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Francisco 2.0

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by Francisco 2.0

  1. 8 hours ago, BottleRocket said:

    In the ‘90’s a friend and I would search out pinball machines that wouldn’t tilt. There was one at The Crown & Anchor and another at Ego’s. We would get drunk and abuse the shit out of those machines. Simpler times.

    The convenience store in my home town had one of these for almost a year or so.  

    da6cea0f72838c1c4d2227db4facce5f70a31e3f

    One day, a few of us were there playing and we noticed there was a sizable gap between the siderails and the glass, especially at the top left of the playfield.  Hmm.

    192_31.JPG

     So, we brought in a wire coat hanger and discovered that if we manipulated it just right,  one of us could play a game and  catch and hold the ball with a flipper, the other could knock down all of the drop targets in the upper left lane that held the captive ball with the coat hanger, bumping up the score and triggering a special, then doing it over and over.  I have no idea how many credits were taken in that manner.  It was a sad day when we found out that table was taken away.

     

     

     

    • Hook 'Em 1
  2. 5 minutes ago, Gooby said:

    And where the fuck is Congress?  Where are the fucking guardrails that are supposed to be keeping shit like this from happening?

    It's not humane.  It sure as hell ain't Christian. 

     

    Guardrails?  Those left the GOP 10 years ago, and they ain't ever coming back.

    Also, it's not Christian, but it's "Christian!"  Let's all pray!

     

     

     

     

    • Hook 'Em 2
  3. On 6/30/2025 at 5:53 PM, Larry T. Spider said:

    Does the pool really close at 5 pm each day? If so that is a huge kick in the dick considering the resort fees.

     

    6 pm.

    Caesars used to have a night swim that was a paid feature ($20 a person, maybe?) that we did back in 2022.  It was nothing to write home about, honestly.  The three highlights were, in no particular order:

    -The cocktail waitress looking at my ID, seeing "none" for corrective lenses, and asking loudly "are you from None?"

    -The couple that with 97% certainity were fucking in the pool just down from us

    -Caesars evacuating the pool and the casino floor because of the "shooting" that happened at MGM and caused widespread panic at all the resorts moving north.  We spent around an hour in Caesars basement, in swimwear, along with a variety of other resort visitors.  Fun times.

  4. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/us/trump-education-funds.html

     

    Quote

    The Trump administration has declined to release nearly $7 billion in federal funding that helps pay for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, teacher training and other services.

    The money was expected to be released by Tuesday. But in an email on Monday, the Education Department notified state education agencies that the money would not be available.

     

    Quote

    The administration offered little explanation, saying only that the funds were under review. It gave no timeline for when, or if, the money would be released, saying instead that it was “committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the president’s priorities.” The frozen funds are unrelated to the millions of dollars in cuts included in the domestic policy bill that squeaked through the Senate on Tuesday.

     

    Quote

    “It’s catastrophic,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, a group that works to expand after-school services for students. She estimated that the federal dollars for after-school and summer-school programs — about $1.3 billion annually — support 1.4 million students, mostly lower income, representing about 20 percent of all students in after-school programs nationally.

     

     

    Spoiler

    The move is likely to be challenged in court and has already been criticized as illegal by Democrats and teachers’ unions, who emphasized that the money had been appropriated by Congress and was approved by President Trump in March as part of a broader funding bill.

    “This is lawless,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

    The administration has taken an aggressive approach to cutting back the federal government’s role in education, including plans to eliminate the Education Department entirely. Though only Congress can abolish the department, the Trump administration has taken an ax to education staffing and funding more broadly as it seeks to whittle down the department.

    The administration has suggested that it may seek to eliminate the nearly $7 billion in frozen funding. Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week that the administration was considering ways to claw back the funding through a process known as recessions. The administration would formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires.

    “No decision has been made,” Mr. Vought said. 

    The withholding of dollars on Tuesday threw school district budgets into uncertainty, with only weeks to go before the start of school in many parts of the country.

    Heidi Sipe, the superintendent in Umatilla, Ore., a low-income, rural district, said her district’s after-school program has traditionally gone until 4:45 or 5:30 p.m. and was fully funded through federal dollars.

    She recently sent a note to parents urging them to make backup plans, though few exist in her community, where she said there is no Y.M.C.A. or similar alternatives.

    In Omaha, Nicole Everingham, who helps manage after-school funding for programs at 42 public schools, said a loss of funding would force her group to consolidate the number of schools that can offer after-school care, and also mean fewer slots for students, because of staffing reductions.

    “It completely puts us in flux,” said Ms. Everingham, the development director for Collective for Youth, which helps coordinate after-school programming for about half of Omaha public schools.

    Even if the money comes through after a delay, she said, it could disrupt the ability to hire staff by the start of school in mid-August, creating chaos for working parents who depend on after-school programs.

    Many school districts also rely on federal dollars to help non-English-speaking students and families, including training teachers and hiring translators.

    “Without this outreach, families who do not speak English could be cut off from schools and the support system they need,” said Ana DeGenna, the school district superintendent in Oxnard, Calif.

    Several of the federally funded programs have been in place for decades. The 21st Century Community Learning Centers, which support before- and after-school programs, were created in 1994 by federal legislation, and expanded six years later with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act. Both measures, the first passed during a Democratic administration and the second under a Republican president, were approved by broad bipartisan majorities.

    One of the newest programs, known as Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants, has been in place for a decade, supporting many services for issues like mental health and school technology. That law that authorized those grants received broad bipartisan support, including from Representative Tim Walberg of Michigan and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, both Republicans who are now chairmen of the education committees in their respective chambers.

    But criticism about cutting funding for these programs has largely been limited to Democrats.

    “Every day that this funding is held up is a day that school districts are forced to worry about whether they’ll have to cut back on after-school programs or lay off teachers instead of worrying about how to make sure our kids can succeed,” Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat who is the vice chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.

     

    • Rage+1 4
  5. https://www.theverge.com/tesla/694333/tesla-robotaxi-media-influencers-musk-fans

     

    We are the media now’: why Tesla’s robotaxis were dominated by Elon Musk superfans

     

    Quote

    Over the years, Tesla has built part of its reputation on hosting big, bold events to generate authentic hype for upcoming releases. The robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, last week wasn’t one of them.

    Coverage of the rollout was dominated by a close-knit cohort of Tesla influencers and Elon Musk superfans, many of whom are openly supportive of the CEO’s vision. Journalists and tech bloggers who might have been more critical of the technology were not only excluded but also actively ridiculed and mocked by Tesla fans and some of their followers for attempting to ask basic questions about the service. In Austin and online, Tesla fans were taking a cue from Musk, who has spent years fomenting a culture of resentment toward critical media.

     

     

    Quote

    One of the more prominent influencers, who goes by Zack on X, claimed he was approached multiple times by a Reuters journalist, whom he promptly ignored. That post, which has over 2,000 likes, received supportive responses from other users — one wrote that the publication and other legacy media outlets “can go F themselves.” Another said they would unfollow any account that simply responded to members of the media.

     

    Quote

    “The best response would [be] to add a precondition and ask them to go on camera blanket apologising for all the lies and smears against Elon and Tesla first,” the account Tesla insights wrote. “That will shut them up, and make them think!”

    That general sentiment reverberated across the parts of X and YouTube most actively covering the launch. Kim Java, a Tesla influencer with 258,000 YouTube subscribers, posted a comment saying she had been contacted by several major media outlets to speak about her experience but turned them down so she could “control [her] own narrative.”

    The phrase “we are the media now” appears repeatedly in posts and replies related to the robotaxi launch. This so-called alternative media is now receiving the very same closed-door access many of them criticize legacy publications for indulging in.

     

    Spoiler

    The end result of that adversarial dynamic, experts tell The Verge, is a rollout that feels less like a transparent tech demo and more like a beta test — one amplified by livestreaming influencers who willingly promote Tesla’s marketing material. Much of that coverage unfolds within small echo chambers on Musk-owned X and YouTube, where receptive audiences have largely already made up their minds about the robotaxi’s significance. Boston University professor and Meme Warsauthor Joan Donovan says the rollout so far this week has been a textbook example of what she calls “corporate propaganda.”

    “The big push around robotaxis is explicitly about recuperating the reputation of Tesla,” Donovan says. “It has a bit of an echo chamber effect.”

    Ed Niedermeyer, author of the Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, who filmed a robotaxi braking hard in the middle of the road when passing a police cruiser, echoes that sentiment and compares the influencers to a “Greek chorus” collectively working to bolster the robotaxi’s perception. Some of that narrative building appeared to be underway on the popular Reddit forum r/SelfDrivingCars. A user posting late last week claimed the forum has been “flooded with Tesla apologist propaganda and disinformation,” following the robotaxi launch. Niedermeyer claims he’s previously observed a Tesla employee moderating the r/Tesla forum. 

    “They know what their job is and Tesla knows how to use them,” Niedermeyer tells The Verge. Donovan and Niedermeyer are outspoken critics of Tesla. Both played active roles in the Tesla Takedown protests organized around the country earlier this year. Needless to say, they aren’t in the “superfan” club. 

    Tesla did not respond to our request for comment. The Verge also reached out to several of the influencers cited above but hasn’t heard back. 

    Tesla’s new media 

    This week’s bizarre, influencer-led robotaxi event is the culmination of a yearslong evolution by Tesla to subtly cultivate its preferred media while simultaneously sidelining traditional journalistic outlets. Tesla has a long and bitter history of antagonism with the press. The company unofficially dissolved its PR team back in 2020 and has since made a point of dodging reporters’ questions about its products and tech stack. Since acquiring Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk has further tilted the playing field by periodically banning accounts critical of him and his companies.

    At the same time, Tesla has built a loyal fan base, which Donovan compares to early Apple enthusiasts — eager to call out media critics as biased against Musk and the company. At first, much of that support was organic. The company attracted a devoted following of technologists, clean energy advocates, and entrepreneurs drawn to its willingness to take big swings at tough problems. 

    But as Niedermeyer notes, some of that enthusiasm has tapered off in recent years, due in part to a series of underwhelming demos — like last year’s lackluster “We robot” event, which raised new doubts about the company’s ability to deliver on its most ambitious promises around autonomy. Those who remain tend to be reliably loyal and often openly aligned with Tesla’s success.

    Boosting Tesla’s image online has its perks. Many in the community share personalized referral codes, which can be redeemed for rewards ranging from a few extra Supercharger miles to discounts on a new car purchase. (Some Tesla owners allege they’ve been abruptly removed from the program after posting content critical of the company.)

    Loyal supporters in Tesla’s online ranks may also gain access to exclusive events, as appears to have been the case with the robotaxi launch. Those who own stock in the company, Niedermeyer says, have an even more direct incentive to ensure Tesla is seen in a favorable light.

    “The product is so dope they don’t need a PR department,” YouTube creator and Tesla fan Galileo Russell said in an interview with CNN Business. “I got involved with Tesla to make sure the company succeeded.”

    Operating in an echo chamber can only work for so long. Eventually, if Musk’s vision of millions of autonomous Teslas zooming through city streets is to be realized, the company will have to open its doors to the broader public — including its detractors. That risks exposing more of the company’s mistakes, which even influencers are already having trouble pushing aside. 

    “They know what their job is,” Niedermeyer says, “and Tesla knows how to use them.”

     

     

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