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VolenteHawk

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by VolenteHawk

  1. 18 minutes ago, South Austin said:

    It’s beyond dumb. But in fairness to our usually moronic city government, they can control one, but not the others.

    Good call to shut down the parks ahead of another holiday weekend to avoid a repeat of Memorial Day weekend. But I’ll probably drive by the Bull Creek Greenbelt on Saturday and Sunday to see if the masses are paying attention and/or the City actually enforces this.

    I don’t think it’s a good call. If any reasonable fraction of the people that would have hit the park otherwise go eat in a restaurant then the city has made the situation (at least moderately) worse for no good reason.

    • Like 3
  2. 20 hours ago, BradInATX said:

    It's strange how the masks follow Johnny Sack around despite basically every single human in Texas having had a completely different experience. 

    When you get outside of the city, mask usage drops significantly. Marble Falls Wal Mart = 10% mask usage. Me and one other young lady who didn't look ugly enough to be a local. Kyle HEB was somewhere around 50% last time I was there. I've been all around Central Texas (golf is one of the few things I've been doing outside of the house) and once you get outside of Austin mask usage is 50% or less just about everywhere. Went camping at Spicewood a month or so ago, same thing at two gas stations.

    That may change now that we're spiking and the governor is urging it. But the phenomenon that Sack has been posting about for months now where the entire world seems to mask up when he enters is quite odd and a little bit concerning from a mental health perspective.

    It was that way, but I’m not seeing it anymore. I stopped at the Stripes in Kyle on our way to baseball for breakfast tacos two weeks ago then last Sunday. Same store, roughly the same number of people inside. First time, zero masks on customers and a couple employees without one. Sunday, exactly one person in the store not in a mask.

  3. 9 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

    On the too soon, I disagree.

    I agree that Texas hadn't spiked because of quick action to prevent spread.

    But just because there wasn't a spike, it's not like you guys were spared. You had ~30K cases when the reopen started. Along with that, you had yet to "flatten the curve".

    Everyone sees growth post "shut down" because of how this spread pre-symptomatically, we are 2 weeks behind it. And when you look at any state that has "controlled" growth, they saw cases continue to climb a month after shut down before flattening the curve really started.

     That is based on the following data sources:

    https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/texas-coronavirus-cases.html

    I would also say that this being inevitable? No way. Again, look at any controlled state, NY, NJ, Mass, Penn - they haven't seen spikes post Memorial Day.

    * Looking at the Texas data, IMHO there is a very slight downturn of total cases in early April, which looks like the spike prevention from shutting down. You can also make out a slight downturn in mid/late May which looks like the beginning of maybe flattening the curve, before it just blows up.

    We were shelter in place for 5x the incubation period. We had noisy spikes from meat packing and prison outbreaks, but there wasn’t a downturn during lockdown. Blame too broad of a definition of essential business or whatever, but there is no evidence the reopening would have been different if delayed. See California. NE states that got slaughtered aren’t the fair compare here.

  4. 9 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

    This. If this was increased testing the positivity rate would be level, it isn’t. The positivity rate is going up. It’s called exponential spread, and it’s going to outpace any testing.

    From the outside looking in:

    1. Texas opened too soon. There was little indication April 27 that Texas’s spread has slowed enough to justify reopening at that time. While spread had receded SLIGHTLY it wasn’t on a major downward projection. Certainly not a trend  

    2. Texas opened way too quickly. There was never time to watch the results of each stage of reopening. Hell during reopening phase 1, spread increased. It took a dip right after phase 2 went into effect, but has climbed steadily since Memorial Day, once the mass went critical and BOOM.

    Don't forget, you’re always 2 weeks behind this thing. The cases being contracted today will be counted in 2 weeks. And it will be spreading the same way as it is now. Does Texas need to use the Nuclear option? Maybe, maybe not. But they need to take major steps, and a statewide masks order would help. 

    Too quickly yes, too soon...nah. Texas never had a reduction in cases, because we never had a first spike. Cases drifted up during the lockdown to a constant-ish daily rate that corresponded to our definition of essential business. If we had opened up the same way, I don’t think it matters if that was Memorial Day or the 4th of July...a spike was coming.

  5. On 6/11/2020 at 10:06 PM, Jhawk said:

    If you have to slam a blue blood to make a point which one are you going to slam? It’s flyover country and a big scalp. Indiana got theirs. UCLA self sacrificed with their shitty hires. Now it’s KUs turn. 

    The NCAA has fucked up by trying to shoot the moon on KU. We can talk about shady recruiting practices and innuendo all we want (I’m on record here on my opinion on that...it echoes Mike Brey’s comments), but 5 level 1 charges for what they actually have is insane and it’s why KU flew their middle finger and lawyered up. What the NCAA actually HAS is text messages about a player that signed with another school, alleged payment from Adidas for a player that signed but never played, and $2500 (rumors of a $20k that was allegedly agreed to but never paid) to a parent of a player that was hit with a 2 year suspension before it was reduced by a year on appeal. And while I don’t particularly believe it, there is under oath federal trial testimony that payments were intentionally hidden from KU.

    Overplaying their hand against a crown jewel program with a joke for football revenue was and is going to get bloody, and with NIL payments on the horizon anyway...the NCAA is much more likely to be killed in that fight.

    OSU got screwed (though I suspect reduced punishment on appeal), Mizzou got screwed. Schools should never, ever cooperate with the NCAA again. Especially basketball programs, where essentially every top 100 kid is ineligible if you dig enough.

    • Like 1
  6. On 6/3/2020 at 7:20 PM, Governor said:

    After more than a decade of playing poker--and even moving countries to do so, a few years ago I made the full-time transition into sports betting.  It's crazy the numbers that I think are "normal" now, considering what I felt comfortable with in 2018.  That said, and on topic, Futures bets are a waste of time for everyone.  You can just put that money in a mutual fund and get a higher expected return than laying money on a futures bet that won't settle for months.  Sure, it's less fun, but if we're talking about your money, taking a bet that settles in a short period of time is the better play.  Not to mention all those futures tickets that get lost, win, and never get cashed.

    Most of my futures bets are on credit. I’ll even take a slightly worse number than I have available at other outs to not tie the cash up. It’s not legal and depending on exposure the limits might shrink on me, but it generally has worked out.

  7. I’ve never seen a good off topic board that doesn’t limit political talk to one sub forum. When I have seen integration tried, it always makes the news/current events board worse.

    Edit: By political talk I mean partisan mudslinging. If we were smarter, we could mention harmless, factual policy centric stuff without it going that way. Alas, we are not.

  8. 10 minutes ago, South Austin said:

    All good.  Resumed my quarantine workouts with dumbbells after one full week off, including some lower body (lunges), and everything has been fine.  Haven't run yet, but will try that on Monday.  Still need to turn in the first sperm test, but I have my lady friend helping with that.   

    Lucky. My conversation went...

    ”Into the cup? Ewww that’s too clinical.”

    ”Fine, I’ll just go beat off.”

  9. 7 hours ago, Rougarou said:

    The use of "Karen" to stereotype and mock is hilarious, but it is also a double-standard and hypocritical. 

    If you had the same and said "Okay, DeAndre" everyone would decry you as racist, with good reason. 

    Was a suburban white chick choked to death with a knee to the throat this week or are we still mostly limiting that to DeAndre?

  10. On 5/14/2020 at 1:53 PM, Chewbacca said:

    Thoughts on sushi takeout?  My oldest's birthday is coming up and he loves sushi.  I'm not sure I'm OK with eating raw food prepared by someone else right now, though.  

     

    I have no issues getting cooked food from restaurants.

    The Uchii locations in Austin are running crazy waits for pickup and no bodies are piling up the streets.  Probably fine.

    • Like 1
  11. I guess if I had to make a counterargument if would be that with no fans the most talented teams are less likely to lose on the road. So a full schedule with no fans could have the loser of the RRR run the table, and I'm holding a really well intentioned ticket for a team that's not in actual game.

  12. If you can figure out a way to map a shortened college football season to conference odds, there is something there, I think.  As an example, if Big 12 games are cut, they're still playing the RRR, they're still playing Bedlam (in Norman), everything else is on the block I'd assume.  So, I don't see any great reason why an Iowa State flyer would be a bad idea right now for conference champion.  If we play all games you're holding a market value futures ticket, which admittedly is not great but if they do slash games, what gets protected for ISU...the Kansas Schools probably?

    Talk me out of it.

  13. 6 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    As long as your local and surrounding areas are prepared to rapidly respond to an outbreak, I think it would be a manageable risk.  

    The thing is, by the time you are made aware of an outbreak, there should be some kind of plan in place to do things like slow travel within the area. 

    How the population behaves will determine the likelihood of localized outbreaks and their intensity.  This is an unknown variable but if everyone goes back to normal all at once, it’s reasonable to assume an outbreak will happen sooner then later.

    Texas got lucky because the outbreaks in NYC and New Orleans were early warnings.  The virus is nowhere near contained though and there is no cure or treatment. Also, we still don’t know everything there is to know about this virus. 

    I live in Louisiana but close enough to Texas to know that how Texas responds will effect how it will go for my area.  I want this shit gone with the quickness but I also know the best way there without making more serious sacrifices is to stay vigilant and stay at home a lot until people aren’t getting killed by this in ugly numbers. 

    Maybe, but you seem to be taking a pretty extreme view of what returning to normal means.  The notion that an outbreak approaching NY is even possible now is silly.  We're not going back to jammed subways and bro hugs with fellow season ticket holders at Knicks games.

    • Like 1
  14. On 5/3/2020 at 5:19 AM, 52-80 said:

    Draconian password restrictions.  Holy fuck i thought UT EID was the worst, this one is deloitte:

     

    In order to ensure the privacy of your data we require your new password meet the following requirements:

    • Passwords must be at least 10 characters in length.
    • You cannot reuse your last 24 passwords.
    • Passwords must contain characters from at least three of the following four classes:
      1. English uppercase letters: A, B, C...Z
      2. English lowercase letters: a, b, c...z
      3. Westernized Arabic numerals: 0, 1, 2...9
      4. Nonalphanumeric (special characters): !, @, #, %, &, *, etc.
    • Passwords should not contain:
      1. Your username
      2. Your first and/or last name
      3. Dictionary words with or without (i) numbers or special characters at the beginning or end, or (ii) letters, numbers, or character exchanges (e.g., Summer2017, ?Happyman, H3llofr!end?)
      4. Words or numbers connected with you such as family names, pet names, birthdays, addresses, or phone numbers
      5. Common terminology, acronyms, or names associated with the Deloitte Firms or their clients
      6. Any sequencing of letters and numbers that follow the order of a keyboard (i.e., keyboard walk patterns such as 1234qwerASDF, 1qazXSW@3edc

    I'm not sure this one counts as trivial.  Wait until the next time you have to change your password on Best Buy's website.  It required more complication than any other website I've ever used up to and including all my banks, (USAA, Citi) retirement accounts (Schwab, Fidelity), and post tax investment holdings (ETrade).  So, compared to every dollar to my name, my Best Buy account is (theoretically) more secure even though the rewards balance value varies pretty reliably between 4 and 11 dollars.

    I've had two security breaches in the last handful of years across my entire life...my Best Buy account ordered an iPad Pro for shipping to Maryland and I had a credit card number compromised by guess who*?

    There is a 0% chance I can actually buy something at Best Buy right now without going through the lost password routine and generating another one that meets all their rules that I similarly won't remember.  If Circuit City still existed, this would cause me to change my buying behavior entirely.

    *I can't actually prove Best Buy was at fault, but the story is a lot better if they were.

     

    • Like 1
  15. On 5/14/2020 at 11:15 AM, Nivek said:

    So the wife tells me I am too hard on our oldest boy. Son does what I tell him to do. Later on, the wife complains that the boy wont listen to her and asks for help.

    Next day, wife complains how my methods are jut not right even if they are effective. Today she complains that the boy wont listen to her again and asks for help.

    Not that I miss her or anything, but it’s my weekend with our wife.

    • Haha 1
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