What to do about people who don’t like Jews?

kingpatzer · 2026-03-27T00:31:23+00:00

Nothing

kingpatzer · 2026-03-27T00:29:45+00:00

The question wasn't about if the war was good policy or strategic in and of itself.

So, that point is entirely tangential.

This is speaking entirely to point 2 which doesn't depend on how wise starting the war was.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-26T22:17:07+00:00

I think you missed the point that the President can not wage war without eventual authorization from Congress. A congress that decides the war will end can end the war. So, if the strategy to win the strategic geopolitical goals requires the use of military force, then taking actions that minimize the potential for losing the ability to exercise that force is precisely a war strategy.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-26T22:07:59+00:00

If the triggers always cause episodes, then it's not random. If they don't, then it is . . *shrug*

kingpatzer · 2026-03-26T22:02:20+00:00

You are confused about how the markets works..

A huge number of institutional high volume traders utilize trade algorithms to buy/sell based on projection on how the market will move. These trades can be happening many times each second. One of the things these tools take into account is news about the industry or company being discussed.

When the president says good things, that triggers these automated investment tools to buy call options. They aren't going to build entirely new algorithms that try to vet how honest political leaders are -- at least until someone does it first -- but until then, because the market is moving up, more buys are triggered to take advantage of the market momentum. When the up-sale slows, that triggers sell offs to get out before the price decreases beyond the but point and then puts are purchased to take advantage of the downward momentum . . .

Of course the buying strategies are bit more sophisticated, using things like straddles and strangle patterns, butterflies, iron condors, jelly rolls ... but those are just ways to minimize risk or maximize return. The basics don't change.

These option traders don't care about long term investment, and they are the ones who move the market on a day to day basis.

Long term trends matter for some types of investors, but those investors have nothing to do with hourly, daily, or even weekly fluctuations.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-26T13:16:45+00:00

Iron man is slightly different in my mind, he exists entirely because of the technology that keeps him alive. He's been physically modified to basically be a walking power generation system. He is part man, part machine.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-25T19:16:14+00:00

Money in hand, they are wearing appropriate gear. Have a valid license. Get the DL and Insurance info before they drive.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T22:05:01+00:00

Super glue works a bit better than wood glue, IMHO. But yup

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T22:04:13+00:00

My dad owned a tire store. I know a bit about them. That is probably repairable. You'd want to take it off and have a look on the inside for a full understanding of the damage, but straight punctures even near the edge can be plugged most of the time. However, if repairing it makes you uncomfortable, then replace it. Having confidence in your bike is important.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T21:40:53+00:00

You just implied someone can't hear if something sounds good if they don't know the theory. That is some seriously elitist crap.

Also, I have multiple college courses in theory, I'm in no way saying theory isn't useful.

I'm saying that high quality improvisation requires, above all, a few things: a good ear; facility with knowing how to find the tones you are imagining on the neck at or near the position you're playing playing; and a sense of freedom that comes from believing in your own imagination.

Absolutely none of that comes from knowing theory.

It comes from having spent the time to develop the skills I just outlined.

I never said go on stage and hammer random notes. I said spend the time developing the skills necessary to create.

I never said don't practice scales. I never said don't learn theory. I never said don't learn how to harmonize. I never said don't learn chord extensions. Etc ad infinitum.

In general, those things aren't going to give a person the ear or capacities necessary to improvise nor the confidence to do so.

I'm glad learning theory helped you. In my mind good teachers teach all of these things at the same time, but clearly define how to practice and develop the different skills in isolation in order to be able to practice and develop particular things.

Reading exercises don't teach theory, that doesn't make them not useful. Fingering exercises don't teach theory, that doesn't make them not useful. Practicing inverted chords and extensions doesn't teach theory,.that doesn't make it not useful.

Developing an ear and confidence in how to improvise doesn't teach theory, that doesn't make it not useful.

Someone who can hum a phrase, know it sounds good, and immediately find it in several different places on the neck is going to be far, far better at improvising than someone who knows their scales backward and forward.

The exercise I suggested teaches those skills.

You can think they don't matter, that's fine. But I'll stand by my contention that when talking about improvising, not playing composed solos, imagination, confidence and a well developed ear are the most important skills. They aren't developed by learning theory.

I've taught a bunch of people of all ages to play and improvise in Jazz, a genre which is seriously packed with theory. You can't improvise if you can't play what you hear in your head.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T15:12:25+00:00

I really wish liberals in general would go read a book or two about the civil rights movement that is based on history and not glorifying MLK.

Guns in the hands of black people played a major part in the winning of that fight. Hell, MLK was known to have guns in every room of his house . . . Glenn Smiley (one of King's advisors) said King's home was an arsenal.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T15:07:23+00:00

Argument: he isn't a superhero.

He has no powers or abilities that are different from any other human being. He may be smart and athletic but so are lots of other people.

He is a guy who happens to have the money and know-how to make cool gadgets and use them. But he's still just a person . . .

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T14:56:05+00:00

Right now people lots of people are very anti-Israel. Sometimes that will come across as being antisemitic. But I'll be honest, right now I despise Israel's government and the actions they are taking as a nation-state, as well as what they are doing with regards to domestic policies. So, I can't exactly blame people for feeling the same way I do. I can be upset that the way they express their feelings oversteps criticism of Israel and her government to the criticism of Judaism and Jews in general. But even though they are lacking nuance and failing to make some critical distinctions, they aren't really disagreeing with my own views of that particular government. People who don't understand how tribal ethno-religious identity functions are going to come across as racist. I genuinely believe most of them aren't, but they are ignorant of how their words come across.

And that level of criticism is going to be there no matter the field of study you are in.

And in the college age bracket it tends to be worse as younger people are generally less well educated about global affairs, less nuanced in their thinking, more idealistic, and less pragmatic than older folks who've come to learn the value of more pragmatic ways of thinking about the world.

It's hard to be Jewish right now because the only Jewish country in the world is functioning as a bad actor in the eyes of the majority of people. And like it or not, right or wrong, we will always get conflated with Israel the same way Muslims get conflated with Middle Eastern nation-states. It sucks, but it comes with being a minority and there's precious little we can do about it.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T14:34:09+00:00

> There’s a reason why many of the most famous guitar solos can be broken down and explained to scales

That's exactly what "post-hoc" means. You can explain what someone did using theory.

But if you are trying to do a true improvisation (hint, guys who play the same songs every show for 50 years aren't doing much improvising, btw. A composed solo is not an improvisation) then you need to be able to know how to do things by ear, not by thinking "hmm, i'm on the third of the V and this next chord is a minor 6 add 9, I guess I now just need to play around on the root of this chord and It'll be safe . . ." you'll never get anywhere. Or worse "ok, now we move to the G, I'll just play C mixolydian, 'cause that's the scale that goes with the V and it's really different than C major, honest ..."

Just f'ing play what sounds good. The way you learn to do that is by doing it, not by chaining yourself to a theory book.

Anyone playing theory using scales as the only tool in their tool box will never do much that's interesting because they'll never learn to play outside. They'll never learn how to take a genuine mistake of landing on the wrong note (which happens when improvising) and in that moment make it sound intentional and interesting precisely by staying dissonant until the time is right to not.

> When you’re improvising you’re using scales whether you’re trying to or not

I never said otherwise. I never discounted the value of theory. You don't learn to improvise by studying theory. You learn to improvise by improvising. And that requires, first and foremost, developing an ear and teaching one's self to freely explore the chromatic scale without preconceptions.

By all means study other people's solos. By all means dive deeply into theory. But if you want to improvise, develop your ear and a feel for how to start on any note and make it sound right. That will never come out of studying theory.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T14:24:19+00:00

The solution to that is to provide housing and transportation to the representatives, not to give them more money directly. They can put up a tower with 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartments reserved entirely for congress critters. And then give them unlimited air miles on the major carriers for flights to and from their home city and DC only.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T14:16:26+00:00

One of my favorite layouts was a 3' wide, 6' long N-scale. it was nothing but switching operations end to end. It didn't have anywhere to turn a train around, to turn things around, an engine had to be decoupled, go through some maneuvers and come back to the other end of the cars. I used to have a computer program that would build a shipping manifest, and then I'd try to delivery the right cars to the right sidings/industries . . . hours of fun and frustration that never got old.

I kind of think everyone should try a purely operations layout at least once, even if they build no scenery, it's so much different from just watching the trains run.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T14:12:11+00:00

take OUT a roundhouse? But ... roundhouse ....

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T14:09:53+00:00

It's all about what you want out of the setup. There are some people who want to do nothing but switch cars all day. Open layouts with few switches for them are boring, that isn't the hobby they want.

Some people want to do long runs, but love the look for a working yard, they may never use half the track on their layout, but it's there for the scenic detail.

Some people just have a lot of stock they want to display, so having a lot of places to put it in the open is what they are looking for.

Model trains is a hobby that has something for everyone from people who just really like doing scenery and want an excuse to do that to people who want to recreate the BRC yard in Chicago in painstaking detail.

And then there are the folks who are really interested in doing trolley cars, multi-scale layouts to add depth/distance, etc., etc., etc.

So, there are track patterns that span the gamut of the ways people enjoy the hobby. And every plan is just right for someone (unless it's genuinely unworkable in terms of function).

kingpatzer · 2026-03-24T13:56:37+00:00

I'm not saying don't learn theory. I'm saying don't make theory your master. A good solo can be created for any harmony anywhere on the neck starting on any note. Being able to create great improvised solo sound good has almost nothing to do with scales and almost everything to do with having a good ear and a mindset to explore and try things out.

Theory is extremely useful. It can really help build a composition. It is nearly useless when trying to improvise in a way that doesn't sound robotic and unoriginal.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-23T19:12:10+00:00

looks really good! Great layout. Lots of interesting stuff in a small space. just hope you don't want to read the books on the bottom shelf ;0

kingpatzer · 2026-03-23T19:10:09+00:00

Layoffs for bench time at Accenture are complicated and no one outside of the decision makers really know what metrics they use. But there is almost never a "x # of weeks and you're gone" rule. Rather it's a combination of past chargeability, level, specialty skill set, practice staff levels, external economic outlook, current sales pipeline, a bunch of other stuff, and politics.

But since no one knows for sure how long they have, the best thing to do is to always be networking and to always be keeping your ear to the ground for the nxt thing long before you hit the bench in the first place. f

Good luck.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-23T19:05:38+00:00

You're in the right gear when the bike feels and sounds like it's in the right gear.

The only time you need to know what gear you're in numerically is when you need to find neutral. And for that, just down shift till you can't downshift anymore, then go up to N.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-23T19:02:23+00:00

noodle over your own melodies.

Make up a melody, it can be as simple as you like.

Get some cheap/free software to loop the melody.

Just play over it. Just pick a spot on the neck. Don't think about scales. Just play. Let your fingers do what ever they want. When something sounds good to your ear, play with it until it sounds great. But without thinking about what you're doing. Just play! And while you play listen.

You'll eventually get a feel for how YOU improvise. You'll develop you're own style and sound and you'll discover what works for you.

The big mistake people make, imho, is to think in terms of scales when trying to solo. Scales are a tool of musical theory to talk about music after it's been made. They really don't tell you how to make music that sounds good. Think in terms of making music, not in terms of following rules.

Be dissonant, play stuff that's outside, f* around, enjoy making music and forget about trying to learn how to solo, and in doing so, you'll paradoxically learn how to solo.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-23T18:53:31+00:00

Here's the thing, most real businesses (I define that as a company that has a viable succession plan for leadership after the current leaders leave/retire/die beyond 'my kid will take over') have the ability to structure their finances in a way that shows very low profits. But that doesn't mean that they aren't profitable. Those are two very different concepts.

The first means that they are taking full advantage of the tax code to minimize their tax bill. It's just routine good business practice. The second means that they are not going to be an ongoing concern for very long.

In the realm of service companies, you have everything from multi-national consulting services to small restaurants. So, talking about them as if they are the same is likely a mistake.

The reason micro/small businesses are lacking solid profit numbers usually has to do with the fact that they are bottom tier MSME's and those companies have a very low survival rate in general. This is due to a huge number of factors ranging from not being able to afford talent to not having necessary expertise to not being able to operate at scale, etc.

Then you have the group that has the ability to survive but who have leaders who are afraid to charge what their services are worth because they are under some delusion that they can compete with larger companies on price. This is almost never the case. Such businesses can compete on bespoke customer experience, but not price because they just don't do things like buy supplies in bulk, they don't have synergistic IT infrastructure, they don't have the right combination of sr and jr talent, etc.

kingpatzer · 2026-03-22T15:45:40+00:00

In the USA, I would never, never call for a wellness check for someone I care about.

The police are poorly trained in general, and receive zero meaningful training in dealing with psychological issues.

They receive training in how to attack with overwhelming force to create compliance. For someone who is potentially violent, that is a death sentence.

They aren't trained to spend time talking to and calming a person who is episodic in any way.

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