I'm hoping that soon the watches will get large enough that you can put them in your pocket and use them like a normal sized phone.
When I got a bigger phone, I dropped the fucker a bunch of times because it was too big and I didn't have the circle thing. Screen all broken still. But it does fit my pocket.
1: on a chain to your belt loop might be nice, esp if we weren't too steampunk about it.
I definitely need something that easily stays on my person and can help me locate the bigger phone part.
Anyway, before I started buying newer clothing, I think I could have fit an iPad in my pocket. Clothing is so tight these days. Time was, my trousers were big enough that I could fit both legs in the same leg hole.
It's really bizarre to me that no company wants to offer an SE competitor to try to lure people away from apple. Sony seems to be ending the XZ compact series, and everything else is ginormous.
I wish they would stop running the glass to the edge of the screen. There's a reason people put frames around glass.
My phone is a land line Moto g5. I advise sitting back and waiting for Apple to go tits up.
Male privilege means I can carry a wallet in my pants pocket instead of a purse, so I haven't ever found the idea of a mini-wallet attached to my phone attractive.
I didn't like the little lumpy things for holding the phone (PopSocket seems to be the common one), but I like this ring that you can stick your finger through. Much more secure.
Finding-phone tech: if there is something you have with you all the time, like your keys, you could get a Tile on your keychain. Then not only can your phone help you find your keys, it works the other way as well - squeeze the Tile and it'll make your phone wake up and make noise to find it.
Google Wifi is a solid product (disclaimer: I work for Google, so you might think I would say that anyway, but I really do think it's well-done). A feature Josh doesn't mention is that it's very good at keeping itself up to date, which is pretty important for what is essentially the security gateway to your home network. Also, having a client-isolated guest network is both handy for actual guests and for less-trustworthy internet-connected devices.)
Can you tell somebody that I'm not happy with the screen of the Pixel 2XL? Why does the glass go to the edge?
How do people keep track of their phones if it doesn't fit in your pockets? Are you constantly wandering off without it?
My latest phone is the first I haven't felt comfortable having in my pocket at all times, and that's to a certain extent a function of the extra bulky case I have it in to protect it. Years of carrying phones in my pocket always and general pocket paranoia means wandering off without it is not really a concern, as I can't make it outside the door without patting my pockets to check for keys, wallet and phone anyway. But when I've taken it out temporarily and am not sure where it is, I just wander around the flat saying "OK Google" until it bleeps in response. Sometimes having a microphone listening at all times is handy.
I bought Netgear's version of the Google mesh for my parents a few years back. I don't know about transformational, but it has certainly improved the wifi coverage in their large, very old house, and I feel better knowing that they're getting security patches automatically, because they certainly couldn't flash firmware themselves.
11: We're working on making one per your specs right now. It should be complete tomorrow and then we will overnight for Friday delivery. Sorry for the delay!
Can't you just take a shit on the lead designer's desk and leave it at that.
The real question is whether they can find a way to ban smart phones in the national parks.
I switched a couple years back to a two wallet system, where I have a very small wallet in my pocket with just a couple cards and cash, and a larger wallet in my shoulder bag which has stuff like insurance cards or my work ID card or subway cards for cities I don't live in. It was such a huge life improvement, because a normal big wallet and my keys don't comfortably work in the same pocket.
Finding-phone tech: if there is something you have with you all the time, like your keys, you could get a Tile on your keychain. Then not only can your phone help you find your keys, it works the other way as well - squeeze the Tile and it'll make your phone wake up and make noise to find it.
This is actually one of Jammies' less successful gifts to me, last year. I misplace my keys very easily, as well.
I didn't know it worked both ways, though. Or maybe I could put it on the wall and use it to find both keys and phone. I can 100% always find the wall.
"Less successful" means I never got around to taking it out of the box.
The PRC is rattling me seriously. Given all the phones and all the chips are made there, does it make any difference what phone I buy? I realize if any nation state seriously wants to get up into my phone it will; I'm worried about indiscriminate hoovering. (Apple isn't an option.)
I think they're going to invade regardless of which phone you buy.
This is actually one of Jammies' less successful gifts to me, last year. I misplace my keys very easily, as well.
I'm sure I've talked about this here before, but getting a big, colorful wallet/key combination doohickey (right now this one) changed my life. I could not mean that more seriously. I could probably work up tears about it if I tried. I realize that if you're invested in putting everything in pockets and don't want any adjunct bag that won't work, but it's extremely rare that I spent more than five minutes looking for my keys. Most of the time it's 2-3, if that.
(It has a pocket for my phone which is where my phone "belongs" but it's less foolproof for preventing phone loss. I've experimenting with trying to connect the phone on a long spool, but haven't found a solution that truly works yet. Also, there is so much information about me in my assemblage that every time I've left it somewhere in the city it's always come back to me with everything in tact, including all cash. Though I realize most wallets are similarly informative and you can put your phone number on your keys (I did for a while thanks to a thoughtful gift from someone I briefly dated). However, I have a theory that the more the object gives you an identity as a person, the likelier it is to come back to you. I seem like more of a whole person from the heaps of stuff in this assemblage that an empty set of keys.)
It's good that China doesn't have the pee tape, or Trump would be repeating their propaganda instead of repeating Soviet propaganda. Maybe technology will help, because if it gets easy enough to face a video, it's harder to blackmail somebody for videoed watersports.
Google Wifi is a solid product (disclaimer: I work for Google, so you might think I would say that anyway, but I really do think it's well-done).
Fact: Google engineers loves to shit on Google products. Or the premature death of good ones.
19: With respect to general PRC bellicosity: sorry, we Americans have really dropped the ball on that one. I have an irrational hope that the Apple news will lead to more sensible trade policy.
24: As someone who has found and returned multiple lost phones left in the park, it's good to have identifying info available. Android lets you set an emergency contact--it's a good idea to use it, otherwise you're hoping that the dumb schmuck who finds it can figure out who you are entirely from notifications, or that you call your own phone when they're paying attention.
Also I want to share something I figured out myself. I don't know how this works on Android, but here is how to totally block access to Facebook (or any other website) on an iPhone, even through the mobile browser: if you activate parental controls, then navigate to the "adult content" part of the controls, you can designate Facebook as an adult site. Then you genuinely can't reach the site on your phone. Obviously you can undo that, but there are many steps to doing it versus something it is easy to do automatically. Maybe this was obvious to everyone else since forever, but I literally spent years thinking there wasn't a way to fully block Facebook on your phone before this occurred to me in a flash of inspiration. I am also enjoying the Chrome extension News Feed Eradicator. It has the feature/bug of only working for Chrome, obviously. There are some nice things about being able to sometimes get to the News Feed in other browsers if you're really desperate for stimulation. Manually unfollowing everyone would be a cross-platform solution.
26.last: My phone also always comes back to me, or at least has in the last several years (over, I dunno, maybe 7-8 phone losing incidents). It's a combination of me knowing where I left it and people holding it for whoever and someone figuring it out through notifications. My phone always coming back cuts against my theory about the object giving you a discernible identity.
If you always play Pokemon Go, it's harder to leave your phone behind because you're in the habit of starting the game when you leave a building so you can log the kilometers.
Then not only can your phone help you find your keys, it works the other way as well - squeeze the Tile and it'll make your phone wake up and make noise to find it.
Ooh, I didn't realise it went both ways either. Much more interested in getting one now. I've never lost my keys, but being able to ping the phone would be good. And I suppose I could put it on a remote or something.
A friend gave me this man purse and it's great, a zippered pocket for your phone and D-rings for keys and other features.
It's really bizarre to me that no company wants to offer an SE competitor to try to lure people away from apple.
I agree. I have an SE, and for me it's the perfect size. (I had a 5 before; same size.) I'm eligible for an upgrade right now, and I'm tempted to get a faster phone. But all of the available ones (7 on up) are the big, clunky tablet phones, and I hate them.
Even if you were Prince Albert, why would you need to have an extra D-ring with you in a bag?
Ane while I'm in cranky-grandpa mode: I'm surprised there's no smart-ish phone for tweens. It's basically insane that we've decided to let a bunch of 12yo kids have smart phones, with all the attendant social-media bullying and sexting and Fortnite-ing on my lawn. In an ideal world, kids under 16 could get only a basic smart phone: texting, calls, music, maybe a camera, but no internet/social-media connectivity. So they could stay in touch with friends, and make plans, etc. But none of the other bullshit. But somehow this phone would have to be cool, and not a Jitterbug/flip-phone thing.
I guess I really am an unfrozen caveman; I had never heard of the idea of putting a doorknob (aka PopSocket) on a phone because you might drop it. Is this really a thing? My phone has a metal disc glued to the case which allows me to stick it on a magnet and thereby follow Waze/Google directions without having to hold my phone. That's all I need. How would it work with the doorknob? The "ring thing" link is blocked by my employer.
Possibly my incredulity/ignorance is all about the patriarchy, since as a guy I have a pocket to put my phone in, though I have heard more women's clothing is coming with phone-sized pockets now.
15. People in the White Mountains National Forest have more and more often been phoning the emergency folks (police, fire, etc.) as cell coverage there has expanded. Just recently a guy couldn't get a good phone connection but somehow could get to Facebook, so he posted there that he was lost. Someone who read the post phoned the rangers and he was rescued. (He was also an idiot: he started his climb at 2am, meaning 5 hours of darkness hiking at this time of year in NH.)
34: Sounds like a job for Consumer Cellular, once they've saturated the other end of the age distribution.
I bet in the future we'll have some city seeking to distinguish itself for tourists, maybe somewhere in Latin America, designate itself computer/phone-free, and block all signal.
...maybe a camera... with automatic genital recognition to block teenage sexting.
Why isn't our image gallery loading?
here is how to totally block access to Facebook (or any other website) on an iPhone
Can we figure out how to remotely do this to everyone else's phones, and so kill Facebook (with twitter next in line)?
Anyway, our son got a cell phone at twelve. It doesn't appear to have caused any problems yet, but he's got no social media accounts and dropped Fortnite after a brief period.
35 Oh, wait, hiking in the dark in the mountains is risky? Maybe we ought to have signs up or something. Illuminated signs. Hey, let's put street lights along the trails, that'll be safer still.
A phone call is better, I guess, than our stupid Southern tourists (they're always southerners, seems like) who think shooting a gun into the air is an appropriate distress signal.
i don't understand how this eliminates the need for a bag - where do you put your lipstick and pocket mirror???
You don't need a pocket mirror if you have a phone with a front-facing camera.
And you can add the lipstick with a filter if you get people to agree to look at your phone instead of your face.
I've been looking at the mesh WiFi devices, but I"m a bit worried that I'll need a bunch for my 110-y.o. house with solid brick walls (one of my goals is decent coverage in the front and back yards). The basic setup isn't a ton, but additional nodes add up fast (or at least seemed to last time I looked).
On a separate note, the combo of iPad Pro/Apple Pencil/Notes App has literally transformed how I do my job. I put them together a year ago, and the change/improvement was all but immediate. I still haven't optimized my new flow (a goal for the new year is de-papering), but it's just astonishingly better.
The combo isn't unique, but the essential piece--Notes--is one of those Apple ecosystem things that, when they work, are best-in-class. Being able to take and make notes and drawings on phone, tablet, and desktop with instantaneous availability across devices is the fruition of things we've been promised for 20+ years.
On the SE thing, I felt the same way for a long time (I held onto my 5S until the battery became all but hopeless, plus the back glass broke and started falling out in chunks), but I've been pretty happy with my 6S. I have average man-sized hands, and it doesn't usually feel too big, and it fits all my pockets. The bigger screen is nice, especially as my eyes are getting old.
Anyway, as Apple chose to neither replace the 5C nor update the SE, and as hardly else even tried to compete, it became clear to me that the market is simply too small for anyone to care about. In particular, outside the first world, nobody wants small phones. I mean, remember, Apple fought upsizing their phones for years after Samsung started selling phablets--they didn't want to make ginormous phones, but that's where the market went.
And while it seems like it would be cheap/easy to just keep producing an old phone, at some point it simply can't properly run the current operating system, and so now you're engineering a new phone with a small market and zero buzz.
Interestingly, when the Apple Watch came out, it was designed (software-wise) to be more of a phone replacement, with the idea that the phone would live in your pocket/purse and you could do a lot of its things on your wrist. In practice, that doesn't work, and their watches are now optimized for ~3 things (exercise, notifications, phone calls), but I think there was an awareness among the designers that giant phones are kind of a PITA.
Wait! did anyone see this? Now I can't find it, but somebody has introduced a mini-phone that's supposed to be a partner to your main phone. It seems to be a go-nowhere idea (the little phone crams all the interface in, so you can still get sucked into it, but it's not stand-alone), but it shows that people are aware if it.
|| Wait, Trump wants Iraq's oil *now*? |>
Maybe Bolton left his porn in Trump's DVD.
50: It's all in a shed somewhere, right? Send a few pallet jacks over.
49: There's this recent gadget, a 3" mini-Android phone that pairs with a bigger phone.
I guess I really am an unfrozen caveman; I had never heard of the idea of putting a doorknob (aka PopSocket) on a phone because you might drop it. Is this really a thing? My phone has a metal disc glued to the case which allows me to stick it on a magnet and thereby follow Waze/Google directions without having to hold my phone. That's all I need. How would it work with the doorknob?
You hold the PopSocket between your middle and ring fingers, which allows you to use the phone with your thumb without dropping it or needing your other hand. It's only really necessary for absurdly huge phones, but as others have mentioned that's basically all newer phones these days. (I don't actually use one myself, but I can see the appeal.)
It's strange that there are so many Android phones but nobody, last time I was shopping, offered anything with a traditional-iPhone screen size. Admittedly in my first few smartphone years I treasured bigger screens, but not anymore.
10
Male privilege means I can carry a wallet in my pants pocket instead of a purse, so I haven't ever found the idea of a mini-wallet attached to my phone attractive.
This reminded me of a cranky-grandpa moment of my own recently. In a Gap/Banana Republic/whatever this summer, I was looking for non-stretchy pair of jeans. I already had one stretchy pair but wanted a normal pair. A clerk told me they stock very few of those. Apparently everyone is wearing spandex. I know my khakis and slacks aren't stretchy; why jeans in particular? It feels dishonest, like the manufacturers just wanted to market to people self-conscious about expanding waistlines. Are pants sizes completely meaningless now?
Are pants sizes completely meaningless now?
Yes. Just like everything else.....
You can buy khakis that stretch now. Which helps because pants are getting tight.
Pants sizes have been a lie in men's pants for a while. Depends on the brand, but there's an inch or two of dishonesty in most waist sizes. I've even ordered pants the same size from the same brand and had different styles show up with different sizes.
59. Different colors of the same numbered style are made in different countries for some brands (Schmevis) and fit, fade, and degrade from use differently.
I'm sure I've talked about this here before, but getting a big, colorful wallet/key combination doohickey (right now this one) changed my life. I could not mean that more seriously. I could probably work up tears about it if I tried. I realize that if you're invested in putting everything in pockets and don't want any adjunct bag that won't work, but it's extremely rare that I spent more than five minutes looking for my keys. Most of the time it's 2-3, if that.
So do you use it as a purse? Or tuck it inside a larger purse when you go out? Also, when you're sitting around the house, is your phone mostly in the doohickey, and the doohickey travels with you from room to room? Or do you not keep your phone that close to you? Or?
Ane while I'm in cranky-grandpa mode: I'm surprised there's no smart-ish phone for tweens. It's basically insane that we've decided to let a bunch of 12yo kids have smart phones, with all the attendant social-media bullying and sexting and Fortnite-ing on my lawn. In an ideal world, kids under 16 could get only a basic smart phone: texting, calls, music, maybe a camera, but no internet/social-media connectivity. So they could stay in touch with friends, and make plans, etc. But none of the other bullshit. But somehow this phone would have to be cool, and not a Jitterbug/flip-phone thing.
This, for sure. Basically the old ipods would be perfect - a screen for apps, but no internet browser and no camera. I know it doesn't really matter whether my kid in particular has a camera when they're so ubiquitous, but I don't know how worried to be about the ubiquity of cameras and the permanence of horrifying recordings, and I'm anxious.
We got Hawaii a flip phone for when she's home by herself after school. It's okay, but she's doing the old-school texting where you have to triple-press the number until it gets to the right letter.
That's a good way to teach kids that life is pain.
To the OP, free and convenient implementations of xslt2.0 or 3.0 sure would be nice. Also protein-small molecule modelling, and a complete enough understanding of mesoscopic material properties to identify materials suitable for glass batteries which would then create economic incentives to basically keep the remaining fossil fuels in the ground.
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How big a misanthrope does one have to be to think less of AOC after watching that video of her dancing on a rooftop?
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Not asking for a friend, exactly, but something like 37% of the population.
66: Relevant phenomenon (leavened obvs. by racism).
66: I think misanthrope is precisely the wrong term.
Yes. The guns are always pointed at a woman when there's a choice.
ALSO! I have a cranky grandpa complaint, which I've been debating posting about, but I know post offices are generally beloved and I didn't want to upset the apple cart that much.
Basically, our post office has been staggeringly incompetent for the past couple years, and I keep using it out of loyalty but if it were any other business, I'd have sworn off it long ago. For example: the package drop-off box - just the turnstyle metal chute, open to the public 24/7 - has been broken since mid-2017. I'm not exaggerating. One of the doors has been broken for almost a year. The people there are not helpful. I almost lost my mind when an elderly worker was "helping" me through the self-service thing and moved at comically sloth-like pace, and kept pressing the wrong buttons but not noticing, and then retaining zero memory of how to find the backspace key when she did notice. I mail things, and they get returned to my house for extremely petty reasons - an envelope doesn't count as a letter if it's rigid, for example. The counter hours are pretty restricted (although not as bad as Sadtown).
All of these, I know, are the inevitable consequence of an underfunded department (or I guess the fully pre-funded-pension requirement starving them in advance). It's really extremely exasperating, though.
Are others doing normal service, still? Or is this deterioration everywhere?
And I know the rigid-letter rule is probably because there's an automated reader/wringer thing and it can't fit through those. But this is a new, nonstandard meaning of letter that it has to be flexible.
The people who do passports at the Homestead, PA, post office were efficient, friendly, and fast.
69 Would the same people say the same stupid shit if it was a video of Beto? As a matter of fact they would. It's not like misanthrope and misogynist are mutually exclusive categories.
74: They did something similar with the photo of him in his punk phase, right? That was just as stupid and counterproductive on their part but I feel like it didn't come with the same edge of contempt and panic as this AOC moment is.
74: Misanthropes for me are people that are anti-social and/or have mostly correct cynical views about human nature.
54. What I was actually wondering is how to stick a phone with a doorknob onto the magnet in my car, so I could use Waze or Google Maps. Is the doorknob glued on?
66. Politicians dancing should be confined to Inaugural Balls. (I haven't seen the AOC video, thank goodness.)
77.last. Sigh, I watched it. She's a freakin' undergrad. That's fine. No more dancing permitted until her Inaugural Ball, though.
78. Doorknob implementation fail, then.
There's a kind of pockety thing to keep scissors and needles and notes and bits that dressmakers used to wear hanging around their necks while working. Can't remember what it was called, or google for it, but it was about big-phone-sized and didn't get in the way while doing fine work.
Let me be the first to suggest "embroidery scrotum."
(He was also an idiot: he started his climb at 2am, meaning 5 hours of darkness hiking at this time of year in NH.)
Its a thing that people do, though. My cousin was the first person to climb each of NH's 4000 footers at night in the winter. There are 48 of them.
16: My Charlie Card (MBTA pass) is not in my wallet at all, but in a laminated sleeve that I hook on my messenger bag.
My wallet is a big long thing that I put in my bag, but I don't have to take it out to get on the bus.
||
I'm sure I'm disappointing Carp further with this, but here's an interesting proposal that the 14th Amendment (et seq.) can be construed to allow Congress to apportion the Senate by population. (Less radical than my "senatus delenda est", because each state would still be guaranteed at least one senator without body growing that much in total.)
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Getting that past the Senate would be an interesting task.
You probably need at least limited riots, a la 1964.
84 I saw that. Transparent nonsense.
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.
There's no way to get out of this by statute. The argument that the XIV amounts to consent to amend that section is also transparent nonsense, but, even then, you'd still have to have a constitutional amendment, which requires passage in the legislatures in 38 states. Are there 38 states that want California, Texas, Florida, and New York to dominate the Senate? Can't happen, won't happen.
The argument of necessity fails as well. The Constitution includes a clear remedy for underrepresentation in the Senate. It only takes an act of congress and votes of one state legislature to split a state. I understand that folks would rather entertain fantasies of getting their way without paying any price at all, but, again, if you don't want to do what the people of Maine did, I don't see why anyone should entertain your complaints about lack of Senate representation.
66 Amazing self own there, she looks so cool and joyful.
77.2 You should see it, it's great.
89 . . . but was kind of grumpy, which puts ol' Dave on the wrong side of the fence on this one.
The drafters of the constitution may not have thought of a whole lot of things, but one thing they were quite careful to build in was a provision to make sure the big states didn't fuck with the Senate. Executive power over foreign policy, ability to engage in defensive hostilities without a declaration -- issues of obvious import, based on real contemporaneous experience -- they were vague about. Making the Senate deal stick they spent the time and wrote the words to get it right.
They never said the placekicker couldn't be a mule.
Anyway, I thought the article was stupid.
So do you use it as a purse? Or tuck it inside a larger purse when you go out? Also, when you're sitting around the house, is your phone mostly in the doohickey, and the doohickey travels with you from room to room? Or do you not keep your phone that close to you? Or?
I tuck it inside ... well, dump it inside the backpack that it sometimes confuses people that I carry. When I'm in the house, the phone and the doohickey often get separated. I don't suggest this to solve the phone problem (it might if I could figure out a good long spool situation). What it really solves is the key/wallet problem. If that object is huge and colorful, you can always make visual contact with it. It's really the opposite of making things sleek and pared down, if that's your thing.
i don't understand how this eliminates the need for a bag - where do you put your lipstick and pocket mirror???
Wait, is this to me? A) It doesn't eliminate my need for a bag; I usually carry my laptop and gym clothes and all manner of things with me. B) I don't wear makeup on a normal day, C) a few cylindrical objects like one lipstick and one pen do fit in the middle compartment, D) as Mobes said, why carry a mirror when you have a phone?
But full marks to Wharton for deciding that if law profs think they can be economists, business school types should be equally adept at constitutional law.
56: I hate the stretchy, thin fabric jeans so much. I am an old lady, because I ordered Stetson bootcut denim online to approximate the Levi's I started wearing in the late 90's.
71: It is about 20 years ago here in the middle of nowhere, so the post offices are generally pleasant and don't have those awful self-serve machines. (They get nasty about loaning out pens or letting you use their tape, but whatever.) In DC, they rolled our three neighborhood post offices into one and installed those stupid machines, but the staff was pretty helpful and not incompetent. Yours seems to be a serious aberration.
95: Given some of the shit Wharton has crapped out over America, this is nothing.
Google WiFi only seems good because most consumer WiFi is so bad.
56/96: Best readily available approximation of old style jeans we've found is Lucky. They aren't anything special, but they're easy to find, medium weight, and not very stretchy.
Costco jeans. Normal jeans, like $12 each. My new employer seems to have an informal men's dress code of jeans and button-down shirts (colloquial sense not the strict Neb sense) so I bought a bunch.
I don't carry keys any more. We replaced our house locks with programmable keypads, which means I don't need keys and the kids can come and go without worrying about being locked out.
Car key is now an RFID fob so as long as it's in a jacket pocket it will work.
82. People do a lot of weird things in the Whites. 48 4000 footers wasn't enough, how about doing each one in each month of the year? There are people who've done that. Do them all in Winter, do them all at night, do them all while hopping on one leg, do them all while not thinking of a rhinoceros, etc., etc. Doesn't make some of them any less nutso. To be fair, I've done bunch of them but never at night or in January. Nice long summer days are the ticket.
Jeans are uncomfortable. I don't get the point, unless you're doing something where you need to protect your legs.
Speaking of needing rescue in the Whites, did I link to this before?
Once sea levels rise by several feet, the number will go down to 45 (there's a 4003, 4004, and a 4006.)
102: If you're really determined to turn a walk in the hills into a life-threatening adventure, wouldn't it be simpler just to go in decent weather and play Russian roulette on each summit? The real hardcores can use automatics.
Or just somewhere grizzlies live.
But only if you go early in the spring, with a backpack full of berries and fish.
So, I just read the link and it turns out Google WiFi is probably something I should think about. Or at least a new router. Currently, there's no reliable wifi in the office. This is becoming a problem because I work through a VPN now when I work at home.
I'm still not going to figure out what Shazaam means in this context.
I'm convinced that, the Senate being one of the most blatantly minoritarian institutions in the so-called free world, and amelioration being effectively impossible under the constitution as written (no, splitting states is not a solution), in my lifetime it will either bend, or break.
Much easier to swing a state by moving a large federal bureaucracy to West Virginia or something.
Yours seems to be a serious aberration.
I'm sincerely glad to hear this.
So. How risky is it to fly in the US with THC mints in one's checked baggage?
Are you flying from Massachusetts to Colorado?
I think the actual answer is very low risk. My understanding is that all the drug sniffing dogs are focus on sniffing for explosives these days - you can only have them sniff for one thing. And I don't think they are trained to smell THC tic-tacs.
But that's just something you heard from some guy on the internet.
I once climbed Mt Washington in February. Only got about 10 seconds of view in total; it was whiteout conditions the whole time and we were navigating mainly by compass. (Also it was -50 once you considered windchill, on the ridge you had to walk at a 45-degree angle just to keep upright, etc. etc., but I would have put up with that for some views.) After that I decided I'd never go to the White Mountains in winter again.
I hate the stretchy, thin fabric jeans so much...
Same here, I used to wear Old Navy jeans but they all went stretchy a few years ago so now I buy Levi 505's.
115: That was my impression, too, but I figured I'd check.
I'm still not going to figure out what Shazaam means in this context.
It's an app with a digitised Sinbad who tells you you're thinking of a different song.
115: AFAIK explosive detection dogs are different from drug detection dogs; both can detect multiple sorts of whichever it is they're trained to detect (so cocaine, heroin, cannabis etc), but explosive dogs won't detect drugs and vice versa.
There's no way to get out of this by statute. The argument that the XIV amounts to consent to amend that section is also transparent nonsense
Of course there's a way to get out of it by statute. If n/2 +1 of the Supreme Court is happy with it, it's constitutional. The Fourth Amendment is also written pretty clearly but that hasn't stopped it being essentially ignored at, e.g., borders.
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I'm just loving the latest flap oven the AOC dancing video (and loving the video and AOC even more). Absolutely tonedeaf. Absolutely hilarious.
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104. Ms. Matrosova, like a depressing number of experienced but naive hikers, overestimated her ability to cope with the White Mountains. No one should try a "Prezzy Traverse" with the risk of the weather she ended up getting. Every trail head and every hut posts advice for hikers. She essentially ignored all of it. I have climbed all of those peaks, in daylight and decent weather. I cannot imagine trying to do them lightly clothed in winter, in a storm. There is an instructive but depressing book Not Without Peril about all the people who have gotten into trouble on Mt. Washington and (mostly) died. She didn't even get that far.
105. Finally a positive outcome from rising sea levels! I have often wished someone would apply a decent charge of dynamite to the summit of Mt. Isolation (4003'). It's the single most annoying peak of the 48: a long, wet hike to lousy views, no matter which route you take.
120.last. If n/2 +1 of the Supreme Court is happy with it, it's constitutional.
"Up to a point, Lord Copper." What you mean is, "by completely ignoring the Constitution." Or, to put it another way, why have a Constitution at all? Obviously the Republicans would never retaliate the next time they get power.
101: The women's look stretchy and tight. They are, however, featuring a number of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans which reminded me of my tween years.
Not completely ignoring the constitution. In practice, the constitution says whatever n/2 +1 of the Supreme Court says it says, until a later n/2 +1 says it says something different.
AIMHB, the Supreme Court is the US House of Lords - a collection of unelected placemen who have the final say over whether bills can be enacted as laws. The constitution is the pretext for them making their decisions.
And how would a bill restructuring the Senate get past the Senate?
Does your legislative body spark joy?
I'm telling you, riots. (I mean, lots of other groundwork including getting it into the Dem platform, but riots might be the final push.)
I'm telling you, riots. (I mean, lots of other groundwork including getting it into the Dem platform, but riots might be the final push.)
128, 129: You said it twice, so I guess you must be serious. But seriously... are you being serious?
People today often forget that crowds were read the Riot Act to ensure that parliamentary procedure was properly followed.
131: Yes, but here in the U.S. the First Amendment guarantees the right to peaceably assemble. I suppose a riot would probably not be all that peaceful, but at that point the crowd isn't listening to law enforcement anyway.
OK, sure, and if Trump dissolves the Constitution, kills those who object, and reconstitutes the Senate with a dozen horses representing California, then it would be 'legal' -- in that timeline.
That people would rather fantasize about breaking the Constitution than actually break up a state tells folks in the smaller states all they need to know about the objections to underrepresentation. (Just like the people would rather fantasize about colonizing Mars than use the same technology to colonize Nevada . . .)
I think Nevada may have been colonised already. I made a low-altitude pass over it recently and there were definitely signs of human habitation.
They have humans, but not in a way we can understand.
I sometimes doubt whether anywhere has humans in a way I can understand.
States are dumb and cause serious problems. Splitting up states further is bad and will hurt the country, what we really need is for the whole New York greater metro to not have internal state boundaries. We should have more states like Texas or California, not fewer. We should also have a non-presidential unicameral parliamentary system. Yes it's all a fantasy, but I understand the appeal. Our constitution is horribly out of date and it's a big problem in lots of ways.
Take a drive on US50 from Austin to Eureka. Then continue on.
Our constitution is horribly out of date and it's a big problem in lots of ways.
One problem that could be addressed by Carp's Greater North America proposal.
I feel like the fuckedupedness of Mexico isn't being adequately factored in there.
Speaking of fuckedupedness, how come Germany had to find a guy who lied to report horrible things about the United States? Even somebody with a horrible work ethic could have found real horrible stuff easily. Maybe they need to go to Greece to find honest workers.
137: are there any constitutional provisions to allow states to merge? I know they're allowed to split, and have done (VA/WV). I know there are disincentives to merging (you lose half your senators). But could it be done?
122.1: Some years ago Ms. Lurker and I were in Vermont for Thanksgiving and went hiking in the mountains. At one point it was getting near dusk and looked like a front was approaching and the question came up of whether to try to forge ahead and finish the trail were on or turn back. I distinctly recall thinking "This is how people end up in the local newspaper with readers shaking their heads saying 'What were those fools thinking?'".
We turned back and, sure enough, in less than an hour after we got back to town it was a white-out blizzard.
If you really fuck up, you can make the national paper with your death.
If we split up California to get more Senators, how long will it take until there's like eight Wyomings?
130: Not like mob violence, hopefully just enough unrest to get across to the powers that be that if they get more out of touch with the urban social order they could be in personal trouble. There's precedent, I believe, that gets rugswept.
142: It's all provided for in the same paragraph, which was written to encompass a wide range of possibilities.
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.
147: I think riots are, essentially, mob violence.
146: Then you just need to keep creating Californiae. They'll run out of Wyomingi before you run out of Californienses.
I guarantee you that if there are riots in California that no one in any small states will give a shit.
149: Like, threatening property and police authority rather than life/limb. See Reform Act 1832.
Which I know is not really something you can make a proviso upfront, and I wouldn't be part of instigating it. But my point is disobedience has a continuum of useful possibilities; it's not a binary between permitted march and everyone knifing each other.
I wonder sometimes about an alternative world where Deseret got accepted at close to its original size, there's only one Dakota, and we end up with a reasonable number of western states.
Also Alaska is huge and doing fine, I don't see why what's ok for Alaska is unthinkable for the west.
I'm thinking organization sufficient to win a governing majority at the federal level will be a lot easier to achieve and a lot more useful than civil disobedience sufficient to effect anything.
I think the only way you are going to get more senators for a full-sized California is to go full Megan and drop out of the union, precipitating a full break between red states and blue states across the country. Then, 50 years later, maybe there would be an attempt to rebuild the federal order and you could get better terms out of that.
See my 128. Only intended as one push among many.
154: But seriously, is that the kind of thing people riot about? Higher gas taxes, police shootings, local team wins championship - those are the kinds of things people riot about.
Also, the riot-based theory of political change has the drawback that your side isn't the only one which gets to riot.
HOPELESS. NOT A GODDAMN PAVING STONE IN SIGHT.
161: I don't imagine it would come except as part of a larger confrontation, where it's super-obvious that Republicans have assembled a permanent majority-through-minority-support and are blocking all sorts of things people care about. It would also need to be clearer than today what side Dems are on...
162: Yeah, this is especially tricky if law enforcement is much more likely to side with the rioters on the other side.
I agree any path to success seems extremely difficult, and letting into the equation does not make it much less so! It's either hard work facing many, many obstacles, or lying down and waiting for death.
LIE DOWN AND LET THEM COVER YOU IN ASPHALT MORE LIKE
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I'm horrified to find myself even thinking this, but these wasabi peanuts have too much wasabi.
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124. In practice, the constitution says whatever n/2 +1 of the Supreme Court says it says, until a later n/2 +1 says it says something different.
No. The Constitution says nothing specific about that. John Marshall established the precedent that what the SC says about the constitution is law, but it's not written down. It's settled precedent, not settled law. In fact, Congress has the right to define the subjects the SC has jurisdiction over, within certain (disputed limits). The SC cannot refactor the Senate.
... how long will it take until there's like eight Wyomings?
Eight? Piker! There is no lower limit set for the population of a state. Each Wyoming citizen could in principle be a state. Actually, I guess it'd have to be three citizens, two to be Senators and one to be a Congressperson. It's not whether California can make more than Wyoming, it's which side does it first and thereby cements a permanent Senate (and by extension, House) majority. It gets easier every time you do it! Wyoming moves first and creates 190,000 states which then work together to keep any other new states from being created.
The one option I can think of that could legitimately sidestep the unanimity requirement of Article V is depowering the Senate as a whole - the Parliament Act 1911 option. If its role is limited to debate and delay, but it can't veto bills passed by the House after a certain period of time, arguably each state retains "its equal Suffrage in the Senate", it's the impact of Senate decisions that has changed. But that's a little overclever, so I'm suspicious.
Unlike drastically reducing my state's representation in the Senate, kneecapping the power of the Senate as a whole is a project I could get behind.
Can you tell me what that means without making me read a pdf?
I am loving the radical Minivet, and pleased to see someone offering options. I got to say, the part where naysayers are all, like, 'but that's impossible and might be violent and the only possible thing is the small set of options that I approve of that also didn't prevent this shit' is super discouraging. Surely we are in the timeline where impossible things are possible, or at least no more impossible that what we are currently doing.
At least no one has yet done the thing where they say 'but the other side would get violent if we did that, and then we'd be responsible for that!'. That's the only thing more annoying than 'but that's impossible, like getting millions of women to protest throughout the country on the same day because they're so fucking tired of misogyny'.
Also Alaska is huge and doing fine, I don't see why what's ok for Alaska is unthinkable for the west.
The distinction between area and population is important here. Alaska has a smaller population than any of the
other western states except Wyoming.
Alaska is also distinctive in its lack of infrastructure across a vast amount of territory. Not really comparable to the more settled and developed parts of the west.
Anyway, by far the easiest short-term solution to the apportionment of the Senate is for left-leaning people to move to small-population states. It doesn't even take that many people, because the thing about small states is that they're small.
And if you're worried about climate change, get an electric car and recycle.
Teo, have you read Garreau's Nine Nations?
And has anyone read a good comparison of the US constitution with the Canadian (and/or Australian/Mexican/Brazilian) such a thing might be informative.
181: Or move to Roc Island. Doesn't help with the Senate though.
I'm just saying, these huge structural things are decades-long strategies that in practice will still require some amount of political power under the existing system. Getting that power is not an impossible thing to do and there are ways to do it that are kind of orthogonal to the huge structural changes.
Teo, have you read Garreau's Nine Nations?
No, should I?
186: Only if you have nothing better to do. He divides Alaska, with the coast (up to Anchorage, IIRC) in "Ecotopia", capital San Francisco, and the "empty quarter", capital Denver, CO. The book is interesting but I thought insufficiently supported.
There's something to that sort of categorization, and I've seen other versions that are pretty accurate as cultural classifications. I'm not sure they would really work as political units though.
What it would take to get any of these structural changes through the Senate (which would indeed be necessary, barring something like a coup that just totally upends the current system) is a supermajority of Democratic senators who are more committed to enabling good policy than maximizing their own personal power. That's not impossible to imagine, but it would take some serious changes in political norms in addition to winning a lot of elections. I think Minivet is right that direct action (major protests at least, if not actual riots) is going to be a key part of the norm-changing component, but the winning-elections component is also crucial.
124.again. AIMHB, the Supreme Court is the US House of Lords
No. The SC can't act until there is an in-place law there is contention over, so they can't "delay legislation" the way the Lords sort-of can, and the Lords can't invalidate a law. Except in extremely rare cases a controversy has to work its way through the appellate courts before the SC looks at it, so whatever law it is (the ACA, for example) is usually in effect for a significant time even if it is ultimately declared unconstitutional. (I apologize for continuing to beat this dead horse.)
184. This is right. It is much more likely that (e.g.) the Democrats will attain a working majority in the Senate, reclaim the Presidency, and thus be able to concentrate on the people's business. (Fighting among themselves, AFAICT.) Rewriting the Constitution before there is a national consensus to do so is both harder and more likely to set off a gigantic backlash or even a civil war. Most of these "one weird trick" suggestions stem from a "we can't win" or "winning is too hard" mindset.
A worthwhile story on how the Native perspective on Elizabeth Warren's DNA test hasn't been included in mainstream media stories.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom of the United States.
189.1. THe UKSC was removed from the House of Lords 20 years ago and now functions much more like the American one.
190: The Native folx I know at the other place, who are all political radicals and mostly activists, seem to regard the whole business as mildly annoying but not particularly significant. I don't know their inner thoughts of course, but it rarely seems to come up in their feeds or links or whatever. Obviously, if you're a lefty Native person, you've got as much on your plate as anybody right now, so no wonder that folx wouldn't spend much energy on it.
176 Oh, sorry, I've been away from the computer. In 1889, the lame duck Congress (House D and Senate R -- after the election, both would be R) passed, and lame duck D president (who'd lost re-election, despite getting more votes) signed a bill creating 4 new states, 3 of which were then, and are now, pretty lightly populated. There had been 38 states before this.
Statehood had long been a partisan issue, and the Ds delayed until they were voted out. All four of the new states ended up sending 2 Rs to the Senate that first time. Two more lightly populated states (including Wyoming!) were added later in the year. Both of those ended up having 2 R senators each as well.
When admitted, Wyoming had about 1% of the population of New York, a worse ration than Wyoming currently has with California.
I was vaguely thinking about posting 192 - at least curious to hear CC's and others thoughts on it.
Thanks Charley. So the moral is what, you only add states when you're adding territory as well? In which case I still say you should admit your island dependencies and DC.
I think the moral is that you add states when it's politically advantageous to do so. That said, the people who complain about small states having outsized influence via the Senate should hate statehood for the insular territories, all of which (except Puerto Rico) are way smaller than any current state. DC is smaller than all current states except Vermont and Wyoming.
I would add, though, that the era Charley's talking about i the late nineteenth century when a bunch of states in the interior west were added for blatant political advantage was actually pretty unusual in the overall picture. For most of American history states have more typically been added in pairs so as not to disrupt the political status quo.
200: The political status quo today is marching the world off a cliff. Would admitting the islands help with that politically, however technocratically absurd?
Maybe, maybe not. They're not actually all as Democratic-leaning as you might think.
And it's not clear how many of their residents even want statehood. The Samoans don't even want (or have) citizenship.
The Northern Marianas are historically strongly Republican. Guam's internal politics aren't very clear to me, but it consists mostly of military bases. I'm also unsure how things shake out in the Virgin Islands overall, but they seem to have a very active and organized Republican party that Ryan Zinke got in trouble for being too friendly with as Interior Secretary.
That leaves PR, which is really in a different class from the other territories in population and other respects, and for which statehood is an increasingly obvious idea for a lot of reasons. Still, that's just one. Adding DC makes two. That's not enough to overcome the current Republican slant of the Senate.
205: Last well the great lesson since 2000 has been that tiny margins matter, right?
204/5: Thanks. I wonder about medium term prospects: Republicans chronically abetting climate change, neglecting disaster relief, refusing refugees; and the DoD increasingly worried about its bases.
And, being very optimistic, having a small island state caucus in Congress might be disproportionately valuable for everyone.
Yeah, I mean, there definitely are arguments in favor of the idea. Still, as with all this stuff, to actually do it you have to get it through the current senate.
Yes! So go win Senate races, my sparkly American friends!
I'm going to cop out on that, having decided that I've said my bit on Sen Warren's actions related to her ancestry, and will sit quietly on this subject.
It doesn't surprise me in the least to see politicians acting like this isn't any kind of a big deal, both (a) because it isn't and (b) because nations have a wide array of interests in Congress, and making a big deal out of this thing presents no conceivable benefit.
OT: I just learned that Vermont has a mountain called "Domey Dome." Why not "Domey McDome Face"?
For most of American history states have more typically been added in pairs so as not to disrupt the political status quo.
Wasn't the heyday of adding states in pairs during the run-up to the Civil War, when "parity" was used to avoid a civil war? More recently, weren't both Alaska (R) and Hawaii (D) added at nearly the same time partly for "parity" reasons?
211: As covered above, there's only like four people living in Vermont. They haven't gotten to every last thing yet.
Clearest case of political advantage: Nevada was added on October 31, 1864, a few days before the presidential election. Lincoln was worried about his reelection prospects at the time, and the Republicans who controlled both branches of Congress (with many Democrats not present to vote due to Civil War), were able to help him out with 3 more electoral votes.
re: 59
I buy jeans from a major UK high street retailer. I always end up buying three or four pairs, trying them, and returning the ones I don't want, because the sizing _for the same size_ is so inconsistent. It's not so much the waist size, although that can vary by a fair bit, as the general fit around the hips and arse area.
Speaking of minor technology, driving my own car after a week of driving a rental with a rear-facing camera is still annoying. I have to turn my head to see behind me, like some asshole.
Compeeds (and the offbrand versions). For years if you stuck something on a blister it invariably ended up as a mess in your sock within about 15 minutes. I hoisted in that it's just like that when you break in boots or whatever.
The next time I needed anything like this...'kin hell, you can stick'em on your feet, dance for eight hours in the day, and they don't even wash off. and there's the weird way they react to the raw skin. amateurs discuss tactics, professionals logistics, the secret rulers of the world work on materials science.
212: Pretty much, yeah, although it was actually Alaska (D) and Hawaii (R) at the time.
This shit: https://www.boots.com/compeed-blister-hydrocolloid-medium-5-plasters-10003845
I would LOVE to know how it fucking works. Well, it turns out to be Danish medical manufacturing, marketed by Johnson & Johnson, using an elastic polymer to hold very fine particles of this stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_croscarmellose
Also, how it was introduced on the market in 1986 and I spent about that to the mid 2000s suffering without them. At least I didn't have to dance like that.
I'm learning about the Romanov dynasty. Peter the Great looked like Ron Jeremy.
In terms of tech that has been a recent boon for us: having Spotify Connect setup on the "Pi" that lives behind our hi-fi.
I've always been able to beam music to it, either from streaming radio, Spotify, or local stuff we have on the NAS in the cupboard. etc. But my wife finds the app that we used a bit fiddly, and since she never uses it, she never learns.
Now, being able to just open Spotify on her phone, and select the hifi for output, and get whatever music she wants, has been great. For people with Alexa or Google Home, I guess that's old hat, but it has been great for us.*
* and this is a Pi with a nice DAC going into a fancy hi-fi, with speakers the size of a small fridge -- rather than something the size of a coke can -- so it sounds great.
I recently got a new fitness tracker, which I've also been finding pretty good. I've had them before, but they were either not very accurate, or a PITA to use, or didn't sync with the software I wanted them to. This one isn't perfect. I think the step counter is under-counting slightly,* but it has already pushed me to up my activity levels a bit, and I've picked up some interesting info about my daily lifestyle.
* I find if I keep my left hand in my pocket, which I often do, it under counts, versus swinging the arm freely.
226: Spotify was giving out a free Google Home Mini to people with family accounts and I got one and it did indeed immediately make me want more, because we have no rooms with speakers. It's really improved Selah's diction, at least for essential messages like "hey Google, play Boo York Boo York Monster High album on Spotify!" but it took her over a week to learn not to say "hey google, we're back!" every time we got home, which would be followed promptly by the medical definition of a back every time.
228: You should just let her roll. Interaction with Selah might be the only thing convincing the AIs not to kill us all.
It seems to me traditional pedometers were clipped to belts or waistbands, and that worked better, but the new wave of trackers has to be a conspicuous status symbol, so onto the wrists they go regardless of function.
A podcaster I listen to noted that because she gesticulates so much, she can reach her daily goal over a recording session while exclusively sitting.
Dance like no one's wincing.
So great.
re: 230
To be fair, one of the things I really wanted was one with a HRM. Which means wrist mounted. Or I need to use some combination of chest band and device, which is fine for serious exercise, but not for just going for a brisk walk.
228: Google is learning dad jokes.
One other festive season "get healthy" things I've started doing,* is actually using the kettlebell that has been sitting in my cupboard for the past 2 years. I'm hurting. But ... it's quite good for something that takes up so little space.
* I started before Christmas, rather than waiting for NY resolutions, and, so far, it's going well.
I think mine is pretty accurate - it does overcount arm motions a little, but it undercounts slow walking, the kind you do when you're wandering around a classroom kibbutzing on student work, and also undercounts any time your hand is on a shopping card, stroller, or holding a child's hand. So I think it nets out about right.
re: 236
Yeah, that's about my experience. Since I often walk with my hands in my pockets, or holding the strap of a rucksack or shoulder bag, I think for me, it's probably consistently undercounting, but I suppose that's no bad thing, as it makes me do more, rather than less.
she can reach her daily goal over a recording session while exclusively sitting.
No shit? I guess I should start gesticulating while I talk.
238: I left out the probably relevant part that the recording session being described lasted 6 hours (multiple episodes).
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I need to write an affidavit in favor of my friend remaining the custodial parent of her kid, any perspectives on what to say or avoid saying?
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"I am an avowed anarchist who makes favorable statements about killing people with knives."
The former. West of the Mississippi, right?
Leukotape is awesome. I can put it on at the start of a week-long backpacking trip, and it'll still be on my heel at the end, no matter how much water or mud I walk through.
I have a small roll, but I've never been able to get out for a whole week.
240: Is it a divorce/separation issue?
It's the biological father's girlfriend's parents who have apparently been paying for a lawyer for several months, and they've gotten a order for protection and have grabbed the kid. This is my same friend who everything bad happens to.
Also, my friend wants to get an affidavit as well from the director of the kid's school, but she is concerned about not violating the order since it covers school and stuff. It's a huge mess, I am frankly pessimistic.
224, 231: I just took Russian technique class for the first time. I chose for some reason to do this after my usual class. I now need something like those compeeds *inside my calves and hamstrings*. Oy.
Weird, programming-like lurch between "this is agony and I'm a risible fool" and "fucking hell I am literally flying".
247: That's rough. I think mainly you should just point out ways in which your friend was an involved parent in addition to general stuff about character.