Jacob Knowles – Maine lobstah fisherman. Fun, great sense of humor.
London Eats – guy delivers Uber Eats, et al on a scooter or ebike. Gives a lot of advice for fellow delivery drivers, discusses logistics and the ins and outs of the food delivery side hustle.
Trilogy Media – A cranky, sarcastic American and his beefcake Russian counterpart bait scammers. Their produced videos are better than their livestreams.
Catfished – A group of internet sleuths work with romance scam victims. I gotta say, most of these victims are very unsympathetic.
That Chapter – Irish dude talks true crime. Well-produced and researched.
Seems like every season I hear of some rare lobster or another. Do they all get kept in a giant tank, like a collection of Pokemon?
It ain’t official without “Lobster Girl.”
I’d definitely watch her channel.
If it’s a really unusual one, like a really large calico, they’ll donate them to aquariums, zoos, and colleges.
Not to the evil rich person who would listen to the screams?
Farm enough common Lobsters and you’re bound to find shinies.
Seems like every season I hear of some rare lobster or another. Do they all get kept in a giant tank, like a collection of Pokemon?
There is a natural phenomenon just outside Great Falls called (the) Giant Spring. It’s a huge spring which dumps into the Missouri River. There is a FWP facility there including a big tank full of mutant trout: blue, red, orange, polka dot….
Cool link.
It’s a mutant link.
I don’t even believe in Hell, but I wish there was one with a special place for those who steal from the old and/or lonely.
I do. So I’ve got you covered.
Today I just completed my mandatory training on elder financial abuse detection and reporting.
Rather humorous as I’m not in any customer or client facing role.
I just finished my corruption and bribery training. Same as you, I don’t come in contact with any of that. But damn, if Hunter Biden doesn’t look even more guilty AF after watching that training.
Yeah, I have to do that one too, ditto no member-facing role. But I don’t mind having to do it. Might even help me personally someday.
Add charities that spam old people to the list. You should see the crap my mom gets in the mail. Some of the “charities” send a mailer every single week. Sometimes twice a week. Absolutely disgusting.
What’s so bad about sending mailers twice per week, 52 weeks per year?
/dipshit that was in charge of NRA fundraising when I used to be a member in the late 2000’s
When my mother died, I put in a change of address to have all her mail sent to me so I wouldn’t miss anything important. The volume of “charitable” solicitations was astounding. USPS said they couldn’t do anything, because the bulk mailings don’t include return to sender service. So I had to call each one to get Mom’s name taken off their list. Most of them included a number I could call, maybe it is required. But, strangely, the mailings from sitting politicians or party committees never did.
The IRS scam victims and the “fraudulent charge/refund” scam victims are…different than the romance scam victims.
One of the guys featured on Catfished was literally trying to buy a girl. One woman had a guy at her church that was into her, but was disgusted by him because he’s black (the ultimate irony being that she was being scammed by a Nigerian). Watch enough of those videos and sympathy will be out the window.
A co-worker of mine deals with the victims of all sorts of scams on a regular basis. It isn’t just people with unsavory attitudes who get taken by the romance scams.
I’m of the mind set that old people are sometimes naive but c’mon, believing some cute Japanese girl has the hots for me? Some guy in Nigeria wants to help me by allowing me into his gold mine? If something is too good to be true it isn’t.
Not the same as getting burned on a used car from your brother-in-law. I’ve bought a couple (a few) of loser cars, mostly ’cause of my own fault. I let the cosmetics fool me. Not because the seller lied but just kept quiet and let me make the mistake.
No one ever sold a cow ’cause it gave too much milk or a car because it got too good of mileage.
Fraud is a different story.
This cow’s milage is just too good, I would lose my tax credits.
Most cons have several elements:
1) Getting a good deal/high reward low risk/something for minimal work
2) A time constraint
3) A shill who who has already gone through the plan (this can sometimes be someone who’s being conned themselves, as an example: Ponzi schemes).
In short, high pressure sales with an artificial time constraint and the feeling that the mark is the one coming out ahead.
So like congress people buying/selling stocks at the right time.
Enough about global warming. What about these phone/email scams?
The lobsters are neato.
Perversely amusing
The Fire Department ordered that a controversial migrant shelter in Staten Island be vacated Monday as Mayor Eric Adams announced a shelter at Floyd Bennett Field will finally open.
Fire Department inspectors cited “failure to provide required sprinkler system and to maintain fire alarm system in working order” in the vacate order posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. The shelter in a former Catholic school in the Arrochar neighborhood, which could accommodate up to 300 single adult women and families, has been the site of regular protests for months.
Similar FDNY vacate orders are expected at other migrant shelters, according to The New York Post. City Hall spokesperson and FDNY representatives did not immediately respond to inquiries about whether other sites received similar orders.
It’s good to see the city’s weapons used against them.
Staten Island is the only Team Red left in NYC. And not fully or by much.
Cool link.
Google is your… well, not friend, exactly. Tool. Google is a huge tool.
The USG cuntes won’t even get you home.
US nationals wishing to escape Israel by ship must sign a promissory note to repay the US government for the cost of the seafaring journey to Cyprus
But we’ve got money aplenty for bombs for our friends.
$700 per Hawaiian who lost everything, charging Americans to come home from Israel, but plenty of billions for Ukraine. The campaign commercials write themselves.
I’m surprised Trump hasn’t sent a private jet. That would be a good PR move.
DeSantis beat him to it.
Yep. And you beat me to saying that. He got about 300 people out of there, as I understand it.
https://nypost.com/2023/10/16/first-florida-rescue-flight-from-israel-brings-back-almost-300/
I note that this is the top story on the network news….
Oh, wait. Nobody outside the alt-right even knows it happened?
Is Israel all that dangerous once you get away from Gaza?
The Pali’s current rockets can hit Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. And it looks like Hezbollah is ready to kick things off in the north.
I’m thinking Joe’s visit is the real reason those carrier strike groups and Marine expeditionary groups are in the area.
Unlike the Russians, Hezbollah and Hamas are crazy enough to take a shot at the (alleged…) American president.
Yeah, they seem to have no concept (or care) about potential consequences.
The are well aware they are poisoning the well for relations with Israel for a generation. That’s what their patrons wanted.
The reaction is what they want. And we always oblige.
There’s an Arabic phrase for “trust it will turn out well, facts be damned” — Inshallah. It also means “manana”, but with less urgency.
Doo doo doo doo doo
CDR Salamander (go read his blog every day if you’re a navalist) noted that yesterday.
According to his commentariat, that’s been the case since (iirc) 1956. Haven’t looked up the details.
The problem isn’t so much that, per se, as the same USG happily shovelling cash to the invaders at our own border.
US nationals wishing to escape Israel by ship must sign a promissory note to repay the US government for the cost of the seafaring journey to Cyprus
It would probably be cheaper to charter a helicopter from Switzerland.
Legit LOL.
Today, The Epoch Times is one of the country’s most successful and influential conservative news organizations. </em?
MSM really gets upset when anybody messes with the status quo.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/epoch-times-falun-gong-growth-rcna111373
“The Epoch Times was early to lay blame on China for Covid — labeling it the “CCP Virus” in its coverage. (The origin of the outbreak is unknown; the best evidence still points to natural transmission from an animal market.)”
So, they complain about Epoch Times while telling a blatant lie.
Seems par for the course.
In the first few sentences, it talks about how they parrot Trump’s lies. This is in news? Should be opinion. Not that it matters anymore.
They can be self righteous because they would never parrot Biden’s lies.
The Epoch Times was early to lay blame on China for Covid
Can you imagine?
China’s documented handling of the virus, including withholding information from researchers, a crackdown on whistleblowers and an authoritarian public health response, added credibility to The Epoch Times’ unproven claims.
As always, we don’t hate the media enough.
It’s almost as if the writer wants us to sympathize with epoch times, but can’t write the article they want to and get it published at NBC.
I love this. Right at the beginning of the article, they do more than just tell you why there was a market for this, they actually demonstrate it.
You’re not kidding… how do they write that with a straight face?
I can’t imagine why. 🙄
Catching up on the AM links, it sounds like some Glibs are ripping dvds to use for their Plex server. I had looked into doing this but ran into a wall on dvd ripping. It looks like there are several freeware and paid options, and maybe some additional hitches with ripping blurays.
I’m okay with or even prefer to pay for the software… my preference would just be it’s as idiot proof as possible. What software are you all using to do this?
There are some paid solutions, but most people use Handbrake.
The only issue is that is that you need to manually add libdvdcss to a directory. There are approximately 1.2M videos about how to do that.
This right here. Handbrake + libdvdcss has gotten me through about 90% of my collection. There’s a couple that it still can’t read, but I still have the physical media for those. It seems that WB titles gave it the most issues. I’ve also got some minor gripes about how Plex handles things like different audio tracks and the like, but was happy enough with it to pick up the lifetime license when it was on sale.
I was using HandbrakeCLI with libdvdcss — but after the last iteration of hardware for the NAS (and either I recompiled / updated or the change from having a discrete video card to a iGPU in the Intel processor, not sure which) it started dropping frames like crazy.
So current model:
makemkvcon backup –decrypt -r disc:0 ./WHATEVER.iso
on the Fedora server, then I do a HandbrakeCLI on the resulting iso on my Fedora workstation (which has a lot more oomph / cores for actually processing things.
Then I copy the resulting mp4 files to the MacMini, use Subler (which can query TV and Movie databases) to set metadata and cover art, then drag it into iTunes.
I use makeMKV rather than handbrake because I didn’t want to re-compress the mpeg2 to m4v or any other format with all of the interlace issues.
It just containerizes the DVD in a way Plex likes, and if I want to use handbrake in the future the raw data is still available in the MKV container.
You can use Handbrake as well to simply make an MKV container around the the untouched mpeg2 and your chosen audio tracks.
It should do that as straight rip with no transcoding, but it’s been a long time…
Handbrake supports pass through.
Same here. MakeMKV. I used to trancode to MP4 with Handbrake but I’ve plenty of space. MKV is lossless so the quality is as high as the disc.
Thanks, everyone. This discussion is helpful. Handbrake and makeMKV are the two programs I saw most referenced, and it looks a similar division here. I’ll look more into both, but it sounds like makeMKV might be a bit simpler to use.
It stays in beta to avoid legal issues, I guess. You can go to the forum and get a registration code. I think it will last a month, then you just reinstall and repeat.
MakeMKV that is. It’s pretty easy to use.
I just put them on a shelf.
That’s the current model. Well, really stored in boxes in the attic. We haven’t had a dvd player in nearly a decade. No dvd drive in any computer either, so I’ll need to buy some sort of usb connected device just to rip them.
I still haven’t seen anything that looks or sounds as good as a 4k Blu-ray player with a decent sound system. And they are backwards compatible all the way back to CDs.
I’ve been using Mac DVD Ripper Pro, now MDRP, for years and years. It “just works”. It is sometimes useful to select through its “player” function (TV series & discs with complex menus for choosing w/w/o commentary, etc), but mostly its auto-select is spot on.
I don’t (yet) rip BluRay discs, but I understand VLC can either handle them directly or work with another program to handle them. First I’d have to get a BluRay drive for my computer, though 😉
I’ve also used Handbrake, but prefer MDRP for my use cases.
Thanks, just Windows here. That sounds like easy to use features though.
It’s getting a little spicy out there.
That black guy got rocked.
#1(Alex?) just throwing hay makers. Boring video since there no indication of why that bit of fun kicked off.
At this point you couldn’t pay me to go to an NFL game. Much better view in the comfort of my anyway.
My HOME anyway.
sheesh
We needed that brand new stadium. The least you could is support it.
Also the American Dream boondoggle would be happy if you spent some money there too.
I went to the American Dream once, just to check it out. I won’t be back.
I can see American Dream from my office, I’m not paying to park and visit a mall. Plenty of other places to shop in NJ.
We’re getting close to you would have to pay me to watch at home too.
There’s something to be said about being there, being loud, and watching your team win a game that they weren’t supposed to.
this fight was over a “bathroom dispute”
Over the glory hole?
Today in 1989.
That was a wild day. I still hate driving on the Bay Bridge.
The Presidio of Monterey lost power when Moss Landing was hit. It was a wild night.
I was on the balcony of my apartment about to go in to watch the game. I lived near the train tracks, and the apartment would shake when a train went by. I thought, “Here comes a train. Hm, that’s a really big train.” Then I saw waves rolling down the parking lot of the apartment, and water sloshed out of the pool. That’s when I decided to get in the doorway. When the shaking stopped it was eerily quiet. All the reports we had were through the radio. SF on fire, Bay Bridge collapsed. Luckily the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounded. It could have been so much worse if people weren’t home already to watch the game.
Turns out standing in a doorway is one of the more dangerous things you can do in a quake. Instead, seek shelter in a “triangle” — next to something that will absorb the blow from falling beams while leaving you in a pocket where nothing can fall on you.
There was a comedian in SF who had a shtick about the doorway thing. “It’s not like you see rubble, rubble, rubble, doorway!”
MSM really gets upset when anybody messes with the status quo.
“Billy dumped me for that skanky slut?!”
Our “elites” continue to parallel high school lunchroom social development.
I’m sure he’ll have quite a trip.
Joe Biden heads to the Middle East on potentially the riskiest trip of his presidency Tuesday, aiming to thread the needle between supporting Israel against Hamas, averting catastrophe in Gaza and preventing a regional war.
The US president will fly into a war zone for high-stakes talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in key ally Israel on Wednesday, then head to Jordan for a four-way summit with regional leaders.
The 80-year-old Biden’s diplomatic drive will be one of the biggest gambles of his long career in both political and security terms, and a test of US influence in a tinderbox region.
High stakes as in “how much money do you want, Bibi?”
Is it a risky trip because they don’t have hand rails in Israel?
The flight plan filed by the VP has Air Force One flying circles at 100 feet over Gaza?
Monster
Scientists in Argentina are on edge as the country’s presidential election, slated for 22 October, approaches. Current front runner Javier Milei has promised to shut down the country’s main science agency, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), which provides funding for about 12,000 researchers at 300 institutions across Argentina.
The libertarian candidate — who has been likened to outspoken populist leaders such as former US president Donald Trump and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — has said that shutting down CONICET, with its 80-billion-peso annual budget (about US$400 million at the time the budget was set), could help to end Argentina’s fiscal crisis. He also thinks that investment in scientific research should come from private, rather than public, sources.
——-
The scientific community in Argentina, which has Latin America’s third-largest economy, is alarmed at the possibility of Milei’s presidency. The country’s National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires issued a statement saying “there is no future without State investment in science” and pointing out that “in the most developed countries…scientific research receives a strong investment from the State”.
“Science is not an artistic hobby for our society, but a way to end poverty and finally develop the country,” says Jorge Aliaga, a physicist at Hurlingham National University in Buenos Aires. “It must be a priority”.
Science cannot survive in the absence of government funding.
So far he’s pissing off 100% of the right people. I really hope he wins, it will be interesting to see how he puts it all into practice.
Libertarians always piss off all the right people.
Freaky hair is usually a Libertarian thing too, except for this group. All y’all have regular hair that I’ve seen. Javier Milei is keeping the freaky Libertarian hair thing alive. You go, freaky hair brother!
But many of us do have crazy facial hair.
*quietly clears throat*
I look like Eraserhead half the time.
Third largest economy in Latin America, eh? Give that guy free rein and it’ll quickly be first (caveat: are they including Brazil? Maybe second).
That didn’t take long. 500 killed in alleged Israeli airstrike on a hospital. I believe exactly zero of what’s reported here, but even if it’s all fake people are going to run with this.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/10/17/at-least-500-killed-in-gaza-city-hospital-blast
That’s a lot.
Might be enough for Iran to go from bluff and bluster to jumping in the game.
Is that a legit news site? I’m not seeing it elsewhere.
Never mind, Reuters and AP have stories.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-hamas-war-live-iran-warns-resistance-front-may-attack
They’re talking about their proxies meaning Hezbollah and Hamas which they’ve already been doing. Iran is a rational actor and won’t directly attack nor will Egypt, Syria, or Jordan. This’ll be problematic though but bombing a hospital either accidentally or on purpose should be problematic.
Citation Needed.
Iran has some choices to make.
They have a chance right now to act like adults and develop some really lucrative trade agreements with Russia and China while letting old beefs with the Saudis go.
Or they can act like idiots.
people are going to run with this
I’m sure they’ll all insist that Hamas, who unequivocally instigated this conflict, must lay down their arms and surrender so the fighting can stop.
No?
I’ll offer the additional option of eating the barrel of their weapons instead.
I think Hamas’s current line is “Stop bombing and we’ll release the hostages.”
48 hour rule applies — allow time for inconvenient facts to surface before believing a narrative only quoting one side.
Good advice, especially right now. I’m also seeing it was a misfired rocket, so ???
I saw that as well. I suppose time will tell.
It seems wildly unlikely that the Israelis would do something with such terrible PR optics, i.e. deliberately and knowingly target a hospital only containing civilians.
Possibilities:
The above narrative is entirely true.
Some Israeli soldier fucked up and hit the wrong target, or fog of war.
False flag operation.
A bunch of Hamas fighters were holed up in there and using civilians as shields.
Most likely… Hamas let it be widely known that they had important operations at that Hospital.
Remember, their headquarters was under a hospital. So locating a weapons depot, command center or other important operation in a hospital would not be surprising. …. which also makes it easy to spoof.
Hamas put their ammo dump a little too close to the boiler room.
I doubt that Israel has run out of high value targets and now needs to take out hospitals where Hama is hiding.
So, this is probably a fuck up either on the Israeli or Hamas side (probably Hamas).
Bombing a legit civilian hospital marked on the map – in the American military, that’s a career-ending court martial for everyone in envolved. Maybe with jail time.
Give it a few days to see what’s rela and how the Israelis handle it. If they just shrug it off, all the Palestinian claims get a lot more legitimacy.
I did see one bombing of what appeared to be a residential mid rise apartment building. There was what appeared to be a fairly significant secondary explosion.
Not sure what Isreal should do in those situations.
Darryl has a good question.
(20 years in the rocket world)
Dang that’s gotta be a record for fewest on-topic comments. Probably gonna put this series to bed. Fear not – another series on another topic is on deck.
I’m not sure what the topic was. And I have a general rule against following youtube links from Glibs.
I’m sorry.
Sorry — no disrespect intended, just work meetings – by the time I skimmed the thread it was well into other conversations.
I started strong discussing lobsters. Then it got crazy. I blame the weather.
Why not?
I don’t know, my hockey ones don’t get too many on-topic, but that’s ok with me.
Just got back from the dentist.
Cutting Wood
Guitar Stuff
limit two
Liberal snarking at Woke
Scottish Snark
A few of my subscriptions.
No particular overlap with your interests it appears.
I’ve been to my therapist and had a good cry.
I don’t have many subs, but most came from you, I believe:
CPRM
The Farm
Rick Beato
Essential Craftsman
Girl With The Dogs
Chase Mountains
No subs for me, either. I just watch a lot of Countdown.
Good afternoon, that’s a nice tnetennba.
Ask a Mortician.
Here’s one that might be of interest. Couple of guys bought a house in Portugal to restore, couldn’t find workers who could do it to their satisfaction, so they did it almost entirely themselves. If you enjoy pride in craftsmanship, you’ll like this one. Even more amazing because they bought it to sell, not to live in.
We Bought an Abandoned House in Portugal, 1.5 year RENOVATION IN 90 MINS – TIMELAPSE Start to Finish
GM to delay all-electric truck production at Michigan plant until late-2025
General Motors said Tuesday it is delaying production of all-electric trucks at a Michigan plant by at least a year to “better manage capital investments” and implement improvements in an effort to make the new EVs more profitable.
After the next election is just a coincidence.
Probably has nothing at all to do with dealers refusing to take on additional inventory, and all those units just sitting there not selling.
Seems unrelated to me.
Yellen Says U.S. Can Afford Two Wars Because She Gets A 20% ‘Friends & Family’ Discount With Raytheon
So good.
At publishing time, Yellen had scheduled a meeting with Pentagon officials to tell them about Raytheon’s new promotion that would allow the U.S. to save big on wars by bundling them together.
Ooof.
David Bennett Piano (music theory)
The Hoof GP (cow hoof trimming in Scotland)
Lost in the Pond (reflections of a Brit in the US)
Gold Shaw Farm (reflections of a poultry farmer in VT)
Rover’s Makeovers (another dog groomer, in OK)
Life Well Cruised (Canadian who goes on cruise ships for vacay)
Falconry and Me (British falconer with a pet raven)
Amala Ekpunobi (culture critic)
I also subscribe to David Bennet Piano. I watch Lost in the Pond enough it is frequently in YTs recommendations.
I won’t create a Google account, so as a corollary, I won’t have a YouTube signin, so I’m subscribed to nothing. But I do tend to watch Drachinifel, Critical Drinker, ManyATrueNerd and KottabosGames. Lost in the Pond when it pops into my recommendations.
Usagi Electric Restores old mainframe computers. Right know he’s working on a Bendix G15.
Young guy (Iroquois I think) who does some experimental archaeology centered around Northeastern American Indian prehistory. Has a really neat series on wooden armor.
TIKhistory of course.
Bart’s motorcycle channel. He also has a good ca channel.
Charlie Solis, who’s developing a Tesla turbine with some interesting characteristics. He’s a physics grad. He’s selling them now – am considering buying one.