The New Coffee Room

@jon-nyc said in Trump 100-Day Approval Ratings: Why is he underwater on guns? Maybe tariffs raise prices for guns and ammo? @Jolly, any insight there?

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-04-23/two-decades-ago-youtube-uploaded-its-first-video-now-its-a-tv-juggernaut The grainy 19-second YouTube video that started it all hardly had the makings of a viral sensation. Shot at the San Diego Zoo, the primitive video clip showed Jawed Karim, the platform’s co-founder, complimenting the elephants in the frame behind him. “The cool thing about these guys is they have really, really, really long trunks,” Karim said. The clip, titled “Me at the zoo,” was the first video uploaded onto YouTube 20 years ago, opening the door to a new medium of television. and When YouTube first started in San Mateo, its founders weren’t thinking they would take on the television industry. They envisioned it as a dating site where people would upload videos and score them. When that didn’t work, the founders decided to open up the platform for all sorts of videos. Users drove traffic to YouTube by sharing videos on MySpace.

Quick math brings that to about $462,000 per kid. I stopped a few things (like grandparent care) after 5 years, and didn't even include whatever prenatal/postnatal care is or citizen fast tracking.

Gee, seems like a good idea to me.

Nothing to add regarding teachers, but it does look like a lot of fun. LOL When I was up in Alaska a couple of years ago (believe it was Ketchikan), and talking with a teacher there, and one of the things they do for the 8th grade class is they have an annual 4-5 day camping trip in the national forest surrounding the area. Not quite a "survival" type trip, but something where they do use outdoor skills, etc.

I posted the above before watching the video. Note half of the people in the video touching the statue are women. And literally all are posing for pictures. Irish authorities should leave it be and deal with their real problems.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/23/dead-social-security-doge-musk/ Follow-up reporting ... 6000+ supposed "illegal immigrants" have been added to the Social Security "Death Master File," with DOGE pushing to add millions more; while more mistakes and disregards of due diligence are reported.

I think with the end of ranked choice voting in Alaska, Murkowski is toast. Collins does what she has to do in a purplish-blue state.

I’ll say it again….you cannot fool the market. No political agenda or ideology in past ever has and it will be no different this time.

@Jolly said in Gen X in creative fields losing their jobs: I see no reason why we can't do what the tech industry does and put some emphasis on certificates. Don't know if @Horace or @Mik see it differently, I don't get the sense that certificates mean much in the high tech industry when it comes to hiring for or actually doing a job.

Folks...Tesla is as much a data company as a car company. Once you understand that, you'll understand a lot about Elon.

People might have died if they hadn't turned around.

@Jolly said in Eggs > Fentanyl: Egg prices have dropped and are still dropping, NPR. It was always a temporary situation. Not worth fretting about.

It would be more useful if it didn’t mix US and Canada but interesting all the same. [image: 1743873447492-img_3950.jpeg]

@Klaus said in Tariffs for TokTok: I believe the main reason why Trump loves tariffs so much is that they give him endless opportunities to reward or punish the people/companies/countries he is dealing with. I think Trump has really bought into some of the economic policies of McKinley and the overall lack of inflation in the 19th century. Would not surprise me to see a $1 coin issued that contained a small amount of silver.

Don't pay much attention to most economists. They're wrong about so much..

Thanks for sharing. Quite interesting. I dont think that it is any surprise that the world will look for alternatives. This is a big long term problem for the US. Even if things go how president Trump wants them to go, it could very much be a case of "we won the battle but lost the war"