Sorry, no way I am going back to Samsung. I had the A71 and it was a TERRIBLE smart phone. I switched to the Pixel 6 and it was night and day.

I just need to get off my ass and install Graphene.

This has absolutely nothing to do with national security and everything to do with billionaires who stand to make even more money off the oil industry.

Yes this is an example of capitalism and not free market.

It is why the system needs to be burned the fuck down.

Of course!

This reminded me of a story that happened when I was still in the Navy.

I was stationed in San Diego and I had a friend who had gotten out and became a sheriff’s deputy, in a nearby city, and he offered to let me do a ride along with him for a the day.

There were a couple of things that happened that changed my opinion of him and cops in general (I am 99% ACAB now though).

Towards the end of the day, someone made a call that someone was smoking meth in a motel room. My friend was called in to assist the cop already there.

We got there and he had me stand back until he waved me in a few minutes later.

I walked up and the OP cop had, what looked like, two skater types sitting on the curb just outside their motel room. Still teenagers.

My friend said he needed me to help toss the room, looking for drugs while the other cop questioned them.

Going into the room, my friend asked the kids to do him a favor and just tell him where the drugs were. They told him it was behind one of the nightstand drawers.

Sure enough it was there (sandwich bag of pot), but my friend said we still needed to search, just in case there really was meth, or something else illegal.

While we searched, I could hear the cop question the kids. They were from a town over and just got paid. They both lived at home and just needed a place to smoke.

In the room was a new skate board deck, some Sonic, and an Xbox with some games. No meth. They were begging for them not to call their parents and I just thought these kids were fucked.

We finished searching and came out, my friend gave the pot to the other cop.

This part is what blew my mind.

My friend looks at the kids and says, “Let me guess. You were both smoking and some guy smelled the pot, knocked on your door and asked to have some and you told him to fuck off?”

At no point did the kids say anything about someone knocking on their door.

The kids looked flabbergasted and stammered, “How did you know?”, to which my friend said that was who probably called in, saying someone was smoking meth.

They then took the handcuffs off and my friend then says, “Next time, don’t answer the door.”

The other cop then GIVES THEM THE POT BACK, and we all walk away.

I was sure those poor kids were fucked and I said as much. My friend then said, "I don’t give a shit about pot. Kids don’t break into Grandma’s house and rob her so they can get money to buy pot.

And this article is 10 years old. It has gotten so much worse.

I can say the opposite. I have had craft, in the field, make design choices without engaging the engineer, and now the client is angry because shit isn’t working right, because someone made a command decision in a silo.

Drawings are never perfect. Most of the time, engineers are working off client provided drawings that aren’t very accurate, so the assumptions are bad when the shovel hits the ground.

That is neither the craft, nor the engineer’s fault.

I am an EE and I can’t magically know that the last guy to hang an antenna put it 10’ higher than he was supposed to and the client doesn’t want to pay for a site visit.

So now my tower climber is pissed because he has to make multiple climbs, take photos and then wait with his thumb up his butt, while I am trying to get the client to agree to a plan, and he is going to blame me.

Now I am a Construction Manager, and I get pissed at the engineer when he provides drawings that don’t give even half the info I need.

I’ll buy the material, no problem, but you need to give me a fucking BoM because I don’t know what your design criteria is and I am not going to guess.

I’m sure as hell not going to let my craft buy whatever coax connection is available, and fits, to connect a feedline.

They don’t know what actually goes into that.

Likewise, an engineer can’t tell if an existing conduit has enough room to snake a new cable because the cable schedule isn’t always accurate. But then my craft doesn’t know how to calculate conduit fill b because they don’t know the types/level of voltages in the existing lines.

I have also NEVER known an electrician who, when first laying eyes on a job, not complain about the terrible work performed by the previous electrician.

Working brownfields is always going to be a pain and everyone loves to bitch when the job ends up being harder than it should have been.

I will say this. I love being a construction manager 100 times more than being an engineer, but having that background is fucking invaluable because I can spot problems from further away and can usually resolve them quickly.

They are required to have a minimum of three years of design experience and have to pass a PE exam before they are allowed to verify their own designs.

Up until that point, all of their designs are required to be sealed by another PE.

Beth makes the best stories.

As my child would say, “Gyatt!”

I’m of two minds on this.

1. WTF, Trump. Was the genocide in Gaza meant to antagonize Iran into a war from day one. But when they didn’t, Israel attacked anyway and then rhenU.S. was like, fuck it lets go?

2. Don’t give a shit about Iran. They are no better than Israel or the U.S.

A pox on both… on all three of their houses. Make it 5, fuck Russia and China too.

It blows me away how fucking easily my fellow countrymen are led by their god damned nose.

Closet fucking fascists, all of them, and too stupid to recognize simple fucking fallacies.

My life sucks, ooh it must be because an illegal committed a crime. Even though immigrants have a lower crime rate than our ever present white trash.

Not really worried about any Tumu carriers.

The patterns are so similar that it is kind of pointless to try and identify. All the damn different gopher snakes too.

Every freaking snake that isn’t a black snake, in Texas, seems to look like this.

Just treat them all as venomous, leave them alone, and go about your day.

President Trump took extraordinary action on Saturday by calling up 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protests in California, making rare use of federal powers and bypassing the authority of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

It is the first time since 1965 that a president has activated a state’s National Guard force without a request from that state’s governor, according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent law and policy organization. The last time was when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators in 1965, she said.

Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, immediately rebuked the president’s action. “That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions,” Mr. Newsom said, adding that “this is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.”

Governors almost always control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states. But the directive signed by Mr. Trump cites “10 U.S.C. 12406,” referring to a specific provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services. Part of that provision allows the federal deployment of National Guard forces if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

It also states that the president may call into federal service “members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.”

Mr. Trump’s directive said, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Saturday night that Mr. Trump was deploying the National Guard in response to “violent mobs” that she said had attacked federal law enforcement and immigration agents. The 2,000 troops would “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester,” she said.

Although some demonstrations have been unruly, local authorities in Los Angeles County did not indicate during the day that they needed federal assistance.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X late on Saturday that the Pentagon was “mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY.” But he did not say when or where the troops would assemble, or identify their units.

Mr. Trump’s directive authorized the secretary of defense to “employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary to augment and support the protection of Federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion.” In Mr. Hegseth’s post on X, he said that active duty Marines were “on high alert” at Camp Pendleton, about 100 miles south of Los Angeles, and could also be mobilized.

Protests have occurred on Friday and Saturday in California to oppose federal immigration raids on workplaces. The latest is unfolding at a Home Depot in Paramount, Calif., about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

California Democrats have braced for months for the possibility that President Trump would seek to deploy U.S. troops on American soil in this way, particularly in Democratic-run jurisdictions. Privately, they have acknowledged that such a move, absent the state’s agreement, would have profound implications.

Mr. Trump suggested deploying U.S. forces in the same manner during his first term to suppress outbreaks of violence during the nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He opted against doing so at the time, but he has repeatedly raised the idea of using troops to secure border states.

In 2020, in the final days of Mr. Trump’s first presidential term, military helicopters were used to rout peaceful protesters demonstrating against police violence near the White House.

“For the federal government to take over the California National Guard, without the request of the governor, to put down protests is truly chilling,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “It is using the military domestically to stop dissent.”

The National Guard was last federalized in 1992, Ms. Goitein said, when President George H.W. Bush sent troops to Los Angeles to control riots after police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. That deployment was requested by the California’s governor at the time, Pete Wilson.

Mr. Trump and his aides have often lamented that not enough was done by Minnesota’s governor to quell protests that followed the death of Mr. Floyd in 2020.

During a campaign rally in 2023, Trump made clear he was not going to hold back in a second term. “You’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I’m not waiting,” Mr. Trump said.

RTO is now just a tactic to force people to quit.

There is a scene with implied sex, when Ilsa goes back to try and convince Rick to give her the letters of transit.

Fun fact: USN Aircraft Carriers have their own ICAO code.

Space X is almost the only real reliable player for satellite delivery.

They’ll be fine.

I love the Musk/Trump bitch fight though.

Right