I met up with Trashy and others a little while ago, and the bar we were visiting had a special drink on the happy hour menu:
When I told Trashy about this drink, he responded “Do you drink it or bobsled on it?”
Sadly, I did not know. It had to be tried. I ordered it right before happy hour ended.
It was a whole plate of food as shown below. It contained a big bone with roasted marrow chunks and what appeared to be pork belly covered in gremolata. The waiter’s instructions were to spread the toppings on the bread and eat it, then use the bone as a luge for the drink.
Trashy looked askance at it. For a creature who lives in a trash can, he was surprisingly unwilling to try this. He did, however, serve as photographer:
The innards were tasty. The aftertaste was very cigar like in its persistence. The marrow taste lasted until midnight, despite teeth brushings.
The moment of truth had arrived:
Yeah, that’s a big piece of gristle on the left of the bone. I was not into eating that.
There was an excellent Bulleit Rye with date syrup in it still sitting there. It was damn good on its own. I had to do this. I couldn’t let the Glibs down. Luge! Luge! Luge!
“Your arm is in the way, move it down,” said Trashy. I felt like we were doing a porn shoot. I am pleased with the results. He is a masterful photographer.
I can tell you that when you try to use a bone as a luge like some kind of crazed Viking, it’s going to spill expensive drink all down your trousers. I got some in my mouth, and it did not seem to improve or dramatically alter the taste of the Bulleit Rye with date syrup.
So now you know what it is like to use a bone as a liquor luge. No doubt you have questions like “What do the waiters think when a space alien and a furry trshmonster walk into a bar?” or “Did you invite STEVE SMITH?” Or maybe even “WTF is with that Photoshop? Are you really that untalented?”
I can answer those questions in the comments.
crazed Viking
** blows whistle **
personal foul: redundancy; five yards and replay the down
** puts away whistle and checks to make sure NewWife isn’t reading over shoulder”
*throws ‘Acktchually’ Flag*
I am disappointed at the mess and lack of flavor differential.
As was I.
Drink luges make no sense.
expensive drink
Bulleit is fine and all, but I don’t think it’s that spendy.
But thank you for taking one for the team.
Total cost of the whole thing was $21. I suppose it wasn’t that spendy, I got a fair amount of stuff for that.
Yeah, that’d be $45 here.
Day-um!
Yeah; I’m too damn poor to waste booze like that.
I’ve come to regard marrow as an acquired taste like oysters. I’m supposed to like them but in reality it’s more like a glob of snot.
I just treat it like butter – it needs a proper vector, like some good bread (that does not look like particularly good bread)
That is true.
I once force fed myself bone marrow with a similar appetizer/drink combo. The marrow is extremely rich and such rich foods don’t agree with me (I guess I’m just a peasant at heart). The bread I had wasn’t that great also.
Kentucky needs to vote harder for governor.
Dems: 52%
Reps: 47%
In the dead thread, I called everyone in Lexington, including SugarFree, a racist.
Behold, the Nazi Turtle! A freshwater fascist for the entire family!
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/39ef8d95-1bdb-438c-913e-6a33a870439c
In the vote-for-no-more-than-two local race, candidate A is leading candidate B with write-in a distance third.
Undercontested races should atuomatically fail and leave the office vacant for the term.
5 of 14 county races are uncontested.
Then most of the county government should be shut down for the term, with their staff laid off.
Gristle is of the devil. It’s why I avoid most fatty steaks.
From the ded-thread, for you:
If you want to feel better, you can check out this slate of hard-left progs who are largely unopposed.
https://www.cambridgeday.com/2023/11/05/somerville-races-for-office-in-2023-highlighting-question-about-what-it-means-to-be-a-councilor/
The only one not fitting that description is Jack Connolly – you’ll note the incumbent, who they describe as “a shut-in lawyer” didn’t even bother to respond to the questions. He’s much too busy doing important governing stuff to actually respond to newspapers. Or residents, for that matter. He’ll probably win.
My ward is voting for two aldermen – both far-left and unopposed. Yay.
So I got to throw one vote at a mayoral candidate and another at some judge. In and out in five minutes.
I had to wait because they were printing ballots on demand.
What shenanigans they were facilitating with that, I don’t know.
Mine was printing ballots too but somehow one was already ready for me.
I guess my polling place serves multiple ballots? Never encountered that in NYC.
The only time I have seen multiple ballots is at primary time when you get a party-based ballot.
Though if the polling district contained multiple local wards for the town/city/etc, I could justify multiple ballots. but not having them pre-printed makes me suspicious.
Agreed. Just print a bunch. You can toss them if need be.
Counter argument – turnout was higher than expected so they had to print some on-demand. But ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m OK with printing on demand.
Unused ballots just beg to be “used”.
I was there at 6:05am
There were almost no voters before me. I did see one person get frustrated with the printing process and storm off without voting.
@rhy – There’s no difference between fraudulently using leftover pre-printed ballots and running off more “on-demand” ballots after the location closed.
Fair enough.
My mind doesn’t think that sinisterly I guess.
We don’t print ballots at the voting location. But it is common to have two different ballots.
We vote in a little town about three miles away. But we live in the county. So the city folk get one ballot, and we get the county-only election ballot.
Two directions from me you’re in different counties, the other two are in the same city for at least a few miles. There are bound to be more polling places before you hit another jurisdiction inside the county.
And preliminary totals show they guy I wanted lost by a 2-to-1 margin.
Oy.
Sounds like my experience as a voter.
it’s going to spill expensive drink all down your trousers
You have to get the whole end of the bone in your mouth.
Winston’s Mom should be able to give you some pointers.
It was a really big, hard bone. I would have paid money to see Winston’s mom drink it.
Virginia state senate is at 6-6.
Something suspicious in Loudoun County. Voter turnout 96%. That’s authoritarian levels of turnout.
Is the school board up for vote?
Yes. Turnout now at 99%.
With 3 precincts still yet to report. That is weird.
I suspect extra votes are involved.
Which brings up a way to shine a spot on any cheating. Cheating in votes requires normal and historical turnout %. If citizens actually turn out to vote, the numbers will be off.
Bonus votes!
LOL bullshit
OMG.
Magic!
Loudoun is now over 100% turnout.
Just shows how much they love democracy!
Lol! Followed by an involuntary snort.
..and it is a fucking local election. I have never seen one of those with >50% turnout.
Virginia is fucked.
Elderly Jewish man dies after confrontation with pro-Palestinian protester at California rally
Even Fox News is going with “man dies”.
The coroner said homicide. So it should be “man was killed”.
Completely different meanings.
Full story appears to be he was assaulted by a person wielding a bullhorn. Whacked on the head, he fell down. Died later. That’s murder. He didn’t trip and fall, he was assaulted.
Correct.
Coroner said death because of blunt force trauma to the head.
So: 1) the bullhorn was the cause of death, or 2) the bullhorn caused the man to hit is head on the ground which was the cause of death.
Either way, it’s murder.
Yeah, there’s no way you clobber an older guy on the head with anything and expect it to not be fatal. No premeditation, so, second degree murder.
Suffolk City is currently over 100% turnout.
So the entire election is invalid. Arrest the election workers on presumption of fraud.
That’s what would happen in a normal world. Here in Bizarro world, they will get medals for bravery.
“The marrow taste lasted until midnight, despite teeth brushings.”
Really?
It was really strong. May have been the way it was cooked.
Trashy looked askance at it. For a creature who lives in a trash can, he was surprisingly unwilling to try this.
To be fair, it was the idea of sharing a bone with you after all the moaning noises that killed it for me. 🤣
Now that I think about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually had bone marrow on its own before. Next time somebody throws out some bones, I’ll give it a try. The luge looked a mess, but I’d eat marrow if served to me.
That was an option, to just skip the rye and have the bone and bread.
To be fair, I would have made you a plate. I did lack the foresight to bring a saw to cut the bone in half.
I thought your mandibles were strong enough, but alas they were not.
I am getting old. Got a few crowns.
““Your arm is in the way, move it down,” said Trashy. I felt like we were doing a porn shoot. I am pleased with the results. He is a masterful photographer.”
Best picture ever.
I thought so.
Texans are so accepting. They have no problem with green-headed aliens chewing marrow bones and drinking rye in restaurants.
“He’s a paying customer”
You know the black couple in the back are thinking that white people be crazy.
Interesting how Kentucky’s Attorney General and Secretary of State are hard republican red, yet the governor race is leaning dem.
https://www.cnn.com/election/2023
And now ad
ds from Biden will be all about how red KY wants Bidens policies because the past 3 months of adds from repubs tied them together.
I explained it already. The blue dog dems who vote R are still racist.
You in KY too?
Not since 2019. But I was there 1969-1987 and 1994-2014.
2019. 2014-2019 is my period in BG instead of Louisville.
…I mean, they all were when I was little. Still, wtf Kentucky?
This looks delicious.
I would have the think bacon dish again. It was really good. Not that bone marrow one though. Overall Trashy and company agreed I had once again chosen too posh of a place. Looks like Hard Eight is forever the meeting place.
Hard Eight is a good place.
KY is weird
https://www.cnn.com/election/2023/results/kentucky
He is/was neutered unless it’s government emergency.
Oh well
Results just started, but Tabr gutting is losing 55-44 with 22% in.
The tobacco based one is passing easily though.
Over 60% voting no to save Tabr, with 56% of the vote in. Even Denver Co is barely leaning yes. But, no vote yet from Boulder or Larimer Counties. Stupid college kids.
Boulder votes yes and Larimer voted no. This is why CSU is better than CU.
I would have split that dish with my wife. She’s a bone marrow person and I could handle the refreshments*
*In days gone by
Thanks RJ/Trashy. You boys done good
Heh, I used to slide my chicken bones over to a squeeze who would suck them clean, outside and in. Yes, he was Chinese.
It was a nice turn out. Prolefeed and wife came, and LadyZ and mate came.
Looks like Virginia Senate and House will go dem.
https://www.cnn.com/election/2023
Twas inevitable, and it will stay that way. That’s a not insignificant part of why we got the hell out of there in 2020.
Looks balanced. No out right control. I had no idea crazy Shelia Jackson was running for mayor in Houston…and not that far behind.
It’s all democrats getting votes there for mayor. Lord help Houston.
I chuckle how CNN puts a deep blue for dems and a muted red for repubs. I know they have shades for % but it’s pretty obviously they use a nice solid blue and not so much for red.
Oof, Ohio.
“Constitutional right to an abortion”
Even New York isn’t there yet.
What does that even mean? Does that mean you get free ones? It’s a service, after all. Does that mean every doctor has to provide it?
Probably doesn’t say that but you know that’s where it’s going.
A. Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: contraception; fertility treatment; continuing one’s own pregnancy; miscarriage care; and abortion.
Now do vaccines
Jesus, what other horrors can they think up?
“You have the right to a detachable penis”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byDiILrNbM4
‘Now do vaccines’
Every individual has a right to be safe and make healthcare decisions for others including but not limited to: disease testing, vaccines and masking.
Wondering about the Kentucky governor’s race? A guest poster at Founding Questions gave a local history and rundown last week. Things seem to be playing out as he predicted. To wit:
So Handy Andy barely squeaked by last time. Why is he doing so well this time? I think that the voters just don’t care enough or hate him enough to turn him out, especially for an empty suit like Daniel Cameron.
In the end, the GOP dominated state legislature is actually running this asylum, so many folks probably think that they don’t have to sweat it if Handy Andy wins again. Outside of the school marms and the babykillers pushing Beshear, there seems to be zero enthusiasm on either side for this election.
Which is what I hear around here in Boone county. It’s a meh vote. Though I brought up in 2020 your legislature coward at emergency powers invoked by said meh governor. That was lost on them.
I’ve long since decided that 99% of people vote purely on inertia without a second thought. The only issue I have seen change minds in my lifetime is abortion.
Inertia is a helluva drug. Add apathy and stir.
Totally.
I voted Dem for years without giving a single thought to it, because that was what was expected of me.
We sometimes forget how really hard it is to think for oneself.
because that was what was expected of me.
That would have caused me to vote otherwise out of pure contrariness.
I literally gave no thought to it.
I did not become a contrarian until my late 20s.
I became a curmudgeon at the age of 12.
What took you so long?
A day for crap, first episode.
Boy finished his driver’s Ed course and his permit period and just got his license.
I was prepared for bad. Our insurance had jumped several times recently, and adding a new SUV bumped us to over $6,000.
I was not prepared for the real answer. Over $10,000.
So off to get quotes. Experian knew my details and asked all the right questions. It provided 2 quotes.
One slightly more expensive, from a company nobody has ever heard of.
The second? Progressive quoted me over $16,000.
2 cars. And we don’t even commute.
The insurance on the vehicles is only about $800 each.
This is insane.
The ithrr
It’s the boys that get hammered for bad rates. Can he identify as a woman on the insurance to save money for a few years?
… how the…
My annual automobile insurance is about $1,200. Add in homeowners and I’m at a little over $2k/yr. Even when I was a new driver, I was paying about $1,400/yr automotive (single driver)
How the hell do you end up at five figures for insurance?
1100/mo for car insurance for myself, wife and two teens. Without them? Like 300/mo if that.
Homeowners is $11,000
… My homeowners is about 1% of the sale price of the house. Was your house $1.1 million?
Not sure where we are now… but when I bought it they only insured the building for $110k.
I have lost track.
The hurricanes make it hard to run an insurance company here… so they keep going out of business and you get dumped into Citizens, the government insurance. As soon as a policy is available, they force you into that company.
I have probably had 10 or 15 different policies since we bought in December 2004. I picked the first one. Every one since has been forced upon me by circumstance. I tried to do my due diligence the first 3 times I got bounced to citizens, but then I just gave up.
So your house is probably worth 500k now.
Insurance here is dumb, but if you need flood you’re really screwed. Hoping that some of the fraud/legal reforms actually make a difference.
We have 3 policies.
Regular homeowners.
Wind.
Flood.
None are cheap.
I see.
I don’t live in a zone known for chewing up buildings. Most of the structures around me are a century old (but have been remodelled at leastonce each)
I wouldn’t want to insure anyone in that kind of area either.
Looking around at insurance (because USAA is completely ate up) and reading that FL insurance market is completely hosed.
You used to be able to buy a new (used) car for that.
I would go with RJ’s idea- identify as a female.
Looks like I am going to win 5 of 6 ballot measures. The tobacco one stood no chance, so no surprise I lost that one.
What does the tobacco one do?
A few years back a new tobacco tax was passed, the ballot measure said it would raise X dollars. It raised 1.2x, so .2x is supposed to be refunded. This allows the state to keep the excess.
Pols hate giving back money.
Does anybody like giving back money?
Charitable donors?
LOL refunded to whom? I can’t imagine my state even thinking up such a flight of fancy.
To the retail stores and distributors.
What about the customers?
I think the rate was also going to lower to prevent future excess. But, yeah, customers got screwed.
Registers Smokers on the cigarette registry?
/sarc (almost)
OMG the mayoral candidate I voted for is at 8% so far. That’s got to be a huge loss for the “Working Families”.
9.6% with 100% reported. Dayum.
I predicted earlier 10 to 20 votes. She got 366.
+1 Dark horse
‘Working Families’
That’s the NY communist party, so I’m not surprised they got more votes than you thought they would.
I voted for the Republican. The Democrat got 25% on the commie line and the rest on Democrat.
I can’t wait to hear my neighbors continuing to bitch about all the problems that must have been caused by the State GOP right?
CNN won’t call MS guv race but did the LT guv race at same % and spread. Any predictions from any org need to show their methodology and have a statement that it is a guess and only SOS results count.
Sounds like election interference. *eyeroll*
A day for crap, second episode.
The 1 hour project.
We all know about the 1 hour project. Easy. Might take an extra 25 or 30 if things go wrong….
Well……
I bought that Whirlpool $1,000 dishwasher for $300 and asked Google how long it takes to swap in a new dishwasher. Google says about an hour.
So, off we go just after lunch.
Today is a day off for school, so I have plenty of kids to help.
Step 1 remove the approximately 40 year old machine. Easy enough, right?
They added tile to the kitchen after the dishwasher. Tiled it right in. Can’t remove it. Won’t fit.
No biggie. 15 mins with a wonky adjustable wrench that won’t hold position and a screwdriver and I’ve got the front legs off. Some wiggle, some lift, some begging…. and out she comes.
Time to disconnect the water. The valve under the sink is stuck. Lots of grunting ensues… and off it goes. Having done this before, I turn it off extra tight after opening and closing several times.
Start to remove the line… water sprays out. Plenty of pressure… turn on the faucet… yup the valve has zero impact on the flow of water. Luckily I had the house valve replaced a couple of years ago. So I trudge outside and turn the water off, telling everyone to avoid pooping or using soap, because there ain’t no water. Gonna take maybe an hour….
Yeah, right.
Cut the power…. which also cuts the power to the internet. No games. No streaming video. 3 kids and a wife in the building. Not cool.
Still, disconnect and carry outside is easy until time to get help carrying it. 3 “why do I have to” arguments with mom later, it is out front.
Unboxing the new one takes a minute, but is easy. It says use 2 people, but there are only 4 helpers available so I do it by myself.
Read the instructions.
Need an adapter for the water line. Always required. Not included.
Need a household wiring strain reliever connector. Always required. Not included.
Off to Lowes. 15 mins away.
Search and search… can’t find the electric part.
Head to plumbing. 5 minutes of searching turns up an adapter for the purpose… but it has an extra fitting for compression fitting a small copper tubing. Will this work? I hope so, this $7 brass part is the only one they have. Gonna connect to a cheap plastic part on my $1,000 washer.
Back to electric. Find help. Yeah, they don’t have it.
Formulate plan to scavenge part from old washer (that I am not confident at all is the same oddball size, and it didn’t look at all the same)
Back at home, the water line hooks up easy. The 13 year old girl finally decides she can help and disconnects the old drain line and hooks up the new one while I hook up the electric. It only took 15 minutes to remkvr the bolt holding the electric using the crappy adjustable pliers. Who took my socket set and good wrenches???
Daughter and dad finish up and plan for putting the machine in the hole.
Dammit
Routed the connections the wrong way around a brace.
Take everything off and move the machine around to do it right.
We spend some time adjusting legs and wheels and using a level. Dang, what a team!!
Whoa… that hole looks a little tight. Push it in. Yup, the blanket gets caught and we have to carefully coax it in with long screwdrivers.
Almost there. Just a little more.
Nope. The front doesn’t fit. The tile is too high.
I am NOT tearing out an entire kitchen and laundry room full of tile over a quarter inch.
With great difficulty, we crank the legs all the way in. Still no go.
The left side is just too tight.
Out comes a big file. 5 minutes of sawdust and we are good.
Lift, wiggle, angle, cajole, beg… CLUNK!
In she goes! Oh joy!!!
But….
The left side is higher than the right. The mounting tabs aren’t in far enough.
Check the bottom… the tile is a little deeper on that side. The fram didn’t go all the way in.
Lift, wiggle, angle, cajole, beg… nope! …. push, shove, kick with both legs… nope.
The giant flathead screwdriver calls my name. I grab a hammer and my improvised chisel is put to work shaving a sixteenth of an inch off the tile.
CLUNK!!
Perfect!!…..
And too low.
Gotta put the feet back up.
Not a chance. Too tight down there. And the frame is firmly against the tile… so the base cover can’t be installed.
And the hole is so tight that I can’t screw in the brackets with it slightly tilted forward.
I break for food at 8:30, my one hour project having consumed an entire day and leaving me on hold for another trip to Lowes for either some shims or a tiny socket for the top of the feet … or maybe both.
Just……
Dang.
Oh, I left off the 45 minutes to clean 40 years of crud from under the old machine. Never have so few done so much to accomplish so little.
There was about a 10 gallon tank worth of multicolored aquarium gravel under there. Filled with decades of grime, soap from multiple leaks and spills, palmetto bug corpses…..
How? Why? I mean…. I can’t even imagine a theory.
I feel you. Too much. That whole tale hurt to the marrow of my bones.
LOL I immediately thought of you. We are rent twins.
No kiddin’. I will NEVER own a home again.
I mean, you know, unless Dude hits a big lottery jackpot and then maybe I’ll think about it.
We have a sarcastic saying in my house: “It’ll take thirty minutes, tops.” after trying to replace the brake pads on my girlfriends daughter’s car. I think we started at noon-thirty and finally finished replacing all 4 brakes and rotors at 11:00 pm. It involved propane torches, cheater bars, lots of swearing, big hammers, and some pleading.
This is why I pay mechanics with expensive toolkits to handle that. I just need to sit around and drop a painful amount of cash.
I had a friend who called his wallet “Jason’s toolbox”. Alas, Jason made shit-tons of money, whereas pistoffnick, nor his girlfriend, do/does not.
I know what categories of things I will not trust myself to deal with. Deep automotive, plumbing, these are things I want to have a professional deal with.
It’s OK, cyto, I understand
Now run a practice load
WTF? The Dog damned thing won’t empty
WTF is up with that?
/Reads tiny print, “Insure the drain hose is above the sink drain connection, otherwise your machine will pump water into the sink and siphon it back into the machine”
Son of a bitch!
Exactly!!!
40 years in one place with the same dishwasher? Holy crap.
I have a dishwasher for the first time at age 54 and I doubt it or I will last another 40 years.
House is 1959 vintage. Original GE appliances in kitchen, sans dishwasher. Looks to be circa 1980.
Intended big remodel at purchase…. but the bubble killer that. Any contractor worth using wanted to make $50k per job. I’ve told the story here of the “honest” husband of a friend from work who quoted me 50k to redo the tiny 10×10 kitchen. “Everything is more expensive on the water.
Then the 2008 crash ate my stock options and there was nothing to take advantage of.
So, we live with an oven that is several years older than me. I picked up a replacement cooktop used for $80 a few years back.
My life is either a sitcom or a pathos riddled tragedy, depending on who is telling the tale.
There’s a difference?
The pathos riddled tragedy is funnier, and doesn’t require contrived circumstances that can be dealt with by people acting like normal people.
In my life people walk in the room and stop and pose. They also say one phrase at a time and then stop and stare into space, smiling for a beat or two.
And at least once per season, someone randomly gives a preachy speech that sounds suspiciously like it was taken from a pamphlet at a nonprofit. … and everyone just acts like that was normal.
*canned laughter*
Tragedy is when it happens to you. Comedy is when it happens to someone else.
“Tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die.”
Mine took a full weekend plus into the week.
The rotting plywood underneath was an unexpected treat.
An excellent illustration of Murphy’s Formula for Job Time Calculation: estimate the amount of time it will take to complete a given task, multiply it by 2, then move up to the next higher unit of time measurement.
That is great.
I’m at a loss for words. Sorry that happened.
I feel you Cyto. I am at the tail end of a complete remodel of my grandparents’ home that I bought from my family last March. It had been a rental for over twenty years, since my grandmother died. The last remodel was done by grandpa in ‘61. It needed major work and my parents did not want to deal so we took it on. We did a complete remodel of ir house when we bought it 11 years ago so I knew what I was getting into and not looking forward to it. I can’t wait to finish the damn thing. Everything has been a pain in the ass, especially when owning a biz that I have to deal with 40 plus hours a week and then work on the house in spare time.
I. Love. Doing. Appliance. Work.
This is one of the biggest things I have given up due to my ailments, and I have to pull myself out of the room every time we let some “professional” do it. They make the former professional in my hurt they are so f’n sloppy. Once the wife leaves I have to go and fix the slop.
I am certified to work with up to 600Volts, and unlimited tonnage of AC, and I trained to do the really big, built up stuff. But there is just so much satisfaction in doing a one hour job in 50 minutes.
Bro, I’m not even any kind of professional (in the trades) and the one time in my life that I hired a plumber I had to go back and fix his work because it was leaking all over. If I wasn’t rehabbing the whole rest of the house by myself I would have done that too. Kids these days (I am probably younger than this guy but I wasn’t there at the time).
Re: the Chatgpt discussion earlier – one thing I’ve found it useful for is writing prompts for ai art – particularly when it comes to specifics of camera angles and technical notes.
Elon’s new toy is pretty good at being raunchy and making it funny. Not sure how useful that is, but it is really cool.
Dadgummit. The challenger is ahead on the Sheriff’s race. She is the one who pointed at the incumbent’s record of such audacious actions such as supporting 2nd amendment rights, calling for an end to Covid lockdowns, and pushing for jail time instead of counseling for violent criminals.
So I guess Snohomish wants to be more like Seattle.
Sigh. I wonder if we can pay Boeing security to do drivebys of private neighborhoods on contract.
You can contract the local gang-bangers to do drive-bys, I suspect.
One way to keep your neighbors on their toes, I suppose.
City Air will set us free.
Same thing in Portland. It was kept to Multnomah county, but has spread to Washington Co. now.
Culture and society matter. A geographical area filled with statists will become statist no matter what laws or constitutions.
And the modern city is a shithole and is getting worse and then spread. The hope that we can have weed, Mexicans, ass-sex, abortion, tearing down Robert E. Lee statues and at the same time have low taxes, low regulation, low crime low food costs, low energy costs, reliable energy and no covid lockdowns and no trannies is not looking plausible.
Washington County is tech elite, suburban soccer moms, 1G/2G immigrants, and snobs who are happy they don’t live in Clackamas or worse, Gresham. They voted for the lying sack of shit that claimed he lived with parents as his legal residence, not the big house his wife and kids live in.
The Aves/Devils game is getting ugly. Someone is going to get hurt.
I find these sorts of statements fascinating. Yes institutions matter but liberalism states that things constantly evolve and change yet he assumes that these institutions won’t change in a way that will undermine economic freedom. And people in the future will support economic freedom not because of tradition but because it works. What happens if people decide that economic freedom is one of those outdated traditions that we need to get rid of?
https://www.aier.org/article/if-you-care-about-social-mobility-you-need-to-let-markets-work/
I’d recommend reading the King of Vodka. It’s about Pyotr Smirnoff building a brand around something the elites disdained, and with no real advertising options available.
Looks like fun, I would have really liked to join y’all, and we were actually all set to go to Dallas that very weekend. Unfortunately the whole family came down with a cold. We had to miss A Day Out With Thomas the Train,too.
Hopefully next time you can swing down to Houston.
Anyway back to AI: It used to be very good with programming, it helped me a ton in some of my classes. They’ve dumbed it down significantly to the point that it’s practically worthless for any type of coding or troubleshooting.
So, that being said. Who wants to help me with this damn MIPs assembly assignment? I don’t think I like assembly much. 😀
The media seemed to pretty much ignore the Nashville shooter manifesto leak. Not that surprising. They can dismiss it as a story on a conservative Youtube channel. It was pretty muted even from the right likely because Crowder isn’t sell liked.
Local media seems to be covering it more.
The AP did a news story on how it reignited an imaginary debate on the disclosure of documents. I’m fairly certain I could find the AP breathlessly covering previous mass shooter’s manifestos.
Not ignore.
Clearly another FBI / Stanford Internet Observatory controlled censorship.
Every platform save Rumble and X have banned it. META has taken the images down for violations of their terms of service. Alphabet has taken Crowders video down and was severely limiting searches… they may have moved to a ban.
All news media are singing in concert. Nobody is covering the manifesto. Those who are covering the story are covering the leak and why an evil conservative shock jock hates people so much that he would torture these poor victims parents.
All within hours.
Clearly coordinated.
News organizations sued to get the manifesto and other documents. They all clearly believed there was a right to know. Now? They push the mayor to find the leader and prosecute.
Meta. Snort.
To my amusement, headhunters on LinkedIn have been contacting me about coming to work for Meta.
Those headhunters are NOT good at their jobs.
That would be Hay-larious.
I am trying to imagine the scene playing out…. I can’t decide if your disdain for every single coffee station conversation is the focus, or if the pink hair activists set you on fire as a demon apostate within a day.
https://cafehayek.com/
I find some of these statements by Boudreaux very disingenious. The claim about being being liberated from tradition and an “unfolding future unpredictable in its details” is hypocrisy of the highest order since liberals have always taken it as a given that the future will turn out the way they want. Paine did not predict the Jacobins and did not seem happy about that failed prediction. Spencer did not predict “Rebarbarization”. Boudreaux complains about wokeness, radical environmentalism, covid lockdowns, academic corruption yet he did not predict these and is not happy that these are occurring.
“Making predictions is hard, especially about the future.” – We all know who
Off of the top of my head at 4am with only a half of a cup of coffee down: Institutions come in two flavors, cultural institutions such as the nuclear family and formal institutions such as the church. The nuclear family, a man and a woman working as a team, partners in life, to produce happy prosperous children is a very successful model. The church has traditionally helped to preserve that cultural model. Conservatism is only desirable if it serves to conserve successful cultural institutions. Conservatism serves no useful purpose if its aim is to preserve itself. If the formal institutions do not serve to preserve the cultural institutions then they become destructive.
The ‘long march through the institutions’ is the radicalist’s tactic of skin suiting formal institutions and subverting them to destroy cultural institutions . Given that and only a cursory glance at history the predictions should have been self-evident.
The primary reason that christianity was so wildly successful was its tactic of substituting christianity in place of various pagan religions while preserving many of the pagan cultural institutions. The contemporary crop of radicals will fail because they cannot see that and are attempting to dismantle the cultural institutions entirely.
Attempting to normalize repulsive cultural taboos will fail. Want to make accurate predictions? Choose some highly desirable, successful cultural institution, imagine what it would look like if the taboos in place to preserve it were normalized and voila! you have yourself a successful prediction. See: normalizing pedophilia, something that no one could imagine possible just a few years ago. Push it too far and there will be a violent reaction so that normalization will be shit-canned where it belongs. The following will be a pendulum swing in the opposite direction such as resurgence of victorian-like values regarding human sexuality.
odds and ends
From my cursory research, AI has mostly been used for analytical chemistry, which is mainly about sorting/classification and measurement. Those tasks are suitable for AI. When it comes to synthesis and predicting properties, the data is lacking. AI needs huge datasets to work.
There was a chemist named Pettifor who had the idea of making a table of all the possible substitutions in a given molecule of one atom with an atom of a different element. That project has gotten anywhere yet.
I think a good first step would be to train a neural net to sort between medicine and not medicine. The empirical formulas of about 600 medicines. To train the AI, you’d need at least an equal number of non-medicines with similar molecular weights. With enough data, such a neural net could tell whether a given empirical formula had medicinal value or not.
The medicine sorter sounds cool, but I do not think it would work.
Using known medicines you would get compounds that attack known (probably) active sites in biomolecules. So best case, you might search out novel analogs of existing drugs. But I doubt it would be able to tell the difference between “binds to this site and temporarily activates a proton pump” and “binds this site and permanently blocks a proton pump, causing death.
More interesting would be to use maps of known active sites on various important enzymes and biomolecules and teach it to predict structures that would impact the protein in a desired way, without binding elsewhere in the body. It could be taught things about uptake and biodegradation to narrow the search to biologically useful molecules.
Back in the early 90s, X ray crystallography was the hot newness and everyone was predicting that getting 3D structures would solve biology.
Yeah…. great tool. Long way to go yet.
Maybe adding a third category would help: known poisons
So in the training data, there would be medicines, inert/harmless chemicals, and poisons. Once trained, the neural net would decide whether a given input compound had medicinal value or not. It’s true, like you said, that it would probably end up flagging analogs of existing medicines, but it’s possible those analogs are easier to synthesize.
I suppose in some cases, it’s not clear whether a chemical is a medicine or not. Alcohol has medical uses, yet I’m not sure it should be classified as either a medicine or a poison.
As doctors and veterinarians say, “The dose makes the poison.”
The medicine sorter could work in stages. If the first neural net classifies a novel compound as medicine, that compound would get fed into another neural net trained to distinguish types of medicine: anti-inflammatory, anti-seizure, antibiotic etc.
After penicillin was discovered, there was a scientist who wrote to all his friends asking them to mail him samples of any mold they found. The guy ended up thousands of samples and a few more antibiotics were discovered.
Bone marrow booze luge are not four words I have ever seen together, but if I did see them together on a menu I would do exactly what you did RJ. That is begging to be consumed.
If city air will set us free then why are there no libertarian cities?
Because we allow people who don’t own property or pay income taxes to vote.
(I skipped several links in between but that’s pretty much it.)
And how would we end universal suffrage for municipal elections? And are we certain that tax payers and property owners would be more libertarian?
Probably not in cities. The rich people (property owners) in cities are all progressives.
Small steps Winston, small steps. Let’s get ‘FUCT’ under our belts first and see where to go from there.
OK, that’s a new one to me. What’s FUCT?
Feeling Up Cajun Transsexuals? Must be a Louisiana thing.
Fuck you, cut taxes
Thanks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Fun fact: John Stuart Mill supported increasing suffrage yet in the election held after the 1867 Reform Act he lost to a Conservative in an election the Liberals won a najor victory.
An old friend of mine (now sadly passed away) had the misfortune of visiting a foreign country on their election day. He got a hilarious little ditty out of it.
My wife uses my old hoodie when she gets cold. My only request is that it is kept nice and safe as it is from my old rugby days and it is sentimental to me. After finding it thrown on the floor several times (and no, it didn’t just fall) I hid it away. Apparently I am very selfish. God forbid you do the one thing I asked when using my stuff.
Listening to some old school rap makes me a bit nostalgic… which is dumb because those neighborhoods and people were objectively crappy. At least they really did spend their time killing each other, which is manly I suppose.
I get how people can be nostalgic for bad times now. Still dumb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdYpxVQ1BZs
(NSFW)
Somehow the clean version has 300x more views.
Like, really really clean…. they bleep out the words ‘cold’ and ‘gat’. Fucking triggered.
Bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay…old school rap is at least listenable, can’t say the same for mumble rap.
I have a few things like your old hoodie.
The weirdest example is a T-shirt from my undergrad days. I received it from a laundry room in 1985. It says “players world” on it, which I assume has to do with gambling (something I never do). It is a relatively thin shirt, deep blue with full color red and dark blue lettering. It was quite big for me in 1985 (I was probably 125 or 130 lbs at the time)
It is a very comfortable shirt. It has been in my regular rotation for casual, yard work, workout, sports wear ever since.
The dang thing is still in pristine condition. I think the pope should check it for miracle status. I have worn it maybe once a week on average since 1985. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Run through the washer and dryer, no special treatment. No holes, tears, unraveling seams or edge stitiching… It hasn’t even faded terribly… just a bit. I’m now pretty much a hundred pounds heavier than I was then…. yet the thing fits comfortably.
It is one of the craziest things I have ever heard of.
That is great. They just don’t make things to last nowadays.
I’ll put a word in with il papa.
BTW, I love your story RJ. It reminds me of my story of visiting San Francisco’s Chinatown with my brother and trying an “authentic place only the locals frequent.
He still gives me angry looks whenever the topic comes up, because of the oxtail lemongrass soup with the giant vertebra sitting in it.
Yeah, there is a reason ‘Americanized’ Chinese food took off.
Same for other ethnic foods as well. All of them really.
That is what we do. We take elements of other people’s cultures, make them our own and make them better.
*Hatches plan to surprise the Mrs. with eggs rancheros*
Hey Glibs! More commies won elections.
☕😦
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uto7z_YEuaM
🎶🎶
If you liked 80s synth, check out the music.
‘More commies won elections.’
What else is new?
It does seem that people are tilting generally to the left though. I wonder if people still get more conservative with age.
The future appears to be filled with authoritarianism, fiscal irresponsibility, and a lack of respect for rights.
Scroll up a little bit to my response to Winston.
How’d Pennsylvania turn out? Complete disaster?
Good morning all!
Today we go way back to the early days of a group, and a singer.
First, we find the Rolling Stones 2000 Light Years From Home.
Then Donovan in Season of the Witch.
Share and enjoy!
Good morning, Beau, Roat, Lack, Sean, and cyto!
Ooh! Our old band used to segue from “For What It’s Worth” into “Season of the Witch.” We used to love to string together improbable medleys. 😊🎶
I love that song. So atypical for Donovan.
First World problem du jour: I have both an “atomic” digital alarm clock and “atomic” analog wall clock, both synched to the atomic clock in Ft. Collins, CO. Sometimes it takes the alarm clock a couple of nights to reset when DST starts or ends, but I don’t recall having trouble with the wall clock before. In fact, I recall that once when I was up late on a DST ending night, at the magic hour, the hands of the wall clock starting racing forward to set the clock ahead eleven hours.
No such luck this time – I set the alarm clock in the window, and it reset by the second night (Sunday night.) The wall clock, however, at the appointed hour just seemed to stop briefly, then kept going without changing time. I’ve been setting it in a window each night, and it still hasn’t changed. I’m giving it one more night, per the manufacturer’s online instructions, but if it still isn’t changed by tomorrow morning, I may have to break down and subject myself to their customer service.
I am retired. I measure time in 1/4 to 1/2 hour increments.
“What time is it?”
Me: Five thirty
“No it isn’t. It is five twenty two!”
Me: So…five thirty.
I have teenagers, so our units are “subjective minutes:.
As in this morning
Me: Get moving, it is a quarter til!
Teen: No it isn’t. I have time… it is 6:43!
(A minute and a half… gotta play brinksmanship games because teen)
I deal with this as well. I believe the advent of digital clocks made this worse.
GT’s clock:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=su7IECXoKLg
Mornin’, reprobates!
Good morning, ‘patzie (and Suthen and Pine Tree!)
The clock discussion is a big deal… about 5 minutes ago everyone had digital alarms and watches and we all ran around resetting clocks for daylight saving time.
Now everyone uses a phone and an internet device. It becomes background noise, even traveling between time zones.
Then I jump in the car and I am stunned that the time hasn’t changed. You mean I have to go into a menu and select daylight savings?
Last year around this time there was much discussion about eliminating DST and how to go about it. That didn’t last long, I expect it will happen concurrently with the rollout of controlled nuclear fusion.
I stopped playing the clock change game. I left my car’s clock on EST all year.
Mornin’
I need to get my ass in gear and get to the gym. I slept in a bit this morning.
Poking around last night’s election news… I see Manchester, NH elected a Republican for mayor. The city is politically split but has been trending Democrat. He ran on a platform centered around economics, crime, and the exploding homeless population. You know, shit people care about. He won.
So did our candidate. She almost got 10%.
But the people in Manchester may care about that. Here in Virginia the people want child sacrifices and porn in schools.
Broken molar, lower back pain, hemorrhoidal flare up…fuck this shit. Day off with things to do or not, I’m crawling back to bed…maybe with a bottle of vodka after my coffee, mouthwash, Orajel breakfast.
Have fun today, kiddos. I sure as hell ain’t.
Gettin’ old aint for wimps, that is for sure.
It was a fun time, but I will say that Luge is one of the least appetizing words ever made.
Luuuuuge.