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KeeperOfTheGate 7 points ago +7 / -0

Hah, I actually know this area. Sad thing is, there are some beautiful neighborhoods in the South Side. Areas that were English, Irish, Polish, etc., all changed dramatically in roughly the 1940s/1950s. Beautiful old homes, walkable city blocks, trees -- it should be an urban paradise.

This is near where Michelle Obama grew up.

Friends and I used to drive down to a taco bell and white castle in this neighborhood. You had to hand over your cash (and receive your food) through a sealed metal box behind bullet proof glass--like at a bank. Yeah, it was crazy.

10
KeeperOfTheGate 10 points ago +10 / -0

Love 30 Rock. It's amazing to me that it aired only 10 years ago but is too edgy for todays audiences. It could not be made today.

Old school comedy. You know, where everybody was fair game?

My youth was tv shows crossing the line more and more. The Simpsons were edgy as crap, saying "that sucks" was worthy of corporal punishment, and so forth. Now we're going the opposite direction again.

5
KeeperOfTheGate 5 points ago +5 / -0

We must be roughly the same era. Loved napster at college. Kazaa? eMule?

I remember one year at college there was a job fair, and one company was giving out USB thumb drives. Probably like 8mb or 16mb or something. Awesome!

People were waiting in line like 20+ minutes just to get one.

Truly the glory days of the Internet.

I will also have a soft spot in my heard for 90s Something Awful and JeffK.

2
KeeperOfTheGate 2 points ago +2 / -0

Sure, it might be popular with schoolchildren...for a time. But typically, they would outgrow whatever series they were reading and move onto other things. And where the hell did this crazy adult fanbase come from?

Have you missed like the last century or something?

Comic-con, star trek conventions, anime conventions, etc. Star Wars weddings. Star Trek weddings. Marvel weddings. These are dominated by adults who are spending shit loads of money on their fictional worlds and associated products®. Harry Potter is just one of many, many fandoms.

One old parallel -- Civil War reenactors. No "consoom product" but people who are obsessed with a story, events, etc.

6
KeeperOfTheGate 6 points ago +6 / -0

So I guess that tells us which giant pharma company doesn't have a weight-loss drug out?

1
KeeperOfTheGate 1 point ago +1 / -0

Check this:

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-really-lost-its-lead-in-the-80s-2012-12?op=1

There's no rational way to claim that Apple, of all companies, put Commodore out of business.

Assembled in USA. I can find one computer out of ~2 dozen from 40 years that use that terminology. (And after Commodore was basically dead.)

Googled IIgs, etc. to find their labels (I don't have any computers that go back that far). All the labels I could locate online say either "Made in Singapore" or "Assembled in Mexico" or similar.

15
KeeperOfTheGate 15 points ago +15 / -0

This is interesting. The founder is Lyric Jain.

Jainism is an ancient Indian religion. It's somewhat similar, but different to both Buddhism and Hinduism. One of the core tenets of Jainism is non-violence to EVERYTHING. Some devout Jains walk around sweeping the ground in front of them (so as to not indadvertently step on any insects or small animals) and some may even wear a mask, so as not to inadvertently breathe in any small insects. Jains are strict vegetarians--vegans really--with many avoiding even whole classes of plants, such as root vegetables, because of the violence that does the plant.

tl;dr, Jainism is a VERY strict religion with VERY pacifistic and non-violent beliefs.

The other big takeaway is that Jains are the Jews of India. They are a tiny group, culturally, religiously, somewhat genetically distinct, and they are very powerful and wealthy. Jains are the richest groups of Indians and they run some of the largest business in India.

Lyric Jain, in other words, is no doubt an extremely privileged guy, who is using his family wealth for very specific reasons.

The links to globohomo keep getting stronger.

3
KeeperOfTheGate 3 points ago +3 / -0

My favorite part is that the Maori killed off the giant birds of New Zealand when they arrived in ~1300/1400s. Maori extincted more species than Europeans did!

Real sacred.

1
KeeperOfTheGate 1 point ago +1 / -0

So I found, in my basement, an Apple Quadra from 1993 that says simply "Assembled in U.S.A." (Still boots!) I haven't opened it up, but skimming parts list, many were manufactured in the US as well.

I found a B&W G3 PowerMAc from later in the 90s that says "Assembled in Singapore" (!)

From ~2000 on I see mostly "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China."

I don't see anything to your claim.

2
KeeperOfTheGate 2 points ago +2 / -0

Are you saying that Apple invented outsourcing? Tell that to Detroit and the car companies! Tell that to literally every manufacturing industry in the world.

Early Apples used Motorola 68k chips. These were largely fabbed in the US, AFAIK.

After that, the PowerPC chips were also, I believe, mostly fabbed by IBM in the US.

Intel chips were fabbed primarily in the US for Apple.

So I guess the current "Apple Silicon" chips that are fabbed in Taiwan are the big departure...

Tim Cook, starting in the very late 90s, did reverse Steve Jobs' efforts to keep stuff local, and did increase manufacturing and assembly in China (and Taiwan and Japanese etc).

With regards to Commodore, I would think the surge in Intel x86 computers w/ DOS would have made a far bigger impact than anything Apple did.

I really don't think this criticism of Apple holds water.

1
KeeperOfTheGate 1 point ago +1 / -0

I think that's total b.s. I just checked the old Mac I have quick access too--a MacPro1,1 from 2007, and it says "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." The OG iPod, from 2001, also had that language.

I've got a couple late 90s Macs in storage. I'll check them later.

Apple under Jobs actually tried to keep as much manufacturing local as possible.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/business/apple-california-manufacturing-history.html

In 1983, Mr. Jobs oversaw the construction of a state-of-the-art plant where the new Macintosh computer would be built. Reporters who toured it early on were told that the plant, located just across San Francisco Bay from Apple’s headquarters, was so advanced that factory labor would account for 2 percent of the cost of making a Macintosh. “Steve had deep convictions about Japanese manufacturing processes,” recalled Randy Battat, who joined Apple as a young electrical engineer and oversaw the introduction of some of the company’s early portable computers. “The Japanese were heralded as wizards of manufacturing. The idea was to create a factory with just-in-time delivery of zero-defect parts. It wasn’t great for business.” ... That failure taught Mr. Jobs the lesson. He returned to Apple in 1997, and the next year, he hired Tim Cook as Apple’s senior vice president for worldwide operations. Mr. Cook had mastered the art of global manufacturing supply chains, first in IBM’s personal computer business and then at Compaq Computer.

4
KeeperOfTheGate 4 points ago +4 / -0

My beef is that Paul is also supposed to have been training his whole life in Bene Gesserit body and mind control, and, as the heir of a noble house, he's also been training as a fighter. He's young, but not wussy.

I also am just not a Chalamet fan, so there's that.

My stuff is really just nitpicks. I don't have any major complaints about Dune, it just doesn't didn't do anything for me.

Weird and at times BAD as it is, I prefer the 1984 Dune. I liked the miniseries too, but I haven't seen that in a long time.

9
KeeperOfTheGate 9 points ago +9 / -0

I'm not answering your question, as I haven't seen the second one.

First one:

Timothee Chalamet is too much of a twink to be Paul.

Too god damn much "Bane voice" where dramatic people (e.g. Bene Gesserit) and bad guys have to speak like a cartoon comic villain twirling his mustache.

Chani sucks.

Fine, but I found it intensely boring.

10
KeeperOfTheGate 10 points ago +10 / -0

800 years ago in Europe, there were groups of people who went around beating themselves bloody (flagellants) to repent for sin and in an effort to get closer to God and goodness.

Modern Europeans are no different. They flagellate themselves bloody by electing rulers who hate them and are not them, in an effort to atone for the sins of the past.

Ireland. Varadkar Scotland. Humza Yousuf. London. Sadiq Khan. UK. Rishi Sunak.

That leaves Wales and Northern Ireland as the only part of the Isles not directly ruled by a man of South Asian descent.

The leftist / progressive / atheist / SJW / whatever you want to call them, they are the religious zealots of the past and the present, and they're as batshit crazy as the flagellants. Unfortunately, unlike the flagellants who kept their misery to themselves, the modern flagellants want to bring everyone else down with them.

2
KeeperOfTheGate 2 points ago +2 / -0

Visited Italy last year for exactly that reason (also "Romaboo"). Great trip, but waaaaaay too many people. Like, I realize I'm part of that "too many people" but it was just insanely crowded.

10
KeeperOfTheGate 10 points ago +11 / -1

She's an American politician, what did you expect?

23
KeeperOfTheGate 23 points ago +23 / -0

I had a ton of fun with Fallout 3. I was living outside of DC at the time, so it was nice to see a bunch of landmarks surrounded by radioactive sludge and super mutants.

1
KeeperOfTheGate 1 point ago +1 / -0

Original STD showrunner (and gay man), Bryan Fuller, worked on some great episodes of DS9 and Voyager. He also has a weird thing for giving female characters male names. Shrug.

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