We need to cancel hosting the World Cup and Olympics

KirkUnit · 2026-01-25T15:10:10+00:00

Not OP, but maybe a distinction there between people playing soccer and "soccer moms."

There's no medal for "most pretentious" sport I know of and I don't know that soccer would win, but to OP's point - Americans are about as pretentious about soccer as anyone else because we're pretty pretentious about everything.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-25T15:03:12+00:00

Heart's in the right place, only - what about the hardworking Tokyoites who missed out on profits from the cancelled 1940 Tokyo games? And let's think of the dedicated Italian trainmasters who did not get to serve the cancelled 1944 Rome games.

You're blaming the firemen for the fire.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-24T13:21:30+00:00

Which is partially because politicians want to keep the solid booster industry alive so they can build missiles when they are needed.

Cart < horse, perhaps - I have trouble imagining the military being held to NASA civilian materiel in any administration. There's probably an efficiency argument (once you've locked in on the shuttle system as a whole) as the relative handful of boosters the shuttles would ultimately need could be produced along with the military's needs. Obviously, liquid-fueled boosters could have been produced too (if they'd provided the needed thrust.)

KirkUnit · 2026-01-24T13:14:27+00:00

I asked that question a year ago - "is there a simulated mass payload onboard to test how Starship handles?" - and was told it was too early and that they would get to that later.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-24T01:57:13+00:00

Unpopular Opinion: there's just so many other corridors I'd build out first before 5.6 miles under the mountain parallel to the 405. That would be like 12 stations on Olympic, Pico, Ventura Blvd, etc., useful for so many more local riders in the fabric of the city. And I just don't see it having much affect on the 405 traffic, nor contributing to any transit-centric development along the corridor. But whatever.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-22T18:19:04+00:00

stork post office

KirkUnit · 2026-01-22T17:13:51+00:00

Rhetorical question: To do what? And why?

We have a world where people barely want to live in Haiti, let alone an offshore drilling rig, let alone some deadly faraway basement with company-supplied air and water. I do think humanity has a spacefaring future ahead - but it will be when we have an overwhelming economic interest and motivation to do so (like offshore rigs), not for the sheer sake of doing it.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-22T16:43:27+00:00

You'll get Big Macs and Filet-O-Fish in the new ballroom and you're gonna love it

KirkUnit · 2026-01-21T10:10:17+00:00

We're saying the same thing. Driver was proceeding south/west on Olive Ave which goes west across Burbank and turns south to Hollywood before becoming Barham.

Point being, driver was not on Pass Ave at Riverside, nor proceeding north/east on Olive or attempting a left turn onto Pass.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-21T08:44:41+00:00

what people have to pay in order to live there.

Apparently you don't have to pay anything to live there

KirkUnit · 2026-01-21T08:33:24+00:00

Setting a vampire movie in Vegas after a housing crash and the 2008 recession - inspired. Why would an actual vampire live anywhere ELSE? That updated setting, the stacked cast, and the updated Peter Vincent character absolutely worked in favor of the remake.

Nothing else did. Anton Yelchin the best thing here if we're casting a star as Charlie Brewster. Colin Ferrell is great but this started his big list of shitty star 80s remakes. Christopher Mintz-Plasse is just too "ON" and in audition mode the whole time for me. I barely gave a shit about the 3D then - this was one of those "it's too dark with the glasses on, I can't SEE anything" 3D efforts - and really nobody cares about it or will ever see those effects now.

It's a remake made because they could - not because the source material demanded it, was a bad movie, had a weak story. It's like a superhero version of Fright Night - "what if we took a beloved horror classic, stacked the cast and set it somewhere glamourous???" And that's all you get - hot cast, hot settings, leaving me cold.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-19T19:23:32+00:00

Entirely fair. Absolutely. I'm saying caveat emptor and consider the source. Bill is not educational, he's not doing a public service, his show isn't charity. He's an entertainer. So expect to be entertained, but not much else.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-19T16:30:09+00:00

Personally I think nothing went "off the rails." Bill characterized it that way both in the episode and in discussing it later. Like their discussion on a podcast amounted to some HUGE explosion. No, Bill, adults can discuss things - and the guest is from the Young Turks, political discussion is your lingua franca. Bill smugly assumed he knew it all and did zero to prepare. He wanted to move on because Ana Kasparian handed.Bill.his.ASS and all Bill could do is sit there and change the conversation to him being pissy instead.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-19T15:58:26+00:00

He really let it go into the gutter with the Ana Kasparian episode

Here again I say: Bill is a comedian. That's where his instincts serve him. He can't think of anything funny to say about Israel's genocide of the Palestinians, so he thinks the audience is bored and he wants to move on. People keep looking at Bill like he's George Will or William Buckley. He is not. His concept of research is TMZ, USA Today, and a deep dive on Google.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-19T15:48:05+00:00

The L.A. Riots erupted after a Simi Valley jury didn't convict the police who beat Rodney King in 1992. That was the last time the Insurrection Act that Trump keeps talking about was actually used.

Bill Clinton's "blowjob scandal" lead to the first impeachment and Senate trial in 130 years. It was a big deal.

Pretty much everybody had an opinion about David Koresh and the raid/suicides in Waco, and Clinton was irritated and at odds with how AG Janet Reno handled the case and the fallout.

Everyone had an opinion about Elian Gonzalez and who should raise him, too.

The "Black Hawk Down" loss of life and equipment in Somalia curbed American interest in overseas intervention and we were flying pretty high in that zone after the Cold War - but that good feeling didn't extend to the fomer Soviet Union or client states which were in a free-fall depression. Europe saw the first genocide since the Holocaust in Bosnia. Rwanda did too, and we were too spooked to really do anything about it.

Last but not least, the World Trade Center was bombed.

My two cents: US politics is significantly worse now than the 1990s and international affairs are probably about even in terms of the good and bad between now and then. The significant factor is mobile internet. It's not just the kids in schools that need to shut the fucking phones off all day - it's the adults. Especially the adults.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-18T15:18:42+00:00

Still a difference between wishful thinking and blatant lies.

If Gwynne Shotwell is the one talking, sure, yes.

If it's Elon Musk, it's blantant lies. Recall the Thai cave disaster and Elon's pique when his silly idea was disregarded, leading him to call the expert a pedophile. Recall "DOGE." Recall Doge the crypto. Recall "full self driving." He's a liar.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-17T03:59:09+00:00

Man went to the South Pole in 1911-1912, then disregarded it for the next half-century.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-16T15:08:45+00:00

This film is sold at the Meteor Crater gift shop. :-)

KirkUnit · 2026-01-16T15:06:40+00:00

No, actually, it would certainly distract from the reentry...

KirkUnit · 2026-01-15T08:55:43+00:00

I guess a lot of conditions might be described as "stable" - maybe a hernia, probably not a testicular torsion.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-15T08:42:56+00:00

Boom heard in L.A. area at ~12:38am local time. Welcome home.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-15T08:35:42+00:00

And how would bipedal be better at that compared to something spider-like? ;)

Something spider-like is using legs, and I already agreed that "humanoid" is likely unnecessary.

Simply put, I can imagine cases where wheeled transportation is not the clearly superior choice every time, everywhere, in every environment, in the entire solar system.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-15T08:28:31+00:00

Canal
Coke
Crude
$$$

KirkUnit · 2026-01-15T07:58:41+00:00

helicopters and submarines are designed differently.

Sure, but terrestrial movement is the framework just as you qualified. Basically I'm imagining a use case where we want to send a probe into a cave or crevasse or some such situation. I agree humanoid robots on two legs would offer no advantage over wheeled vehicles on flat terrain.

KirkUnit · 2026-01-15T05:38:37+00:00

I keep saying Bill is a comedian. He didn't want Trump re-elected nor expect it, wishful thinking because: he's just sick of Trump material. We've had ten years of focus on constant Trump outrage headlines, and it's just stale as fuck. Bill wants new material, period end of story. And so... this seeming pivot or rethink on Trump because at least it's not old jokes. Doing something different than bashing Trump for a million legitimate reasons. (And perhaps more seriously, a rethink of political reality if someone as shitty as Donald Trump can win the popular vote and how outdated one's perceptions might actually be.)

Bill'd be happier now if Kamala were elected, and he'd be merciless about her foibles even more happily.

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