Amazon's Thursday Night Football has three of the studio analysts put together a three-factor parlay bet during their pregame show. With at least fine-print disclaimer on screen that neither Amazon nor the analysts have any association with the online sports book doing the instant money line for the parley, and that the money line for the bet is subject to change.
Some years back the Chicago Bears wound up losing a game because on a play inside the last two minutes, their running back went out of bounds and stopped the clock instead of sliding. The opponents had no time outs left and almost certainly wouldn't have scored a game-tying field goal as time expired without the 40 seconds that didn't run off the clock.
The CA legislature doesn't get the final say. Projects are complicated when the largest land owner in the state, who (per the SCOTUS many years ago) holds the most senior rights for water derived from that land, doesn't have to pay attention to state laws. Back in September the feds denied the permit for the largest reservoir the state was proposing. The Authority that would/will operate the Sites Reservoir conducted probably the largest and most detailed hydrologic and environmental study ever done for a project in California. The Army Corps of Engineers wasn't satisfied.
No new reservoirs have been built in California for the last ten years.
A dam does no good if there's no water available to store in it. Like all of the western states, California's water is rather grossly oversubscribed.
There are two dam projects underway in northern Colorado. One will raise an existing dam, the other will build an entirely new dam. Both will take many years to fill once built because the only water that can be used is "surplus", available only in very wet years.
You have to wonder why Mediaite went with "Gulf of America" rather than military threats to Gaza, Greenland, and Panama, and economic threats to Canada and Denmark.
I suppose someone has convinced Mr. Trump that he can achieve a Greater United States that includes all of North America above Mexico, much like Putin thinks he can achieve a Greater Russia.
The UK is preparing to enforce its Online Safety Act, which became law back in November. It will place relatively large requirements on a platform like Facebook to do transparency of its operations and verification of content. Unlike the EU's Digital Services Act, the OSA doesn't have a size cutoff (most of the DSA applies only to platforms with more than 45M EU users). Some modest-sized blogs in the UK have begun shutting down because of uncertainty about what penalties might be levied against them.
We don't really know if Trump is a first time offender or not. I would guess not. But standard practice in New York for this would be for Trump's attorneys and the New York Dept of Revenue to work out something for misclassified expenses, file modified tax returns, and go on. None of which would be in any public record.
I was reading a piece on the 2024 global box office this morning that noted nine of the top 10 were sequels or prequels. The exception was Wicked: Part 1, which was based on a highly successful Broadway musical. The masses appear to be looking for tried-and-true material.
I am getting old, and streaming has become commonplace. That leaves me disappointed, as one of the things I was really looking forward to almost 30 years ago when I was doing research in media-over-IP, was stage productions. Screens are big enough and streaming is good enough that I want to pay to see things like the Broadway version of Wicked in my living room (some 1,600 miles away). Just one camera, simple stereo sound. At least in my case, it's not going to cost the producers any gate receipts. I'm not going to Manhattan to see the show live.
IANAL, but my guess is the judge had second thoughts about the whole legal theory that a New York jury could decide that Trump was guilty of felony federal law violations. Absent that, the state charges would have been for misdemeanor offenses. Given the scale of things -- $150K as part of tax returns that run to at least hundreds of millions of dollars -- the case would never have gone to court. Trump's accountants and the state Dept of Revenue would have worked it out.
I'll take a pass. Having lived/am living through my spouse's Alzheimer's, it's not something I'm ready for in a sitcom.
One of the reasons I struggle to deal with it is that I have always been personally terrified of no longer being smart, but remembering being smart. I made it through Flowers For Algernon once when I was young, but have never been able to face it again, or any of the movies/TV based on it. I count it as a blessing that my wife's situation means that while she's no longer smart, she can't remember being smart.
Back in 2006, the Colorado Front Range experienced a cold snap that dropped to -20 °F or so. Gas wells began freezing up because the dewatering equipment was at some distance from the wells proper. Residential heating service got priority so gas supplies to Xcel's power plants ran short. The situation never got to the sort of positive feedback that Texas experienced in 2011 or 2021; just 30-minute rolling blackouts for a day.
The state fined the snot out of a couple of the gas companies over failure to deliver product. The rest got the message and changed their dewatering practices. There's been no repeat of the experience during subsequent cold spells.
Texas also built a lot of transmission capacity to connect the windy areas in West Texas with the demand centers in the Houston/DFW/San Antonio triangle.
Lots of people are waiting for Erik Loomis's Carter obituary over at LG&M. The expectation is that Erik thinks Carter was a terrible President in many ways, but far and away the best person we've ever had as a retired President.
This comment makes me feel so old. When I went to work at Bell Labs, the philosophy was "We want to hire the best technical talent we can find. We'll teach them the specifics of the business after they arrive."
One of the technical jokes in academia at the time was that Bell Labs hired 25% of the new physics PhDs each year. And occasionally some of them got to do physics. A shiny new PhD in theoretical physics is usually a darned good applied mathematician. A shiny new PhD in experimental physics is usually an excellent electrical/electronics engineer with a bunch of hands-on experience.
On the 21st of the month, SpaceX aborted a commercial launch for Astranis, a company that builds multi-purpose satellites for geosynchronous orbit. The abort happened at the last possible second, due to some (not yet revealed) problem during engine ignition. SpaceX swapped out the problem booster with a replacement and launched the payload early this morning, eight days later. Orbital launch service is a different sort of business for a "hardware rich" company than for everyone else.
The problem is that some people say "lab leak" and mean loss of containment of a weaponized virus from a biosafety level 4 facility, and some people mean some poor post-doc got a snoot full of all sorts of stuff while doing routine intake of cave samples.
The local paper referenced this work, partially paid for by the feds, this morning. Some of the phase 3 trial was done at the children's hospital in Denver. A new treatment protocol raised the cure rate for some forms of childhood leukemia from 87% to 96%, even among those deemed high relapse risks.
Grandpa drawings for holidays and birthdays seem to have become a tradition rather quickly. Here is this year's glorified Christmas doodle, "Little monster characters decorate a tree".
The federal CISA security agency reported yesterday that the PRC has burrowed deep enough into the telephone networks they can capture SMS text messages to/from highly-targeted individuals. The new guidance pointed to from that page suggests not using SMS in multi-factor authentication.
The guidance also recommends using end-to-end encryption. I'm an old, so I can remember when the Dept of Defense and the intelligence community were fighting like hell to keep people from getting hold of strong end-to-end encryption algorithms.
The Montana supreme court upheld a landmark trial court decision last August in favor of 16 young people who said their health and futures were being jeopardized by climate change, which the state aggravates through its permitting of energy projects.... The 6-1 decision, the first of its kind by a US state supreme court, came in the first lawsuit to go to trial nationwide by young environmental activists challenging state and federal policies they say are exacerbating climate change.
This is interesting to me because it happened in a conservative western state. I have trouble imagining the top courts in North Carolina or Florida -- other states where the legislature has forbidden consideration of climate change -- making the same ruling.
So what happens? Johnson brings the CR, including some Democratic priorities, to the floor and passes it with Dem votes and a handful of Republicans who are retired come Jan 3? Johnson already has to take his chances with being voted Speaker in the new Congress. Doesn't seem like he has much to lose.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/13/2025”
Where are they going to self-deport to? Assuming you're trying to squeeze out 10% of the population, where are 34M Americans going to go?
"
Amazon's Thursday Night Football has three of the studio analysts put together a three-factor parlay bet during their pregame show. With at least fine-print disclaimer on screen that neither Amazon nor the analysts have any association with the online sports book doing the instant money line for the parley, and that the money line for the bet is subject to change.
"
Some years back the Chicago Bears wound up losing a game because on a play inside the last two minutes, their running back went out of bounds and stopped the clock instead of sliding. The opponents had no time outs left and almost certainly wouldn't have scored a game-tying field goal as time expired without the 40 seconds that didn't run off the clock.
On “Multiple Wildfires Rip Through Los Angeles Amid Historic Winds”
The CA legislature doesn't get the final say. Projects are complicated when the largest land owner in the state, who (per the SCOTUS many years ago) holds the most senior rights for water derived from that land, doesn't have to pay attention to state laws. Back in September the feds denied the permit for the largest reservoir the state was proposing. The Authority that would/will operate the Sites Reservoir conducted probably the largest and most detailed hydrologic and environmental study ever done for a project in California. The Army Corps of Engineers wasn't satisfied.
"
No new reservoirs have been built in California for the last ten years.
A dam does no good if there's no water available to store in it. Like all of the western states, California's water is rather grossly oversubscribed.
There are two dam projects underway in northern Colorado. One will raise an existing dam, the other will build an entirely new dam. Both will take many years to fill once built because the only water that can be used is "surplus", available only in very wet years.
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/6/2025”
If Trump's going to go with "Gulf of America" he probably doesn't mind dropping Mexico from its historical designation as part of North America.
"
You have to wonder why Mediaite went with "Gulf of America" rather than military threats to Gaza, Greenland, and Panama, and economic threats to Canada and Denmark.
I suppose someone has convinced Mr. Trump that he can achieve a Greater United States that includes all of North America above Mexico, much like Putin thinks he can achieve a Greater Russia.
On “Meta Ends Fact-checking Program”
The UK is preparing to enforce its Online Safety Act, which became law back in November. It will place relatively large requirements on a platform like Facebook to do transparency of its operations and verification of content. Unlike the EU's Digital Services Act, the OSA doesn't have a size cutoff (most of the DSA applies only to platforms with more than 45M EU users). Some modest-sized blogs in the UK have begun shutting down because of uncertainty about what penalties might be levied against them.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/30/2024”
We don't really know if Trump is a first time offender or not. I would guess not. But standard practice in New York for this would be for Trump's attorneys and the New York Dept of Revenue to work out something for misclassified expenses, file modified tax returns, and go on. None of which would be in any public record.
On “2024 Year in Review: Movies, Music, and More!”
I was reading a piece on the 2024 global box office this morning that noted nine of the top 10 were sequels or prequels. The exception was Wicked: Part 1, which was based on a highly successful Broadway musical. The masses appear to be looking for tried-and-true material.
I am getting old, and streaming has become commonplace. That leaves me disappointed, as one of the things I was really looking forward to almost 30 years ago when I was doing research in media-over-IP, was stage productions. Screens are big enough and streaming is good enough that I want to pay to see things like the Broadway version of Wicked in my living room (some 1,600 miles away). Just one camera, simple stereo sound. At least in my case, it's not going to cost the producers any gate receipts. I'm not going to Manhattan to see the show live.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/30/2024”
IANAL, but my guess is the judge had second thoughts about the whole legal theory that a New York jury could decide that Trump was guilty of felony federal law violations. Absent that, the state charges would have been for misdemeanor offenses. Given the scale of things -- $150K as part of tax returns that run to at least hundreds of millions of dollars -- the case would never have gone to court. Trump's accountants and the state Dept of Revenue would have worked it out.
On “A Man on the Inside”
For the assisted living part, right? Add a couple of thousand for the locked-down memory care side.
"
I'll take a pass. Having lived/am living through my spouse's Alzheimer's, it's not something I'm ready for in a sitcom.
One of the reasons I struggle to deal with it is that I have always been personally terrified of no longer being smart, but remembering being smart. I made it through Flowers For Algernon once when I was young, but have never been able to face it again, or any of the movies/TV based on it. I count it as a blessing that my wife's situation means that while she's no longer smart, she can't remember being smart.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/30/2024”
Back in 2006, the Colorado Front Range experienced a cold snap that dropped to -20 °F or so. Gas wells began freezing up because the dewatering equipment was at some distance from the wells proper. Residential heating service got priority so gas supplies to Xcel's power plants ran short. The situation never got to the sort of positive feedback that Texas experienced in 2011 or 2021; just 30-minute rolling blackouts for a day.
The state fined the snot out of a couple of the gas companies over failure to deliver product. The rest got the message and changed their dewatering practices. There's been no repeat of the experience during subsequent cold spells.
"
Texas also built a lot of transmission capacity to connect the windy areas in West Texas with the demand centers in the Houston/DFW/San Antonio triangle.
On “Jimmy Carter Passes at Age 100”
Lots of people are waiting for Erik Loomis's Carter obituary over at LG&M. The expectation is that Erik thinks Carter was a terrible President in many ways, but far and away the best person we've ever had as a retired President.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/23/2024”
This comment makes me feel so old. When I went to work at Bell Labs, the philosophy was "We want to hire the best technical talent we can find. We'll teach them the specifics of the business after they arrive."
One of the technical jokes in academia at the time was that Bell Labs hired 25% of the new physics PhDs each year. And occasionally some of them got to do physics. A shiny new PhD in theoretical physics is usually a darned good applied mathematician. A shiny new PhD in experimental physics is usually an excellent electrical/electronics engineer with a bunch of hands-on experience.
"
On the 21st of the month, SpaceX aborted a commercial launch for Astranis, a company that builds multi-purpose satellites for geosynchronous orbit. The abort happened at the last possible second, due to some (not yet revealed) problem during engine ignition. SpaceX swapped out the problem booster with a replacement and launched the payload early this morning, eight days later. Orbital launch service is a different sort of business for a "hardware rich" company than for everyone else.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/12/29/live-coverage-spacex-to-launch-4-astranis-satellites-on-falcon-9-rocket-from-cape-canaveral/
"
The problem is that some people say "lab leak" and mean loss of containment of a weaponized virus from a biosafety level 4 facility, and some people mean some poor post-doc got a snoot full of all sorts of stuff while doing routine intake of cave samples.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024”
The local paper referenced this work, partially paid for by the feds, this morning. Some of the phase 3 trial was done at the children's hospital in Denver. A new treatment protocol raised the cure rate for some forms of childhood leukemia from 87% to 96%, even among those deemed high relapse risks.
On “The Church Entertainment”
Grandpa drawings for holidays and birthdays seem to have become a tradition rather quickly. Here is this year's glorified Christmas doodle, "Little monster characters decorate a tree".
http://mcain6925.com/obsidian/xmas-2024.pdf
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024”
The federal CISA security agency reported yesterday that the PRC has burrowed deep enough into the telephone networks they can capture SMS text messages to/from highly-targeted individuals. The new guidance pointed to from that page suggests not using SMS in multi-factor authentication.
The guidance also recommends using end-to-end encryption. I'm an old, so I can remember when the Dept of Defense and the intelligence community were fighting like hell to keep people from getting hold of strong end-to-end encryption algorithms.
"
From the Guardian:
This is interesting to me because it happened in a conservative western state. I have trouble imagining the top courts in North Carolina or Florida -- other states where the legislature has forbidden consideration of climate change -- making the same ruling.
On “Are Republicans Waking Up?”
So what happens? Johnson brings the CR, including some Democratic priorities, to the floor and passes it with Dem votes and a handful of Republicans who are retired come Jan 3? Johnson already has to take his chances with being voted Speaker in the new Congress. Doesn't seem like he has much to lose.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024”
On paper Sarah was a successful governor which is better than Harris’ on-paper experience.
Size has to matter for something, doesn't it? California's population is 12% of the US total. Alaska's total is a good-sized city.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.