lostrune2 comments

Russia already admitted --something that many people has suspected for years-- of running a troll factory, the so-called "Internet Research Agency" (IRA)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

In February 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private military company Wagner Group, stated that he founded the IRA: "I’ve never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time." The admission came months after Prigozhin had admitted to Russian interference in U.S. elections.

That fact is no longer in dispute. It's clear as day

So next time somebody whines "Russia! Russia! Russia!", remember this fact about Russia's admission of guilt

Popular music also no more long intros before the vocals lyrics

It's so easy to skip to the next track on the queue nowadays (and the queue list being infinite) that people in a hurry who don't get into the song right away, they press the next button

But that scarcity created an air of exclusivity around Gmail that drove feverish demand for an elusive invitations to sign up. At one point, invitations to open a Gmail account were selling for $250 apiece on eBay. “It became a bit like a social currency, where people would go, ‘Hey, I got a Gmail invite, you want one?’” Buchheit said.

Although signing up for Gmail became increasingly easier as more of Google's network of massive data centers came online, the company didn't begin accepting all comers to the email service until it opened the floodgates as a Valentine's Day present to the world in 2007.

Lol, received a free Gmail invite too

You can tell Microsoft is pushing for their own version of Siri

It's already out. "Copilot" (nee Bing GPT) is a reinvent of "Cortana" which was its Siri competitor. Copilot runs on ChatGPT, among other stuff

JAIL always done me good.

That's what it feels like inside

Sometimes, people just want to watch some good ol' action popcorn movie

I really don't understand this matchup. Godzilla, with his fire breath or whatever it is alone, would toast Kong in moments.

From the article, they team up:

*"Projections had put the the opening weekend of “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” which sees the monsters teaming up instead of squaring up, at closer to $50 million."*

$80 million is considered a poor showing during Easter Weekend in the US.

$80 million puts it 5th-highest ever Easter Weekend opening in the US, above "Clash of the Titans":

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top_opening_holiday_weekends/?by_occasion=easter_weekend

1.) Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - $181,047,843

2.) The Super Mario Bros. Movie - $166,472,810

3.) Furious 7 - $161,202,390

4.) The Fate of the Furious - $107,310,965

5.) Clash of the Titans- $67,628,501

This may be an act of terrorism. I wouldn’t eliminate that possibility. It looked like an act of intention.

If someone sabotaged the ship's machinery, maybe

But the controllers on the ship made the mayday calls, asked for emergency tugboats, dropping anchor, etc. to avoid causing deaths

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/03/28/baltimore-bridge-collapse-dali-ship-timeline-audio-recording/73138004007/

Muise said several alarms were heard on the recording just before 1:25 a.m., followed about a minute later by steering commands and rudder orders.

At 1:26:39 a.m., the pilot on duty made a radio call for assistance to tug boats in the area, and 45 seconds later ordered the port anchor dropped.

At 1:27:25 a.m., the pilot said on a radio call that Dali had lost power and was nearing the bridge. Around that same time, the officer on duty for the Maryland Transportation Authority told officers who were at both ends of the bridge for the road repairs to close traffic, which likely saved lives.

At 1:29:33 a.m., as the powerless Dali was drifting at 8 mph, the VDR recorded "sounds consistent with the collision of the bridge," Muise said. Six seconds later, the pilot reported to the Coast Guard that the bridge was down.

"It also shows the inability of the Chinese government to conduct open, transparent, and legal negotiations. Their repertoire consists only of patronizing and, failing that, intimidating smaller countries," the ministry said.

He/She has a point

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea.

Who really supports this claim? It's a ridiculous claim

The Nine-Dash Line was just a made-up line, made by someone in China after WW2. Before that, it never existed - and ever since, there's still no legal or historical reference basis to it. To use a ridiculous line made up by someone (who nobody even knows if ya ask anyone) as a national policy is a clown move

“The film was made in a way to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save the lives of Americans.”

Well, yeah, that's the reason

In war, the first priority is the lives of your own men/women, above the priority of the lives of your enemy's men/women. Because at the end of the day, the leaders have to explain themselves to the mothers and fathers of their own men/women, but they don't have to do that to the mothers and fathers of their enemy's men/women. If they lose the support of those mothers and fathers, they won't be their leaders no more

The bomb was made, first and foremost, to save the lives of Americans, before about saving the lives of Japanese (or Germans too, for that matter, if Hitler didn't surrender by the time the bomb was completed - Germany just lucked out that it got defeated before the bomb was used against it; Germany was trying to make the bomb too, so they knew)

Data was publicly available. MLB installed Sportvision’s PITCHf/x in 2006 and then its more detailed Statcast system for 2015, which runs on Hawk-Eye data. All teams get Hawk-Eye, and some now supplement it with information from KinaTrax Motion Capture, Simi Reality Motion Systems and DARI Motion.

“It’s cool to see how far data driven baseball things have come,” Realmuto said. “Obviously, analytics are a huge part of our game now. Analytics were going on 20 years ago, it’s just we didn’t really know how to understand it and how to transfer it into real time.”

There's so much data available out there now. Have to figure out how to make use of all that data

Or did the article over-simplify the rules?

This new kick-off was taken from the XFL, so there's videos that show how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaEl4zv16Qo

At least she wasn't his student

Don't forget - this is also a criminal investigation by the Feds, FBI, and even IRS

This isn't gonna go away, and more information will be forthcoming than a typical MLB investigation

China, welcome to Pakistan

When it's narcotics trade to send rocket weapons to Houthis who are firing on commercial ships causing civilian deaths, then who won't be against that

The lights on the ship were on-and-off, and the ship was blowing black smoke. Experts think it may be dirty fuel that stopped the machinery running and generating electricity

The ship gave distress calls to authorities, and the police responded immediately by stopping traffic going both directions on the bridge, saving lives. However, they weren't able to get to the bridge workers who were fixing potholes on the road, RIP

That bridge was made in the 1970s, when container ships were smaller. But with the huge size of that container ship at that speed, even bridges made today may not withstand that head-on collision

Looks like they are willing to invest in China. Good for the global economy. Let money talk.

Yeah, let money talk.................. until China on a whim cancels exports of materials or imports of food just because their thin-skinned feelings got hurt, LoL

No, China is doing this because --after its uber-nationalism policy has forced foreign companies to leave China and diversify supply chains to other countries-- its economy is now struggling without foreign investment. China's economy is still an export-driven economy - its consumer market is not enough to support it. So now, China goes about-face and begging foreign investments again because they employed the wrong policy

"China vows to treat foreign firms equally as it seeks more international investment"

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/china-vows-to-treat-foreign-firms-equally-amid-industrial-push-.html

Earlier this month, China announced an economic growth goal of around 5% for this year and promised to transform the country’s development model to offset drag from a prolonged property crisis, high local government debt and weak consumer demand.

"Foreign direct investment in China falls to 30-year low"

https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Foreign-direct-investment-in-China-falls-to-30-year-low

China's foreign direct investment totaled $33 billion on a net basis in 2023, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, down about 80% from 2022.

Chinese firms are investing more abroad than foreign firms are investing in China, and foreign firms now seem unwilling to invest in China at all. In the three months to September, foreign firms withdrew $12 billion of capital from the country, the first time that’s happened in a generation.

What all this is saying is that long-term capital – precisely the kind of capital Beijing needs to boost the economy’s productive potential and shore up confidence among China’s gloomy corporates – seems to be voting with its feet.

And it’s not just FDI that seems to have had a change of heart about China. Since August this year, international investors have withdrawn some $25 billion from the market for China’s ‘A’ shares, namely those that are denominated in renminbi and listed in Shanghai or Shenzhen.

What’s particularly embarrassing about the outflow of FDI is that it has accelerated, despite notable effort during the past year to encourage more foreign companies to set up shop in China. After the Communist Party concluded its 20th quinquennial Congress in October last year, the government worked hard to welcome more inflows of FDI. That initiative seems to have yielded nothing.

IIRC, this latest Super Bowl game, there were no kickoff return at all by either team

Good. Authoritarian measures to nip things in the bud. They work.

Yeah, like the IOC and bans

Without the imports to MLB the MLB will be an inferior second class league.

This doesn't prevent importation of players - it just suspends working agreements between MLB team employees and foreign team employees

That they're able to achieve this while being invaded - what with all the complications that entails. Go Ukraine!

1.) How did an interpreter --even if a close friend (not an agent or financial advisor)-- get access to his huge accounts

2.) How did he not notice when huge sums were transferred out of his accounts multiple times

Not saying Ohtani is guilty of anything. Just curious how he can let something like that happen

And that's why people need to be kept reminded that racism still exists there

People don't like to be kept reminded, but they need to be

If the US had food as great as France does, they would have cool contests like this one. (Looks like a lot of fun.)

They have Waiters Races in New Orleans and San Francisco

Paris didn't even have a Waiters Race for 13 years

The resurrection of the waitering race after a 13-year hiatus is part of Paris' efforts to bask in the Olympic spotlight

Malinin put on a dominant display that included a jaw-dropping six quad jumps — including his patented quad axel — to snag the men’s singles crown Saturday night at the world championships.

After placing third in Thursday’s short program, the 19-year-old scored a world record 227.79 in the free program while skating to the “Succession” soundtrack to bring his total to 333.76 — more than 20 points than the rest of the field.

The Quad King seems to be the only one that can challenge Nathan Chen

It takes a world record in order to beat Chen, who owns most of the top world records

No other skaters are breaking world records

Presumably going into a supermarket with a sign inviting people to shop at another supermarket is acceptable, then.

It's more like every shop is forced to go to just one Mall owned by Apple, and no other malls are allowed

And who forced these developers to use the App Store? If you don't like the price of entry, sell on your own website.

If they want to run native apps, they have to use the App Store, and in the App Store, they're not allowed by Apple to say that users can pay by using the website

Selling on their own websites would work better, but Apple is dragging its feet supporting Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) - which is essentially a website in the form of a native app

The US government sued Microsoft for similar anti-competitive practices in the 1990s

Apple has always been its own walled garden. If it was not antitrust with the Macintosh, why is it antitrust with the iPhone?

Macs has only ever occupied around 10% of the market

One typically doesn't get charged with anti-competitive monopolistic practices unless one occupies a hefty chunk of the market

(Yes, Google Search is being sued too)

De-criminalize, regulate, educate

China has begun a process to examine whether to indict a Japanese national detained in Beijing on suspicion of espionage since March last year, sources familiar with Japan-China relations said

They're only starting now after detaining him way back in March?!

China has repeatedly said it will deal with the Japanese businessman's case "based on the law."

A law that's overly broad!

Police said dozens of items of women’s underwear were found in Tsunoda’s locker at the police station.

Hahaha - he actually brought the evidence inside the police station?!

Why not steal the panties from other police officers while at it?! Lol