Story time! When I was in high school (~1998/99) a group of kids decided to start a “gang.” I went to a small Baptist school. Kids were bored. This was maybe second period. They called their gang the “Yo’s.” Saying “Yo” was pretty much the extent of their gang. By lunchtime a group of us got annoyed and decided to start a rival gang called the “No’s.” The Bloods to the Yo’s Crips. The sign you were a No was you grabbed a brown paper towel from the bathroom and wore it hanging from your back pocket.

Anyway, just before dismissal everyone was called into an assembly and given a lecture on gangs and told that anyone wearing a brown paper towel would receive a detention. I am still amused at how seriously our administration took this obviously stupid and juvenile joke.

Found the article! I had breezed through the thing. I was incorrect about the LiDAR/camera thing. Instead it was: ‘Elon even admitted that “very high-resolution radars would be better than pure vision”, but he claimed that “such a radar does not exist”’

He, of course was incorrect and proven incorrect, but ‘the problem is that Musk has taken such a strong stance against [LiDARs] for so long that now that they have improved immensely and reduced in prices, he still can’t admit that he was wrong and use them.’

So many Boomers I know do the subject line thing, I had no idea it was a Zoomer thing too. Oh no…

I’m going to say this as a priest ordained in Christ’s One, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church (Episcopal branch): that choice of Jesus image is chef’s kiss

The best way that I found to think about The Orville is that Seth MacFarlane had to shoe-horn jokes into the first few episodes to satisfy the execs who expected him to make a comedy and then gradually that tapers off to become a really solid Star Trek-type show (that still has humor, but it’s more organic, workplace type humor).

As an actual, honest-to-God (Episcopal) priest myself, the idea of an “AI priest” is very troubling.

Remember when they were covering the tail gates of their trucks in vinyl wrap depicting Joe Biden as hog-tied in the back of their trucks?

One thing I want to know is: who did Waltz think he was adding? Is there another Goldberg in the administration (or a foreign one?) out there? Or is his name right under Gabbard’s in the contacts list?

Kids these days will never know the satisfaction of opening the bottom, removing the ball, and then taking an unfolded paperclip to remove all the built up crud and hair on the components inside. I would do this anytime I was left alone in my mom’s office while she had a meeting or something.

Yeah. Don’t threaten me with a good time, Joe.

Read about this somewhere. Iirc, Elon felt cameras were better than LiDAR at a time when that was kinda true, but the technology improved considerably in the interim and he pridefully refuses to admit he needs to adapt. [Edit: I had hastily read the referenced article and am incorrect here; link to accurate statements is linked in a reply below.]

I feel like the majority of people I see quit Mastodon do so because the platform (and Federation in general) don’t coddle their egos. With no algorithm to game and ingratiate themselves on everyone’s timelines, they make a public exit and talk about how broken Mastodon is and offer their takes on what it needs to be. Which, unsurprisingly, sounds like a non-Elon-ed Twitter.

I love Mastodon. I love discovering new people and accounts by happenstance (and not spoon-feeding).

I know it’s fun to hate on the CyberTruck (absolutely has deserved it), but I’d bet money on this being a 12v battery issue, maybe from improper storage? Only reason I say this is that I have a Kia Soul EV and it gave me pretty much the exact same warning the other day and refused to start. Turned out the 12v battery was dead and that causes all kinds of weird stuff to happen to the electrical systems in the car. Especially considering that the entire electrical system of the CT is consolidated into one wiring harness.

Also, knowing Tesla, attempting to jump the 12v would probably void a warranty.

It’s funny you mention that because as I was reading the story of Garcia yesterday I couldn’t help but see parallels to the whole back-and-forth that happens to Jesus after His arrest. An innocent man yanked around by an unjust system.

Growing up west of Orlando, there was this store in the mall that sold like glass figures and porcelain stuff. Never once did I ever see a customer in there. Multiple stores came and went but that one, there since the mall’s opening, remained. When I worked for EB Games at the same mall, we’d always pass it when we dropped off our money and my manager would say it was a front. Everyone I knew called it the Crack Store.

It’s almost like language is radically democratic and words only mean what we largely agree they mean, with fluctuating cases based on particular contexts.

I’m an Episcopal priest, and I’m trying to imagine how I’d respond to this. The only time I’ve ever had to ask someone to leave was when a, say, mentally unbalanced man came into the church and screamed profanity at me in the middle of the service and told me that I needed the permission of the Korean consulate to preach (this was a white guy in a Navy sailor’s cap, in Hawai’i where I live—not sure what his deal with Korea was). He did this twice over a couple years and I have a person who works with unhoused veterans in my parish who’s told me that she’d been instructed not to interact with the guy because he was deemed too dangerous. So, asking him to leave was a safety issue. But no one tackled him.

I’d like to think that I’d let this guy have his say. If he’s not cussing anyone out or getting violent, I’d probably let him talk and then invite him to hang out and talk some after the service. I sure as shit wouldn’t demand him to “respect my authoritah” or see him tackled to the ground. That is something I can’t wrap my head around.

As an Episcopal priest myself, I’ll be keeping an eye on this story… I guess since we’re the “wrong” kind of Christians (y’know, because we do same-sex marriages and have LGBT+ clergy and all), a Republican has no problem trying to steal one of our churches out from under us.

My 4 y/o daughter has only recently become OBSESSED with “Shake It Off.” she asked me to play it in the car. Using Siri we get “Taylor’s Version” and within seconds my daughter just goes “no, I want the REAL one not the fake one!”

See, Brian over there is wearing 37 pieces of flair. And a terrific smile.