It’s a fantastic podcast and I point people to the one on the V-22 Osprey frequently just because we live near an airport and Ospreys practice touch and gos before getting lunch nearby.

That was Uncle Frank’s movie choice, I think.

What did the box of potatoes do to you to deserve that?

The Battle of Athens is one such occasion. The outcome can’t be considered 100% positive, but what future ever is? I should mention that the Second Amendment exists as the last resort, a sort of “break glass in case of emergency”. That those weapons are also useful in everyday life in a dangerous world is a side effect, but in the end, civilian weapons exist in case a despot/party gains enough power and starts to wield it against the citizenry, as at least one presidential candidate has promised to do if re-elected. It’s incumbent on all of us to vote our conscience, but also to be ready to respond effectively in case voting doesn’t do enough.

I commend you for voicing this opinion and disagree with you with every fiber of my being.

Why introduce astral projection instead of having Luke become one with the Force and then stall Kylo? The outcome is the same, but it doesn’t require the introduction of a new Force power and doesn’t imply that Luke used up his life force or whatever, which is also a completely new thing in the Star Wars universe. Having Luke’s Force ghost instead aligns with Episode IV when Obi Wan says that when he joins the Force he’ll be more powerful than Vader can possibly imagine.

Years ago the US Air Force commissioned a study on what would be the stealthiest color for planes during daytime, visually obscuring them in an infinite sky as it were. Pink, it turns out, was likely the best color family to draw from. The US did not, to my understanding, go with pink. At night, however, black might not be the best color to use, as the night sky isn’t usually true black. Do you think the Russians are using trial and error or is there some department of the Russian MOD recreating research the US did decades ago and then ignoring the conclusions?

Father’s Office in Santa Monica. You get it one way, no changes. If you want ketchup on it, F Off. Heck, if you want ketchup for your sweet potato fries (the seasoning on them is delightful), F Off again. But, and I say this after trying a million burgers (slight exaggeration), no contest.

That said, somebody commented with a burger in West LA that I’ll be shortlisting.

The people making the decision to offshore to China are not the people who will be doing QA/QC, and they’re definitely not the people who get their hands dirty prior to offshoring. The people who make that decision are trying to cut labor and thus product costs to make their quarterly bonus bigger. They likely won’t be around long enough to even hear about the increase in defective products and if electronic, the corners cut at the Chinese factories on materials.

I worked at a company that had electrical devices manufactured in China and was very displeased when one of the factories offered to whip up any safety certifications we needed with no actual testing. Thankfully the owners quit doing business with that factory after that. Another factory owner collected meal receipts from visitors so they could cheat on their taxes. Anybody openly trying to cheat on their taxes isn’t fooling me with confidence that they’re by the book when it comes to other aspects of their life.

Replacement covers are like $1.25 at the hardware store. If you’re renting, you can save what’s there in some closet and put them back when you move out.

You might want to listen to the first season of The Big One, which was on NPR. One of the things they talk about is how many towers haven’t really faced a big quake since they were built, and the City of LA refuses to say which buildings won’t stand up to even a medium quake. Quake liquifaction is a thing you should read up on; it’s scary because it’s a distinct possibility in some of the most populated cities in the world. Japan has done a great job of building earthquake resistance into their buildings, but again, very few of them have actually faced a massive, local quake, so it’s all based on best guesses. I know my single story isn’t coming down like a tower, and I can personally turn off my natural gas line to reduce fire risk. Towers don’t have individual gas shutoffs AFAIK.

All concrete construction reduces the risk of small fires spreading, but like the Twin Towers proved, once the building is on fire the only way down is the stairs, because external ladders aren’t tall enough. It also doesn’t help when the buildings are clad in flammable materials, like the residential tower in the UK that went up like a candle. I literally don’t stay above a certain floor in hotels when I travel in the US because even the FDNY’s tallest ladder only goes up 137 feet (41.75 meters for the metric lovers). Internationally, I don’t stay above the fourth floor, because most fire departments don’t have ladders to reach much higher than that.

That your building escaped without people inadvertently infecting others is great, but I hope you realize that part of what made Covid so dangerous, especially in the first year, was that it could spread before symptoms presented strongly, and that there was strong asymptomatic transmission. It’s not crazy to think some of those characteristics will be shared with other, much more deadly, viral strains, given that we’ve seen such hopping in bacteria. That’s why antibiotic resistance is so dangerous; germs share with each other. Positive pressure in the hallways being a positive presumes contagious individuals know they’re contagious and will stay inside their flat until they’re no longer contagious. I don’t think I need to tell you how unlikely that is for large segments of the population.

Covered in plastic how? Mine all look like this https://imgur.com/a/9EBDjPS

They are screws holding the plate on, usually two flathead screws above and below the switch or paddle that them connect to the junction box which is how they ground you.