2018 American Political Scene

[Officer of Engineers]

Why does it have to be just Tesla? You think other manufacturers will not catch up?

I have a 1965 MUSTANG that still runs on modified unleaded gasoline to get rid of the pings and I can tell you that FORD is not supporting that model anymore.

The point is and will remain that you will be slave to whatever and whenever and how much to spend the manufacturer tells you to upgrade unless you do your own work.

Smart fridges. Compressor technology has not changed, will not changed just because you put an IP address on it.

[Oracle]

Colonel, Sir,
Your generation know a lot of things, and how to build them. That's real knowledge. I understand your fascination with muscle cars, I too want a 1967 Shelby GT500, but can't afford it right now. My generation, well, there are some who's into your business, but that population is small. The millenials know nothing of that sort, and would happily sell a worn out daddy's Mustang for a new Tesla. The things is, you realise it now or never, automation is creepily reducing human labour with efficiency that just cannot be matched. In the last 5 years of my work-life, I had to let go 10s of people in multiple projects, because upper management wanted productivity @ every dollar spent. Automation replaced repetitive manual labour.

I will give you another example. In my dad's/your time, women here in India used to take care of the household (cooking, cleaning, laundry etc), and men took care of the costs (working). Since my time, things have changed. Men after a day's work, started getting interested in cooking, and would readily cook for their wives and friends. But, women, since they started working, has never ever bothered to peep into the kitchen. I am not trying to give it a men vs women outlook or work etc nor am I sexist. It's how life has changed. I go to the fish market, I see women buying fish, but not the Catla head. I buy the extra head, and cook awesome curry. Women it seems, have forgotten how to cook. I see women surviving on Noodles and bread. Well, I remember calling up my mom to balance the spices that would go into the goat curry. So, based on your arguments with Antimony, your views with respect to the millenials is well......not very correct.

What we see in Sci-Fi movies today is what will become the reality 20 years from now. I know and I am scared what today's generation would do to survive. Particularly because India is the second most populous nation, and I don't see the enthusiasm amongst kids to study and excel.

There is actually no argument about automation, in every field we know someone or the other is inventing something that makes the job easier.

Want to transplant 1000 plants in the soil? How much time will it take? 1 whole day? You have the 'paper pot transplanter' for that. It's in human nature to reduce effort and be efficient, one can't wish it away.

[Officer of Engineers]

Want to transplant 1000 plants in the soil? How much time will it take? 1 whole day? You have the 'paper pot transplanter' for that. It's in human nature to reduce effort and be efficient, one can't wish it away.

If you want to go that route, we no longer practice horse lance and spear fighting is now limited to movies and kung fu displays. But orientation, evade and escape, reading the ground, and digging a fox hole are still combat required skills that is not going away anytime soon.

At the end of the day, you still have to put food on your table, get portable water, and a roof over your head. If you want to spend $1000s on pizza delivery, electric heat, and a high rise condo, that is your choice and life style. I rather spend my money on month long fishing trips with my dogs in a car that I don't have to drive into a dealership just to fill up the brake fluid and costing me $100s that I could spend on lurers.

As per your example of 1000 plants a day. Wonderful. I wholeheartily agree with it. But give the farmer the tools to fix things on the spot. Planting and harvesting seasons don't wait for things to be repair at an authorized depot.

I'm sick of companies seeing us consumers and users as nothing more than cash cows to drain of us every penny we got. I can understand paying something of value that I want but I do not understand you forcing me to pay 3 times my purchase price for a repair I can do myself but then using the software to disable my device because of an unauthorized repair.

That is why farmers have resorted to software hacks to get their machines running during planting and harvesting seasons.

Added: I know how to cook a mean steak and scalopped potatoes. I can tell how long a piece of beef has been aged and I am extremely creative with tobassco sauce and local vegetables. Out in the field, you're forced to be creative if you want any taste in your food. And while at home, you start learning what you can bring with you on deployment to make the MREs tolerable.

[snapper]

They want his tax returns so they can get him for something. Any thing!

When i hear the questions asked in some of these enquiries they are so sweeping that even if your're innocent you will still appear guilty.

Every time i hear this tax returns line it reminds of Colin Powell shaking that vial of anthrax at the UN.

There can be only one verdict.

But i'm saying red herring

Those with nothing to hide to not hide it. Trumpkin has been laundering dirty Muscovite money for years - in 2008 Trumpkin Jnr said "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets . . . We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." Trumpkin Snr was first invited to Moscow in the dying days of the USSR. If he has nothing to hide why not make it public? And if you think the Muscovite Mafia launders that much money through your businesses and then you walk away scot free "Nice doing business with you chaps..." you should be at a picnic for Teddy Bears. They own him.

Now Sessions is gone too... well we all knew it was coming but what did Sessions do wrong? Only this; recused himself from the Muscovite Inquiry oversight. He was not sufficiently 'loyal' to Trumpkin rather than the rule of law - much like Comey strangely. His replacement with this appointee who has had no Congress over view - Whitacker or something who is a former TV pundit spouting pro Trumpkin lines - instead of Rosenstein, the Deputy AG, as would surely be more normal - only shows that Trumpkin is still massively scarred of the Mueller Inquiry - and rightly so with his former henchmen spilling the beans.

As for the Tesla latest gadget high fix price versus the reliable fix yourself gadget or vehicle I am keen on sailing as a pastime and learned how to weld this year as I bought a steel yacht. When you sail anywhere - apart from out of the harbour for an afternoon or something - you carry spares of everything - from sail repairs kits to ropes, to electictrical bits and engine bits and filters. You have backup systems if possible too - I know we have satnav etc nowadays but a sextant (which I know how to use) is still a good back up. We have electric bilge pumps but still have hand powered pumps. If any one or both of one system that you need and you cannot bodge a temporary repair so it works till you get to port you could potentially lose your yacht - and more. Sure I may not be able fix anything that I may need perfectly - a repaired sail is never as strong as one that has not torn in the first place and pump with an old washer is not as good as one with a new washer but if it does not have to be. Yachts are a continual maintaince job - and every yacht has it's own quirks that you have to learn - it's 'character' - the engine filters always need changing or the heads keeping blocking up - and you learn the knacks and can after a while guess what the problem is. It will probably take me years to fully know Vikki! (short for 'Victory!') as I do not get that much time to sail her. But once I do - well then I would feel confident to take her anywhere and be able to deal with whatever problem she developed. You have to know a yacht almost personally to diagnose and at least half fix what problem she has before she is totally yours. Just my view as a sailing enthusiast.

[snapper]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia...use?ref=author

It may be worth you Yanks knowing what those who interfered in your 2016 elections see in your Mid term elections. For all those 'proud patriots' that voted because Trumpkin told them it was all about him it may surprise you that they were not cracking champagne as they were when he was elected.

[antimony]

No one cares for the US mainland? Well...Good luck with that. Been there, seen that.

Enlighten me. Who does care, except to throw a few social conservative bones (Down with millennials, down with immigrants, down with LGBT rights etc. etc.) every election cycle?

As many here have pointed out, the economic revival seems to have missed the heartland, while the job scene in the coasts is booming. So exactly what benefits have you derived, apart from seeing that the immigrants and those who are not "real americans" have now been shown their rightful places?

How are deficits holding up, something that the Tea Party was so furry about? Have the tax cuts started working for you yet, in terms of bridging the deficit gap? What about the tariffs? How are soybean farmers doing nowadays?

[Versus]

Enlighten me. Who does care, except to throw a few social conservative bones (Down with millennials, down with immigrants, down with LGBT rights etc. etc.) every election cycle?

As many here have pointed out, the economic revival seems to have missed the heartland, while the job scene in the coasts is booming. So exactly what benefits have you derived, apart from seeing that the immigrants and those who are not "real americans" have now been shown their rightful places?

How are deficits holding up, something that the Tea Party was so furry about? Have the tax cuts started working for you yet, in terms of bridging the deficit gap? What about the tariffs? How are soybean farmers doing nowadays?

Why do you think that those same subjects in the elections exist in every election cycles? What do those slogans tell you? Or do you even bother to listen to them?

[tbm3fan]

I have a 1965 MUSTANG that still runs on modified unleaded gasoline to get rid of the pings and I can tell you that FORD is not supporting that model anymore.

The point is and will remain that you will be slave to whatever and whenever and how much to spend the manufacturer tells you to upgrade unless you do your own work.

Smart fridges. Compressor technology has not changed, will not changed just because you put an IP address on it.

Hmm, lots of similarities here. I like to repair my own stuff. I am not fan of tech when it comes to being able to fix something I own. No fan of tech when it tells me I must replace something. No fan of tech when good old analog would last far longer. Granted it does have some applications where it does benefit me at work greatly but it also becomes obsolete in 3-4 years max.

The only difference is my Mustang is a 68. No doubt because I am slightly younger... that way I can avoid using older.

[GVChamp]

Car quality and housing quality have both improved dramatically over the last century. Your standard American couldn't build a house even back then, but your standard modern house is going to have a few new systems, and is going to be structurally more complicated because your new house is 2000+ sq ft with a basement as opposed to the 1000 sq ft four square with a leaky basement.

There's also plenty of people who THOUGHT they could fix shit that just made crap worse, like that guy who built a deck in his backyard and got ripped on Reddit for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comment...ekend/c9of7l0/ This is a major problem if you bought a house with extensive DIY crap.


Personally, I don't have any fascination with gasoline engines and am totally okay with outsourcing that maintenance. My comparative advantage is in spreadsheets and analytics, currently applied to building budgets and analyzing production variances.

States like Nebraska, North Dakota, Idaho, Wisconsin, and Iowa have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. California is above average in unemployment, as is Illinois, and I am pretty sure New York. Those states all have massive numbers of poor people. Unemployment is a bigger problem for Rust Belt states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, not flyover states like Kansas. Writing these states off is silly: they still have a lot of educated people and some really great universities. Keep in mind that NYC was a shitshow for 20 years before the urban renaissance really took off again: the Rust Belt states might very well be the same.

Somehow the workers at my plant, who speak shitty English and struggle with finding their own names on a sheet, still can make $50k/year plus benefit, in a non-union environment.

Personally I am of the opinion that people overblow practically everything, and love to complain. Our big problems this century were Iraq and the recession. Let's not get involved in any endless wars with no exit strategies and lets not recreate the Great Depression and we'll be fine.

[Oracle]

UNPROFOR didn't have water cannons nor tear gas. BTW, tear gas is a violation of the CWC. That is why the military cannot use it but the police can.

But you're overthinking too much here. The military would not be tasked to stop the flow of migrants. They would be tasked to contain the breaches to the border. Forget about sealing the borders or completely stopping the migrants. With a border that big, you're bound to have leakage. That means detecting and containing breaches to an AO. Once you detect a breach, you surround it and contain it, ie detain the people. Call the cops and let them do their jobs for processing.

If the people want to run back home to back to the other side of the border, we ain't stopping them.

But Trump was not thinking along the same lines. He wanted the military to shoot, if those unarmed civilians resort to violence by throwing rocks. Either way, Trump scaled down on this, and I don't see any point in arguing on this matter any further.

[Oracle]

"A fool and his money are soon parted."
Money is just a tool, having a lot of it doesn't mean you know how to use it. Maybe Chimpanzees are IQ 10, give them a million dollars and I guarantee you that they aren't going to do anything useful with it.

Ah! How nice. Look at your own country. Gates, Zuckerberg, Dell. Now look at your neighbour. Buffet. I have not come across billionaires losing a single cent. The fact is, they are getting richer by the seconds, while we argue it over here.

You're confusing mental disability with low IQ. Ofcourse people born with that kind of disability would need someone to make good choices for them to invest or spend their money, or heck, find innovative ways to steal it. I see people, that you'd call low IQ everyday. Some of them bring fish/free-range chicken/duck to my house and earn their living, some sell vegetables, some bananas. All of them save the money earned in cash, by converting it into gold, some have bought land and will soon start constructing their house. Certainly, they can tie their shoe laces and invest their money too. And none of them have basic literacy.

I'm still not entirely sure what kind of conversation we are having here, though. Here's where I am coming from: a lot of people say IQ doesn't really matter all that much because so many other traits matter more (like hard work or whatever). That's not true, having a high IQ is immensely helpful, and high IQ people aren't necessarily any worse on those other attributes than low IQ people. I know a bunch of probably High IQ people who work a ton, which is part of why they had high grades and were able to go to elite schools and then get elite jobs.

IQ isn't the ONLY thing that matters, but it matters a lot. Having a low IQ really sucks. It means struggling with basic math and basic literacy. Bureaucratic forms are hard enough for ME to understand, they might as well be in Greek to low IQ or, god forbid, the mentally handicapped.

It started with the political climate in your country, many pages later, some Nazi discussion, some conspiracy stuff, Trump shooting at unarmed civilians, IQ and what not. :D

Dude, we have Biharis in India, who work/study like donkeys and get through IAS (Indian Administrative Services). I studied with some. I have seen them study 20 hours a day for 4 straight years in Engineering. Maybe IQ matters, but IQ can't beat hard work, is all I'm saying.

[antimony]

Why do you think that those same subjects in the elections exist in every election cycles? What do those slogans tell you? Or do you even bother to listen to them?

Yes, I do bother to listen to them. They tell me that you are fed bromides each cycle along with some social conservatives scraps, which keeps you hungry for more.

[antimony]

I have a 1965 MUSTANG that still runs on modified unleaded gasoline to get rid of the pings and I can tell you that FORD is not supporting that model anymore.

The point is and will remain that you will be slave to whatever and whenever and how much to spend the manufacturer tells you to upgrade unless you do your own work.

Smart fridges. Compressor technology has not changed, will not changed just because you put an IP address on it.

I think we have been through this before.

My Buick Enclave has sensors and cameras up the wazoo, a great crash test score, its own Wifi network, bluetooth, Carplay, GPS, predictive maintenance capabilities and dozen other technologies that were not dreamt of in 1965. It also runs on unleaded gasoline.

I have every expectations that all or most of this is going to continue working just fine for a 5-8 years I will keep this car.

You can keep whatever outdated technology you have under the pretext of servicing it yourself while the rest of the world moves on.

[Officer of Engineers]

Hmm, lots of similarities here. I like to repair my own stuff. I am not fan of tech when it comes to being able to fix something I own. No fan of tech when it tells me I must replace something. No fan of tech when good old analog would last far longer. Granted it does have some applications where it does benefit me at work greatly but it also becomes obsolete in 3-4 years max.

I can understand the manufacturer's POV to some extent. They have to make a profit too but I cannot and will tolerate supporting a company that deliberately sabotage perfectly working equipment just to make you buy new stuff.

Case in point. APPLE deliberately slowing down their IPHONES through their OS just because the battery was getting old.

The only difference is my Mustang is a 68. No doubt because I am slightly younger... that way I can avoid using older.

351? I have a 302 in mine. Really, really, really debated putting a 351 in but couldn't justify the price and the hours needed.

Car quality and housing quality have both improved dramatically over the last century. Your standard American couldn't build a house even back then, but your standard modern house is going to have a few new systems, and is going to be structurally more complicated because your new house is 2000+ sq ft with a basement as opposed to the 1000 sq ft four square with a leaky basement.

Quality is not what I call most new housing builds. I will be surprise if you find one square corner in any new housing division and popping drywall nails (as opposed to screws) will continue throughout the life of the houses.

As for that basement, yeah, I would not take the builder's word that it's not leaking. As for DIY, I have 2 words. Building Codes. When buying homes, you'd be surprise how much you can negotiate when you know the house doesn't meet code.

[Officer of Engineers]

I think we have been through this before.

My Buick Enclave has sensors and cameras up the wazoo, a great crash test score, its own Wifi network, bluetooth, Carplay, GPS, predictive maintenance capabilities and dozen other technologies that were not dreamt of in 1965. It also runs on unleaded gasoline.

I have every expectations that all or most of this is going to continue working just fine for a 5-8 years I will keep this car.

You can keep whatever outdated technology you have under the pretext of servicing it yourself while the rest of the world moves on.

My point is that I DECIDE when I stop driving my car. NOT THE MANUFACTURER by disabling the car through software. And I will be much happier with $10,000 in my pocket instead of having to spend $10,000+ to recertify a TESLA for a bumper fender. Sure, the world can move on with that kind of progress. I'm much happier keeping my money.

https://www.carscoops.com/2018/05/te...telling-owner/