There’s also “Book” by Robert Grudin. At one point
spoiler
there’s an uprising and the footnotes rebel against the plot.
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Cake day: July 1st, 2024
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Remember most eligible voters don’t vote.
Voter turnout in the 2024 election was 63.7%. That’s still a lot of folks who didn’t vote, but it’s not “most.”
3·4 days agoIt’s really weird rewatching MythBusters at this point, because the show is so heavily structured around ad breaks. It starts with a teaser that includes clips of moments that will happen in the show, then it has an overview of the myths, then it splits into the A myths and the B myths. Each of these gets touched on, then there’s a preview of what will happen in the next segment after the ad, then there’s the implied break, then there’s a review of what happened before the break, then there’s a new piece… it’s constantly revisiting and excerpting things to blow up about 15 minutes of content into a 50-minute show.
Back then it all seemed so normal…
It was the Long Island Ice Tea Corp., which changed its name to Long Blockchain Corp.
https://www.ft.com/content/2ef64f85-18b4-3538-b67e-7fe8ccc4e5e5
Edit: Or the SkyPeople Fruit Juice company. https://www.inquisitr.com/two-months-later-whats-happening-in-companies-with-blockchain-name-changes
2·29 days agoReally! I find that fascinating.
When I try to think of a tune (often because I haven’t recalled the lyrics yet and am still trying to identify the song), I am just listening to the song in my head, trying to think of the notes and instrumentation of the next bit. I hear it, like a recording.
When I try to throw something–I said basketball because I figured it would be more relatable, but the sport I actually played was Ultimate (Frisbee, but that’s a trademark, so the sport is just Ultimate)–I’m picturing the path of the disc, how it will arc on the wind, the precise angle, how to roll it off my fingers, how long it will be in the air and how far to lead the runner. It’s a struggle to even come up with words for it now. It all feels visceral, the same as thinking how to reach my hand out to touch a glass on a table.
It’s hard for me to imagine using words for those kinds of things because words are so vague and general. Words deal with categories we impose on the world, rather than the world as it is. Like, I learned to juggle as a teenager; I could never do that if I had to use words to think about every way to maneuver my arms and how the balls would land and so forth. I just have to reach where the ball is going to be, and throw where my hand is going to be. When I first learned Mills’ Mess, I got it mixed up a bit (because I was learning from a VHS tape), and I had an extra throw in there. It took me quite a while to figure out how I mixed it up, and how to do it without that extra throw. But it was a spatial puzzle. I wouldn’t even know how to convey the issue in detail without just doing it.
I dunno. I shouldn’t be surprised that people’s inner lives are very different, but this particular point confounds me a bit.
When you’re thinking about how to throw a basketball to get it through a hoop, do you use words for that?
When you are thinking of the tune to a particular song, is that in words?
I think a lot of people overestimate the role of words in thinking. There’s a lot of non-verbal thought.
Yeah, I think we just disagree about this. You’re implying that letting this go forward would be giving in to the state acting capriciously, but that’s really not what this is. The states have literally already started spending the money–hiring contractors and so forth to physically build things–based on the funds that the government had already decided to send them, but is now arbitrarily yanking back. Note that this is different from “we are accustomed to receiving funds for this”; instead it’s “you made a specific commitment to provide X funds for Y purpose, and are now suddenly stiffing us on the bill.” In that light, withholding a portion of the funds that the state ostensibly owes the government in order to make up that unexpected shortfall really isn’t that unreasonable. You keep portraying this as them withholding money “because they disagree with federal policies,” and saying “what those policies are and why is completely irrelevant,” but the policy they disagree with is the sudden and arbitrary withholding of previously-committed funds to the state, and they are withholding state funds to the feds as a direct way of offsetting that deficit. That makes it feel extremely relevant.
I just don’t think it absolutely has to be the slippery slope you’re portraying it as. I’m getting into technicalities because we’re discussing the law and precedent, and technicalities matter a whole freaking lot when you’re dealing with the law. There’s a reason descending into technicalities is referred to in roleplaying games as “rules lawyering”.
And as for highly populous states having a larger influence on federal policy…isn’t that just democracy? Power derives from the consent of the governed, and at the moment that consent is at a particularly low ebb.
In any case, yeah, I think we just disagree on this, and it’s all moot in the face of the specific court in power. I’ll let you get the last word if you want to reply, but I’ll probably drop it at this point.
I feel like you’re missing a point here. It’s significant that this isn’t just
they disagree with federal policies that are affecting them.
It’s that the federal government has made a commitment to provide funds to the state (e.g. the broadband construction funds, funds to build EV charging stations, etc.) and the federal government is now refusing to disburse those funds because the current administration has decided it doesn’t like paying the bills the previous administration incurred, at least to states Trump feels aren’t adequately supportive of his policies. The proposal in this case is to withhold delivery of funds the state is supposed to give the government in order to offset the funds the government is also contractually obligated to deliver.
I agree with you that this specific supreme court would definitely rule in favor of the feds, but I definitely don’t think the case is as absurdly one-sided as you seem to find it. I think a different court could probably find precedent for this kind of dispute if they were so inclined.
It’s not just Fox News. Bezo’s Washington Post ran an editorial, written by “the editorial board,” about how Mamdani would be “bad for New York and bad for the Democratic Party,” claiming he would destroy public transit, reduce the number of grocery stores, drive away big businesses, depress low-skill employment, etc., etc., etc. Oh, and of course that this would discredit all the other young candidates across the country. The WaPo’s threat earlier this year to make their editorial page aggressively pro-capitalist and anti-public-good was apparently very much in earnest.
💰 💰 💰
By that logic conception only occurs when you’re two weeks pregnant. That’s an extremely silly way to count it. (Not saying you’re wrong, just that it’s frustrating.)
The slides look pretty similar to the illustration. I don’t think those are actually slides that end over the edge, they’re slides that have a transparent section where they hang over the edge so you can get a little glimpse of being over the open ocean. Which I guess is an extra kind of thrill? I would pass.
Here’s a screenshot of the video for comparison.
Yep. Sorry for the abrupt transition back from camping.
That looks to me like a drawing by the design/architecture team, but there is a real boat like that and it’s a pretty close match for the design. Here’s a video with drone footage from the launch; 1:39 you can see a view kinda similar to the drawing.
Trump is sending 2000 national guard troops to LA in response to anti-ICE protests there, over the explicit objection of Governor Newsom, who would normally be involved in any National Guard deployment in his state. The protests were mostly peaceful, and the local police were handling them, so this is entirely an effort to escalate the situation and show force against a state that doesn’t want Trump interfering.
It could also just be cold reading. People who haven’t been exposed to that can find it eerily accurate, even though it’s just a combination of random guessing with reinforcing the guesses that got reactions. It’s the kind of thing that both parties could participate in without either being explicitly familiar with the technique.
Oh, yeah, the voice is a big part of it. “Everything is possible with zombocom.”
I got the number from this page: https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_voter_turnout_in_the_2024_general_election
which lists it as “eligible voters,” which is in turn based on data from here: https://election.lab.ufl.edu/2024-general-election-turnout/
which discusses the methodology:
So no, it’s not just registered voters. It’s their best estimate of how many people are old enough and not disqualified.