It cost his dad $100K…

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/04/30/monty-python-holy-grail-50th-phillips-tribunehat-comedy-needs-and-doesnt/ Also, that oh what the hell ending, when the police officers interrupt the action finale. It’s one of the few things in “Holy Grail” that works conceptually, but maybe not beyond that. I remember the groans and confusion in the theater 50 years ago, once that non-ending ending ended the evening. And yet it was a mere scratch. A flesh wound, in a brazen triumph of wordplay, swordplay and what Americans used to call “college humor.” The movie didn’t behave. It barely hung together. But it offered many lessons, beginning with: You don’t need much money to make a weirdly good-looking cheapo costume picture. The “Holy Grail” production budget, around $300,000 U.S. dollars in the year of production in 1974, equates to $2 million today. (Members of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull put up most of the funding, by the way.) Came across this article. I watched the movie for the first time a little bit ago. I thought it was okay, but I like "Life of Brian" better. Maybe because a lot of the cultural references I did not understand. LOL

One of the reasons I stopped partaking over 40 years ago was it just got too strong. Plus, how many times can you ride this ride until it’s no longer fun.

@Doctor-Phibes said in El Salvador declines to return Garcia: Trump's inability to even fake humility is pretty funny. He talks to people as though they're imbeciles and yet he's clearly wrong and uninformed about so many things. And yet here I post on TNCR... [image: giphy.gif]

Yes, from what I understand, the transaction costs are going to become more and more important until they become the single source of income for miners (namely when the maximum number of bitcoins has been reached). In any case, I believe the protocol is self-adjusting in the sense that the situation above - mining more expensive than reward - self-corrects quickly.

Very cool. Love these updates.

Yeah, I kind of think the grateful thing is more for folks who tend toward unhappiness. That’s not me at all.

LOL well put

@jon-nyc said in Books: Curious who reads proper books anymore as opposed to kindle or audible. I think I’ve only read one paper book in the last 5 or even 10 years, given to me by the author, a guy at Cleveland Clinic. I almost exclusively do audiobooks - except for the one I just mentioned, but I still do hardcopy as opposed to e-books.

https://gizmodo.com/fusion-reactor-called-norm-could-outperform-everything-weve-built-so-far-2000595322 A California-based fusion company thinks it’s cracked one of energy’s toughest problems: how to make fusion efficient, powerful, and not absurdly expensive. TAE Technologies, along with researchers from the University of California, says its reconfigured prototype—cheekily named Norm—could deliver 100 times the power of other fusion devices while running at half the cost of older designs. The team’s research, published in Nature Communications, focuses on improving something called a field-reversed configuration (FRC)—a setup that holds piping hot plasma in place without relying on the gigantic magnets seen in traditional fusion designs like tokamaks. According to a TAE release published this month, FRC-based machines can achieve 100 times the fusion output of typical tokamaks with similar magnetic field strengths and plasma volumes.

@LuFins-Dad said in Question for people who understand the MAHA mindset: I’m with Horace, here. The conclusion that you come to is that without this committee and their recommendations, states won’t implement these screenings and that their own public health departments won’t be coming to their own conclusions. Nope. In fact I know they do because we’ve lobbied states ourselves and have done pilots in NY and FL. Ultimately states make their own decisions and some go far beyond what the RUSP recommends. But pretty much all states implement what’s on the RUSP eventually (though it may take years). And smaller/poorer states especially find it convenient to follow HHS lead. Or that private groups such as the Mayo Clinic and Hopkins aren’t advocating for the same? Now you state that the officials aren’t compensated for their time, but if they are employees of the NIH, then they are. Unless you propose that these activities do not interfere with their regular responsibilities? The people they convene are from places such as Hopkins and Mayo. HHS probably flies them in two or three times a year or at least they did before COVID. At any rate disbanding a volunteer committee of experts with the idea that 50 states can each duplicate it doesn’t strike me as government efficiency.

[image: 1745955814391-3e8fca31-d4ee-40a4-830a-01fac6355664-image.png] Oops! DEI hire! (I don't know that for sure, just a guess. )

Aqua's fine too. he's been writing a lot of stories and poetry on Substack. It's very good stuff.

@taiwan_girl said in Canadian Tariff situation gets its own thread: Because I am lazy, I will ask here. 555 Why did the New Democratic Party reduce so much? What is their "platform"? Same reason that workers in the US were attracted to the populist messaging of the MAGA movement Republicans. Progressive policies are, for the most part, disdainful to the enlightened urban proletariat. Likewise, the more centre left NDP voters cast the ballots for the Carney Liberals in order to fend off the more populist Poilievre Conservatives. The NDP essentially had no coherent platform other than tax, spend and cater to populist identity politics. Even with only seven seats in Parliament, the NDP can continue to hold the balance of power to prop up the Liberal minority which has largely abandoned the progressive policies of the Trudeau era. If anything, last night’s election spelt the end of the more radical Progressivist domestic politics that have characterised much the last decade in Canada. I expected Liberal majority and the decimation of the NDP. I am however pleased to see a Liberal minority - although ballots in some Ridings still being counted and the results could end with a razor thin Liberal majority. Most of all I am very pleased to see a resounding rejection of Progressivist populism on the left and a reining in of reactionary populism masquerading as conservatism on the right. Overall, a big win for Canada from coast to coast, north and south.

Oh yes I recall you mentioning that before!

Thai Airlines has/had some A380's. For me mostly, it seemed like a regular plane. They boarded/deboarded on two levels, so unless you went to the stairs on the plane and went up or down, just seemed like each floor was a regular plane. LOL re:747. Loved sitting in the upper cabin. Kind of like your own private plane. Probably my favorite.

https://www.thestar.com/business/hudsons-bay-is-liquidating-all-of-its-stores-heres-what-you-need-to-know/article_8b9a8028-7225-5ef5-9b79-ad205d149ec1.html Unfortunately, the company did not make it.

This seems grid related not source related.

Cool. Or tres' cool as they say up north.

Hahahahaa