Morning Thread

Monday Night

I see I missed some horrors while cooking dinner. It never ends.

Happy Hour Thread

Get happy.

Mars, Bitches

This made the rounds again after Jeff Bezos revealed his Elysium plans, but it applies to every dumb billionaire and non-billionaire nerd fantasy that we have to go to the "stars" in order to save humanity when the Earth gets all blowed up somehow.

Let’s start with Mars, which is a favorite planet for colonization scenarios, including for Elon Musk who thinks we should colonize Mars because earth will eventually face a “doomsday scenario”. The problem with this is that there is almost nothing that could happen to earth that would make it less hospitable than Mars. Whether it’s nuclear war or massive global warming, post disaster earth would be way more habitable than Mars.

Maybe we'd better figure out how to transform our selves into sentient space cloud beings before the supernova, but, otherwise, doing our best to keep this little blue dot going for a little while longer is a bit better use of our AmazonBucks. Generally "ameliorating human suffering, whatever the current circumstances" should be our concern, and I don't think our billionaires with their lego space toys care much about that, really.

Everybody Who Talks About Politics Sounds Like An Idiot

I know this is a problematic observation given what I do all day, but have you ever noticed this? Ever been sitting at a cafe overhearing the conversation at the nearby table where people are talking politics and not thought "wow, these people are fucking idiots?" And I mean that I am sure if people are at the next table overhearing my conversation about politics they are thinking, "wow, what a fucking idiot." This isn't about agreement or disagreement it's just that it's a topic that no one can actually sound smart about in casual conversation, even if they are. It's hard to not sound like you're just auditioning to be an NPR contributor or recycling some stuff you read in an op-ed even if that's not what you intend to do.

I have no bigger point.

The End Of The Second Internet Boom

Sort of kidding, but I do suspect this cycle is over. There were a few years when "uber, but for..." or "an app for" or "a magic box that tests drops of blood which only has to do with the internet because we call it TECH" seemed to be the possible way to absurd riches, and while of course there is still money to be made in them hills I doubt the "throwing billions of dollars at a Bus, but with an App" thing will continue.

Of course I know nothing.

WHEEEEEE

Stock market indices are simple enough for My President to respond to so mildly curious how days like this go with his advisers.

Just To Watch It Burn

We have different sets of issues, if oddly parallel in some ways, but both the UK and US press (in broad brush general terms of course) seem to be amazingly committed to watching the reality show that is, well, reality, and treating it as a show. I don't care about bullshit claims of objectivity because in very obvious ways, not just subtle ones, they decide what matters and what doesn't matter every day. What to get upset about, what they think "we" should get upset about, etc.

Yes it's the political press and Not All Journalists but the political press are the reality show editors. Their colleagues film a bunch of stuff and then they pick and choose what gets into the final cut that most people see. At some point they decided the best way to cover the reality show president was as a reality show, but even most dumb teenagers know that reality shows aren't real.

Morning Thread

I Could've Voted For A Democrat, But Then They Nominated That Communist Joe Manchin

I do believe most professional Democrats do not get that it wasn't the fault of extreme liberals Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton that Republicans characterized them in that way.

Republicans are playing to win, and aren't going to stand down because Dems nominate a guy who agrees with them 99% of the time. They want team R to win.

Sunday Late Afternoon

Enjoy

"...and your 85-year-old Father-in-Law Has To Figure Out How To Do this."

Any time wonks start devising their exciting complicated "shop every 3 months on the internet to get a good deal on electricity" or whatever plans they think will make life better for all of us, just append that to their suggestions and throw it back at them.

The Team That Scores The Most Points Wins, Even If The Scoring Rules Are Complicated

There will come a moment when a team of people take responsibility for spending a billion bucks or so to unseat the incumbent president, Donald Trump. Some of these people will be mercenaries. Some will be true believing dogooders. Some will be thinking more about their careers than baby cages. All of those are actually fine as long as they understand it's their job to get it done, and that "we would've won if not for [russia, jill stein, jim comey, the new york times, berniebros, susan sarandon, stupid fucking voters, the kids today, whatever new exciting thing 2020 offers]" while perhaps was/is/willbe true, doesn't actually matter. You'll have chosen a candidate and taken a big person job and the excuses, even true ones, won't mean shit.

Rain

Removing my will to go the elitist farmers' market.

Morning Time

Saturday Evening

Enjoy

Uber'd

The thing about Uber is... the really do have no model for achieving profitability. The fantasy model was achieving monopoly but there was no way to do that. IP law is a bit above my pay grade and I never asked the question, but how they never managed to patent "a means for summoning a car with an app" is curious given some of the ridiculous software patents that have been out there, but apparently they didn't. So they will always have competitors. The thing about setting up a low entry cost business is that it's low entry cost and while there is some scale benefit of a network it just isn't that hard to replicate with a taxi fleet because you can do it pretty locally. Not that their competitors will make big money, either, but there's nothing preventing them from existing.

Even the earlier fantasy of having a self-driving taxi fleet didn't make any sense, unless they had a monopoly on the self-driving taxis somehow.

Lots of businesses make enough to stay in business even if they don't make The Big Money. Like cab companies.

They've squeezed as much as they can (or more) out of driver costs and... what's left? "I like Uber" seems to be the rationale for people throwing their money at them, but...

What If They... Just Don't Care?

What if... people in the political press know exactly what they are doing and if they are doing something wrong - even by their supposed standards, not mine - they just don't care?

Then all the measured criticism in the world means nothing and calling them assholes on twitter is the best we can do.

Saturday Morning

Supposed to be a pretty nice day weatherwise.

Friday Happy Hour

Made it through another one.