that is crazy!!!

@Mik said in A wasted joke: Going to the pod next week to get a mass taken off my right foot. Make sure they mark the correct limb!!! Would not want you "walking" out of there missing an arm!

Kicked off of Global Entry. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/30/politics/chris-krebs-cbp-global-entry-revoked?cid=ios_app

@LuFins-Dad Philip IV of France moved the papacy to Avignon in 1309 where it remained until pope Gregory XI moved his Curia back to Rome in the 1377. Then followed the Great Schism which lasted forty years during which there were as many as three popes/antipopes at a time between Rome and Avignon. The mess was never really sorted out until 1417 when Martin V was elected pope and accepted by all parties at the Council of Constance. Perhaps the time has come to repeat The Papal Babylonian Captivity all over again?

Duck eggs. Yum.

Love also how he was asked if they'll get a hearing as the law requires, and Trump said "I'll have to ask the lawyers about that".... maybe a question you should've asked BEFORE deporting folks?

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.

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.