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Anyone use the Blaze Pizza Pi Day discount? I realized that it's expiring today, so I figured I'd take a drive to Stonestown – it *is* a $3.14 pizza! – so I went online to order, but the next availability is 7:15!

So doing Little Star instead...

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I remember yesterday but didn't want to go into Berkeley to get it. It's that or Pleasanton and I wasn't willing to go to either to get a pizza for just 3.14.

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not sure where you live, so don't know how far a drive Berkeley would have been, but stones town woulda been about 20 min for me. more that I normally would do, but I was curious about Blaze...and didn't want to waste the opportunity! (plus, I coulda picked up some mocha donuts while there, or something, to amortize the effort :-)

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I've had it before and it's pretty good for fast food pizza. We had it in Louisville before we left.

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Gifts for people who like escape rooms/puzzles: https://mysteriouspackage.com/ and https://www.curiouscorrespondence.com/

Kodiak's sister told me about these today

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Those look cool.

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Cool, thanks for sharing!

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Well that was interesting. I spent 30 minutes in a closet because a tornado touched down about 5 miles from my house.

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At least you didn't enter Narnia as a consequence.

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Wardrobe

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Congratulations on coming out.

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pltm

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the first "loud" pringling that I've seen! (I guess pltm = LOL?)

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Yup

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You're doing better than Tom Cruise

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College admissions 2022

old daughter, senior in HS, tells me that all the Ivy League schools mail out their decisions at 700p tonight. she is going to hang out w/ some friends as moral support as they all check their emails since she didnt apply to any.

she is waiting to hear from a 4 yr program at NYU's Shanghai campus, a path fraught with many perils ..

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All the kids we're hearing are getting disappointed because the admission volumes were through the roof this year because so many kids deferred from last year + standardized testing no longer required for some schools. My niece has 3 patents and was flat rejected from most school. My employee's kid got a perfect score on ACT, straight As, and captain of the state's top XC team is going to a safety school.

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It was insane last year and I can imagine it's the same again this year.

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They send admission letters via email now?

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Yeah, in the early 70s we did not look to email, text, DM, or TikTok. LOLD.

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I got mine via snail mail with a gold sticker on it. So I knew I was golden.

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Stanfurd Persuasive Technology Lab sending admission notice via Tik Tok.

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I'm surprised it's not via a text.

I also thought it's been the norm for more than a decade now for colleges to reveal the decision either by email and/or make the potential students check some webpage.

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I was able to check my UC admissions on a website in 2004, CSUs did not offer that option back then.

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Or you get a DM from @Cal or whatever that you're in!

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yup! Really fun when your kid finds out they didn't get in somewhere they wanted to go, and you didn't have the warning of the skinny envelope. Surprise!

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This Twitter thread asking comedians what weird shit has happened to them while on stage is something else.

https://twitter.com/marcellacomedy/status/1508273660829716484

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The photo really elevated this one

https://twitter.com/connormcspadden/status/1508592749943013376

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I really want to know what joke he said to provoke such a response.

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ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE

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Fred Taylor admits that UGA paid him $50k to go there. He chose Florida and kept the money anyways.

https://twitter.com/_willcompton/status/1509243287898628108

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verbal contracts are worth the paper they're written on, etc.

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thats pretty common. What are they going to do, turn you in? Nope

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👑

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So it is possible to have your cake AND eat it too!

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speaking of cake, we were in the Lower East Side yesterday and picked up some pies from Petee's Pie Company.

we got an assortment of slices instead of a whole pie, cherry, currant, choc cream

not sure it is the best pie on the planet, but it was good

https://www.peteespie.com/

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Ukraine/Russia

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What could go wrong if you spend a lot of time near Chernobyl disturbing the soil?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-troops-suffer-acute-radiation-sickness-after-digging-chernobyl-trenches

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Pulling a trailer through that?! I hope that driver brought an extra pair of underwear.

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yeah, thats a no for me, dawg

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jfc

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Russia calls up 135k conscripts but denies they are for Ukraine. [Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.gif]

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-31/russia-drafts-134-500-conscripts-but-says-they-wont-go-to-ukraine

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She blinded me with...

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Northern Lights might be visible tonight from a lot of places in the US that might not normally see it.

https://twitter.com/WeathermanAdam/status/1509190660762521612

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*checks weather forecast showing a giant band of storms spanning the entire east coast this evening* cool

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Yup, the one time I want clear night skis in Los Angeles...

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warm and windy when I was out this morning in advance of the storms.

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NASA announces that Hubble has detected a galaxy 12.9 billion light years away, smashing the previous record. Wait until James Webb goes online.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/record-broken-hubble-spots-farthest-star-ever-seen/

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Summer vacation plans

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Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, and a brief stay in Las Vegas.

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You should go Antelope Canyon too

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Trying to get out to Santa Cruz Island a couple times, other than that no vacation plans at this time. We are doing a staycation of sorts in August by going to the This Ain't No Picnic festival that is being held on the Rose Bowl grounds.

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None. The wife and girls will be in Vermont per usual. Perhaps I'll go to Oregon to see my mother (went last week / weekend after a long gap & I think more frequent visits might be in order) but that's not a vacation as such. At some point we need to use our "credit" with British Airlines from 2020 but nobody seems to want to change their plans for the year in general.

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The usual, week-long back packing trip at some point, probably early July. Barring smoke and wildfires, my friend and I might try to tackle Tuolumne Meadows to Echo, northbound.

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since we will be in the Alps, i am trying to convince my wife to do the 100 mi trek around Mount Blanc

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That sounds amazing!

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That would be a tough. She'll probably be knocking down 25+ miles days if you plan to meet here more than a month after she starts.

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10 days in London, 2 in Paris, 10 in Tuscany (three in Florence, then a week at this little cottage), back to London for a night, then home.

https://www.homeinitaly.com/luxury-villa-for-rent-in-italy-tuscany-chianti-area/villa-pratomaggio_806

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that all seems very civilized.

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OMG and Wow! Talk about being a .0001%-er experience!

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"indoor capacity up to 40 guests"

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This sounds amazing. I've been to Europe once, in 2004. Visited London, Oxford, Brighton, and a 5 day jaunt to Barcelona. I am aching to go back.

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"little cottage" looks nice.

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Definitely. It looks like a serene and peaceful place to spend a week

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And go wine tasting.

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For sure. We're going here, which seems like a place you would like (check out the art situation) https://www.castellodiama.com/en/

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I'll be the driver.

I can drive.

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It seems to me you are dead to me for some reason? I forget why, but I'm gonna hold onto the grudge for a little while anyhow

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No vacations planned. Just No 2's graduation in Nashville in May, a testing event in Seattle in June, a testing event in Sept the week of the ND game. So travel but not vacation.

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So many fancy summer vacation plans! I will probably be housesitting for my parents while they go to Taiwan.

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Kegger at tbb's parents!!

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our daughter might be hosting a kegger too if we go out of town and leave her at home for a few weeks.

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Flying to LA in mid-May for my first trip there since covid. It will be a whirlwind trip to have Cf-98 meet all the friends/family that have been waiting to meet her for the past year and a half.

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bought tix to Japan (first time there since 4 years ago). still waiting to see what the rules will be in three months. as of now, we have applied for visas (which is new), so waiting on that. from there, it's how long we need to quarantine in hotels after arriving...

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I just checked on Netflix to see the Japanese name ("Doing it for the First Time"...which sounds worse in English), and in the upper-left "warning" corner, it says Violence, Gore...what do they have these kids doing?!?

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Ha! We do need to put our daughter to work, tho. (Altho she is pretty helpful for a 6-yo.) I will be checking out that show!

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the Tour de France passes thru the village where my neighbors have a house in the Alps, Allemond, on the way up the Alpe d'Huez on Bastille Day. the plan is to go for a couple weeks, watch the Tour and ride around in the area for a bit.

ideally we will combine w/ some other vacation in the area as well as just staying longer and working remotely.

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I'm not a huge cycling fan but I would like to see a couple of stage days of the tour including in the Alps. My uncle owns (or has an interest in) a sort of B&B on one of the routes but I never think to check in advance.

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Plans have been in flux. I cancelled my plans to go to Italy, England, France, and Scotland, but the wife is still going to Scotland for 3 weeks. I'm still chaperoning SGB 2.0 for 2 weeks - half of a summer school program at Fordham. It's a single undergrad class targeted at qualified high school seniors. I'll probably squeeze a weekend in Seattle somewhere in there.

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stop by for a beer if you are in Fordham for an extended amount of time. we are close.

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Deal.

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going to SoCal for a few weeks to visit the wife's family

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I'm buying a second home with plans to spend summers there.

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we are toying w/ the idea of a second home that will eventually become the first home maybe. so far Burlington VT is the leading contender but we are still shopping around for the next couple years.

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where is the second home?

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Washington - pretty close to the border with B.C.

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You going for Vancouver proximity or a jumping off point for accessing greater Canada? The Tonasket to Oroville stretch of highway 97 in central WA is isolated and has some beautiful spots. Very easy border crossing right at Oroville to head towards Jasper, Calgary and other spots.

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Blaine is a neat little town and only a 30min drive from Bellingham which has a nice airport. Also has a cheap marina that is close to the San Juans. Blaine also has the best oysters I've ever had at Drayton Harbor Oyster Co

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Cognitive biases

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There’s an internet-centric community interested in “applied rationality”…. I find them irrationally irritating for some reason.

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Mar 31, 2022·edited Mar 31, 2022Author

Going to Vegas this weekend. I intellectually know that, for example, 3 reds in a row at the roulette table does not impact if the next spin will be red or black. But for my actual betting habits, I have that little voice in my head saying that the black is due. Not sure if that's a cognitive bias, or just a blind spot.

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Mar 31, 2022·edited Mar 31, 2022

It is mistaking an independent variable as a dependent variable. Casinos know this, which is why the electronic board at a roulette table keeps tally of prior spins: Manipulating humans into believing a certain color or number is "due" to hit. The funny thing is, when it does, it becomes confirmation bias, and when it does not it is kind of has a neutral effect. As we know, the odds remain the same on each spin and the history of prior spins is absolutely meaningless.

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I choose to both accept that it is a cognitive bias and a blind spot, but also a way to have fun with money I do not expect to win back.

Though the last time I played, I hit my numbers five straight times. That's going to pay for my next trip.

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NASA has a class "Mitigating Cognitive Bias in Engineering Decision-Making".

Case studies include the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters.

https://appel.nasa.gov/2018/04/11/mitigating-cognitive-bias-in-engineering-decision-making/

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The above chart is an excellent example of how poorly people tend to understand the frequency of extremely rare events on the tail end of a distribution.

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The above chart is great but I also think cognitive bias is formed by where you live. Those numbers seem right for the entire US but I am sure they are very different on a local and state level for things like minorities, etc. It would be interesting to see what those statistics are for the state of California.

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To me, the goofiest one is the first one: 20% of American families have an income of $1 mil/year? The Trans/Muslim/Gay numbers are inflated due to both the culture wars on the right, and at least for Trans/Gay, inclusivity in Hollywood.

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The goofiest is the perception that America is 109% Black, Hispanic, or Asian and 59% White. The three worst things about Americans are that they are brainwashed and are bad at math.

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Yep. Though to be fair, it's probably not just Americans.

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It also throws out the "wisdom of the masses" idea. Except when it comes to guessing what proportion of the population are Republicans.

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Except that nowhere near 50% of the population are Republicans. Does YouGov have its own cognitive biases?

https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters

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DBD Cooking academy

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Apr 1, 2022·edited Apr 1, 2022

Was going to make a pork tenderloin tonight but when I opened it it smelled like old fish…. Straight into the trash.

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Wife wants me to make paella for her parents tomorrow night. What are your favorite meat/seafood ingredients for paella? My default are duck legs and tiger shrimp. (Yes I know it isn't traditional but I got to make it enticing for old Asians.)

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the 3 C's ... chorizo and calamari and chicken, but not necessarily all together

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Doesn't chorizo overpower everything in flavor? And I've tried calamari, when it's fresh it's very good but it isn't always fresh from where I get it.

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Have a frittata in the oven right now with mini yukon golds, asparagus, prosciutto and comté in it.

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That sounds good.

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Wife made something new, a hearty salad of roasted veggies and chickpeas over arugula with feta cheese on top, served with warm pita bread.

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I made 干煸四季豆 last night. Turned out pretty dang tasty. Here's the recipe.

https://thewoksoflife.com/sichuan-dry-fried-green-beans/

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Interesting. I've always used a little bit of oil when trying to duplicate this dish. I guess the fact that it's called "dry fried green beans" should've clued me in...

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nice. i try to find long beans because they seem to hold up to the high heat a little better. also very tasty in a slightly different way.

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Mar 31, 2022·edited Mar 31, 2022Author

Honestly, that was the first time that I've shallow fried. It totally works. Created that shriveled, scorched look you get in a restaurant without being overcooked, limp, or - weirdly - oily. Also, I'd go with fresh local green beans rather than long beans from H-mart that have been through a longer logistics chain.

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DBD AV club

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Watched Moon Knight, it was fun - never read any of the comics. His accent could use some work however.

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...because that's not his real identity?

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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Mar 31, 2022·edited Mar 31, 2022Author

Remember how Trump asked Putin to release dirt on Hunter Biden two days ago? Well, Russia did. Let's be clear... we have someone who asked for and received misinformation from a national enemy to harm the Commander in Chief...

https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1509531523065602062

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Some leaked emails from Ginni Thomas. Jiminy. Farking. Christmas.

https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/what-is-ginni-thomas

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"...crazy cat lady with a Facebook account..."

Broo-tuhl.

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"Boomer with an internet connection" lolol

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That was funny and true.

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PRO

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Warriors put up one hell of a fight against the Suns but fall in the end. Friday against the Jazz will be tough, but they finish the season with four winnable games to try to stay in 4th seed (or sneak into the 3rd if the Mavs start losing)

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Sat against the Jazz isn't it? I'm bringing No 3 for his Christmas present, but unfortunately UNC/Dook is at virtually the same time. I put my tickets back on ticketmaster to see if I can sell them so we can find somewhere to watch UNC/Dook. Worst case I'll bring a tablet so we can stream the game.

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Sat is Lakers I thought

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I just checked my tickets. Sat is Jazz. Sun is at Kings. Lakers is Thurs.

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indeed. there was a sliver of hope they would win .. but Chris Paul was too good at the end

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Bobby Wagner signs with the Rams

https://twitter.com/RamsNFL/status/1509611833765728270

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Rams continue to sign big name veterans. I think they are going to sign Stephon Gilmore and Tyrann Mathieu

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The salary cap is a myth.

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Spurs lose, Lakers back into 10th spot for playoffs for now. Pelicans win too.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401360963

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USMNT loses 2-0 to the Rich Coast, qualify for World Cup anyways

https://www.espnfc.com/united-states-usa/story/4628810/united-states-to-2022-world-cup-in-qatar

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Last round of CONCACAF qualifiers were interesting: you could tell that Costa Rica and Mexico still cared about winning, while the US and Canada did not.

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it appears that the early WC matches will be right around Thxgiving. maybe worth considering a trip since i can get some free lodging ..

>> World Cup 2022 takes place in Qatar from November 21 to December 18

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I didn't realize it was so late this year, although it makes sense because a usual June-July World Cup would feel like playing on the surface of the sun in Qatar.

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Yup, that was one big criticism when Qatar was chosen and they moved the dates to accommodate.

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similar thing happened one year when they hosted the cycling world championships

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I had gotten used to World Cup games happening during the summer when not much else is going on, sports-wise. Having it happen in the middle of the NFL season will be a little weird.

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The draw for the tournament takes place on Friday 1 April 2022

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CAL

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Grinnell - the male of the peregrine falcon pair in Sather Tower, is dead.

https://twitter.com/CalFalconCam/status/1509650552904466447

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oh no

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How many level of underground classrooms and offices is that?

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Is the WEB still there? I'm going assume no since everyone has computers now.

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In the first image there's a giant glass and stone (?) building on the street corner east of Pimentel and Latimer--what is that?

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It's a new planned building called Heathcock. I spent HOURS last night going through the new master plan -- it's pretty fascinating (and 226 pages long). Heathcock will provide additional capacity for the College of Chemistry.

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Is Wurster still there?

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Apparently there's a good restaurant in Wurster - who knew?

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Just looked up. Looks different from when I was there. It was called Cafe Milano in 2000s and I used to get panini there all the time.

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Mar 31, 2022Liked by SGBear

Yes, and slated to stay untouched. If I have some time this afternoon I will summarize the highlights from the master plan -- lots of building redevelopment being planned! Off the top of my head:

New Heathcock building

New building on the Dwinelle parking lot

New low building sunk into the ground on the slope where Evans is now

Restore the connection of Hearst Mining Circle to the glade by removing the paving on the west side of the circle

Redevelop Morgan

Redevelop Anthro (formerly Kroeber)

Build a new building on North field (between Hearst and faculty glade)

Redevelop the Hearst annex, including a new field there

Build a new building just south of Sproul Hall

Renovate and add on to RSF

Redevelop Alumni House

New buildings west of Edwards, including demolishing the west bleachers

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Relieved to see that the West bleachers are slated to be demo'd. That's been a small disaster waiting to happen for decades now.

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Thanks for all the useful info and, more importantly, for having the patience to wade through a 200+ page document

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Thanks for update!

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IMO the West bleachers are not EQ safe at all. Guessed the age of it within 6 months based on construction details.

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Thanks, I'm very happy to hear that.

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Nice plan.

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Go Bears!!!

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Cal introduces their new MSOC coach. Welcome Coach Griffin.

https://twitter.com/CalMSoc/status/1509626957482246156

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Every recent Cal hire has been either an alum (Chelsea Spencer in Softball, Meagan Owusu in Beach Volleyball), a former Cal assistant (Sam Crosson in Volleyball), or both (Scott Frandsen in Men's Rowing)...I guess I'm leaving out the fail hire of Cal Diving when Knowlton attempted to break this mold.

Griffin is a former Cal assistant from when Cal was No.1 in the country in 2013.

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Follow W4C's Twitter and get live updates on the WGYM's NCAA regionals.

https://twitter.com/WriteForCalLive

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Wow! What an amazing, sensational, dramatic, heart-rending... exciting, thrilling finish.

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Bears did it the hard way, but survive and advance is what matters.

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[FB] Spring training starts next week

https://twitter.com/CalFootball/status/1509199198633091074

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