Linky Friday: Service, Server, Servant

by · August 31, 2018

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Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has been the Managing Editor of Ordinary Times since 2018, is a widely published opinion writer, and appears in media, radio, and occasionally as a talking head on TV. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter@four4thefire. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew'sHeard Tell Substack for free here:

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84 Responses

  1. Crprod says:
    August 31, 2018 at 9:04 am

    SE11: Kroger has closed all its NC Triangle locations in Durham, Raleigh, etc on the basis of not growing enough. Kroger employees were unionized, and cynics point out that most of the stores will remodel and open as Kroger’s nonunionized subsidiary Harris-Teeter. I can’t recall any other supermarket in Durham that still had tabloids like National Enquirer by the checkout lines so that is one small gain.Report

    • fillyjonk in reply to Crprod says:
      August 31, 2018 at 11:01 am

      Interesting, I did not realize the employees were unionized. Are they everywhere? I definitely prefer shopping at Kroger (when I have time to do the hour’s round-trip drive) than at the local wal-mart.

      I expect we’ll get grocery delivery services here approximately 20 minutes before the sun’s expansion engulfs the earth. All those cool innovations that mean people don’t have to spend large amounts of time doing stuff and interacting with difficult people never come here.Report

    • Andrew Donaldson in reply to Crprod says:
      August 31, 2018 at 11:08 am

      There is a bit more too ut than just that. Harris Teeter that bought 8 of the closing RDU is under the same company but runs as a separate division, and those 8 will be remodeled/rebranded to the slightly higher end HT brand, while others are sold off to Food Lion and developers. All were underperforming and several were redundant in an over saturated market so there was several factors involved. https://www.newsobserver.com/latest-news/article213090544.htmlReport

  2. Michael Cain says:
    August 31, 2018 at 9:24 am

    Se2: Wouldn’t it be easier and a lot cheaper to just lift out the reactor compartments for disposal (probably at Hanford, in the damned open-air trenches), then just scuttle the hull someplace where the water’s nice and deep? The Puerto Rico Trench is fairly handy to Virginia where the ship is currently berthed.

    Sr4: Link doesn’t go to anything that seems appropriate.

    WT1: Just yesterday I was soldering a header onto a small circuit board and thinking to myself that a third hand would have been very useful.Report

    • Andrew Donaldson in reply to Michael Cain says:
      August 31, 2018 at 9:40 am

      Fixed the link on Sr4 thank youReport

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Michael Cain says:
      August 31, 2018 at 10:11 am

      Because Greenpeace (among others) would make a complete nuisance of itself through the whole process.Report

      • Andrew Donaldson in reply to Oscar Gordon says:
        August 31, 2018 at 10:15 am

        You saw the kayak mess with the drilling platforms ot would be worse than that I would think.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to Oscar Gordon says:
        August 31, 2018 at 1:31 pm

        The Navy and Marines can’t handle Greenpeace for a few days?

        After downloading the GAO report and skimming it, the scarier part — to me, at least — is that a number of the cost-saving plans call for removing the reactor compartments somewhere other than Puget Sound. Then turning regulation of their disposal over to either the civilian NRC or the local state. Transportation methods and storage locations “to be determined”. The NRC is being more polite than “Oh, hell no!” but not much.Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to Michael Cain says:
          August 31, 2018 at 1:42 pm

          We had to deal with them once, but we couldn’t get permission to shoot them, so it really was a miserable couple of days.

          ETA: I thought the Navy had plans for decomming the big nukes, once upon a time? Did they get scrapped?Report

          • Michael Cain in reply to Oscar Gordon says:
            August 31, 2018 at 4:42 pm

            My understanding is that the fundamental problem is the four big shipyards can’t keep up with the maintenance on the carriers and subs. And the problem is getting worse because the yards themselves are falling apart. Taking yard facilities out of service for maintenance puts ship maintenance even farther behind. And pulling the reactors from the Enterprise will take up time and resources that put maintenance of the active ships even farther behind. So they slip the decommissioning schedule, and all the time the running expenses for keeping the Enterprise in a condition where she can be safely moved keep piling up.

            Everybody knows my belief that we can see the day out there when the US is no longer a global conventional superpower, because the toys are just too damned expensive. Does anyone think we’ll build all of the 2,400 F-35s? All ten of the Ford class carriers?Report

        • Andrew Donaldson in reply to Michael Cain says:
          August 31, 2018 at 1:47 pm

          It’s a bad position to put the troops in. It would make those folks decade if they could get video of uniformed troops over reacting to them.Report

        • jason in reply to Michael Cain says:
          August 31, 2018 at 2:45 pm

          When our ships were docking at Perth (Freemantle achyually), there were Greenpeace protestors–one dude was screaming “Yankee’s go home.” We thought it was funny (because we knew the bar owners didn’t feel the same way).

          When we were shooting machine guns off the flight deck of a ship in the Aleutians, we had to stop because of a Greenpeace plane. There were seals (the animal, not the spec ops) on the ice or something. It was a prop plane and we joked about targeting it.Report

          • Oscar Gordon in reply to jason says:
            September 1, 2018 at 11:47 am

            I remember Freemantle having Dial a Date setup, giving tours of the LCAC to curious locals, getting a couple of phone numbers from gorgeous young ladies while giving the tours, and having other locals help me celebrate my 20th birthday by not letting me buy a drink & getting me safely back to the ship.

            Loved that town.Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Michael Cain says:
      August 31, 2018 at 2:08 pm

      Report
      Report

  3. Road Scholar says:
    August 31, 2018 at 10:44 am

    WT1: I’d use it to hold the steering wheel. Seriously, I think I’m developing arthritis in my hands. You try holding a wheel for 10 hours a day, day after day after day…Report

  4. Burt Likko says:
    August 31, 2018 at 10:54 am

    [Se8] and [Se13] are relevant to my interests.

    [Se8] unfortunately is behind a paywall. Not everything on WSJ is viewable for free, which is fine, but I’ve not subscribed to it.

    [Se13] looks like the same company, though!

    [Se13] also offers some sort of a reason to visit Columbus, Ohio. I’ve never been to Columbus. I can’t imagine why I would ever go. If I do go, that’s the place to stay, though. Room looks pretty nice and it’s cool that there’s a roll-up window into the brewery floor. The “beer-paired breakfast” looks like pizza and burgers, and that sounds like a great way to get ready for a business meeting. The brewery attached to the hotel is apparently going to make sours. Which actually aren’t my thing, but hey, there’s an audience for them and BrewDog’s IPA is famous for a reason. The mini-fridge in the room will surely be stocked with bitter and malty varieties of the house label too.Report

  5. Saul Degraw says:
    August 31, 2018 at 11:21 am

    The most surprising thing about the Jordan Peterson story is that I did not know he had children.Report

  6. Mike Schilling says:
    August 31, 2018 at 12:25 pm

    Jimmy Carter might have been one of our worst presidents

    Or, compared to the ones we’ve had since, he might be in the top 50%.Report

  7. Saul Degraw says:
    August 31, 2018 at 1:17 pm

    Really OT but:

    https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/08/lil-xan-noah-cyrus-who-weekly.html

    Apparently around my generation (but largely younger millennials and whomever comes after millennials) are really into inking and tattoos. I don’t know if this is because I am Jewish with residual feelings that tattoos are taboo, this is one of those weird areas where I am operationally conservative, or a future protective dad (maybe all three). But I don’t get it. Especially this kid, he is a skinny 21-year old. He doesn’t look tough or hard core with his neck and face tattoos. He looks pretty absurd and I want to say “Who do you think you are kidding?!?”

    I also want to say that to the guys I know who went to high school with me and are now thirty somethings with tattoos when I know they did Model Congress in high school. Who do you think you are kidding?Report

    • Chip Daniels in reply to Saul Degraw says:
      August 31, 2018 at 2:06 pm

      My attitudes towards tattoos have grown more skeptical over time, when I imagine what my 21 year old self would have had permanently marked on my skin for all time.

      “Grandma, Pop-Pop looks so peaceful, but what does ‘Gabba Gabba Hey!’ mean?”Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to Chip Daniels says:
        August 31, 2018 at 2:27 pm

        The thing I find socially interesting is how quickly the taboos changed. I graduated college in 2002 and a few people had tattoos then but not as many. A few years later, the number of people with tattoos seemed to sky-rocket but they were still generally small or smallish and could be hidden even when wearing a t-shirt. Now it is not uncommon to see people with these ugly (and oh boy are they ugly) neck and face tattoos. They also tend to make people look more dumb than tough and cold.

        Plus my reaction to seeing this 18 year old girl with her dope fake tough boyfriend is that of a concerned parent. Like all I can do is imagine what if I had a 18 year old daughter and she came home with a stupid-dope boyfriend with face and neck tattoos. I wouldn’t like it all and I am not even a dad yet!Report

    • dragonfrog in reply to Saul Degraw says:
      August 31, 2018 at 2:25 pm

      I suspect you’re wondering “who they think they’re kidding” because you’re applying an earlier generation’s interpretation of what tattoos “mean” to people for whom they don’t mean that at all.

      It’s like seeing, I dunno, someone in the mid 20th century wearing jeans and going “who do you think you’re kidding? You’re neither a cowboy nor a miner.” The same pants meant different things to different generations.Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to dragonfrog says:
        August 31, 2018 at 2:32 pm

        During the early days of Israel’s existence, there was a tendency for parents in the young nation to give their children (especially boys) tougher sounding names from Jewish history and the Torah. This was kind of done to overcome stereotypes that Jews were just bookish and nerdy. Levi Eshkahol (who was PM during the Six Day War) called this phenomena “Samson Der Nebbish.”

        I’m influenced by this line of thoughtReport

      • Maribou in reply to dragonfrog says:
        August 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm

        @dragonfrog Concur.

        But then I would.Report

    • fillyjonk in reply to Saul Degraw says:
      August 31, 2018 at 10:23 pm

      the current generation of college students – lots of them have them but they’re generally less obvious than in years past. Fewer culturally-appropriationey “tribal armband” things. More small ankle or wrist tats.

      Tattoos were still largely the province of bikers and veterans when I was young, so I would never have considered one, and now that I’m old, (a) I can’t think of anything I want on my body forever and (b) I know I’m a giant wuss about pain and needles and (c) I know there’s aftercare required to keep the skin healthy while healing and I am not always the best at self-care when busy.

      I also don’t have any piercings; my parents wouldn’t let me get my ears pierced when I was a teen, and then, once I was out on my own and was like “I could go get my ears pierced!” I was like “Meh, it would be a lot of work to prevent infection while living in the dorm” and so I never bothered.Report

  8. Kolohe says:
    August 31, 2018 at 1:43 pm

    Se2 Big E had always been something of a yard queen during its service, but NAVSEA 08 has really been negligent to let the process be so loosy goosy at this relatively late date.Report

    • Andrew Donaldson in reply to Kolohe says:
      August 31, 2018 at 1:52 pm

      Also worth pointing out again she was uniquely built, and what turned out to be a one-off design. They were busy achieving “firsts” with the design, not thinking of recycling or interchangeable design elements like we do now. Report

  9. dragonfrog says:
    August 31, 2018 at 2:16 pm

    [Se5] Meanwhile in Germany, one of the reasons they kept compulsory service so long was the considerable social good the conscientious objectors did.

    The guys who went into military service – good and all, the country needs a military. But the conscientious objectors who opted for a civilian service year – the parks services, hospitals, etc. benefited immensely from a steady stream of enthusiastic and underpaid young people.Report

  10. Saul Degraw says:
    August 31, 2018 at 3:42 pm

    The Village Voice is dead. This makes me sad.

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/the-village-voice-the-legendary-new-york-alt-weekly-is-shutting-down.htmlReport

  11. Jaybird says:
    August 31, 2018 at 7:15 pm

    You know that thing where we complain about how the job requirements are a PhD and/or 20 years of experience in the industry and the job pays 9 bucks an hour (must provide own computer)?

    Well, the university of Chicago is hiring for a part time position at the South Pole.
    No benefits.Report

  12. Oscar Gordon says:
    September 1, 2018 at 11:40 am

    Excellent interludes!Report

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