
Texas Jeff
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Everything posted by Texas Jeff
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The Austin rally kinda felt like a picnic. There were folks up front listening to the speaker but a lot of people were just hanging out under the trees. Lots of folks complementing each others's t-shirts and signs.
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I also know nothing about nothing, but flaps generally retract into the body of the wing on something like a 787. They don't just move up and down. Flaps change the shape of the wing to generate more lift at the cost of more drag. Many commercial jets use screw jacks to retract and extent the flaps. Here's a picture of extended flaps with a red box showing the screws that move the flaps, I don't think this is a 787: It's hard to imagine the wind causing the flaps to retract in the case of hydraulic failure ... but I don't know how they design that system to react in the event of a failure, flaps up/down/or stay right where they are. It's also hard to imagine a pilot mistaking the flap control for the gear control. My theory of the hour: The plane lost power right as it took off, and the co-pilot reached for the throttles. And he grabbed the flap lever by mistake, and in a panic pushed it forward to try to increase thrust. Something was wrong with the power, the flaps were coming up and lift was dropping, they raised the nose to try to not hit the planet ... and stalled it right in to the ground. They were panicked in the cabin and didn't get to the point in the checklist where they would have raised the gear, or they did raise it and the plane did not respond.
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Greatest character introduction ever in a Movie or TV?
Texas Jeff replied to McCroskey's topic in Movies and TV
Vader is the answer. Since that one was taken, I will submit our introduction to Bluto, who then introduces us to Delta house: -
Austin used to have a downtown minor league park from 1947 to 1967, this is Disch Field. Imagine if that was still there, but rotated to have downtown views. Today's view of the same area:
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ChatGPT AI Tool— We all work for robots now
Texas Jeff replied to 956 Worldwide's topic in Daily Texan
I have not, but I'd love to check it out. Our was a vscode plugin. No change to my workflows. Our IT guys had work to do to scan our codebase and get it up and going, but it was very very easy for me to start using it. -
ChatGPT AI Tool— We all work for robots now
Texas Jeff replied to 956 Worldwide's topic in Daily Texan
My experience was the opposite, but it could have been the nature of my work. I was able offload some of the drudgery and spend more time thinking about the overall direction of what I was working on. -
ChatGPT AI Tool— We all work for robots now
Texas Jeff replied to 956 Worldwide's topic in Daily Texan
My two cents, having worked with an AI assistant for about a year in a coding capacity... We did an evaluation of an AI tool. I tested it by giving it the interview questions I would normally ask a junior to mid-level individual contributor. I have a standard set of questions and I can vary the difficulty depending on how the interviewee is doing. Solutions are not on the internet. The coding AI did better than about half of the people I have interviewed. If the coding AI was a person, I would have hired the person. After the trial, I was able to use the tool full-time. It was not creative. It was not going to decide what to do or roll out a solution based on the typical wad of text you get in a Teams message or Jira ticket stating what needs to happen. However, it was like having a fairly good intern sitting next to me all of the time, willing to suggest code or do some drudgery that I would not rather do. For example, sometimes I had to create a long enumeration, like a list of all of the US presidents. The AI would realize I was trying to do this and fill out the long list for me, and I could accept the answer by hitting tab. The AI also would realize where I was going with logic, and suggest 3-4 lines of code. And I could choose to accept that or override it. About 95% of the time the AI suggested what I was already thinking, but I didn't have to type it in. It was a time saver. I did have to skim the code to make sure it was doing the right thing, and sometimes it was not, but the odds of it making an error were probably about the same as me making an error, and I can't think of a case where an error make it through our human peer review. The AI picked up on our coding standard and saved me from a lot of silly review comments that would have required rework. It was the coding equivalent of wearing an Iron Man suit. An amplifier, but not a replacement. Not yet. Now, most software teams have strong developers and weak developers. Pre-COVID, I would have said that the strong developers were cranking out about 3x the work of the weak ones. Post-COVID and with WFH, that gap widened to about 9x. We had people absolutely killing it and people that were making only a few non-significant commits. Those weaker coders are the ones at risk for AI replacement. The stronger coders are getting AI augmentation and are thus even more productive. The stronger and weaker coders aren't in the office together as much, so the weaker ones are not learning as much from their peers. Before COVID, weaker coders could be assigned easier work ... stuff that still needed to be done and checked but work that was not hard and followed a pattern. Now, the AI can do much of that. The weaker folks need to be aware of where they are in the hierarchy of their team and, IMHO, they need to get back in the office and try very hard to learn from the stronger developers and make larger contributions. -
I would like to see Mike Tyson play cricket. The match would last 38 seconds and Tyson would crush it.
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No, Mike Leach, YOU'RE awesome! [Pirates Last Voyage]
Texas Jeff replied to Parliament's topic in Football
Rick Perry was in charge of America's nukes for a bit. -
No, Mike Leach, YOU'RE awesome! [Pirates Last Voyage]
Texas Jeff replied to Parliament's topic in Football
Smidge longer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLM6UFrVPrU -
Most districts opted out of social security a long time ago when they had the chance. Some districts, including Austin ISD, did not opt out and they do pay into SS and receive benefits.
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I did assorted college tours with my two kids, including twice at Texas. The Texas tour was not much. We started with a presentation with some basic facts at the visitor's center, which is now in the PCL. After that we broke into tour groups and headed outside. They showed us a sample dorm room in Jester East, which was not impressive. We moved on past Gregory to the student activity center building and talked about clubs and the pedestrian-oriented Speedway, which has taken the place of the West Mall for clubs and folks hanging out. I was amazed, because folks were hanging out in front of Greg, sitting at tables and even eating in a place that I know used to be covered in a half inch of grackle crap. Then we walked through the Dell building, saw the canoes, walked through the Norman Hackerman building, talked about the freshman research initiative and peaked through some windows to see biology labs. Then we walked around the tower to the south mall where we could see the capitol dome and the front of the tower. They asked for questions and told us they would either take us back to the visitor's center or we could go shop on Guad. That was the entire tour. On one tour we sat in a lecture hall for a bit, on one tour we didn't. What *was* impressive about the UT tours was the meetings we went to specifically for our colleges. They were student focused. The folks from UT wanted to hear from and talk to the students. Other schools talked a lot to the parents, but Texas stood out for speaking directly to the students. Washington had a great tour with lots of stories in a beautiful setting. They had an "admitted students day" with the cherry blossoms in bloom and Mt Rainer in the distance that was hard to beat. Auburn gave you a real sense of family. Texas A&M maxed out the "rah-rah" with an emphasis on all things Aggie. Texas had kind of a boring presentation with a generic tour, but the gems were in the more specific meetings we attended. I could design a better tour myself, but first I would have to get over the idea that the grackles aren't coming back to nuke me from above.
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not 100% sure but I think that Shell station killed a Tesla on pump 6. Door handles look Tesla-ish.
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Unbelievable wind and rain at Westover and Mopac. No hail so far.
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What impact will Trump have on the 2026 World Cup?
Texas Jeff replied to Derka's topic in Cloak Room
Bluster, an attempt to claim the spotlight and credit if things go well, and a vanishing act and blame for others if they do not. Trump 101. -
Vice President tells NASA to get to the Moon in 5 years.
Texas Jeff replied to atomheartbevo's topic in Daily Texan
SpaceX Starship Flight 9 may launch in 10 mins or so. Launch window opens shortly. The last two blew up. There is always a small but non-zero chance that Elon will shell Mar-a-Lago with one of these, so tune in and see what happens... Watch on SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-9 Or YouTube -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Hey everyone, don't get caught up in my $300 number. Perhaps it was too high. The point is ... what was the point again? 🙂 The point is the school year is ending and if you want to give your kid's teacher a little gift with a nice note from your kid it will make the teacher's day. About 95% of families do not do this. I do think that most families appreciate their teachers, they just don't think about it with summer coming up. BTW, Prop A last year in Austin ISD raised about $170,000,000 in new taxes. There are about 5500 teachers in Austin ISD. So you say, well, that's about $30,000 per teacher, go get it from that pile! ... not .... The state took a 75% cut and the district used less than half of the rest of the money for teacher raises. About 90% was gone before it made it to teacher raises, and we will pay the Prop A tax every year. It's really a shame, because if we could take that pile and give it to teachers and staff, we could make a big dent in their ability to live in Austin. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Yes, it would really help retain teachers, which would provide next year's students with more experienced teachers. $2 a day for elementary, a quarter a day for each high school teacher. I know it sounds crazy but it would help. Ideally the leg would be doing this but I've given up on that. Elementary teachers have about 20-22 through 4th grade. Secondary teachers have maybe 180-200, teaching 6 out of 8 classes with about 30-34 kids per class. Give what you want, but I sized my number to give them about 10% more than they get. Any amount is helpful and appreciated. Very few parents give anything, but some give a small amount with a nice note from the kid and it totally makes my wife's day. A lot of teachers today are able to teach because they have a spouse who earns much more money, or they are doing it as a second career and they've already got money from a previous career. Teachers straight out of college without another source of income are getting squeezed. They teach for 3-5 years and find out that they can make a lot more money doing something else ... and if they ever want to buy a house or maybe a new car, they need to move on from teaching. I have seen some really great teachers leave the profession because of money. They want to keep teaching and you would want your kid to have them. But the salary is not enough, so they're gone. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
I don't see it as trivial nor a gratuity. It would be significant help. It helps keep teachers in the profession. Ideally the state would fund teaching so that teachers could buy groceries, buy a house, establish themselves in a community. They aren't. -
The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
A quick reminder that this is the last week of school for Austin ISD. A few surrounding districts have already had their last day, but I forgot to post before then. It is OK to give your kid's teacher a gift. HEB gift cards are great, Amazon gift cards are great. No one straight up gives cash, but there's not a rule against it. Lots of kids give small Starbucks gift cards, which is nice for a coffee but it does not bring groceries home. If every elementary kid dropped $300 in gift cards on their teacher, and every kid in middle and high school gave $50 to each teacher, teacher income would rise about 10%. That's not *that* much to give, it's about $1.50 per day. I think most parents would be OK doing this, but folks tend to forget. If you are in the mood to help out a teacher, buy some gift cards or go to your local ATM and make it rain. Also, force your kid to write a nice note to their teachers ... my wife has a folder of them that grows every year. -
BTW, one more thing on Disch-Falk renovations ... here is a side-by-side same scale map of Disch-Falk and Wrigley. Obviously Texas will never need as many seats as the Cubs but you can see what is possible in almost the same footprint.
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not much. The extra land is going to be where the highway is now, and I think the cap will support up to a two story building, but not more than that. The post about IM fields is about right. It could be fields, or parking for Moody or the LBJ library, or planted with trees for tailgating space. Think about things that are currently near the highway that are not buildings, that could be moved to this space. Then repurpose those areas with new buildings. Mostly this will be removing a barrier between the main campus and everything east of 35. So instead of having to cross at the Manor bridge with lots of traffic above and below, a student might ride a bike across a peaceful area from their dorm east of 35 to campus. They will still have to cross the access roads, which will be maybe 6 lanes wide, but these will be new crossings with good facilities for pedestrians and bikers. For baseball and softball, I think UT should work with the city to make Comal closable on game days, between MLK and the road around Disch-Falk. Maybe brick it like speedway. Move the road around D-F a bit north towards the tennis center, which would give them space to do something in the outfield. There is space east of the baseball field between 20th and MLK. Something will eventually go there. At one point I heard they were considering a beach volleyball stadium for that area, but I can't find a source for that. Softball could grow to the east, or even remove 20th street and grow to the south.
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I was impressed with the South African president. He remained cool after the video and talked about how the people in the video did not represent his government's policy and the need to bring voices to the table to discuss differences peacefully. He thanked Trump for the US delivery of technology that is helping them find criminal activity in South Africa. And Trump kept going back to "these are thousands of roadside graves, see the video? Thousands... Here, see these handouts? Death...."
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The regents approved $106 million to cover the cost of UT's caps in December 2024. It will create about 17 acres of new land for UT between 15th and Dean Keaton. The upper deck is going away. The northbound and southbound access roads are moving over close to the Disch-Falk parking garage, about where the northbound IH-35 access road is today. UT will have new surface land where the highway is now and the highway will be below the new surface area.
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They get more than that. School funding is so complicated that it is almost impossible to understand. Austin ISD gets about $13,800 to spend per student *after* recapture, which is about $2000 per student more than peer districts. But their basic allotment is around $6100. They get extra money because of carve outs and special allocations above the basic allotment. And spending per student within Austin ISD varies wildly, depending on the school. LBJ HS spends about $10,000 per student from the general fund and about $21,000 per student from all funds, per year. At LASA HS, a magnet school close to LBJ that used to be part of LBJ, the district spends about $6700 per student from the general fund and about $7900 from all funds, per year. LBJ is a smaller school (which means more money per kids spend on admin and building maintenance) with a harder to educate population, which means more money spent per kid trying to help them succeed. There is no one answer to school funding. You can spend $8000 per year on an A rated school, if you get to pick the population, and you can spend $21,000 per year on an F rated school, if you have a hard to educate group.
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