So basically, the examples at the end reinforce her point at the beginning: fade-outs are a cop-out, an anti-ending. They function reasonably well in cases where the artist has no idea how to actually end the song. That seems particularly true with pop songs, where there really isn't a particular message or story in place, it's just some danceable nonsense - what's the logical conclusion to that?

I've become increasingly aware of fade-outs over the years when listening to older songs, and I suspect it's due to their relative rarity today. In the past they were so standard as to be the expected default, so I never noticed them. They irritate me now: "I don't know what to do with the ending, guess I'll just repeat this last bit an arbitrary number of times while slowly making it quieter." The example she gives of Holst's "Neptune" is in my view the somewhat rare case of a fade-out being used for the right reason, to convey a particular idea, or meaning, or feeling.

When used as the default in lieu of coming up with a real ending to the song, I hate the fade-out. When it makes sense in context, they're fine. I don't often run into the latter.

It's the violence of the arrest that gets me.

She didn't know her rights or obligations on the spot. She went with her best interpretation of the rules she had to hand, and it seemed reasonable from the footage we have.

Maybe they could arrest her on the basis that they knew or believed she was in the wrong, but I believe she could/would have gone willingly if it was handled rationally.

If the default position of the police is adversarial, you're going to have a bad time.

"And if you prefer one or the other, I can adapt. Humans are good at that. ;-) "

No, they're not. Or did you miss the part where some of the smartest people on the planet crashed millions of dollars into another planet? People are TERRIBLE at these kinds of things. One conversion? Fine. Ten conversions? No problem. Hundreds, thousands or millions of conversions? The probability of error tends to 100%.

It would definitely be more efficient if everyone used one common language (especially for cross cultural endeavours such as business and engineering). In fact, that kinda happens by default and that language tends to be English.

However, there are practicalities in play. First up, there aren't just two languages, there are hundreds, and there is a broad split in the number of speakers of each language. Whereas in metric v imperal, the US is the ONLY country in the developed world that hangs onto imperial.

Second, learning a new language is an order of magnitude more work than changing to using metric.

I'm speaking from experience here; in the course of my life, I've studied Irish, French, German, Spanish and Japanese, and I am in no way close to fluent in any of them

On the other hand, when I left Ireland, it was officially metric but imperial was still common (distances were in KM, speed limits in miles, people used imperial weights for humans, metric for food). When I moved to NZ, everything is metric, and honestly, relearning happens without effort. Once you immerse yourself, you eventually just start thinking in the new system.


Finally, metric is just a better system for everything. There isn't a single scenario where imperial is a more useful measurement.

Come on America, join us. It's awesome and you don't really want to use "English" units, do you? Did you fight a war to get rid of them? What would George Washington say!? It's unamerican, I tells ya!

I'd have to beg to differ on America having similar Aboriginal/White conflict. IMO the divide between aboriginal/white in Canada is actually much deeper, and with a greater potential for future violence than even black/white relations in the US. The conditions on Canadian native reserves are MUCH worse than in the US. It's severe enough that the first time a Canadian is driving past an America aboriginal reserve they have to ask twice to confirm it really is one. The general state of broken down infrastructure, housing and in general is so bad it's even visibly unavoidable up here in Canada. In the US you can't tell you've gone past anything different unless something culturally relevant is posted up.

It's also made worse by systematic segregation that the reserve system in Canada creates so any seed of racism has lots of fertile ground and lacks any reference to counter balance it.

When a car is stolen is something goes missing on farms near a reserve the immediate default assumption is that someone 'aboriginal' took it. It's only made worse when more often than the statistical distribution should dictate, it actually was someone from a reserve that did it. Recently a car of young aboriginal kids pulled into a farmers yard and one of them was shot and killed. They said they had a flat and were just looking for help. The case is on going, but the courts have heard that the neighbour had already put a call in to police about a theft minutes before the shooting though. Of course, white folks on the internet made such helpful comments as suggesting the farmers mistake was 'leaving any witnesses'. It's also not just white racism against natives though, the racism against settlers(whites) amongst aboriginal populations can be just as ugly and rampant. When Canada decided to have our border crossing guards carry guns, we had to close a border crossing that was in a Mohawk reserve because they wouldn't allow it. The border station there was already riddled with bullet holes before this. If the government DID try and enforce the same law there as the rest of the border, people were going to die.

It should also be able to interject witty sayings and introduce fresh topics when the conversation dies down (default alt.pop.tv.reality.gossip).

He probably blacklisted the MAC address, which basically means that dude's device will never again be able to connect to that router. (Two assumptions there: 1. The business will never change settings or factory reset the router, very likely considering they didn't even change the default login. 2. The guy doesn't know enough to spoof his MAC address, also likely by sheer probability.)

I don't disagree that it is deserved, but on the other hand, he's inflicting a fairly permanent punishment on the dude on the behalf of the business, without consulting them about it. If he's a regular that was just having a bad day, he might pester them about why his wireless isn't working any more and they won't know the answer. Or he might decide to stop going there.

If that's how the cafe wanted to deal with him, I'd be all in favor. But it should be their decision. So I hope the guy informs them about what he did and offers to A) train an employee to do the same (plus changing the router password) and/or B) undo what he did IF they want him to.

Some routers will auto-switch to a 10. subnet (from the typical 192.) when there is either mishap with the router config/collision, or possibly repeat disconnect from the ISP. Some folks set this by design. Google can tell you the intricacies.

I won't *say* I've ever done something like this. However, it's incredible how many local coffee shops/independent establishments just do not change the default config of a router. I'm genuinely dismayed how this utility, appliance and overall service continues to confound people.

Your privacy isn't that, folks, just be careful!

Of course this assumes that the cafe has never changed from the default password. It wouldn't work on my combo modem/router supplied by my cable internet provider. Each unit has its own unique default password based on its serial number.

I think both results were discarded because the voter turnout was crazy low.

From my standpoint, I would prefer we give them independence. We really do not need another state and they are pretty much going to declare bankruptcy as soon as they are granted statehood. The island serves no strategic or economic purpose and we have enough states/cities that are skirting the edge of falling into insolvency as it is. Illinois, for instance, is having massive money issues and is likely to default on close to a quarter of a TRILLION dollars in pensions.

We could build in a period where people there could still move here as citizens, say 10 years or so.

ECB Research Bulletin:

In an economy with its own fiat currency, the monetary authority and the fiscal authority can ensure that public debt denominated in the national fiat currency is non-defaultable, i.e. maturing government bonds are convertible into currency at par. With this arrangement in place, fiscal policy can focus on business cycle stabilisation when monetary policy hits the lower bound constraint. However, the fiscal authorities of the euro area countries have given up the ability to issue non-defaultable debt. As a consequence, effective macroeconomic stabilisation has been difficult to achieve.

Translation:
- all members of the eurozone effectively use a foreign currency
- they can default, because they do not and cannot issue debt in their currency
- fiscal policy has thus been completely neutered

Ergo, national parliaments have a significantly smaller policy space compared to countries with their own currency. Our parliaments intentionally surrender power to unelected technocrats, even control of the national budget, which is the primary power available to any parliament anywhere.

"Sorry, lad. We cannot pay for healthcare/pension/infrastructure/education/wages/X, we have to maintain a balanced budget to appease the market." Yet it is still illegal to call for the guillotine...

Meanwhile, Japan doesn't give a fuck. The BoJ has been vacuuming up outstanding debt like there's no tomorrow. It currently holds in excess of 40% of all government debt, effectively canceling it. It's just book-keeping. The Treasury issues the debt, the CB buys the debt. Both are part of the consolidated government sector, ergo no debt. "Hyperinflation!", they scream. Can you hear them? Except Japan has been fighting deflation for two decades, with no end in sight.

Yet the inflation-hawks are still treated as persons of authority. Flat-earthers, the lot of 'em.

And my country wants the rest of Europe to sign on to the most moronic law in German history: the "Schuldenbremse", which makes running a deficit illegal at the constitutional level (except for undefined "emergencies"). They are either a) brainwashed, b) idiots, or c) straight up evil. And I'm not sure which one I prefer.

Rememer the talking point that 17 intelligence agencies pointed their fingers at Russia for having orchestrated the hacks during the election?

Even the NYT has finally buried that one:

The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.

Given how many talking heads have used this talking point, the damage has been done, and one small correction isn't going to undo it.

Edit: the AP as well.

What do you mean by blocked by default?

I just went back and changed the embeds for my last 5 videos and it fixed all of them.

I tried it out, and no luck.

You can put in the attribute, but it still doesn't allow fullscreen on the ones where it's now blocked by default.

Yes, you can allow full screen in the embed code. YT did change this recently to disallow fullscreen by default on embedded videos (I dont know why). To enable fullscreen, you need to click the "share" link on the video you want to share, then click the embed tab. There, you will get the full embed code that includes the important "allowfullscreen" attribute. When you include that, embedded videos on videosift (and elsewhere) will have the functional fullscreen button. I just tested this with a new video.

Is there really anything you can do to the embed to allow fullscreen on these? YT made a change that just disabled it by default for 60% of vids, and if there's a way to re-enable I'm interested.