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Ghost of LL

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. There's a piece published from Imperial College, London that humans feel empathy for robots that are bullied. And I thought about that this morning as I was driving in to work on MoPac. Going northbound on MoPac, there's one of the Waymo driverless cars in the second lane. It* wants to get over to exit at 5th Street/Cesar Chavez. So like a conscientious driver, it puts on its blinker and someone lets it merge in. And it immediately occurs to me--if that were a human driver, there's a high likelihood that the driver next to him would've sped up to prevent him from merging in. I followed the Waymo car a fair bit down Cesar Chavez, and it made several lane changes. Each time, it used its blinker, and each time the driver in the other lane let it merge in with no difficulty. In Austin! And it just really fucking bothers me--why the fuck are we more courteous to fucking robots than we are to other humans? Why do we take a car driven by a human wanting to merge into traffic in front of us as some sort of personal affront, but when a robot does it it's just fine? It's the first time I've really felt John Connor vibes: And weirdly, I notice as I type that I anthropomorphize the robots. In the first sentence, I initially typed "robots who are bullied" and then later initially typed "He wants to." Weird.
  2. Jesus Christ--is this what a Yale education gets you these days? London hasn't felt like an English city in 300 years. It's an Imperial capital. It feels like an Imperial capital. It has felt like an Imperial capital for three centuries. When you land at Heathrow, you land alongside flights from the Subcontinent, from the Caribbean, and from the Antipodes. Then when you take the Elizabeth Line in, you're going to be next to people from right across the old Empire. And when you get into town, you'll get some kick-ass Chinese, Jamaican, and Pakistani food--all because many of those families came to London when London was still their capital, too. For its part, New York isn't "American." It was a Dutch colony. Actually, it was an enterprise of the Dutch East India Company. And the Company didn't give a fuck whether you came from the Netherlands or England or Italy. The Company didn't care whether you were Protestant or Catholic or Jewish or Muslim or nothing in particular. The Company cared that you would be economically beneficial for New Netherlands. These weren't religious zealots like you had up in Boston. New York has always been multicultural from the moment it was founded--intentionally so. Do they seriously not teach this shit at Yale anymore?
  3. The Ponies are good, but goddamn—-with four fumbles inside the red zone it’s a miracle they have the lead.
  4. Fucking game wasn't really that close. But jesus.
  5. Thank you little baby Jesus.
  6. Quinn finally stepped up.
  7. Jeez--what a shit series this is.
  8. Wait a minute--you want the City of Austin to build an elevated promenade so that the upper classes can jog along an elevated platform and literally look down on their social inferiors inhabiting the surface from their elevated perch? And you think that's not just a tad dystopian? Regardless . . . I really don't understand why you're chiming in on this thread. You never visit Downtown. You're too afraid, and you're too secure up in Williamson County to go visit a city. So what the fuck do you care what the City does with any stretch of Congress? And why do you care so much that you have to wildly misrepresent what the plan even is?
  9. Would you care to expand on that? Why do you think this particular shit is stupid? I mean, seriously--what's the cost? It would close a road that very few vehicles use. I'm sorry--I really can't tell whether this is sarcasm. Are you not aware that Pennsylvania Avenue has been closed for decades? And it's kinda great. People are walking around and bicycling right out in front of the White House.
  10. Let's just remember that for the first two weeks after the "grab them by the pussy" video came out, most Republicans were calling on Trump to withdraw from the race. And it was about this time in 2016 that Jim Comey had a little press conference. This is exactly the time when a race-determinative piece of news would come out. It gives little time for a campaign to react and rally. But still plenty of time for it to sink in with voters and have them be swayed in a way that is decisive.
  11. I think you mean Chicago? Because the opening paragraphs describe how State Street (Madison) has succeeded and evolved. And @MAUFRAIS beat me to it in quoting the most important paragraph in your piece. It's like the authors are directly describing Austin. Ok, old man--we get it. You're not coming Downtown regardless because it's faaaar too scary and full of "street bums." Whatever. Just keep your wrinkled ass up in Williamson County and let those of us who live or work Downtown decide what to do with it.
  12. Ok--I'm just going to tell you one thing right now as someone who (1) has been peripherally involved in politics for 30 years, and (2) is married to someone who was in financial services for 25 years, finance people don't know or understand shit about politics. They don't understand how Congress works. They don't understand how regulatory agencies work. They know nothing of rulemaking or legislating or lobbying. And they damned sure know nothing about electoral politics. Which is really quite funny, given how much Members of Congress seem to understand finance based on their average portfolio.
  13. Well, please name one place in the world in the last 50 years where that happened. Can you give me one place where the city pedestrianized a lightly trafficked vehicular thoroughfare and the surrounding area was depressed? I can give you dozens where pedestrianization revitalized the area--in New York, Los Angeles/Santa Monica, Las Vegas, Miami, Cleveland, Brussels, London, Copenhagen, . . . . The one real complaint I have ever seen from a surrounding "business" was in London, where the director of the National Gallery complained about the pedestrianization of Trafalgar Square because it brought too many pedestrians, who were making a bunch of noise that could be heard inside the museum.
  14. He's all I can tell you, @BrickHorn--in 2017 when Trump implemented his "Muslim ban," a bunch of lawyers sprinted down to airports right across the country to greet Muslims (including green-card holders) who were being denied entry to file lawsuits on their behalf pro bono. When Trump does it again in 2025, fucking nobody's going to any airport to help.
  15. Not just 6th, but really from the Paramount and State theaters, too. Have those as anchors at the south side of the project and draw foot traffic north. It would not close 7th, 8th, or 11th--those would remain as cross-streets. I'm not exactly clear on it, but it looks like it might close 10th and 9th. Ninth is no loss. It is closed at San Jac anyway because of the Pickle Federal Building. And 10th really only sees very modest traffic across Congress.
  16. Yeah--let's dig through the cushions of our couch to come up with . . . [suppresses laughter] . . . $250,000.
  17. Fuck aggy--for all their talk about how hard it is to play at Pyle, their fans have never earned their team a goddamned turnover. And if the message to the SEC refereeing community is "you can't fuck Texas in Austin and expect to escape unharmed," then it's a message I'm glad that we conveyed. Frankly, it's a message that should've been conveyed back in October 2015 with Kelly Deterding's head on a fucking pike.
  18. I mean, yeah. But I care so much about women's sports that I have to vote for the rapist.
  19. Cam Williams could've done quite a lot more holding, I can tell you that.
  20. There's no question that they would've snapped the ball before it could've been reversed. Georgia was lined up and ready to go when the first bottle flew, and the refs were in position for the next play. Which does raise the point that it was actually Kirby Smart who stopped the play for going ahead, as WBT pointed out-- Yep--some hero in pretty expensive seats on the East Side threw the first bottle that landed around the numbers at the 35 (so probably about ten yards behind the line of scrimmage after the penalty). Kirby ran out screaming about the bottle, obviously trying to get a penalty call, as it was so far behind the LOS that it couldn't really affect the upcoming play. It was only after the refs blew the whistle to pick up the first bottle that the student section started throwing bottles en masse. So yeah--maybe people shouldn't throw shit on the field. And maybe SEC refs shouldn't suck. But let's not overlook that the entire episode started because Kirby Smart stopped the game trying to get a flag on Texas.
  21. Barron picked the ball off and returned it to the Georgia 10. Refs called PI. Terrible call, and the fans went apeshit. Students started throwing shit on the field, and they had to pause the game for about five minutes. When they came back, the refs discussed it, picked up the flag, and gave Texas the ball on the Georgia 10. I’ve never seen anything like that before.
  22. Student section was the player of the game—legit generated a turnover.
  23. Yeah—I don’t think the CCA has jurisdiction. Not that law and shit should get in the way of killing a man.
  24. I see the Republicans are taking a page from the Obama playbook.
  25. Mrs.LL just sent me a video of the ad--you and she were apparently watching ABC at the same time. Hey, . . . wait a minute . . . .
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