I remember the bomb that went off at the Barneys (I think) casino at South Lake Tahoe maybe in the very late 70s. Maybe it was Harveys. It was the one across the street from the Harrahs at Stateline.
I was in Boston during the Marathon bombing and almost went to check out the race (but decided to be a good little grad student instead). The subsequent manhunt was more unsettling because that was somewhat around where I was living at the time.
I'd run out of coffee the day before, and was really jonesing for it the day of the lockdown. But, at least the company I somewhat newly worked for at the time had denied my VPN access request only weeks prior, so it was a big "I cant do any work today" stick it to ya kind of day. (Also, I lived in North Cambridge at the time, close enough to Watertown and the action to hear sirens throughout the days)
After having cable internet for the last 15 years, I finally switched to fiber. I'm now paying $15 less per month for a 10x increase in download speed and 100x increase in upload speeds.
I'm very thankful to live in a rare locale with more than one choice for high-speed internet providers.
I had Comcast but knew Verizon was available because a few of my neighbors were using them. But I don't know of any systematic way of identifying who's available (although I suppose you could plug your address into various ISPs' websites to see if they service your house).
I just got on Verizon for the new digs, but my current quest is to extend internet around the house. (Working on a MoCA connection since the house has coax everywhere but no ethernet.) If the ISP turns out to be the limiting factor, I suppose we'll upgrade, but I think right now having only WiFi and having it in the living room, which is an add-on room, might be holding us back.
Verizon can do MoCA, although it may constrain bandwidth if too many other services are using those same coaxial lines. We looked into it because we're wired for coax but not ethernet, but we ended up sticking with wifi since we hadn't had any signal interference issues anywhere in the house.
Wait until the M2 Macs come out. I think they're restoring many of the ports. Although No 1 was looking at the MBP so maybe the Air is different. Also getting rid of the touch bar which No 1 was happy about.
I've been a Macbook Pro convert since probably 2015. I can still run Windows using Parallels. Pricewise it's higher but they seem to be some of the best designed and built laptops. I've never had a problem with the screen hinge. The only ones that may be as good windows wise might be the Dell XPS.
I've had good experiences with Dell's XPS line. The missus uses one for her work laptop and I have a 14-year-old XPS desktop that's still alive and kicking (at this point it's only used for redundant storage and playing music).
Otherwise, I haven't been too impressed with Windows OEMs. But I've had great experiences with Chromebooks as my personal laptop.
I'm on all Dell Optiplex Micro's at work and they're pretty great.
For a laptop, I have an Inspiron 2-in-1 (the screen folds down to become a tablet) but apparently you need dedicated pressure sensitivity to do any worthwhile writing on it, so that feature is mostly for watching movies on airplanes.
maybe. It is a work one so I think the plan is to probably just repair it. Don't need my small company to spend almost 2K on a new MBP when repairing the old one for maybe 5-600 works.
they're going to be huge in the NIL world for college athletes. Thibodeaux from Oregon already getting multiple 6 figures for NFT stuff from Phil Knight
Exactly. You can be certain Thibodoux was already getting something....now Oregon no longer needs to keep up pretenses...same with Alabama, tOSU, Miami, etc.
The rich are just going to get richer with this NIL nonsense.
Exactly! I trust this D with a 2 score, 2nd half lead, unlike the Dykes era. They just can't seem to get there often enough!
A concern is that Wilcox's penchant for taking the air out of the ball with a 2nd half lead (to limit turnovers/play the field possession game) often results in L's even when the D doesn't collapse....the margin for error is so slim, and it's tough to keep asking the D to get stops.
If we had a dominant O-line, it'd be different. But constantly going 3 & out with straight vanilla play calling in the 4th Q is tough.....
I was doing some unpacking and putting some old shirts into storage and found my KEEP CALM AND DROP 50 shirt, hard to imagine that wasn't all that long ago
I forget which game I was at during the Dykes era but there was a blatant missed tackle by a Cal cornerback that led to a big gain, and I blurted out to the people around me in classic cheesy indignant fan fashion "Do they even teach tackling here??" The answer to that question was No. No, they didn't teach tackling there.
It's not just their marketing as a bunch of kids/TikTok-ers started memes and jokes about how that was the ideal vaccine.
But yeah, someone over at Pfizer marketing was able to get everyone just attributes the vaccine to them and omits the fact that BioNTech developed the vaccine; Pfizer just helped with testing and manufacturing.
Their partnership with Fosun Pharma here in China is about to move into manufacturing phase end of August and China is going to supply mRNA vaccines to stack on top of the inactive virus vaccines (currently from SinoPharm and SinoVac) in the market. I also own Pfizer stock.
student in China emailed me expressing concern about the safety about coming to the U.S. I did my best to coming some statistics about how our current surge is almost exclusively the unvaccinated and breakthrough infections are quite mild, but I wasn't feeling so great about recommending all that air travel.
I mean maybe it's changed a bit from Delta being more transmissible, but given the requirement to wear masks on a plane, air exchange, and air filtering in a plane, I'd venture that it's not all that risky. Especially if they've been vaccinated to be able to come on campus.
I don't really think any of it is particularly risky, but probably any time spent unmasked (e.g. for eating) in an airport terminal, unless the circulation / filtration is good.
I think LAX is his only option unless he flies through a different country (southeast Asia or Europe). NYC is the ideal actually, we run shuttles to/from JFK for move-in, move-out, and the holidays
Just to update what the current situation is in China - there are currently reported 108 local transmissions of the Delta varient (and 9 imported cases in Shanghai - one of whom is Jeremy Lin!). Since the 108 cases got reported last week, public places + office buildings have gone back to requiring a showing of health codes, hotels in other places have turned away Shanghai colleagues (the outbreak was in Nanjing! We had one positive test) and masks are back to being enforced at malls and other large indoor places. Even my crappy, lazy mostly Chinese office building made people show health codes for two days before the security guards went back to waving people through.
On the other hand, the news here has played up the attacks on Asian Americans for a bit over the summer - I had a cab driver ask me if it was really that dangerous - I said, well the attacks are happening and it's important that we find a way to stop them, on the other hand the news will also amplify here - and he agreed with that.
So your student may also have anxiety about being Asian in the US too.
Texas -- Texas A&M: The Aggies are coming off their best season since 2012 when they won 11 games and Johnny Manziel hoisted the Heisman Trophy. Coach Jimbo Fisher finally seems to have this program at the level capable of competing for SEC West titles. Other Lone Star State schools like Texas, SMU, Baylor and TCU have had their moments in recent years, but Texas A&M has remained consistent and now appears to be peaking entering 2021. -- Kercheval
obligatory response. atm is improved but look at their schedule. They got boat raced by Bama and the rest of their schedule (9 wins) was a collective 30-50. Best win was against 8-4 Florida (who got curb stomped by 35 by Blowkahoma) and a 6-4 Auburn team. atm is a mirage breaking in a new QB this year so we'll see...
And the 8-game conference schedule makes it much easier to squeeze in another cupcake game. The Pac-12 needs to get some scheduling parity if they want to stop being left out of the playoffs.
It's really a numbers issue at the conference level. The extra conference game guarantees half your teams 1 win and half 1 loss. Which is then put into perspective of the other conferences teams, who by and large may be scheduling a more winnable game (with some against G5 or FCS), and have their teams finish above .500 in that extra non-conference game.. which extends to being advantageous for post season standings. And also yes, additionally throw in the competitive nature of conference games and upsets, and that can knock down the national standing of its top team(s), leaving the conference out of the picture in the old/current playoff format.
Having that extra conference game guarantees 6 more losses among conference members (along with 6 more wins). If everyone scheduled some lower tier P5 or G5 teams, the conference might go 8-4 or 9-3 with that extra game. Conference opponents would then, on average, have more wins and in-conference wins would look better as well (and losses wouldn't look as bad).
i played HS fb in CT in the glory days of the late 90's and had a few teammates go play at then lowly Sacred Heart, so this is great! (except for the one ended up playing at UCONN [albeit they were still division "1AA" at that time])
I caught the tail end of his resignation speech and it was pretty self-indulgent. Lots of talk about the advances made in minimum wage, LGBTQ rights, and women's rights *cringe* under his watch. Maybe he was more apologetic early in the speech, but I won't hold my breath.
I figured that Cuomo intended to become the state level answer to a defiant Donald Trump. Reality caught up with him, I guess. The legislature was poised to kick his sorry hindquarters to the curb via impeachment.
I will note that the WaPo article indicates his resignation becomes effective in 14 days. Plenty of time in which to stir up garbage as he's leaving. This is the period in which he does his level best to undermine the investigations that could land him in jail.
Bomb threat
i was about to grab lunch at Chelsea Market, but found all sorts of police activity as i walked up.
now i hear the evacuated because of some bomb threat.
not that i am against being careful but it would be interesting to knows
- the number of bomb threats
- the number of bombs diffused or intercepted
- the number of bombs that go off
my guess is that the last 2 numbers are 0 given the notification of a bomb threat.
I remember the bomb that went off at the Barneys (I think) casino at South Lake Tahoe maybe in the very late 70s. Maybe it was Harveys. It was the one across the street from the Harrahs at Stateline.
I was in Boston during the Marathon bombing and almost went to check out the race (but decided to be a good little grad student instead). The subsequent manhunt was more unsettling because that was somewhat around where I was living at the time.
I'd run out of coffee the day before, and was really jonesing for it the day of the lockdown. But, at least the company I somewhat newly worked for at the time had denied my VPN access request only weeks prior, so it was a big "I cant do any work today" stick it to ya kind of day. (Also, I lived in North Cambridge at the time, close enough to Watertown and the action to hear sirens throughout the days)
I think that was Harvey's.
Folks were ordering Harvey Wallbangers.
DBD IT
After having cable internet for the last 15 years, I finally switched to fiber. I'm now paying $15 less per month for a 10x increase in download speed and 100x increase in upload speeds.
I'm very thankful to live in a rare locale with more than one choice for high-speed internet providers.
oh wow! is there an easy way to look up who your provider options are?
I had Comcast but knew Verizon was available because a few of my neighbors were using them. But I don't know of any systematic way of identifying who's available (although I suppose you could plug your address into various ISPs' websites to see if they service your house).
I just got on Verizon for the new digs, but my current quest is to extend internet around the house. (Working on a MoCA connection since the house has coax everywhere but no ethernet.) If the ISP turns out to be the limiting factor, I suppose we'll upgrade, but I think right now having only WiFi and having it in the living room, which is an add-on room, might be holding us back.
Verizon can do MoCA, although it may constrain bandwidth if too many other services are using those same coaxial lines. We looked into it because we're wired for coax but not ethernet, but we ended up sticking with wifi since we hadn't had any signal interference issues anywhere in the house.
I think my work Macbook Pro just died. SMC reset and PRAM/NVRAM reset didn't work either.
that sounds bad. At least it's not your cost to replace
I have the exact same laptop as my personal laptop so I can swap SSDs and keep working, which is convenient.
i need to get a new personal laptop to do non-work things.
i sort of had one, but older daughter took it over when her MacBook Air died
I think my 2014 Air is about to die. Need to look into a replacement. I will miss my USB ports.
I thought I would - I haven't, but as they say YMMV.
Wait until the M2 Macs come out. I think they're restoring many of the ports. Although No 1 was looking at the MBP so maybe the Air is different. Also getting rid of the touch bar which No 1 was happy about.
when is that?
Rumors seem to indicate first half of next year.
No 1 said he thought end of this year, maybe before Christmas.
I've been a Macbook Pro convert since probably 2015. I can still run Windows using Parallels. Pricewise it's higher but they seem to be some of the best designed and built laptops. I've never had a problem with the screen hinge. The only ones that may be as good windows wise might be the Dell XPS.
I've had good experiences with Dell's XPS line. The missus uses one for her work laptop and I have a 14-year-old XPS desktop that's still alive and kicking (at this point it's only used for redundant storage and playing music).
Otherwise, I haven't been too impressed with Windows OEMs. But I've had great experiences with Chromebooks as my personal laptop.
I'm on all Dell Optiplex Micro's at work and they're pretty great.
For a laptop, I have an Inspiron 2-in-1 (the screen folds down to become a tablet) but apparently you need dedicated pressure sensitivity to do any worthwhile writing on it, so that feature is mostly for watching movies on airplanes.
i just want my ESC key back!!
i like my MacBook pro a lot too. i dont really need to run Windows.
just run python/machine learning stuff natively on the Mac and the good thing is that it is easily transferable to a Unix/Linux environment.
and i can of course remote login to any AWS/Google machine that is running the more memory/CPU intensive stuff.
nope. I think if a new logic board costs too much they'll just get me a new one.
weird....it came back on. and it wasn't even reset. Strange.
Might be a good indicator to still prepare to replace it at your convenience before it dies again, maybe for good.
maybe. It is a work one so I think the plan is to probably just repair it. Don't need my small company to spend almost 2K on a new MBP when repairing the old one for maybe 5-600 works.
you just had to threaten it with replacement.
or talk about it
Fad
Weird 70's fad: CB radios, truckers viewed as the last cowboys, movies like Smoky and the Bandit, want to freak yourself out? Watch this: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382219/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_4
I still use a tablet. PC World said in 2011 that tablets are a passing fad.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/223204/why_tablets_and_pads_are_just_a_fad.html
I think not, I see them as an enduring, but secondary screen.
I think iPads are popular among kids and seniors
source: my niece and my mother
My son openly mocked them, but gladly snatched my old ipad when I upgraded.
Agree. My mom and my nephew.
Agree, me - but only because my nephew gave me his cast-off when he updated a couple years ago.
Leisure Suits
Or, the Full Cleveland as Herb Caen referred to it.
angels flight pants, silk shirts. Disco forever!
I used to have a Qiana shirt!
:D
Pogs
I remember my boss and his son playing with Pogs, around 1996 I think.
Generics
are NFTs still popular and the media just ignores them now? or are they done?
they're going to be huge in the NIL world for college athletes. Thibodeaux from Oregon already getting multiple 6 figures for NFT stuff from Phil Knight
I guess props for athletes making money off of literally nothing
its just going to legalize the stuff that was happening under the table plus give some smart, high profile guys a whole lot more
Exactly. You can be certain Thibodoux was already getting something....now Oregon no longer needs to keep up pretenses...same with Alabama, tOSU, Miami, etc.
The rich are just going to get richer with this NIL nonsense.
A competent Cal offense
Ha!
Remember when Cal used to have a lead AND still continue to move the ball and try to score points? Sigh...
Gotta pack in a couple more TDs before the inevitable 4th-quarter defensive collapse.
Exactly! I trust this D with a 2 score, 2nd half lead, unlike the Dykes era. They just can't seem to get there often enough!
A concern is that Wilcox's penchant for taking the air out of the ball with a 2nd half lead (to limit turnovers/play the field possession game) often results in L's even when the D doesn't collapse....the margin for error is so slim, and it's tough to keep asking the D to get stops.
If we had a dominant O-line, it'd be different. But constantly going 3 & out with straight vanilla play calling in the 4th Q is tough.....
^^this^^ especially about the O-line.
I was doing some unpacking and putting some old shirts into storage and found my KEEP CALM AND DROP 50 shirt, hard to imagine that wasn't all that long ago
I forget which game I was at during the Dykes era but there was a blatant missed tackle by a Cal cornerback that led to a big gain, and I blurted out to the people around me in classic cheesy indignant fan fashion "Do they even teach tackling here??" The answer to that question was No. No, they didn't teach tackling there.
It's more like keep calm and drop 20 now.
letting people vote en masse
Brutal. Just brutal.
As a 10 year old, I had an impressive collection of velour and Terry cloth shirts.
as long as you didnt own any parachute pants
Rayon was hot in 92 when I was in 6th grade
Today in Covid
Moderna vaccine may be superior to Pfizer
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/moderna-may-be-superior-pfizer-against-delta-breakthrough-odds-rise-with-time-2021-08-09/
So maybe the Pfizer marketing dept is better? I seem to remember Pfizer being the preferred one.
It had (slightly) better results for the original strain. Perhaps not for Delta.
Though to be clear, they all still work quite well at preventing severe illness and death.
It's not just their marketing as a bunch of kids/TikTok-ers started memes and jokes about how that was the ideal vaccine.
But yeah, someone over at Pfizer marketing was able to get everyone just attributes the vaccine to them and omits the fact that BioNTech developed the vaccine; Pfizer just helped with testing and manufacturing.
Brother and mother in law got Pfizer because they own stock.
Pfizer stock has been mostly under $40 all year but they suddenly went up to $48
Must be getting ready to announce a booster requirement.
it is definitely related to the booster. and if the get regular authorization, as opposed to emergency, then they can start making real $$
Their partnership with Fosun Pharma here in China is about to move into manufacturing phase end of August and China is going to supply mRNA vaccines to stack on top of the inactive virus vaccines (currently from SinoPharm and SinoVac) in the market. I also own Pfizer stock.
I can't believe you take the A-Team as a serious show.
I can't believe you have an inability to notice when you're being strung along.
🤣
student in China emailed me expressing concern about the safety about coming to the U.S. I did my best to coming some statistics about how our current surge is almost exclusively the unvaccinated and breakthrough infections are quite mild, but I wasn't feeling so great about recommending all that air travel.
I suspect the air travel is the least risk part, tbh
you think? residential campus with a vaccine mandate for students + employees can't be all that risky
I mean maybe it's changed a bit from Delta being more transmissible, but given the requirement to wear masks on a plane, air exchange, and air filtering in a plane, I'd venture that it's not all that risky. Especially if they've been vaccinated to be able to come on campus.
wait so what do you think the riskiest part is?
I don't really think any of it is particularly risky, but probably any time spent unmasked (e.g. for eating) in an airport terminal, unless the circulation / filtration is good.
Tell them to fly through SFO or LAX. I wonder if those airports are less risky than others like ORD, Detroit, Minneapolis, NYC?
SFO has some of the most well-behaved travelers in the US. Bartenders think they know why.
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/SFO-has-some-of-the-most-civilized-travelers-in-16370115.php
I think LAX is his only option unless he flies through a different country (southeast Asia or Europe). NYC is the ideal actually, we run shuttles to/from JFK for move-in, move-out, and the holidays
Just to update what the current situation is in China - there are currently reported 108 local transmissions of the Delta varient (and 9 imported cases in Shanghai - one of whom is Jeremy Lin!). Since the 108 cases got reported last week, public places + office buildings have gone back to requiring a showing of health codes, hotels in other places have turned away Shanghai colleagues (the outbreak was in Nanjing! We had one positive test) and masks are back to being enforced at malls and other large indoor places. Even my crappy, lazy mostly Chinese office building made people show health codes for two days before the security guards went back to waving people through.
On the other hand, the news here has played up the attacks on Asian Americans for a bit over the summer - I had a cab driver ask me if it was really that dangerous - I said, well the attacks are happening and it's important that we find a way to stop them, on the other hand the news will also amplify here - and he agreed with that.
So your student may also have anxiety about being Asian in the US too.
Elsewhere in college
Picking the best college football team in each state entering the 2021 season
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/picking-the-best-college-football-team-in-each-state-entering-the-2021-season/
Ouch-
Texas -- Texas A&M: The Aggies are coming off their best season since 2012 when they won 11 games and Johnny Manziel hoisted the Heisman Trophy. Coach Jimbo Fisher finally seems to have this program at the level capable of competing for SEC West titles. Other Lone Star State schools like Texas, SMU, Baylor and TCU have had their moments in recent years, but Texas A&M has remained consistent and now appears to be peaking entering 2021. -- Kercheval
obligatory response. atm is improved but look at their schedule. They got boat raced by Bama and the rest of their schedule (9 wins) was a collective 30-50. Best win was against 8-4 Florida (who got curb stomped by 35 by Blowkahoma) and a 6-4 Auburn team. atm is a mirage breaking in a new QB this year so we'll see...
that's the SEC generally though. all the 9-10 win teams, the wins are against crap for the most part.
And the 8-game conference schedule makes it much easier to squeeze in another cupcake game. The Pac-12 needs to get some scheduling parity if they want to stop being left out of the playoffs.
is our strength of schedule looking strong these days? I suppose it gets hurt just by nature of beating up on each other
It's really a numbers issue at the conference level. The extra conference game guarantees half your teams 1 win and half 1 loss. Which is then put into perspective of the other conferences teams, who by and large may be scheduling a more winnable game (with some against G5 or FCS), and have their teams finish above .500 in that extra non-conference game.. which extends to being advantageous for post season standings. And also yes, additionally throw in the competitive nature of conference games and upsets, and that can knock down the national standing of its top team(s), leaving the conference out of the picture in the old/current playoff format.
Having that extra conference game guarantees 6 more losses among conference members (along with 6 more wins). If everyone scheduled some lower tier P5 or G5 teams, the conference might go 8-4 or 9-3 with that extra game. Conference opponents would then, on average, have more wins and in-conference wins would look better as well (and losses wouldn't look as bad).
sad New England states that barely had a season (if at all)
i played HS fb in CT in the glory days of the late 90's and had a few teammates go play at then lowly Sacred Heart, so this is great! (except for the one ended up playing at UCONN [albeit they were still division "1AA" at that time])
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
New York Gov. Cuomo to resign in effort to head off likely impeachment
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/andrew-cuomo-resigns/2021/08/10/cfd44154-7ac2-11eb-b3d1-9e5aa3d5220c_story.html
I caught the tail end of his resignation speech and it was pretty self-indulgent. Lots of talk about the advances made in minimum wage, LGBTQ rights, and women's rights *cringe* under his watch. Maybe he was more apologetic early in the speech, but I won't hold my breath.
Well... in public he was very supportive of women's rights, in private, however, it was a different story.
It occurs to me that there's no *legal* reason why Cuomo couldn't run for re-election in 2022.
Depending on his level of delusion, he might just try it.
No worries, he will be "re-instated" first.
maybe he should just run for President!
He'd need to re-register as a Republican!
Finally read the room...
I figured that Cuomo intended to become the state level answer to a defiant Donald Trump. Reality caught up with him, I guess. The legislature was poised to kick his sorry hindquarters to the curb via impeachment.
I will note that the WaPo article indicates his resignation becomes effective in 14 days. Plenty of time in which to stir up garbage as he's leaving. This is the period in which he does his level best to undermine the investigations that could land him in jail.
Democrats’ infrastructure visions take a bipartisan detour
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/10/transportation-bipartisan-democrats-infrastructure-plan-503055
PRO
CAL
Go Bears!!!
Was wearing my Cal hat on BókhlöðustÃgur in ReykjavÃk. I received and immediately fired back a hearty GO BEARS!
Go Bears!