Hello, glibs and neighbors. Well, not ACTUALLY neighbors. I mean, that would be weird if we had been passing each other in the store for years and not known. Like the start of one of those Hallmark movies where you’re the successful lady who has to move home from the big city, and I’m the hot dad with a kid who… you know what, let’s just leave that be since there are no female libertarians. But I’m definitely not playing the chick.
Anyhow, West Texas was lovely. many rounds were fired through many guns. I was laughing as we were reloading magazines the last night. I would wager that we loaded at least 500 rounds. And that doesn’t count bench reloads on the range. 1000 rounds of ammunition sounds scary to people who don’t regularly put multiple 30 round magazines down range. It’s kind of like Disney. $1000 sounds like a lot of money until you’re dropping it $30 and item and your kids want all the things.
Right, right. Let’s do some links.
Chuck Norris hospitalized in Hawaii? He must have waded into a lava flow to save a child. He probably hurt himself punching the lava while not killing the kid.
Business Insider headline: What smart people are saying about oil’s latest spike to nearly $120 a barrel.
Who they spoke with…
You can see why I’m confused
This man has obviously seen Airheads more than once. If you’re going to commit a crime, make sure that nobody wonders whether you are evil or crazy.
$338K? So they stole 4 new cars? Hillsborough deputies dismantle $388K multi-state luxury car theft ring
Former camp director stole over a million, spent a bunch on OF whores, the rest he just wasted.
Its spring break, so I was tempted to go old school 2Live Crew and find a recording of “Get the Fuck Out (My House)” in honor of my kids, but have some Joe Ely instead.
Transphobe.
I was thinking: “STEVE SMITH finds your proposal….. acceptable.”
whaddup doh’
That’s what I get for being busy. You probably drove right past me if you took I-20.
Flew into San Antone, drove west 100 miles.
Air travel? Look at Mr. Fancy!
I have, once in a while, shot 1000 rounds of ammunition in a single day. It’ll wear you out a bit. Highly recommended, especially if you have a machine gun or two.
Especially if someone is providing the machine gun and ammunition.
6 guys shooting 17 10 round magazines each. It was WORK.
Obviously Winston’s mom was indisposed when they reached out for comment.
She was busy doing something more important, like laying in a puddle of puke in an alley.
Or fleecing a summer camp director.
Look there are SOME things a nice lady doesn’t do.
This is the best headline since Weird Al spoke the words “Lesbian Nazi hookers abducted by UFOs and forced into weight loss programs” on Town Talk.
Was that lyrics from Evening Star?
correction Midnight Star
Lol, from the Oscar-worthy feature film UHF.
I’m trying to figure out which one of our regular commenters he is.
At least we know it couldn’t have been Al himself. He always wanted a new duck.
I can only aspire to be that eccentric.
I had a customer in the virtual retailing platform for one of our company’s dealership clients financing a $120,000 Lexus just yesterday, so possibly just under 3 depending on the brand and specs.
The obvious question now is — what would be the going rate for a purple Ferrari? With or without duck option package.
Does the duck have the optional yellow crest?
Did it specifically say new cars? Even a six month old luxury car plummets in value.
I know this will shock everyone, but the gun laws in Virginia failed once again!
Guy steals a gun and sells it to shooter, knowing he was a felon. That must be the “cuz-in-need” defense. Oh and thief was already a felon himself for straw purchases, but was only made to write a letter of apology, instead of doing the 5 year minimum.
When “criminal justice reform” supersedes gun grabbing, you can make a fairly educated guess as to the race of the defendant.
Congratulations, you played yourself.
the race of the defendant
And the party in control of the DoJ.
What other conclusion could we draw?
Bubbles in a 3-million-year-old ice core have allowed researchers to measure gases in the atmosphere during the late Pliocene for the first time.
This epoch, when global temperatures are thought to have been around 1°C warmer than today and sea levels were as much as 25 meters higher, is often taken as a cautionary tale for our own time. But the levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the bubbles are much lower than today’s, which might mean Earth’s climate is more sensitive than we thought to small atmospheric changes.
——-
“We definitely were a bit surprised,” says Marks-Peterson. If correct, the findings may suggest that even small changes to greenhouse gas levels could trigger major shifts in climate. “Maybe the Earth system is even more sensitive to changes in CO2 than we have understood,” she says. “That’s a little bit of a scary thought and something that I would say that our record can’t answer yet.”
“Ultimately, any new data that suggests Pliocene CO2 levels were lower than previously expected means future climate change might be worse than previously expected,” says Cristian Proistosescu at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who was not involved in the study.
These fucking people.
are thought
According to a model, amirite?
“is often taken as a cautionary tale for our own time”
So we should be careful, because look what happened last time humans created too much carbon?
“Maybe the Earth system is even more sensitive to changes in CO2 than we have understood,”
My theory is so correct, even data showing the opposite proves it’s right!
“if correct”…”may suggest”…”could trigger”…
Be afraid.
“may not know what the fuck we’re talking about…”, “may be overly reliant on a model that fits our societal goals and is fed only data we’ve ‘cleaned up’…”
I like the quote from someone “not involved in the study”.
Science!
Just wait until they encounter a dataset with high CO2 levels during massive glaciation.
I clicked on that Business Insider link before I read any further. Saw the headline, saw the photo of Krugger, and didn’t read another word.
It’s a good thing to care for one’s own mental health.
I saw that it was Business Insider and immediately moved to the next item because I knew it was going to be something stupid.
The Hillsborough car theft link has been fixed. It’s so hard to find good help, anymore.
“Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in.”
My hee-ROW
Hope you didn’t make Ferris dive in because you were just sitting on the bottom of the pool, Brett.
What did Krugabe tell BI? I’ll never know.
Is this OMG RECORD OIL PRICES!!! inflation adjusted?
I doubt it, because I damn sure remember $120 a barrel oil during the Iraq war.
It’s been almost 4 YEARS since the last time it was this high. Remind me who was President then…
It was more expensive under Biden. At least in Texas. Even a wave of increase over the next six months will be cheaper than Biden prices.
We are also getting socked by a general strike at the local BP refinery. Great timing or terrible timing, depending on whose side you’re on.
COBOL Is the Asbestos of Programming Languages
https://www.wired.com/story/cobol-is-the-asbestos-of-programming-languages/
The most widely adopted computer language in history, COBOL is now causing a host of problems. It’s also dangerously difficult to remove.
Old joke during my college years.
During the run up to 12/31/99, Cobol programmers were in very high demand to fix the Y2K problem. Millions and millions and millions of lines of COBOL had been written assuming that the year was two digits long. Catastrophic results were expected when the date rolled over the 1/1/2000.
COBOL programmers were working around the clock to fix the code to prevent the possibility of the end of the civilized world.
One programmer got fed up of all the stress, so he signed up to be cryogenically frozen and re-awoken in the year 2001.
One day, we wakes up from his artificial slumber and sees a large number of people staring at him. The worlds is shiny and gleaming. All the people are stunningly attractive. He thinks . . “I did it. I survived the Y2K debacle”.
He asks, “So is this 2001?”.
Discomfort spreads across all the faces that are staring at him. They turn and face each other and mutter quietly. Eventually, one man turns and says . . . “I’m afraid not. There was a bug in the operating system and you have been frozen for eight thousand years. It’s now the year 9999. But don’t worry. The system did keep you healthy, and you’ll be just fine going forward”.
The programmer tries to cope with what he has just been told. After sitting silently for a couple of minutes he asks “So, what happens now?”.
The modern man hems and haws then says . . . “We’ve been reviewing your personal information. And it says you’re a COBOL programmer. Well, Y10K is just around the corner. And we’re hoping you can help out.”
I’ve been hearing about how all the COBOL programmers are retiring, there’s no one to replace them, and the banking, finance and military sectors will be obliterated since I first enrolled in college, which quite depressingly, was 20 fucking years ago this month…
Same, but 35 years past enrollment I believe.
Soon the Cobol coders will need to spool up sustainable fusion to work.
I hear Lou Reed is working on that.
No problem. Teach it to AI’s and have them fix the old code. What could possibly go wrong?
Look at the guy with youth privilege.
My last job had a legacy system written in COBOL. It was my job to put lipstick on that pig and write web apps that interfaced to it. The code was 20+ years old when I started there 20+ years ago. It was full of exceptions and work-arounds that made it nearly impossible to convert into something else.
I never learned COBOL.
The only possible solution would be to *accidentally* push the system cabinet down a flight of stairs. A long one.
I never learned COBOL.
I took COBOL as a throw-away course to improve my in-major GPA. After “Computability Theory and Automata” I needed the help.
Old joke during my college years.
Creeping senility sets in . . . .
I actually graduated 15 years before Y2K. So this would be a joke I heard while working in the engineering community.
I actually took it COBOL in college. I was told it would be obsolete soon as I was learning it.
One big issue during Y2K was missing source. I’d be curious on stuff currently running how much is missing source code.
I was working on Y2K remediation at a utility company running a nuclear generating station. They didn’t have source code anymore at that point. Fun times.
Yeah, I bet it’s almost entirely just governments using it anymore. They would rather spend your money on some new graft than improve their systems.
Fuck Grace Hopper. That is all.
I didn’t think fucking Grace Hopper would be your thing, Tonio.
But but but Tonio she coined the term “bug”!
Honestly, aside from that and she was an admiral (?), I know nothing about the lady. Except Nvidia recently used both her names on their chips.
Get the fuck out (my house)…..
BITCH!
Ars manages to make Afroman about Trump too.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/afroman-keeps-trolling-cops-after-winning-lemon-pound-cake-defamation-case/
How… Why?
That’s some brain damage right there to link him back to Trump.
He wore that suit when he met Trump.
The comments are mostly about the Trump connection. A bunch of people who know about as many black people as I do (close to zero) pontificating on why some blacks apparently support him and why it’s so terrible.
Well that settles it. Round em up boys!
I already like the guy, no need to get excessive.
NPR with the most NPR headline. Also at least a month late.
Or it might not.
And USA Today with a perfectly misleading headline.
He’s just softening us up for our unconditional surrender.
Only a matter of time
If there are predator civilizations out there, this volume growth could have dramatic implications for the long-term survival of humanity because they may regard us as a threat and arrive at Earth to destroy us.
Our risk of being noticed increases rapidly with the number of technological centuries we endure. And after being noticed by a predator, we might still not hear from a predator for a period corresponding to their travel time to reach us, which could be as long as millions to billions of years if they use rocket technologies or hundreds of years if they operate weapons, such as a powerful laser beam, that travel at the speed of light.
When F Troop gets there, we’re fucked.
Definitely need at least a several hundred million government study.
Is your fainting couch ready? NH school districts don’t like transparency
Every year, New Hampshire school districts tell voters the same thing: school taxes are going up to pay teachers. It’s a sympathetic argument. It’s also, in many districts, a lie.
This year, when state law finally required them to publicly post their spending trends, several districts illegally manipulated the data. At least three went even further, manufacturing entirely fake numbers.
New Hampshire’s school districts have been unaccountable for so long that many believe they are above the law. To hold them accountable, the culture of the right in New Hampshire needs to change. Local conservatives have to be willing to engage in conflict and litigation, or these districts will keep cheating with impunity.
Sen. Keith Murphy’s Students First Act, codified as RSA 189:75-78, which went into effect this year, requires school districts to post a mandatory report showing standardized, inflation-adjusted graphs of their 10-year spending trends—cost-per-pupil, teacher pay, and administrator salaries—at least seven days before voters approve their budgets.
Under RSA 189:77, if districts fail to obey the law, any local taxpayer can go into court and obtain his own reasonable attorney’s fees from the school district. The taxpayer can also hold the district accountable by obtaining an injunction, a declaratory judgment, and any other equitable relief as appropriate.
Yet school districts are not eager to comply. The charts often give a striking picture of rising costs, rising administrator pay, and stagnant or declining teacher pay. This year, many school districts opted to break the law and risk litigation rather than suffer the embarrassment of posting a candid report.
When enough people from MA move there it won’t be an issue for the schools anymore.
Who went to jail over falsifying the reports/data? No one? Who will pay the settlement even if litigation is brought? The very taxpayers who got fleeced? Seems like there might be an incentive structure in place that encourages fraud.
My dad served on the local school board, there isn’t a principal or superintendent that would have withstood him (at least under the legal system back then).
Computer says 77 degrees outside. I think this is the first time above 55 since last fall.
95 here. Supposed to hit 100 Saturday.
I’ve not been around these parts as often as I’d like lately due to other demands on my time, so this may have already been brought up, but if the powers that be happen to stumble across this, I would love it if links were target=”_blank” again. If it’s not doable with the updated WordPress stuff I’ll get used to using ctrl+mouse1 like I do elsewhere, I just got used to not having to.
We are also getting socked by a general strike at the local BP refinery.
Headline this morning said BP locked them out.
-“A former North Texas summer camp director has pleaded guilty to camp funds for personal use”
What the hell does that mean?
embezzlement
To fancy a word for the readership it would seem.
I proofread every email I write more closely than these fools proofread articles for supposedly major platforms. It’s annoying.
I think im an outlier but I much rather like pled than pleaded
Kimber Kable KS 1036
I was going to buy these until I saw the Prop 65 warning. They were recently reviewed on an audio science site that OMWC and I frequent.
The $12 Amazon Basics’ cable performed just as well, but these are way cooler!
Free shipping tho…
I’ve always wondered how these “premium” cables made from the exact same copper, gold, aluminum, and rubber manage to exceed the physical properties of those individual components, justifying their price. It’s like the South Park cure for AIDS.
Wow, an even *more* racist version of the sun people vs ice people fable!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMLVP-jUKb0
I respond thusly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3grk-slP0LU
WE WUZ KANGZ, A BLOO BLOO BLOO!
The Trump/Japan thing actually was pretty normal. Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers is my motto.
I only read it, but my understanding is the reporter was Japanese.
I think he could have articulated the question better and probably received a better response, but in addition to English as second language he IS a reporter too.
Better response would have to ask ‘did Japan tell its ally Germany it was going to bomb Pearl Harbor”. In which the answer is no…secret plans require few eyes and ears as possible
For a culture with a famously opaque communication style, I’m baffled why the Japanese leader even asked the question.
Fun fact: “quantitative easing” is a literal translation from Japanese.
The Japanese say they have 6 faces and 3 hearts.
visual aid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bmzyg3fKac
Confucius say: honor shame in an indirect way.
reporter?
The subtleties of doing that in English versus Japanese are really difficult. My guess is he didn’t know how to do it without being misunderstood.
My bad. The term was coined in 1995 by Richard Werner but popularized by Japan in 2001.
During WW2 after the first A-bomb test, there was a press conference in Japan whereby the Japanese prime minister was asked for a reaction. His response was mokusatsu, which is usually translated as “no comment” but can also mean “I am ignoring your stupid question on purpose”.
Guess which translation Truman got.
mokusatsu = [to] kill [with] silence
Shaka, when the walls fell…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOnc74Vljx0
example:
If you’re visiting someone in Japan, and they ask if you want to stay the night, they really mean “please leave right now”.
If your employer ever tells you, “we may need to reconsider our options”, you are about to be fired.
もくさつ【黙殺】
noun, suru verb, transitive verb
ignoring, disregarding, taking no notice of, refusing to comment on, turning a deaf ear to
モク, ボク
だまる, もだす
silence, become silent, stop speaking, leave as is
サツ, サイ, セツ
ころす, -ごろし, そぐ, あやめる
kill, murder, butcher, slice off, split, diminish, reduce, spoil
They translated the kanji and not the word. Japanese translation early in the war was shitty, but that is really shitty.
Google translates returns 黙殺 as “silent treatment”.
Eh, close enough.
Man, lots of showings of the house in Vegas. One is interested but shy on pulling the trigger. Come on people, spend your money!
We have an open house for my parents’ house this weekend. Hopefully we’ll get a bidding war.
Can we start the bidding at $2?
Can always start with $2. It baffles people’s minds.
Only right thinkers can dare act and joke about THE NARRATIVE.
To be fair, you have to be pretty clueless to not see that coming these days. Or at any time in the last several decades even.
He’s just softening us up for our unconditional surrender.
All the Iranians need to do is put the plague squishyball on their flag and it’s game over.
The obvious question now is — what would be the going rate for a purple Ferrari?
I’d say $100k less than the same car in red.
Daniel Dye is obviously a retard, but besmirching the dignity of NAPCAR? Give me a break.
I’d still watch it over F1…
Fortunately I don’t watch much of either.
I’d still watch it over F1…
MotoGP, FTW!
NPR headline:
“Cuba’s leader says U.S. aggression would meet ‘impregnable resistance'”
Do the cannons on the battlements of that Spanish fort still work?
Let’s see some of that Vietnam-style combat Trump isn’t afraid of. Roll that beautiful bean footage!
https://youtu.be/Mn5g8DpRrHk?si=xL7GVGhEHdm24__C&t=874
I spent a night drinking and playing checkers with a Kagera war veteran. He spoke Russian because they trained him on Grad rocket trucks.