'Puppy Bowl' celebrates a big anniversary this year, one that shelter and rescue pups will cheer https://t.co/YvFZwSK7hD
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 7, 2024
After Taylor Swift’s win at the Grammys, Travis Kelce says he needs to ‘bring home some hardware’ https://t.co/KdybMxSYE3
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 6, 2024
After all, Yahoo Sports has been tracking Swift’s journey from her Tokyo arena performance to Las Vegas as though it were NORAD following Santa. Possibly useful information, from NYMag:
… What time is the Super Bowl?
Swift has given this classic SEO query new relevance. Here’s the answer from CBS, which will air Super Bowl LVIII:This year’s NFL championship game, concluding the 2023 season, will be played on Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. ET. The action will take place at the home of the Las Vegas Raiders, Allegiant Stadium, located on the Las Vegas strip in Paradise, Nevada.
As long as we’re here, I’ll spare you another Google search. Here’s how to watch the Super Bowl this year:
TV: CBS, Nickelodeon Stream: Available via Paramount+ on all platforms, or sign in with your TV provider on CBS.com or CBS Sports apps
Will Taylor Swift perform at the halftime show?
No. Taylor Swift has never performed at the Super Bowl, probably because she inked a “long-term partnership” with Diet Coke in 2013, the same year Coca-Cola’s arch-nemesis Pepsi kicked off its decade-long halftime show sponsorship deal…Okay, but could she do a cameo at the 2024 halftime show?
Nope, not even in Swifties’ wildest dreams. Her fans love unhinged theories but even r/TaylorSwift shot this idea down…
Taylor Swift makes the Super Bowl in her first year in the league. Elite.
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) January 28, 2024
Andra Day says she's ready for national anthems such as “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — that widen representation — to become a ‘normal' thing. The singer/actor is performing the song at this year’s Super Bowl. pic.twitter.com/u7mCWPKaSB
— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) February 7, 2024
Republicans struggle to comprehend nation's interest in NFL All-Pro and Taylor Swift: https://t.co/66E90emvaz
— Defector (@DefectorMedia) February 3, 2024
Patrick Redford, at Defector — “Republicans Struggle To Comprehend Nation’s Interest In NFL All-Pro And Taylor Swift”:
If you’re excited about the upcoming Super Bowl and are curious to see how CBS will cover Travis Kelce and his relationship with Taylor Swift, the most famous woman on the planet, congratulations, you fool: You have fallen into the deep state’s trap. Donald Trump’s halfwit foot soldiers are waging a high-pitched culture war centered around the romance between the Kansas City Chiefs tight end and superstar musician, putting Republicans in the curious rhetorical position of having to hate football and extremely popular white people.
In the eyes of conservatives, Kelce is a dedicated crusader for the woke agenda. The proof for this is his kneeling for the national anthem in 2017, and his endorsements of a woke beer brand, a woke insurance chain, and—you guessed it—a woke pharmaceutical company. Swift’s extremely woke credentials are clear: She’s tepidly endorsed Democratic candidates and publicly spoken about the far-left issue of voter registration. While there is also speculation that Swift made Kelce woke, the crux here is that the relationship is a psyop: an insincere arrangement created to brainwash the impressionable and otherwise unpolarized masses who like football or music, indoctrinating them into the woke mindset…
Cautionary hairline tale Vivek Ramaswamy and some MAGA operative whose name is Mike Crispi have complained about a Chiefs victory in a fixed Super Bowl, clearly unfamiliar with the importance of quarterback play in today’s NFL. Jack Posobiec is talking about how Jon Voight has to out-influence Taylor Swift. The orcs at the network OAN have joined the chorus and brought Jesus into it. Anyone who is anyone in the make-work world of conservative media has understood that the current assignment is to whine about this.
My favorite example was plagiarism enthusiast Benny Johnson speculating that Kelce’s fame was obviously manufactured for the reason that he’s a tight end, a “glorified lineman.” Like Johnson, I did some light research on Wikipedia and learned that he went to the University of Iowa, which is the most embarrassing possible credential to have when making the case that Kelce isn’t a good NFL player. Casual! Benny does not know ball!…
These people do not comprehend how off-putting they are being. When this genre of weirdo decides to freak out about something like the children’s show Paw Patrol, at least it’s contained and short-lived. But the NFL and Taylor Swift are well-defined cultural forces. It doesn’t take much to figure out why people care about them. Analysis from the New York Times showed that Swift had been shown on NFL broadcasts for a grand total of two minutes and 12 seconds across the Chiefs’ three playoff games. That relatively insignificant amount of time won’t stop the dimmest and loudest from projecting their confusing anxieties onto the couple…
That's right anon. Don't root for the Chiefs like the libs want you too. You know in your hearts what you should do. pic.twitter.com/yLdQACJPfK
— River_Tam (@RiverTamYDN) January 31, 2024
"Mr. Pfizer" Travis Kelce is going to the Superbowl and Aaron Rodgers is at home taking livestock medications
— Liam Nissan™ (@theliamnissan) January 29, 2024
NotMax
Media note.
On Prime, finding the documentary series Secrets of the Railways (cue Mr. Spock) fascinating. Each stand alone episode focuses on the why and how of a different rail line built in unusual, harrowing and/or treacherous locations or circumstances.
Ken
I’m hoping for breaking news today that Taylor Swift has bought the Chiefs. Or the 49ers, either would cause a MAGA meltdown. I don’t think she’s quite rich enough to buy both…
Oh, and whoever Jack Posobiec is, he should be aware that Jon Voight is one of those actors where I hear his name and think “Is he still alive?” (Yes, according to wikipedia, and also 85 — which according to MAGA-world should mean he’s a drooling idiot, no?)
Princess
I love every part of this whole scene. Every minute of it. Also, that Travis Kelce seems like a nice young man.
Baud
Soda wars deprives fans of what they want most.
I blame Biden.
Old School
CBS/Nickelodeon aren’t planning dedicated Taylor/Kelce streams? Boy, are they missing out.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: I blame the carbonated toilet water named Pepsi.
p.a.
What better example of Cleek’s Law than conservaturds putting themselves in the position of rooting for the team from the reputationally gayest & druggiest (well, 1960’s-era) city! Fred Clark at slacktivist has pointed out numerous times, these people willingly make themselves miserable. Poutrage addicts.
NotMax
Did someone say Coca-Cola?
;)
Jeffro
Go
Team Pfizerer Chiefs! =)also, LOL at this
Two minutes and twelve seconds, MAGAts!
We need a phrase for whatever’s beyond “living rent-free in their heads”
mrmoshpotato
@Old School:
If the Chiefs are really kicking ass, they’ll sub her in for Mahomes.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro:
Living with heads up each other’s ass?
Dorothy A. Winsor
Holy cow. Judging from the reviews they left on Amazon and Goodreads, someone was outraged that I included LGBTQ characters in GLASS GIRL.
To quote Captain Jack Sparrow, “But you have heard of me.”
Baud
@Jeffro:
Not to take anything away from MAGA depravity, but that sort of thing is widespread in modern times. We’ve all been victim to the “Let’s all focus on this isolated outrageous tweet” phenomenon.
The worst of it is on Reddit, where they’ll recycle memes and stuff from years past so that commenters can be outraged by it.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Welcome to the woke!
J. Arthur Crank
The Chiefs and the Raiders are the last and next-to-last teams I would ever root for. However, upon reading this post, I will root for the Chiefs (as they play in the new home of the Raiders) since it will contribute to additional exploding heads among sizable population of morons out there.
J. Arthur Crank
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Your books are required reading at my local re-education camp.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: I was surprised. The main character has two moms, and the Sage is a “they.” I didn’t think of that as provocative.
@J. Arthur Crank: That’s the spirit!
Scout211
Too funny!
And sadly, he doesn’t read the alumni magazine. That article about the great tight ends coming out of the Iowa football program was in a very recent alumni magazine issue. And if, as an Iowa alumnus, you don’t know the history of great tight ends out of Iowa, just look at the Niner’s current great tight end, George Kittle.
Why yes, I did graduate from the University of Iowa. Why do you ask?
ETA: fixed typos
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
People who live in shit think fresh air is provocative. What can you do?
Jeffro
Be sure to share this with the RWNJs in your life (and cc Aaron Rodgers while you’re at it): For Travis Kelce, It’s Quite a Time to Be Alive
(well yeah, beats the alternative! )
*ahem…Tony Gonzalez (also a Chief!) would like a word…nevertheless…
Someone get Ms. Conlin a cold compress, stat!
Personally, I was unaware that we needed another ‘Rock’. (I’m not sure we needed the first one.) But the guy is funny as heck. Oh and he plays football pretty well, too. ;)
Geminid
“They’re Woke, We’re Volk.”
Suzanne
There was some crazy right-wing tweet that went viral last week — and I am not gonna waste time digging it up — about how Taylor Swift is a low-status match for Travis Kelce because she’s 34 and could probably only have two kids.
Okay, y’all, tell yourselves whatever you need to hear to get you through the night.
J. Arthur Crank
I guess Benny Johnson and his ilk are watching the Puppy Bowl this year. Gaia knows they cannot root for the Chiefs because of Taylor Swift, and rooting for the 49ers is out of the question because Nancy Pelosi is their quarterback.
NotMax
@Suzanne
“And she can’t cook.”
//
J. Arthur Crank
@Suzanne:
That is so stupid on so many levels it is fractal.
Suzanne
@Jeffro: He has really changed up his look since getting together with Taylor Swift. Cut the hair shorter, cleaned up the facial hair situation. Looks much less like he’s trying to sell me a used car or like he time-traveled from a 70s porno.
OzarkHillbilly
“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.”
-Voltaire.
Suzanne
@NotMax: “She probably won’t iron my shirts!!!”
“What do you mean, I don’t have to iron my shirt to play video games in my mom’s basement?!”
Suzanne
@J. Arthur Crank:
MAGA in a nutshell.
Jeffro
Completely OT but this sounds good: let your imaginations run wild, America!
(Dan Pink is a pretty good guy but I think he’s about to get a serious wake-up call about just how fringe-y America’s lunatic fringe really is once he starts reading the submissions)
(Because I like getting all the presents, Dan, ok? WTF)
‘Expand the House’ is a little mundane, so I’m going to sit on this for a bit – I have a whole year! – before submitting anything. But it’ll be entertaining, I think.
Dorothy A. Winsor
These people need a hobby.
On another note, we picked up our new Prius yesterday. A young guy at the dealership spent about an hour, sitting in the car with us, showing us how to use a cell phone to do…things. I’m not sure what. At the end, we managed to drive away, but then pulled into a parking lot (where we were unable to figure out how to put it in Park) and tried to guess how to use the big navigation screen that was one of the reasons we bought it. We came home, brains in a stunned condition. I plan to keep my old car forever and ever.
Anne Laurie
I don’t follow BookTok, but it has been averred on political twitter that Chaya Raichik (Libs of TikTok) and Chris Rufo are encouraging their followers to review-blast the ‘woke’ YA books Raichik & Rufo point out for them. ‘This will give us the stats we need to show schools & publishers that *decent people* won’t allow groomers & pornographers to corrupt our precious children!!!’… in other words, they hope to scare big publishers & distributors away from anything that might be ‘controversial.
I devoutly hope, as a pious Cynic, that Raichik will disappear from public notice after being successfully sued by one of the hospitals targeted with bomb threats by her followers. I also want Chris Rufo to go away — I just hope he’ll be exposed for financial misdeeds, not for actual child abuse.
Jeffro
@Suzanne: true, but the beard is off the hook these days! (I think it’s a playoffs/SB thing)
Interesting note: Kelce is one of only 8 Chiefs players still on the team that won the Super Bowl just 4 short years ago(!)
Betty
I just came across a Tik Tok video of a Taylor performance in Tokyo. It’s amazing that she remains so normal when so many thousands of fans go crazy at her concerts all over the world. It’s hard to imagine how one would keep their perspective under those circumstances.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
;)
Baud
@Anne Laurie:
My impression may not reflect reality, but it feels like liberal organizing against the right has been in the doldrums for the last few years. Maybe exhaustion from Trump?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Anne Laurie: These guys seem stuck in a permanent role-play gaming mode. They create the game–teams, problems, etc. and then play with ferocity. Only real people get hurt.
PAM Dirac
@p.a.:
Their entire relationship with other people is to complain that the world isn’t exactly the way they want it to be and that it is the greatest injustice in the history of the universe. Furthermore it is up to you (ie someone, anyone else) to fix it and until you do you should be as miserable as I am. Compare that to Swift, her boyfriend, Biden and a long list of the “woke”. Most of the wokes’ public interactions seem to be them praising and/or helping others, laughing with people many times at themselves, generally living a good life. At the same time they are piling up a long list of impressive accomplishments. The losers can’t do a damn thing except whine.
randy khan
The whole right-wing meltdown over Swift and Kelce is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro:
Ummmm, let me count the reasons…
eta to clarify Jeffro did not propose this.
KSinMA
@Scout211: Go Hawks!
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Breeders! It always comes back to women as breeders.
Betty
@PAM Dirac: That is a great description of “both sides”. Happy to be on the Biden, Taylor side.
Baud
@Betty:
Ahem. The Taylor, Biden side.
Another Scott
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I felt that way moving from a 2004 VW to a 2023 Kia PHEV. It’s a big change.
You don’t have to learn it all at once. :-)
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
As I asked downstairs, is the NYT going to do a three-day freakout on Trump inviting Russia to attack our NATO allies?
PAM Dirac
@Baud:
Well Biden is old, but Taylor seems to be to old to produce enough babies, so both sides.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Another Scott: Thanks for the encouragement.
zhena gogolia
@Princess: He’s quite funny too — check out his sketches on SNL.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl:
Not always. There’s usually a broad streak of women-as-household-servants, too.
I honestly think that plenty of liberal men, because they largely don’t think like this….. they think this attitude is long past. It isn’t long past. It’s not even past.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
More likely something like this
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I wouldn’t be surprised.
NotMax
@Another Scott
My ’22 Maverick hybrid automatically shifts to Park (when stopped) when the driver’s door is opened.
Being an old, I nevertheless always manually shift to Park before opening the door.
zhena gogolia
Bill Penzey is telling me that all the major Super Bowl advertisers have agreed to censor the content in their ads. I hadn’t seen that, but I don’t tend to look at football news. Has anyone else seen that?
ETA: censor the content to make it acceptable to MAGA.
OzarkHillbilly
If some salesman tried that with me, it would be the shortest tutorial in history because I would probably grab his phone and throw it out the window.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
First I’ve heard of it. Not sure what that means.
MagdaInBlack
@Dorothy A. Winsor: While my car was in the shop, my rental was a 2024 Kia K5, with all the bells and whistles. I had to have my detailer at work show me how to use these bells and whistles and turn off the ones I did not want. There was a wee bit of a learning curve from my 2016 Elantra 😉
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Can you expand on what you mean by “liberal organizing against the right” being in the doldrums? Because the Ds keep winning elections and pro-abortion measures, which suggests a certain effective amount of organizing. I’ve also seen many stories of (mostly) successful campaigns to keep those crazy “Moms for RW Censorship” candidates off of school boards. Granted, we haven’t interned Rufo and evil TikTok lady in Soros-funded FEMA reeducation camps yet, but one can hope….
Another Scott
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My J moved from a 2000 Corolla to a 2015 Prius C (she wanted something small). All the lights on the screen were concerning her – air bag off for passenger, tire pressure warning, oil change, etc. YouTube is helpful for explaining stuff (it’s how I figured out how to reset the oil change reminder light).
It will get easier! None of this stuff is intuitive.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Suzanne
“I am the ghost of Christmas past.”
“Long past?”
“No, your past.”
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
I’m not talking about political or election organizing. More like issue organizing. I just feel like I don’t hear about it as much, certainly not as much as I hear about right wing organizations like Moms for Liberty and Libs of Tiktok and such. Easily could be my bubble.
ETA: Could be a branding issue. Our organizations don’t have a brand.
eclare
Travis had a great response when asked if the media coverage of him and Taylor was fair. Paraphrasing, he said yes. You (the media) aren’t coming at me from the right or left, it’s just fun.
And that is my personal opinion, it’s just fun to track a plane named The Football Era. And RWNJ’s want to kill fun.
I wonder what the over/under is on how many beers Jason will have today is? Will he take his shirt off again? Again, just fun!
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia: I think that’s called Rule #1 of advertising: “Don’t piss off half your possible customers.”
catclub
@Jeffro: *ahem…Tony Gonzalez (also a Chief!) would like a word…nevertheless…
What about Gronk? Wasn’t he one also?
MagdaInBlack
@zhena gogolia: Unfortunately, you already know the answer to that.
Phylllis
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I know this feeling; when I bought my (now 4-year old) new car after driving my previous one for over ten years and 200,000 miles, I was overwhelmed. Especially the first time I drove it at night and the automatic brights began turning off and on, prompting a nice highway patrolman to give me an impromptu tutorial.
Another Scott
@NotMax: I couldn’t figure out how to just turn on the radio with my Kia parked. Turns out you have to keep your foot off the brake before pushing the start button.
I still don’t know how to adjust the rearview mirror at night. There’s no lever – maybe it adjusts itself, but I haven’t seen any info about it.
Maybe it’s buried in the 1500 pages of printed manuals somewhere…
Cheers,
Scott.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Speaking for myself, we also have lives and aren’t going to chase after every single RW craze. Too much exhausting whack-a-mole. Pointing and mocking where appropriate, and then organizing at the polls where we can make a concrete difference is my preferred method. Gotta pick one’s battles.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
I agree elections are primary.
OzarkHillbilly
@catclub: There have been many great tight ends. What gives Kelce a leg up on many is the longevity of his career. He’s piled up some truly impressive career #s.
Not being a data nerd I don’t know the #s or how they compare.
Elizabelle
These weasels had a problem with Paw Patrol?
Paw Patrol??
Good morning, jackals.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: They have to do that because they have to do well on the email survey sent to the new owner or the factory will punish them. It’s ridiculous. You can’t learn all the new stuff in an hour.
:-\
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
Horrible non-Trump person of the week: Natalie Cline of Utah:
Cline wrote a pseudo-apology on Facebook that started off noting her free speech rights and blaming trans rights activists for making her question the girl’s gender. Here’s hoping Cline is caught up in a disfiguring turkey-frying mishap soon.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I’ve heard there are still places where it’s understood that husbands go into the voting booth with their wives to direct their voting (or just do it for them).
This is actually one qualm I have about mail-in voting, that it makes this trivial to do without official acquiescence, because it’s all happening at home.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
They were such good people before the activists came along and ruined everything.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Nope, not a-gonna take the bait.
;)
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I have to wonder how often that happens in reverse though. Lots of disinterested husbands out there.
trnc
I struggle to understand republicans’ interest in fascism.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
There’s also a lot of local issue-based organizing going on–getting women to abortion clinics, helping immigrants and refugees, supporting LGBTQ people, etc. Some of which deliberately flies under the radar for obvious reasons, and some of which just isn’t clickbait in the way RW outrages tend to be. But good stuff is happening in communities across the country if you look for it.
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
He did that?! Linky?
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
Good to hear. But I’m too lazy to look for anything.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Not video but blog favorite Victor Shi, via reddit.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Cline is probably a degenerate like so many of the Moms for Liberty busybodies. It’s such a strong pattern, and not just in the USA! I was reading this morning about the president of Hungary being forced to resign because she pardoned a child-abusing pervert who was a right-wing ally. These people truly embody the “every accusation is a confession” axiom about the hard right.
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
He’s since moved on to “Pennsylvania is going to change its name if Biden wins.”
Sraittjacket central.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Hmm, #82 sort of belies #81. :-)
Betty Cracker
@lowtechcyclist: Here’s WaPo coverage. It wasn’t the first time he said that either.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Scott: I just want a vehicle that will get me from point A to point B at a reasonable cost. I don’t want all the bells and whistles, and I sure as shit don’t have any need to know how to ring them.
As far as any “email survey sent to the new owner”… DELETE. I’m just not built that way. Hopefully, my 2005 p/u will keep going for another 100K or better and I won’t have to deal with all that.
And oh yeah, YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN !!!
NotMax
#84 above
Straittjacket = Straitjacket
Bupalos
The part of the rightwingers’ misogynistic conspiracy shit I find most truly offensive is the suggestion that T. Swift turned Cleveland Heights Tiger Travis Kelce woke. Heights boys are naturally woke. We wake up woke and roll down to Tommy’s to eat woke for breakfast. If anybody is woking up that relationship, it’s Kelce.
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly:
Their problem is, half their possible customers are ever on the lookout for new things to be pissed off about.
Eventually they’re just gonna have to tell their MAGAt customers, “get over it or die mad.”
The MAGAts will go with the latter option, of course, but that’s their choice.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: No matter how low they go, they never reach the bottom.
NotMax
@Bupalos
Everybody knows Kansas City is a roiling den of woke.
;)
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin: My wife is a normie. She always votes straight D but it bothers me when she asks me what an Amendment or ballot issue means and is going to do. I tell her what I think and she dutifully votes as I have.
She has the handicap of English being her 4th language and the legalese can be confusing to a native speaker, but it still makes me uncomfortable.
Bupalos
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I wish they’d make an EV that was stripped of any tech past cruise control. I want like five buttons and no screens.
trnc
Which Kia, and did you have to get a charger installed or does it use a regular plug? I’ve been toying with getting a PHEV SUV to lug band equipment because my 15 year old Civic hybrid doesn’t have enough space, but the Civic is still running great so that makes it a little tougher to justify.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: I used to spend much more time arguing and pushing back against MAGA bullshit online and doing local organizing but at some point you realize there is only so much you can do and if you try and do too much you get burnt out and suffer serious mental health issues from being Very Online.
The local organizing landscape has also changed a lot since 2017. Most groups/meetings have had declining interest since the Mid-Terms. Many people who were outraged and just had to get involved in 2017, disappeared quickly once Dems took Congress back. Covid messed with 2020 but Postcards To Voters also became a much easier way to be involved. 2022 had really only the die-hards still going to meetings and canvassing, phone banking etc. And many groups fractured and people who used to be very concerned about every issue/policy now are content to just do whatever it takes to stop Trump. Which, after all, was the thing that united and animated us, from the very beginning. I’m not even sure if my own Indivisible group is going to start meeting again. We will probably just do postcards on our own and go to SwingLeft events when we can. Same goes for my local police reform group. We got a Civilian Oversight board for our PD, with a couple of our best members on it, and ever since our small group has been trouble even meeting online regularly. People are just busy with life. I’ve taken a big step back in my own involvement too.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Just quoting TFG saying Russia should do “whatever the hell they want” and claiming a context that implies he meant Russia should attack NATO is a bit thin for me – I’d need to see the context.
OzarkHillbilly
Or maybe tell us to “get over it or die mad.” Or maybe make ads so anodyne that nobody takes offense. Which is what smart advertisers try to do.
Leto
@OzarkHillbilly: nobody is coming to take away your Model T. We know how much of an upgrade it was from the A, and how much of a learning curve it was for you. Chiiiiiill….
Chief Oshkosh
@Geminid:
Good one. :)
MattF
@NotMax: I was gobsmacked by that claim, but Kevin Drum explained it. There was apparently a Park Service plan aimed at taking down a (somewhat famous) statue of William Penn in Philadelphia. The plan was cancelled a few days later, but the woke woke woke woke woke alarm went off. He probably saw it on FOX or a FOX clone. The name-changing thing is pure invention.
OzarkHillbilly
@Bupalos: Hear hear!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@MattF:
William Penn was infamous for using gas stoves.
OzarkHillbilly
@lowtechcyclist:
Donald Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies who pay too little
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly: LOL
the ‘bottom of the ocean’ part was, in fact, me editorializing ;)
NotMax
@trnc
Hold out for a Canoo?
OzarkHillbilly
@Leto: Like I said, GET OFF MY LAWN YOU YOUNG WHIPPERSNAPPER!!!
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
I guess the whole
“She is a golddigger” attack went nowhere.
Now, her worth is based upon how many kids they think she can have?😒😒😤😤
Shalimar
@Baud: I’m not sure about backlash against the Libs of Tiktok lady. Trans panic seems to be in full swing. But Moms for Liberty has been collapsing from local opposition to their extremism in areas all over. I wouldn’t even call it liberal opposition. Just parents sick of homeschooling idiots telling them what their kids can read.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro: Yeah, I figured that out, I just wanted to clarify that you weren’t proposing moving congress around to various cities that were not built for that and would not accept the cost of it.
Sid_Viscous
FWIW, I now refer to Taylor Smith haters as tay-ters.
Jeffro
Yes but…but…he played for that team, therefore I can’t rank him higher than my team’s guy.
j/k, Gronk is one of the greatest. Him, Kelce, Gonzalez, Gates, and Sharpe are probably the 5 greatest; (the order just depends on which team you root for. =)
It’s kind of cool that 2 of those 5 have been/are Chiefs (and that 4 of the 5 are in the AFC West)
Caphilldcne
@Baud: liberals organize issues via non-profits that often do not engage in overt politicking and often stick very tightly to their mission. So for example environmental groups or groups fighting a particular disease. There aren’t a lot of organizations that overtly organize around demonizing the right wing. Even the most political such as planned parenthood often offer services and do so in a relatively non-partisan manner. there are groups that are somewhat set up a bit like the right wing groups such as the American Constitution Society which is essentially the Federalist society for leftists but they don’t have the billionaire backers. Read Dark Money to see how much damage billionaires have done. Anyway, it’s just a really different energy.
Another Scott
@trnc:
2023 Kia Niro PHEV SX Touring.
I charge it overnight on a 120V outlet (we have a 1963 circuit breaker box that needs upgrading, so no free 220V circuit). It charges about 9% an hour at 12A, so overnight is fine. It has an 11.1 kWh battery pack (220 pounds). The engine stays off until it reaches about 16% capacity remaining. (It supposedly will go 83 mph with just the electric motor.)
I like it a lot. It’s rated at 29 miles all electric range, but I easily get 40-42 miles in warm weather (32-35 miles when its cold) commuting. Hybrid mileage is well over 50 mpg (it varies depending on lots of things, but 65 mpg is common). It was fine on a 330 mile trip from NoVA to Winston-Salem for a few days.
I’ve never used a public charger with it yet – I haven’t felt the need.
I wish it were smaller (narrower), but I’m getting used to it. It’s over 8″ shorter than the newest Prius – that’s a big car these days.
And it doesn’t look like everything else on the road (I got it in “Mineral Blue” with the black “Aero Blade” stripe). ;-)
I paid sticker price in late April 2023. It seemed a fair price based on Edmunds review. Toyota dealers were asking $5k over list for the new Prius then (and the PHEV version was nowhere to be found). :-/
HTH a little.
Happy hunting!
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Sid_Viscous
Tayter snots?
//
trnc
That’s one of the things that separates us from them. I try to make that distinction, but sometimes I’m tempted to say, “Screw the context. We don’t get that benefit of the doubt,” but the problem is our republican friendly, double standard loving media.
trnc
@OzarkHillbilly: DT lecturing someone on paying their bills is both ridiculous and completely on brand.
Chief Oshkosh
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m right there with you. We just replaced a 2006 vehicle with same make/model 2019 version. Lots of stuff to ignore. I just focus on (the few!) bits that can increase safety and efficiency.
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly: nope, absolutely not! That was just one of Pink’s examples of “innovative” thinking.
I might keep score of how many are silly on their face, how many are genuinely insane, and how many are worth considering.
I’ll call it the Pink Ratio and bore y’all with it from time to time. =)
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: It would be great to see the girl’s parents sue the bigoted bitch, but that’s unlikely.
MattF
@trnc: Trump knows that he’s saying something very bad and very quotable. There’s no reason to give him the benefit of any doubt. He’s saying exactly what he means and being quoted exactly how he wants to be quoted. I’m sure Uncle Vlad understands that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Chief Oshkosh: My wife is the computer expert in our house and she loves all that shit. I’m a neanderthal who can’t figure out how to download pics from my camera to an Expansion drive with my new computer. It took me forever to get it down pat with the old computer and now I have to learn a whole new bag of tricks.
Fortunately for me, my wife is a saint.
@Jeffro: That will be good for a few laughs.
SFAW
@Scout211:
Sod off, Hawkeye swine.
[My father was a Cyclone.]
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
Have no plans on watching the Superbowl (just not a football fan and never really enjoyed watching sports on TV) but, to those who will, enjoy.
As for Taylor Swift, I really don’t understand the obsession. I like some of her music, think she’s very talented but her activities have no impact on mine (as far as I know).
I guess I’m just too old to understand.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Another thing we have in common.
ETA: And, anticipating the smartassery: no, I meant my own wife, not that I have Mrs. Ozark “in common” (or however it would be phrased).
Chris T.
@Another Scott:
It probably doesn’t need adjusting. Newer ones (or even older ones if you have a high end vehicle) have an electronically activated dimming agent that reduces reflectivity when the ambient light decreases.
This tends to give the mirrors a sort of vague greenish tinge, so you can eventually recognize the ones that don’t need to be flipped.
trnc
@Another Scott: Thanks! That’s all great information. Looks like the Niro is about the same size as my wife’s CRV, which is what I use for the band gear. I like the idea of a regular plug over proprietary charger, too.
Another Scott
@Chris T.: You’re right. I see it’s actually listed as a feature in the link I posted above.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
stinger
@Elizabelle:
And with Teletubbies, Dr. Seuss, Mr. Potato, M&Ms, gay penguins…. Outrage junkies.
And I hadn’t heard of them freaking out over Paw Patrol!
oldgold
Today, Rubio stole the crown from Lindsey Graham for worst Sunday Morning news guest. He was way beyond pathetic.
Aaron Rupar does a good job of covering these Sunday morning debacles.
https://twitter.com/atrupar?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Honus
@catclub: two words: Heath Miller
Two more words: Mike Ditka
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
Oh, come ON! He didn’t “invite” them.
He merely said, in his own manly way, “Nice countries they got over there, be a SHAME if anything happened to them.”
Jeffro
@SFAW: Mr. Innocent sure does like to talk about protection rackets and blackmail a lot, doesn’t he?
Jeffro
I’d probably have titled this “The GOP’s Death Spiral is Accelerating”, but that has a, you know, partisan edge to it…
…anyway, EJ Dionne’s right: the Republican Problem is Metastasizing
sdhays
I test drove a Prius over 10 years ago and got pulled over by a police car (because the dealership put the license plate on the roof where the officer couldn’t see it) and was panicking because I couldn’t figure out how to put the damn thing into park. Just shockingly horrible user interface design.
The experience soured me on Toyotas in general.
Sure Lurkalot
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My FIL drove his Prius from Denver to DC for a family reunion he paid for all of us to attend. The first night, he drank too much, fell and cracked his head open in front of the hotel. Spent the entire time in GW ICU.
Someone had to drive him and his car home and that was my DH. When he got in the Prius that had been pulled out front by the hotel valet, he sat in it for a long while because he didn’t even know how to start it.
The trip home was long and tortuous because my FIL was a crazy if not well intentioned coot. Three months later he declared the family reunion trip was one of his favorites ever. Must have been some good drugs in that ICU.
PS DH inherited the 2010 Prius when FIL passed and we still have it. However, its vintage is well before screens and enhanced safety features.
stinger
@MattF:
Oh, thanks. All I could think of (without doing any “research” whatsoever) was that, having heard some other completely unrelated thing about Pennsylvania, he decided “they” were changing the name of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
That might help keep him from finding his way back there, which would be all to the good, actually.
sdhays
@zhena gogolia: Apparently they’re going with stating that it’s “unclear” if Trump intends to “follow through” on his threat.
No big deal.
Eyeroller
@trnc: Nearly all EVs and PHEVs have a “regular” plug but you have to have a weather-safe place to plug in the car if you want to do it at home. The standard J1772 connector works with either 120v or 220v. The charging stations are for “fast charging” and use various proprietary or semi-proprietary connectors, though they seem to be converging. J1772 is often called “trickle charging.”
When we bought the Leaf I had a 220V, 50A circuit put in with a plug in the garage. (50A is overkill, 30A would have been fine.) The plug is the standard US dryer-type plug. When I had to trade in the Leaf I got a Volvo XC60 Recharge. Its charging cable uses some weird 220 plug that turns out to be the kind used for commercial hotel-type heat pumps and the like. I bought an adapter but have been a bit afraid to use it, so I just use the 120 plug and charge it overnight. That would not have worked well for the Leaf but it’s fine for the smaller battery of the Recharge.
Speaking of mysteries with new cars, when I wanted to disconnect the Leaf I just pulled out the charger. First time I charged the XC60 I couldn’t get the plug out. The salesman had not told me that you have to open the door and hit the unlock button. It’s probably in the owner’s manual somewhere, but of course we don’t get paper owner’s manuals anymore. The salesman also told me that you can’t use the gas engine to recharge while driving, but a relative owns the same model vehicle and showed me how to do it. (Of course it cuts the mileage some.) So salespeople often don’t really know much about hybrids.
It tells me I have gotten about 120mpg average so far. That’s probably because I take short trips mostly or entirely on battery, however.
Baud
@sdhays:
Whereas Biden has been absolutely clear that he will not stop aging.
Jeffro
Rick Wilson re: trumpov’s pro-Russia, anti-NATO comments
Nukular Biskits
@NotMax:
Also being an old, it’s hard for me to accept that a Maverick is now a pickup and a Mustang is now an SUV.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The other day, I posted on a dying thread that President Biden’s enemies identified with the pronouns Xi and Hur.
I was proud enough of coming up with the line that I shared it in the family group email, and my Trumpian flat-earth anti-vaxx election-denying brother is outraged.
RWNJ gonna RWNJ, I guess. Sorry that ignorant reviewer knocked your book’s overall rating down to 4.5 stars, though.
Barbara
@Sure Lurkalot: I recently sold my 2009 Prius. I don’t remember it being exceptionally hard to figure out, but I think all new cars are harder to figure out because they have adopted different modes of electronic keyed entry and similar features. Every time I drive my daughter’s car I have to remember that it doesn’t lock itself when you leave, and you have to turn it off using a particular sequence of steps. Once you figure it out it’s fine — but I still remember sitting there and thinking more than once, why is it beeping at me? What did I do wrong?
Scout211
@SFAW:
So you’re rooting for the Niners, then, since Purdy is a Cyclone? 😉
Usually Hawkeye sports teams are meh in the national arena, nothing to cheer about, really. But the recent success of the women’s basketball team and Caitlin Clark’s breaking of the women’s scoring record any day now is something to cheer about. 😊
Another Scott
Speaking (downstairs) of sewing machines… (My mom had a Singer; my J has a Husqvarna.) NotebookCheck.net:
Interesting. And it makes sense – companies with experience with small, powerful, motors should always be looking for new markets.
Cheers,
Scott.
TerryC
We have 3,000 miles on a 2024 Chevy Trax, the lowest-priced car in the Chevy lineup, and it’s a really nifty car. We can fit both of us, three grandkids and the Texas Heeler in quite nicely. I do not care for all of the electronics*, sigh, but it’s nice to have a mobile hotspot handy all the time. *I do like the safety and warning features, a lot.
Yesterday while driving I noticed that the screen was filled with a whole long paragraph of single-spaced letters, just too small to read with my driving glasses on. So I pulled over and read … a long warning about how I should not let the screen distract me from driving. Seriously.
TrainedWreck
@Princess: same!!! 😍🤩😂
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Woke vs. Volk. Perfect.
@stinger: Caitlyn Flanagan of The Atlantic (and affiliated with Bari Weiss, too) had a problem with a nonbinary Paw Patrol character, apparently in a spinoff show. Which is the first any of us without small kids have heard of that, no?
Anyway, David Roth’s Defector article on that tiniest tempest in a puppy sized teacup had several memorable lines:
He begins with:
Later, Caitlyn Flanagan’s tweet, which Roth addresses in his article:
David Roth again:
I am on Team Woke Cartoon Beagle.
lowtechcyclist
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks, that’s all too clear.
Dear goddamn stupid media: STOP NORMALIZING THIS FUCKER
They make a big hullabaloo over every tiny thing a Dem does, yet when a Republican says majorly dangerous stuff like this, they don’t notice anymore. “Oh, Trump’s always saying crazy things.” Well, that’s a problem, given that he means them too.
TrainedWreck
@Princess: me also too!!!
😍🤩😂
Nukular Biskits
@OzarkHillbilly:
I know I’ve mentioned this to the point of ad nauseum here, but I love my 2002 F150 with 340K miles on it. Even now, it’ll pass anything … but a gas station <rimshot>.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: There is a reason I still have a flip phone.
Barbara
@lowtechcyclist: In fairness, the Washington Post did not normalize this.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Good.
eclare
@Scout211:
Caitlin Clark is hella impressive.
Ramalama
@Another Scott: Very keen to know how well that Kia handles in snow and big cold. All kinds of weekend fools come up to my village to their 2nd or 3rd vacation homes, in their Teslas. A friend of mine who manages some of these homes/people say the Teslas are always requiring math : will the car make it up from Montreal in -20C weather on x amount of charge remaining? She (my friend) figured it would barely make it on a cold day to Vermont, a few hours from us.
Also, I rode in the backseat of a Tesla to and from the airport. HATED it. What a fcking joke the back seat was for such a pricey car. And it felt like we were going to get blown off the highway.
That’s why we talk up hybrids in our on-going discussions for what our ideal next cars will be. Please keep posting what your experience is with your new car.
eclare
@TerryC:
Hahaha…
lowtechcyclist
@MattF:
If he saying exactly what he means, I WANT TO SEE EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID.
Now that I’ve seen it, I’m good. But before I tell someone about the crap Trump is spewing out now, I want to make sure he actually said the things someone implied he said.
In this case, yes he did.
Chris T.
@TerryC:
WARNING: do not read this warning
karen marie
@zhena gogolia: I saw a brief thing that said advertisers were making an effort to be noncontroversial to avoid blowback. It was left unspecified who they’re concerned about but it’s not a secret.
Also, too, in re Trump inviting Russia to invade NATO countries Trump doesn’t think contribute enough – omfg.
eclare
@Nukular Biskits:
Hahaha…that is how I feel about my car, but it is a 2018. It has an amazing backup camera, and I have a curved driveway. I have hit the porch before, nuff said.
caringandsensitive
@Another Scott: Download a pdf manual and Ctrl F for rear view mirror
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I agree. Sad to say, there is a good bit of hyperbole and plain deception on our side of social media too. Seems small when compared to the right, but it’s not nothing.
Princess
@Anne Laurie: yes, the attack on Dorothy’s book has Moms for Liberty all over it. It’s chilling tbh.
Baud
@karen marie:
Not sure about the Super bowl ads, but I’ve been seeing a tourism ad for Tampa Bay that pretty clearly includes a gay male couple.
Jeffg166
@Suzanne: I wonder if Travis will get her to marry her. She doesn’t seem like she particularly wants to be married. Maybe he doesn’t want to marry her and they will go on until they don’t.
Should they tie the knot having a wife who is a billionaire would be OK as a retirement plan.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Chris T.: this sheaf of paper brought to you by the Paperwork Reduction Act.
sab
@Bupalos: So true on wokeness. She’s from small town Pennsylvania and Nashville. He’s from an east side Cleveland suburb.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
Rick Wilson: “Stop trying to put the paddles on the chest of this zombie party.”
Wish we could drive a stake through its heart.
Nukular Biskits
@sab:
Reminds me of a meme:
Chris T.
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Also reminds me of one of my favorite tricks, which is to have an Errata page that says:
ERRATA: p. <whatever>, “errata” should read “erratum”
lowtechcyclist
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’m gonna be stealing that one! And adding Vlad.
Manyakitty
@zhena gogolia: of course not. They’re probably thrilled about it and want to make sure it happens because Biden is old and Harris is a brown woman. /s
trollhattan
Broadcast camera count 2X normal due to the sheer number assigned to the Chiefs’ owner’s box.
Will the new 4k teevee coax me into watching an edition I do not care about? Experts disagree, 60 and sunny here today.
eclare
@sab:
I live in TN, Nashville is very “woke,” whatever that means, and has been for a long time.
lowtechcyclist
@TerryC:
That seems to be on all the newer cars – my wife and I have gotten used to seeing that screen every time we rent a vehicle. We’ve gotten very practiced at not letting that particular screen distracting us from driving.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I get that screen, but only when I first turn on the car. Not when I’m driving.
OzarkHillbilly
@TerryC: snort
Manyakitty
@Bupalos: yum. I went to Tommy’s a few months ago and it still has the best milkshakes out there.
Another Scott
@Ramalama: 👍
Note that the Niro is front-wheel drive only. 4WD is not available on that model. Kia has other hybrids that are 4WD.
We had about 5″ of snow here in NoVA earlier in the winter, but I didn’t go out until after the roads were plowed. There was snow and ice on our block, but after that the roads were mostly clear. It was fine. I don’t think the lack of 4WD is an issue for me, but might be for others (some reviews dinged it because it was missing).
I’ve been very impressed with the electric range and hybrid mileage; even in the cold it’s more than the factory rating. But note that I always drive gently in Eco mode (it’s still much peppier than my old VW even in Eco mode). If you drive like Shirley Muldowney then your mileage will be lower. ;-) (And cold here is maybe 15F in the morning.)
HTH a little!
Cheers,
Scott.
TBone
I just got a reply text from my brother in response to several Happy Birthday! messages. He’s AT THE GAME with his wife & kid. Surprises never cease with that guy 🤣 We are rooting for opposing teams too. But it’s a fantastic photo I’ll be framing for posterity.
raven
@Another Scott: We have a Niro Hybrid as well and we really like it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Sure Lurkalot: I’m happy to know we’re not the only ones who thought they might have made a mistake in buying a new car. We wanted the safety features. I guess we’ll figure out how to do what we need to do.
@SiubhanDuinne: This person needs to get out more.
@sab: I know! But we wanted the safety features. We are old.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Depending on how quick we are in getting the car in gear, it either comes on or is still on after the car’s in motion.
It does turn itself off shortly, but still.
trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Heh. Took MIL’s Pius to work once, when she and the spouse were traveling, and the bastard stranded me in the office parking lot. Switched on, would not propel itself when beckoned. Rode home with a coworker. Next day, bicycled back and while waiting for the tow to arrive, it suddenly awoke and allowed me to guide it back to the house. Parked it and never touched the thing again.
Also didn’t like gazing at the center of the dash to determine what the car was doing or to operate invisible controls.
Not for me. Nor Teslas, based on rides I’ve had in those. Interiors designed by the LG Refrigerator Division.
My recent tech own-goal is replacing our router with a mesh system. Five days later I’m STILL adding devices. So many devices. Got dire when it and the heat pump refused to bond.
eclare
@TBone:
Wow! Where is the photo?
Plus it’s like 8:15 there, already letting people in?
OzarkHillbilly
@Nukular Biskits: Yep, I had an F-100 rust bucket with a straight 6 that was just unstoppable. Blew the had gasket and I kept driving it for almost a week before I found a replacement. Even at that I drove it into the junkyard. My current truck has 250K on it. Last year we took no long trips in it and I only put 6k miles on it from Feb. thru Dec. We have at least one longish trip scheduled, may have one more before the year is up. I’d like to manage another year like last. Since I got my oil changed in late Dec, I’ve only put another 300 on it.
Scout211
Me too. But if my Accord thinks I’m distracted it shows me an image of a coffee cup on the dashboard, with a warning that the driver is distracted. (Not on the big screen, but the dashboard screen where the speedometer is).
It’s a tad bit annoying and seems a random. Or is it?
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I have complete faith that you will figure out what you need to know and ignore the rest.
My car has three different settings for the backup camera. Whatever it is on works great. I have never changed it.
Another Scott
@caringandsensitive: ;-) The information is there, it’s just not something that jumped out at me.
Kia locks up a lot of service documentation about their cars in a subscription service. VW had something similar with Bentley Publishers, but at least back then one could buy a paper service manual if one wanted. That doesn’t seem possible now with the Kia.
I’ll eventually subscribe for a month and download everything relevant and drop it.
E.g. Details on how to change the oil (part numbers, etc.)… :-/ (There’s good stuff on the web, but official info shouldn’t be so hard to get…
Cheers,
Scott.
Ramalama
@Another Scott: I realized after I hit “Publish” that I didn’t know what area of the world you live(d) in.
So ok you don’t drive in snowstorms.
I used to commute in my cute as a button front-wheel-drive Toyota Corolla betw Boston and Montreal…and experienced the car sliding down, sideways, down an icy street. A couple more times like so and I opted for a Subaru, and my drive was made much less harrowing. I counted 10 snowstorms that I drove through just after I got the Subaru, within a span of maybe 2 months. Of course, I had to get the one with the Porsche engine, so the driving is amazing on such days that the little darling will operate without costing me thousands of dollars.
Yes, AWD is a must, even though I no longer commute and am pretty much left to my own devices, home office joke, and looking out the window at the the snow fall.
Glidwrith
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The first Prius I bought, I spent 10 minutes trying to turn it on. First experience of needing to have the brake depressed in order to turn it on!
eclare
@trollhattan:
Your heat pump is internet controlled? Wow.
kindness
Hmmm. Lot to chew on here and I’m only working on my first cuppa joe.
Go Niners!
eclare
@Glidwrith:
You don’t have to depress the brake to start a car? That is standard for every car I have ever owned. Including my current 2018.
OzarkHillbilly
My wife works for the help desk for a cable company. When the cable goes down she loves the calls from people who do that.
“The cable is out and everything in the freezer is thawing out!” or “The cable is out, and the thermometer won’t turn the AC on!”
She gets to say the polite equivalent of, “Sucks to be you.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffro:
That’s a great concept for an ongoing project, though, whatever freakidity emerges from the MAGAsphere. I look forward to following it. Good for Pink, and good for the WaPo! Many thanks for linking.
Mr. Bemused Senior
More like the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
Baud
@Scout211:
The car is wired to your brain and reading you subconscious.
TBone
@eclare: yes! They’re all in 49ers gear 😆 layered up with hats & cheap sunglasses on 😎 sitting in the stands. I’ve been razzing my brother about Taylor all year (he’s as lib progressive as we are).
“Operation Swift Kick in the ’Nads: it’s on!”
Mr. Bemused Senior
My new refrigerator has WiFi. I think it’s conspiring with the toaster.
MagdaInBlack
@lowtechcyclist: In the collision repair industry, we say those touch-screens are good for our business 😐
Another Scott
@Ramalama: Tires matter a lot. I used to get long-mileage Michelins that would practically never wear out. Until J slid off a snowy flat road one winter. The rubber had almost no grip in such conditions. :-\
Now we drive so little (maybe 8k miles a year) the tires wear out from heat and age before the wear bars appear, so “normal” all-season tires are fine. And work much better in the winter.
Happy hunting!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jinchi
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t know how long it will last, but Trump’s comment has gotten the top billing on a lot of news sites this morning.
WP: Trump says he’d disregard NATO treaty, urge Russian attacks on U.S. allies
The Guardian: Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies who pay too little
Deutsche Welle: Trump slammed over threat to ‘encourage’ attacks on NATO
Although the French rank it somewhere below Taylor and King Charles: Trump threatens to ‘encourage’ attack of NATO allies behind on payments
trollhattan
@eclare: Yup.
There’s manual one-temp for backup, but it primarily connects to wifi and I can program seven discrete days with as many temp presets as I like.
What could possibly go wrong? 🙄
All this was so new when we installed last year, the tech did not know how the software even worked.
PJ
@Jinchi: It will be forgotten by the press by Wednesday, if not sooner.
Jinchi
That won’t even be a joke in 10 years.
trollhattan
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Tell Siri to guard you from them while you sleep. Bribes might be in order.
Nukular Biskits
@OzarkHillbilly:
My significant other is a sucker for gadgets with lotsa bells/whistles. I, on the other hand, tend to hang on to something LONG after the rest of the world has moved on (thus my 2002 F150).
We currently have 2 Alexas (Alexi?), WiFi/Bluetooth fridge, Simplisafe alarm system, 5 (or 6?) “smart” TVs, at least 4 Rokus, Amazon Firestick, Apple TV gadget, Facebook Portal, … and FSM knows what other tech in this house.
I’m a firm believer in the more complicated something is, the more likely it is to break. She calls me “old”.
Chris T.
@Another Scott: Wow, so much driving. I’m up to 19000 miles after 5 years, or 3800 miles/year…
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: I saw it in the comments here last night and in the Guardian headlines this morning. I’ll try to find something.
trollhattan
@eclare: IIRC it’s an after-effect of the “sudden acceleration” Audi thing.
We had to have our VW towed home once, when it refused to start and a jump didn’t help.
While waiting for a tow to a shop the next week, did some research and in the rare “a-ha” moment checked the starter interlock switch–beneath the brake pedal. Yup, bad switch, $15 part.
Chris T.
@Nukular Biskits: As a (retired) engineer, I’m in the “engineer camp”: we got the dumbest possible thermostat, our fridge doesn’t do wifi, etc. The washer and dryer (LG models) do but we inherited them with the current house.
Jinchi
@zhena gogolia:
Just google this:
“No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay.”
It’s always good to have a reminder that Trump got his start in life shaking down poor tenants for the rent money.
StringOnAStick
@WaterGirl: Imagine the screaming of Taylor decides to be child free, permanently. I made that choice decades ago and don’t regret it. I can imagine that someone with Taylor’s cultural heft stating such a choice would make the replacement theory idiots go insane and help greatly with overpopulation!
zhena gogolia
@Jinchi: I actually knew someone (RIP) who had to go every month and give the family rent money to DJT when he was a snotnosed teenager.
Bupalos
@MattF: that line of Trump’s is designed entirely for domestic consumption, not for Putin. The wavelength a lot of the left misses here is that he’s playing Europe as leeches on the American body.
Trump’s consistent political line is “we’re being too nice and being taken advantage of by lazy looting welfare cheats.” The right political way to attack this is to show and emphasize who he is calling a lazy welfare case, and that ultimateky it applies to almost everyone.
We’re doing a bad job meeting this challenge because we’re getting hung up on identity. We’re allowing trump to come off as merely racist or merely a putin stooge, neither of which will really offend the body politic in the United States.
PJ
@zhena gogolia: “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?,’” Trump said during a rally at Coastal Carolina University. “I said, ‘You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent.’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”
https://wapo.st/49bFK5O (gift article)
Now the fact that Trump included “sir” in his recounting of this event indicates that this discussion did not happen, or at least did not happen in this form, but the quote is a pretty clear indication that Trump would encourage Russia to attack our allies if they did not do what he wanted (i.e., pay him directly.)
Ramalama
@Another Scott: Oh yeah, I use Michelin .. ice tires I think. Winter tires on all vehicles are the law in Quebec. Cops will actually hair dryer all cars coming down some ramp or other off the highway to make sure we’ve all got them. Small village cops will also set up roadblocks to check for the locals who stay close.
I slid despite the winter tires – down a long exit due to black ice. And front wheel drive.
I do not slide like that ever in my Subaru. I live in the mountains. And my house requires going up two different level 7 hills (if you’re on a treadmill and want a wee challenge) after exiting off the highway.
Fun!
Nukular Biskits
@Chris T.:
Setting aside the “my fridge won’t work because the internet is down!), most modern appliances, from washers to fridges, have all kinds of electronics in them to the point they simply will not operate if something goes wrong.
Couple that with “dirty power” (unless you have whole-house power conditioning) and it’s only a matter of time before something breaks.
I can’t tell you the number of times I had to replace the control board for, say, a dishwasher or a dryer because something died on the board. And most modern electronics are not consumer-repairable due to the extreme scale of circuit integration. Gone are the days where I could unsolder a failed component and solder a new one in (well, that and I can’t see the damned things anymore without 3X reading glasses and the light of a supernova).
zhena gogolia
@PJ: Thanks.
Jinchi
@StringOnAStick:
I thought this lyric was funny: Taylor dreams of the murderous wife of a son who doesn’t exist.
Maybe she doesn’t think she should have kids, either.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … Phys.org:
Good, good.
This is the promise of the WWW being fulfilled.
More, please.
(See the original for embedded links.)
Cheers,
Scott.
chrome agnomen
@Baud:
agreed. what’s annoying to me is the sensationalist nature of the headlines over a nothing burger of a story.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: The awesome thing about These Days, however, is that more and more often, the men espousing this Women’s True Purpose is to Be Breeders shit are less and less likely to be picked as breeders themselves.
So…Yay? Or at least, yay-ish?
zhena gogolia
@chrome agnomen: I don’t think it’s a “nothing burger” when a former and prospective President of the US aligns himself with Russia against NATO.
Baud
@chrome agnomen:
Which story?
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
With so much software and technology built into new cars, I wonder if we are seeing some of the “right to repair” hurdles that farmers had to deal with with respect to tractors and other equipment.
It should not be difficult to get this material.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: No. Next question.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: As I said in another post on the subject, in a proper world the Utah State BOE would be taking steps to kick her off the Board.
At least she’s starting to feel some pressure from the state’s top higher-ups. That’s gotta hurt, at least a little.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: Change its name to *what*, tho? Does Trumpoid ever say? (No, I’m not going to look myself.)
Glidwrith
@eclare: The car it was replacing was a 1993 Ford Escort. Minimal safety features.
Alison Rose
Fuck yeah, Joe. Love this.
Baud
@Alison Rose:
👍
MagdaInBlack
@Brachiator: Repairing these cars now requires re-calibrating all sensors involved in the repair. This adds quite a bit to the repair bill. My parent company purchased a smaller company that does nothing but calibrations for all our shops. So far no right to repair on this stuff, but some calibrations do have to go to the dealership, usually if it’s a high-end vehicle.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Agreed.
But a counterpoint is that the information online should always be updated if there are recalls, “service bulletins”, software updates, and the like. And it saves trees, and having to have updated software locks on DVDs, too.
And they want people to take their cars to the dealer for service, also too.
So, I can see the reason why they’re going this route. It’s just a little annoying the first time one encounters it.
The prices aren’t horrible for 72 hours access (1 page .pdf) – and I think that includes all their models. (I think I paid $100 for the printed manual for my 2004 VW Jetta back in 2003.)
[ /get off my lawn ]
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
eclare
@TBone:
Hahaha!
eclare
@Another Scott:
Let me get on my soapbox, tires are the most important part of the car. It is the only part that touches the road.
This lecture has now ended.
Miss Bianca
@Jeffro: Holy Shit. Even for Rick Wilson that’s some pretty heady invective.
But who’s listening to him? I mean that seriously, in that I don’t know how big an audience there is for a newly-Woke ex-GOP shitweasel operative. I mean, *I* enjoy the spectacle of his turning his firehose of piss into the Republican tent for a change, but I don’t need to be convinced to vote for Democrats.
mrmoshpotato
Reading through some comments, all I have to say is
They’re coming to get you, Barbra!
Look, there comes one of the toaster ovens now!
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro: Rick sounds might proud of the party he built.
eclare
@Jinchi:
She’s looking up at me from hell.
The best line.
chrome agnomen
@Baud: any number of stories I read on, say, the guardian or C&L or other sites, that promise a big revelation, but turn out to be rehashed humdrum typical right wing antics. no story in particular, but something frequently seen. headline writers don’t really have to exaggerate right wing foolishness. we already know they’re insane to some degree.
Miss Bianca
@Nukular Biskits: Read this assessment aloud to resident programmer Pal D and he nodded and generally agreed with it, merely adding that “immediately stripping the printer down for parts” was also an acceptable option.
mrmoshpotato
@Alison Rose: I would like to see Dump get slapped in the face (by someone wearing a hazmat suit.)
Sure Lurkalot
@eclare:
You don’t have to depress the brake to start a car? That is standard for every car I have ever owned. Including my current 2018.
My 2011 Subaru has A KEY that you turn to start the car like in the before times. It has been a good car with very little expense, only 53K miles. No screen, no advanced safety features. But I think I should buy a new car soon so I can learn how to use it before I get (too) old. My sis has a 2022 Subaru and STILL CAN’T figure out how to use navigation or how to connect her Iphone. I don’t want that to be me (though I am the computer geek in my home).
Mr. Bemused Senior
On a good day.
John S.
@PJ:
Trump and his fucking “sir” bullshit. Nobody else except the MAGA rubes believes for a second that any world leader called him “sir”.
For the rest of us, it’s an immediate indication that he is lying.
lowtechcyclist
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
My clothes washer and dryer play a cheerful little tune when they’re done. (Turns out it’s from Schubert’s Trout Quintet.) Always makes me think of the Sirius Cybernetics Corp.
Peke Daddy
@catclub: Kellen Winslow. Antonio Gates.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist: Our Japanese rice cooker plays “Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star” beginning a batch and what we’ve coined “Happy Rice-Done Song” when it’s finished. Could be a Japanese nursery song for all we know.
It is not connected to our network to our knowledge. Just know I cannot match the rice using the stovetop.
citizen dave
@Another Scott: This is awesome–the Darwin library news–thanks! Source of new rabbit holes. Whatever happened to that Google project to scan all the books, I wonder?
Re: The newest “Sir” story from Orange Man. I read context last night–it’s not like there is a bill that a NATO nation has to pay someone else (I’m sure in trump’s mind it’s owed to the U.S. Everything the guy thinks revolves around money, bills, who owes who, etc. Such a dumbass). Some nations may not be meeting the 2% pledge I guess. In trump’s policy, that means Putin has free rein to attack/invade such nations.
This is from the NATO website:
The Defence Investment Pledge endorsed in 2014 called for Allies to meet the 2% of GDP guideline for defence spending and the 20% of annual defence expenditure guideline on major new equipment by 2024. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a majority of Allies have committed to investing more, and more quickly, in defence.
At the 2023 Vilnius Summit, NATO Leaders agreed a new Defence Investment Pledge, making an enduring commitment to investing at least 2% of (GDP annually on defence. They also affirmed that in many cases, expenditure beyond 2% of GDP will be needed in order to remedy existing shortfalls and meet the requirements across all domains arising from a more contested security order. The new Defence Investment Pledge also calls for Allies to meet the 20% of annual defence expenditure guideline on major new equipment, including research and development.
lowtechcyclist
@eclare:
With my 2016 Honda Civic manual transmission, you need to depress the clutch pedal to get it to start, even if it’s not in any gear. It’s something I automatically do if I’m getting in the car to drive it somewhere, so it’s rarely an issue.
But on those rare occasions when I’m turning the motor on for some other reason, I’m usually flummoxed for a few minutes.
In fact, the only reason I remember now is that this just happened to me last week. I was going to turn the car on in order to power my tire-inflating gizmo. Not in gear? Check. Had my foot on the brake pedal, just in case? Check. Turn the key in the ignition? Nothing.
Went inside and did some other stuff while I debated whether to call AAA, thinking, “either I’ve got a dead battery, or there’s one stupid thing I’m forgetting to do.” So I went back out and tried again, and this time I just happened to push on the clutch pedal, and it started right up.
Will I remember this a year from now? Maybe yes, maybe no.
Leto
@Ramalama: might be late to this, but we bought a 2023 Honda Accord hybrid as my main vehicle last year. Doesn’t need to be plugged in, has a good number of bells and whistles. Avg about 43 mpg atm. I mostly do short trips where I maximize battery usage. Front seats very comfortable. Our 6ft tall kid reports back seats are also very comfortable. No intricate start up procedures (press brake, push start button); standard center console shifter. Uhm… good safety features (lane departure, rear view camera, adaptive cruise control, blind spot warning), large trunk space… just another really solid Honda that will last us another 15 years.
Baud
@citizen dave:
Google Books has a lot of scanned books in it.
Miss Bianca
@lowtechcyclist: You found a *2016* model Civic with a manual transmission??
Ooh…I had a little 2005 Honda Civic hybrid with a manual transmission and I mourn that car’s passing every winter since 2012, when it met its demise on a patch of black ice between Crested Butte and Gunnison.
I thought they had stopped making manual transmissions on any Honda for US domestic consumption after about 2006 or so.
Leto
@trollhattan: zojirushi rice cookers. The amount of technology that goes into them… just amazing devices. We love ours. Want to see how they’re made? Here you go.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
I don’t mind having a PDF instead of a physical manual. But you’d think you could type in your VIN and get it for free.
Manyakitty
@Miss Bianca: no, they’re still available, at least for the Civic and the Accord (I think).
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
It should be relatively easy to update information and make it available, especially as PDF files.
But of course, this now means that car buyers must have a phone or computer if they want this information.
But this information should also be easily and readily available to used car buyers and to private party buyers.
But people want to take their cars to their own auto mechanics. Others want to be DIY (Do It Yourself) mechanics.
Eons ago, I took my car to this unassuming guy in Culver City who was a master auto mechanic. In a corner of his shop, he has a PC precariously balanced on a chair. He was one of the first non-dealer auto mechanics I knew who had automotive manuals downloaded onto his computer. Not many physical manuals anywhere in his shop.
I think these level of prices are ridiculous, but I know that ship has sailed long ago.
trollhattan
@Leto:
You got it in one–a Zojirushi. Love it to death.
lowtechcyclist
@Miss Bianca:
They apparently were still selling them in the U.S. as of 2016. It wasn’t easy to track one down, but I managed. It’s such a sweet little car, it was worth the effort.
Pulled that up on the map, that looks like an interesting drive on a good day. I’ll have to check out that part of Colorado someday if I get the chance.
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
Don’t pretty much all public libraries these days have computers that people can use? Worst case is you’d have to pay to print out the pages you needed.
La Nonna
@Ramalama: Bought new hybrid FIAT Panda in rural Puglia, taking advantage of Italian incentives to get old cars off the road, 50% of all cars in Italy are over 10 years old. With trade-in on ourb16 year old FIAT Punto, 13,000 euros, warranties,,etc…. a really good deal. Drives like a dream, manual transmission, 6 speeds, comfy and quiet.
Sister Golden Bear
@zhena gogolia:
<Narrator voice> No, of course not. Because Biden is oooooold.
patrick II
If Taylor’s flight is a few minutes late, will they hold back the kickoff?
Sister Golden Bear
@Baud:
Slightly different, but part of the Republican strategy of flooding the zone with
shitanti-trans laws is forcing us to spend so much time/energy playing defense, that we can’t play offense against them, let alone advocating for expanding trans people’s rights.It’s the same for their attacks on other groups as well.
Sister Golden Bear
@patrick II: Swift already landed in LA yesterday afternoon (thanks International Date Line). Not sure if she continued on to Vegas, but it’s only a 45 minute flight from LA, so she’s probably already tailgating.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Thing is, they don’t see other people as people, only NPC (non-player characters).
Not just their targets but everyone in general. It’s not quite the same, but I’m reminded of the Libertarian who took Ecstasy at a rave, and realized for the first time in his life that other people had feelings too.
trollhattan
@patrick II:
She needs to parachute in, to the 50 yard line, with the Official Superb Owl Coin for the coin toss.
Or is that an indoor park? Never paid attention.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist:
My last car shopping (’16) I drove Mini Cooper and VW GTI 6-speeds. And remembered how to shift!
Guessing in the States manuals comprise 0.1% or less of cars sold. That ship has sailed.
Elizabelle
The FTF FFNYTimes opened the imperial Peter Baker’s “analysis” about Trump’s NATO screed ….
And the top reader comments are assailing the Times for all the emphasis on Biden’s age, when Trump is the real threat. They are as sick of it as we are.
This is why their assinine newish editor, Joe Kahn, so frequently does away with stories with reader comments. Because the readers don’t have their heads up their asses, and they will call “our paper of record” [gag] out.
Ramalama
@Leto: Ohh! Love this. The Honda dealer near us has a great reputation vs the Subaru dealer which employs only big bags of dicks. But does your Accord have AWD or 4-wheel drive?
Ramalama
@La Nonna: The Panda looks really cute. I love manual transmissions but my wife will grind down the gears to nubs within a year.
I looked up Puglia, just to see whether it was mountainous like my place, but GAH! A gorgeous sea backdrop is all I saw in the photos. I’d definitely go for a Panda where you live!
citizen dave
@Baud: thanks!
PBK
@Ramalama: Can you please explain the hair dryer thing? Can’t figure it out and I’ve been winter driving for 30+ years! Comment #222.
frosty
@trollhattan: I’ve got a 2014 Mazda3 hatchback with 6 speed manual. When I talked to the dealer he said “You know this is a stick shift, right?” I said yeah, I wouldn’t be buying it if it wasn’t.
Here’s Car and Driver’s list.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g20734564/manual-transmission-cars/
Ramalama
@PBK: Oh! It’s the device police use to check peoples’ speeds. But also – in the case of Quebec – the make of peoples’ tires. Those devices look like hair dryers!
What do the police call them?
NotMax
@Ramalama
Cash cows.
:)
Another Scott
@PBK: I couldn’t figure it out either.
But I think this is it:
Winter tires need a minimum tread depth (should be 6/32″). They must have a pictogram on the sidewall. They take out a hair drier to melt the snow in the tire grooves before making the measurement and check the sidewall?
That’s my guess anyway. Corrections welcome.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ramalama
@Another Scott: Yeah !
When I made my commute from Montreal through Vermont, through New Hampshire, to Boston, it was very common to see cars and trucks stuck in the middle parts of the highway. They slid or crashed and had to wait to get towed out.
Less so in Quebecistan. The winter tires make a ton of difference.
Also, I never saw a Subaru in the mess of cars stuck on the highways during or just after a snow storm. Unfortunately for me I didn’t think to check what the dealership was like for Subarus. But whatever, when it comes time to finally say goodbye to my Subaru it will be HELLO GORGEOUS to some other make and model of car. I hate Subaru dealer / mechanics in my area
PS the Subaru people up on the North shore of Massachusetts (Danvers, I think) are the gold standard. So awesome. Anyway, not helpful for me.
PBK
@Ramalama:
@Another Scott:
Thank you! I did think it was some kind of heating device 🤣
Down here in Maine/NY I’ve only ever heard it referred to as a speed gun.
Manyakitty
@Ramalama: I know a few people who love Subarus but refuse to buy them because of the horrendous service. That was also my experience with Mazda. No idea what I’ll get next, but it won’t be either of those marques.
Leto
@Ramalama: I’m sorry, was out doing things and just now retuned: it’s a FWD vehicle, though I know they come in AWD.