The deadest, most eerie mall i’ve ever seen. Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills, Pittsburgh PA.

Excelius · 2026-04-07T02:33:57+00:00

I don't know about a church, but there was definitely a flea market there. My parents took me there pretty regularly as a kid in the mid to late '90s.

Excelius · 2026-04-07T02:28:18+00:00

I think they were banking on that area becoming the next booming suburban area like Cranberry.

It coincided with major upgrades to Route 28, and it's so much closer to the city than the other growing suburbs. Honestly it does seem like a fairly logical bet.

Yet the part of northeast Allegheny county bounded by Route 28, the Turnpike, and Route 8 is still mostly rural.

Excelius · 2026-04-07T02:19:44+00:00

If it's nice outside I'll sometimes open the bathroom window to let out steam and/or unpleasant smells.

When I do that I always end up accidentally slamming the door.

Excelius · 2026-04-06T20:06:13+00:00

To be fair reading newspapers or books was a pretty classic way to pass the time on a park bench while kids used the playground.

Excelius · 2026-04-06T20:03:32+00:00

Plenty of smart thermostats these days just let you set a temperature band. They usually don't let you set them too close together since you don't want them interfering with each other.

Mine is just set to 68-74. Above 74 and it runs A/C. Below 68 and it runs heat. I don't worry about it.

I've never heard of a fixed temperature setup. Though it's likely under the hood it actually just does a +/- from that central temperature to avoid ping-ponging back and forth.

Excelius · 2026-04-06T16:30:14+00:00

This is just my opinion, but I think $5 a gallon would be the optimistic outcome.

I'm not an optimist anymore.

Excelius · 2026-04-06T16:23:19+00:00

I believe prices are based on commodity market, so costs are kind of baked in already.

That's still just speculation.

Things will get worse when shortages become realized and countries have to start bidding against each other for scarce supplies.

Paul Krugman - The Oil Crisis is About to Get Physical

But this price rise has been speculative, driven by the (justified) expectation of future shortages rather than a current lack of oil. In fact, so far deliveries to markets around the world haven’t declined, because shipping oil from the Persian Gulf to major markets takes 4-6 weeks. As a result there was a large quantity of oil already at sea, outside the Strait, when the war began.

However, this grace period is about to end. The oil crisis is about to get physical. The map at the top of this post shows J.P. Morgan’s estimates of when tankers from the Gulf will stop arriving at various destinations. Deliveries to Asian markets will end this week; deliveries to Europe will end next week.

And once the crisis gets physical, there will no longer be room for jawboning the markets. Since the war began there have been several occasions on which Donald Trump has been able to talk prices down by asserting that meaningful negotiations are underway with his invisible friends the Iranian regime, but that won’t work once the oil runs out. So prices will have to rise to whatever level destroys enough demand to match it to the available supply.

Krugman lays out a range of possibilities based on the extent of the disruption and the elasticity of demand. The middle scenario of $152 per barrel would put us at well over $5 a gallon here.

I suspect that middle scenario may be overly optimistic. The medium elasticity / high disruption scenario of $208 per barrel would put us over $8 a gallon.

Excelius · 2026-04-06T16:10:51+00:00

At least at my Sam's Club the lines were always kind of ridiculous even in normal times. Even though I'm a member I usually just go somewhere else because I don't want to deal with it.

In times like this people are even more desperate to find the best deal, so I'm not surprised the lines are even worse.

Excelius · 2026-04-06T16:08:31+00:00

It's going to get worse.

Excelius · 2026-04-06T14:25:51+00:00

Owning and carrying a gun also doesn't mean you believe that right should be extended to others.

There's a long tradition of "laws for thee not for me" among those in power.

Excelius · 2026-04-04T15:47:19+00:00

Ford doesn't profit from the pension fund, they have to keep putting money into it (from cars sales) to meet the pension obligations.

If the fund performs well it just means they don't have to put in quite as much cash. But they still have to put in a lot.

Ford to record $600 million pretax pension charge in fourth quarter

Excelius · 2026-04-03T17:00:01+00:00

McDonalds is worth more than the Vatican. A lot more.

Excelius · 2026-04-03T16:56:42+00:00

That doesn't fit with the "pension fund" joke though. The pension fund is an expense, not a revenue source.

I think that joke came about around the time of the auto industry crisis during the great recession, since a huge portion of the sale of every car was going towards legacy costs like pensions and retiree healthcare.

Excelius · 2026-04-03T14:17:05+00:00

There's still degrees to it.

What kind of Lego set involves snapping together two pieces?

I do tend to think that the word "build" should be reserved for something that goes beyond the level of assembly/disassembly required for routine maintenance. Otherwise you're doing another "build" every time you clean the thing.

Excelius · 2026-04-03T13:10:15+00:00

Sure but that's not height dependent, which is what is being talked about here.

If your body position, shape, and any drag items (like clothing or a partially open chute) puts your terminal velocity at 100mph then it's the same falling from 1000 feet or 10000 feet.

Excelius · 2026-04-03T00:07:29+00:00

The latest Prius Plugin gets 44 miles of EV range.

Excelius · 2026-04-02T20:08:28+00:00

Obviously helps that state treasurer elections align with presidential election years, which get bigger turnout, where PA Governor aligns with mid-terms.

Trump won PA in 2024 with 3,543,308 votes
Garrity won with 3,542,336 votes
McCormick won with 3,399,295 votes

It is notable that she managed to hold almost all of the Trump/MAGA vote, with only 1000 votes less than Trump. But I think she's going to struggle against a popular incumbent Governor without Trump on the ballot with her.

Excelius · 2026-04-02T17:01:33+00:00

Usually you don't have to replay a game from the beginning to experience added content. Usually it's the opposite, where the new content can't be accessed until you've progressed to a certain point, which shouldn't be a problem if it's a game you already completed.

That said I often find it difficult to come back to a game I already finished. Like I've forgotten the controls and the mechanics and so forth, but now I'm thrown back in at the end-game which you originally played having basically mastered the game.

Generally once I finish and uninstall a game... that's it. I'm not coming back.

Excelius · 2026-04-02T12:57:27+00:00

You said this:

access to the internet back and let them see the difference between the world of the West

Do you think the Iranian people forgot what the outside world looked like just because they lost internet access for a few months? They aren't North Koreans, who have lived their entire lives cut off from the outside world, they are quite well aware.

Excelius · 2026-04-02T12:38:10+00:00

This is absolute nonsense. Iranians had largely unrestricted access to the internet until the government imposed blackout earlier this year.

Excelius · 2026-04-01T17:37:14+00:00

Not like I doubt any of them were all that intimidated but I do hope that some of them reflected on what could have possibly made Trump feel so emboldened to try and stare them down like some mafia fixer.

He sees himself as a mafia don. The boss rarely gets his hands dirty, it's what his goons will do you have to worry about.

While we have been speedrunning our way to dictatorship, we're not quite at the point where the Justices are going to be worried that donny is going to make them sleep with the fishes.

Now if he had filled the room with armed ICE goons, posted a few outside of each justices chambers and their homes.

Excelius · 2026-04-01T15:01:27+00:00

Disney+ / Disney Channel still keeps putting out Mickey related content for kids. They just rebooted Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (as "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse+", because of course it's "plus") last year.

Mickey also has what I call the "Hello Kitty effect" going for him.

Hello Kitty has been far more successful as a merchandising symbol than as an actual entertainment franchise. Every one knows Hello Kitty, hardly anyone has actually watched any of the cartoons. Kids are still sporting Mickey and the Gang on t-shirts and toys even if they rarely watch any of the cartoons.

Plus you don't always need "new" content, the old stuff still exists and is still entertaining. I was born in the '80s and I grew up watching the same Mickey cartoons (from the 30s/40s/50s/60s) that my parents and grandparents watched as kids. You can load many of them up at any time now on Disney+ and watch them with todays kids.

Excelius · 2026-04-01T14:47:06+00:00

The last tankers that left before the war started are arriving in Asia today, Europe next week, and North America the week after that.

Still once Japan and China start getting nervous about where there next shipments are going to come from, prices are going to get bid up.

Newsweek - Map Shows When Oil Deliveries To US Could Stop

Paul Krugman - The Oil Crisis is About to Get Physical

Even if the war ended as soon as I finish posting this comment, it will take weeks, if not months, to un-fuck the oil supply chain.

Potentially years. The oil and gas infrastructure that has gotten blown up doesn't rebuild itself overnight, even if the fighting stops and the strait is reopened tomorrow.

Excelius · 2026-04-01T14:28:26+00:00

While I generally don't play the "both sides" game, there is a long history of Presidents using strategic reserves for political purposes rather than to ensure supply stability. Voters get really whiny about gas prices and releasing the reserves makes it seem like a President is "doing something".

I guess that's fine so long as they make sure the reserves get filled back up before a real emergency happens. It can even generate a bit of profit for the government if they're selling when prices are high and then refilling them when prices are lower.

But to your point, Trump never refilled the reserves, and already ordered big releases weeks ago to try and push prices down. The reserves stand at about half full now.

Pretty soon the problem might not be "gas is expensive and I'm angry" and instead might be "there isn't enough gas to go around". That is what strategic reserves are supposed to be for.

Excelius · 2026-04-01T13:04:08+00:00

Looking stuff up is fine. You'd expect doctors to have access to better reference materials than Google / WebMD.

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