CatBus

It’s pretty common for the media to put way too much focus on intra-party criticism. Not because the criticism is any more valid or because the critic isn’t an absolutely horrible human being in his own right, but because it changes the dynamic of the day-in-day-out “talking point from both sides” news cycle – which, to be frank, is dull as hell. I’m honestly not sure it really rehabilitates the image of the critic, though. I don’t think there’s a person on Earth who doesn’t still think Joe Lieberman is an absolute tool. I doubt Spicer (or Yoo) will fare better.

But then along comes Kissinger to prove me wrong. Washed clean by the tongues of a thousand pundits 😕

Posting links isn’t allowed here and threads requesting links don’t usually get much response. I don’t have any links myself, but what you’re looking for is the German HDTV captures of the 2004 SE. It’s a pretty old topic so it might not be among the current discussions. Hope that helps.

Please tell me at least one of the indictments in question is for a non-federal crime. I would hope the pardon-proof Schneiderman tag-team approach creates some lovely singing.

yhwx said:

https://twitter.com/JElvisWeinstein/status/909110782553595904

This photo looks like a lost Pink Floyd album cover.

It’s just the cover for the Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert/The Fletcher Memorial Home single. Someone just photoshopped out the Harvest Records logo, that’s all.

ChainsawAsh said:

Oh, interesting. I didn’t realize that.

Is 25p a similar issue? I know almost all UK TV series (like Doctor Who) have to be 1080i50 on Blu because 25p isn’t doable. Which is why some of the sets (like the DW S1-4 upscales) are slowed down to 24p.

I believe 1080p25 is not in the Blu-ray spec, so that’s sort of the opposite problem.

ChainsawAsh said:

720p24 isn’t part of the Blu-Ray spec, so it has to upscale it to 1080p24 otherwise all you’ll get is 720p60.

720p24 is part of the Blu-Ray spec, but is not part of the HDMI spec. Which is why you can have 720p24 on disc, but it’s never 720p24 by the time it reaches your set. It’s either 1080p24 (best), or something worse.

Warbler said:

Bingowings said:

Warbler said:

Bingowings said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

As for a change in the Anthem, Jerusalem was mentioned, the only problem I see with that is that it is named after a city that is not in the UK. Jerusalem is in Israel. That is like America using an Anthem named “Paris”. It seems odd to me.

‘Jerusalem’ the poem (set to music) isn’t literally about the actual city of Jerusalem, it’s about England.

In fact it’s specifically about Jerusalem not being in England 😄 It’s a warning about not being complacent and too nationalistic and it’s sung frequently by people who are complacently nationalistic.

"The poem was inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus, accompanied by Joseph of Arimathea, a tin merchant, travelled to what is now England and visited Glastonbury during his unknown years.[2][3] The poem’s theme is linked to the Book of Revelation (3:12 and 21:2) describing a Second Coming, wherein Jesus establishes a New Jerusalem. The Christian church in general, and the English Church in particular, has long used Jerusalem as a metaphor for Heaven, a place of universal love and peace.[a]

In the most common interpretation of the poem, Blake implies that a visit by Jesus would briefly create heaven in England, in contrast to the “dark Satanic Mills” of the Industrial Revolution. Blake’s poem asks four questions rather than asserting the historical truth of Christ’s visit. Thus the poem merely implies that there may, or may not, have been a divine visit, when there was briefly heaven in England"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time

The poem clearly asks if Jesus walked in England. The answer being no. The point being that England is not particularly worthy of regard and has to strive to be worthy of a holy visitation. It is frequently sung by people who don’t get this really simple message.

So you disagree with wiki’s interpretation of the poem that I quoted?

Uh, yeah. As someone with more than passing familiarity with analysis of Blake’s works, I’d agree with Bingo that the wiki’s interpretation is wildly off the mark. You can fault the poem for its sentimentality and rose-tinted view of the past, but it never even pretends to put forth or support these strange religious theories, although it was likely inspired by them. The hypothetical future “Jerusalem” is created by the people of England returning to what they believe is good and right from the current “Satanic” industrial revolution – inspired by Christianity in their hearts certainly, but it is not built by the literal presence of Jesus in England. That’s never anything but metaphor in the poem.

SilverWook said:

And again, that is the worst handwriting I’ve ever seen.

That’s no signature. It’s a seismograph record.

Mike O said:

So, I have some mild good news. I bought a pill splitter and started cutting my Abilify and Klonopin in half and taking them with my Prozac. This has been somewhat helpful.

I’ve found some people are mysteriously much more sensitive to drugs than others. Consult with your doctor, but I’ve seen people cut the smallest available doses of psychoactive drugs into quarters with good results. Finding the right dosage for you sometimes involves trial and error – and again, consult with your doctor throughout this process.

This is the kind of thing I should be worried about more than my selfish, stupid bullshit.

IMO, from what you wrote, your level of worry about your grandfather seems higher than average. The fact that you have your own life to deal with doesn’t make you a worse person. It just makes you a person.

I secretly like sleeping more than I think that I should, because it’s my best respite from my mind and my problems.

Dealing with mental illness is exhausting. Some people have a much harder time getting a break from it than you. From that point of view, your ability to get a respite through sleep is fortunate. And at least to some degree healthy.

Sorry for the rambling. Just wanted to vent a little. Progress is a dangerous mistress. For all I’ve accomplished, I feel like there’s still so much further to go. And that’s not counting my REAL problems; being a 30 year-old virgin living with my parents working a dead-end job. I need to work on THAT too, and I’m desperately running from it.

I agree you don’t suffer from lack of things to worry about. But I suggest that you can trim the list a bit by trying not to worry so much about not being worried enough, and trying not to worry so much about enjoying escaping your worries 😉

Some chipsets fail to upconvert 720p24 properly. My Oppo BDP-93 (Marvell Qdeo 88DE2750 chipset) used to upconvert to 1080p24, but then there was a firmware update to fix a colorspace bug and 720p24 now goes to 1080p60 just like yours. I’m afraid in my case the fix is a new player, since it’s long out of support. What’s more annoying to me is that the 480i NTSC decoding went to crap at the same time too, in a much worse way. So it’s very possible the hardware itself is at fault, but I don’t know your model specifically. If only HDMI supported 720p24, then you could just pass it as-is and let the display handle the upconversion. Argh.

Hey, I bought a set of TR47 discs from some guy something like 15 years ago now. I didn’t know either. Live and learn.

darth_ender said:

CatBus said:

darth_ender said:

I don’t see a way that a party in power could twist the laws to maintain minority rule. If I am wrong in my information, please correct me.

North Carolina has had a hell of a time with its general assembly district maps regularly having a heavily partisan bias. The current one that hasn’t been struck down yet is awful too. I can’t speak for all states, but my state legislature also periodically redraws its own district maps. Demographic change and population growth make that a necessity, and gerrymandering typically comes with the package.

So if the North Carolina general assembly chooses a Republican Senator and the voters prefer a Democrat, the voters have little recourse. As of the 2016 election, the current North Carolina gerrymander gives the GOP a 10% boost in terms of seats in the Assembly, so unless more than 60% of North Carolinians oppose, they really can’t do anything about it. And that’s with the gerrymander that wasn’t struck down as unconstitutional. And they’re always devising “better” maps, too.

Yes, that does mean there need to be gerrymanders of both state and federal districts to make this happen, but that’s already in place. It is not safe to assume state legislatures represent the will of the voters of the state, or that voters can simply vote them out if they do something the voters don’t like.

Only statewide offices can’t be gerrymandered. Governors, Attorneys General, Secretaries of State, US Senators, those sorts of offices. That’s it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering_in_the_United_States#Remedies

It seems reasonable to me that we can change the laws, such as having non-partisan commissions handle redistricting, which is how we do it in Arizona. It seems to better represent the will of the people and would negate that legitimate criticism of my argument of repealing the 17th Amendment.

Non-partisan commissions (technically bi-partisan commissions – if there’s ever a serious third-party challenge, both parties could still conspire to gerrymander them out of the equation) do seem to work pretty well as far as I’ve been able to tell. They’re not always problem-free (sometimes people can sneak things through that don’t look wrong superficially), but certainly MUCH better than the partisan redistricting used in most of the country. My state also has one, and the map we’re currently using has a slight Republican bias, but I think that’s only because the Democratic regions have had huge population growth since the last time the lines were drawn. The ten-year redistricting period is far too long IMO for high-growth regions.

A serious problem with the commissions is that they’re created by statute… so they can be disbanded by statute. If we’re going to do something to prevent gerrymandering, it should be at the level of a constitutional amendment. As it is, commissions suffer the same weakness as the Voting Rights Act. The courts can knock them down, and the legislature can simply get rid of them. In a place where one party controls the whole state government (most of the country), it’s just too easy to undo. As constitutional amendments, they would be protected. Considering the commissions are basically a way to ensure that the democratic process happens, I’m really not comfortable with one that can go away with a simple majority vote. So while I like my state’s redistricting commission, I do not think it’s adequate as the sole means of protecting the democratic process.

Assuming we had constitutionally-protected redistricting commissions in all of our states, I still don’t think I’d be on board with your plans for the 17th, but my hair wouldn’t stand up on end when you mention it, which I guess would be a start 😉

In related news, the Supreme Court just punted on Texas’s gerrymander, which means it will almost certainly be used in the 2018 Congressional elections.

Next up on the list of subjects to ponder: SDH subtitles.

I’m pretty certain I want to expand these considerably, but there are lots of questions about exactly how I should do it. Initially – like in the 1.0 days – the only English subtitles were SDH subtitles, and I forked them a few revisions later. But the SDH subtitles are still pretty minimal – subtitling only the things that help the movie make sense, not necessarily adding much in the way of atmosphere. Remember how lame the medal ceremony would seem without the iconic musical score? Yeah, I don’t want that to be how the whole movie goes.

So we need to subtitle music. At the very least, we do an adjective, like “tense music”, “triumphant music”, “militaristic music”, etc. Maybe modifiers for loud, quiet, brass, vocals. The cantina music could definitely be called swing music since it’s basically Space Benny Goodman. Any other ideas? Putting music into text is hard. Should we do little music note symbols?

Should I stick with all caps? I like to differentiate non-verbal subtitles as much as possible, but maybe brackets are enough. Should I put spaces between the brackets and the text?

For other things, I guess it’s a matter of finding the best words to describe various Star Wars sounds. I’m still inclined to not subtitle things that are obvious. Such as when an explosion happens onscreen, I don’t really think we need to see [EXPLOSION]. But when Darth Vader breathes, I think it’s worth subtitling that because you really may not know it otherwise. For that I was thinking [MECHANICAL BREATHING] on his first appearance, and then [VADER BREATHES] for subsequent subtitles. And then [VADER WHEEZES] and so on for variations.

Apparently there are now at least two photoshopped images of Trump assisting Hurricane rescue efforts making their rounds among groups of Trump supporters on Facebook. One features him rescuing two cats, but you can tell it’s fake because his thumbs are too long (among other things). As satire, I suppose they’d be fine, but they appear to be taken seriously. The Pizzagate crowd still needs to be fed, I suppose.

Stop turning the crank, Chyron8472. As long as we’re all down here, I want to have a turn.

SilverWook said:

If that was the case, wouldn’t the Psychic Friends Network have warned her of impending doom?
https://youtu.be/VxCx6KIpJVE

She’s alive! Damn it!

chyron8472 said:

CatBus said:

thejediknighthusezni said:

I’m a bigot against those Andromadans.

But is it because he’s gay, black, or because he ate Dionne Warwick?

Ha. Okay, that made me laugh. 😃

I’m lemonading.

thejediknighthusezni said:

I’m a bigot against those Andromadans.

But is it because he’s gay, black, or because he ate Dionne Warwick?

TV’s Frink said:

Not sure why Top That! is in this thread, but I’m pretty sure I saw it in 1989.

You are cooler than me.

You haven’t lived until you’ve heard the Teen Witch rap.

Or, to be more accurate, you’ve never wished you were dead before you heard it. Same difference.

Looks like Zombie Trumpcare 3.0 has shambled into the open. Anyone got a Lobo?

I’ve actually heard this a lot, and a knew a possible Trump supporter who generally followed this same line of reasoning.

What if everything Trump says he’ll do is a lie? What if all the evidence indicating he’s been a petulant, self-absorbed racist, sexist man-child his entire life is wrong? What if he’s not as unqualified as all the evidence indicates? Plus, I read on Facebook he’s actually secretly pro-LGBT! If so, there’s a chance he could make a pretty good President.

Followed shortly by:

What if everything Hillary says she’ll do is a lie? What if all the evidence indicating she’s been a well-informed, capable, politically savvy leader her entire life is wrong? What if she’s not as qualified as all the evidence indicates? Plus, I read on Facebook she murdered Seth Rich! If so, her election could spell disaster for the nation!

So basically take everything you know about a person, turn it on its head, and vote pretending they’re actually the opposite of this person. If this truly represents the thought processes of a large percentage of Trump voters, they voted for President of Bizarro-land. Which kinda explains where we are today.

darth_ender said:

I wish I had more time. Now that I am researching a bit more, I can see the problem of gerrymandering being more of an issue than I’d identified, even with my previous statement in this very reply. But, as you suggested that we can alter the law to more easily remove senators, could we not also alter the law to minimize gerrymandering?

You’re right – what we could really use right about now is a Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 😉

darth_ender said:

I don’t see a way that a party in power could twist the laws to maintain minority rule. If I am wrong in my information, please correct me.

North Carolina has had a hell of a time with its general assembly district maps regularly having a heavily partisan bias. The current one that hasn’t been struck down yet is awful too. I can’t speak for all states, but my state legislature also periodically redraws its own district maps. Demographic change and population growth make that a necessity, and gerrymandering typically comes with the package.

So if the North Carolina general assembly chooses a Republican Senator and the voters prefer a Democrat, the voters have little recourse. As of the 2016 election, the current North Carolina gerrymander gives the GOP a 10% boost in terms of seats in the Assembly, so unless more than 60% of North Carolinians oppose, they really can’t do anything about it. And that’s with the gerrymander that wasn’t struck down as unconstitutional. And they’re always devising “better” maps, too.

Yes, that does mean there need to be gerrymanders of both state and federal districts to make this happen, but that’s already in place. It is not safe to assume state legislatures represent the will of the voters of the state, or that voters can simply vote them out if they do something the voters don’t like.

Only statewide offices can’t be gerrymandered. Governors, Attorneys General, Secretaries of State, US Senators, those sorts of offices. That’s it.

thejediknighthusezni said:

chyron8472 said:

Who the heck is a regular American?

Well, in this context, I was referring to denizens of North America who are qualified to vote in elections but not particularly concerned with lefty activist political scheming.

That’s me! I mostly stopped being concerned with lefty activist political scheming when the political left ceased to exist in my country approximately thirty-five years ago. I am always hoping for signs of its revival, though, so maybe that qualifies as concern.

darth_ender said:

I am in favor, however, of repealing the 17th Amendment.

After reading your arguments, I think there’s another fundamental philosophical chasm at some more basic level. Generally speaking, I don’t trust people with power to do the right thing. Senators, Presidents, whoever. Elections, while imperfect, are a means of keeping those in power from straying too far. Not the only means, but a critical one – and the one that must be used to some degree to qualify the nation as a democracy. I’m also a big fan of the separation of powers – if you have to give a bunch of people power, use the power of petty infighting to help keep them in check.

Due to some already-long-discussed issues (gerrymandering, the EC, etc), it’s become clear over the years that it’s possible for a minority of voters to retain control of the House and the Presidency indefinitely – the only question is how far a political party would go to implement this sort of minority rule. A system where the votes still happen, but one side is guaranteed to win regardless of the outcome. The Senate, for all its other faults such as its baked-in bias in favor of smaller-population states, cannot be gamed to the same degree as the House and the Presidency. Statewide elections cannot be gerrymandered. I feel it’s only because of this we haven’t seen people take full advantage of the politically-unpopular legal loopholes that could win them the House and Presidency regardless of the vote totals (because the whole concept of “politically unpopular” becomes irrelevant once you no longer rely on vote totals for your wins). There are worse things than gerrymandering floating around in the dark corners of the political world.

Thus, I don’t see the Senate as a less-democratic chamber that moderates the democratic excesses of the House at all. To the contrary, I see it as the nation’s only backstop (albeit a rather weak one given its baked-in bias and limited authority) against any plan for permanent minority rule in the US a la South Africa, which, given recent events, seems to clearly be the plan of far too many. Repealing the 17th would remove that backstop, and nothing else in the Constitution would prevent the sort of minority rule that is technically easily doable within the constraints of the rest of the Constitution – the literal end of American democracy – but for the conscience of politicians, in which I don’t place a great deal of trust.