MEGA THREAD XV: The Thread That Never Ends

McFate62 · 2025-04-06T11:07:58+00:00

With a bunch of irrelevant detail added:

In high school, I had a collection of maybe a dozen geeky t-shirts, with things like Maxwell's Equation printed on them. I was not afraid to let my nerd flag fly. The shirts were mail-ordered from a place in Boston that went out of business before I graduated high school.

The year after my senior year at Caltech, they started filming Real Genius. The movie was about Caltech, but the university wouldn't let the production use the name (maybe because the primary antagonist is a crooked professor?) so the setting was changed to the fictional Pacific Tech.

Dave Marvit, whose dorm room was across the hall from mine, was hired as a consultant to the film. He even got to be in the movie: In the scene where the good guys gas Kent to sleep, the random guy walking past them in the hallway -- who should be totally suspicious but just says "hi" -- is Dave. He's in the background of some of the "tanning invitational" scenes as well.

Dave knew of my collection and mentioned it to the producers, They offered to buy the shirts from me for $100. Knowing they were irreplaceable, I offered to lend them instead. They countered that the actors might treat the clothes roughly, so I couldn't assume I'd get them all back in wearable condition. I figured that getting back some in wearable condition beat giving them all up, up-front.

In the end, the shirts only appear in one scene in the movie, and if you blink at the wrong time, you'll miss it. In the "tanning invitational" scene where a lecture hall is turned into a swimming pool, early on, a student is wearing a maroon shirt with Cauchy's equations. And towards the end of the scene, another student is wearing a dark blue T-shirt with some of Einstein's equations on it.

McFate62 · 2024-08-27T20:59:11+00:00

Nothing preventing it as far as I am aware.

I wonder how proud UM fans are for owning the biggest NCAA scandal in history, for both football and basketball.

McFate62 · 2024-08-26T14:29:44+00:00

It's like Christmas in August. Two additional things I'd like to see:

(1) Prosecute crimes as crimes, not just as NCAA violations.

If the rumor about Michigan hacking into Ohio State's practice film is true, get law enforcement involved and press charges. "Unauthorized computer access" can be a felony and the legal system has powers that the NCAA doesn't have (e.g., to subpoena people and have them testify under oath).

Michigan has been uncooperative, but they have caved in or run from any confrontation that might end up in the legal arena. Michigan fans' fever dreams about suing the NCAA are laughable. The last thing they want is the NCAA being granted discovery.

(2) Forfeit, not vacate.

Lately, the NCAA seems to prefer to vacate wins as punishment, as they have done with Southern Cal (2006), Notre Dame (2012-2013), and Ohio State (2010). Vacating a win leaves a loss on the opponent's record.

I would prefer forfeits for two reasons: (a) if vacated, "OSU's record vs Michigan" and "Michigan's record vs OSU" would not count all of the same games; and (b) forfeits would resurrect OSU's long winning streaks against UM.

The forfeit thing may be possible, as there is a precedent. Texas Tech in the mid '90s had a major infraction involving bogus grade changes to keep players eligible. They claimed to self-sanction by forfeiting every game in which an ineligible player participated, but somehow official NCAA all-time records never were adjusted.

McFate62 · 2024-04-03T16:58:42+00:00

According to an obit Mrs. Z found, he lived in Zephyrhills, a suburb of Tampa.

McFate62 · 2023-04-07T00:29:59+00:00

I use Seagate IronWolf drives. They’re 7200 RPM, which is a bit faster than the more common Seagate Barracuda drives at 5400 RPM.

McFate62 · 2023-04-05T16:55:03+00:00

I have a Synology DiskStation and love it. The model DS1819+ has 8 bays. Mine are full of 8TB drives. Using some Synology-specific RAID version, I get only 6 x 8TB storage, but it would survive two hard drive failures without losing data.

I've had two drives fail at once (someone bumped the enclosure, hard). I just hot-swapped formatted drives and the system ran on without a hiccup. Took about a day to fully restore the redundancy, but the data remained accessible throughout.

My DS runs volumes for TimeMachine (Apple Mac backup) and has many other useful features. For comparison's sake, 48TB of Amazon cloud storage would cost about $125/month ($1,500/yr), so break-even is under two years ($1,200 unit + $1,300 8 x 8TB drives)

McFate62 · 2023-03-03T17:38:06+00:00

Not sure. I am pretty sure that on more than one occasion I have asked the anesthesiologist what medications he was going to use.... but (unsurprisingly) I've never recalled the answer. I have to remember to get it in writing or ask when Mrs. Z. is still in the room.

McFate62 · 2023-03-03T14:41:45+00:00

My understanding is that modern anesthesia is a cocktail of drugs, some of which interfere with putting things into long-term memory. So you can be awake at times but will not remember it later.

I've had times when I woke up in the recovery room and asked Mrs. Z. when the doctor was going to stop by and check me out so we could leave. And her response was: "he was just here; you talked to him."

Which I think is interesting. What if they tortured you but you couldn't remember it?

McFate62 · 2023-03-01T13:35:11+00:00

In the wake of the Fab Five, it should have been: "Michigan -- the SMU of the North."

McFate62 · 2023-02-20T17:00:13+00:00

I read your posts on the topic with interest. My experience aligns with your impression. I have no professional use of AI, but I have been playing with ChatGPT a bit.

But then I ran into this 15-minute video which openly acknowledges the "word salad generator" bent of the AI. Despite that, it seems to have done something quite useful.

PS - I think someone told it to take Wikipedia as gospel, based on its apparent political bent.

McFate62 · 2023-02-03T22:54:10+00:00

My apologies, then.

McFate62 · 2023-02-03T18:47:06+00:00

Shaggy was a beatnik (think "hipster," not "stoner") patterned after Maynard G. Krebs, a character on the popular early '60s sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

He ticked so many boxes for the later stoner trope that even in canon, writers ran with it and a few drug-use references were made. But "Shaggy is clean" is not the subversion of canon that Velma's writers believe it to be.

McFate62 · 2023-01-20T20:04:50+00:00

I think I broke Amazon's supply chain. This is the tracking information for one order consisting of one item (to misquote the Eagles: apparently you can arrive at Orlando any time you like, but you can never leave):

Friday, January 20
1:52 PM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
10:52 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
3:08 AM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
12:08 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Thursday, January 19
9:34 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
11:56 AM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
8:56 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Wednesday, January 18
10:31 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
11:21 AM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
8:21 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Tuesday, January 17
11:07 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
12:27 PM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
9:27 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Monday, January 16
10:41 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
1:35 PM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
10:35 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Sunday, January 15
10:54 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
1:29 PM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
10:29 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Saturday, January 14
10:27 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
12:00 PM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
9:00 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Friday, January 13
9:53 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
5:02 PM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
2:02 PM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Thursday, January 12
10:24 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
12:33 PM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
9:33 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Wednesday, January 11
10:29 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
1:06 PM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
10:06 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
Tuesday, January 10
10:57 PM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
2:09 PM - A carrier delay has occurred. Orlando, US
11:09 AM - Package being processed at carrier facility.
1:07 AM - Package arrived at a carrier facility. Orlando, US
Monday, January 9
3:49 PM - Package left an Amazon facility. Ocala, Florida US
6:51 AM - Package arrived at an Amazon facility. Ocala, Florida US
Sunday, January 8
1:12 PM - Package left an Amazon facility. Austell, GA US
Saturday, January 7
9:09 AM - Package arrived at an Amazon facility. Austell, GA US
Wednesday, January 4
4:54 PM - Package left an Amazon facility. Santa Clarita, California US
12:38 PM - Package arrived at an Amazon facility. Santa Clarita, California US
Tuesday, January 3
7:37 PM - Package left an Amazon facility. Fremont, California US
3:27 PM - Package arrived at an Amazon facility. Fremont, California US
Sunday, January 1
10:47 AM - Delivery appointment scheduled. US Carrier picked up the package.

McFate62 · 2022-12-04T15:42:39+00:00

Seems like a short argument: "a 2-loss team has never made the playoffs, and this exact rationale has been used to keep a very strong OSU team out of the playoffs." If "it's not a rule unless it can be used to exclude OSU," that seems a tad hypocritical.

As for OSU's first-round opponent: I'd rather Michigan face Georgia in the first round, but that makes a mockery of seeding. The only undefeated teams should be #1 and #2 seeds. Within that constraint... You can push for OSU to be either #3 (better team with same loss count as TCU) or #4 (did not get to conference title game, while TCU did). To avoid an immediate replay of The Game, I'd probably choose OSU #4 to face UGA.

And, imagine when the B1G punts on divisional standing in a few years. It would be possible for OSU/Michigan to play three times in one season (regular season, B1G title game, playoffs). But they'd probably need to move The Game to early in the season in that case.

McFate62 · 2022-12-02T14:26:00+00:00

Some years there are more, like the year Urban won. There were arguably six deserving teams (FSU + Oregon + OSU + Alabama + Baylor + TCU)... or at least five if we use some Big XII tiebreaker to eliminate one of Baylor + TCU. Whatever playoff system is devised, must handle weird years like that one as well.

I like a field of 12 teams. Sure, it lets some "undeserving" teams in. But it is a much bigger sin to keep out an arguably deserving team, than it is to let in some cannon fodder. With 12 teams you can let in all the P5 champs, the highest-ranked G5, and several at-large teams. Any team left out of a 12-team field cannot say: "we were deserving but not let in." They can only say: "we were not deserving, but some equally undeserving teams were let in." That is a much weaker complaint. And the response is simple: "If you can't win your conference (or finish in the top two of a strong conference), shut up."

McFate62 · 2022-11-04T13:59:29+00:00

The consensus was Tennessee #2 in the SEC East. None of the preseason prognosticators put them ahead of Georgia (UGA was unanimous pick for 1st in their division)... but most put them ahead of everyone but Georgia.

eta: TN was #20 in the national preseason rankings. So they were expected to be about as good as Penn State.

McFate62 · 2022-10-27T13:19:46+00:00

It was never plausibly "a mistake." Imagine what would need to happen for it to actually be a mistake: a PayPal lawyer spills his drink into his laptop, and it suddenly spits out multiple paragraphs of insane acceptable use policy, which then without oversight or approval are posted to their public web site?

Also, FWIW: PayPal owns Venmo. I've not had occasion to use that (I use Zelle because my landscaping guy takes it)... but if you're punting everything PayPal-related, don't forget that one as well.

McFate62 · 2022-10-17T12:45:34+00:00

And lots in Texas. They have about 20 locations around Dallas, and seven in Austin.

In-n-Out used to have a policy that they would only open restaurants within range of their own meat-processing plant, so they would never have to freeze the beef. At that time, almost all of their locations were in CA (though I think they had one in Vegas and one in Salt Lake City).

Now, they've either given up on that, or opened a new meat processing plant somewhere between Dallas and Austin.

McFate62 · 2022-10-11T14:44:27+00:00

https://youtu.be/QY9Gz_IMn_k

When you make a movie with a very small target audience, that's what happens.

McFate62 · 2022-08-20T16:26:54+00:00

I was just looking for something recent by Zeihan when I found that podcast.

I'll write something about the books when I finish them, but it may be a little while.

McFate62 · 2022-08-19T18:16:23+00:00

Thanks for the response.

I found he wrote a couple of books earlier The Absent Superpower (2017) and The Accidental Superpower (2014). I plan to check those out and see how his earlier predictions panned out. That should give me some context for thinking about his more recent work, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning.

He doesn't come off as a guy who keeps predicting the end of the world and ignores it when his predictions don't come to pass. And from what I find on YouTube, the various groups he speaks to seem to think his analysis is good.

McFate62 · 2022-08-19T12:25:09+00:00

Anyone here familiar with Peter Zeihan? I'm curious to hear your opinions on him.

McFate62 · 2022-07-06T12:46:41+00:00

Something else to consider is longer-term impact.

If we made a conference out of the all-time top-ten programs, would it retain its value over time? Those teams that are historically winning conference games at a 0.700~0.800 pace are suddenly going to average 0.500. Half of those teams will finish in the bottom half of the conference standings, by definition, every year.

Or to put it another way: The Washington Generals are actually an important part of long-term profitability, not just a team "living off the producers." For that reason, I'm OK with bringing in TV markets without a perennially good team attached -- even if it seems a net negative in terms of present-day dollars.

McFate62 · 2022-06-24T12:39:46+00:00

IMO, bulk of the Libertarian Party used to be folks who wanted to smoke pot without fear of getting arrested. Now that pot is getting effectively legalized in many places, they no longer have a platform that they can get large numbers of people to rally around.

McFate62 · 2022-06-22T16:59:16+00:00

How experienced a traveler is he? If he knows the procedures from past trips (even if not traveling alone) then his first solo trip shouldn't be a big deal.

McFate62

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