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Everything posted by phdhorn
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LPS is a decent enough movie (B+) but it's really not necessarily a Texas movie. The story lines about emptiness, rites of passage into adulthood, and the heavy weight of nothingness and desloation could apply to almost any small town in the middle of the U.S., and even to a degree a common urban trope (even Panic in Needle Park parallels many of the hopeless directions in LPS). I don't think it's a gripping story as much as one you just kind of view as an outsider, it's hard to not just feel like an observer of "that stuff over there." LPS has two things going for it.. it does a reasonably good job of not insisting on itself purely as "Texas" (i.e. stereotyping). It barely manages to stay above water on such tropes as the old, creaky pool hall, overstuffed accents, and the like. The other thing to me is Cloris Leachman. Her character was brilliantly written as a "bird in a cage" underemoted but internally extremely pent-up Housewife in Nowhere. Often sex stories are just directionless pap, entertaining without much depth. But her character might be the only one in the move that you go beyond observing and actually feel the motivations for her seemingly flippant and reckless behavior. In almost all of her scenes there is a two-fold tension; first that you're never quite sure hubby won't be coming in (the entire subplot is rife with that kind of sub-terrestrial boiling tension, and second, that her desperate attempt to find something good in life is drawn out so beautifully that such an easy-to-stereotype thing as 'the high school kid and the MILF' comes off as completely understandable. And of course she plays it magnificently - deserved the Oscar. Beyond that, I don't really think it's a definitive statement of Texas as much as it is in the Industrial Fifties, where small towns from Minnesota to New Mexico and back were dying out with the huge, massive migration to cities from small, agriculturally-driven towns. It's just Texas' contribution to the very uniform norm of many states.
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Ok. Of course GE includes pre-check, but honestly, unless you're going overseas a lot, not sure GE is worth the wait at least for now. GE is almost exclusively for coming back into the U.S. - it doesn't really do much for when you land overseas (with the notable exception of Ireland and for some reason Abu Dhabi). However, since a lot of international traffic comes back in through JFK or MIA, it's well worth it (I saved a good 90 minutes in line with it coming back into MIA), especially at peak times. Of course the best idea is if/when you travel overseas and come back throw in an extra hour or so between your next flight (i.e MIA-SAT) and you can do GE interview as part of going back through customs. Very handy.
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You shouldn't have to drive to airports for pre-check (ONLY pre-check). There are offices around AUS and SAN (not sure where you live) for that. But if you're doing Global Entry too, then yeah, you almost always have to go to the airport (well at least pending e-interviews). Pre-check wait time is usually nothing, you can schedule for a day or two later. Global Entry is at least 2-3 months (but I encourage people to check daily for cancellations you can squeeze into with little notice).
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That's an accurate fix, because it doesn't cover over Bee Cave, where it rains all the time, and what we're going to get 2 inches on Monday. I'm thinking this one will definitely get most of us pretty wet.
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Also I was way premature, fake news and all that. The market staged a massive last minute rally and only went down 981 points so it's a win-win for everybody.
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I'd drive to a cliffside and jump off, but I can't afford the gas anymore.
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Elon Musk: Nazi traitor piece of shit [Confirmed]
phdhorn replied to MaybeACoordinator's topic in Daily Texan
While Musk has been outspoken about his desire to see political balance come to Twitter, I don't think he's going to seriously re-structure the business model, as he doesn't have to. And in fact, his #1 goal isn't political - but rather technical/autocratic: Musk has been critical of Twitter’s failure to crack down on automated accounts – describing the bots earlier this month as the “single most annoying problem” on the platform. The billionaire also slammed the bot problem during his recent appearance at a TED conference in Vancouver. “A top priority I would have is eliminating the spam and scam bots and the bot armies that are on Twitter,” Musk said during the event. “They make the product much worse. If I had a Dogecoin for every crypto scam I saw, we’d have 100 billion Dogecoin.” https://nypost.com/2022/04/22/elon-musk-plots-twitter-changes-defeat-the-spam-bots-or-die-trying/ Two other points: 1) Musk is an exceptional "engineerish" person - Bachelors' both in Economics and Physics, PhD work at the UPenn (before he "dropped out" to become an entrepreneur). I think he knows social media platforms a lot more than people think. 2) His vision for Twitter I think isn't merely political - it's true exchange, free of any "diarrhea" of auto-shit and over-regulation. I think he knows those fields well, both from a technical perspective, and most of all now, from 20+ years of real experience. Five years ago the world was watching Tesla's problems and waiting for the final shoe to drop on it. But Musk made shrewd changes on the fly, and now it's without question the leading paradigm-changing auto company much as Apple was in the early 2000's with tech. I think he'll leave alone what isn't broken (which is probably the 80% of people on Twitter who don't post nor give any shits about politics) and streamline it and get rid of as much stink as possible. If this is his aim, I'm all for it. Edit: Just for fun I looked it up again, and according to this 2021 (May) Pew Research poll, only 9% of Twitter users identify themselves as "Often" political posters. Of the remaining 91%, 40% say "never," 30% say "rarely," and 20% say "sometimes." And - surprise - political posts are made more by Repubs than Dems. Anyway, the overwhelming majority of Twitter users do.not.care. about politics. And if you use the "movers and shakers" argument (i.e. influence), that doesn't scour at all into the company's bottom line. Musk is concerned first with finances, not politics. I think Musk's desire for Twitter is to be a true communal exchange, beyond politics, as very few Twitter subscribers post about, or give any shits, about politics (maybe people aren't so dumb after all!). -
Well, if your metric of opinon shows is a baseline, not much at all. Most of those channels can't get a million at night. Reruns of F-Troop are doing better.
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Elon Musk: Nazi traitor piece of shit [Confirmed]
phdhorn replied to MaybeACoordinator's topic in Daily Texan
He does know his shit in financials. He knew that he had a huge bonus rider with Tesla that's about to release. From the Financial Times (behind paywall; also, bolded mine): The margin loan to fund a Twitter bid requires a pledge of nearly 59m Tesla shares, or about 85 per cent of Musk’s total stake. His remaining unpledged stock is worth about $25bn at current prices so if sold, and allowing for an overhang discount, there would be just enough to cover the cash component of the offer. It’s a big ask. But such calculations ignore a big event looming in the Muskonomy: the final payout from Tesla’s 2018 bonus scheme. Musk’s last awards will unlock shortly, assuming board approval, and will carry a five-year selling lockup. Each of the three tranches due Musk give him the right to buy 8.4m Tesla shares at $70, a more than 99 per cent discount to the prevailing market level. So, based on a $1,061 share price at pixel time, Musk could buy Tesla stock worth $25.4bn for about $588m. Factor in those shares and the margin loan financing looks a bit less onerous. He's got this. Not sure if even this will get him past it but he also has a Plan D from what I understand. -
If Warner Bros/Discovery can steer it back to actual news if they have indicated, CNN itself might actually have a chance to last a little longer than those Nikes as well.
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I understand your reference, but I still think more of this: Dumbest ideas since New Coke. Planned in the heady days of idiot/sexual abuser Jeff Zucker's higher ratings 2-3 years ago. But news network streaming is success-proof, and today CNN couldn't draw enough people to occupy a Yugo. Throwing the fact that streaming itself is about to take a huge dump because people are sick of paying five different accounts for crap they never watch, just like cable in the last cycle. Netflix out front should have told ya, and Disney+ is at its peak according to a number of market analysts I've seen lately. Couldn't have happened to a more appropriate bunch of idiots.
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Add the fact that desalinization is one of the most polluting, environmentally disruptive things you can do, both in energy/waste needed to work the process, and even more the aftermath - what do you do with the filtrates? None of these are necessarily permanent roadblocks to doing it, but the technology has to be greatly improved to account for it. No way in this life or the next a desalinization plant using seawater would be feasible on a large scale, but possibly a Texas-only (or for any locale of a much smaller size) could be developed. The great majority of desals work with brackish water, which is far less expensive and wasteful to de-salt than seawater. Probably the most successful one in the States serves San Diego and the lower Cal coast. But it's only a portion and is pretty expensive (look up property values in SD). L.A. is never going to be able to do it with current technology, at least more than an adjunct source - 100 years later, they're still getting their water the way they did in the Gilded Age - enormously long water duct systems from the north. I think the most reasonable solution is to build a de-sal plant down on the coast and pipe it as far as municipal water sites in the large cities, and let them do the rest. But not sure it would work after a certain distance. The reason you hear about successful projects like most of Israel and some places in that locale are simple - the distances involved and scope of the de-sal (i.e. # of people served) is small (Israel e.g. has about 6m people). Some day, something will happen to change this I think, but for now, probably not gonna happen over more than a municipal or small regional scale.
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So, which is it gonna be this year? OR
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Not to mention, pertaining to either of the dipshits in that cartoon above where it came from:
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dubble post, site's fault, not mine
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I couldn't agree more. I've been 3 times (all DisneyWorld/Epcot), once as a kid, once on a H.S. trip (way too much fun ifyaknowwhudImean), and once as a chaperone to a youth group. But never with the family, though, and not since the mid-80's when it was somewhat managable. And thank god. In the old old days it was kind of fun, but tickets weren't fifty bejillion dollars and lines so long the Last Judgment seems like a walk-thru by comparison. And nowadays you need to get into line to get into the line to save time over getting into the line. My kids never wanted to go, and were marginally into Disney stuff, but not overly so. And to me DW is a glorified amusement park - at 10 times the cost. Worst fucking place to take a family IMHO. It's one thing to go yourself maybe as an older kid, but holy shit, no way I'd ever want to go with the brood. Nope. Never. I think I'll leave extra in my will for my kids not wanting to drag me there.
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We are not fooked. Very good chance of rain esp. on Monday. Good rain. You mean the summer? Oh, of course we're probably fooked. I'm jes' talkin' bout next week.
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The site is double dealing. Borkish.
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Boy, you can say that again! This is slightly cooler and rainier than predicted. I actually have puddles on my patio and driveway. Time to build an ark.
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Boy, you can say that again! This is slightly cooler and tainier than predicted. I actually have puddles on my patio and driveway. Time to build an ark.
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What? No April 19 posts? Koresh ('93) and McVeigh ('95) would haz disappoint - if they weren't deadized.
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Yes but only at the North location, and by the night shift.
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Why? You're going to hear that the quarterbacks were throwing pinpoint lasers, the receivers were moving faster than the speed of sound, and the defense was graphite solid. And that even though a few small things have to come together, this team just looks like it could be the one too make noise around New Year's. Everybody's going to be ecstatic. You know, like they have the last 11 years after the game.
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