unclevlad

Peloton recalled ALL their treadmills today; design issues have led to one child's death and 70 injuries. They also apologized for fighting the Consumer Product Safety Commission's warning last month. Major mea culpa on their part, but it's been a very unusual story, in that they refused to recall. Their stock has dropped 13% today, as this recall's both a serious financial blow, and a PR disaster.

Does anyone doubt that Barr was Trump's lapdog? No, I refuse to apologize for the image.

But if the events don't have the ratings, either the broadcasters aren't gonna be making any money, or the advertisers will pull out because the return on their ad dollars just isn't there. Either way, it's not sustainable without ratings.

So if you're not resident in or around Texas, you may not know that there's apparently a resolution in the Texas legislature, to put a ballot initiative on the November ballot to legalize casino gambling. (Texas has casinos on Indian lands, and some operators are opening "private card rooms" where the establishment takes no rake, but the legality of these hasn't been firmly established.) They're talking 4 "destination resorts" which, I presume, follows the patterns of the big Eastern casino/resorts like Mohegan Sun, and many of the big Vegas casinos...shopping, restaurants, and entertainment, not simply the casino and hotel. Yeah, well, first time I really paid much attention. "Sponsored by the Las Vegas Sands." Oh. So this isn't by Texas, for Texas; it's a cash grab, figuring to establish a position in the big Texas metro areas. The Indian casinos are, by and large, relatively remote. The card rooms aren't, but they're limited in scope, they may not be legal, and...if this goes through, you can anticipate the rules will be written to make things more onerous for them. (If nothing else, stiffer, formalized licensing requirements and tighter oversight.) So, I'm skeptical, to say the least.

I'll believe this when I see it. https://golf.com/news/golf-super-league-progressing/ Of course, the PGA Tour is saying, anyone who does these won't be allowed to also be a PGA member, and it seems likely that the majors would follow suit. This has somewhat more of a chance to come about than the Super League in soccer, because it would only impact the individual golfers...but it still feels like it's just another opium-fueled delirium. The current proposal of 5 events sounds like just another variant on the Skins Game...made for TV quasi-competition. The only way to make money would seem to be TV rights, and...ok, that might work for a one-off, but I don't see it playing multiple times a year.

For another view on why hitting is so down: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2942589-all-the-reasons-why-it-has-never-been-harder-to-be-an-mlb-hitter?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial

If the Trumpers force Cheney out of her leadership spot, I hope she chooses to leave the Republican caucus and create, say, a Conservative Caucus. Or some other name, but you get the idea, I think. AND that a whole bunch of her colleagues follow.

I think a lot of how you look at that trade is what you think of Lance that early...and whether he really rates to be *that much* better than what they could've had at 12. I personally have a very hard time thinking ANY player who's never played a down in the league could be worth 3 #1 picks in total...much less when all you did was shift up 9 slots. The problem is...ok, yes, you need at least a sound QB to win...and a good QB to make any kind of playoff run...but that's NOT the be-all, end-all solution. Get the QB then get the pieces is the mantra...but how often does it really work? One of the more consistent comments I saw was that, yeah, the Raiders reached big time, at least twice. I'm hoping for 4-12 from the Raiders, and Chucky gets permanently dismantled. (I am not now, and never have been, a Jon Gruden fan.)

But it won't matter. Propellant's not a problem; Carlson's supply of BS never runs out.

Because there's too high a chance one of em will have a gun.

Let's make it a rail gun. From one of the Lagrange points, aimed straight at the sun. Anything less risks his toxicity being spread. I mean, you never know; we might want a moon colony at some point. I wonder if Carlson might be prosecutable under, say, German law, where hate speech is not protected. Not sure what the formal criteria are for it to qualify. And as pointed out in the Coronavirus thread...it's now considered unlikely the US can reach herd immunity because too many people won't get vaccinated. Carlson's not the only factor but he's been such a central component of this movement that he's a non-trivial contributor.

The crisis in India has a fair bit of coverage in the NYT today. A scary point: the sheer pace of the outbreak there poses a serious concern: that many cases --> a thriving ecosystem for the virus to continue mutating. Another piece of disturbing news: Fauci acknowledged that expert thinking is, herd immunity probably won't be reachable in the US. Too many anti-vaxers. Makes me think that, in addition to annual flu shots, we'll probably need intermittent covid shots too. We won't be able to shut it down; it'll be containment.

<sigh> I assert that baseball players can't adjust to things like the shift because they're overtrained robots. Mets-Phillies, 8th inning, 1 out. Runner on first. Batter hits a low screamer that the first baseman can't stab. OK there, it was a tough play. Runner on first sees that, goes to second; continues on to third because the ball gets far enough away. He makes it standing. The first baseman has the ball. Runner on third is watching. First baseman lollipops it to the second baseman who's in no-man's land. Runner on third sees it, and breaks for the plate. The lollipop throw means the second baseman has to eat the ball; he's got NO shot to throw the guy out at the plate. Oh, and that tied the game. Idiot first baseman forgot the ball was live. Conversely the runner on third WAS thinking. He'd danced off and kept his eyes on the play...and took off as he saw the soft toss. And this is the Mets; they and the Tigers are *by a wide margin* the worst scoring teams in baseball. (3rd worst is the Nats, and they score almost a run a game more.) So handing them runs is simply a crime. It also triggers a rally that blows the game open...from 2 down to up 4.

Speaking of UHF...dials and knobs on a TV, rather than buttons and maybe sliders. Ohhh...rabbit ears!!! Probably the same with radios, actually. Well...perhaps not; there's probably enough older cars with dial radios. And I saw a few offered on Amazon.

I'd just rather list the effets, I'm not going to go back and retro-fit some game power onto it. For example, depending on the forest, hearing perception rolls might be at -2...or +2. -2...deciduous forest with relatively thick, soft ground cover. +2...pine or spruce forest. Those old, dried needles crunch. Range mods for perception...for hearing, it'd be to identify direction and distance accurately. That's hard to do. For sight, the range mods might be *greatly* shortened, particularly in any marginal lighting conditions. Maintaining your sense of direction can be rather easier said than done. I believe you've got the base itself as 80m x 40m x 40m. That's HUGE...in part because of the height factor. A 10 meter square room is substantial...almost 1100 square feet. That's a decent sized 2-bedroom apartment...and if we knock off 30% for halls and other stuff, you'd still have room for over 200 of them. On one floor. 40m tall is 10 floors, easily. With x32k for the grounds, that's 10 km x 10 km...100 square kilometers, almost 40 square miles. That is a LOT of land. You might try playing around on Google Maps to see just how big that is. I see no point in slasher movies personally, so I obviously never bothered. But, camp grounds aren't likely to be this extensive; the land value is a major issue, if nothing else. And the development is going to be a lot smaller. If it's set up for cabins, they're no more than 10 meter squares. For a few bunkhouses, there probably aren't that many of them. I could also argue that all the camp buildings are themselves just part of the overall grounds. They're not part of the base, because they're too flimsy. The base will be whatever fortified and stocked area the PCs make on the camp grounds.

Its focus was print media. Local broadcast media is in a variation: local ownership is almost non-existent. Not as sure about TV stations, but radio for sure is dominated by a few massive conglomerates. The more that happens, the less local coverage...and certainly, the less reliable the coverage generally. Part of the NFL draft thread was pointing out how the Denver Post's staff went *ballistic* over not signing Justin Fields. That got me to checking, cuz...I remember the Post as a very good paper. (OK, I moved away from Colorado over 30 years ago, but still.) And I remember there were 2 thriving papers...the Post and the News. The News folded in 2009. The Post got bought up and ended with...yes indeed...the Alden group. Which proceeded to gut it. But print is dying...for *reasons*. Blaming FB and Google is simplistic. And it won't bring back print media; they're cumbersome, expensive, energy-intensive, and simply *awkward*. Sure, maybe there are changes needed...but the core trends are not going to change. The last year has only accelerated the consolidation process.

The Wambach/Bolt Gatorade ad was just on...and it kicked off a thought. The last scene is an attempt at inline skating, which doesn't go well. When's the last time anyone even thought about inline skates? I thought about getting some back in the 90s; it would've been a good way to get some exercise, and I worked on campus at the time. Never did. I think one reason I didn't was, it would've been a bit of a pain to carry regular shoes. Plus, technically, much of the center part of campus that I would've preferred to use, was no bikes, boards, or blades. (Understandable enough.) Then they fell off the face of the planet. So most millenials have probably never heard of em.

Size alteration

Well, they do have Chucky so we have to take that hypothesis seriously.

Story on CNN about it, when the NYC bar association added their support to an inquiry. Disbarments in New York go through, apparently, a very, very slow, drawn-out process. The comment was, this is also protection against spurious cases...but that can be viewed both ways. And this is a very public case, so Giuliani's rep has already been hammered. Gaetz and Greene are planning a combined America First fundraising tour. I'd be scared to attend, on the off-chance that Boebert would show up. Put the 3 of em together at a fundraiser, and they might reach Critical Stupidity Mass, and create a Stupidity Singularity.

The compelling data for me is...India had basically 7 million cases in April *alone*.

Wondered when you'd bring that up. Traded up to do it, too.

Let's hope you're right, but there've been some other cases that have been caught on video, and the results have been minimal. I'm hoping that, at the very least, these are acting like sledgehammer blows to a wall. It may not look like much progress is really being made, but hopefully cracks are growing, and the wall's chipping. Sooner or later that wall will be breached.

Well, hey, that legal theory is on par with the assertions he was making in the election lawsuits, so this really isn't anything new. But admittedly, one has to question how anyone this moronic ever passed the bar exam, if nothing else. I think it's from hanging around Trump. I mean, judging from those who were around him, it's clear that proximity to him drains INT.

I...wow. I'm not sure I have acrophobia per se, more like a fear of falling...but here they're kinda related. I don't think that rail would be high enough for me. And a less-than-healthy part of me wonders when the first person will go to the center then throw themselves over the side.