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KCMasterpieceof

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Posts posted by KCMasterpieceof

  1. 2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

    And at the end of it, Turkiye--see, I'm learning--emerged as a secular Turkish ethno-state.  And that couldn't happen if it were still populated by millions of Armenians.  And the Turks are very proud of their country's founding from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and the occupation of large parts of the Anatolian Peninsula by the Allied powers.  And it really is a kick in the balls to point out that the bedrock on which that foundation is laid is the genocide of one of the Peninsula's nations.

    . . . so yeah--kind of exactly how Americans deny the genocide of the American Indians.

    Amazing insight. Did you do your History PhD thesis on this part of the world or what? 

    What's been interesting to me, as a global traveler who has been all around the world including Turkiye (Ankara recently and of course Istanbul), I've met and talked to all types. Liberals to the "Wolves" of the MHP.

    What is interesting over time that I've observed is the wide swing from what you describe above (bold,) is the move from this and the idolized worship of Ataturk and secularizing and trying to become more "European" for a lack of better characterization, to a pendulum swing the last...decade(s)?... by Erdogan to erode democracy and move into a more fundamentalist/islamic embrace.

    Do I perceive that wrong?

    Best I can tell, the inflection point seemed to be the tacit rejection of Turkiye into the EU in the mid 2010's (the formal rejection was much later), but it seemed Turkiye took the spurning as a racist Europe saying you dirty muslims will never be our equal and we don't want your kind, which I've come to think of as Turkiye/Erdogan's villainous origin story.

    And yes Czechia I don't like, but we are already starting to call India "Bharat" around the house to get used to it before it takes effect.

  2. Maybe it's because Baylor is so bad and all the alum friends I have aren't invested in this season, but it seems my Tech friends are the most insufferable this year. Really for the past few years starting with the NCAA tourney and Beard and being peeved about us announcing we were leaving and just generally butt-hurt and annoying and obnoxious the last few years.

    So I vote TTU.

    And though I came around on Crabtree enough to not hate him years later watching him in the NFL, Tech in 08 delivered a lucky blow to us that none of the others have come close to hurting us with.

    • Hook 'Em 4
  3. 9 hours ago, Shoxthemonkey said:

    November 5, 1988, a Saturday. My 12 yr old son and I were back in the timber of our property cutting firewood. My wife has gone to town to pick up our 10 yr old daughter from her mother's house (my MIL).  An hour later, my cousin roars through our pasture honking his horn trying to find us. We run out and wave him to us. He lets me know that my wife has been in an accident and it isn't good. I ask a lot of questions but he doesn't have any answers. I don't know if she had already picked up the daughter or not. My son and I jump in my cousins truck and head to my wife's sister's house so I can drop off my son. We get there and she and I take her car and head to town, 15 miles away. On the way, we pass the scene of the accident. My wife's 85 Dodge Charger is in the ditch with a 3/4 ton flatbed farm truck sitting on top of it. The roof of the car is completely collapsed. I see no way that she could survive. We get to our small town hospital just as LifeWatch is leaving the helipad. I run into the Emergency room and our doctor meets me just inside. My wife was a nurse and has worked closely with him for several years. He turns me around and he and I get in his car and head for Wichita. On the way he tells me that she was alone in the car, she is unconscious but has no broken bones or visible trauma. At least my daughter is safe.

    We get to the hospital and the first person that we encounter is a neurosurgeon who tells me that she is in a coma and might need immediate surgery to relieve brain swelling and I have to sign a mountain of paperwork. This begins a 3 week stay in ICU. They never have to do the surgery but  she doesn't come out of the coma until almost Thanksgiving. Once she is conscious again, they are able to assess the level of TBI and set the wheels in motion for the rehab that will follow. She will spend the next 8 weeks in the rehab wing of the hospital learning to speak, walk, and feed herself. I wasn't given any set values for the functions that she would regain so I wasn't sure what our future was going to look like. I was fortunate that our kids were old enough to be able to take care of themselves and be very helpful. My folks lived in Wichita at the time so we set home away from home there. Amazingly, she was able to recover to a remarkable degree and last May we celebrated our Golden anniversary.

    Heck yea bro!

    • Like 1
  4. 11 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

    I'll just trace it back to World War I.  Prior to World War I, the Armenians were scattered throughout the Ottoman Empire, but were heavily in Constantinople and Armenia.  Those were two pretty important places.  First, Armenia straddled the border between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, which were at war with one another during World War I.  Second, Constantinople was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and Russia had the longstanding ambition of seizing Constantinople (which they called Tsargrad) from the Ottomans.  

    The Armenians were sympathetic to the Russians, as the Russians were also Christians and purported to protect Armenian interests.  And so when the Russians advanced into the Ottoman Empire in 1915, the Armenians largely supported them.  

    The Ottoman Turks consequently saw the Armenians as a nascent fifth column, which happened to reside in two strategic places.  So the Turks rounded up the Armenians and genocided them.  Not cool.  But so anyway, the Armenians super-hate the Turks.  And, well, the Turks pretty much hate the Armenians, too.

    The Azeris are a Turkic people who happen to be Muslim.  So they have a close ethnic and religious bond with the Azerbaijanis.  And Turkey has traditionally supported Azerbaijan.  Since the first war, Turkey has closed its border with Armenia and has supplied Azerbaijan with weapons.

    On top of that is Turkey's--which is to say Recap Erdogan's--ambition to position Turkey as the leader of the Turkic peoples stretching from the Anatolian Peninsula to western China.  Not just in Azerbaijan, but all the people in the -stans are all some flavor of Turkic.  And Erdogan sees it as a historic Turkish mission to lead those people while also setting Turkey up strategically to be a real modern player in the global energy market.

    And then there's Israel, which has some weird historic . . . I don't know that I would say "alliance," but I would definitely say "friendliness" with Turkey.  The Jews were largely tolerated in Palestine under the Ottoman Empire.  And as a democracy and Nato member that is not Arab, Turkey has kind of shared America's affinity for Israel.  And Israel and Turkey share interests in Syria and elsewhere.  So Israel has also been selling Azerbaijan weapons.

    Oh, and of course, Israel hates Iran.  And Iran hates Azerbaijan because there is a large Azeri population in northern Iran that has some asperations of seceding and joining up with Azerbaijan.  It's kind of like Iraq and the Kurds--there are times when Tehran's writ doesn't run in the north of the country.

    So the Iranians are interested in helping Armenia.  

    But Armenia's real protector . . . or at least the country that purports to be Armenia's protector . . . is Russia.  But the thing is, Russia does a shitty job of actually protecting Armenia.  It couldn't protect the Armenians in 1916.  It can't protect them now.  

    So really what this boils down to is Armenia picks shitty friends.

    And the Azerbaijanis, Turks, and Israelis know it.

    So there's this territory inside Azerbaijan--Nagorno-Karabakh.  Its population is overwhelmingly Armenian.  But it is inside Azerbaijan's internationally recognized borders.  In the early 1990s, Armenia invaded and basically set up a state akin to what Russia did with Transnistria or South Ossetia.  And Azerbaijan has kind of had to eat shit for thirty years because Russia would could to the aid of Armenia if it came down to it.

    But now Russia can't do shit; it's too busy losing a war against Ukraine.  And nobody else is going to come help.  So they're going to have to bend over and take it.

    And that's why there are protests in Yerevan against the government.  The government is heavily pro-Russian.  And that's always been the rule for Armenia: it is a Russian vassal.  If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?

    There is a reasonably strong pro-Armenia group in America owing to the fact that there are a fair number of Armenians here.  Well, I mean . . . "strong" is a relative term.  It's not going to push policy like AIPAC can.  But it's probably stronger than the pro-Bangladeshi lobby.

    But it's nothing compared to the energy lobby.  And Azerbaijan has oil.  And Turkey is a highway for oil and gas transportation.  So yeah--Armenia is going to get some nice words from us, but it's not getting any real support.  It's certainly not going to get any help keeping territory that it's running inside Azerbaijan's internationally recognized borders.

    Two questions for you (marvelous and thoughtful write up, by the way):

    1) Why don't you use the name Turkiye? As far as I can tell UN agreed over the summer this is the preferred nomenclature (dude) and Associated Press style guide for message boards demands the formality. Just kidding.

    2) Seriously, why do the Turks deny the Armenian genocide? I mean, it's as you described pretty factually and easy to prove, right? And they can even have a nationalistic bent to defend it or own it or whatever, but what's the purpose of the denial?

     

  5. 53 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

     

    the asterisk is that there really isn't a uniform way to measure the viewings, so it could/would likely be manipulated.  what counts as a view for a show or a season?  someone watching 10 seconds?  10 minutes?  one episode?  do they measure views for the pilot vs the finale? 

     

     

     

    Maybe it's the benefit of reading it for the third time, but the above makes a lot more sense to me now.

    I'm reminded of something I read about spotify recently. Is it feasible that streamers use benchmarks and best practices from music streamers, instead of reinventing the wheel? Especially considering that music streamers aren't paying that much per listen?

    I was reading this morning about how streaming/spotify has basically fundamentally changed music production and what and how songs get made. Namely about what counts as a "listen" (30 seconds) and what gets you paid via advertising. Could this be similar to the streaming model they want?

    Quote

     If the 8-minute-long masterpiece “Stairway to Heaven” debuted on Spotify today, it’d be lost in a sea of techno remixes and Christmas covers.

    That’s because now it pays for songs to be short.

    Music streaming services pay artists by the number of plays, and a play only counts if a user listens for 30 seconds. The algorithms also tend to recommend songs that are listened to all the way through. In response, artists are making their songs shorter and including the hook in the first 30 seconds. According to music blogger Michael Tauberg, the average length of hit songs has dropped by more than 30 seconds since 2000.

     

  6. 1 hour ago, ChickenSandwich said:

    Is the “bleeding money” just referring to the current streaming models and their failure? Or is the strike “causing” them to bleed money?  If so, how? 
     

    What are the network shows not returning this fall that will be missed (most popular)?

    The former.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  7. 23 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

    Another thing is to consider is that loneliness may be partly about options.

    When you feel like you're alone, you don't have any friends, you don't have a spouse/partner, you don't have the skills to meet new people, you don't know how to form new friendships, you don't know how to interact socially...you feel alone. And trapped. And depressed. 

    When you know that you have friends, either close or acquaintances, that you can call for a beer; when you've generally had sex picking up men/women when you want to try or have had a lot of long term relationships and are confident you could find another one; when you know you CAN go to a socail event and strike up and carry a conversation with anyone...then you have options. You feel like you can change your circumstances. Which means coming home, drawing the curtains, and reading a book or cocktail simply becomes your choice or preference. And man, that is not the same thing, the same ballpark, as feeling like you're just stuck at home alone, forever. And that is the biggest part where I think the phone is dangerous. Because lots of folks never learn those skills, so their default is to feel completely isolated.

    I think what you've kind of described is an accurate recipe for the the rise of mental illness, specifically the rise of the incel.

    • Fuck You 1
  8. 57 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

    Well, they cut a certain amount of meats to sell over the weekend.  If it's not all sold by Sunday, they'll mark some of it down because they have to cut more on Monday.  They do this at Sam's as well.  

    I'll routinely hit both and scoop up ground beef, bone in pork chops, and Prime Ribeyes at Sam's that are marked down 25-33% so they can move product.   Monday is the best morning to do it.  Don't tell everyone.  

    This is the 4D Chess hack.

    Also, go to the location where it's minority majority Indians who are 50/50 vegetarian (like in West Plano) and there is even more beef availability unsold from the weekend, I've noticed.

    • Like 1
  9. 35 minutes ago, gofuckyourself said:

    Pitch me a home gym setup.

    I was leaning Bowflex related - Extreme 2SE or the Revolution - mainly for space, don't need or want tons of weights, less noise.

     

    Anyone own a Bowflex or other system they recommend?

    If so any thoughts on how easy they are to move and reassemble if I buy a used one?

     

    Same question, but additional caveat-- for a teenager (sorry to piggyback, gfy)

  10. @Queen Bitch I saw this summary this morning. Are you and the front lines sharing this optimism?

     The WGA resumes talks with Hollywood studios today. There’s some mild optimism that the two sides might finally get closer to a deal this time as the writers strike approaches its fifth month. One of several major sticking points in negotiations, which have been on pause since mid-August, is the WGA’s demand for streaming residuals based on a TV show’s viewership. With the studios bleeding money and extremely short on new content for the fall, observers think they could soon start making concessions to the striking writers.

  11. Read this in the paper this morning and thought of this discussion about the hordes of employees at H-E-B:

    H-E-B since 2022

    The San Antonio-based grocer, which also operates six Central Market stores in North Texas, opened two H-E-B stores last year in Frisco and Plano. The Allen opening next month will follow the June opening of its McKinney store.

    H-E-B is planning four stores next year and four more in 2025, getting to an even dozen in four years. The list of 2024 and 2025 stores includes H-E-B’s value price format, Joe V’s Smart Shop, which will be located in southern Dallas.

    For Rockwall, a new store represents more jobs in a city mostly with residents who commute to other cities to work, said Rockwall Mayor Trace Johannesen. H-E-B has hired more than 700 people to operate each of its new local stores, which is more than twice the staff size of an average supermarket or a Walmart Supercenter.

    • Hook 'Em 2
    • Like 1
  12. 2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

    Mrs.LL was at the airport bar with a bunch of y'all.  She was flying AA through CLT, and her flight got a rolling delay.

    She did have a funny story of one guy on y'all's flight who was drunkenly hitting on her.

    Same.  I'm pretty AA loyal because (1) status and (2) my credit card gets me into the AAdmirals Club.  The Club isn't great (especially at AUS), but if there's a flight cancelation, you can go up there and the very pleasant attendants will take care of rebooking you.

    JFK is a 10-minute helicopter ride from the 30th Street Heliport.

    Which AA credit card do you have?

    I used the CitiBusiness Platinum Select AAdvantage card for work expenses and the Citi Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard for personal. I feel like they've both been neutered and kind of suck now, so curious if there are better options for a fellow Platinum Exec whose only dream is to be concierge key so I don't ever have to worry about hitting the milestones anymore.

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