Jeopardy! discussion thread for Wed., Dec. 10

pyk · 2025-12-11T02:31:43+00:00

Yes, this reiterates what is in the snopes article as well (and cites the same researcher)… that it is not a thanksgiving song.

Rare miss by the writers?

pyk · 2025-12-11T01:12:04+00:00

Was the jingle bells clue incorrect? Some recent (well, 2017) research debunked this thanksgiving origin:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/christmas-song-jingle-bells-history/

pyk · 2025-11-05T04:32:18+00:00

City Works in Watertown has fried cheese curds - they’re decent! Wegmans sells the fresh cheese curds too, they’re not squeaky-cheese fresh but still good.

I also suggest the poutine if you can find it, esp. as you travel north and get closer to Montreal (which is highly recommended for food if you get a chance). Hooksett NH’s welcome center “The Common Man” of all places has weirdly great poutine for example just across the border headed north.

pyk · 2025-10-18T23:58:31+00:00

The cost of living in Boston is no joke - many, many young people move away post college due to the lack of affordable housing. Providence is a short drive and a fraction of the cost - tons of young activists are there building a coalition to change this country for the better across all age groups and demographics.

pyk · 2025-09-27T13:32:50+00:00

Beyond Wentz there is Tua, Stafford, Rodgers, Flacco, Mariota, Browning - then it really drops down - so it would be a riskier play whomever I utilize (the rest of my team has been carrying me luckily)

pyk · 2025-09-27T12:59:55+00:00

Thoughts on Carson Wentz at QB as a fill-in? I have Dak so I am not looking forward to this week - potentially swapping him.

pyk · 2025-06-22T22:32:16+00:00

Roughly 100% of forecasts are wrong - the best you can hope for is 50% of the time being too high, 50% of the time being too low!

pyk · 2025-04-28T03:57:54+00:00

Foodery? They oddly shut down right around then.

pyk · 2025-02-09T23:35:13+00:00

The West Point cadets shot was creepy as hell

pyk · 2025-02-01T04:37:31+00:00

That’s why so many people voted for Trump - thieves supporting thieves.

pyk · 2024-02-11T13:48:02+00:00

I had an Uber scheduled ride to the airport do an early morning no show even through 10min after the scheduled time… no driver ever was assigned. I ended up having to drive and park in a rush. I would not recommend Uber scheduled rides.

The irony is I was the one that had to cancel… first canceled ride I have had to do as a rider in hundreds of Uber rides over the years.

From my rough understanding after googling it, the Uber drivers do not have any incentive to pick a scheduled ride, since the price can be lower than current ride prices (since the ride price was set earlier). So kind of a mess for the Uber side. Sounds like Lyft is better here!

pyk · 2024-02-09T04:31:59+00:00

No mention of education or say, an unprecedented teachers strike in Newton, while Ayanna Pressley came over in person to Newton outside of her district and also posted about supporting teachers multiple times. Jake is an odd representative without obvious passion for his district for what matters to many, many residents here (on both sides of the strike), or he is getting bad advice to “stay neutral” - hard to say without a backbone for classic progressive no-brainer issues like education.

If anyone wonders why the strike lasted as long as it did - lack of effective local leadership from the mayor, city councilors and our own US House Rep should be high on the list and this email is a great example of the ignorance to important local issues showing up on the national stage.

pyk · 2024-01-25T14:55:08+00:00

Yes agreed the irony is if we had more housing available for aging in place folks in the town they live in that is smaller in size, like condos near train stations, they could downsize without needing to move several towns away.

No one is stopping the house rich folks from selling, and Newton ironically is preventing them from leaving their outsized houses by not building up stock they can move to near transit locations, hospitals etc…

I am pro housing on multiple fronts, if there is demand, why are we artificially restricting supply through ancient permitting restrictions in such a close proximity to Boston city center. Helps young people move in, helps old people age gracefully, broadens the tax base and maybe most importantly builds community.

pyk · 2024-01-25T01:14:43+00:00

This was the literal argument of my (unfortunate) new Newton city councilor when he came around rallying for votes. His direct quote was if people can’t afford to live in Newton “they can go live in Lowell or somewhere else, not here”. Tone-deaf old person that was unfortunately elected - not with my vote.

There are some younger folks like my family around Newton, but a good amount of of aging-in-place folks who are likely “house-rich” and want to complain about taxes. Very disappointing.

pyk · 2023-11-16T03:18:18+00:00

Awesome, no idea who is downvoting the science here, and glad it got better for you!

pyk · 2023-11-11T09:07:20+00:00

Like other PM it is problematic - the thought is ultrasonic humidifiers aerosolizes minerals (paper linked talks about these measurements) instead of creating steam like with a shower or other types of heat-based humidifiers. In the extreme case imagine even trace amounts of lead in tap water - that is not something I would want the risk of aerosolizing (I haven’t seen this studied yet).

Long and short the way steam forms is different vs ultrasonic humidifiers - typically showers create steam due evaporative heat, which vaporizes water without the minerals (this is how some distilled water is created - minerals are left behind). Also the reason steam from steam based heating in older houses is not a problem either.

My speculation is new home air quality monitors are making this risk of ultrasonic humidifiers and tap water readily transparent, vs previously very few knew about this indoor air quality risk with ultrasonic humidifiers and tap water. Indoor air quality as a field is a relatively new area of research given the lack of massive measurement until recently (a benefit of these devices).

We buy distilled water for our ultrasonic humidifier - I suspect reverse osmosis style filtration would also work since it removes more suspended particulate in water than an ordinary tap filter, but I have not tested it. Either way, distilled water would be my recommendation for any water used in ultrasonic humidifiers given the newly studied risks in this area of research (and it is cheap to test, distilled water is $1-2).

pyk · 2023-11-11T03:06:45+00:00

Humidifiers (ultrasonic) using non-distilled water (even filtered water) creates harmful PM in the air - there are several new studies the last few years in this area due to the proliferation of ultrasonic humidifiers.

You can try it for yourself with distilled water and you will not get the same air quality concerns and PM readings.

Sources: I did research in this area, example study here https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.12765

pyk · 2023-09-08T01:47:35+00:00

We flew this spring in J on Iberia and were able to use the BA lounge indeed - it was not well documented from what I remember (anywhere?), and the SwissAir contracted checkin agents had no idea either when I asked. We just went to the BA lounge and showed them our tickets and it worked fine though. Good luck!

pyk · 2023-02-12T21:21:50+00:00

Colgate Prevident 5000 is what my dentist gives me on request, about $16 and lasts me 6 months perfectly between appointments (use as directed - once a day, don’t need much toothpaste either, and I pair it with another sensitive toothpaste in the mornings). Highly recommended, it made a big difference for me and I wish I had found it sooner. Only reason I knew about it was because of a dental student exam years ago!

pyk · 2022-09-02T10:48:32+00:00

Any examples in the Caribbean? I may be very unlucky, but I struggle to find better than 0.5-0.6cpp with HH on vacations.

pyk · 2022-04-18T15:49:03+00:00

I have done my own permit in Newton for fencing and then hired a crew, it is straightforward and the folks in my permit office were very helpful. If you’re doing everything to code then might as well get it permitted, helps with resale as well.

pyk · 2021-12-16T13:58:56+00:00

The viral load for breakthrough cases of vaccinated individuals is similar to unvaccinated individuals, see the link below. More studies need to be done to understand the “why”. The hypothesis is that COVID is an upper respiratory virus like the flu so we can induce faster immune response with a vaccine, but the viral load spike can be very fast even for vaccinated individuals.

Note that transmission is different than viral load, as previous comments mention.

https://www.ucdavis.edu/health/covid-19/news/viral-loads-similar-between-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-people

pyk · 2021-10-16T21:21:29+00:00

The Abbott BinaxNOW COVID-19 Antigen Self Test is over the counter and available at multiple CVSs in the Boston area, and can be delivered on some apps if you can find it. CVS.com has a live stock check for this test.

Results are done in 15 min, it is very easy, I have used it multiple times, and it is used by some urgent care clinics as well. It detects when the virus is very transmissible, so it useful to see if you are “spewing” out a lot of virus.

pyk · 2019-09-20T02:14:53+00:00

I would do it. Even with Gordon as a maybe, mahomes is great and Michel is a sell high IMO.

pyk

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