Big deal, indeed. Considering how much freight gets transported by rail in the US, I wonder what the impact will be.

@george-k said in Not Cages:

@george-k said in Not Cages:

By the way, AOC has tweeted about the border crisis challenge since Biden took office exactly .... twice.
Not that I'm cynical, but, it's almost like she was using this for political purposes.

From the RWEC: "Why has AOC gone AWOL now, when this crisis gives her a perfect opportunity to build some credibility as an activist? One has to wonder whether she’s looking for a position in the Biden administration, or whether she has some trouble heading her way and wants to lower her profile ahead of it. If it’s not either of those, then the only answer is that AOC’s an opportunist when opportunism involves zero cost. And that might be the simplest answer of all."

The Famous Razor...

@xenon said in Who Dis?:

He looks amazing for 90

Star Trek XXX: "The Search for Kirk's Toupee."

Yep.

Docs tend to use what they think will work, even if it's only a slim chance. Slim beats none...

IIRC, Joe has $87B for housing illegals, including a crapload of hotel rooms.

Don't know if the come with room service....

@klaus said in Making Everything Compatible. (More camera experiments.):

If you like the look of old lenses, did you ever look into Petzval lenses?

Nope, but I'm going to have to now! 😄

I'm kinda picky about them, though. I don't necessarily want rare ones or lenses that create some kind of strange effect—I have an idea in mind for how I hope certain types of pictures would turn out, and then look for lenses that (hopefully) provide that. More fun, more comprehensive of an effect, and a hell of a lot faster than Photoshop in my opinion.

@klaus said in Hard lockdown in Germany:

My sentiment about Germany at the moment is similar to Larry's sentiment about the US on a day after the democrats won an election.

ouch!

@aqua-letifer said in Long Covid horror story:

@loki said in Long Covid horror story:

Wow is right. I would love an expert on suicide to weigh in on how Covid symptoms and a person’s capacity for suicide ideation relate.

I read somewhere that rates basically doubled for teens and the elderly in areas where firm lockdowns were put into place. Obviously for the elderly, COVID deaths were still greater in number by orders of magnitude.

I think Loki was looking for suicide ideation among Covid patients. Specifically long-haulers.

The general suicide rate is another conversation entirely. @George-K just posted an article.

Front and center! The piano, especially a grand piano deserves top billing wherever it resides. Period!

One of the best pieces of advice my piano teacher ever gave me was, "practice so much, that you send everyone else running out of the house!" I told him, I actually used to do exactly that in my youth, when I would practice my drums for 2 or 3 hours straight. 🥁

@george-k said in Let's Boogie!:

@horace said in Let's Boogie!:

With Larry gone, I'm finally the best piano player on this forum. That is not a crown I bear lightly.

Which reminds me, how's the hand?

The thumb is garbage, about 20 degree bend at most. But better than what it was when the flexor tendon was ruptured. I'm still getting used to it. Picking up a chopstick from the table for instance is not easy. But in general I don't notice it too much. I trained myself to use my left thumb for the space bar while typing and now that I could go back, I don't. Haven't tried building models yet, I'll get to that at some point.

[copper-channel/on] Because white people are ugly. [copper-channel/off]

ETA: Except for Klaus, of course.

@klaus said in Our real estate market is nuts:

@taiwan_girl said in Our real estate market is nuts:

@klaus said in Our real estate market is nuts:

Actually, many Germans do. But most of them for reasons that are not exactly noble. I don't want to be confused with one of those...

Yes, I have seen some of them (not only Germans, but other Westerners). Some of them are quite sad. They move to Thailand because they can live cheaper, but after a while, they are frustrated with Thailand, but do not have enough money to return to Germany (or another country), and spend their time drinking beer and complaining about how bad life is for them.

The main reason that is usually quoted here is that they move there to have cheap sex and/or "buy" a wife.

I think some do that, and some because they can live cheaply, and some for a combination of both.

Like anytime there is a move to a new country, there are the stages where at first everything is great. But then, reality comes up.

Then they find that living on Euro1500/month (for example) is really not that good. But, they have cut off "ties" back to their home country and, in a way, become trapped in the foreign country. They cannot afford to move back, they hate where they are, so it is a bad cycle.

@lufins-dad said in The Astra-Zeneca vaccine has problems:

What is going on with AZ? Why do they keep tripping over their own ****?

https://apple.news/AOFxYo-DLQ16wF5XYzXtGug

LOL when I saw this article I thought of your prior notes on AZ

If there is not enough vaccine to put in arms, the choice is covid death vs regulatory compliance. Choose and live or die with it.

And tell everyone more people are dying because of the choice to delay or cause more distrust.

It’s easy.

Levine's last years:

Levine suffered recurrent health problems from age 63 onward, including severe back pain caused by a pinched sciatic nerve, and Parkinson’s disease. On March 1, 2006, he tripped and fell on stage while receiving a standing ovation at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He tore his right shoulder rotator cuff and had to have his muscles repaired surgically. At age 65, he had surgery to remove a cancerous kidney and at age 66, he missed three weeks of concerts for emergency back surgery for a herniated disk. The surgery was not successful so he missed the entire season of 2018 with the Metropolitan Opera and Boston Symphony Orchestra. He tried to return to conducting, but at age 68, he fell down a flight of stairs and fractured his spine while on vacation in Vermont. In 2013, at age 70, he conducted the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall from a motorized wheelchair.

I wonder how much they pay for those interviews.

I'm not saying it was bullshit, but....

@lufins-dad said in NY 50+ starts tomorrow:

I just discovered that if I still smoked, I would be eligible for the vaccine. I found that odd.

In MA, you can be designated as a smoker if you are an ex-smoker.

Systemic gun