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bolverk

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by bolverk

  1. He’s established a creepy pattern of defending people who prey on children’s minds and bodies. I really hope he's not involved in any youth activities, like the Boy Scouts or Little League Baseball.
  2. Wordle 1,506 4/6 ⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨 🟨🟩🟨⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #784 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1287 6️⃣7️⃣ 4️⃣5️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜🟨⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩🟨🟨⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
  3. I bet they're gonna have some legendary food at tailgates.
  4. Whew! Wordle 1,505 6/6 ⬛⬛🟨🟨⬛ ⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #783 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1286 6️⃣7️⃣ 4️⃣5️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜🟨⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩 🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩⬜⬜🟨 🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
  5. @Dbeasy I've tried to explain this stuff to him a couple of times before, but he completely ignores the explanation. I think he just prefers to live in a conspiratorial fantasy land. There are three things going on with employment numbers and job figures that get published by the BLS. This was my first job out of grad school for a year, so this is all from first-hand experience. Current Employment SURVEY (CES): As you can guess, it's a monthly survey of employers asking how many employees they have at a given time. It's simply an ever-shifting estimate by geography (states and metro areas, not counties) and by industry sector. The first guestimate (that's really what it is because response rates can be low) and the second revised estimate to fill in the gaps later in the same month are done at the STATE level, not done by the feds but reported to them. It can get tricky because it does not account for business openings or closures. Also, the survey is entirely voluntary. So, some employers only intermittently will respond. Quarterly CENSUS of Employment and Wages (QCEW): This is your job count. These data are real, hard figures that are required to be reported on a quarterly basis for each month: headcount and wages by location (states and counties). It's an arduous process that often requires STATE workforce commission staff to call up the HR departments of individual businesses when numbers look funky and don’t match up well with previous reports. Because of all that, there's a six-month lag before they are publicly published. As the actual real job counts come in, the estimates go through a revision process to bring them in line with the hard count, culminating at the end of each fiscal year with the final "benchmarked" numbers, which is a big to-do. Now, both of those above are concerned with JOBS, an important thing to keep in mind. Finally, we have the monthly employment/unemployment figures through a program called Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS). I was not directly involved in this, so I can't say as much. That said, I worked in a giant cubicle farm in a converted warehouse on Rutherford, east of I-35) with other analysts who did this stuff. It's a household survey of people, basically asking them one question: Are you currently employed? I think they get the contact information from folks who've lost a job and have filed for unemployment compensation. At the local level, my impression was that these data are a lot more squishy and are only "benchmarked" once a decade when the US Census results are published. That's because it's the only time analysts can get a real handle on the Civilian Labor Force (persons 16+ years of age) living in a county. So, basically, you have the universe of people over that age (CLF) taken from the decennial Census and whether they have jobs (Employment). You take the difference (Unemployed) and calculate the Unemployment Rate. From there, they just apply household survey results to keep track of the number of unemployed people in each county. The problem is that it often doesn't capture significant population changes in a county, and so by the end of the decade, those figures can be pretty off and aren’t fixed until the next Census comes out. So, the first two (CES and QCEW) programs are all about jobs, while LAUS is all about people. For labor market and economic data geeks, that's an important distinction because a person can hold more than one job at a time. I hope this doesn't seem like I'm lecturing, especially to you Dbeasy, but I just wanted to lay this all out there to provide transparency about how the foundational figures from which just about all employment data are calculated, so folks don't fall back on paranoid (and lazy) conspiracies.
  6. If he were actually "libertarian," even borderline, he'd be up in arms about the assault on civil liberties going on right now. And yet, he's not once voiced concern about any of it.
  7. Trolling the public to “own the libs” is all I've got.
  8. There's a federal minimum security camp here that's attached to a medium security one. Back in 80s, when it was all just a minimum security facility, we'd hear about prisoners "jumping the curb" out at Club Fed, because there wasn't even a fence.
  9. If you haven’t ever seen The Battle of Algiers (sounds like you might have), it's a great, great watch and could apply to just about any insurgency. It's also available to stream on HBO.
  10. Sounds like you're up in Seattle, so those deadly Lahars that'll eventually get Puyallup shouldn't be much of a concern. And, while Nicole may be further away (Who can say where she really ever is: Austin, Atlanta, Aberdeen WA?), I think I'd rather try to outrun a Lahar than face Nicole near a body of water late at night.
  11. Writ large, that's kind of what's happening across the board. The Trump regime does some wild shit, and the courts give them a belated slap on the wrist or something. In the meantime, they've largely accomplished their goals.
  12. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think it's just like any other discipline. Folks get attached to their hypotheses and theories and don't want to give them up, but that's the great thing about rigorous science. You back your shit up with proof and compare notes. Gobekli Tepe rewrote the history book and added a chapter to the beginning. Speculating about aliens coming down and gifting our ancestors knowledge is fun and all (and I'm certainly not above watching some of that stuff on occasion), but I don't put much emotional stock in any of it beyond the entertainment value when high or something.
  13. I've never checked the Federal Sex Offender Registry before, so it's possible I could be doing it wrong, but I'm turning up nothing when searching her name. https://www.nsopw.gov/
  14. While I personally don’t subscribe to many of the more out-there theories about ancient civilizations, I’m in complete agreement that those people were a lot more sophisticated than they’re often given credit for. And, yeah, it certainly seems there are periods in human history when technology and building techniques were lost to subsequent civilizations until having to be rediscovered by later ones. Like, for example, I think we only recently rediscovered the technique the Romans used for making concrete. One interesting ongoing debate I recently learned about is the possibility of a cave system underneath the pyramids that could reach back to a much earlier era and could signify the site as being holy to early peoples. If I’m remembering the details correctly, there might be an aquifer system down there that they had tapped into that some Scottish researchers are claiming to have found. Like I said, I like to watch/listen to these videos to reset emotionally and wind down, so I’m often halfway asleep while they’re running. Speaking of which, The Fall of Civilizations podcast is most excellent.
  15. Either way, it's not American, which is why it caught my eye.
  16. Good catch. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/19/1087723875/kim-davis-court-same-sex-marriage .
  17. I like to watch YouTube videos about ancient history and civilizations before going to bed and, in fact, watched this one last night. While it doesn't address that particular site (which I've heard of), you might find this interesting in a general sense. We have a little-used Archeology Thread that I wish had more traffic. It'd be great to have some good discussions over there about this kind of stuff. Btw, I'm by no means an expert on any of this stuff, having only taken a single cultural anthropology class in undergrad, but the topic of ancient history and finding old mysterious shit is endlessly fascinating. Check this video out -- really cool stuff.
  18. Maybe the women's prison in Bryan doesn't have CCTV.
  19. Uh, what kind of car is that?
  20. I have no idea how they would even track that, because it plays no role whatsoever in how job counts are calculated. My first job out of grad school was producing these numbers at https://texaslmi.com/ back in the late 90s, so I'm very familiar with the process. The BLS then takes these numbers and more-or-less republishes them. Of course, they do their own stuff in DC, but the topline figures we read in the papers come from each state’s workforce commission, as shown at the link.
  21. Yep. Tom DeLay and the GOP started this intercensal shit in Texas 20 years ago. And, hell, the CURRENT Texas maps that we're using for elections are STILL winding their way through the courts due to challenges. And since this is Texas we're talking about, which does have a long history of gerrymandering, think about who's always done it to stay in power: Conservative "good ol' boys," both before and after they all switched parties following the Civil Rights Act. They were always racist motherfuckers.
  22. Tons of data, details, and videos in this NEWS article, so I'm offering a gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/08/01/world/middleeast/gaza-hunger-aid-sites-deaths-israel.html?unlocked_article_code=1.a08.8lBk.d6uCuJoSRfiv&smid=url-share
  23. From the Texas Tribune: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/30/texas-redistricting-congressional-maps-house-republicans/ Texas has 38 Congressional districts. The proposed map narrows the number of districts with a Democratic voting majority down to 7. 2 in DFW 2 in Houston 1 in San Antonio 1 in Austin 1 in El Paso This translates to a mere 18% of districts, while overall, Texas voted for Harris at a 42% rate. This is a HUGE efficiency gap.
  24. Let's all hope Elmo's gotten bored with Texas, and Austin in particular. Sorry, Tennessee. You're in his sights now. As an aside, it's really funny how similar the parallels between Austin & Texas and Nashville & Tennessee are, including becoming the next "it" city & state. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/us/politics/nashville-tunnel-musk.html Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, already faces backlash over his company’s giant supercomputer project in Memphis. Now, another project under his business empire has angered residents in Tennessee’s capital, where state officials cleared the way on Thursday for a 10-mile tunnel to be dug under Nashville. The project by the Boring Company, Mr. Musk’s private tunneling venture, would connect downtown Nashville and the city’s airport. Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, and other state leaders announced it this week, with little input from local lawmakers and residents, who raised objections to its fast-tracked approval. Mr. Musk’s tunnel, built for vehicles sold by one of his other companies, Tesla, is the latest point of tension between the Republican leaders who dominate state government and a majority of residents and officials in the largely liberal city. “It is shameful and it is disrespectful that you all have made this decision without us,” State Senator Charlane Oliver, who represents part of Nashville, said at a hearing of a state commission that unanimously approved the use of state land for the project. Construction on what is being billed as the Music City Loop is expected to begin in the coming days. Officials hope it would reduce the downtown-to-airport commute, typically at least 15 minutes in regular traffic, to as few as eight minutes. The loop would be used by Tesla cars owned and operated by the Boring Company. Mr. Lee, speaking at an airport hotel, hailed the plans as something that “might just be the coolest announcement since I’ve been here.” Notably missing: Mayor Freddie O’Connell, a transit wonk who won voter approval of an infrastructure plan in November. “We have a number of operational questions to understand the potential impact,” Mr. O’Connell said in a statement. At least one lawmaker who represents part of Nashville, State Representative Justin Jones, a Democrat, wasn’t invited to the Monday event and was barred from the announcement. The loop would be the second such project built by the Boring Company in the United States, after a series of tunnels in Las Vegas. The first mile and a half of the multi-million-dollar loop, approved in 2019, opened to customers in 2021. A combination of private and public funds has been used to continue building out tunnels and stations. Mr. Lee and others emphasized that construction on the Nashville tunnel would be privately funded by the Boring Company and would not receive tax breaks. They did not say how much it would cost to build, maintain or use. Some proposed Boring Company projects announced elsewhere in the United States, including in Chicago, were never completed. And Nashville’s limestone bedrock and temperate weather offer challenges for the company, especially compared with Las Vegas’s dry climate. “Tough place to tunnel in Nashville,” acknowledged Steve Davis, the company’s president. “If we were optimizing our easiest places to tunnel, it would not be here.” He said the city’s growth and tourist attractions made it a desirable place to build. Local residents expressed concerns about the possible environmental consequences of the project at a special meeting on Thursday, called to approve the use of a state parking lot by the Boring Company as a starting point for construction. “This project has not had the time to do due diligence,” said Rev. Emily Haynes, a pastor at a nondenominational church in Nashville, who warned that the project was on “a very dangerous ecological and socially risky path.” Nashville leaders accused state officials of prioritizing tourists over residents in order to help Mr. Musk, whose businesses have already profited from his former close relationship with President Trump and other Republican leaders. Similar concerns have been voiced over the construction of a supercomputer facility in Memphis for xAI, Mr. Musk’s artificial intelligence business, where residents of the predominantly Black neighborhoods nearby have raised worries about increased air pollution and other disruptions. Executives at xAI have said that the facility complies with environmental laws, and Mr. Musk and the company recently pledged to help renovate four nearby schools. Some speakers pointedly said that the unanimous outcome of the hourlong hearing in Nashville on Thursday seemed preordained. With the permission of state officials, the parking lot in question had already been cordoned off by the Boring Company.
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