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Prosecutors Say Donald Trump Committed a Crime

MilkmanDan says...

I realize (assume?) you're being largely facetious, but the biggest problems with Trump don't stem from a lack of IQ.

Think about it like this: if Forrest Gump was a real person, he'd make an infinitely superior president than Trump. I'd argue that is also true for the vast majority of real Americans that have an IQ in the range of the fictional Gump.

Mystic95Z said:

Biggest loser low IQ president this country has ever had... The constitution should be amended to 1. Require an IQ test for candidates and 2. If you have filed for bankruptcy more than once you are disqualified.

Who Invented Metal?

MilkmanDan says...

I tend to agree. However, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and Born to Be Wild are really close to tipping the scale in my head from "hard rock" to "metal". The cover of Summertime Blues mentioned in the video, not so much (at least to my ear).

Anyway, it is cool to see/hear some of the early influences that got things going in the direction of the music that I love, even if none of them jump out and make me say "now THAT is metal" like Sabbath.

Mordhaus said:

1970, Sabbath. That is all.

Message from Jeff Bezos - SNL

Extremely subtle product placement

MilkmanDan says...

Upvoting that feels dirty, at least in the direct sense.

I suppose this is inevitable, merely part of a process that has included turning points like ET's Reeses Pieces. But isn't there some point at which people (*enough* people, not just rabid anti-advertising nutters like me) get turned off by this and tune out in numbers high enough to affect the bottom line? Parasites (successful ones) generally avoid killing their hosts, but I suppose there are some mishaps along the evolutionary trail...

Deadlocked Bench Vice is Perfectly Restored

MilkmanDan says...

I wasn't thinking about including YT ad revenue in the economics, but I guess that certainly could be counted and definitely motivate many people.

However, I guess that confirms that it is passion for the work, the machines themselves, and the feedback that are the primary motivators for him. Would probably still be doing these repairs even if YT income / encouraging feedback wasn't a factor, and even without more traditional motivators like plans to resell or use the repaired devices.

I guess the closest parallel would be repairs and restorations for museum displays. There's a financial element there too, but the people doing the restorations do that job more for the love of the objects and seeing them restored.

eric3579 said:

(edited )

From what i can tell he does this because he's passionate about it and how getting feedback from his videos is what brings him the most joy (his reddit comment). I think it has very little to do with anything financial. Although the yt ad revenue for this video is easily into the thousands (1.6 million views). One of these a week, with those numbers, could easily make him a comfortable living.

Deadlocked Bench Vice is Perfectly Restored

MilkmanDan says...

I got interested in the economics of that refurb.

Looks like a new Gressel vice of roughly the same type can be bought for 550 Francs, which is just very slightly more than 550 US Dollars.

Nothing specific is said about time spent on the repair, other than getting off that one plate took "30 minutes of hammering", which is cut down to roughly 10 seconds of video. I figure that was a particularly time consuming caper to end up being the only thing shown where time spent was specifically mentioned. Some tiny bits of what we saw were roughly real-time, where all the work spent on a specific item was shown 1:1 in the video. But, lots of other stuff was probably somewhere between that 10 seconds : 30 minutes and 1:1 range.

I think a very conservative guess would be that each minute of video represented at least 30 minutes of work. So, 17 minute video x 30 = 510 minutes. Divided by 60 = 8.5 hours. As an extremely conservative estimate -- could easily be five or ten times that, particularly with lawyer-type "billable hours" consideration on what constitutes "work time".

But with that conservative estimate, he worked for (at the very least) 8.5 hours to repair something that could have been replaced for $550. Not including the new replacement smooth grips, etc. That's about $65 per hour. For extremely skilled labor.

I'm not mocking that at all -- I actually agree that it was quite satisfying to watch. But I think that just reaffirms that there must have been some real passion for the work there to decide to go through that very fiddly and skilled labor for what was likely much more than 8.5 hours rather than buying a new one and calling it a day. Not much of that kind of work ethic left these days -- and I sure as hell include myself in that!

This ‘Star Trek’ Actress Changed TV (and NASA) Forever

We explain "Nordic Socialism" to Trump

MilkmanDan says...

Even if Americans wouldn't accept the level of taxes and other wealth distribution methods that happen in Denmark, I think that we'd almost certainly be net better off / "happier" / have a higher standard of living if we moved in that direction at least a little bit.

Yes, Americans want to be rich. But, the 1% is going to be relatively equally happy whether they are 10 times, 100 times, or 1000 times richer than the 98th percentile just below them. Today, that disparity is massive. In eras that the GOP likes to remember as the good ol' days, say the 1950s, rich was still rich but nowhere near as far beyond the middle class as it is today.

High(er) taxes, particularly on income in those top percentile tax brackets, allow for the superior infrastructure, health care, and educational opportunities that benefit *everyone* and allow for the "American Dream" of anyone being able to make it big with a good idea, a lot of hard work, and a little luck. I don't think that recipe for success actually pans out in modern America, and that is a shame.

Right in Two (Cover by Beard of Harmony)

MilkmanDan says...

Awesome. I like their take on the largely percussion section in the original that I see as a symbolic version of the evolution and industrialization of man (simple and free flowing to aggressive to machine-methodical). Cool to see that bit done with flamenco-esque percussion on the guitar resonating chamber.

Hard to beat the snarl-factor that ramps up in Maynard's original vocals, and I think I prefer those overall, but this style goes better with the acoustic instrumentation.

Great sift!

Who knew Vivaldi sounded so good in Saxophones

New Rule: The Fault in Our Stars | Real Time with Bill Maher

MilkmanDan says...

Warren could be good. I'm not 100% sold that she can play the political game particularly well -- the "Pocahontas" thing should have been pretty gracefully manageable, but she kinda fumbled there a bit. Still, if the Democrat primary system can avoid being the train wreck it was leading up to 2016, I think she could go through that and prove that she's got what it takes. So, maybe.

I love Sanders, but he's divisive because of the "Socialist" thing, which is still quite a scary word for Cold War-era people. I think that is surmountable by calmly explaining exactly what his brand of Democratic Socialism means, but there's always going to be that easy Fox News narrative against him. So between that, age, and other factors, he's not a slam dunk.

Obama? I'm assuming you mean Michelle? Name recognition yes. Firsthand political experience, not so much. I don't think I've ever heard her say anything about wanting to get into politics directly.

I concur about Avenatti.

I hope the D's don't screw this up. All of these celebrity / political celebrity candidates seem risky and hit or miss to me. Might be better to go with a relative unknown -- somebody who's been through a hairy campaign or two (because we know Trump will attack and try to rattle) and knows how to walk the line between giving those attacks legitimacy by responding to them and seeming too milquetoasty by ignoring them. (Barack) Obama was quite good at having that calm outer demeanor while also having a quick wit and knowing when to get counter-jabs in. Seems like someone with those kinds of skills could really lure Trump into a bunch of pitfalls.

newtboy said:

What about a celebrity politician like Warren, Sanders, or even Obama? They all have name recognition and experience.
Abonetti is like nominating Clinton, not exciting and a bit scary for many Democrats and independents, totally divisive, and a reason to go vote for Republicans. Please let's not make that mistake again.

A Scary Time

MilkmanDan says...

@ChaosEngine

I fully agree with you that rape/sexual assault is a bigger problem (in magnitude and frequency) than false accusations. And that being an actual victim of sexual assault would be worse than being falsely accused of sexual assault, although it seems a bit pointless to debate the relative extent of how much these things could fuck up lives when they are both horrendous.

That being said, there's a reason that presumption of innocence and requiring proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt are the law of the land. And assuming that we follow through on those things (which I think we largely do), that's all well and good. BUT, that's all pretty strictly just in the legal realm.

False accusations of sexual assault don't need to get as far as the actual legal system to seriously fuck up a person's life. Employers, partners, friends ... these connections might choose to sever ties without requiring the same rigorous proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that the legal system does.

As much as I personally tend to believe Ford as opposed to Kavanaugh, I think that given the span of time since the incident it is nigh on impossible to prove that her version of events is true beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other hand, the hearing put his current demeanor and partisan/biased attitude on blatant display in a way that seemed to me should be disqualifying with regards to the sort of standards we require for Supreme Court Justices. Apparently the GOP disagrees, and we can hold them to account for that at the ballot box.

That's rather cold comfort given that Justices serve for life. There'd be some constitutional crisis drama if Agent Orange gets removed from office as a result of some proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt of misdeeds. Robert Kennedy's quote about the ancient Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" seems apropos. Things have been entirely too "interesting" for my taste for the past 2 years...

Stage 9 - Virtual Enterprise-D Tour v0.0.10

MilkmanDan says...

Sometimes I'm very glad that I live in a country that generally doesn't give a f@$% about US Copyright and Intellectual Property.

Since that is the case, and because I also happen to derive some schadenfreude-esque pleasure from the "Streisand effect", I have decided to download and seed for the foreseeable future the 6GB worth of files for the last version of Stage 9 before the shutdown, including Windows, Linux, and VR variants.

Anyone interested in following suit can use this magnet link, although there is potential for ISP strikes/warnings if you live in the US or other places where they have a less laissez-faire approach to these things than in Thailand (where I live).

Fair use needs protection. When that fails, at least one can assist with unfettered use, even if the powers that be claim that use is illegitimate.

The Ocean Cleanup Launches To The Great Pacific Garbage Patc

MilkmanDan says...

I love that they are trying and have admirable goals.

I'm somewhat skeptical about the effectiveness. Presumably some of the data that they are going to collect will include retention rates -- if pieces of plastic of various sizes *enter* the C-shaped area, what percentage of them *stay* there until they can be intentionally removed? Also, how often will they become "full" to an extent requiring a tow to shore and offload operation?

The devices themselves seem like they'd actually be quite cheap to produce. Towing and offloading operations will be expensive, particularly in man-hours. Recycling the collected debris crap into plastic products for resale will be low-yield and unsustainable from a purely capitalistic pricing standpoint -- people will only buy that "merch" as a form of contributing to the project; not because the stuff they make will be competitively priced.

However, none of that makes their endeavor not worth doing/trying. Hopefully their retention rates are good enough (not much plastic or any particular size bracket escapes around / under the devices), and they can make enough through selling merch to fund the offload costs and deploy enough devices to meet their goals!

Vox: Why we say “OK”.

MilkmanDan says...

I think that's correct, or at least I've heard that explanation also. I probably heard it discussed on the BBC show QI?

I guess that would make it sort of like Pig Latin, although at least to me it seems like the barrier to entry into the "in" group of Cockney rhyming slang is massively higher than the one for Pig Latin.

ChaosEngine said:

From my understanding the whole point of rhyming slang was obfuscation.

The idea was to be able to communicate in plain sight while "outsiders" (police, upper class, etc) missed the true intent, although this mostly speculation.



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