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Posts posted by bolverk
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5 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:
you don't find mondale more attractive?
What's the future unofficial title for Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff? Will he be the Second Gentleman? Second spouse? Second partner? First Lady is a ridiculous term but we've heard it so often it's become the norm.
I guess the corollary to First Lady would be First Gentleman. But, yes, it's a silly title.
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1 hour ago, Asithappens said:
An aside, please bear with me.
I remember as a kid reading Voltaire/Defoe et al on how basically mankind was comprised of a bunch of stupid fucks. Nothing too deep, just stories where they bewailed the idiocy of their fellow man.
I see it. I really see it now. People just cannot think for themselves. Once they get on Team Trump they can't get off. What the fuck is wrong with these people? I bet we all have family members who fall into that camp.
All we can do is go out and vote. I'm convinced that there literally (yes, I really mean "literally") is nothing that will change their mind. Vote.
Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
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I was actually joking with someone just yesterday over the phone about how it sounds like I have almost all the symptoms.
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2 hours ago, Neonmoon said:
The forcefield rules over all
The one force to rule them all.
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2 minutes ago, austingirl said:
I am having a hell of a time today - constantly watering eyes, stuffiness, sneezing. KVUE says mold is high which is just a bitch since we haven't even gotten the benefit of rain lately.
As a lifelong allergy sufferer, I can relate...could even be considered a canary in the coal mine. It started on Monday for me: sinus headache, congestion, sneezing, itchy/watery eyes.
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Article about tourism-dependent countries offering more visas to those who want to work remotely in another country. Worth skimming.
Why Work From Home When You Can Work From Barbados, Bermuda or … Estonia?
Several countries with fragile tourist economies have started to offer visas that allow foreign nationals to live and work for a period of at least six months.
When Lamin Ngobeh, a high-school teacher at the Freire Charter School in Wilmington, Del., saw a social media post last month about working remotely in Barbados for 12 months, his interest was piqued.
“My school probably won’t open for in-person classes at least until February 2021, and I want to be in a country that’s safer — health wise — and also enjoy the quality of life,” he said of the reasons for considering a temporary relocation. “I reached out to my school leaders and they were very supportive of my decision.”
When it announced its 12-month Welcome Stamp program in mid-July, Barbados became one of the first of several countries, in regions from the Caribbean to Eastern Europe, to create programs for remote workers. The programs employ either special visas or expand existing ones to entice workers to temporarily relocate. Other countries offering similar visas currently include Estonia, Georgia and Bermuda.
A substantial drop in these countries’ tourism numbers is a key reason for the new programs.
“Tourism is the lifeline of the country,” said Eusi Skeete, the U.S. director of tourism for Barbados. Tourism accounted for 14 percent of the country’s annual gross domestic product in 2019, according to data published by the Central Bank of Barbados, and had a record number of international arrivals of more than 712,000. But in 2020, the number of visitors during the months of April, May and June were near zero.
Mr. Skeete said that the country’s new remote worker visa program will help with those numbers. “A 12-month period will allow visitors to experience the country in a holistic way,” he said.
More than 1,000 applications from around the world were submitted within the first week, the country said, with the majority of responses from the United States, Canada, and Britain.
Mr. Ngobeh’s application was approved on Monday. He plans to move mid-September.
SpoilerCatering to the Digital Nomad
Even before the pandemic, the number of remote workers worldwide was growing: Research from the consulting firm MBO Partners found that the number of independent workers in the United States, which includes consultants, freelancers and temporary workers, was around 41 million in 2019. More than 7.3 million workers in the United States described themselves in 2019 as “digital nomads”: those who chose to embrace a location-independent lifestyle that allowed them to travel and work remotely.David Cassar, MBO Partners’ chief operations officer, notes that the international leverage of freelancers is increasing considerably. “We absolutely expect interest in becoming a digital nomad to spike among independent workers in the coming years. Covid-19 has accelerated the adoption of widespread remote work, and independent workers will be among the first to take advantage of a location-independent, technology-enabled lifestyle,” he said.
Many workers are drawn to the lifestyle of digital nomads because of a lower cost of living.
Maggie Turansky, whose hometown is Phoenix, currently lives in the Republic of Georgia. She runs a website, The World Was Here First, with her partner, and rents a brand-new apartment in Tbilisi for about $500 a month. They stayed there during the pandemic.
“I can’t think of any other major city in a Western country that would be comparable,” she said. “The utilities on top of that rarely go above $50 a month, and the Wi-Fi is great. Georgia is appealing and there’s so much to see and do, and we kind of fell in love with it.”
Mr. Ngobeh noted that he has found decent two- to four-bedroom apartments that rent from $500 to $1,500 a month.
Amanda Kolbye, another United States citizen, currently works from Malaysia as an online business coach. She has enjoyed living and working overseas for the past two years, living in six countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Qatar and Taiwan.
“I’m not planning to return to the U.S. for the foreseeable future,” Ms. Kolbye said. “I’m considering running my business in another country, like Estonia or Barbados or Bermuda that will allow me to be closer to home.”
Criteria for extended stays
Some criteria for international visitors who seek these extended stays are similar.While all countries require proof of health insurance and negative virus tests (either pre-arrival, upon arrival, or both), some require an application fee and proof of a monthly salary, complete with bank statements.
For Barbados, prospective remote workers need to fill out an online application form and submit photos, they also need to supply proof of employment and an income declaration of at least $50,000 annually during the period that they are on the island. An application fee of $2,000 per person is only payable after he or she is approved; families pay a fee of $3,000, irrespective of the number of members in their household.
Bermuda’s Residency Certificate Policy, which was announced Aug. 1, has an application fee of $263.
Edward David Burt, the premier of Bermuda, said that the certificate did not require any change in law (the country has issued residential certificates before), but rather an expansion of it. “This will certainly help with our tourism industry,” he said. “You can have either 52 weeklong tours, or one 52-weeklong tour — the bottom line is the same: that it will support our economy.”
In 2019, Bermuda reported $419 million in leisure tourism revenue and more than 808,000 visitors — the most in the country’s history. Not surprisingly, the pandemic has depressed these numbers. In the first quarter of 2020, Bermuda’s tourism spending was $19.8 million compared to $32 million the previous year, and leisure air arrivals fell by nearly 44 percent.
“Tourists during the months of April, May and June were nearly zero,” said Glenn Jones, the interim chief executive officer of the Bermuda Tourism Authority. “I can tell you that we live on air arrivals. In July, our airlift capacity — the number of commercial airline seats flying to the island — was just 10 percent of what it was last July. August will be just 20 percent.”
Within days of announcing its residential certificate program, Bermuda received 69 applications from around the world.
Unlike Barbados, Bermuda does not require a minimum monthly income for extended stay remote workers.
Estonia’s new digital nomad visa, which began Aug. 1 and is an extension of its e-Residency program, will allow visitors to stay in the country legally and work remotely for their employer for up to 12 months. The application fee is $125, and applicants need to demonstrate proof of a base salary of at least $4,150 per month. But Americans will need to be patient as they are currently not allowed to enter Estonia, which follows European Union regulations, for its digital nomad visa program.
“If you see the countries offering remote worker visas, they are the ones highly dependent on tourism,” said Ott Vatter, the managing director of eResidency in Estonia. “While Estonia is not that dependent on the tourism sector, people are realizing the potential and the need for this type of offering; after Covid, the need accelerated.”
Tourism accounted for around 8 percent of the national G.D.P. for Estonia in 2019; and the Ministry of Internal Affairs expects at least a 50 percent reduction in tourism revenue in 2020 compared to 2019.
Georgia’s program, called “Remotely from Georgia,” allows workers to stay and work there for up to six months. Like Bermuda, Georgia currently does not require that applying workers show a monthly minimum income; applicants however need to make the case that they have sufficient means to support their lifestyles.
Diana Zhgenti, the Consul General of Georgia in New York, says that while there are no such financial restrictions for remote workers, the program is only available to citizens of 95 countries that are allowed to travel there visa-free. Long-term business workers will be required to quarantine for a period of 14 days upon arrival at their expense.
It may not be for everyone
Neville Mehra, hailing from Washington, D.C., left his last corporate job in 2017 and has since done remote digital strategy work through his company, Nampora. He currently lives and works in Valencia, Spain, though he has worked in more than 50 countries, including Georgia, and plans to return there with the new “Remotely from Georgia” program.“Over time, freelance digital nomads have started to ask what’s the best quality of life, instead of ‘where are the jobs’?” he said. “This is not about moving to a country and taking a job away from a local, but about spending locally at a higher level with a stronger currency.”
But while working remotely may be attractive to those who are able do their work with a laptop and a zippy internet connection, it may not be as easy for all professionals.
Mr. Cassar also notes that living and working remotely in another country will carry some risks. “If I’m traveling across the country, even as a company employee, workers’ comp may not cover me,” he said. “If I am classified as an independent worker in the U.S., having that freelancer status of ‘LLC’ may not be recognized in other countries.”
Language can also be a barrier. Ketevan Buadze, who co-founded the BSH law firm in Georgia that works with immigrants and remote workers, says that the country is extremely friendly to noncitizens, but noted that more “young people speak English, not so much the older folks.”
Those with children could have additional headaches. Families who plan on schooling their children from another country remotely may experience issues with time-zone differences. Or those who would like to enroll their children in local schools may face limitations: Bermuda and Estonia have restrictions on what types of schools are open to enrollment of foreign children. “International families cannot access public schools, but the private school system,” said Mr. Burt, the Bermuda premier. Estonia offers a few schooling options for international students including the Tallinn European School and the International School of Estonia (there are tuition fees for each).
But in the end, the tipping point to temporarily relocate to a different country may just come down to safety.
Sadie Millard, a New York City resident who has been in Bermuda since the pandemic started, said she plans to apply for the remote worker visa since her broker dealer firm remains closed. “There have been about 100 cases here in total,” she said, “and although it is as expensive here as in New York City, I feel a lot safer. The only thing I’ve had to adjust to is driving on the other side of the road.”
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Well, it is a weather talk thread.
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The more data that's processed, analyzed and understood, the better. Let's keep increasing our testing capacity so we can have a quicker turn around on following its development and speeding up our response to outbreaks.
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I was thinking about this a little more, and my mind started wandering to growing up in West Texas (low humidity environment like yesterday here). I recalled those moments standing in a field or on the range and being able to perceive fluctuating waves of heat floating over a flat landscape - almost like how a mirage might feel if you could sense it on your skin. It seems like it sometimes was accompanied by hot a breeze.
Maybe in the right conditions, heat can radiate, swelter, and bubble along a dry flat patch of earth. That could potentially explain the kind of temperature variation detected over a short period at Mabry, which is next to MoPac and in the middle of the Austin heat island.
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6 minutes ago, Gardner Barnes said:
Consecutive 100 degree day talk is some serious shit.
"That's one small step for Surly, boys...One giant leap for weenie-kind!" - GB
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5 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:
And this is why I never understood the Democrats response to his presidency. He donated to the Dems. He has zero guiding principles. I’m absolutely convinced that if they went #coopt as opposed to #resist they’d have the most liberal president in the countries history.
His guiding principle is that of a racist grifter. Do you really believe that this asshole who, in the announcement of his candidacy, called Mexican immigrants thieves, rapists, and murderers and whose first real attempted executive action as president was to bar Muslims from entering the country would be "the most liberal president in this countries [sic] history"?
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Looked into this. Apparently, it's a free four-hour, once-a-week class on either a Tuesday or Thursday. I can't imagine why something whose schedule is like that of an out-patient rehab program would necessitate a "class president" but they do have an alumni association with zero mention Ms. Kelly.
One would think a former class president running for office and who proudly and vocally touts her police academics so strongly would have some sort of residual involvement in its alumni association - at least be on the board or something. I wonder if their membership records are open to the public.
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2 minutes ago, Hate said:
How else am I supposed to interpret your “plain black and white” reference as if I can’t read what you posted.
But I am absolutely willing to let bygones be bygones as I have no malice towards most of the people here, yourself included.
At any rate, hopefully [mention]phdhorn [/mention] can shed a little light in the discrepancies as I am genuinely curious.Given that Camp Mabry is in an urban environment, is it possible that it could have short-term heat bursts with it being so near MoPac? That's about as far as I can go with any speculation about the temperature (if indeed the gauge is calibrated correctly).
I did read about a weird "heat burst" phenomenon that's usually the result of collapsing thunderstorm.
QuoteIn meteorology, a heat burst is a rare atmospheric phenomenon characterized by gusty winds along with a rapid increase in temperature and decrease in dew point (moisture). Heat bursts typically occur during night-time and are associated with decaying thunderstorms.[1]
Although this phenomenon is not fully understood, it is theorized that the event is caused when rain evaporates (virga) into a parcel of cold, dry air high in the atmosphere- making the air denser than its surroundings.[2] The parcel descends rapidly, warming due to compression, overshoots its equilibrium level and reaches the surface, similar to a downburst.[3]
Recorded temperatures during heat bursts have reached well above 40 °C (104 °F), sometimes rising by 10 °C (18 °F) or more within only a few minutes. More extreme events have also been documented, where temperatures have been reported to exceed 50 °C (122 °F). However, such extreme events have never been officially verified. Heat bursts are also characterized by extremely dry air and are sometimes associated with very strong, even damaging, winds.
Now, clearly, we didn't have a collapsing thunderstorm on top of us yesterday, but there had been storms in the area earlier that day/night. So maybe related? I dunno, but that's why I know I'm out of my element and can only speculate wildly.
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46 minutes ago, Hate said:
No, that is all you can say. Others may express some intellectual curiosity as to what the process is for officially recording the daily high temperature when the data seems to suggest something different. The process appears to be to record the temperature at 51 after each hour as the link I provided illustrates. At 10:51 am the temperature was recorded to be 89 degrees under clear skies. One hour later under partly cloudy skies the temperature was reported to be 95 under partly cloudy skies? And then one hour later under clear skies again the temperature dropped to 92 with a six hour high temperature reported to be 97? And then a similarly strange reported high of 101 over the next six hours when none of the recorded highs at the :51 increment ever were within 4 degrees of that?
Now, I’m a weather dork so I enjoy looking at these kinds of things and I wonder what the process is for determining the official high and low for a particular day in a particular city. I don’t care about some agenda. I’m genuinely curios as to what happened because it doesn’t seem to make sense. So once again, take your passive aggressive black and white “all we can say” bullshit and go fuck yourself.Bro, calm down.
Lack of intellectual curiosity? Anything we say is sheer speculation and conjecture. I even suggested O&W tweet out the question to the meteorologist to ask about the "weird" result (I've now said it was weird three times on this page). Reaching out to PhD was also good suggestion. I suppose in my free time I can look up weird daytime temperature spikes to see if that's a thing in the meantime.
Passive aggressive? This whole thing got started because of some butthurt over a question that Gardner Barnes posed about the severity of this heat wave. You questioned the KVUE meteorologist's report on the high temperature. I responded with the official figure provided my the NWS. Y'all both responded with a temperature timeline with one-hour gaps. That high temperature was registered during one of those gaps.
Me, a layman, I can say nothing else as I have no expertise. But, like you, I do have an interest as evidenced by participating in this thread. I hope PhD can chime in soon with a plausible explanation for the spike, the faulty recording, or the "sensationalization" of high temperature readings.
(We're living in a time of seemingly endless lock-down under an oppressive heat-dome with a forever off-season, so I'm not going to take your "go fuck yourself" personally. Or maybe I will and just say "fuck you" back.)
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It's probably a combination of a number of factors. Maybe one of the docs can chime in, but I seem to recall that early on there was a lot more reliance on early use of ventilators, which the medical community later found out did more harm than good. Also, I think I remember Chitown mentioning that putting patients in prone positioning did wonders. If those above statements are true, we can at least say that better treatments are playing a role in better outcomes.
Another could be linked to the affected population, i.e., the olds. I know that NY/NJ/WA were the places where it hit nursing care facilities hard in the initial outbreak. The same thing happened, at least, in France (I follow the news there due to having French friends and living there years ago). Belgium, too. Seemingly, what helped Germany out on mortalities was that it was young people catching it early on.
Maybe some "herd immunity" happening? Sure, I suppose that's possible as well. Moreover, it could've been much more widespread.
The point is that in all the states/countries that were hit with the European strain at the outset, the deaths to recorded cases ratio was much, much less favorable.
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4 minutes ago, Hate said:
I responded with the link out of confusion because I thought yesterday was not very hot in comparison to what it had been the several days prior. The link I provided shows the air temperature to be recorded at 97 degrees at 2:15 PM. Later in the day(6:15 pm) there are recordings of “max” of 101 at the same time the air temperature was 92 degrees. Why is there a 9 degree difference there? That is my question.
All I can say is that the 101 temperature was recorded and 2:32 pm yesterday afternoon. Earlier, at 1:51, it was 95. Later, at 2:51, it was 97.
It would appear their equipment registered a brief spike in the temperature during that hour. That is all we can say.
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21 minutes ago, Orange&White said:
I did...but are you not looking at the link I am providing as well? And following the timeline that I laid out? It is also from the NWS.
I did and stated that it was "weird" and, not-being-a-meteorologist myself, can only point to the official high that the NWS is reporting. I suppose though that temperatures can spike during a blazing hot August afternoon in Austin. I also assume that it was the same temperature gauge used for both links.
But my question was directed at @Hate who responded with that link without acknowledging mine where it reads in plain black and white English text that the maximum observed value was recorded at 101 degrees Fahrenheit.
Y'all are the ones calling into question what a professional meteorologist was repeating, and I simply provided the link to the official NWS data, as well as a screenshot showing where she likely got her numbers as they line up precisely for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I cannot, however, speak intelligently about a temperature timeline from throughout the day other than as a layperson.
Edit: I mean, shit, if you're so invested in this mystery why don't you tweet the meteo both links and ask her to describe the process for an apparent spike in temps. Report back if you get an answer.
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7 minutes ago, Hate said:
Here is a link for yesterday from the NWS. The official high at Camp Mabry was recorded to be 97 degrees at 2:51 PM. I don’t know what the “6 hour min and max” recordings are. Maybe Frankie...err,@phdhorn can explain that.
https://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KATT.htmlDid you not see the screenshot I posted above?
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6 minutes ago, Orange&White said:
That is weird that we are both getting data from the same source and getting two different numbers.
If what I and Bolverk posted is to be true, then the temp at 1:51 PM was 95 degrees. It then (allegedly) rose to 101 at 2:32 PM and then dropped back down to 97 degrees at 2:51 PM
Yeah, it's weird but that was the "official" high temp recorded by the NWS for that location. It is what it is. Ascribing her intent for reporting that piece of data to viewers as "sensationalizing" like she was stretching the truth is where I take issue.
I don't see the problem with saying we're hopefully at the tail end of a historically long heat wave - the equivalent of which only occurred 8 times in the first 100 years of readings but has now been occurring with such increased frequency that it's becoming the new normal in this city (14 times in the last 20 years) for a likely combination of reasons.
Gardner Barnes was remarking on the heat wave and how it stacks up, so I responded with a story I saw earlier this morning and replied accordingly that provided some context.
Let's just agree that it sucks and hope it ends soon.
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4 minutes ago, Orange&White said:
The difference is she was using the heat index number as a way to sensationalize the story.
Nothing sensationalized about it at all. That high temp of 101 was the officially observed one at Camp Mabry yesterday.
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7 minutes ago, Hate said:
That can’t be correct. The official temperature for Austin yesterday was 96 according to the NWS.
I spot checked the temps for Saturday through Monday, and it appears she's using Camp Mabry records as they align with her tweet.
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1 hour ago, Gardner Barnes said:
Second hottest August on record in Austin so far.
It will be interesting to see if we hit daily 100 +degrees the rest of the month. Anyone know where they puts us on the most 100 degree day ranking?https://www.kut.org/post/hey-austin-heat-not-normal-its-starting-feel-way
By the end of this weekend, Austinites can expect to have sweated through more than two weeks in a row of triple-digit heat. Texas summers are supposed to be hot. But there’s nothing normal about heat waves like this one.
Temperature records for Austin go back 1898. In the first hundred years of record keeping, triple-digit heat waves lasted 10 days or longer only eight times.
But since the turn of this century, there have been 14 such heat waves, including our current one. If all you’ve known is Austin weather for the last 20 years, you’d be forgiven for thinking this kind of thing is normal, even though it really isn’t.
Another way to look at the trends is not in terms of heat waves, but in the raw number of triple-digit days.
Victor Murphy with the National Weather Service says meteorologists look at temperature patterns in 30-year increments to determine what a statistically “average” year might look like.
From 1971 to 2000, Austin averaged just 12 triple-digit days a year. Sounds good, right?
If you move ahead one decade and look at the time between 1981 to 2010, the average number of 100-degree days goes up to 18. It’s a 50% increase, and that 30-year average has kept increasing by around 50% every 10 years since.
So far, Austin is averaging about 38 triple-digit days a year in the first 20 years of this century, up from 12 in the latter part of the 1900s.
“If we assume a 50% increase 10 years from now, that would then become a yearly average of 42 when the new 2001-2030 normals are released,” Murphy wrote to KUT in an email.
“The current 10 year normal [of triple-digit days] from 2011-2020 is indeed 42,” he added.
(Ending the story here as further discussion brings up a climatic phenomenon that some might perceive to be CR.)
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8 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:
For the record, I'm not a progressive. But I do fucking hate private prisons.
But here's the thing--there's not a goddamned thing Joe Biden is going to do about private prisons because that is a state issue. The Bureau of Prisons runs its own shit at the federal level.
But if you're talking about the state level, I gotta tell you--your fucking mailers don't do shit. Taking your money and promising to give to a primary challenger is what gets shit done. And on that, yeah--I'll absolute do that. AFTER we take the House. Because if we don't take the House, then nothing changes with TDCJ.
BoP has contracts with a number of private prisons, including my hometown where the GEO group runs 3-4 units. He could, like H.Clinton, pledge to end those contracts, which would put a number of private prisons out of business. Then there's the matter of ICE housing undocumented folks at private detention centers across South Texas.
Edit: By the way, this isn't a knock on Biden - simply a factual follow-up. I don't know his stance on the use of private prison contracts for federal prisoners and detainees. I just know that Hillary had made a promise to end those contracts, which caused a bit of an uproar in my hometown since the GEO group employs something like 500 people there.
2020 Democratic National Convention
in Cloak Room
Posted
I can't remember if ABC and ESPN were both owned by Disney at the beginning of the 2000s, but what the fuck were they thinking putting Rush Limbaugh and Dennis Miller in as color commentators at the time?
By the way, tonight was my first to watch any of the DNC. It was good, like, real good. Obama hit it out of the park, and Kamala shows potential as a speaker. I did some googling on her sister, and she's been involved in police reform. That's not lost on me in this moment and surely not on her either. Liz was my candidate, and she didn't disappoint. But, right now, I'm all in with the candidates we've got.
Go Joe go.