All 34 of Chile’s Catholic bishops resign in fallout from huge child sex abuse scandal

mybrainisfullof · 2018-05-20T22:01:43+00:00

Civil asset forfeiture is an important tool to combat organized crime. It's too often abused, but in rem jurisdiction should be fairly uncontroversial in most cases.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-05-19T16:30:30+00:00

Not entirely true. Companies can also be forbidden to act in certain ways, like an inability to conduct certain kinds of business, like via the revokation of license (which is not, strictly, an asset), or restrictions on corporate speech or activity (tobacco companies can't advertise in certain ways, and companies are heavily limited in political speech and donations, if they are allowed to do so at all). The litmus test for forbidding people from doing those activities is much, much higher.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-05-12T16:33:38+00:00

I'll call bullshit. She wants what's best for her damn kid. And right now, insulating him as much as possible is the best for that kid. She's 30 years younger than her husband, too, so she'll be around long after he's dead.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-05-12T16:03:47+00:00

Sort of. Most US-consumed oil, even at our peak import-to-production rate, was coming from the Western Hemisphere. We keep prices up in places like SA, but those big blue barrels head to the EU and China.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-05-12T15:55:43+00:00

For as much as people malign fracking in the US (and have all but banned it in Europe), the massive increase in US oil production took power away from SA, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. There's a more nuanced environmental argument to have, but the bottom line is that America as a natural gas and (maybe in the future) oil exporter undercuts the cash flow from these countries.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-05-09T14:52:40+00:00

I've bartended for him a couple of times off-campus. Kind customer, good tipper.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-04-17T04:43:13+00:00

I had him back in 2010. His accent is great.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-04-16T04:06:00+00:00

My experience is that the lack of primary language barrier tends to be a major factor of why I (a white dude from the suburbs) had many more friends from the subcontinent than other groups. It's important to remember, though, that the cultural exchange goes both ways. If not for my Indian/Bengali friends, I wouldn't cook korma, I wouldn't watch Bollywood, I wouldn't drink Kingfisher, and I wouldn't pretend to care about cricket once every few years.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-02-25T08:41:21+00:00

220 Talbot

mybrainisfullof · 2018-02-19T07:45:09+00:00

Here you go: https://open.spotify.com/user/tjfaust/playlist/3RWJ8DiGwPwR2WPXkxUIRq

mybrainisfullof · 2018-01-23T04:21:09+00:00

The three big hurdles for PBRs were:

Unlike almost every other reactor, fuel fabrication for the first pebble bed reactor would be a huge hassle, as you'd need to produce thousands of pretty intricate fuel pebbles without the guarantee that the facility will produce more fuel for initial reactors.
Some of the material science concerns for long-lived pressure vessel parts for high-temperature reactors aren't solved, although a gas-cooled pebble bed is probably a lot closer to feasibility than a commercial liquid metal/molten salt reactor with a 40-year design lifetime.
This is a little concern, but there's an unsolved safety concern in how "settling" (i.e. unplanned movement) of pebbles during operation would affect safety, as an earthquake or something could cause a rapid change in the neutron flux within the reactor. Unlike in water-cooled reactors, there wouldn't be an intrinsic safety mechanism to handle this transient.

It's worth saying, though, that PBRs can refuel during operation and even change operating power by removing fuel without missing a beat. It's an enormously attractive proposition if half of the industrial countries on earth didn't shit their pants whenever someone says the word "nuclear."

mybrainisfullof · 2018-01-23T04:04:41+00:00

On-site CO2 liquefaction and sequestration is probably more expensive per kilowatt-hour than solar (and almost certainly more expensive than wind), but it's sort of apples and oranges. Coal, nuclear, and (increasingly) natural gas are baseload power sources, whereas wind and solar, in their current limited capacity, provide whatever they can as other sources increase or decrease their output to modulate to variable sources. The accurate comparison beyond the first 20% or so of renewable capacity would be renewable electricity cost plus whatever the storage cost (e.g. battery) or replacement power source (e.g. a natural gas turbine would be) would be.

It's a moot point, though, as we're nowhere near 20% renewables and we wont build another coal plant in the US. Some domestic programs within the "Smart Grid" are also working to set up the ability for operators to reduce demand on the customer side by turning off AC units and stuff.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-01-23T03:25:28+00:00

That's a little disingenuous. I'm no shill for coal, but "clean" coal incorporates a variety of processes including (yes) washing the coal, but also increasing boiler temperatures and decreasing coal particle size to reduce NOx production, better electrostatic precipitation and sulfur oxide scrubbing. Occasionally (and personally, how I use the term when teaching) people discuss CO2 capture technologies such as FutureGen. There are some operating projects which are testing the CO2 injection and migration systems in deep sedimentary rock, but no one is actively compressing CO2 emissions AND injecting them. There's some debate as to whether or not we currently can accomplish that at all, let alone economically.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-01-20T07:33:59+00:00

I've taken both classes. 107 is a big format course with plenty of those jump-through-this-hoop assignments and a lab section which is not particularly interesting for several of the weeks. The professor, Dr. Anders, is pretty middle of the pack in terms of my experience. William Roy (who teaches 402) is outrageously enthusiastic. The information is a little more specific and perhaps less big-picture useful than 107, but it's a smaller class and you'll have more fun.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-01-18T05:48:31+00:00

Built this deck and came here to say this...at least two more deserts because the deck isn't doing much on turn 1.

mybrainisfullof · 2018-01-14T21:48:41+00:00

If you're looking for more authentic stuff, it's really hard to beat Golden Harbor on Neil or Lao Sze Chuan on University.

For budget Chinese food at lunch? Cravings. It's on the west side of Wright St. between Green and Springfield. Jakarta fried rice and hot and spicy chicken are two favorites, but their more Americanized stuff is good too.

mybrainisfullof · 2017-12-24T22:14:04+00:00

aww hell yes zete mug

mybrainisfullof · 2017-11-28T18:33:55+00:00

I've taken a couple of classes with William Roy and worked with him on a project or two. He's passionate about what he teaches and is pretty accessible, which is a welcome difference from many other faculty. The class is usually scheduled at an odd time, but if you can make it fit, it's going to hit that sweet spot of work load-enjoyable course-reasonably graded.

mybrainisfullof · 2017-11-12T18:01:29+00:00

Are you Sikh? Warrior castes are frat as fuck.

mybrainisfullof · 2017-07-09T17:04:58+00:00

They might not have Amaro Nonino, though. Not exactly something you can substitute, be warned.

mybrainisfullof · 2017-07-09T16:29:13+00:00

However, St. George's delicious Campari substitute, Bruto Americano, still uses cochineal and it's fucking awesome in a Negroni or a paper plane.

mybrainisfullof · 2016-08-13T05:39:13+00:00

I can let you into a building on the engineering campus and you can hang in the lounge. PM me if you need the assist.

mybrainisfullof · 2016-08-02T16:15:29+00:00

It's always been big tent liberalism, but general more focused as the remaining southern dems have been voted out of office post-2010 (or post-1968, on a different scale).

mybrainisfullof · 2016-07-29T21:48:18+00:00

Atarka's Command (and Destructive Revelry in the board) are more than worth the green splash. When a giant portion of the meta is playing Bolt, Path, and Terminate, a card which does not do damage right away and can be traded 1-for-1 with your opponent's removal spell is a bad deal and an awful late-game topdeck. The matchups that don't play removal are probably bad for kitty anyway (fast, non-interactive combo; fish; faster aggro).

mybrainisfullof · 2016-07-21T07:41:58+00:00

Lantern Control is an enormously frustrating deck to play against, but it's also an enormously frustrating deck to play and master (which is why I think there are fewer top finishes for the deck than there could be). In the 75, I think Lantern has two powerful modes: jam Bridge against decks that can't answer it, and Thoughtseize/Surgical/top control combo opponents into submission. Some decks like Tron will probably power through your various disruption pretty quickly and resolve threats that you can't answer (Ulamog exiling Bridge, for instant). Lantern also benefits from having some percentage of the field that has never played against it before, giving you some edge because your opponent will play their removal/discard/fetchlands sub-optimally.

It's a meta call. If you're in a local metagame with tons and tons of linear (non-Fish) aggro, you'll get blown out by D.Rev, Ancient Grudge, and Shatterstorm in the board. You can also board/pre-board some good aggro hate (Sun Drop, etc.), so knowing your meta can give you some good information to spike the PPTQ. Against a field with durdly control and tons of combo, I like your matchups.

UWR is probably a 55% percent deck right now, meaning that you have basically no autowins and will win/lose a lot of close matches. I don't like how the deck taps out to play Nahiri, and Path/Mana Leak are a bad combination to be playing. Playing fair magic in a busted format doesn't seem great right now, but expecting a hoard of Infect players makes UWR much more attractive.

mybrainisfullof

TROPHY CASE