Yes, leadership is to blame, but leaders are only leaders when people follow.

What ICE is doing is not a secret. No one, not a single person, is forced to join ICE. They choose to do so. Everyday when they show up to work, they reaffirm that choice. You’re argument is we shouldn’t blame the agents for choosing to break apart families, attack people for their race, or kidnap children because the ICE agent needed a job? Fuck that noise. If your personal ethos allows you to destroy other people’s lives so you can have a paycheck, then you are morally bankrupt, and I absolutely will blame you for what’s happening.

I’m with you. Professional sports have gone downhill. I used to be a diehard Denver Broncos fan. I had DirectTV specifically so I could get every NFL game. During football season, I’d watch every game I could. If I were to do that now, I’d need a number of different streaming services. Apart from that, I began watching less and less a few years ago when every other commercial, and every commentation, became about betting. Draft Kings, Fan Dual, MGM, and whatever else there was. It stopped being about watching the game and became more about gambling.

With baseball, they’re digitally putting ads on the pitcher’s mound. A couple years ago, they added advertising patches to the damn uniforms. It’s disgusting. People don’t play for a team anymore, they play for a brand.

Yet, even with all the additional ad revenue, ticket and concession prices have skyrocketed. It used to be that you could take a family of four to a game and not break the bank. Now, a single game is the cost of a full vacation. With four tickets, concession, and parking, you’re paying at least $500. And that’s without any sort of souvenirs. To make it worse, every team is wanting a new stadium and they are forcing the cities and states to pay for it through taxes. It’s greed on top of greed on top of greed.

I can’t stand watching professional sports anymore. On the plus side, I now have a lot more time to do other things that are a more fun and give a better sense of accomplishment than, “Hey, my team won.”

As an old person today, I have no clue what these words mean. Assuming cooking has nothing to do with food. I’ve never heard rizz. I’ve at least heard people use based, though I don’t know its use.

In the Stormlight books by Sanderson, society is split based on eye color; bright eyed vs dark eyed. Bright eyed people are called Brightness or Brightlord. Not exaclty the same as what you said, but it is an interesting society based on eye color.

And that somehow makes it better?

They are a middleman and do take a slight overhead, 1.1% last I saw, though it might have changed since then. The benefit is one of simplicity. Many people want to give to charity and aren’t sure which one. UW let’s them donate one place and it get distributed to many. They also have criteria that charities must meet to qualify. Also, like you mentioned, they do the paycheck deduction. All of what they do is about making it easier and hassle free as possible to donate, making it more likely that people will.

My guess, and it is just a guess… it’s a storm water control system being used as a basement drain, possibly flowing into the sewer line.

I’ve seen older houses where someone cut into the basmeny floor directly into a sewer line to put in a basement drain.

Based on you saying water was in there when it was raining, someone might have cut into the storm water mitigation line for a basement drain. Then someone tiled the floor and put a vent over the hole because that’s what they found that fits.

With older houses, a lot of times, the storm water system was tied directly into the main sewer. If that’s what this is, I’d be concerned about sewer gasses coming up from it.

Again, with only seeing one picture, it’s just a guess.

Edit: It could also just be a cleanout for the storm water drain too.

No.

Continue reading.

Sodium Hydroxide, when exposed to Carbon Dioxide (already in the air), combines to become Sodium Carbinate.

NaOH + CO2 → Na2CO3 + H2O

Sodium Carbinate then reacts with water and more Carbon Dioxide to become Sodium Bicarbinate, which is baking soda.

Na2CO3 + CO2 + H2O → 2 NaHCO3

Not only does a Sodium Oxyde fuel cell produce electricity, it takes CO2 out of the atmosphere.

From a physics and chemistry point of view, it’s pretty cool. I’m curious how well it scales though.

Me too, but it has nothing to do with Facebook. Don’t kink shame me.

Ran into a couple small bugs on xbox.

When making a potion the game crashed. After repeating it multiple times, I figured out that it only happened when mixing a stolen and non stollen ingredient. I have not retested since the last update.

Prior to the update, I could not create an enchanted item with a static effect at frostcrag spire. For example, a ring with nighteye. I could create one with detect life because it was a magnitude selector. This bug went away after the update.

That’s a good sized heater. It could be filled with sediment and not working efficiently. If you haven’t emptied it recently, it might be worth it.

If it’s clean, you can try turning it up. It will make full-hot from your faucet hotter, so be careful of scalding yourself, but it will make the hot water last longer.

You could also get a slightly lower flow shower head. Using less water at a time will allow it to last longer and keep do better keeping up with the empty rate.

If none of that works or is something you want to try, you could always replace with a tankless and never run out. Though you’ll waste a bit more water each time you turn on the hot since it takes a few seconds to kick in, but you won’t run out.

If it’s raining, there’s snow on the ground, or many other low traction scenarios, the cop would have to really want to pull you over. Chances are they won’t.

On a clear, dry day, depending on where you are, barking your tires is a violation of nuisance laws. Again, most likely not getting pulled over unless you consistently did it.

Now, if you stomped on it and your tires broke loose, you are looking at reckless operation of a motor vehicle. Expect to be stopped.

It mostly comes down to conditions and level of egregiousness… and how bad of a day the cop is having / wanting you to have.

“The government” is multiple agencies and departments. There is no single computer system, database, mainframe, or file store that the entire US goverment uses. There is no standard programming language used. There is no standard server configuration. Each agency is different. Each software project is different.

When someone says the government doesn’t use sql, they don’t know what they are talking about. It could be refering to the fact that many government systems are ancient mainframe applications that store everything in vsam. But it is patently false that the government doesn’t use sql. I’ve been on a number of government contracts over the years, spanning multiple agencies. MsSQL was used in all but one.

Furthermore, some people share SSNs, they are not unique. It’s a common misconception that they are, but anyone working on a government software learns this pretty quickly. The fact that it seems to be a big shock goes to show that he doesn’t know what he is doing and neither do the people reporting to him.

Not only is he failing to understand the technology, he is failing to understand the underlying data he is looking at.

I will echo the Bondo route that others suggested. The big box hardware stores sell quart cans of general purpose Bondo in the paint aisle.

Cut out the vaneer over the bad area with a razor blade or box cutter.

Sand with 80 or 120 grit to remove any loose bits of the board. The particle board will crumble a little, but it will be fine. Just dont go overboard. Vacuum it to remove most dust.

Using a flexible putty knife, get one to two globs of Bondo on a clean piece of cardboard. Don’t do too much as you will have about 5 minutes of working time once the hardener is added. Follow the instructions on how much hardener to add, you wont need much. Fold the hardener into the Bondo with the putty knife until it is a uniform color.

Spread the bondo over the area you cut out. Try to get it smooth, but dont overwork it. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Using 60 or 80 grit paper, sand it as it starts to dry. If it is gumming up the paper, it is still too wet to sand, give it another minute or two and try again. You are shaping it with this step. If you let it completely dry, it is hard as a rock and more difficult to sand.

Once it is in a good shape, switch to the next step up for sanding and repeat (60 to 80 to 120 to 180 to 220). Do not skip gits or you will just make work for yourself. You can probably stop at 180, but since it is next to vaneer, i’d go to 220. Again, if it is gumming the paper, wait a few minutes. Once you are at 220, use it to sand the entire cabinet to rough up the surface and accept primer better.

Once sanded, wipe the entire cabinet down with a tac cloth. I also recommend wiping the cabinets with a wax and greese remover so everything will stick better.

Now it is time for primer and paint. For a smooth finish, use a good quality foam mini-roller and foam brush for tighter areas.

Prime the cabinet using any water-based primer; killz is pretty good. They make an oil based that would be better, but will smell up your whole house, so I don’t recommend it unless you have excellent ventilation.

Lightly sand the peimer once it is fully dried with 220. If any spot is too light, do a second coat. Wipe up the dust.

Paint with an alkyd paint. Do at least 2 coats.

Not necessary, but if you want extra protection, you could use a foam brush (not a roller here) and do 3 to 4 coats of a water-based polyurethane on top of the paint. It might be overkill for what you want though.

This might seem like a lot, but you will have a great finish when done. Also, fair warning, Bondo has a strong smell. Open a window.

“Would have liked to run tests on the sea shells.” ~Mordin Solus (Mass Effect 3)

I played a ton of 3d movie maker back in the day. I’m with you; I wish there were games like that today. It might be a niche, but you can’t tell me there isn’t a market for it.

AC as refrigerant, not coolant. Although that might be semantics.

AC is a type of heat pump. You are moving heat from inside to outside. The physics behind a heat pump, is fairly simple. There are three principles to work with.

1. Take a gas, compress it, and it gets super hot.
2. Take a compressed gas, let it rapidly expand, and it gets super cold
3. Different temperature gases move from hot to cold

Let’s focus on AC since most folks are used to that concept. In an AC, you have a closed loop of refrigerant. Outside, there is a compressor that compresses the gas, which makes it very hot. The gas is pushed through a radiator with a fan pulling air through it. Since hot moves to cold, the heat trapped in the gas moves to the outside air, and the gas is slightly cooled. (As long as the gas is hotter than outside).

Inside, there is an expansion valve that lets the gas rapdly expand, making it super cold. It is pumped through a radiator that has inside air blowing over it with a fan. Since hot moves to cold, the heat in the inside air moves to the cold gas, cooling the inside air. (As long as the gas is cooler than the inside temperature). It is then pumped outside to start the loop again.

So, inside gets cooler while the heat is moved outside. The physics also establishes the limits of the heat exchange. You will only grab heat from inside if the expansion makes the gas colder than the air inside. Typically it expands to around 0 degrees. Likewise, it will dump the heat outside if the gas is hotter than outside air. The compressor typically makes it 130 to 140 degrees (temps vary depending on many factors).

To use a heat pump for heating rather than cooling, reverse the process. Pick up the heat from outside and dump it inside. This will work as long as outside is warmer than the expanded gas (0 degrees or so). Although you can get some that go to around -20.

Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

-Samuel Beckett