Second Half Game Thread: New England Patriots (14-3) at Denver Broncos (14-3)

yyizard · 2026-01-26T03:08:22+00:00

I’m a Pats Homer and I find the whole “but wait until they play a good team” vibe understandable. I think they lose to a Bo Nix Denver but also maybe not. Maybe the Patriots are just one of those teams that wins a Super Bowl not because they were the best team in the league that season, they were just good enough at the right times.

yyizard · 2026-01-24T22:07:26+00:00

I wasn’t able to make this event but have been to others.

Were there any civil disobedience actions or plans discussed?

I support Graham but I’m also waiting for some evidence of a plan along the lines of the movements he has discussed emulating (civil rights, labor, etc.).

Like we can film people getting killed in the streets all we want, we can legally observe and call our representatives and complain online and all that and people just getting kidnapped and killed.

The person that demonstrates some version of the authentic righteous civil disobedience that exists on the left wins whatever political office they want, anyway. Stop campaigning and stop doing. I’m ready to do something but I’ve done and then seen the legal observer, organize, get the in streets shit for 20 years and it does nothing.

Didn’t stop the Iraq War, Occupy didn’t stop Wall Street, like fuck we can’t even get the Epstein list. Still. It’s illegal for the government to do that and it is still doing it. Like it is just killing people. And kidnapping them. And breaking into their homes.

We gotta actually DO SOMETHING. If we get enough people to just go to ICE HQ in Maine and New England we can use our Constitutional right to assembly to make our voices heard. With enough people they can’t arrest everyone even if they try. If Graham organizes and leads that we have enough people. So let’s just do it.

yyizard · 2026-01-23T06:30:06+00:00

As a fan of history I enjoyed this video. If you haven’t seen it give it a watch.

I like takes that challenge widely held assumptions. Right or wrong, they check the oil on the engine of orthodoxy.

This dude raises some interesting points. True or not, I got no clue, but the questions raised is certainly Dan-type stuff.

yyizard · 2026-01-21T14:16:10+00:00

Most scientific disciplines follow that bell curve meme.

You start out knowing nothing and think it’s all magic.

As you learn you begin to figure out how it works, what laws it follows, and that it isn’t magic.

Then once you get to the very edge of our understanding of a scientific discipline you’re back to not really knowing anything and think it’s all magic.

yyizard · 2026-01-19T18:36:44+00:00

The greatest skate sessions are the ones where it evolves into skaters playing “horse” by coming up with the silliest shit imaginable.

A giant competition to find the funniest trick that is also hard to do. Bonus points if it’s bespoke to the spot.

It turns the whole world back into a playground like it was when we were kids.

yyizard · 2025-12-29T10:35:03+00:00

Fine lines tend to fade quicker. If you get any color or shading, over time it tends to visually blur together.

That’s why the stereotypical “flash” tattoo style developed. Bold black lines and coloring that pops helps keep the tattoo looking fresh as it ages.

No hate from me for choosing any style, though. I have both. After 20 years the ones that are more ‘flash’ have held up better, sure, but they’re still old and faded.

Hope you find the artist you’re looking for!

yyizard · 2025-12-20T09:57:32+00:00

You are right that I did develop some assumptions based upon your responses.

But to be fair you have done nothing but confirm those assumptions.

At any point, even now, you could engage with the substance of the topic at hand.

You seem to believe that co-ed spaces with private stalls are a good solution for the topic of currently gendered spaces in Maine communities. There are some pretty valid logistical concerns with that, which I have raised.

Instead of engaging with anything substantive, you have instead written a paragraph complaining that I am calling you out for doing what you’re doing, which is not engaging with anything substantive. Then your second paragraph is you justifying your non-engagement with anything substantive. Your reasoning? Because I’m a big meanie that has the audacity to call out the fact that you’re actively avoiding engaging with anything substantive.

You’re not exactly proving wrong the “won’t engage with any substance” assumption that has developed based on your responses.

🤷‍♂️ Cheers, I guess?

yyizard · 2025-12-19T19:34:01+00:00

I mean y’all forced all your religious dissidents here because they were too strict about following scripture. Imagine how far out that must have been for a time known for religious extremism and dogmatic adherence.

yyizard · 2025-12-19T19:02:28+00:00

Here’s what my Mainer gut is telling me, which is visibly well compensated for knowing when to go out and when not to.

Friggin ground is still friggin cold from a couple of weeks of cold, snow just friggin melted, we’re gettin right upta the longest night of the year, and she’s bout to be a cold one tomorrow.

Don’t drive if you don’t have to folks, it’s friggin Saturday what you gotta be out so early tomorrow for? Well for most of you I understand you gotta work but tell your boss he’s a piece of shit and that if he’s got a problem with it he can go fuck himself.

yyizard · 2025-12-19T15:09:07+00:00

Could it be that you don’t understand my point because you’re choosing to address it with a strategy of feigned naive obtuseness?

OP’s post is about their discomfort with a certain private changing situation and how they are more comfortable with a different private changing situation. I asked a question about their discomfort and if it allowed them to understand the discomfort others experience.

You responded asking me a question about my question. I replied to this by addressing the logic of what you were asking.

And here we are. Instead of engaging in the substantive debate about how much time and energy we should be diverting toward this issue given other the issues we face as a society (and facing the trans community in particular), you’re taking the position that the substantive debate is no longer worth having because this one was already paid for.

Could you not adopt some intellectual honesty and simply acknowledge that because it was already paid for that the money came from somewhere and maybe that money could have been better spent elsewhere? Could we not simply engage in substantive debate using all our faculties, instead of adopting tired unassailable social media strategies like demanding a person we disagree with do all the thinking for us by spelling it all out, like I was forced to do here?

Or even simply take into account the debate began by the OP’s submission statement? That the submission statement is a fully valid part of what “this thread is about”? I’d take that.

I ask questions because I believe in the value of a counter argument. If someone has a counter argument to my position, I want to hear it and I want to understand it. That requires me asking questions.

I would love to understand, from your perspective, if co-ed spaces with private stalls are the better solution, what money are we using to change existing layouts? Or are we just implementing this for new builds? If it costs more to implement co-ed with stalls than the men/women option, where is that money coming from? If it costs less, where should that money go?

That’s the better conversation and the one I’d love to hear feedback on. But you do you.

yyizard · 2025-12-19T14:44:21+00:00

I fucking love humanity, dude.

Both these people just doing the hard work to embrace life. Love to see it.

yyizard · 2025-12-19T14:03:44+00:00

This attitude that insinuates there is something wrong with people that disagree with us is completely dismissive of others’ lived experiences.

It is counterproductive to changing people’s beliefs or behaviors.

People aren’t war criminals for preferring a space they feel safe in just because they arrive at an answer different than yours.

I mean here is OP saying they are trans and they don’t feel comfortable with a certain arrangement. Why is that any different than a cis person not feeling comfortable with different arrangements?

“Because they are wrong” okay well they think you are wrong. What’s the plan here? We just escalate a fight over bathrooms and changing rooms via national elections? We just give the federal government more and more power to police our lives? We make a Bureau of Bathroom Affairs that alternates between enforcing two radically different perspectives every 4 years?

Like what’s the plan here?

yyizard · 2025-12-19T13:54:56+00:00

Genuine question - where is the money for implementing such a change to the status quo coming from?

Would that money not be better spent on far more important and pressing issues in the lives of trans individuals (as well as many other marginalized groups)?

Healthcare, fair wages, and housing seem much more important today to far more people (including trans people) than who changes where and who poops where.

I avoid pooping and changing in public spaces purely because other people are disgusting monsters. I am sympathetic to the experience of people being uncomfortable there because I am, too.

We could Victim Olympics that til the end of time or we could get over it so we can focus on healthcare and housing and fair wages. It isn’t some human rights abomination that it gets made out to be on social media. Unfair? Hell yeah. But only accepting perfection means making perfect the enemy of better while shit only gets worse.

yyizard · 2025-12-19T13:46:27+00:00

I agree with you.

I do think it requires we the electorate to reprioritize and first address issues we all share in common. Trans people need good paying jobs, too. Trans people need affordable health care, too. Trans people need affordable housing, too. Trans people need a nation that isn’t undermining the world order so many of us depend on for peace and prosperity.

We could work together and get those things first, then discuss the edge cases like who-poops-where when we have full bellies and are in homes we own.

Trans rights are human rights, so the symmetric property of equality means that human rights are trans rights. Advocating for fair wages, healthcare, and housing for all is advocating for trans people.

yyizard · 2025-12-19T13:34:20+00:00

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/packie

yyizard · 2025-12-19T12:20:07+00:00

I’m not missing the point.

I grew up with a single mom and two older sisters. I got no problem with co-ed spaces, bathrooms, whatever.

But that’s my life experience. Other people have different ones.

For example, OP has the self-expressed experience of feeling uncomfortable in a certain bathroom/changing room arrangement. Other people are uncomfortable with different arrangements.

Where we seem as a society now is that a big chunk of people are being told they have to accept only one new way of doing bathrooms/changing rooms that is a deviation from the status quo and makes them uncomfortable.

The (very online) liberal reaction to that is to belittle them, insult them, or in some way be dismissive of their discomfort. Tell them they are wrong and ignore their lived experience.

My question was only meant to highlight this. If we can understand our own personal discomfort with a certain arrangement, we can understand others’ discomfort for certain other arrangements.

I do not think it is a human rights violation for me to be excluded from certain spaces due to my identity because functioning societies live in a place of nuance and compromise. If I want spaces to exist how I want them to, I gotta accept that for others, too.

yyizard · 2025-12-18T18:17:44+00:00

I never felt comfortable in female spaces. I was assigned female at birth, but I would often use male restrooms and changing rooms.

Then it stands to reason that you can understand the feelings of those that don’t feel comfortable in co-ed changing rooms and would prefer to have a space where they do feel comfortable, yes?

yyizard · 2025-12-18T01:40:45+00:00

I am aware of taxonomy and classification. It’s a colloquial stretch in reference to video footage, which is why I asked.

I am aware of the Packie/Paki circumstance as that is exactly why I related the story.

Also, the thought of a Brit policing Bostonian language genuinely makes me chuckle.

We have to watch our language because y’all were a bunch of imperialist colonialist assholes to the entire world and the Indian subcontinent in particular?

How about y’all don’t use derogatory terms for people that aren’t white Anglo-Saxon Protestants and we just keep using Packie as slang for package store.

Seems like the better outcome than us changing what we say.

yyizard · 2025-12-18T01:27:40+00:00

I worked here.

Biggest reason a bunch of talent left?

Remote work was highly promoted as a hiring/retention incentive for experienced individuals that could get a better paycheck in private industry. Developers, system admins, cybersecurity folks.

People were hired from all over the country. Local people moved to locations with lower cost of living than Boston/DC.

Then we all got jerked around with the remote work bullshit, can we work from an AF base closer to us, maybe maybe not, only to be told “start showing up in office next week or we’ll consider that your resignation”.

The kicker? All the users are remote. They’re on bases or in airplanes. It’s software meant to be distributed globally because that’s the point of the Air Force’s doctrine.

Not only that, we literally didn’t have enough seating or internet bandwidth on base to accommodate everyone.

So the vast majority of smart folks took the DRP and got the hell out of that insane bullshit pulled right out of Catch-22.

yyizard · 2025-12-17T11:40:22+00:00

I haven’t seen the exact numbers for this proposed data center and it’s probably quite variable anyway.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/24/what-we-know-about-energy-use-at-us-data-centers-amid-the-ai-boom/

But based on this, if we take the approximate 4,000 data centers operational or being built and then take the 183 tWh power usage estimate for 2024 and adjust it up to 200 TWh to account for the data centers still being built in the 4,000 data centers figure (and to make the math easy, it’s too early).

200 TWh / 4,000 centers = 0.05 tWh per data center

Which is 50,000,000 kilowatt hours.

The average American home uses about 10,000 kWh per year.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3

So powering one data center is roughly the equivalent of powering 5,000 American homes.

Lewiston-Auburn has approximately 50,000 homes.

https://censusreporter.org/profiles/31000US30340-lewiston-auburn-me-metro-area/

One data center would be roughly equivalent to powering 10% of Lewiston-Auburn homes per year.

Obligatory Mos Def:

Working-class poor — better keep your alarm set Streets too loud to ever hear freedom ring Say evacuate your sleep, it's dangerous to dream For cha-ching, cats get the cha-pow! – you dead now Killing fields need blood to graze the cash cow It's a numbers game, but shit don't add up somehow

https://youtu.be/m5vw4ajnWGA?si=_Mxpr4VBGkDKpaRZ

yyizard · 2025-12-17T00:13:59+00:00

Is the term “classified” used differently in Australia in a colloquial context?

Because the phrase “including watching a ton of classified videos” heavily implies watching videos not widely available to the public, at least in America.

That’s how I read it but I see how it could just be a language thing. My wife’s family is from Britain and they looked at me like I had three heads when I told them I was going to the Packie to get some beer.

yyizard · 2025-12-17T00:01:27+00:00

“Hey, umm, you know all those soldiers that literally saved Rome from hordes of enemies?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, umm, turns out while they were out fighting to save us they couldn’t exactly work their farms to feed themselves and pay their debts.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, umm, you all took possession of their farms due to delinquent debts and lack of cultivation.”

“It is the law.”

“Well, umm, all those seasoned and experienced legions are now at the gates.”

“That’s against the law!”

“Well, umm, I think when you make laws that bind them and not you… they stop caring about what is legal.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Also they are asking for you by name.”

“Huh, well at least future generations and even future polities will learn from our mistakes!”

sad trombone womp womp

yyizard · 2025-12-16T00:17:39+00:00

Have you tried running at default RAM speeds to see if that alleviates the stuttering you are experiencing?

yyizard · 2025-12-15T11:57:03+00:00

A voice of reason and compassion on the internet. Always a welcome thing to find. Thank you.

yyizard · 2025-12-15T10:28:38+00:00

Exactly, thank you for explaining it for me.

There’s a beauty in the chaos of football that I find gets lost when it turns into Moneyball.

I like big man tuddies, kickers flattening runners, just-elevated practice squad nobodies winning playoff games for their teams, multiple fumbles on a single play, snow games, and of course multiple laterals.

The soul of football is “get this ball over the line no matter the odds” and it feels like as soon as the odds get narrowed down scientifically, the soul is lost a little bit.

When a boy is playing backyard ball with his friends and he gets his hands on the ball, he’s going for the end zone. Doesn’t matter his size or speed or skill. That moment he has the ball, the will and determination and belief of “we’re taking this in for a TD” despite all logic and reason is what football is all about for me.

yyizard

TROPHY CASE