wild_turkey

Well that part makes sense to me. Taiwan would develop a better partnership with the U.S. in hopes that we would provide military protection when the time comes. And the fact that we are a major purchaser of their chips, and the $6B incentive we offered. But why Arizona? Why build new fabs in the part of the country that is most starved for water?

Possibly a stupid question, but I’m curious why TSMC would invest in fabs in Arizona, given that semiconductor fabs require lots of water? Are there not better geographic options?

That was a great season of television. I had a feeling of dread throughout most of the final episode, thinking someone like Katagiri or Misaki would die. Happy to see the good team get the win and see Tozawa get his due.

Female surgeon. I wasn’t in the room for the conversation but I understand it was something to the effect of “You’re too pretty the way you are and also the risks of surgery are high.”

You can do it for people 40+ as long as their expectations are reasonable. If you target distance vision for both eyes, there is a good chance they will need reading glasses by their mid-40s. LASIK doesn’t change that because it’s a problem with the lens inside the eye not focusing up close. That gets worse throughout your 40s and 50s, hence, reading glasses or bifocals. Or you can set the non-dominant eye a little bit nearsighted to delay the need for reading glasses. That’s monovision (one distance eye, one near eye), which is typically only a good thing to do if you have a successful trial period of monovision using a contact lens, prior to surgery. Once people get into their late 50s, it’s usually better to do lens replacement surgery, because they are getting into cataract territory. If someone gets LASIK at age 60 but needs cataract surgery 5 years later, they didn’t get much mileage out of LASIK. I’ve done LASIK on people in their 70s who had already had cataract surgery and weren’t happy with their refractive result afterwards. Cataract surgery was fine other than the person still needed prescription glasses due to astigmatism or whatever, and they didn’t want glasses. It’s not common but it happens occasionally, and there are rare situations when LASIK (or PRK) might be a good option for people in that age group. I actually had one guy in his mid-80s who turned out great. Which reminds me, as a medical student I rotated with a plastic surgeon for a bit. We had a 90 year old lady schedule a consult for a boob job because her husband had passed and she wanted to date again. The surgeon rightfully turned her down. I still get a little chuckle out of that one.

Life begins at polymerization.

There are some really bad teams on this season. Were the twins high during this leg or do they have brain damage? They wouldn’t even attempt the detours and just laughed about how hard they looked and how much it made their brains hurt. That triple switch was one of the most pathetic attempts of any team in history. What’s up with Yvonne and Melissa? It seems like the editing is trying to give them the least amount of screen time possible. Makes you wonder if something is going to happen with them and TAR is trying to downplay them early.

Poor Things inspired me to watch The Lobster. It had its moments but I probably could’ve lived without it, especially one particular scene that was just an awful thing to put on film. The movie could’ve been fine without that scene so it felt like pure shock value. I would recommend Poor Things to the right friends. I would not recommend The Lobster. Probably need to watch The Favourite.

Anyone know if a 1 hr 40 minute connection in Madrid is long enough, going from PMI-MAD, connecting to MAD-DFW? Seems like I would arrive in T4, need to clear passport control, then depart from T4S.

I just caught up and I also assumed there were 8 episodes in the season. Thought that was the finale so I’m glad I read this thread. Put me in the camp that’s tired of Samantha. She vastly overestimates her importance, level of influence on those around her, and control over her life circumstances. She can’t get out of her own way and she’s lucky Sato fell for her to provide some protection.

Watched it a couple weeks ago and thought it was great. Emma Stone was incredible.

I guess I care about this? I kind of forgot it existed.

Saw it yesterday and loved it. Beautifully shot. I wonder if Oppenheimer played any part in the delay of Dune 2. I know they said it was due to the strike and actors not being able to promote the film, but seems like it could be a little bit to avoid Dune and Oppenheimer going head to head for awards, especially given DV and CN seem to have a bit of a friendship.

This thread is a microcosm of America. Just a bunch of people arguing with each other and flinging shit at each other over the dumbest of things. Our politicians, media, and social media have increasingly polarized the country. There is very little room for respectful discourse anymore. Everyone thinks they are right and the other side is wrong on every single topic (education, religion, climate, immigration, womens’ rights, LGBTQ rights, healthcare, guns, electric vehicles, crypto, Russia, Gaza), and eventually people find justifications for being mean to each other or outright hating each other. They actually trained people to hate each other merely on the basis of wearing a mask or not wearing a mask during a pandemic. Unbelievable. So this all gets amplified by social media and of course this trickles down to kids because they see it in their parents’ behaviors, so naturally everyone is less happy. I personally feel happy with my life but I sense despair in the world around me and it’s hard to not think this country is doomed. We are riding on past successes and that will eventually dry up if we don’t get our affairs in order, find a way to treat each other better, and work together for the common good.

Maybe her disappearance is unrelated to abdominal surgery. Perhaps she had a cosmetic procedure (eyelids, Botox, filler, etc) gone wrong and wants to lay low. Or perhaps she had something like Bell’s Palsy or shingles on her face and they are hoping she can wait it out until recovered. Whatever the case, if it is some kind of health condition, she could be a little bit more open about it and garner public sympathy rather than negative speculation. And if it’s a serious condition like Crohn’s or cancer, she could flip it around and become an advocate for other people with that condition. But obviously that’s never really the approach with the royal family.

I can believe the cancer or Crohn’s explanation, but the colostomy bag doesn’t make sense, or seems like an unnecessary piece of the puzzle. Those are pretty small and could be easily concealed with clothing to take a photo and silence the rumor mill. There would be no need to fake the previous photo. I’m a little more partial to the idea that she’s become malcontent and they want to keep her hidden from view.

Watched the finale last night and loved it. I see some of you commenting on an ep 7-8 slump which I didn’t notice. Pretty much enjoyed the entire series. Rosie and Crosby were far more interesting to me than Buck and Bucky. This makes me want to rewatch BoB which I normally do every ~2 years and it’s been about that long. Probably SPR as well. America used to be so badass. wtf happened to us? If WW3 breaks out, will we be competent and united enough to take charge?

Yes please please please let this happen.

I love that comment because it helped establish her as a serious person, unlike people who play non-competitive softball. They have to be a top 5 worst team in TAR history. Hilarious that they intentionally studied different foreign languages in college for the purpose of being better TAR contestants. Maybe learn to drive instead?

I finally watched the last episode. What a horrible season of television. It feels like this script should’ve been a low budget horror movie on Netflix in October, but somehow the dumbasses at HBO/Discovery thought it was worthy of being extended into a 6 part miniseries and add some police drama and some Easter eggs to make it into True Detective. The biggest mystery is why Jodie Foster agreed to the script. That tricked me into watching it. The overall plot was incredibly dumb. Evil mine pollutes the local area and causes cancers and other health problems but a tiny group of research scientists thinks this is actually helping them discover a bacteria that can save humanity but then they have to kill a local girl to protect their research but then a group of maids kills the scientists and it’s all okay because the maids were apparently justified in their killing. The most insulting part as a viewer is the way they inserted snippets from TD season 1 as if that somehow made it better. Random spirals in every episode were just dumb. Danvers carving an orange peel into a spiral was stupid. Clark randomly yelling “Time is a flat circle” was a disgrace to the Rust Cohle character. These moments did not elevate the season or help it earn the True Detective label, quite the opposite.

This is the best time of year. It’s spring and we got an extra hour of daylight in the evening.

I don’t like getting off work in December and it’s already dark at 5:30 pm. It’s depressing. Of course if we kept permanent DST, it would be dark in the morning most of the winter. I would personally prefer that as the lesser of 2 evils, because the evening is more useful to be outdoors, and the short window of daylight before work seems wasted to me. Maybe we should universally agree that typical 8-5 type jobs become 8-4 schedules during the Nov-March standard time period. That final hour of work can’t be more important than mental and physical health of employees.

He never could stay sober

Didn’t watch it all but skimmed through it. I’m happy with the results. Still need to see Anatomy of a Fall and Zone of Interest. I think the Oppenheimer and Poor Things wins were well deserved. Surprised that KOTFM went 0-10, but I thought it was a tad overrated for reasons listed in that thread. Emma Stone absolutely deserved Best Leading Actress and I thought her speech was incredible. I thought Lily Gladstone was great in KOTFM, then I saw Poor Things and holy shit. Happy that Wes Anderson got one. Love all of his work. Hook ‘em, Wes. What’s going on with Al Pacino? Dementia? Drunk? Infant baby and sleep deprived? All of the above?

I have since read: The Old Man and the Sea - loved it 1984 - great book but scary shit that seems inevitable Anna Karenina - thought it was good despite being a little long and Russian high society isn’t my favorite subject