221 Comments

Over 200 comments? What is this madness?

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What videochat/webconference software and apps are you guys using?

Zoom? WebEx? Facetime? Skype? Discord? GoogleMeet? Hangouts? Duo? Facebook rooms? FB Messenger? WhatsApp? GoToMeeting? Snapchat? Slack? Viber? WeChat?...

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Zoom for work, FaceTime for friends

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Zoom for work except for the one meeting with some from Sandia National Lab that requires Microsoft Teams (they are not allowed to use Zoom due to the lack of security). GoogleMeet is used with friends for online trivia. Skype is used (as a holdover) with a different group of grad school friends for talking during online card games...this has had a few extended (year long) breaks so some people have had to make multiple Skype accounts.

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Webex for work. If I cannot avoid video chatting for personal stuff, FaceTime with US based family and WhatsApp with my cousins in the UK, but that’s usually only for Christmas.

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Work is either WebEx, Teams, Slack, or Google Chat depending on who I'm talking with.

I don't really zoom with anyone other than the DBD zoom.

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I had a physical last week and my doc discussed the results with me on doximity, a zoom-like platform for doctors/patients. Otherwise I'm zooming...

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zoom. plain phone. standing at the picnic table outside the office with masks on.

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Video:

Work: mostly Zoom, sometimes Google Hangouts or Google Meet

Weekly high school friend chat: Zoom

Weekly DnD with Ohio friends: Zoom

Ballet: Zoom

Sporadic video chats with Loveboat friends: Fbook Messenger

One-off video chats: FaceTime, LINE

Text/Photo:

Work: iMessage and Google Hangouts

Grad school friends: WhatsApp

High school friends group text: text message, Google Hangouts

Family and Taiwanese friends: LINE

Birthday greetings for people I only message on their birthdays: Fbook

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Work is Teams, personal is Zoom and WhatsApp, sometimes FaceTime

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Zoom, Facetime (got the final electrical inspection that way yesterday) & Microsoft Teams

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oh good heavens. people are amazing and unobservant and stupid and

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Name a business with seedy practices that you still patronize

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There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. So I get the Chick-Fil-A burger, buy the iPhone and try to make a small difference in other ways.

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

Well.. I use consumer electronics and buy gasoline and use financial services firms and get things from amazon and and and

Pretty much all of them except maybe the local dairy

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I was going to mention buying gas. Dairy can also be bad, both for the environment and animal welfare.

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This dairy is independent and you can visit the cows. To be fair, they could be abusing the cows and I wouldn’t know the signs. But it’s still pretty inefficient use of water and land

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Plus methane!

(I am a big consumer of dairy too but it's too good to give up)

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They can capture that! I had a tenant that designed the systems.

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Right, by putting the manure in digesters, presumably... But don't cows produce a fairly significant amount of methane that they, uh, release directly into the atmosphere?

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Is there a large corporation that does not have seedy practices? Seems a bit unavoidable.

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

College sports but especially college football and basketball.

NFL, mainly on the issues of social justice, equality, anthem, kneeling and of course concussions.

Amazon

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The NCAA

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"I'm in this photo and I don't like it"

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Yelp. They are an extortion racket, but I still use them when in an unfamiliar town

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I use Google reviews from Google Maps. There's no incentive for users to write a review on Google (no Yelp points or status or whatever), so I trust it more.

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

When one of my former colleagues was fired, he was so butthurt that he left a bad review on Google Maps. It's the firm's only review.

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I've been told that "butthurt" is now on the list of words people are encouraged not to use anymore, but I still think it's a good word. Also, there isn't a direct replacement that really captures the same meaning, that I can think of.

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

"Salty" is close but doesn't quite capture the degree of pettiness.

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Yeah, salty's in the same vein, but doesn't really capture the degree. Also, people who are salty usually have reason to be salty, whereas people who are butthurt are blowing things out of proportion.

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Phssft...

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that is excellent

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My son has had good results from using Eater in cities, but I guess that only works in Big cities.

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

I've used foursquare before in an unfamiliar town. A co-worker from England used it all around the world so I started trying it. The other thing I do when I go to a new city in the US is to see what Diners Drive-ins and Dives has featured.

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I'm a huge Foursquare/Swarm user. For some odd reason.

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Facebook: have to use Facebook and Instagram for work, use Whatsapp to keep in touch with family abroad

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

I very rarely go on FB. I really only go on to see what my Louisville friends are up to. I haven't logged into it in probably a month. The most I actually posted was when I did #plaqueacrossamerica when I was driving to Portland from Louisville and the plaque we got for winning regionals when No 3 was 11 went with me. I took pictures with it during the drive across the country at places like the capitols and ballparks I drove through. Also took it to UW, Texas, OSU, and Spokane for the March Madness game that shall not be named.

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I've been able to pretty much avoid FB products all the way around.

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WhatsApp is super helpful for that

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i used kakao to call family in korea and japan.

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Fbook for me, too

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Still on facebook

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still using fb too.

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Ditto. It's still useful for organizing book club meetings and publicizing events for various orgs I'm a part of.

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I deactivated my Facebook account about 6 years ago. I never signed up or used Instagram. Don’t use TikTok. This is about as close to social media as I get these days.

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Amazon. I don't buy Amazon Basics because they compete against their own customers, essentially preying on start-ups. But I can't do without Amazon.

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Same here. One of my excuse though is that I did win about $400 from a now-defunct online trivia game that paid out (if I didn't want to pay a 5% process fee) in Amazon gift certificate. So that's paying for my Prime account.

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Was it themed trivia?

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I was proud that last year I only bought one Christmas present from Amazon out of a dozen or so.

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Yeah, I use Amazon. That's the big one.

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I am mostly good at avoiding Amazon, but I did cave when Scoots alerted me to a Jeni's sale (Whole Foods via Amazon, so...double bad)

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Same. I'd rather not use them, but still do. I do make an effort after finding something on their site, to go to the source.

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Beards can be polarizing. Women of the DBD* what do you think of them? Men of the DBD* and those who dig women, what is the female equivalent, and how do you feel about it?

* - plus others who prefer otherwise

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I detest beards and will not kiss a man sporting facial hair.

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Even if Idris came up with a beard and said, "Kiss Me"?

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Even if.

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I’m not sure what analog there is for beards with women - maybe armpit and leg hair? Anything more than that is either a question of degree (quantity or style of makeup) or outright modification

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In general, I think guys usually look better without them, but some beards can be dreamy.

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Scruffy, sparse, or untrimmed beards (e.g. Charlie Hunnam in Sons of Anarchy) make me gag.

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My beard is three colors and is sparse (red, blonde, brown) looks pretty silly. Women, not too many tats.

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I like tats generally, but I think 1) it depends on what it looks like and where it is (face tats are always terrible) and 2) there is definitely diminishing marginal value as the number of tats increases.

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I just hate having scratchy whiskers on my own face and thus will never put in the effort to grow a beard.

I'm not sure what is the women's equivalent of beards. Maybe facial piercings? For me that's usually a turn-off.

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I don’t think women have any equivalent to beards.

Me, I love the female body in all forms and think it is perfection.

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Long hair v short hair, maybe?

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Nope, you can shave your head or grow your hair as long as you want.

Same with any hair on women. Shave or don’t shave. Wax or don’t wax. I will still love you.

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Both can be good

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I dislike beards

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

I dislike shaving 🤷‍♂️

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Well, ditto, but unfortunately beauty often requires sacrifice.

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my current sacrifice to beauty is covering 60% of my face all day with a pleasingly patterned cover.

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I think the "beauty" ship has probably sailed for me 😄

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Sometimes, blood sacrifices to the appropriate gods in the woods under a full moon...

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That's ok, you don't need to pretend anymore, you can even get married now!

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not sure she meant that kind of beard....

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Well, for me (not that it matters, really) extensive tattoos, full sleeves and the like.

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Is there a tattoo threshold that, once crossed, trends back into attractiveness?

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I think it depends on the tattoos. Broadly I’m not a fan of neck and face tattoos but that’s effectively idiosyncratic

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It's not my favorite, but were I to rule out tattoos, I'd be ruling out a significant portion of my dating pool for no good reason.

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Not for me, I love the female form, and large tattoos break it up, which I find unattractive (not that it matters anymore).

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Elsewhere in college

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#WeAreUnited holds talks with Pac12. Progress made.

https://twitter.com/JeffFaraudo/status/1291751229857468416

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ICYMI: Nate Longshore is at UNLV as an offensive assistant

https://unlvrebels.com/sports/football/roster/coaches/nate-longshore/3296

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Dude has put on a bit of weight over the years.

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FB: Big Sky cancels football season. Sac State, Portland State, Weber State, Idaho, Idaho State, EWU, Montana, Montana State, NAU, Northern Colorado, Southern Utah

https://twitter.com/BrianMacWriter/status/1291508949150314496

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MSOC: L'ville soccer expels 3 players from team, suspends 3 others for holding a party

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/29609680/louisville-soccer-team-dismisses-3-players-suspends-3-others-holding-party

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Oh to be young and stupid.

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Well, you can still be old and stupid! haha

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You just need to look at our president to know that this is true.

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We did a feedback activity at work yesterday to learn more about giving and receiving feedback. In each breakout room, three people were involved in a skit, and the other four people observed, then gave feedback. So, Carl and Jack were doing some work without masks, Sam came across them and had to address the situation, and then we gave Sam feedback on how he addressed the situation.

Before the scene started, the group leader asked Carl and Jack what reasons they planned to give for not wearing masks. Jack said, "I'll say that I was wearing a mask, but they made my glasses fog up, and I almost poked Carl with my screwdriver." Carl said, "I'm going to with it's all a hoax!"

During the roleplaying, while Sam was valiantly trying to convince Carl and Jack to do something safer, Carl said, "Calm down! I went to a COVID party last night, and I'm feeling fine!"

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So how did it wind up?

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Sam offered to step in and do Jack's work, Carl tried to get Sam to take OFF his mask, and the rest of us were laughing too hard to give useful feedback.

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Mountain West student-athletes follows Pac-12 compatriates, start own #WeAreUnited movement

https://twitter.com/jonah_41/status/1291549622385537024s%2F

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Workers of the world unite

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That definitely is catchier than [non-employee student-athlete revenue assets] of the world unite.

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They might not be workers under employment law but philosophically speaking I’d say that they are

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Oh for sure, my silly parsing was intended to highlight how much you have to strain to not describe them as such.

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LA Times: Chip Kelly had CV19 in March.

https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2020-08-06/ucla-chip-kelly-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-early-in-pandemic

Editorial: At least there was no chance of recruits catching it from him.

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"Eight UCLA players tested positive upon their return to campus beginning in late June, but none have tested positive since resuming workouts, according to one person close to the team."

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shots fired.

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If only there were shots.

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Today in Covid19

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Remember the high school student who got suspended for posting a video of the lack of social distancing/masks and then got suspended. Follow up: they suspended a second student before realizing that the whole thing went viral. Principal and Superintendant look like idiots, with the latter saying there was no way they could control what students wear. Students are then unsuspended with no record of the suspension. [JimLookingStraightAtCamera.gif]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/07/us/georgia-teen-photo-crowded-school-hallway-trnd/index.html

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Had my first teeth cleaning since La Rona this morning, they went totally old-school, pointy metal objects, no ultra-sonic cleaning.

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

Yeah, I had my first yesterday. They took my temperature at the door, asked the standard health questions (have you had any symptoms, been in contact with anyone who might have had it, etc.), and also checked my blood pressure right before they started the checkup. Everyone wore masks and face shields, and I kept mine on until right when the cleaning started.

I dunno, all seems fine to me. I also had my first eye appointment earlier in the week, which was a similar deal. I don't think we can stop going to these doctors just because there's a pandemic going on, so just do it with mitigation measures in place.

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Not sure I'm going to do my 2nd cleaning this year. Last one was in Feb. No 2 screwed himself when the haircut places were open. He said he was going to wait until right before he went back to get it cut. Now his hair is like a pompadour and getting worse. He said now he'll have to get it cut in Nashville and isn't looking forward to that.

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

My dentist makes you rinse your mouth with peroxide first. Separate doors for entrance and exit.

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I had to rinse & gargle as well.

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I had a dentist appt this last Monday. Temp check, wash hands, sanitized my card after I paid, etc. My biggest gripe is the staff are in full PPE, but don’t seem to change when walking from one exam area to the next. I have to don/doff clean PPE for every patient room I go into. I cannot walk out into the hallway to “just grab something.” I almost asked to see the state mandated mitigation plan. If I get La Rona, sure as shit I’ll blame the fucking dentist.

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Tough look for kodiak

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(THESE ARE JUST JOKES)

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I had my first cleaning yesterday since Rona. They wore a mask and face shields. They offered me safety glasses. They didn’t take my temperature but asked me if I had any symptoms or was feeling sick or had a fever.

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Anything else like face shields or temp check?

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Both, and a check list of symptoms.

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Sister in law went back to her 3rd story walk-up apartment in Brooklyn to collect some stuff while hiding out in upstate NY at an AirBnB. Water in the hallway on the bottom floor. Huh. Her toilet valve broke and went through the bottom two neighbors, who also fled NYC. Ooof. I can only imagine the battle she'll have with insurance.

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Had the other neighbors reported it?

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Nope. Nobody home in the building (3 units stacked on top of each other).

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there's a million in damages for sure.

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Oh dear

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Oh no :(

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[Covid19] "D9"

[Ohio Gov DeWine]: "Hit"

[Ohio Gov DeWine]: "Miss"

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/mike-dewine-coronavirus/index.html

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That's an LOL JK if I've ever seen one

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

At least it got him out of meeting POTUS!

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

Maybe that was the plan all along...

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The US issued an official travel advisory against traveling to New Zealand yesterday because of Covid 19. New Zealand, which until recently had no cases of CV19, and now has less than 2 dozen. New Zealand, a country that currently doesn't allow Americans to enter. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/new-zealand-travel-advisory.html

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I will note that going back 4 administrations (I've been an expat during Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump) State has ALWAYS been overcautious on warnings.

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I was on a conference call with someone last week who's stuck in NZ. She and her family were living in Australia on a work visa, and were on a vacation in NZ when the quarantine hit. She says they aren't allowed to go back to Aus because they're not Aussie citizens. The four of them have been trapped in a vacation rental in NZ for the last 4 months. They're trying to move back to the US before she's too pregnant to travel, but (other than 2 weeks of vacation clothes) all their stuff is stuck in Aus.

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I follow a freelance writer on Insta who is Australian and has been stuck in the UK this whole time for the same reason. That doesn’t seem fun.

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I read this as “Beware-they won’t let you in”

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State doesn’t want anyone to visit a competently governed country just in case they come back with subversive ideas

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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One-Third of American Renters Expected to Miss Their August Payment

An expansive census survey reveals a nation stretched to the brink by the financial toll of pandemic.

Renters across America are wading into unknown territory. With the lapse of the federal moratorium on evictions that expired July 31 and the end of the $600 per week boost to unemployment benefits, a recent survey reveals the breadth of financial uncertainty now plaguing Americans.

An estimated 27% of adults in the U.S. missed their rent or mortgage payment for July, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau weekly over the last three months. Among renters alone, just over one-third (34%) said during the waning days of July that they had little to no confidence that they could make their August rent payment, a stark measure of the ongoing economic devastation for households stretched to the brink by coronavirus pandemic.

The survey registers the deepest uncertainty across the South, where in some states, more than one-third of renters and homeowners said they missed their last rent or mortgage payment and would struggle to meet their obligations for August. In Texas, for example, 39% of renters said they weren’t certain they could pay their rent (or they were sure that they couldn’t). In Oklahoma, doubt has crept up to 43%.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-07/survey-exposes-america-s-looming-rent-crisis

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It is going to be weird in our area (Davis). lots of renters, but they are students, who may or may not need a place in town. I expect there to be quite a few vacancies starting up Sept. 1 (the traditional year lease start date in town).

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I keep reading all this economic doom and gloom but I am not seeing it. I live in San Diego and haven’t seen home prices, both to buy or rent decrease at all. Specifically I live in Hillcrest and the number of homeless hasn’t seemed to increase and I haven’t seen any businesses in my area go out of business.

I’m not saying we aren’t in a recession or economic down turn. The national numbers all indicate we but I don’t see it locally.

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House purchases have been increasing in some areas. I think some people with money are taking advantage of a slight downturn in market or taking money out of the stock market and putting it elsewhere.

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Tons of military in the area...

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I know we have a lot to military in the area and that does help but it didn’t save the SD real estate market during the 08/09 financial crisis.

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This isn't a financial crisis.... yet.

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¿Que?

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Previous Special Envoy to Iran resigns. Pompeo appoints Elliott Abrams, who was literally convicted in the Iran/Contra Scandal for withholding information from Congress.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/06/iran-envoy-hook-resigns-replaced-abrams-392313

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PRO

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Just put on the PGA championship because I saw that Morikawa is two up on the 18th. He pulls out his book and it's his Cal one. Big blue book with yellow script Cal!

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Braves show Blue Jays' Reese McGuire that they too can play around with their organ

https://twitter.com/PlayoffTanaka/status/1291522024561692676

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A's: 🧹🧹🧹

https://www.espn.com/mlb/recap?gameId=401225864v

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Oly goes deep again. At one point, 3 homers in the past five at bats.

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Giants middle relievers waste Dubon's big HR, lose 4-6. Pence goes hitless, falls to 0.034 BA.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/recap?gameId=401225861

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There's kneel-in-protest bravery. And then there's the bravery of wearing a shirt endorsing the candidate running against the person who owns your team.

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1290771226491682816

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It's going to be interesting to see how this situation plays out. Loeffler says she won't give up ownership and she can't replace the whole team. And don't think she could get players who won't do the same at this point.

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TIL: Kelly Loeffler worked a car dealership after college for four years, went back to get her MBA, then went to work at four different companies over the next three years. At the fourth job, she married the CEO within 2 years of joining. He is 15 years older than her, worth at least a half billion, and prominent GOP donor. Two years later, she became SVP of the company, in charge of PR and Comms. She was also appointed as CEO of one of the company's subsidiaries. She was then appointed to the Senate last year despite never holding a political position.

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Gosh she must have a winning personality!

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Hard work does pay off! She earned all of her success through her hard work, intellect, and perseverance. If she can succeed, anyone can. If they can’t, it is because they are lazy and have no one to blame but themselves.

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depending upon the various CEOs she was trying to get into the pants of, it might have been more work that you think....

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CAL

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I love these trivia questions. It reminds me of when I used to work at the Cal calling center asking for donations. The person next to me got on a call with an alum who said he'd donate $100 for every Cal trivia question answered correctly. We weren't allowed to have phones, and the computers weren't connected to the Internet, so it was really hard!

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GO bears!

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No cheating: restaurants come and go, but who are the 4 age-old anchors to the "Asian Ghetto" who have been there with the same name for who knows how long?

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King Pin

Gypsy's

Sam's?

Quickly?

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King Pin is one of them.

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I think King Pin is the only one of those that existed when I was in school. The back was Manuel's on the right and Golden Boy on the left, Nations front left and I have no idea what was in between. King Pin front right, some health food shit in between. I don't think there was any Asian!

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I forgot about Manuel's. I did go to Nations late at night quite a few times while I lived in Unit 3. That and Top Dog were where I went for a late night snack.

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I can't remember if IB's is in the same building or down the street.

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IB's is just a few doors down.

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Sam's Korean BBQ isn't?

...Thai Basil?

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by SGBear

steve's

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No cheating: Name all 4 dorm halls in Unit 2.

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Ehrmann. Griffiths. I have NO idea what the other two are.

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** bzzt ** time's up. Collectively got 3 of 4 dorm halls. Ehrman, Griffiths, Cunningham. The last one is DAVIDSON. The new minisuites is called Towle. The new apartment building is Wada.

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At some point after I had graduated, I believe the Units all have 6 buildings now.

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I lived in Cheney, Unit 1 and most of my friends lived in Unit 1 or Unit 3. I didn’t have any friends in Unit 2 so I didn’t spend any of my time there.

I think I can only name one of the halls Cunningham.

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Most of my friends also lived in Unit 1 (where I lived) or Unit 3 as well. Just from the map, one would obviously prioritize Units 1/3 over 2 when picking the dorms.

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i was in deutsch unit 1.

yeah...that's kinda strange...i didn't have any friends at unit 2 either.

had friends from every dorm...unit1/3/foothill/bowles/co-ops/clark kerr...but no unit 2.

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I remember when Deutsch was men only.

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My understanding is they put a lot of transfer students in Unit 2. Perhaps that is why?

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No cheating: North Gate Hall is next to this structure. What side of campus is it on and what is it?

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Not sure what you're asking here, but isn't the North Gate Hall on the North side nex to he North "Gate" that are just two columns?

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Yes. This was my "when was the War of 1812" question.

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Yeah I think that's North Gate Hall (the dark brown shingled? one). I had a Rhetoric class there.

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No cheating. Blondie's Pizza fourth choice was the Carnivore. What were the previous 3 standard fixed choices?

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** bzzzzt ** time's up. The answers are: cheese, pepperoni, and vegetarian. They had a Daily Special too, but it wasn't fixed.

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No cheating: describe the sculpture that is on Eucalyptus Grove off Oxford Circle.

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by SGBear

It's like a globe with big fissures in it and you can see a lot of cubic geometry inside

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If anyone does geocaching, there's a cache near here...

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by Rick Chen

I've gone geocaching once, because it was walking distance from my apartment. But will definitely keep this in mind for the next time I'm on campus.

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Yes! It's called the Pomodoro Sphere, named after its creator Arnoldo Pomodoro. He made a sister piece for it and it sits at Trinity College in Dublin, just outside... wait for it... Berkeley Library. Both are the California city and the Trinity library are named after Irish philosopher George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne.

https://i0.wp.com/www.tcd.ie/library/berkeley/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/P7015055.jpg?resize=2000%2C1200&ssl=1

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I need to do more research on this, but aren't there also very similar pieces in DC (Smithsonian), NYC (United Nations), Japan (Hakone Open Air Museum), and the Vatican? And that's just places that I have personally noticed it (because I remember the one in Berkeley).

They are all spheres with fissures, maybe the two named after Berkeley are more similar than the others?

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The artist made bunches of them.

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I noticed that sculpture when I was last in Dublin.

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That’s some real good trivia.

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seriously. i gotta remember that one.

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No cheating: This alumnus is an ethnic Korean, but was born in Japan, went to Cal, sold an electric translator for $1.7m, then graduated in 1980 w/ an Econ/Comp Sci degree. He has been a serial investor since then. Who is this Son of California?

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He's also the guy (or his investment firm) who overfunded WeWork. His strategy was to way overfund companies in order to get them to help crush competitors.

He also got a lot of money by mentioning to Steve Jobs during the iPod era that when/if he built a phone, he wanted exclusive rights to launch in Japan. And so his phone company was the first to offer the iPhone in Japan

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by SGBear

Masayoshi Son

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by SGBear, Rick Chen

e.g., the Softbank guy

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or as my mom calls him, son jung eui.

dude owns a sports team in japan...there's gotta be a way to get him to fund cal atheletics...like, he's worth like between $35bb-$40bb...

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the guy mark davis wouldn't meet with to talk about building a stadium in oakland.

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Without cheating, Cal belongs to the America East Athletic Division for which sport?

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Is it lacrosse? Field hockey?

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Ruey had the correct answer first, but it got deleted somehow. Field Hockey.

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"Fun" supplementary fact, before the America East, Cal and fellow California based field hockey teams were in he NorPac conference...one whose membership included Appalachian State, Liberty, Davidson, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Pacific_Field_Hockey_Conference

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Without cheating, who was the master architect for UC Berkeley, designing many of its iconic structures?

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by SGBear

John Galen Howard

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Without cheating, who's bust is featured on Sather Tower?

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Aug 7, 2020Liked by SGBear, Rick Chen

I believe it is Abraham Lincoln. The President who has done the second most for African Americans in this country, he only trails Donald Trump.

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