue stream is the user and its information willingly give to them.
I think “willingly” requires some element of knowledge and actual consent (not to be confused with clicking through a TOS).
Is that why MS wants it?
Probably.
Tik Tok probably knows more about my daughters than I do.
Just like every app.
When the amount of data collection performed is compared, The CCP Spybot collects exponentially more than any other application dared. It will hook into any API it can idenfity on your device, regardless of your settings and try to siphon off all the data it can. And the frequent rotating of encryption keys for phoning home makes it hard to see what’s in those giant data packets, but from the other behaviour it is as close to literally everything as they Chinese can grab.
So they’re just better at it.
If they are violating the app’s permissions, isn’t that a problem with the OS for allowing it or are the developers supposed to operate on the honor system? I thought Apple was supposed to vet the apps before allowing them on the App Store. Did they not catch it, or do they allow everyone to do it?
I don’t have that information.
Apple OS’s require explicit permission from the user to access each system like files, camera, etc. If someone’s circumventing that, I think it would be big news.
I see it as a Standard Libertarian Disclaimer situation.
Banning TikTok is not any more objectionable than banning cocaine. It’s a paternalistic effort of the government to “do what’s best for the stupid people who can’t be trusted to run their own lives.”
It’s very telling though, to me, that the blue checks have settled on some variation of “They’re banning a silly video app but not assault weapons.” as their zinger of choice.
I don’t think they are circumventing anything, kids download and allow those apps to access whatever whenever it asks for it is the most likely scenario.
Now, the app maker might be lying about why it needs that access, but the user is allowing it.
If Apple is relying on the honor system, then that’s really shitty security. If other apps’ APIs are vulnerable, then that’s shitty security too. I’m guessing that all apps are doing this stuff. I suspect that the real problem is TikTok might share the data with the ChiComs in order to compromise specific targets.
Seems to tame.
Needs more screaming and bloodletting.
Maybe sentence every official in the owning company to death by slow slicing.
Is there life on Maaa-aaars? Let’s go and find out.
I dunno about going, but my telescope will be here in a couple weeks, and I’ll look from afar for any alien civilizations there.
Did you get the one from Edmund Scientific that looks like a bong?
lol, I should have
Wave ’em in, please.
2020 ends either in nuclear winter or aliens, both are welcome.
Save the polar bear. Nuclear winter cures global warming.
I’m rooting for Giant Meteor.
I just wish the kid playing Sim COVID would just get bored and start laying down all the disasters to get it over with so we can just start over and do it all over again.
Mars is a lot like earth. If you’re talking about a snowless Antarctica with no breathable atmosphere.
Swweeeet…do you not have much light pollution at your new digs?
Worse than back in DC (we’re in the suburbs now) , and my backyard isn’t really big enough to do anything, but there are plenty of dark, open places within an hour’s drive.
I got one of these
Very nice!! I would love to bring a telescope to NM sometime & park it in the valley where the VLA is
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/angler
Funny, disgusting, and terrifying all at once.
Its like God turned to SugarFree while he was making all the fishes in the sea and said “OK, bro, you get to do one”.
Oh, lawd, please don’t turn into another
weak-ass Cat 1SUPERSTORM like Sandy.Well, we need another disaster for August.
Where it just hovers and dumps gallons and gallons of rain?
I have mixed feelings about Sandy. Destroyed a family piece of property, but by making it uninhabitable I was able to rebuild it and bypass a ton of requirements from a local historic commission.
Which we all refer to as the “hysteric” commission.
Plus it fucked up my commute for two years.
Right there with you my friend!
+1 Mother Nature
Then I tried to convince them that Jurassic Park was a documentary.
This is what a great dad does.
What’s so special about Tik Tok that cannot be done with Twitter or Instagram? Don’t they have Snapchat and Periscope too?
The ability to ensnare the Zoomer generation?
My 14 year old loves it. My 18 year old uses it but isn’t as enchanted.
I don’t use tic-tok, but ill watch all the idiots getting hurt when it gets posted to YouTube.
YouTube could easily appropriate the tech and call it YouTube Express or something like that.
Maybe if I knew what tiktok is/does, I’d care.
All I know is it’s popular with 15 year old girls, and also our essential first responders when they are not busy doing essential things.
NV guv doing his thing…I am surprised there are no betting lines in Vegas for what he will do next.
I envision one of three scenarios:
1: Masks are working but because not everyone is using them, we will continue requiring them indefinitely
2: We have gone over the hump but we must stay vigilant and the masks, bar closures and churches will remain closed – go to the casino chapel if you need your spiritual healing.
-least likely-
3: Mask rule is revoked, bars open up again, but businesses remain required to don them. (back to square one essentially).
Look, the nazgul gave it the go ahead, so he really ought to try throwing the religious into gladiatorial combat to see if they stop that.
I assume the fights will be held at Caesar’s Palace?
I was thinking Circus Circus is more apt.
4. Sometime after Stimulus Package IV ( Super Terrific Excellent Act Leading Into Tremendous Amazing Long Lives) the price of a loaf of bread reaches $1,000,000,000 (although oddly the CPI reports that inflation is under 1%) , unemployment reaches 0% due to the new 1% labor participation rate, and the unemployment/welfare/disability payments all fail to reach their desitinations because with no one working at the ISPs, the banks, or anywhere else it turns out it is not possible to deliver money. Cannibalistic Rape Gangs roam the land seeking guzzoline, and our only hope is some Aussie yelling about the zionist conspiracy.
I’m not convinced this storm will amount to a hill of beans for the DC area. But I do hope we get drenched. It will reduce my hatred of the season by about 5%.
Tomorrow’s “high” of 80 will be the lowest since like May. Totally worth it.
Fuck yeah!
81 here tomorrow, but rain all day. Then back to upper 80s for the rest of time.
I’m happy whenever I don’t have to water the garden and my grass will go back to green.
This makes me giggle inordinately.
https://twitter.com/jx_sio/status/1289839608591577088
I laughed. Thanks
And I learned some new Japanese!
Thx
出来心 – “dekigokoro”.
sudden impulse, passing fancy
That just means there is a Thomas The Tank Engine fleshlight.
To each his own…?
Holding out for the Sir Topham Hatt one?
He does have a real purty mouth
That’s great.
You know how old people lament how much harder things were in their yoot?
I am here to say that it was so. much. easier. in my yoot because we had no cell phones, Tweeters, TikToks, surveillance cameras, Vines, Facebooks or video cameras smaller than a breadbox. It was awesome!!
Can confirm.
9am: “Go out and play. Be home for dinner.”
Ah, summertime.
Yeah, we should have never invented the internet. All we have done is given the biggest megaphones to the dumbest people in society. For a glimpse of the near future, see Seattle.
Interesting consideration. Growing up overseas, I remember what it was like writing hard copy letters home to the folks every week (international air mail was somewhere between 1 and 2 weeks – between SE Asian countries IIRC – depending on specific locations – might have been better than that).
We might have one or two chances to make a phone call back to the US every *year* (mid-late 80s). We’d schedule a time (like Christmas day), drive across town to a friends house – who had a phone line – and then call back to speak to our grandparents for a few minutes – keeping in mind the 12 hour time difference.
Even if things had never progressed beyond 9600 baud…the internet gave you light speed connectivity compared to what preceded it (for centuries).
But think of the joy that cat videos and furry futa hentai have brought!
Is it wrong for me to be overly amused by my own work? The discussion I started in the previous thread had me re-reading bits of Ink and Infatuation, and I still found this exchange funny enough to laugh at.
I mean, that was pretty amusing.
It reminded me a little of that scene in Under Siege. “Sorry, he’s in a gunfight right now, I’ll have to take a message.”
There’s nothing wrong about likeing what you’ve done.
I liked my new mask and it was extremely low-effort.
That’s great, it covers your eyes too. Way to stay ahead of things.
To hedge my bets, I got a #ThisMaskDoesNothing.
I don’t have enough leave to simply skip the really stupid ‘transition phased transition back to the office’ plan they’ve put out. The stupid panic pantomimers are writing work policy.
I don’t know if I’m fed up enough to just quit. I certainly don’t have a replacement job lined up. Twelve years in state service ruins your employability.
Is it wrong for me to be overly amused by my own work?
That depends. Is the work funny?
Of course it is.
Perhaps, it’s fair to blame Millennials for this.
New study: Millennials think their risk from COVID-19 is exponentially more than the true threat
From the NBER article:
It’s all about how it “feels” and COVID feels scary.
I’ve probably said it before. Intro Statistics should probably be taught in high school just so they understand the world a little bit. Certainly college.
They should also teach English, math, history, and science, but that’s been over for a long time. Now they don’t even know what gender they are.
I don’t think anyone knows the IFR.
Due mostly to their safety-obsessed parents, most Millennials have basically no ability to accurately judge risk.
It’s probably an awful way to live.
This. Collective blame is not my thing, but if any group is at fault it’s us Boomers. Can’t really blame a generation for the way they were raised.
Snake People are idiots.
what you did there was noticed
Hey!
It just means they’re more gullible. Also, that propaganda works.
Quick! Muster the entire police force!
https://www.ktnv.com/news/crime/police-investigate-vandalism-on-south-las-vegas-bike-path-covered-in-racist-phrases
I’m sure there’s a noose somewhere in that story.
No noose is good noose.
It’s almost like the youth have learned what bothers the authorities the most. What an unexpected development.
Exactly what I was thinking. Also, they see images of Portland/Seattle/etc where graffiti was tolerated so why not?
Phrases I saw in the photos:
“White lives matter” and “White Power”; but we are children and they allude there are more dastardly statements that shall never be uttered, so believe us they are bad.
I blame Dave Chappell.
Real Chappell or Fake Chappell or the Fake Real Chappell?
the younger the age of the respondent, the more the individual seemed concerned about the virus being deadly to them – the exact inverse of the true threat assessment of the virus…
Yeah but there was that one kid whose lungs fell out! It was all over the news.
I’m convinced half of what appears on the internet is written by the same people who used to dream up the stories for the Weekly World News.
I just have no idea where these kids are getting the idea that the world is a scary place and everything is out to get them.
+1 Kawasaki syndrome.
But their assessment of health risks conditional on infection are puzzling in light of the evidence that Covid-19 is significantly less severe for younger people…
Maybe because they are being told they’ll all die if they go back to school. And they’ll kill all their teachers. Hey, waitaminnit…
So… “mission accomplished?”
Millennials are 24 – 39 (born 1981 – 1996). They are the newly working and newly married. By and large, they are not in school- unless they work there.
They are (involved) in school as parents.
One of my proudest moments in high school was convincing the cheerleader who was chemistry lab partner that Spam was an actual animal. The argument that sealed it was that “my dad had shot one and had it taxidermied on the wall” so she could come over and see for herself.
Unfortunately, no she never did come over to my place. Not that it would have led to anything, I had a stay-at-home mom who was far to intelligent to ever trust me.
I have an 11 year-old and a 9 year-old who both still believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.
You can call me “Super Dad”.
Do any of y’all sciency types think terraforming is possible? Not, like, entire planets, but maybe domes under which Earth-like conditions can be maintained?
habitat domes are 100% doable. How big you can make them really depends on environmental factors (Gravity, wind/lack thereof, the pressure differential between inside and outside, etc) and available resources.
Using imported soil or Martian soil? Other than that question, it would just be a greenhouse on another planet so I say yes.
Using your own poop. They’re sciencing the shit out of this.
Paging Swiss!
Enclosed habitats are entire possible. “Earth like” is a lot more complicated due to the gravity thing.
You make the interior an inverted truncated cone and spin it to compensate for the missing force.
Do I have to think of everything?
What if there’s too much gravity? Would biospheres only work on lower-gravity planets?
If there’s too much gravity you’ll need to get it above the surface, either as a aerostat if there’s enough pressure, or just orbit the darn thing.
I don’t think building a dome around the entire planet is an option with our current tech, but we could build a lot of smaller ones.
But if we do get the entire planet, we won’t need surface level foundations, and it will be quake-proof!
I didn’t think here is any tectonic activity.
It’s also a proof of concept for other planet shells.
Do you even Trantor, bro?
Sure, domes would work. I was wondering if geothermal is possible on Mars.
Of the entire planet? No, it would take forever and will be lost eventually because of the same reason it was lost last time. /not a scientist
“Nonsensw man, you’re not thinking big eough. Not only are we going to install a giant, spinning electromagnet in the planet core, we’re going to hurl a bunch of additional material at the surface to build up the gravity.”
Just let me know when you have that working.
That’s Operations and Implementation. I’m just the ideas guy.
☝ C-Suite material.
Me too, where’s my Dyson Sphere, someone get right on that!
Budget cuts, we had to end your projects and lay off your staff. But look on the bright side, you’ll get your severance.
I think we would live underground with the domes on top, to protect us from the nasty gamma ray and radiation stuff. If geothermal is possible that would help. Solar, but the sun is very weak looking there compared to earth, not sure now well that would work, but there’s not forest or anything there to chop down first to make room for the panels.
Seems like a lot of trouble just to get what we already have. Send Californians, they like changing things in new places and they’re good at it.
Californians are Golgafrinchans.
This has all happened before, it will all happen again.
“Send Californians”
Why do you hate the Martians?
Well, I mean…
Further from the sun, but doesn’t the thinner atmosphere increase potential solar radiation energy?
“I was wondering if geothermal is possible on Mars.”
My understanding is that Mars’s core is dead, which is why it doesn’t have a magnetic field. Which would mean you aren’t getting heat from the core for geothermal.
There is an interesting theory that this solar system has gone through several phases, where planets accreted and were flug into the sun by migrating Jupiter and Saturn, while still other planets were accreted. I believe the theory has Mars being one of the early generation planets, while the Earth is one of the second generation planets. That, and its smaller size, is why its core is dead, which means also more cosmic radiation, and any atmosphere you add via terraforming will slowly ablate again due to being buffeted by the solar wind.
The Biosphere sort of worked, but they cheated to some extent (as I recall, but I’m old so don’t trust me).
Can you put a dome on Mars and have it be habitable? Sure. Can it be totally self-supporting without continuous re-supply? Far from sure.
The self-sustaining would be key, especially if we have to abandon the mothership at some point in the future.
I wonder if it would be a worthwhile investment to figure out how to do these things and maybe use Mars as a test case.
Mars isn’t the only option
I don’t know why anyone thinks it’s a good idea to float in orbit around a planet that’s surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead and an atmospheric pressure that would crush you flatter than a pancake.
I’ll take my chances on Mars, thank you.
Because if you de-orbit, it usually won’t matter what the surface is like.
What about one of the Jovian moons?
Jupiter’s magnetic field causes a massive amount of radiation. Spacecraft have to be specially shielded to even pass by. I’m not sure living there permanently is workable.
How many jovian moons are tidally locked? Are they high enough to act as rad shields for the ‘dark’ side?
“How many jovian moons are tidally locked?”
I think Io is literally being torn apart by the gravitational pull of Jupiter. And Europa and the rest of them must be experiencing extreme tidal effects and intense radiation. It’s also going to be cold as hell on the dark side of those moons as far as that is from the sun.
I’ve heard Saturn‘s where it’s at.
I think that our own moon and Mars are the only two reasonable places to try to set up colonies.
The moon because it’s so close, Mars because as hostile as it is, it’s the most like Earth. Mars actually has a pretty good size surface area, because unlike earth, it’s not 75% covered with water.
First we need to get a lot better at getting stuff there without breaking the bank. But that’s finally starting to happen with the push for privatization.
Print bigger bills, money problem solved. Works for politicians, so far.
I think it was Pauly Shore that cheated.
“but I’m old so don’t trust me”
That’s the sole reason why I would trust you.
Uh, thanks.
I believe the Biosphere folks spoke out and it is on a show/documentary now…looks around interwebs….It was a failure in the sense that they were slowly killing themselves, but otherwise, all was good.
https://www.space.com/spaceship-earth-biosphere-2-documentary-premiere-may-8.html
If the purpose of an experiment is to learn what works and what doesn’t, then Biosphere was a big success.
To the best of my recollection, it mostly works (good news). But, getting to totally works is still a long fucking way away.
Getting to totally works is the prerequisite for off-earth colonization.
We’re either going to figure all this out, or we’re going to get all woke and go back to the stone age. One of those things is likely to happen.
Reason #5 on teaching my kids bushcraft.
Plenty of oxygen in the soil (rust) and lots of hydrogen. Based on where it is, there should be plenty of phosphorus, nitrogen and sulfur to support life if we have enough energy.
Absolutely.
If we science the shit out of it. I suggest we send Matt Damon.
We already have his report. It reads, and I quote, “MAAT DAMON!”
http://www.lakematthew.com/
Make a dome by slamming an asteroid into the bedrock.
How about reverse-terraforming? C’mon, SMOD!
Keeping meteorites from puncturing the dome is a big problem. Underground with light bounced in from angled skylights or an artificial source might be more likely.
I’m sure plants would adapt quickly to higher or lower gravity.
“but maybe domes under which Earth-like conditions can be maintained?”
One thing that has always been strange to me is the need to go find a planet. Say we have the technology and materials to make a habitable dome. You spent all this money and resources getting it to the top of Earth’s gravity well. It seems to be a huge waste to drop it back down into another huge gravity well.
If you have the ability to build a colony on Mars, you probably have nearly the same ability to build a colony on a near earth asteroid. Why not start there?
Belters FTW
Notorious right wing troll Mark Zuckerberg strikes again
Factcheckers monitoring content on Facebook have put a “partly false” label on the latest video that it said was manipulated to make it appear as if the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was drunk or drugged, but by Monday the social media giant had refused to remove the video from its platform.
The video had been circulating on Facebook since Thursday and by Sunday night had been viewed more than 2m times, CNN reported.
Trump and his company under investigation by New York district attorney, filing suggests – live
Read more
Another false video of the leading Democratic politician in Washington went viral on Facebook in May 2019. Pelosi at the time vociferously criticized Facebook for not taking the content down, instead simply adding a factchecking label to it.
And instead of removing the new video, Facebook has given it a warning label and it will get less promotion by its algorithm, but that still allows people to view it on the platform. Facebook has said it will also send an alert to those who have already shared the video, flagging the warning label on its accuracy.
——-
Pelosi’s office did not immediately return a request for comment from the Hill.
“This is garbage Facebook,” Christine Pelosi, the daughter of the congresswoman, said in a tweet. “You @ChanZuckerberg and @sherylsandberg are profiting off fake and vile attacks – and you need to stop. Tell the truth: the video is completely false. Pull it down!”
“She’s not drunk, she’s senile!”
Okay Khristine. Wonder if you called for NBC to be broken up manipulating the 9-11 call from Zimmerman.
“We need to get back to important things, like analyzing videos of Trump walking down a ramp and drinking from a glass.”
What about the fake videos which show RBG appearing to be alive? Pull those.
Due mostly to their safety-obsessed parents, most Millennials have basically no ability to accurately judge risk.
I would be fascinated to know how many of them have ever fallen out of a tree, or crashed while jumping their bicycle over a creek.
Or even ridden their bike without a helmet.
This was a huge sticking point between my wife and I. She was at first, a helicopter mom and I just kept using valid information to show that the kids will be alright if we let them fly out of the nest on their own.
I think bike helmets just might be a good idea. Not that I had one when I almost split my head open one time or even considered the idea of one but…. yeah.
When we got a little older and started doing stupid boy shit on our bikes, my dad said “you know, you should wear the helmet when you’re trail riding and jumping off homemade ramps.”
This was, I thought, a very moderate and sensible policy. The Dutch ride bikes every fuckingwhere, and very very few of them wear helmets.
“United States should shut down completely for another four to six weeks to save the economy, senior Federal Reserve official says”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8586001/Feds-Kashkari-suggests-4-6-week-shutdown-says-U-S-Congress-spend-big-coronavirus-relief.html
WTF?
It’s a well know fact that you have to destroy capitalism in order to save it.
There are still mom and pop businesses out there cutting into corporate profits.
“Cuomo slams federal COVID-19 response as the ‘worst government blunder in modern history’ and criticizes Texas and Florida – where cases are spiking – for not taking the pandemic seriously enough”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8589269/Cuomo-slams-federal-COVID-19-response-worst-government-blunder-modern-history.html
CWAA
He’s right. Trump should have cut off travel from China sooner, and ignored all those people calling him racist.
Remember Cuomo is the imbecile who said it’s Trump’s fault he [Cuomo] put sick people back in nursing homes because Trump led him to believe the virus was coming from China, not Europe.
That doesn’t even make sense.
Cuomo is quoted saying “If they [Texas and Florida] would have followed my lead and sent their ill back into the nursing homes, their numbers would look good by now!”
You’d think governors would keep their yaps shut about states not the one they are employed by.
Deaths per million pop
New York: 1,662
Florida: 375
Texas: 272
I feel rage when I hear “new cases”.
I mean raaaaaaaage
What a useless metric
Yeah, I also like when they emphasise that the cumulitive numbers keep rising! Like that’s not the only way it could work. Unless people start coming back to life.
It wasn’t until I pointed this out to my wife, that she started questioning some of the propaganda we were being spoon fed. She’s now on the right side of this bullshit.
I’m sensing that even much of the MSM are getting sick of his shit. Stories about the “luv guv” seem like they’re from a century ago.
It blows my mind that he gets away with this crap. Cuomo and the media that cover for him are truly shameless.
“Cuban restaurant owner in Louisville reveals how BLM sent him blackmail letter with diversity demands that he was told to meet or risk social media shaming, a public boycott and his storefront ‘f***** with'”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8587881/Cuban-business-owner-Louisville-decries-BLMs-mafia-tactics.html
How is that legal?
*Thumbs through notes*
*ahem*
FYTW
Because the local authorities won’t prosecute.
It’s not illegal if you don’t get
caughtarrested or prosecuted.Wait until the drugs fall out his ass.
I’m posting about it again tomorrow too.
“How is that legal?”
Answer: It isn’t.
Well first it has to be true.
Sounds true to me.
The BLM protesters in Louisville say the list was not a set of demands but that they want to start a conversation with local businesses.
The document literally says “our demands are as follows”.
And it spells out the consequences if they don’t pay up.
Interestingly enough, “pay us a percentage of your sales or we’ll set up competitors on your sidewalk” is what Cuomo did to the Indian casinos. And he brags about having done it.
If BLM acknowledged it, they are stupid.
“…will submit to a voluntary…” then it ain’t voluntary.
Or even ridden their
bikeBig Wheel without a helmet.I went to visit some college friends (in Seattle) a long time ago and when their 3 or 4 year old kid wanted to go outside and ride his Big Wheel, she made him put his helmet on. I mostly successfully stifled a snort of amusement.
Sigh – that is just sad on so many levels. We have friends that their child’s skull didn’t develop fully and he wears less headgear than healthy children do.
How often does a person hit the helmet coverage when they fall off their bike. I’d bet money most hits are to the arms, legs and face. Helmets are feel good measures.
Mostly knees. But kids don’t were Toughskins anymore, either.
Used to get teased cause my mom would sew on patches on the knees of my jeans even before they were ripped/torn. It was protection my friends and saved my knees from many a road burns.
Helmets are good if you are knocked unconscious or hit really hard by another force; otherwise, your statement is probably the correct one. Humans do a pretty good job of instinctively protecting their most vital organs when threatened.
When I was much younger, I used to hang out at the local bike shop. The crew included several serious amateur competitors.
One of them was riding a great speed in moderate traffic. He was cut off by a vehicle, hit a hole, and when noggin first into a curb.
He was showing off the shattered helmet in the shop. He got up and walked away.
“He was cut off by a vehicle…”
This is actually an example of one of the arguments _against_ bicycle helmets. I’ve seen studies (I don’t know how robust) that suggested that the benefits of the extra protection get wiped out by changes in behavior of both riders and motor vehicles when the rider is helmeted. Both groups tend to take more risks when the bike rider is wearing a helmet, and so the subset of crashes where the helmet provides real protection, gets completely offset by an increase in crashes due to changes in behavior.
Motorists are apparently much less careful around bicyclists wearing helmets than those who are not. It’s possible the above driver may have behaved differently around a helmetless rider.
Same argument in the increased protections in contact sports. More protected means less thought about the risk and you naturally throw all caution to the wind.
I haven’t worn shoulder pads on the ice in 20 years and it is a big part of why I am super aware out there. So i can definitely buy this argument.
If you drive more aggressively because the biker is wearing a helmet then you’re an asshole.
I feel rage when I hear “new cases”.
I mean raaaaaaaage
What a useless metric
Now they have moved on to “tested positive or have (potentially) been exposed”. You don’t want the goalposts to get all covered with moss, you know.
Those are falling now anyway. They’re gonna need a new scary metric.
Or ridden a bicycle off the roof of a boathouse into a lake.
*whistles innocently*
In good news: Travelers to Mass. question lack of enforcement on state’s new travel order
Actually asking authorities to punish them. I think the widespread availability of porn has made people gluttons for punishment.
Yeah, I can’t even with that.
Nah, this is the good little sheep who actually were planning to comply with the ridiculous quarantine order whining that it wasn’t being enforced on everyone else.
And they vote. We are so fucked.
I’m flying back to Boston next week. So, it’s actually important. Do I have to get tested before flying and so on?
My brother just flew back. Filled out the form and went home. He tested on his own because of the hospitals we ventured into.
Hey, obe – we should discuss my visiting Vegas at some point. I had been thinking about a train trip, but it just doesn’t blow my skirt up and I’m looking for alternative trips. I’d be looking at October timeframe.
Okay. We probably won’t be in any stance to allow visitors into the ATCT for years is my guess. FAA is going all in on this and arguably, its the right call. Ill keep you posted, updated if things change but probably not.
OK let me know – I can imagine it’ll be locked down good for some time
(I would even get a Bill Gates
microchipvaccine if it meant I could tour an ATCT)Ha!
First we need to get a lot better at getting stuff there without breaking the bank. But that’s finally starting to happen with the push for privatization.
“This structure here, it’s the whorehouse. We’ll get started on that as soon as we touch down.”
The heeerooo of Canton, the man they call Jayne!
An illuminating article on the tent city that has popped up in a park in downtown Denver.
https://coloradosun.com/2020/07/28/denver-homeless-tent-cities/
“Outreach worker Samantha Camerino, wearing a mask, weaved through the tents, calling out, “Have you heard about the coronavirus testing?” One man was injecting drugs into his arm just inside of his tent flap. A woman squatted on the ground to relieve herself.”
“There was a triple shooting that killed one person at the camp in front of the Capitol last week. And the week before, health officials said they were investigating a handful of cases of trench fever, a rare disease transmitted by body lice and found in soldiers during World War I.”
“The encampments are allowing people to come out of dark alleys and underpasses and sleep where they feel safer, Howard said. “That visibility is actually key for people’s safety and wellbeing, no matter how much our neighbors will fuss about it or be uptight about it,” she said. ”
Stupid, uptight squares. That quote really blends well with the ones a few paragraphs above, where a nearby resident recounts how she was roughed up and threatened with rape and murder by someone from one of the tent towns.
“Roger Wood, 27, has been homeless for several months and moved to Denver from Arkansas about two months ago.”
I’m guessing Roger moved from a low cost-of-living environment to a high one because of a more attractive safety net.
And finally, an honest broker:
“Badten, who used to work for Wells Fargo in the Cash Register Building downtown, lost his job because of his drinking problem. He gave a one-word answer when asked why he became homeless five years ago. “Me,” he said. “
Badten is this the most likely to get his life on track.
“a handful of cases of trench fever, a rare disease transmitted by body lice and found in soldiers during World War I”
OFFS!!
I can’t wait for the antifa leper colony.
Sad, I used to love traveling to Denver and surrounding areas. It was a good cheap vacation. Last time I was there marijuana had just been legalized and I got the sense the city was starting to Portlandify. The only bad thing about legalization was that it drive the leftists into Colorado.
Correction the taxes are another bad thing from the legalization.
We’ve had waves of 20-somethings move to town to “participate in the marijuana industry.” Living in one’s car and smoking pot is participating in the marijuana in the technical sense, I guess.
“One man was injecting drugs into his arm just inside of his tent flap. A woman squatted on the ground to relieve herself.”
Sounds like a lovely place.
I actually barked out a laugh at that. SMDH.
Still awaiting the article on why the homeless haven’t been obliterated by COVID.
Chinese fentanyl dealers cut their heroin with hydroxychloroquin.
They didn’t go to church.
Great point! If they haven’t gotten around to it already, governors should ban church charities so they can’t spread the disease.
Doesn’t sound very safe to me.
I had to endure 2 sets of quarantine that were really pointless: one because I had “difficulty breathing” (had sinus infection, which I knew yet they didn’t prescribe antibiotics like usual), and one that was due to “potential exposure.”
14 days each, for nothing.
Then yesterday I finally get the closest I’ve been to being actually sick: 101.4 fever, incessant body aches, etc.
But when I tried the evisit, the system kicked me to the Covid site automatically. So no visit, just “see if it gets worse.”
+1 confirmed case
Probably.
Next they’ll be using “was tested” as the new yardstick.
Oh shit – hope you feel better soon!
Really? They didn’t offer a test?
“Just see if it gets worse…”
Isn’t modern medicine wonderful?
Get well soon!
Well, that sucks. Sorry. ?
Get well soon
“Roger Wood, 27, has been homeless for several months and moved to Denver from Arkansas about two months ago.”
I’m guessing Roger moved from a low cost-of-living environment to a high one because of a more attractive safety net.
And the dope.
Reaction to current events continue to the idea of making sports unwatchable: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/53643017
Headline: “Players can be red-carded for deliberately coughing, say Ifab & FA”
I’m almost actively rooting for pro sports to fail at this point.
OFFS. But if it’s going to happen anywhere it would be soccer.
Are they going to defer to video review to determine mens rea with regard to a cough?
Cantore is in Wrightsville Beach, for those that are amused by his Waldo-like tendencies.
Akshully he’s more like Carmen San Diego than Waldo.
Am I a bad person for wanting to see him get blown over?
That always my hope, too. But seeing Al Roker get bowled over when he was a fatty was *chef’s kiss* (bonus for staffer clinging to his legs to hold him up)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m22d6CRx0I
That jello-wrestling match wasn’t very sexy.
But enforcement is based on the honor system, and some travelers this weekend told the Globe they were frustrated when they were never questioned about their status at the airport after taking steps to comply.
They’re not asking to be punished. They want their participation trophy.
Fun song Mr. Stalin, You’re Eating Too High on the Hog
Live scambaiting if that’s your kinda thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7MmvFh8Jj8
“sales of mega-pickups, which have basically been deliberately designed to intimidate and kill pedestrians, are booming”
https://twitter.com/ryanlcooper/status/1290292104980131846
Designed to kill pedestrians?
Assault Trucks. Now with the thing that goes up. Remember the black ones are more deadly.
lol. I suppose black is the most popular color. I’m going to put some teeth on the front grill of mine.
If Hollywood has taught me anything, they’re also designed to kill baby strollers and fruit stands.
Don’t forget random panes of hand-carried glass.
^this^
I hope ryan cooper is miserable.
He has a hard-on for them. I get it, I don’t like people getting a truck for any other reason than to have a truck, but its none of my damn business. To say they are designed to kill, I think he is taking a book out of the anti-gun movement on this one.
I don’t like people getting a truck for any other reason than to have a truck,
Does anyone get one for any other reason? Seems tautological.
Unfair. It does say “Dodge” on the front.
Actually, I think that’s on the back, and it says “RAM” on the front.
You’re a fine person.
All Europeans are convinced that all we Americans drive those, but that there are machine gun turrets mounted on them and we have contests to see how many people we can mow down with them on the weekends. 3 bonus points for grannies, +3 for toddlers, and 5 bonus points for cripples or retards.
European workmen have to drive these wee little vehicles, with a carrying capacity of 227 kilos (or one Italian mother-in-law). They’re just jealous.
They’re seemingly jealous about everything. I love it when they brag about how much higher living standard they have than Americans and at the same time whine incessantly about now expensive everything is there. They don’t seem to get the irony at tall.
That’s because their infrastructure is so old and not designed for larger vehicles.
They are so misinformed. That scoring system is way off.
The bonus points are for bicyclists and other evasive targets. Geez. Anyone can mow down a granny. What’s the fun in that?
Whatever
The 3/4 and 1 ton pickups are selling well in part because they aren’t subject to the same regulations on fuel economy and whatnot as the 1/2 ton ones.
Try to coerce people, they’ll push back or work around it.
I’m almost actively rooting for pro sports to fail at this point.
Almost? I have reached the point where I want to see “professional” football go back the the model where the players had to do stuff like drive beer trucks and sell cars in the off season to make ends meet.
#metoo!
I heard this morning that the Rock bought the XFL for the change in his couch cushions, so maybe there’s hope for the future if he does something fun with it. But that won’t be anytime soon.
Interesting. One of the partners is a sports management company. That could help funnel some talent.
I wouldnt mind seeing college sports go the D3/Ivy model.
So for the tropical storm/ hurricane has been a bust. The good kind, so not complaining. Should be past here by 8.
It thundered and rained here a little.
There’s only one good kind of bust.
Yep
https://qz.com/work/1244355/how-to-recover-from-failing-spectacularly-at-your-dream-job/
They named an airport after that prick? *barf*
There are in fact many types of good busts.
Brien Taylor? He was a Yankee after all.
There will be power outages and tree damage in locations that experience stronger wind gusts along the East Coast. This includes areas from the eastern Carolinas to the coastal mid-Atlantic, New York City, Long Island and parts of eastern New England.
I expect I’ll lose power for a bit.
I hope you have a USB charger! A bit late this time. But I recommend one with solar, weather radio, and hand cranked.
Nope.
I should have a generator for the house, but I don’t.
Freedom Toons on Ghislaine Maxwell.
Huh. My neighborhood is on that list but I’m not rich or a “daddy boy” (!). It IS a whopping 66% white, though. Alas, it’s true that nothing really happens here & I like that just fine.
Yeah, there is something to be said for buying your way into a low crime area.
94% white here in my hood, but we all so woke that we never sleep. Baltimore is probably one of the most segregated cities in Murica, 8th last time I checked. I can’t even believe it’s not first.There’s almost no crime here, but you go 8 miles south and it’s 300 murders a year.
My most recent ex lived at Eutaw PL & Lafayette. I only went to visit him there twice. That was 2 times too many.
(but the sculptures in the middle of Eutaw Pl are lovely. Shame it’s such a shithole)
That’s near Mt. Vernon, where it’s mostly good. But sketchy like every place in the city center. IOW, you can be in the best hood and you walk 4 blocks in the opposite direction and you’re in hell. No, just hell no, not these days.
Canton, Harbor East, and Locust Point are the safest places down there now and It’s also prohibitively expensive. But it’s too close to the inner harbor and I doubt the safeness lasting much longer the way things are going now.
I’d advise anyone to get as far away from a metro area as they can and I think we are going to soon see a mass exodus from cities. That’s when I think we’ll also see democrats pushing legislation to prohibit free movement by American citizens.
His window faced southwest and the projects were about a block or two away. Most of the buildings on his block were abandoned. It’s a damn shame, because his apartment was classic high ceilings & creaky floors. A hipster’s dream.
OK, then you were further down from Mt. Vernon. I wouldn’t even drive through there if I could help it. I won’t even go into the city now for any reason whatsoever. If my employer tells me to come get the shit off my desk, I’ll tell them to keep it.
Yeah, he was just to the northeast of McCulloh Homes
Then he moved to Overlea, which is so-so (although very close to Moravia, which is one of the scariest neighborhoods I’ve ever driven through, and I had to stop for gas there). But Overlea might as well be fucking Philly from where I’m coming from.
West Baltimore is the scariest place I’ve ever been to. It looks like the fucking apocalypse from Fallout 3, only more dangerous. One of the most dangerous places in the county, you may as well be in the worst area of Mogadishu. Not even making that up.
After a wedding downtown, I got lost on the way out (imagine – getting lost in Baltimore! That never happens!) and wound up a good deal west of Camden Yards. I would have said that was the scariest neighborhood I’ve ever driven through except my other ex was with me (albeit passed out drunk).
Anyhoo, that night I learned the trick to navigating Charm City without GPS – just point yourself in the general direction of the stadiums and you’ll eventually find I-9.
West of Camden yards? you need to keep going like you were going to Ellicott City, only south of 40. Post apocalypse shit I’m telling you.
I got lost in that area once because our GPS stopped working, back in the days before Google maps. I wasn’t really lost because I know Baltimore well enough to have known how to get back to where I needed to be.
My wife was crying she was so scared. And she’s been to some of the most infamous favelas in Brazil. So just ponder that.
One of my friends has a friend who works for the Balmer City police. There are areas in West Baltimore that he told my friend, they will not even go into if they’re called.
He also had a friend who bought one of these rehabbed ghetto dwelling that they were selling dirt cheap. I mean completely renovated town homes for 15 thousand dollars and a 5-10 year tax free deal. He told her ‘you can’t live there, are you nuts?’. She wouldn’t listen. The first 2 weeks she lived there, they stole all the wheels off her car, smashed all the windows and took everything valuable out of it. She called the cops, they never showed up. The 3rd week, she came home from work and her house had been robbed of basically everything of value. Before the first month, she came home from work and her home had been burned down. Some people just will not listen.
she came home from work and her home had been burned down.
At least she got a check for that particular exit strategy.
Obviously systemic white racism.
Just gave the wife the wheel to take over for a while on the ride back from Park City, Utah to SF. We were in Montana and Yellowstone before that. Had a great trip. Just passed a “fireworks for sale” giant billboard, right after a “high fire danger today” sign. I love the drive through Nevada. Speed limit is mostly 80 and the high desert is soothing (as long as you’re in a car with AC speeding through it). Damn, Utah has a serious amount of cops in it. I think we saw four cops in 700 miles of Idaho and Montana. At least two dozen in two days in Utah with way less miles.
I love Utah, but they do have their fair share of rich law-and-order types that are willing to pay for all those cops.
I can’t even remember being there, but I know that I have. Isn’t that a Mormon country, the one with the big salty lake?
Israel?
Bombay Beach?
bwahahahahaha – well played
Yeah, passed the Great Salty Lake this morning. Also got a cool shirt at a rip off gas station next to the Bonneville Salt Flats (first station in almost 100 miles). Yes, many Mormons and many very very rich people, at least in Park City which is awesomely pretty. But damn, I thought Bay Area real estate prices were nuts. That place is stratospheric. Montana was awesome as usual. The roads in that state and Idaho and Nevada for that matter are super well maintained. Soon we will be back in Caliunicornia. Where there isn’t enough money for proper road maintenance.
California has plenty of money for proper road maintenance. They just spend it on other shit.
Wait a second. Are you saying it’s preferable to spend more on a first world road system to the California Board of Achieving a Better Life Experience?
*Yes, this actually exists and we pay for it.
[smiles serenely that MY tax dollars aren’t supporting that shit anymore]
Park City is beautiful, but inhabited by all shades of leftists, and ridiculously expensive.
What’s funny is that I travel up and down the state regularly and almost never see cops. I usually go down back roads though, where cops don’t travel.
For example I was going south this past week and got stuck behind a Californian who seemed to not believe the limit was 80mph
Heh, heh. 70mph is the highest in California and that’s on rural highways. 65mph is highest in urban areas.
I’d love to hit some of the ski slopes in the Salt Lake and Park City areas. I’ve heard the snow is awesome there. Mountains are really beautiful.
I found that you have to drive at least 90 in Montana in order to ever even get to the next gas station, let alone anywhere else.
Last time we were in Utah, my brother-in-law from Europe commented about how they hadn’t seen any cops on their drive from CA to UT. Within the first hour of our drive that day we got pulled over for speeding outside of Kanab. The cop did not have any sense of humor and was not going to listen to any excuses. Both my wife and her brother, who was driving behind us, got speeding tickets and are probably lucky they didn’t get shot.
When I was a teenager I went on a ski trip to Utah with a friend. Driving through NV we got pulled over for going 70. Because nominally they had a 55 MPH speed limit so they didn’t lose out on the federal money, the ticket was $5 for wasting of natural resources.
I can believe it. I’ve never seen that many people pulled over outside of a couple stings where they had a dozen cops in a stretch nailing everyone they could. We did two miles under the limit the whole time.
The Federal speed limit was one of the most fucked up overreaches of the FedGuv in my lifetime that actually got tossed. Fuck Jimmy Carter.
“The Federal speed limit was one of the most fucked up overreaches of the FedGuv in my lifetime”
Yeah, but you didn’t have to wear a mask.
Jimmy Carter may have done some stupid things, but it was Richard Nixon who signed the National Maximum Speed Law.
Darn. I coulda sworn that was Carter. Nixon actually outsucked Carter with his proggie meddling. At least Carter legalized home brewing and signed the deregulation of the airlines.
I thought it was Carter also.
Animal, Kinnath – follow on question from previous thread. Any thoughts on Jackson County?
Also, to the others suggesting KY, thanks, I hadn’t thought of that as an option and it seems plausible (east/NE of Louisville).
Dude, are you still seriously pondering moving to the Midwest?
I don’t have any reason to stay in PA, and the property taxes here suck worse than our governor.
“and the property taxes here suck”
Yeah, I noticed that. The only thing I can tell you is that the climate sucks there. Southern PA is a tropical paradise compared to the upper Midwest. If you don’t mind it being in the the single digits or less for weeks and the wind chill getting down to -20 and all that. I hated every fucking minute of it myself.
For property taxes, you’ll definitely save a lot. My home and 24 acres in Windianer was only $900 a year for taxes.
I’m not trying to be a debbie downer and all that. Just the opposite, if you haven’t spent any time there, I’m trying to warn you of the downsides.
Really, if I were you, I’d go for the UP or something like that. Or maybe Iowa where at least people are nice. South Bend is a shithole that makes even Chicago seem nice. I lived west of Ft. Wayne on the Tipton Till Plain cornpocalypse.
Again, if you have not experienced that climate, it fucking sucks, I don’t know how I can express that in more dramatic terms. And the mosquitoes, when it’s warm enough to go outside, will eat your face off.
I live in West Michigan and I can tell you the lake affect snow from lake Michigan can be a bitch. I’m 6’2″ tall and I’ve shoveled snow from my driveway that piled up taller than me. One winter it didn’t get above freezing for a month and my roof started making ice dams that were like a foot tall. So then I started pulling snow off my roof to keep that from happening again. Winter here can be brutal. And don’t overlook the Whitmer factor for the next few years.
Very good to know.
If you get 20 miles or more East of the lake then lake affect snow is not much of an issue. They probably average half of the seasonal snowfall that we get closer to the lake. (I’m about 6 miles east). The other negative to the lake affect is we don’t see much sunshine in the winter months.
I spend most of my time along the I380 corridor. I know that it is very pretty along the Mississippi. Dubuque is a common destination for looking at fall colors.
I expect that it would be a nice place to retire.
https://www.westernmassnews.com/goose-in-new-york-rescued-after-it-was-found-with-an-explosive-device-taped-to/article_4c9524d3-e32b-59e2-950a-65d6515d0e9d.html
That’s one way to deal with the hate birds.
Fools didn’t realize it was a suicide bomber?
Allah-hu-Quackbar?
???
LOL
https://twitter.com/GameOnJD/status/1212866225996550144
Only because they still haven’t made a urinal low enough to the ground for Bloomberg to pee in standing up.
I’m with Larry David. At home, I sit and pee. I get some quick updates only phone and don’t piss on the seat nor my shoes.
“For several years, academics and activists around the country interacted with the Twitter account @Sciencing_Bi, which was supposedly run by an LGBTQ Native American Anthropology professor at Arizona State University. They reacted with tributes and grief when a controversial former professor and anti-sexual harassment #metoo crusader named BethAnn McLaughlin announced on Twitter that @Sciencing_Bi had died of COVID-19, blaming the university where @Sciencing_Bi supposedly worked for making people teach on campus during the pandemic.
However, what unfolded next is a complex and bizarre tale of accusations and confusion, as academics and others on social media are now accusing McLaughlin herself of possibly being @Sciencing_Bi and masquerading as a fake Native American professor online, ASU is saying it can’t come up with a death of any professor from COVID-19 recently and believes the death report is a “hoax,” and Twitter has suspended both the accounts of McLaughlin and the now mysterious @Sciencing_Bi (as of the early morning hours of August 3).”
https://heavy.com/news/2020/08/sciencing_bi-bethann-mclaughlin-asu/
“masquerading as a fake Native American professor”
That’s never happened before.
But wait, there’s more!
“so tl;dr on the sciencing_bi thing for people that aren’t scientists or do not care:
it seems like Bethann, famous for botching MeTooStem, ran an account where she cosplayed an indigenous anthro prof at ASU, but incredibly was only exposed after having the account die of covid-19”
https://twitter.com/endlesswario/status/1290062477657436161
“If I’m getting this right, a White woman who started a failed MeToo org for people in STEM only to be accused of racist harassment herself was exposed as having created an account where she pretended to be a nonexistent queer Native American professor at Arizona State University”
https://twitter.com/Sturgeons_Law/status/1290080887602688001
Covid is so deadly it not only killed xer it erased xer from existence entirely.
Being a professor of nonexistent, queer Native Americans probably leaves a lot of spare time for other hobbies, like famous Jewish sports legends.
Sandy Koufax, Abe Attel, and Lyle Alzedo want a word
“The Activist Group MeTooSTEM Is Facing Allegations Of Harassment Against Its Own Leader
BethAnn McLaughlin, founder of MeTooSTEM, has repeatedly been accused of harassing behavior, especially toward people of color.”
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/bethann-mclaughlin-metoostem-resignation-harassment
And yes, she looks pretty much like you’d expect.
I have a large amount of money I’d wager that she’s never been sexually harassed, no matter how much she wishes it was true.
“TikTok is China’s most significant cultural export.”
https://twitter.com/Slate/status/1290069142725222401
“TikTok Could Have Been China’s Nintendo
Instead of a soft power win for Beijing, the blockbuster app has become a lightning rod for superpower conflict.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/tiktok-ban-divest-trump-soft-power.html
“TikTok is China’s most significant cultural export.”
Brutal. I couldn’t dis the ChiComs harder if I spent all day trying.
Xi wants his pooh bear back!
https://twitter.com/arisaidthat/status/1289894698316738560
Also, fried chicken.
#SoulFoodMatters
Trinidad and Tobago is totes racist.
“An Egyptian court sentenced six women to prison over TikTok videos, claiming their clips “incite debauchery.””
https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1290346554084265984
Well, I suspect they will be experiencing some serious debauching in an Egyptian prison.
More proof that America is the most oppressive country on earth.
I wonder how much Egyptian respect poor oppressed Athena Portland chick would get for her antics in the ME.
Is Egyptian respect a new term for brutal gang rape?
Yes, and is followed by a scathing condemnation of women’s corrupting nature which taints good men, causing all the righteous men pain in their nether regions.
And the Arab world fully understands that rape deserves the death penalty, although I do have a minor quibble with them on the subject of which party deserves that penalty
The one on the bike can debauch me anytime.
https://youtu.be/8ux_t7R-heM
Spacex hopping the starship SN 5
Right now
Damnit!
Last second abort.
No show right now. Only an hour left in road closure. Waiting for word on another attempt.
Has anyone seen this yet?
Seems like a crappy way to test for Covid.
Since advanced sequencing techniques have been available, lots of epidemiology is done this way. Just check sewage. They do MRSA, e. Coli…. lots of stuff.
Also do drug use by population… they can learn a lot from sewage.