Recent Posts

1

General Discussion / Re: NASA is lying for Trump

« Last post by Obviousman on April 07, 2025, 07:31:30 PM »

Sort-of related, there's a new video from Ellie In Space which goes into detail about just how bad things were on the Starliner as they approached the ISS, certainly far worse than I understood at the time.

I saw that - very good. I was able to understand!

2

General Discussion / Re: Kids say the darnedest things...

« Last post by Peter B on April 07, 2025, 06:55:14 AM »

I was impressed that my kids, 17YOS, 14YOS and 12YOD managed to keep up an indoor game of hide-and-seek for nearly half an hour on Sunday, and I said so to them.

12YOD: It only continued that long because I'm really good at the game.

14YOS: No, it's only because I'm really bad at the game.

3

The Reality of Apollo / Re: Chandrayaan-2 views Apollo

« Last post by bknight on April 05, 2025, 12:29:26 PM »

BZ?

BZ = Bravo Zulu = Naval terminology / signal flags for "Well Done!"

Well I was a ground pounder so the term was unknown, thanks.

4

General Discussion / Re: The Trump Presidency

« Last post by raven on April 05, 2025, 02:20:30 AM »

What was your first clue?
And we got another nearly four years of this circus, even if, IF, there's a peaceful transition of power.
Given his track record (Be wary, be wary of the 6th of January, of losers and MAGA and plot. I know of no reason why Capitol treason should ever be forgot) and repeatedly stated intentions to seek a third term, I definitely would not count on it.

5

General Discussion / Re: The Trump Presidency

« Last post by Trebor on April 04, 2025, 03:25:38 PM »

Well, now we got a fun little trade war going on with you guys, eh?
That'll aboot bring down the price of eggs, fer sure, eh?
Gods, this timeline gets dumber and dumber with each day.

Well, at least most of Australia has largely escaped the worst of the new tariffs, at 10%. Australia's territory of Norfolk Island will instead cop a 29% tariff...which doesn't make a lot of sense seeing as it apparently doesn't export anything to the USA.

Making even less sense is specifically listing Heard and McDonald Islands for a 10% tariff. First, the islands are another Australian territory, so why bother listing them separately from Australia? Second, they're uninhabited...by humans anyway.

Seems they have their own internet domain ".hm". Same for the rest, looks like they just downloaded the list of TLDs and used that.
I don't think these guys have any idea what they are doing.

6

General Discussion / Re: The Trump Presidency

« Last post by JayUtah on April 04, 2025, 09:59:34 AM »

Never mind, I assume this 10 minute video explains what's going on...formula

Yes, that's what I was talking about. The interviewee James Suroweicki is the author of the Twitter thread, but the video explains it more smoothly. It does leave out the companion claim that this is the method that various LLM AIs spit out when you ask one to formulate a tariff policy. I'm not sure what if anything that proves. There's also the issue that the computation considers only trade deficits in goods, not in services. The U.S. runs a trade surplus with most countries for services.

7

General Discussion / Re: NASA is lying for Trump

« Last post by Peter B on April 04, 2025, 09:18:18 AM »

Sort-of related, there's a new video from Ellie In Space which goes into detail about just how bad things were on the Starliner as they approached the ISS, certainly far worse than I understood at the time.

8

General Discussion / Re: The Trump Presidency

« Last post by Peter B on April 04, 2025, 02:25:18 AM »

Never mind, I assume this 10 minute video explains what's going on, including decoding the scary formula...

9

General Discussion / Re: The Trump Presidency

« Last post by Peter B on April 04, 2025, 01:43:24 AM »

Somebody must have told Trump that those noises Pingu makes are penguinish for "Trump has tiny hands," or something.

There's a great Twitter thread making the rounds showing that the tariff numbers are a stupid simple formula that misunderstands several basic economics metrics.

Is there any way you can point us to it?

Anyway, this video claims that Trump's economic advisers actually have a plan, and that there is at least some vague sort of logic behind it:

(24 minutes)

10

General Discussion / Re: The Trump Presidency

« Last post by JayUtah on April 03, 2025, 08:31:11 PM »

Somebody must have told Trump that those noises Pingu makes are penguinish for "Trump has tiny hands," or something.

There's a great Twitter thread making the rounds showing that the tariff numbers are a stupid simple formula that misunderstands several basic economics metrics.