Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

No one could have predicted…

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Let there be snark.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

People are complicated. Love is not.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Republicans in disarray!

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Open Thread: Whatever Makes It Better

Open Thread: Whatever Makes It Better

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I am just going to leave this here and get on with my day.

Respite open thread.

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93Comments

  2. 2.

    debg

    Since my computer sits right next to an Echo Spot, Alexa heard the boys talking about farting and started explaining what flatulence is and why it stinks. That made me laugh as hard as the video did.

    Good on you, granddad and kids! Good on you, dad, for encouraging everybody. You should be proud.

  3. 3.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I have just come from visiting a science museum while on vacation. They had an extensive robot and AI exhibit.

    And yet somehow they completely missed farting AIs.

    Kids, ask your local science museum!

  5. 5.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Still doesn’t make me want to bug my own house by installing a device which is connected to the internet and sending everything it heard to a server somewhere. Apple’s probably doing that with the iPhone already

    /curmudgeon

  6. 6.

    smintheus

    It must be a laugh riot having a tech company maintain a listening device in your home. I simply do not understand why anybody would permit this.

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    The kid has been touristing around Germany with her exchange sister, and in a week has managed to send us two pics–one of she and her buddy and one of a sign for “Assmannshaus.” More of that teen sophistication we so treasure.

  11. 11.

    Ohio Mom

    Many years ago I made my cousin’s five year old son’s day by giving him a whoppee cushion. Unknownest to me, a few days earlier he had asked his mother, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could fart whenever we wanted to?”

    If I accomplish nothing else on this earth, I made a small child’s fondest wish come true.

  12. 12.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @oatler.: I get a little tired of fart jokes in the movies, but there’s a superhero blooper reel that includes Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique farting in the middle of an intense dramatic action sequence and then breaking down giggling, and I find that completely adorable somehow.

  16. 16.

    germy

    Speaking of phones…

    Here’s a question about recharging. (I’ve googled for an answer and get conflicting advice)

    Is it ok to let the phone’s battery run down to zero, or is it better to not let it go below 50%? And should it be recharged to 100%, or is that bad?

    I see all opinions online. “Never let your phone go to 0% ! Never charge it fully! It’s better for your phone to let the battery run out completely! Always charge it fully!”

    This is the information age, but I don’t know which information to believe.

    Anyone here have any opinions on phone batteries?

  20. 20.

    smintheus

    @TaMara (HFG): This is why I block FB, avoid ‘smart’ devices, and keep the phone off when not in use. Tech companies haven’t shown they can be trusted.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    I just had a DM from Hugo. He created Alexa’s flatulence! Apparently, since I tweeted the video, the traffic increase of people asking their Alexas to fart has been huge. I have never been more proud.

    This is how AI will take over the world. The Terminator’s farts are silent, but deadly. ;)

  22. 22.

    Quinerly

    FYI
    Dr. John’s memorial is being livestream broadcast on WWOZ. 1 to 3 NOLA (Central) time. There’ll be performances.
    ???❤️

  23. 23.

    trollhattan

    @germy:
    My understanding is the Li-ion cells our phones use don’t have “memory” like NiCad batteries and don’t benefit from occasional full discharges like NiMH batteries. I keep mine charged, similar to MattF and seldom run it “dry.”

  24. 24.

    Steve in the ATL

    @rikyrah: let’s hope that (1) they start voting, and (2) the catholic church doesn’t ruin their voting.

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    Germany putting Nigeria away and the pigeons are bored and wandering the field with a few minutes left.

  27. 27.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @germy: I have opinions, but can’t say they’re informed ones.

    I vaguely remember getting the advice to run down to 0 in connection with laptop batteries, but that may have been specific to nickel metal hydride. Isn’t everything lithium these days? No idea of the current advice.

    I don’t let it hit 0 simply because the process of waiting for it to recharge enough to boot is a pain.

  29. 29.

    germy

    @MattF: @trollhattan: @rikyrah:

    My practice has always been to recharge when it gets to 50%, but I often go to a full 100%. My wife told me she fears phones “overcharge” but I told her it shuts off at 100%, and that the only thing that overcharges is Sprint itself.

    But then I saw info online that made me doubt myself.

    I actually believe you jackals over random google results, so I’ll continue doing what I’m doing.

  30. 30.

    JGabriel

    Surge in number of people asking Alexa to fart after video goes viral

    There has been a surge in the number of people asking their Alexas to fart, after a video of two young boys and their grandfather went viral.
    independent.ie

    (Sigh.)

    Idiocracy is a documentary.

  31. 31.

    smintheus

    @germy: Never let your battery reach 0% if at all possible. The other issues depend on your device. Traditionally (I don’t know if it’s still true with recent advances in battery technology), recharging a battery slowly is better for it long term than recharging quickly. But it is the top part of the battery capacity that is most subject to loss from quick charging. Many phones have the option now to recharge quickly up to (say) 90%, and then charge the last bit more slowly, which significantly vitiates the problem of capacity loss over time.

  33. 33.

    Major Major Major Major

    @germy: depends on the phone. iPhones I know lose the least battery capacity if they’re plugged in and at 100%. Generally you want to top up apple devices whenever you can, but periodically letting them drop to 20 can be valuable.

    I do not take my own advice, mind you.

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: the “let it go to zero” advice is obsolete for the most part, yeah. But there’s still software/hardware calibration reasons to let it drop a little low every now and then.

  36. 36.

    trollhattan

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:
    Heh, you said “current advice.”

    NiMH do benefit from occasional full discharges, I have a smart charger that revives them by cycling several charge/discharge cycles. Have never read that Li-ion cells need it.

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    @smintheus:
    Agree, they have the pieces and will benefit from further development and play together (not scattering around the globe for league play).

    Guesses on Australia-Norway? Aussies getting progressively better after a lousy start.

  40. 40.

    Major Major Major Major

    I don’t know if this counts as respite, but it’s apolitical: Neon Genesis Evangelion is on Netflix now. If you’ve never seen this legendary anime, now it’s easy! Evangelion is a bleak mashup of a coming-of-age story, giant-robots-v-kaiju fights, and existential horror, and serves as an extended allegory for mental and artistic breakdown. It also has the best opening credits song of any anime: https://youtu.be/t-QSmNReDyI

  43. 43.

    Spanky

    @trollhattan: Pretty much this, plus a tiny data point that I always charge to 100% and have had no battery issues for at least 5 years (how old are Galaxy S7s?) And if you run it down to zero you run the risk of ungracefully shutting off something that ought not be.

  45. 45.

    Ruckus

    @TaMara (HFG):
    You can turn off those bits of your smart TV and your phone and not allow them to do that. But what amazes me is that so many younger folks (younger than this old fart) don’t really care. And at some point that privacy issue will fade away. Especially if one hasn’t read 1984. Look at the UK where there are government agencies watching huge areas of public life on CCTV. Here too. Or listening to your phone calls or…..

  46. 46.

    JDM

    BTW, for those who take their Alexa speakers with them while traveling, last winter in Thailand I was looking at my tablet’s casting abilities and saw my friend’s Alexa speaker listed as an available device. Turns out I could play my music over his speaker any time I wanted. I teased him I was going to play stuff at 3am. Maybe I should have. :)

    The problem is that anyone on the same wifi network (no matter how separated you are otherwise) can use your speaker and there is apparently nothing you can do about it unless you set up a sub network. That has its own potential security problems and I believe requires carrying a travel modem. Something to keep in mind.

  47. 47.

    guachi

    Pete Buttigieg will be in North Augusta, SC today for a Town Hall at 5 pm. I live in Augusta, GA just across the river. It’s close, so I’m going.

    Any questions any of you would like me to ask him?

  48. 48.

    smintheus

    @trollhattan: I think Australia is bound to win. Norway has looked tentative and its attack peters out too easily. I don’t think Norway has the connecting pieces between midfield and strikers, or maybe it lacks the necessary aggressiveness. Australia looks more like the real deal, and in the next round I could even see them possibly beating the US.

  49. 49.

    Wapiti

    @guachi: He’s a smart lawyer-trained guy. Ask him whether these facilities on the borders are “concentration camps”. Or ask him if the US Army would house POWs under those conditions.

  50. 50.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:
    I don’t really see the point of the thing. Is life today really so difficult that someone needs to be able to turn on a light by speaking?
    I can see some things, like at my apt building the washing machines/dryers can be paid for either with quarters or with a phone app. But I really don’t want to put my bank info into the hands of a company that I know nothing about, especially one named Wash.com.

  53. 53.

    smintheus

    @Wapiti: Or ask him why he thinks Chelsea Manning’s leak exposing US war crimes deserved a 35 year prison sentence.

  54. 54.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Kamala Harris prosecutes the case against Trump in a fiery speech in South Carolina

    I guess it’s good to have a president who was a “cop.”

  55. 55.

    trollhattan

    @smintheus:
    Everybody’s jonsing for US-France but I agree there are traps for both on their way there. With that said, nobody has yet managed to significantly exploit the US and I can’t say that for any other team, at least based on matches I’ve managed to see.

    Norway’s defense hasn’t blanketed opponents so far and that will doom them today if they can’t adapt.

  56. 56.

    JDM

    @germy: on battery charging, the general rule of thumb should be to not let the battery(s) run down too much and top them up. Yes, every once in a (long) while you can run it down all the way and charge it fully, but that’s more for accuracy of the battery level indicator than health of the battery.

    Although batteries come in different types, the above is a good rule of thumb for any batteries. In some situations it makes an enormous difference. For instance, in our old RV we tended to run the batteries down very low each night and our system didn’t charge them as intensively as they needed, plus it didn’t do that slower charge tapering that any modern smart charger does now. Now we have better charging, and don’t run them down below 75% much if at all. We used to replace batteries each year; now they lasted 7 years.

    The differences in how you should treat batteries of different types is mostly in what current you charge them at, IMHO. A good charger should do that fine.

  57. 57.

    germy

    NASA’s Curiosity rover has detected high amounts of methane on Mars.

    “A puff of gas that hints at possibility of life” (as the NYT puts it)

    Maybe cows?

  58. 58.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:
    Best advice so far.
    I just got a new iPhone not long ago, when my old Android one kept getting cranky, shutting down and not restarting with 80% battery and the battery wouldn’t last more than a day and the thing wouldn’t update 2 updates ago and…… The battery lasts 6 days, the phone works better than any cell phone I’ve ever had and I’ve had a cell phone for going on 20 yrs now. One would think that as cell phones are not all that cheap, they could at least work well, and the newer ones actually do. Now if they could only work for a reasonable length of time before we think we need to replace them.

  60. 60.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    I don’t really see the point of the thing. Is life today really so difficult that someone needs to be able to turn on a light by speaking?

    I don’t know. Do we really need remote control for televisions or driver assistance and cruise control in our cars? Or timers for sprinkler systems? Or remote control garage doors?

  62. 62.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy:

    NASA’s Curiosity rover has detected high amounts of methane on Mars.

    “A puff of gas that hints at possibility of life” (as the NYT puts it)

    Maybe cows?

    NYT is a puff of gas.

    Sounds like Marvin’s been enjoying some space beans.

  63. 63.

    smintheus

    @trollhattan: I take my earlier comment back. I think the US would have to get past France/Brazil before it would face Australia. The US has so much depth it’s in a class of its own. The other day I noticed that the great defender Meghan Klingenberg has been left off the team…which is a shame because the US defense is it’s only weakness. I could see the Americans giving up a really bad goal or two under strong pressure.

  64. 64.

    EthylEster

    @germy wrote:

    Here’s a question about recharging phones

    My experience. Got an iPhone 6 in Nov 2015. I tried to keep it charged up as much as possible. I avoided running it down close to 0%. Never got below 10% AFAIK. I’d top it up frequently. Time passes. In April 2019 I notice that it’s not holding a charge as well as it used to. In May 2019 I gave Apple $50 for a new battery. So I disregarded the advice on cycling down and got 3.5 years. If I get another 4.5 years from the new one, I’ll be thrilled.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @Wapiti:

    Or ask him if the US Army would house POWs under those conditions.

    Who was/is running Gitmo?
    What about those enlisted army personal tried and convicted over Abu Ghraib?
    Not saying any of that was OK, just saying the military is not uninvolved in treating people like crap and then blaming only the bottom people for it. Any big organization is capable of being assholes en mass, just like any human is capable of being an asshole. Most of us have to be on a constant lookout for our better angels.

  66. 66.

    EthylEster

    @germy wrote: NASA’s Curiosity rover has detected high amounts of methane on Mars.

    high concentrations maybe but i don’t think it can determine amounts.

  69. 69.

    germy

    @EthylEster: I get nervous if my phone goes below 50%, so that’s when I recharge.

    Also, my wife has a habit of letting her phone go down to 5%, but then she leaves it on while it recharges. I don’t know if that affects anything. I never do that with my phone.

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    Do we really need remote control for televisions or driver assistance and cruise control in our cars? Or timers for sprinkler systems? Or remote control garage doors?

    Cruse control used properly removes one thing that helps make one tired from driving and more importantly allows better concentration to the road and what we might hit than thinking about how fast we are going. Used properly. On my motorcycle it allows me to concentrate more on all the rest of the operational needs of the vehicle, like watching for assholes doing all the things that assholes do in their cars and therefore are much more likely to kill me. Of course that doesn’t mean that it’s at all useable every second of the time.
    A sprinkler timer means that we don’t overuse water by falling asleep or getting involved in a ball game on TV and forgetting that they are on.
    Remote controls on our garage doors can be very useful if you are short, or have a car full of young kids or an injury that won’t allow you to lift the door otherwise or possibly it’s raining or snowing and getting inside rather dryish would be nice. Or more than one of these issues at a time.
    Now the TV remote. Are you insane, actually getting up to change the channel…….

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    @Major Major Major Major:

    also, such comments ignore the fact that for many disabled people, having voice-activated devices is a godsend.

    Accessibility is a huge issue. And tech offers a lot of hope if done right.

    BTW, I always smile a bit when I see a lady using sign language to talk to someone on her cellphone’s video connection, during my morning and afternoon commute. I like that people can adapt devices in many ways to accommodate their needs.

  72. 72.

    Ohio Mom

    @Major Major Major Major: Yes, technology has been a godsend for people with disabilities. There’s all kinds of great stuff either available or in development.

    Computers that will read brain waves for people who are immobilized and set into motion whatever needs doing, wrist bands that will alert anxious people they need to act now to avoid a meltdown, and on and on.

    But — there’s always a but, isn’t there —I’m not too keen on the remote surveillance stuff that is being put into place to substitute for home aides.

    The idea of a disabled person or two (lots of people double up to save on the rent), alone in their apartment with nobody else except a 1984-type camera/loudspeaker is very unsettling to me.

    For safety reasons (who is watching the camera feed, and what are they going to do when they see something dangerous happening), and also because most disabled people are too isolated as it is. Plus they deserve privacy as much as anyone, and I am not sure how you provide that and constant remote supervision at home same time.

    Yes, there are lots of issues with human aides. They are terribly underpaid and undertrained, there is terrible turnover, and they are often not vetted carefully enough. Those are all mostly correctable if we weren’t such a stingy-to-the-needy country.

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    @EthylEster:
    That Android phone I talked about? Six years I had that phone. The battery was acting up once so I bought a new one – it was owner replaceable. But then it started working great again so I never replaced it with the new one. Of course I’ve moved twice since then and couldn’t find the old/new unused battery. I let it run down to 15-20 every day, charged it up to 100%. I do the same with my new phone. I’m not going to stress about the life of my phone battery, I get to stress about all the things in my life that limit it.

  75. 75.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Wapiti:

    He’s a smart lawyer-trained guy.

    I am not sure what you mean by this, but Buttigieg did not go to law school and is not a lawyer.

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    @Ohio Mom:

    The idea of a disabled person or two (lots of people double up to save on the rent), alone in their apartment with nobody else except a 1984-type camera/loudspeaker is very unsettling to me.

    In Japan, there are all kinds of interesting developments with robots and sides used to assist elderly people. Along with functionalality, there is also an emphasis on making these devices comforting.

  77. 77.

    WhatsMyNym

    @germy: If you’re using a fast charge system it’s not worth charging all the way. The charging light on my phone turns green at 91% charged, it takes forever to charge it to 100%.

    Enjoy your phone – you can always replace the battery (it’s not rocket science). There are plenty of businesses that do it everyday or will help you do it (cough, cough, iFixit com).

  78. 78.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:
    Karma, dude.

    Yeah things in our lives sometimes seem to just not like us. I’ve owned two Toyotas. One was on it’s second engine at 85 thousand miles. The other just had minor annoying stuff, like needing 3 new water pumps in the first 6 months. Most reliable cars. Not for me. And it’s a crap shoot like that with everything. Now I just try to enjoy the simple things and life in general. That hasn’t changed anything but my stress level. Of course politics these days shits all over that.

  79. 79.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ohio Mom: I should add, I know a lot of people assume most disabled adults are living in group homes with 24/7 staffing but that is not so.

    For one thing, there aren’t that many group homes, for another, the trend these days is for deinstitionalization (which works for some but not all, it’s a complicated set of issues for another discussion).

    The end result is people who need support and supervision are widely scattered, oh I mean, integrated into the community. Hence the push for remote surveillance.

  82. 82.

    different-church-lady

    Well, thank god there’s billions of dollars of technology behind that.

  83. 83.

    different-church-lady

    @Ohio Mom: I don’t care how old and feeble I get, once I’m done with the claw-headed robot dogs I’m going to start beating the comfort robot with a hockey stick.

  84. 84.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Ruckus:

    Now the TV remote. Are you insane, actually getting up to change the channel…….

    I use a Roku and don’t have any “channels” that I can change by getting up and going over to the TV.

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    @WhatsMyNym:
    I have a smart TV and actually don’t get any TV channels. It’s a movie screen for me. It still has a remote, just like that Roku control that you have. In fact it has no controls on the TV at all. That little remote is the only way to make it do anything other than hold down the thing it sits on. Which it does very well.
    Read my comment at #81.

  88. 88.

    Brachiator

    @Ohio Mom:

    Yeah I’ve read about that and wonder exactly how comforting I would find a robot. Maybe it’s a cultural thing.

    Maybe you have to start slowly and work up to it.

    Try the boyfriend pillow arm…

    Japan’s single women are being offered the ultimate sleeping partner – a comfort to cuddle up to, but one which does not snore or make demands.

    The Boyfriend’s Arm Pillow, shaped like a man’s torso with one sturdy arm, has been on sale since December and has so far been snapped up by 1,000 singles.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3699516.stm

  89. 89.

    debbie

    The indignity Alexa must feel with all this farting is payback for her spontaneous and unbidden laughter.

  90. 90.

    Ohio Mom

    @Brachiator: My sister lived in Japan for three years during my nieces’ elementary school years— BIL was transferred there, and doing an overseas stint was pretty much required for advancement in the multi-national he worked for. For them it was a grand adventure,
    and later they took two other overseas assignments.

    Anyway, from her stories I have gathered the Japanese are really not like us at all. Not better, not worse, just different.

    It’s hard to imagine a boyfriend pillow taking off on Ohio (girlfriend dolls shipped under plain brown wrappers, yes).

  91. 91.

    Jay Noble

    Ni-MH – Run it all the way down and then fully charge. The origin of “battery memory” – they remember how long it takes to get back to 100%. What we encountered at Best Buy quite often was people taking a nearly fully charged phone from the house and immediately plugging it in into the car adaptor. The phone takes 15 minutes to get back to 100%. So in short order you have a battery that thinks it only need 15 minutes to recharge regardless of how low it actually is.

    Li-ion – Run it down as far as you are comfortable with but not 0 and fully charge. Li-ions are good for a certain number of charges. I believe my iPhone and iPad were rated at something like 10,000 charges – charges being everytime you stick it in the charger or hook it up via cable to your computer. If you run to zero, some of your settings return to original spec. Things like your wi-fi recognition of your computer. :-|

    I’ve recently switched to cordless li-ion lawn care equipment – mower, string trimmer and blower – plus a drill. They all hold a charge for quite some time and charge up pretty quickly so it’s easy to get the best use out of the battery.

  93. 93.

    lurker dean

    @Ruckus: the thing i use it most for is radio. we get crappy reception, which used to really irk me because we live in a city close to the radio towers (ie not in a rural area far from antennas). i stream npr and sports radio every day, and for me it’s worth it just for static/interruption free radio. also use it as an alarm clock and to ask stupid questions i don’t feel like grabbing a device for and typing out, like “how tall is bol bol in cm?” 218cm

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