This is an inspired bit.

To be fair, the thru line of all the movies was that Kirk was shit at 'Major Command', and Starfleet didn't even seem to have an 'up or out' that would have forced his Post Captain promotion.

One thing that had not quite occurred to me until looking up some Olympic trivia is that Russia has not 'officially' participated in a winter Olympics since they hosted. (and each iteration the 'ban' has had fewer scare quotes)

LEONID BREZHNEV!

The Gen X urge to shout "Leonard Bernstein!"

The Pitt season 2 finally hit their stride that they achieved in the first couple of episodes of the first season.

I do always say the best thing I ever did for my military career was be born in the United States in the early 1970s.

One thing I don't know how the army works, are their Warrant officers typically already retirement eligible? The typical Navy Chief Warrant is on the bubble, getting selected at around their 15 year mark, and staying in until they hit the mid-20s.

if the bidders can't coordinate the provably optimal strategy is to bid your true breakeven price and either be very happy that you get a free bonus or be sadly satisfied that everyone else wanted it more. it's a well-designed and well-studied auction variety!

This game theoretical structure works when auction participants cannot coordinate their bids. The army works when every soldier coordinates their work toward a common standard and shared goal.

This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, and I'm actually a fan of the free market.

Update: they changed the magazine.

The vowels know what they did. 👀

The Mainline Boulevard Glacier is a remarkable sight. (And I missed it last week where I imagine it was even more substantial)

Today I learned the nation of India has a entire state whose population consists of ridiculously good looking catalogue models.

The new "sir, the question was, is this your handwriting"

I mean, to be fair, John Tesh never put in lyrics to root for the home team the way the baseball folks made sure to do.

250th themed dinner (approx)

I tend to be against 'election dooming' because it mostly comes down to scale, capacity, & the apparent (+welcome) unwillingness to do anything in 2025...

I don't think they can save the House for themselves, that's gonna get decided in the suburban sprawl and far-flung rural races where they're napping. The purplish statewide races inevitably decided by 1% or less are what I worry about. And Texas is a perfect storm of GOP vulnerability & corruption.

I don't think ICE is gonna do nationwide voter suppression at the scale some fear but today's news re: Colbert should make everyone prepared that they're gonna fuck with TX-SEN. Potentially the make or break race, they'll be able to target key blue cities, Paxton & DPS will be willing accomplices.

"We have Dunk and Egg at home"

A lot of people are shitting on Obama for saying the true statements that nothing elicits a reactionary feeling from the broad middle class, middle of the political spectrum like visible homeless people. Possibly more than race or gender. And you can call those people moral monsters...

Luge Hadron Collider

it seems like luge and skeleton are part of the same symmetric group of sport particles, but we need to build a $100 billion luge collider to find out for sure

It's important to remember that Steve Bannon worked for the Trump 1 admin for its first 8 months, where he accomplished two things. 1) jack & 2) shit. And then got arrested by the post office at sea when Trump was still president.

“The huge sewage spill should really be getting more attention” monkey’s paw dot gif

This evening’s eye level sunset blast facing west down Wilson Blvd was far more blinding and impressively large than this photo from inside the car captured. I know it’s a perspective trick that makes the sun orb appear huge on the horizon, but the intensity blew out the pic anyway.

Heard someone refer to a (large) datacenter as an "ohio-class datacenter" and now I only want to hear datacenter sizes referred to by reference to submarine classes

What if we have the luge track pass through the short-track speedskating track so competitors all have to avoid other competitors in multiple different sports. Maybe we get biathlon involved too

given the existence of skeleton and luge, i postulate the existence of two other, yet to be discovered, winter olympic sports

But they were all of them deceived, for Sauron, in his cunning, fashioned a crap-ton of rings in various sizes.

"Data, can you tell if that vessel has any life support systems?" "I do not believe that is a question that we can answer, sir." #MST3K

Because I see it's a topic of discussion today, it's worth noting that the root cause of almost every single rapid increase in price in common grocery items we talk about is either severe drought (recently: beef, coffee, olive oil, citrus, sugar, wine) or disease (recently: eggs, poultry, dairy).

God bless the Dutch for this

I split the difference in that I don't keep a food budget, but do look out for grocery store prices and will tend to steer my home menu towards stuff 'on sale'. But it helps that I have the time & geographical wherewithal (and inclination) to go grocery shopping at least every other day.

It just happens that back in 2014 I made a bunch of Winter Olympic Lolcats. Let's have a look!

The entire federal government this week is "our 'do not fall for honeypot traps' is causing a lot of people to ask questions already answered by the statement 'do not fall for honeypot traps'"

I voted for the redistricting commission back when it was enacted, but I’m going to vote for the new maps this time. I hoped the commission would bring good faith & fair dealing. I didn’t count on other states abusing Virginia’s trust in its own people

Nothing says romance like an aesthetic of 1960s French New Wave on the futility of love.

It’ll forever be both a shame and telling that so many people missed the point of that SNL Black Jeopardy skit with Tom Hanks, one of the best representations of this

Sometimes the timeline is in good order

I just trash picked a huge pile of photos from the State Department so you all get Madeline Albright in a cowboy hat

Roses are red The dot is pale blue Here's a mote of dust in a sunbeam From a distance of forty AU 🧪 🔭 🌍

Did it, though?

I regret to inform you that I have gone further down the terrible rabbit hole that is Elsie the Cow. If you squint at enough eBay listings trying to read the words, you find a saga of a marriage gone mad.

Man, the rabbit hole this prompted me to fall thru.

Things almost went awry because with Bin Laden raid training data, they got distracted looking for Maduros' porn collection.