Dad has always been a source of sage wisdom

Trump floats

Doubtful

Thought Experiment: what would we have to airlift into Austin to Keep it Weird after the Republic of Texas secedes?

Can we keep Austin?

Since "F&B" Likely means "Food & Beverage", I am guessing it's the hotel restauraunt

Lake Take Off, Hoser!

Ford said he understood Washington had sought language late in the negotiations that would have restricted Canada’s ability to negotiate trade agreements with other countries without U.S. approval. Carney has called that demand unacceptable and a question of Canadian sovereignty.

Carney said the dispute also exposed a deeper divide over language and culture, saying protections for French and Canadian culture that Washington views as trade irritants are considered fundamental rights in Canada.

“Who does he think he is?” Ford said of Trump. “You gotta be kidding.”

Wow

Oh no, there's a difference here. Tip was the House Speaker in the Reagan years, he had actual control of the House, a result of his leadership of the side who won the most seats in an election.

Kushner has never won an election. His only qualifying trait is the fact that he is married to the President's daughter.

I would expect that Jeffries would talk with the White House from time to time. But if Jeffries were a smart politician, he would publicly point out how he had to go to the President's son-in-law to get anything done, and let people realize how bonkers that is. Alas, Jeffries has proven to be not so smart.

I have always felt that rich people should feel even more of an obligation to pay taxes, because they have more to lose in the case of a major invasion or civil disorder. The dirt poor already operate on a day-to-day basis. If civil society disintegrated, they are the best ones to survive on very little.

OTOH, the rich are only rich because all their brokerage accounts and property deeds say they are. Those are only worth something because the laws (and banks and brokerages) agree. If the shit hits the fan, it doesn't matter what the property deed says, people only own things they can defend by force.

I'm surprised they still use coins, the handful of casinos I have been to over the past 10 years have slot machines that take cash in, but only give vouchers out. You can still go to the cashier to cash out even small vouchers for free, but who wants to do that for a small amount, when you can just take it to another machine and see if you are "luckier"?

A well designed casino will siphon your money away naturally, so it doesn't normally need to add additional friction between you and your cash.

You don't get it. I would work directly with Jared, while making sure everyone knows how bonkers it is to have to work through the President's son-in-law on official business.

Jon Ossoff gets it. He just planted a little one-liner about how Trump likes to "travel with Natalie" and the media did the rest....

They are a lot of fun, once you get past that, because they're down for everything (as long as you approach them in the right way).

P.S. you can make text posts here

He's gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein

AWOOOO

If we pull out of this fascist nosedive, one reason will be the prescience of the writers of the Constitution to put the administration of elections in the hands of the States, subject to regulation by Congress. The President simply cant do that much on his own. He can bloviate all he wants on this topic, but absent any new action from Congress states are free to ignore him.

This sole clause does a lot of work in preventing the Presidency from becoming a full-on dictatorship. But only if the States don't comply with the President.

I had this experience once. We have a ChatGPT license where I work, and I asked it to configure a switch that I wasn't familiar with. I simply described in words what network architecture I wanted and it did it! It even made some nice-looking documentation.

But, then I tried the new configs, and they didn't work. It turns out there were some key syntax things it got wrong. And the documentation was wrong on top of that, with incorrect diagrams, and when I asked it to fix it it made different errors I the diagrams in different places. On balance, I still saved some time over reading all the manuals and figuring out the syntaxes myself, but only because I made my own documentation with the results that worked. If I had trusted the AI I would be sunk.

I've concluded that AI gives the illusion of competence, like a overly confident new manager. This can be very attractive to a less experienced person. But it's really guessing, just like we all are. It can just guess after actually "reading" all the manuals. I haven't used AI to write anything more than simple configurations and helper scripts. If I did want to use AI for more it would be in more of a pair-programming context. I might have a window open where I describe some things and ask for analysis, but I wouldn't just run anything it does blindly.

I can't stand lane assist that tries to keep you in the lane by actually moving or vibrating the steering wheel. To me, it feels like the car is slipping. That shit gets turned off right away. But I have driven some cars where the lane assist just beeps, and doesn't force the wheel at all, I can deal with that.

I find HUDs extremely distracting, they get turned off too.

Adaptive Cruise Control is extremely useful, I love that one.

I have serious issues with being fed confidently incorrect answers.

Except I have plenty of experience dealing with this from humans. (Mainly from the aforementioned new managers, because being wrong with confidence seems to be a key trait to get promoted.) It's been my experience that when you tell an AI "I just tried that and it didn't work", it will accept that more readily than a human would.

Every bit of AI-generated code that I use, even in the smallest and most meaningless context, has to pass my own review first. I have to understand every line, and if I don't I will ask the bot to explain what it did. By the time I am done with it, I can stand behind it just as if I wrote it all myself. I might note that I got AI help, but if my name is on the commit I will not pass the buck on any errors.

No, silly, the problem is when it vibrates when you are nowhere near the lane dividers. I don't drive a BMW, I know what turn signals are for.

But why? We don't want them, they don't want us.

Ironically, though, Senate seats are more often in play than House seats, because their borders are set, and they can't be gerrymandered to advantage one side or the other. Yes, the population of a state can lean one way or the other, but thatis much harder to game.

I would be in favor of keeping the Senate, but balancing out the seats a bit, and removing the requirement that 2 seats go to every state. Large states might get 3 or 4 Senators. Small states may have to share one. You may have some "redistricting" where which state is assigned to which seat changes, but there would no longer be such a discrepancy between Senators and how many people they represent.