Horn of Gabriel

Yeah that seems like it might be useful right about now.

I didn't think about mine at all either; and it was great so long as we had power. When we lost power on Mon/Tues for 8 hrs it was enough to kill it. Next go round of multi-day sub-freezing temps I'm going to isolate it, kill the gas and power to it, and drain it best I can. Thankfully we have another tankless on the other side of the house so we still have hot water, and also thankfully we can cut off the water flow just to the tankless so I can keep water on inside the house while we deal w/ this. Small blessings. I've done enough home improvement stuff over my lifetime to be dangerous. I can handle small electrical, carpentry, and other projects - I remodeled one my first houses including paint, reflooring it with hardwoods, moving some walls, carpentry, countertops, moving electrical outlets, etc. But plumbing is one area I haven't gotten into and I'm probably smart enough now to not try, it just seems like the risk of fucking things up is high when you don't know what you don't know. At least in electrical if you fuck up you find out immediately (I found out pretty quick once when wiring up a socket that I turned off the wrong breaker and it was live...oops), but in plumbing if you do it wrong you may have a leak behind a wall for awhile before you figure it out. But here's a question...in electrical work, if I want to turn off a room or appliance, I can go trip a breaker and work on that section in isolation. Why doesn't plumbing have this concept? Shouldn't there be a manifold with cutoff valves in a central location that let you isolate different legs of water supply to different rooms, like a breaker panel? Why isn't this a standard feature in construction? Explain it to me like I'm 5...

Thanks - pretty sure ours is original to the house (2004). It's been a good solid unit, a Renai tankless but I can probably upgrade now anyway.

Our tankless was mounted in the attic and froze up and burst the small holding tank and some copper internal lines. The plumber wants to sell me a new one @$1300 installed. Says that the tankless are more plug/play units and can't really be internally repaired...does anyone know how true that is?

+1 on Cutco, my boss gave me a set as a gift and they're badass

Putting Strong's failings on Mack's recruiting is a shit take - yes we didn't recruit well at Mack's end but we're still Texas. A better coach could done more with it. Strong was embarrassingly bad, and his UCF experience shows that Texas wasn't the outlier - Louisville was the outlier in Strong's career. Texas was regression to Strong's average, which is suckage. He looks like my 9-year old son if I were to present him a calculus equation to finish. Zero clue what to do. Herman was over his head and that gif of him shows he realized it. Charlie didn't even realize how out of his depth he was. #RedWasRightMaybeACoordinator

My all time #1

Maybe? I'm obviously not a fan, it's just not entertaining for me any more to watch him, ready for the new guard. I guess I'm in the minority, there are a lot more Brady cocksuckers on this thread than I thought. Jordan did do a better job maintaining his public persona ("Republicans buy shoes too") and I wonder how he would be in today's woke NBA where it's harder to stand aside from the social justice stuff. Brady is pathological as someone said you can't get to that level of success without being both incredibly gifted AND competitive. I'll also add there's an element of luck too. I'm just surprised that for someone who cares about winning so much, and about his appearance (tweet above) that he wouldn't also want to win the court of public opinion by not being an asshole. He could have had so much goodwill and positioned himself as underdog, which would have been easy to do by just not saying shit about the Pats and playing up how hard his new situation is (new team, new conf, etc etc). I'm not a pats fan btw. An exaggeration to say EVERYONE is rooting for KC...but I'd be shocked if it weren't a solid majority...I bet ESPN or someone is tracking that

Everyone outside of Tampa will be pulling for KC. So odd that Brady is such a bitch, his GOATness is Jordanesque but he could be such a bigger draw and make even more money if he weren't such a bitch. I guess at that level he has fuck you money either way so it doesn't matter but you'd think that with that ego he'd care about his perception. Jordan = respected, feared, and loved. Brady = respected, feared, and hated

I'm 1b, supposed to get mine tomorrow - my specialist called me to set it up. I called them last week and they said that they weren't doing it, to call my PCP. Okayyy

Once you're in China, you're under surveillance. If you're a nobody, it's mostly passive and AI driven, with their Great Firewall and now "social credit scoring" system. If you're someone like Jack Ma, and especially someone who has shown tendencies to speak out or becoming "bigger than the PRC," you better believe he's under 24 hour watch. The PRC apparently told him "Yeah, you're not leaving China" a few months ago, and they can freeze his assets, his passport, detain his family, whatever they want to keep him in line. His resources are an illusion and apparently the PRC has a whole division related to tracking the 1%ers in China, to make sure that they and their families are never out of the country at the same time (no leverage if they all defect simultaneously), that they aren't moving big liquid assets out of China and the reach of the PRC, etc. I wonder if in the next decade we'll start seeing Chinese 1%ers walk away from their gilded cage in China to the West? I remember when I was making trips to China 10 years ago our IT staff was paranoid about security and they issued special locked-down China-only laptops for us, you can't take your regular work laptop with you. You were supposed to keep it in your possession always. They would weigh the laptop before and after on a digital scale to see if anything had been added to it.

China is really scary. Ma isn't the first and won't be the last Chinese citizen to get disappeared. He's just making the news because he's a billionaire. So many trends put China and the U.S. at odds in the coming decades: Communism vs. Democracy Human rights abuses of their Uighur minority population Rampant state-sanctioned (and sponsored!) IP theft to prop up Chinese business State regulations requiring IP-transfer and company control from U.S. companies to PRC-controlled entities as a cost-of-doing-business in China Chinese state sponsored hacking into U.S. businesses, government, education, utilities, etc Chinese planting spies in research institutions and universities Chinese law compelling any of their citizens to spy on behalf of the state - which they back up with blackmail and "re-education" of your family if you don't comply Illegal 9-dash line claiming all of the South China Sea as their territory, hundreds of miles beyond internationally recognized borders Militarization of atolls and islands in the SCS Development of hypersonic "carrier killer" missiles Silent development of China's nuclear warhead capabilities China's launching 3 new aircraft carriers in the next few years, including one supposedly nuclear powered flat top, not just a Russian retread "Belt & Road" initiative to tie Asia, Europe, and Africa even more closely to China's economy (and political power) Border skirmishes with U.S. ally India Great Firewall of China and propaganda machine spreading fake news to their billion citizens about the U.S. (e.g. "Corona virus was planted by the U.S. Army in Wuhan" "China did a GREAT job with COVID," etc) Ratio of women:men in China is out of whack because of the (now rescinded, too late) 1-child policy, you'll have a lot of unattached (angry) men China is facing an age-cliff in their population even worse than the U.S., they will have a massive retired age population to support soon Extremism and populism on the rise in the U.S. China positioned as the "bad guy" in the U.S. (which I believe they mostly are) U.S. arms sales and support for Taiwan China's unwavering position that Taiwan is part of China and continued threats of military action - and the quickly developing military capacity to back them up if we don't intervene The U.S. worried about decline in power/not being the sole superpower anymore China wanting to rise up, take it's "rightful place" as a superpower I do worry about a flashpoint that starts a shooting war that could get out of hand quickly. On the other hand: Our economies are tied very closely and it would be a MAD disaster if we had a military conflict China is a big holder of our debt, which becomes pretty worthless if they crater our economy themselves This probably belongs in a China meta-thread but I think the next 10-15 years China will do a bunch of stuff that sits just below the threshold for war. They'll keep pushing the limit as far as they can and toe that line to see where we push back. So far, our answer has been basically do whatever you want and we'll yell a bunch and sail some ships near you but that's about it.

This thread is hilarious: "CDC is just along for the ride, he's a suit who controls nothing." Next post: "OMG CDC should be fired for making such a weak hire!"

So maybe this is for another thread but I just now realized that YouTubeTV dropped FSSW. Looks like it's also dropped on Sling and Hulu. Is AT&T Now's shit service the only thing I can watch it on? Or should I drop $100 on NBALP? Do they still black out a ton of FSSW games?

That's over 2 carries per QUARTER. Don't want to wear him out.

That fat fucking retard must have 3rd leg

I'll give Mack credit for that. Saban also rotates Asst coaches in frequently. There's a bit of a catch-22; to get fresh talent who wants to work with you at the highest level you have to be successful and build trust, but to built trust and be successful you probably need access to new talent and fresh ideas. Starting that flywheel is tough, which is probably why so many coaches stick with their core group. Hell if you believe the rumors about Urban he's looking to go back to the talent he's used in the past, not raid 7 different programs for asst. coaches...

We have plenty of evidence that this is true, asst and position coaches matter in player development and we've sorely lacked here. The counter-argument is that coaches tend to dance with who brung 'em, and they value known quantities, working well together, and everyone working within a common system and defined roles - all of which they reasonably had at the stop before they came to Texas otherwise they wouldn't be considered. That's why I always find it amusing that we as fans grouse about how Herman should really "open the checkbook" and "hire XYZ OC/DC" because they are "the best." First of all, while money speaks, what is the motivation for a top tier OC/DC to join a head coach they've never worked with before? What if you're not compatible, what if the HC wants to overrule your calls on the headset on gameday even though he promised not to do that and can't give up his OC tendancies? If I'm a top flight OC and you offer to pay me 150% of what I'm making right now that's awesome, but 150% of my salary now for 2 years when my new HC gets fired and takes me down with him might not look as good as 4 years @100% of what I make now and the chance to jump to a HC position of my own, or move up to a higher tier program as OC with a HC I know and have a relationship with. We have this arrogance as Texas that we can money whip anyone and that's all that matters: it's not. Job security, working relationships, chances of success, administrative support and culture, and a lot of other factors are also in play.

You want to be one way...but it's the other way.

BDE checking in...

JFC, take half my shit already

Revisionist history; it feels that way now. During the Big Noon show everyone was freaking out over how they were joking with him about him taking the job.