I woke up to a small dog yapping at thunder followed by another that wished to seek shelter in the space between the wall and my pillow. So I’m up at 0400 now. Hooray insomnia!
¿Por que no escriba enlaces?
This fucking guy. His only tool is a plastic hammer.
Well that’s good news. I’m getting tired of $20 chuck roasts.
I like how they frame “hundreds of millions” as some sort of moon shot.
Excellent, soon we’ll topple dictators in the region.
They were so preoccupied ensuring Bolsonaro was no longer allowed to have a career in politics, they forgot his son can run for president.
Here’s a tune, I’m going to make myself some coffee.
I always be a Firstin’….
I have to admit I’ve always found Hispanic girls attractive, but given the race’s propensity to be late I just don’t see a challenge in it.
There’s some particular subspecies of Latina here in Texas that I didn’t encounter in Nevada, and to which I am quite attracted. To my detriment, as the stereotypes about Latinas being batshit crazy appear to be well founded.
You arrive first and bounce as usual?
The Firster is wise. He takes care of his needs, establishes his dominance, and never gives them a name so that he can be called father.
If eliminating goods produced with forced labor were a primary concern we’d been a decade or more into an embargo on China.
Also, I think the only thing I buy that could possibly be affected by this is rum, and Puerto Rico is still, regrettably, a US holding.
Free Puerto Rico!
This.
I hear pro-independence mood is on the rise.
See if you can get this. It’s really good. I brought a bottle back from Tennessee.
https://oldforgedistillery.com/spirits/rum/
I’ll definitely check for it. My liquor store guy here locally is pretty good about ordering stuff if it’s not on the shelf. I’ve been using Don Q for my weekly Cuba Libre.
If the tariffs get high, that would become a viable option.
Ron Zacapa is the bestest of rums
Hundreds of millions of federal dollars are Schrodinger’s money. Simultaneously a rounding error not worth considering, and absolutely indispensable for the proper functioning of society. See also: PBS and USAID.
Sounds like you just want people to die!
Yes, I want commies to die.
Ted.
Ted.
Ted.
Ted.
Ted.
Ted.
Ted.
Ted.
COMMUNISTS ARE NOT PEOPLE.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Stolen. Outstanding barb.
Lula, the veteran left-wing leader
Moderate social democrat. Middle-of-the-roader.
Is the commie actually popular there?
The only poll that matters is the poll of the vote counters.
Those commie shysters Morgan & Morgan are looking to launch a class action against the social media giants. I’m going to join for my check for $6.38 when it’s all said and done.
I got $15 or so from some Facebook privacy settlement. I’ve never had a personal account, but did have a “brand page” for my website/microbusiness.
How did you get a brand page without a personal account on FB?
They nuked my personal page and it wiped out my business page.
There was a time when you could set up a brand page without a personal account, and they grandfathered me in when they ended the policy. Eventually they changed the policy yet again so that you have to attach the brand page to a personal account or it gets closed, so I just paid a friend of mine a few bucks to take ownership of it.
I was asked to join some class action against Amazon. Tossed the email – I’m guessing the “reward” was not going to be worth the time it would take to fill out the forms or whatever.
They make it absurdly easy nowadays for most of these. They typically contact you at the email used for your account and already have all your information, you just verify it and click the checkbox pinky promising under penalty of perjury that you’re eligible to collect your $5 check or Visa card. I actually ended up getting like $200 back on some Home Depot class action several years ago. Something about not honoring warranty terms on their power tools, and I had purchased a couple saws and an orbital sander during the relevant time frame. I did have to provide proof of purchase on those.
I was in a class action against a former employer: Iron Mountain. When all was said and done, I got a couple grand out of it.
The halt of imports drove U.S. beef prices to record highs, hurting consumers and putting pressure on President Donald Trump’s administration to lower costs. The ban also ultimately failed to keep out screwworm, which has moved north through Central America and was detected in June on Texas farms and in New Mexico.
Your government at work.
I’ve completely lost track of okay tariffs versus unconstitutional tariffs from the Supreme Court ruling. Are we going to collect these tariffs, spend the money, then borrow the money to repay them when they’re overturned?
borrow the money to repay them when they’re overturned
Spending line go up!
Everyone gets reimbursed except the American taxpayers who also paid the higher prices for their goods.
Everything old is new again.
For once I believe the media bloviating. China really is A1 asshoe.
Oh, I am willing to bet that China owns 100% of Ortega’s ass in reality.
Weird. I’ve been told for decades that ravaging Gaia for fun and profit was the exclusive domain of evil capitalists.
Dirty capitalists do it for profit. Communists do it for power and profit.
That’s not possible. We all know that only capitalism destroys the environment for exploitation.
Threedoor-
A “milkhouse” heater should keep that bathroom from freezing. I have one in my “office”.
I have two of these in the garage.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CL8FZXKM
The smaller.
Good to know sensei.
It looks like the home wall mounted ones kinda suck. They are all plastic and reviews are mixed. Was looking for something that at least looked more robust and if it burned out wouldn’t have a ready supply of plastic to catch on fire.
I posted late, but the Little Buddy or Big Buddy propane heaters would be a good choice. Suitable for indoors. I filtered on electric, because of your preference.
https://mrheater.com/collections/all?filter.p.m.customAttributes.fuel-type=Electricity
I’ve had good luck with the Mr Heater brand stuff I’ve had in the past except the catalytic propane wall heater I bought for the worktruck which simply would not stay lit no matter what I did.
TOO LOCAL NEWS: Fire at Sig
The Sig Sauer facility in Exeter was evacuated Monday afternoon after multiple 3D printing machines caught fire.
Exeter fire officials say they were called just before 4 p.m. to the Sig Sauer facility on Industrial Drive for reports of excessive smoke inside the building.
“As we were responding, it was updated that there had been an explosion and that multiple people were injured,” Exeter Assistant Fire Chief Donald Matheson said. “When we arrived on scene, there was one worker who was injured. We immediately put that person in our ambulance and began treatment.”
The victim was flown to a Boston hospital with burn injuries.
Fire crews found two 3D printing machines used to make gun parts, with fires burning in the hoppers. After a hazmat evaluation, the machines were removed from the building and placed in sand to allow the fire to burn out.
So just based on what I know about SIG, additive manufacturing, and fires that need to be put out with wet sand…I suspect that the 3D printers were DMLS machines making silencers out of titanium. Powdered Ti is an enormous fire/explosion risk.
Can you print titanium?
With a Direct Metal Laser Sintering machine, you absolutely can. The machines are *EXPENSIVE* though.
https://www.treatstock.com/machines/3d-printers/technology-dmls
I can’t visit that site at work, because I can’t conceal the resulting huge additive-manufacturing boner.
Good lord. You weren’t kidding about the prices.
“Can you print titanium?” <– Got me curious. My hips are forged! Dope. I knew about this part, but not how it was done:
Solid, smooth titanium alone wouldn't stay fixed long-term without bone cement. Modern uncemented implants rely on 𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧—𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐥.
—
Extra dope. In addition: 3D Printing (Additive Manufacturing): By the early 2010s, manufacturers began using direct metal laser sintering or electron beam melting to 3D print porous titanium lattices directly onto the cups and stems during fabrication."
That's really cool. When I broke my right femur, it was legit snapped. In the x-ray, my titanium shunt was the only thing 'keeping' my leg together. That's kinda awesome. (*That* sucked real bad. Got cold-cocked by a dude in Korea while we were watching dudes spar-box and fell on a curb. BUT! I believe I was wise, especially there (for a couple reasons), to take of that with large doses of extra-strength and damn cheap soju. 'Real' pain meds in Korea are awfully hard to get.
I found a titianium hip joint in an antique/junk shop. It was NOT smooth or forged, it looked like there was really cruded dremel work used to shape it on the non-ball portion, I guess that was to help the bone grow onto it.
Caused by a p 320?
OMG! GHOST GUNZZZ!!!!!
Tough year for Sig
You’re telling me. Their staff package at Area 7 was pretty much non-existent.
I still want a Sig MPX Copperhead.
Western philosophy is the racist!
Saw this on the Derpbook and looked it up. It features such gems as:
There’s this propensity among morons to assume that being born in Africa makes one black to where even the ancient Egyptians can’t quite escape the stupid from the “academics” such as this or the revisionist blacks who want to lay claim to another people’s culture. The kangz.
Saint Augustine had a Berber (Christian) mother and a Roman father. Berbers weren’t black. If anything, they are darker today than they would have been historically. The notion that she even was a Berber comes from her name alone. Carthaginians were not black. They were Punic/Phoenician. Hannibal was not black because Phoenicians colonized part of African territory and proceeded to build walls to keep the local populations separate.
Though Augustine’s father liked to cheat on his mom and beat her on the side. So maybe he was a little black? If they want to claim him, I won’t stop them.
The success of the West was all purely coincidental. It’s racist to suggest that anything developed by the West could in anyway surpass the philosophy of the East or heaven forbid Africa where most of the population lived in dung huts if they were lucky before the white man came. And now only some of them live in dung huts and others live in the decaying remnants of cities built by whitey.
Eastern thought is taught in universities regardless of whether it is or isn’t called philosophy. Fairly certain some asshole is out there teaching shit about African ideas no matter how primitive they may be and pretending that it’s really deep stuff. Philosophy is a Western word, Western tradition. So naturally it gets taught more in the West. Though we do recognize philosophy existed elsewhere.
So what are we talking about? Not much beyond the denigration of the West from some dopey little leftist.
Do a deep dive on professor Ron Karenga some time. He’s the inventor of Kwanzaa.
He was a peach.
Many people overlook 2 things in how human progress develops:
Religion and Geography.
Christianity dictates that Earth is man’s kingdom, therefore nothing is truly sacred here and we can drill holes in mountains and cut down trees to change our world. Animism rarely allows for that.
Navigable rivers meant Europe would already be way ahead of most of the world in terms of sharing ideas and language across disparate groups of people. Encouragement of trade as well.
Is there a “racial” component to all of this? Maybe but perhaps if Africa were easier to get from point A to point B and allowed man dominion they would’ve been able to share in the greater expanse of knowledge.
You can attribute their lack of development and frankly civilization to whatever you want be that racial or whatever. But there’s no real argument that across an entire world that they achieved the least as a population and lived the most primitively.
There are former European colonies that have thrived still.
I personally won’t pretend that the contribution to philosophy by Africans is on par with Europe.
I don’t think we disagree. But it’s interesting that there are higher-achieving Africans in America than in Africa, so there may also be a social element. I was just saying those other 2 things get overlooked quite often because colonialism = bad to most light thinkers.
African Americans have an average IQ of just 85. On the continent? 70.
So yea…it’s higher here. But still below every other ethnic group.
Off topic story time:
In the middle of my work shift on 22/07 my internet cuts out. Not usually a big deal. Restarted the modem. Checked the modem diagnostics page. Not locking down a signal after 10-15 minutes. Peek outside and notice that the drop line from the power pole across the street to my house has been severed. There were several large trucks traversing the street to install a double wide trailer on a lot a couple blocks up from me. My guess is one of the fucking clowns clipped it. Helpfully, they didn’t knock on the door or say anything, but apparently did spend the time to take the cable out of the street and coil it up in my yard.
The company I work for places a ridiculously high premium on reliability and attendance. I’ve never missed a day due to illness, power outage, or internet outage, and have taken exactly 3 PTO days in ~2.5 years of employment. So anyway, I call out for the day and get on the phone with my ISP. I explain to the Indian ESL rep that my drop line was severed and I need someone out to repair it. They give me a date of August 13th. I explain that I work from home and that’s not an acceptable time frame. An hour and a half later, having spent ~45 minutes on hold between the first tier tech, 2 supervisors, and the “escalations dispatch” person, I’m told they’ve got me scheduled for August 13th and if anything opens up sooner they’ll call to let me know.
So as soon as I’m off with them I’m on the horn with Vero Fiber – a company that rolled out fiber optic service out here a couple years ago and has been relentlessly pestering me to switch since they first began their rollout. 2 rings and I’m speaking to an American CSM, explain the situation, and she’s in Slack coordinating with their installation and tech support to find me the soonest date. Which turns out to be today, the 28th. Missed 4 work days, only 2 of which it looks like will be covered by PTO (we only get to roll over 10 days per year, but I had something like 25 banked). But I’m back among 21st century civilization.
Now, unlike most of the rest of the world, I rarely use my phone for internet tasks, and have a low cost ($10 a month) plan with only 1 GB of data. So I spent my 5 day exile only really using mobile internet for Squaredle, Quordle, and email. It was basically like a week of living back in the ’90s. Really brought home just how much the world has changed, and just how comically sad my life is. Got some backlogged yard work completed, ran a huge production run of products for my website, visited our local park, and then by day 2 I realized… I’ve forgotten how to be bored. Without the overstimulation of our ever-present packet switching network, and with my entire social life existing entirely online, it was at first a bit strange, and then kind of refreshing to just be alone with my thoughts a bit. Turns out you can also use these electronic computers to read books and serve local music and video files, so I was at no loss for entertainment, but even that felt a lot less frenetic.
Tl;dr – touch grass sometimes, it’s good for you.
Jeez, drop me a call next time. You could have worked out of the guest room for a few days.
Didn’t even think of that, but honestly, it was time well spent. My boss generally loves me, and my performance is always on point, so if they have a problem under the circumstances they can kiss my balls.
Once the fiber company got me installed today and I verified everything was working I called up to cancel my current service. 56 minutes on the phone. By the time I finally got to the 2nd escalations supervisor, they were offering to bump me to 1 Gbps for $10 a month for 6 months and lock me in at $35 a month for a year. I politely explained that the time to bribe me off would have been before I had another company out because of their shit tech support. I would have paid them $100 just to get their asses out and re-attach the drop line. Which I could easily do myself if I had a tall enough ladder or pole climbing equipment on hand. It literally just got ripped out of the junction box on the pole. You could reterminate the end and reattach it in about 30 minutes even if you were really milking yourself.
Pat, ITS A TRAP!
I survived being in RJ’s guest room for a few days.
RJ and his family are great hosts.
It’s not a trap.
He does claim to be a broccoli-headed alien. You probably don’t remember the anal probing because he wiped your memory of it.
Wait! Is R.J. Space Smith?
It’s not a trap.
Phew what a relief.
Wait a minute, that’s exactly what…..
OH MY GOD! They got DEG! He’s a one of them now.
OH MY GOD! They got DEG! He’s a one of them now.
Mind blown.
I spent all of last week in the northwoods of Wisconsin on a lake. I did not previously know the place would be without Internet. In between kayaking and such on the lake, hiking, etc., I read a book I procured at the local flea market. It was quite nice.
We’re next door, drop in the next time you are in northern WI. HH in a few weeks, meet the gang.
Will do. This was my first time in Wisconsin. I’m told I’ll be back next year.
I’m working on reducing my phone time, and I’m doing well. I’m averaging less than 30 minutes per day now. My downfall is my work laptop. I’m on Glibs and YouTube more than I want during the workday, because it’s there in front of me. But, one step at a time.
At night and on weekends, I put my phone face down and it’s really not tempting me. On car rides, if I’m a passenger, I look out the window and/or have a conversation. If I’m waiting for something, I just sit and wait. If I’m outside grilling, I don’t take my phone with me.
Like you, I’m finding boredom again, which is supposed to be a very good thing. I find my self, well, thinking, and it’s nice. My anxiety levels are also way down.
I’ve forgotten how to be bored.
Did you try masturbation?
Yes. Yes, I did.
That’s a longview, man. No motivation. You’ll go blind.
My data plan has had a hotspot/tether since I had a BlackBerry back in 2010, so my data plan was grandfathered in but now everybody’s got data.
I can go anywhere (i.e., libraries, hotels, cafes) and work on my laptop. I won’t go without a hotspot.
I was going to drive to Abilene and grab a Straight Talk hotspot, but of course, I’m outside the service area at my address. They do have Starlink hardware available in-store, but it’s $350 bucks (plus another $50 for a month of their bottom tier service), and even with the uncompensated PTO I’m only out $277, so it wasn’t worth the expense.
We have a visitor in our gym from Ireland. She’s into Gaelic Football and she told me about Sunday’s championship. The team called Mayo last won 75 years ago. As the story goes, during that celebration, they interrupted a funeral procession and the priest put a curse on the team, that the team would never win another championship as long as any of the players were alive. They made 11 appearances in the finals since, but never one until Sunday (and yes, all those players had died).
I do love a good story. The sport looks more exciting than soccer, and the crowd is a bunch of rowdy Irish people, so what’s not to like?
I recall getting caught in traffic at one of the stadiums. That’s about it.
See you should have put a curse on the team.
I don’t even know what team it was. I was in County Kerry.
Possibly Kerry?
Well, if it needs it, you can always use some Kerry instead of Mayo on your burger.
IIRC it’s similar to Aussie Rules which I like a lot. I have even seen them play each other with “merged” rules.
There is one American team from New York that competes through the Connacht Province.
That’s racist!
Who wants to sit coach in the back next to the lav?
New airliner sets record flying 24 hrs nonstop from Australia to France
Ok, so this is a pretty new hotel and it has some interesting features. We’re in a “concierge” room, which allows access to a “concierge” lounge. Which provides free food, snacks, beer, wine, coffee, tea, candy, etc. As such with free booze, no one under 21 is permitted on this floor. The elevator won’t even allow access without first scanning your room card.
Where is this?
Poconos
Well LA-DI-FUCKING-DA
(just kidding … enjoy!)
Just hit it for some hors d’oeuvres. 😃👍
These euphemisms…
So, ya can walk in and take stuff from their bar and go back to your room? Or is it like a neighborhood bar or swingers club, and it’s the communal hang-out spot?
You can take stuff to your room, or chill there. Fireplace, comfy chairs, some smooth jazz playing.
Yeah but you’re still in Pennsyvania
(I was born in Pennsylvania)
There’s a quantity of free liquor I would consider a fair exchange for having to listen to smooth jazz, but I’m unsure if I could consume it all in one sitting.
Spent some time there, eh? So, let’s say I show up one day. (What do ya say?! Rhyme is divine!) What’s the, uh, clientele? I imagine they’re much older, established, than me. (That could be a positive — or the opposite.) Tourists? On business? (Looking for an heir?)
I loved the bar in hostels where I’d stay on trips. Different people with different agendas and plans, but easy to find folk on your wavelength if ya wanted to. Easy to chill, as well. Spend a touch more and get your own room at one of those spots with your current travel companion, and a swell time by all.
Would investigate.
LA to Sydney was plenty long enough.
I don’t get it. My legit halfway ’round the world flights were ~13-15hrs. Is this a scenic trip? Purposefully going in circles?
Coming home from Korea and we had a stop in Hawaii. The flight was practically empty, so I got bumped up to Business Class, and I had the whole row to myself. Not just the middle four, but the 2 or three on the sides. Other folks got it, too. People were sleeping on all four seats. That was pretty slick.
London’s ‘Trans+ Pride’ was a festival of violent bigotry
Ohhhhh, I get it. I’m not persecuted, I’m just a asshole…
So funny.
‘ve seen that one before but I still laughed.
Uh….
I think they have it backwards.
I told my wife I asked Claude to plan an itinerary for our upcoming trip to NYC and she asked me who Claude was.
I wanted to see what it would produce. I gave it parameters and our top things to do and it came up with a decent plan.
So you’re saying Claude is no clod?
No. I’m sure any other AI could do the same. I don’t have it buying tickets or anything. I don’t trust that.
However I asked to make a PDF or Word doc of it (not the weird .dm file it defaulted to) and I downloaded it and it didn’t open.
You can’t blame the AI for that, it’s just implementing the standards of those formats.
I was in NYC/Brooklyn a couple months ago, had a great time. Would recomment Gage and Tollner steakhouse https://www.gageandtollner.com/ or Peter Lugar https://peterluger.com/ Also, we found a Ukrainian deli in Brooklyn that was awesome https://veselka.com/
Of course, a Yankees game, the MET and the Strand were also stops.
The war is back on
Iran fired multiple ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in the Middle East on Tuesday evening, in what U.S. Central Command (Centcom) called an attempted surprise attack.
It was the first publicly disclosed attack on U.S. service members in the region since President Trump ordered a halt on attacks against Iran last week.
The missiles, which were fired at 5:45 p.m., were all shot down, Centcom, which oversees operations of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said in a statement.
Axios reported the base was in Jordan. CNN reported four ballistic missiles were fired in the attack.
https://nypost.com/2026/07/28/us-news/longtime-new-yorkers-fume-after-being-hit-with-massive-pied-a-terre-tax-bills-is-this-a-witch-hunt/
If they could just get word to Mr Mamdani about these mistaken tax bills, no doubt he would make things right.
Heh
LOL when the wreckers learn they hate ALL of you.
What are the chances any one of them did not vote for the communist?
We hate the all, the all of you…
*holds hand up* I know! Most of ’em hardly knew anything and voted for him — probably got a sticker, too! — all cuz that’s what the cool kids were doin’? They wanted to look with it? It sounded so damn good! (What their friends said.)
(What sorta sticker do I get?)
When the Brooklyn indie rock nepo babies find out that having a trust fund and 3 rental properties does, in fact, qualify you as “the rich…”
#deluxewaffle218 5/5
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