I can't figure out what that jig he uses for the first 30 seconds or so is for. It looks like it is smoothing/sanding, but it is producing some big chunks.

Also not sure why he didn't cover the crack with plexiglass or something on the top, as I'd think it a pain to have that big chunk unavailable. That or epoxy the crack, which leaves it clear and open. It is a nice design feature, but just losing that space would drive me nuts personally. Plus the fear of what did happen happening.

On the plus side, nobody has built a service animal harness to fit a peacock yet.

Most of the trash in the oceans comes from rivers. I read once that 90% of the plastic in the oceans comes from just 13 countries. This shocked me enough to look into it. The consensus seems to be that 80 to 95%(depending on your source) of all the trash in the oceans flows into the oceans from just 10 rivers, being all the major rivers of China, southeast Asia, plus the Nile and the Niger in Africa. However, that's trash in the oceans. This volume of garbage on the beach probably comes from locals using the beach as a dumping ground.

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The video is right that pretty much the number one most important question is the weight of the truck (basically tare weight, which is actually the tractor plus empty trailer). When I watched the announcement, I thought Musk was slightly cagey about that, but I thought that he said that it would be in the ballpark of a normal ICE semi. Guess I should watch again.

I think Musk made some semi-optimistic predictions about battery tech improvement and economy of scale. Frankly, I think he's earned the right to be semi-bold with his predictions, given his and Tesla's track record (paying off govt. loan very early, single handedly pushing forward battery tech and production, etc. etc.). His optimistic predictions have a tendency of panning out.

The average American is never going to switch to an electric car purely or even largely for "green conscious" reasons. The switch will happen when the electric car is better than the ICE alternatives in concrete metrics like performance, reliability, and operating cost. Musk is pushing that date forward at an incredible pace. Arguably it is already true for many use-cases at the high price-point range of the Model S, but that price point limits the scope of the impact quite a bit. He knows that to really shake things up, he's got to get that price point down, and he knows that to do that he's got to improve the economy of scale on battery tech. Which he's doing by expanding it into adjacent markets like home batteries, etc.

I think he deserves a lot of credit for "walking the walk" when it comes to working hard to protect/improve the environment, as opposed to Al Gore et al. "talking the talk".

We get it. It is a common campaign promise to get the Jewish vote/support and it is (until now) never executed.

Of course, Trump is trying to use it to divert attention from the severe problems he is having right now. He does this sort of thing. Look at how he was using the possibility of recognizing Taiwan as an independent nation, plus the arms sale, to tweak China over trade.

However, if you recall, the first questions about Flynn and his role were being asked by the FBI/Comey in December 2016. So, misdirection, get the news on something else, deal with Flynn (fired later), and get rid of Comey.

This has nothing to do with Israel and what they want. They are simply the tail being wagged.

Yeah, this is a "Why NYPD cops" or "Why US cops" won't help, plus a little "US healthcare isn't about caring for people's health" kind of story.

There's really only two arguments against SSM.

1: "I think the institution of marriage is pointless". Great, then don't get married, but kindly fuck off and don't tell the rest of us how to live our lives.

2: "Gay people are icky". Not actually an argument, but at least you're being honest.

On the plus side, there's every chance that this insane waste of money will actually bring an end to the current Australian government. Literally everyone I've talked to in Australia (been there for work recently) thinks this postal vote is a massive waste of taxpayer money. The vast majority are perfectly fine with SSM, and even those against SSM know that this is pointless.

OTOH, if Australia does decide that it really does decide that it wants to continue being a backward, homophobic, rock-on-fire-that-no-one-should-live-in*, well that's just more tourist dollars for NZ!

* just kidding... there are some parts of Australia that are only mildly racist!

Trust me, it has been a topic of discussion. The problem is I am kind of locked into staying here for at least 10 more years. My wife is not going to retire from UT until she is max level on the retirement fund. Plus she is worried about taking care of her parents when they get older, most of her family lives within 100 miles of Austin.

I would love to be able to get medical marijuana easily in Texas. But the bill they passed in 2015 had so many restrictions it is laughable.

You can only get it if you get low-thc oil. You can only be prescribed it for epilepsy and only then if you haven't responded to federally approved treatments. Assuming you meet those guidelines, you need two different doctors that must be registered with the DPS to both agree that no other medication will help you.

Not bad enough? The state has dragged its feet on actually licensing companies to grow cannabis to make the oil, so that 2 years after the bill was signed a couple of companies are just now able to ramp up production. Then they will need time to convert the product to oil and THEN the state will take some more time to make sure the product 'meets specifications'.

This stupid thing is you can already get low-thc oil on the internet legally that is roughly the same strength. Plus it restricts the most active compound, THC, so it limits drastically who will actually gain any benefit from it.

Since I suffer from two different ailments, both which have been shown to be helped by actual cannabis instead of the oil, I am SOL. I have to take a huge dose of Cymbalta and become zombie-like for a good part of the day, or I can suffer crippling anxiety/depression/fibromyalgia pain. The other fun thing is that the Cymbalta exacerbates my IBS, the other ailment I have that cannabis has been shown to help.

I could cut out a drug with horrible side effects and take a natural drug that could help every single symptom I have, with the only side effects being paranoia and the munchies. But then the pharma company would miss out on the roughly one grand a month that my pills cost my insurance. Can't have that!

PS: That price is for generic Cymbalta now that it is available. Originally it was closer to 2k a month for name brand. Another fun side effect? Cymbalta also fucks up your sex drive, sometimes making you impotent but more frequently making it nigh impossible to orgasm. So you can get erect as a male, but good luck finishing.

Given some of the other bands he mentioned, he'll probably be blown away by Prophets of Rage as well.

And I'm with @ChaosEngine on this, that we should be mad that things are worse now...

Short of lying, how can somebody like Paul Ryan claim to be a fan of the band, and be the way he is. Of course, having been on the far right myself for the first 30 plus years of my life, that one just closes one's ears. You put blinders on, and above all don't vet, you just rely on shallow Google searches that show you are still on the correct side.

I shoot regularly (often multiple times per week). My lazy firing rate has splits (time between shots) of approximately 0.2 seconds. I can do that for a long time (many minutes before I slow done). That is a rate of 300 rounds per minute. My fast splits are approximately 0.12 seconds. I can't do that for very long (probably one magazine). That is a rate of 600 rounds per minute.

An AR-15 on full auto fires at approximately 600 rounds per minute - twice what I can do on semi-auto. Using a competitive shooter as an example, and taking into account magazine changes (which with training are done much quicker than any of the operators in AR-15 to failure tests I've seen), and assuming lazy splits of 0.30 seconds, a competitive shooter can probably fire at a faster rate per minute than a novice can on full auto (i.e. well more than the approximately 150 rounds per minute a novice shooter achieves when taking into account magazine changes).

The thing is, it is well known in military and firearm enthusiast circles that the massive reduction in accuracy when shooting on full auto does not give the perceived payoff. You have much less control when firing a fully automatic firearm. You hit your target less often. Semi auto plus aiming = hits on target. At the range he was shooting (300 to 350 meters), the same lunatic deciding to aim his firearm would have resulted in less wounding and more fatalities.

Any ex-military here? Chime in.