I need to get more sleep/not go to bed after 2AM - posted this over in the Cat Tale
MotoGP in Qatar: Jorge Martin's return was far from a return to form. Either lingering difficulty with his injury, as his pace fell off dramatically after looking okay at the start of the sprint, or being a thousand laps of experience this season behind everyone else. During qualifying Jorge was bested by Ai Ogura, who continues to be the top Aprilia rider, and Bez who eked ahead of his hurting teammate Martin by .1s.
At the other end of performance - Marc Marquez and his brother Alex finished 1-2 in qualifying yet again. Neither of the Marquez brothers has shown particularly remarkable pace around the circuit of late with those accolades going to Quartararo, Martin, Bagnaia, and Vinales (from memory). Quartararo put the factory Yamaha in third for qualifying. The pair of VR46 Ducatis were next, and Maverick Vinales managed to put a Tech3 KTM as high as it's been this season in 6th. A late qualifying crash found Bagnaia adrift in 11th. Notably, Honda continues its streak of Q2s with Zarco in 7th.
The sprint was business as usual this season with Marc Marquez handily winning and reclaiming the championship lead by a commanding two point margin; Alex in second; Morbidelli on his VR46 ride in third. Quartararo lost out on battles to finish down in 5th. Bagnaia picked up a pair of points by jostling his way to 8th. Jorge Martin improved from 14th and was fighting it out in the first 5 or so laps before his pace reduced dramatically and he landed back in 16th.
Keeping tabs on the rookies - Chantra continues his fervent chase to be DFL at all circuits this season on his LCR Honda; Fermin Aldeguer showed up in a big way with great late pace putting him in fifth and showing why he deserved to move up to MotoGP after a so-so start to the year; and Ai Ogura again was the best finishing Aprilia on the circuit for the sprint.
The race started off with a bang as an out-of-control looking Alex Marquez crashed into Marc (who claims he rolled off throttle and aided the collision, which is true) and then crashed into Fabio Digiantonnio a few laps later while failing to slow appropriately. Alex's 2nd place streak came to a halt as he had to go through a long lap loop early in the race and drop a half dozen spots after colliding with Digi put him in 7th. He would climb back through the field for a 6th place finish, but remains 2nd in the championship standings. The early contact between the Marquez brothers gave Morbidelli the race lead for quite some time before fading grip reduced him to 4th place running. Bagnaia had an almighty barn burner of a race and worked his way up within the first three laps to the podium placements. He would maintain strong pace throughout, but was unable to hold off the surprise run from Maverick Vinales, of all riders, who managed to fight to the front and stay up there with Marc Marquez behind for a good quarter of the race. The shrewd veteran Marquez, though, kept some tire in reserve and put on a late charge which again showcased his talent as he seemingly cruised to another victory without worry. His first win in Qatar since 2014! Vinales 2nd on a KTM, and Bagnaia third.
Jorge Martin crashed out in the latter half of the race and received some chest bruising for his troubles. Again, his pace looked alright in the first portion, and then saw a fairly quick drop off from fatigue or pain.
Keeping in touch with the rookies - Ai Ogura struggled and went down to 16th place, in spite of the DNFs in the field, Chantra hoists another dead last trophy high in the air, and Aldeguer was unable to realize the late pace promise of the sprint into a podium spot but finished a more than respectable 5th ahead of his collision prone teammate Alex M.
Did you really think Vinales and KTM had 2nd place? Well, the tire pressure rules say FUCK YOU as he is penalized 16s for running under pressure. This, of course, only occurred because his pressure was set for a battle in the pack and not to be front runner which means his race leading laps lost him a podium. This rule badly needs to be revised or trashed. Bagnaia goes to 2nd, Morbidelli to 3rd, and Vinales plummets down to 14th!
Marc had them covered (barring chaos). Paraphrasing Alex, when he saw Marc do a 51.8 towards the end of FP2, "oh, he must have stuck in a new tire". Alex was doing 52.2 on new tires. His tire guy informed Alex that Marc was on really used tires. Alex: "You fucker."
The pressure rules have to be revisited.
Martin fractured 11 ribs and collapsed a lung in his crash - he can't even leave Qatar for a week or so, probably be out several months. In hindsight his move to Aprilia was a really super very bad idea.
Wow, that is much worse than the initial reports for Martin. Lord have mercy.
Hindsight is always 20/20 and the man is a talented rider, being snubbed by Ducati (admittedly Marquez is THE STAR a la Rossi) and shown no loyalty I'm sure rankled him.
I apologize for the repetition; my timing has been off, but this is an EXTREMELY important story (from a "proudly liberal newspaper") for understanding the current context. It even includes a vindication arc about a guy who was fired for being correct.
It's pretty clear to me from the behavior of Jingye, the Chinese corporate owners of the steel mill, in trying to divert supplies of coking coal to the plant, that the CCP wants that mill permanently shut down. Once the furnaces cool down they are very difficult (some reports say impossible) to start up again.
It would roil things considerably, but maybe the current American administration should tell Beijing that it has no more obligation to honor the Treasury bonds that previous administrations have sold to China than the current Chinese government has to pay off trillions in railroad bonds that previous Chinese governments have sold. More seriously, I think the old saying about when you owe the bank a million dollars and don't have it you're in trouble but if you owe the bank $100 million and don't have it the bank is in trouble, applies to the amount of American debt China holds.
I have also heard that the furnaces would be extremely difficult to restart.
As to why the CCP might want the mill to shut down:
1) Even before the creation of the EEC and Euratom, the Treaty of Paris in 1951 established the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in order to control Germany's ability to wage war again: No steel = no military.
2) Guns are made of steel, so Jared Diamond's 1997 book _Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies_ simplifies to "Germs & Steel." The PLA-backed Wuhan laboratory released germs, and now the CCP is taking the steel.
I wonder what sort of naval escort the coke boat (settle down, South Floridians!) is receiving. I would be proud to be part of that mission.
YouTube's algorithm has been showing me shorts from British series like The Crown and if Mrs. Thatcher is portrayed, it's usually in some kind of negative light. For certain parts of British society it seems de rigueur to loathe her.
The Crown portrayed Thatcher as going to war in the Falklands because her son had gone missing in the Paris-Dakar Rally and she was hysterical about it. In reality, Thatcher's son was found in mid-January and the Falklands War didn't start until three months later. Blatant lies about one of the strongest female heads of state of my lifetime.
I’m starting to sour on movies and tv series “based on a true story”. I’ll see a film like that, be inspired to learn the actual story, and then find out that a large fraction of the film is complete fiction and much of the rest is half true. The general public, though, sees those films as documentaries. There’s a reason why Thomas Keneally said that his book, Schindler’s List, is a novel, not a history book. He combined characters and invented dialog.
There’s a talented musician on YouTube that I watch and actually met in person at a NAMM show. He’s from Eastern Europe and has a green card and was whining about the deportation issue. He did a version of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues, changing Folsom to Guantanamo, which I thought was rather disrespectful to the murderers and rapists in Folsom, who are criminals, not terrorists, and then said that Cash was criticized by the Christian community for the song. I asked him where that is documented and he said, “It’s in the movie,” referring to the Walk The Line biopic. I looked it up. When the song came out in the mid ‘50s it was a Top 10 hit with no apparent controversy. In 1968, after Cash recorded and released Live At Folsom Prison according to Grok some local preachers were unhappy over how they thought Cash was minimizing the guilt of the inmates, but whatever protests there might have been were so minor that the AI can’t find names or places. Billy Graham, the most prominent Christian clergyman in America, supported Cash.
Hollywood typically does everything in their power to hate on Christians, especially Catholics, while revering degenerates, criminals, and perverts. There are probably exceptions but it is so standard I don't even bother to try finding exceptions anymore. Plenty of pro catholic/christian books.
We had no trouble, but it was just my wife and I. This obviously doesn't apply when you fly into the country, but when traveling within Japan by rail, most people ship their luggage. It saves them from having to schlep it on the Shinkansen, where luggage is typically placed in racks above the seats. Space for oversized bags is somewhat limited, and you are charged for it.
My wife and I did this when we traveled from Tokyo to Kyoto. The hotel handled everything, and we arrived at the hotel in Kyoto to find our luggage already placed in our room. It could not have gone any more smoothly, or been executed any more efficiently.
The exterior looks like something that would make a samurai puke! 🤮
The grille makes some of the recent U.S. Toyota offerings look reasonable! And don’t nobody complain about the lighting bolt on the Honda Odyssey after seeing what could be done!
Those Japanese commercials with A+ list Hollywood stars were *everywhere* back in that day. Harrison Ford (Kirin), Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, *Arnold Schwarzenegger*, you name it. Because they *paid* and promised to never show it outside Japan. There was even a series of commercials for canned coffee that had the entire cast of Twin Peaks.
Back in the day there was that messy prestige hierarchy. Movie Stars didn't do TV until they were old enough to do guest spots on The Love Boat. No one famous, TV or movies, did commercials. Fabio was famous as the model for romance novel covers, so commercials were lateral/step up.
it should come as no surprise that a role as do-nothing and in some cases value destructive as "CLO" was the brain child of jack welch, himself the THOUGHT LEADER behind the outsourcing and financialization of GE which to this day has left a smoking hole of civilization as his legacy in Bridgeport, CT.
unfortunately, i've had the displeasure of knowing a "CLO" (very rarely, if ever, an actual C-suite position) for several name brand companies. basically, if you take a sociopathic, ladder climbing know-it-all with double the intelligence of your standard HR grifter (so, approximately on par with your average FP&A associate or equity comp accountant) and let them loose in an organization that has unlimited dollars to dump into non-revenue generating initiatives, you will get a CLO. fortunately, these positions are dwindling as businesses of scale reassess spending that does nothing for anyone and these do-nothing millionaire gigs are drying up. here's hoping that creepy beard boy stays on unemployment for many months to come - and coincidentally, thats a form of equity i can actually support!
I have a client who was making millions and paying their CEO half a million a year to give DEI speeches. They've basically gone bankrupt in 3 months because 100% of these speeches were funded with taxpayer dollars and those dried up. It used to be a non parasitic business.
Welch also popularized rank and yank. So I assemble a great team of A’s but I have to give one a bad review because of a curve. Gee I wonder what sort of games might then result.
I think I'd rather work in a factory than have a bullshit job. It amazes me that cubicle dwellers don't see themselves as toiling in a digital factory.
When I was at DuPont, I had a supervising chemist whom I figured out was determined to eventually get me fired, so when an opportunity to make a lateral move came up, I took it. I still had to have one of those final evaluations, which were supposed to be negotiated. After about six months of going back and forth, wherein when I'd push back on negative stuff, and he'd respond by expanding on that and minimizing the positives, I finally just gave copies of everything to his group supervisor and my own group supervisor with a cover letter saying it was obvious what he was trying to do. Eventually, he got fired when they found out that he'd lied about having a PhD.
He wasn't incompetent. You don't need a PhD to do paint chemistry. He was, however, unethical and dishonest, and a prick in general. He and his wife were planning on building their dream home until the perc test on the property revealed the presence of a 30 inch oil pipeline traversing the property, making even making a driveway almost impossible. After I switched jobs, every time I'd pass him in a hallway I'd ask, "How's that new house coming?"
I have a friend who was in that scenario as a manager, generally very happy with the work the handful of people on his team did, but forced by company policy give someone a shitty grade anyway.
I had to get a “needs improvement” rating in order to get laid off after I volunteered to do so. Funny thing was I spent a large portion of my day fielding questions on how to do stuff, much of it from people who made more money than me. To my credit, I never went golfing with those people when given the chance.
It's not a cheat button. It's both about activating aero devices where legal AND also deploying electric assist to facilitate passing.
It isn't easy to do or even really a cheat... unless your rear wing flexes greatly at speed both pre and during DRS... or you over-ride your DRS outside the DRS zone. (This over-ride happened twice over the weekend with no penalties!)
Sort of. It has a cost in that you have to capture the energy when you're able. Use it too much and you deplete your battery and risk being overtaken. It's hard to really stress how much it is a chess component of current F1 racing. Hell, I don't even try to use it when racing online(yeah, yeah). I just leave it in auto because it's way, way too hard to master in any casual sense. The fact that these guys can deploy and capture so efficiently while also seeing things happening in real time is incredible. So incredible that it makes it look incredibly easy.
Yep, five laps online is a serious enough challenge for me, and I don’t have to contend with g-force, heat, or an irritating race engineer on the radio urging me to “push, push”.
Because that's the theoretical limit of capture and deployment over X number of laps. It also can be remotely shut off as seen during storms where they'll turn DRS completely off because it "isn't safe". Cue the ROFLMAO memes
Not everyone will get DRS. There are also technical limitations in that some cars make good use of DRS and other cars do not. If you drop out of the 1 second trailing zone then you'll not end up with DRS again until you get close enough to a car (or have a car pass and are within a second of it) to use it.
It is a thing that EVERYONE has access to, but it is NOT the same for everyone due to manufacturer and team issues. Hell, if you're a shit driver, you'll hardly ever get DRS during a race. Ask the backmarkers. They get to use it during qually but it's limited during the race.
That's why the RedBull of a few years ago was so freaking impressive. It didn't need DRS and with Max it was DRAMATICALLY faster than the rest of the field. Then McLaren exploited the flexy wing loophole. RedBull largely has not. Mercedes HAS and that's honestly another reason why they haven't fallen back in the pack. But, come mid season, there will be a real tightening of regs and performance as every team looks to next year's brand new cars.
TLDR: It's a system that everyone has access to if they meet criteria. Everyone knows the criteria. Some suck at using it or just suck in it.
John, is it possible that you are referring to the IndyCar series which raced at Long Beach on Sunday? That open-wheel car has a “push to pass” button on the steering wheel. All the drivers get the same amount of “push to pass” time per race, and must be strategic with its use.
No, I’m talking about the race that Jack was talking about and put a clip up from. I do not understand the whole ‘you can speed up if you push this button but can only use it for X seconds’.
It’s not a mechanical limit. It’s not a human limit. It’s a rules by committee limit. I’ve never been a fan of those in life.
MotoGP has gotten a bit gimmicky as well. They've got stupid aero and ride height devices that make them look like drag bikes at times. Thankfully they're banning the ride height and severely limiting aero in the nest rule set.
We're in the process of planning our trip to Japan (next spring) and the Alphard is on the short list of cars I'm looking at renting. My heart screams at me to get that old-world Jaguar XJ, but I'm just not sure our kids want to sit three abreast in the back seat any more, and the Alphard will make me look like I have money and prestige I don't, especially in its home market.
The cool Dad in this case may end up being the one who gets the Alphard so none of my kids has to share butt space with each other. They can fight over the middle seats, which in some trims appear to have massage functions. Maybe I should save the Jaguar idea for when it's just me and Mrs MD.
same. I lived in Texas for 8 years. everyone used it. I stopped for many years after leaving, but it has in the last year or so slowly crept back into usage.
Texans fall under my "Southern" exception. I was thinking primarily of pink-hairs saying things like "Y'all defended Kyle Rittenhouse, and now y'all got a problem with Karmelo Anthony, so y'all are racist, y'all y'all y'all," when they're from Portland, OR.
I should have mentioned that I haven't lived in Texas for 30 years and still occasionally use it, so I can see how its use has spread beyond the South.
Still, it does seem for some people to be more of an affectation than something they were raised with or exposed to by people for whom it is as common as saying "hello" or "good morning."
Much like the Continental Divide, the Pennsylvania Divide is the transition between Phillies / Eagles / "youse guys" and Pirates / "Stillers" / "yinz".
I once had a lovely “sout side” girl in Chicago who was the receptionist in an upscale corporate office tell me and a buddy that our meeting was ready by saying “youse gentlemens can walk right in.”
Before that I did not know the plural of gentlemen.
I went out with one of those gals 20 years ago. I did not pick up on the social class world differences we had and missed out on a lot of fun. Probably for the best. Instead, I married a south side gal 17 years later.
We had a corporate trainer who called people in his trainings “friends” and I always thought that was pretty bad. We’re not friends, the only reason we even acknowledge each other is because we’re paid to.
Folx is the kind of word you overuse in an office setting to clown on people who take that sort of thing seriously. They can’t really say or do anything about it.
god bless. i need to get out of this state. not only do they fuck my wallet like a p diddy freak party, but if i wore cowboy boots they would 5150 me just to be safe.
Most of the guys out on the floor think that us office drones are do-nothing jerkoffs. They’re mostly right.
It helps that I’m still a good ol’ boy at heart. Some probably still think that I’m a jerkoff, but at least I’m not too good to come out of my office. That sort of thing goes a long way.
its easy to get soft and doughy in the ivory tower. i used to laugh at old folks who seemed to lose touch. its definitely easier to do than the alternative, but the effort does go a long way.
I don't see that guy as an idiot. I see him as someone who recognizes a system and who learned to play it. The system is corrupt and downright evil, but it's a system and he recognized that he could extract a very high level of living for himself by gaming it. And for a long time it's worked out for him splendidly.
But like Jack said, he doesn't realize that the system he bet on is thoroughly discredited and the public is increasingly reviling his play, not rewarding it because he lives in multiple layers of bubble world.
The thing about playing the identity politics game is that the people most invested in it do not realize that it's over. He's more like the Mandarins in China who didn't realize their species was extinct the minute Europe sent steam powered gun boats up the Yangtze. They were utterly blind to the hollowness of their empire.
That's where Western Civilization has been headed, but a course correction may well be in progress right now. Here's hoping.
As nice as the Toyota might be inside, I can’t believe you are suggesting that the Chinese bland van looks worse than it. That toyota is almost English family car of the 50s ugly. Yikes.
Yeah, that Alphard looks like a bad mashup of French and Japanese designs. Those '50s English things are better looking than a lot of the French abominations I saw over there a decade or so ago.
The number of attractive Japanese car designs can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. It's a car, not Samurai armor. If it looks like a bug, it probably didn't come out of their studio in southern California.
The Mazda USA Design Center, part of Mazda North American Operations (MNAO), is located at 1421 Reynolds Ave, Irvine, CA 92614. Established in 1987 alongside Mazda’s research and development facilities, this studio plays a significant role in shaping the design of Mazda vehicles, particularly for the North American market. It has contributed to iconic models like the first-generation MX-5 Miata, the third-generation RX-7, the CX-5, Mazda6, CX-50, and CX-90. The studio, led by Senior Director of Design Jacques Flynn as of 2024, focuses on advanced and production design, integrating local inspiration and collaborating with Mazda’s global design teams in Japan and Germany.
Interesting! They always try to sell their design department as if it is Japanese artists drawing on that special Japanese paper with Quill pens and carving clay with katanas.
A few years ago at the Detroit auto show, Infiniti had some traditional Japanese craftsmen making wooden boxes and hand-formed metal tea containers said to be water tight. The Japanese, though, aren't the only ones hyping traditional craftsmanship. Somewhere around here I have a Bentley logo laser cut and engraved out of burled maple veneer, given to me by a guy demonstrating marquetry at the Bentley booth.
My son is not quite 15 and is already saving for his first car (he has a part-time job at the local farmer's market). I have told him in no uncertain terms that his first car ~WILL~ be a manual transmission. A few weeks ago I even let him drive my '01 Miata (6-spd manual) for the first time in a parking lot and he picked it up pretty quickly. (I learned to drive a stick shift at the same age). The Singer Milan would be perfect for him, but since we're still a ways off from him getting his permit there's no way I could convince his mom that this is a perfectly reasonable purchase to make at this time.
How about a 1971 Zaporozhets with a reverse shift pattern and leaking clutch hydraulics? And if you stall it you have to push it back to the garage to plug a homemade "booster" to get enough power for spark so you can use the hand crank starter.
Old joke. A Russian factory worker finally gets his order approved for a new Lada.
The Russian auto dealer calls to tell him, “Comrade, we are pleased to inform you that your new Lada will be delivered on April 16, 2032. Congratulations!”
The factory worker says “I cannot take delivery that day”.
The stunned auto dealer says “How can this be after the Motherland has blessed you with this good fortune?”
The factory worker replies “The plumber is coming over that day”.
I drove a Zhiguli in the Soviet Union, and to this day it had one of the sweetest clutches I have ever experienced. Likely a manufacturing defect. The transmission wasn’t bad either.
Oh yes Ladas are in a different realm from ZAZes and Moskvitches, remember back in the day a Lada was an aspirational high tech “western” car (Fiat). They have very nice feeling shifters (right on top of the transmission so no linkage slop) and good clutches if everything is in repair.
I'd like to think somewhere there's a 79 year old woman Pall Mall hanging on to her bottom lip as she slaps the Nova into third while yelling at her great grandson to sit the fuck down or roll up the window before he falls out. Back seats filled with the 2 cases of Strohs just picked up at the drive thru for her boyfriend.
Perfect! I remember the days when my old relatives had the base model Chevys or Ramblers. My aunt had a Nova with the straight six, AM radio, and houndstooth cloth interior. I loved that car.
Gee that is hard to believe. I did not know it was the Nova, but I should have guessed. My want to be girl friend in college had a 1976 Gold colored slick top Nova with a three on the tree and black vinyl seats and no carpet. She told me her father bought it for her to use in college. He went to the local Chevy store and ordered the most inexpensive midsize car they had, and the Nova was it.
I learned on the not GTI, never thought of it as bad, just everything else being better and easier! Always thought someday I would find something worse.
Even front new, the rabbit’s manual setup was crap. I drove my high school girlfriend’s dad’s new rabbit diesel once in 1982 and thought it to be crap. Bought the 84 GTI in 2013, rebuilt the linkage with all new bushings and it was still crap.
No Ronnie, a six cylinder F-100 with a four speed manual had a first gear so low that it was worthless for any except pulling tree stumps. You could not stall that pickup in first even when trying to. 😉😉
Smart? No, he's not at all smart. He got the job because of who he's related to and who he's friends with. I'd bet money on it.
As for the wheelchairs? I don't know how it is -now- but back when I was dealing with this for someone else about 20 years ago, you had to subscribe to a service. It wasn't exactly expensive, but you had to PAY for their to be a wheelchair to get you on and off of flights. It wasn't a service that most airlines (if any) offered.
Now maybe this was because most of the flights I was dealing with were overseas, but the service worked here as well. I don't know if the service is now provided because Congress passed a law, or if it's just the airlines doing it to be 'nice'.
But I have noticed it's been getting Abused a LOT in the last few years.
I don't fly much now but when the wife and I want to the bahamas right before we had our first child, the amount of 50+ women who used the wheelchairs to get priority seating was astonishing. And it must have been a miracle from God or Jesus in flight because when we landed, every one of their fat asses walked off the plane without assistance.
I once saw a bunch of those fat asses sit in the Emergency exit row. They were NOT pleased when the stewardess came and moved their asses OUT of there.
As a teenager I once flagged an elderly Asian (national) on the exit row; the FA attempted conversation and then deemed her to not meet the FAA's English proficiency requirement for an exit row passenger and relocated her (it may have been an entire group, actually).
It was entirely professional all the way around and no one seemed offended. The replacements were American men who were both English proficient and strong enough to operate an escape door.
I don’t think they even bother with that anymore. There’s been people in the exit row that were clearly not able to assist yet answered “yes.” FA’s seem to nowadays not be ableist and take people at their word.
I may have missed it, but I didn't see anything in there that requires the air lines to provide wheelchairs. They just have to make accommodations for your personal wheelchair.
He was smart for figuring out how to rig the system and get a job like that. He was dumb for publicly harassing an old man whose viewpoints differed from his, and then amplifying the conversation on social media, expecting the accolades and attaboys to roll in.
Even if you think it was ethically appropriate to confront the dude—I’d have just rolled my eyes and ignored it—the fact of the matter is that people with vastly different viewpoints do exist. And, as someone in a public, C-suite role, your job is first and foremost not to piss them off to the point where you alienate them and jeopardize your employer’s customer base.
Also, there are less confrontational ways to have that conversation. Like "let's hope that DOGE doesn't revert the FEDERAL LAW that requires the airlines to provide that wheelchair to you free of charge. But I'm OK with that, because that's how we live in a civilized community."
How about you just be a good Stoic and not waste time trying to argue with strangers over your own beliefs and then wasting more time posting your bragging about it on social media and self destructing?
Oh I completely agree in this case. Just pointing out that in OTHER situations, a conversation might be warranted rather than a confrontation from a position of intellectual and moral superiority.
Or just follow the advice of one of my favorite license plates: MYOFB
I saw that plate back in Illinois.
No idea how that got past the censors. But there was an Illinois mom in a suburb I lived in driving a Toyota minivan with plate RYFKM. Which would fit with hauling a bunch of kids around.
"as someone in a public, C-suite role, your job is first and foremost not to piss them off to the point where you alienate them and jeopardize your employer’s customer base"
Exactly. One of the responsibilities of being a corporate officer at that level is the recognition that you are ALWAYS representing the company.
As a bit of a fan of Lewis in his post-dominance era I have to give the nod to Yuki for this year. Both made recent switches, but Yuki with much less time behind the wheel and into a seemingly much more diabolical Red Bull. Yuki is paired with an honest candidate for GOAT while Lewis is paired with the "pretty good but not great" LeClerc (I put him along with folks like Coulthard, Hakinnen, Raikonnen, Villeneuve, etc - great under the right circumstances). So far a fun season, especially if Max can keep it interesting with the two McLarens splitting the points.
I need to get more sleep/not go to bed after 2AM - posted this over in the Cat Tale
MotoGP in Qatar: Jorge Martin's return was far from a return to form. Either lingering difficulty with his injury, as his pace fell off dramatically after looking okay at the start of the sprint, or being a thousand laps of experience this season behind everyone else. During qualifying Jorge was bested by Ai Ogura, who continues to be the top Aprilia rider, and Bez who eked ahead of his hurting teammate Martin by .1s.
At the other end of performance - Marc Marquez and his brother Alex finished 1-2 in qualifying yet again. Neither of the Marquez brothers has shown particularly remarkable pace around the circuit of late with those accolades going to Quartararo, Martin, Bagnaia, and Vinales (from memory). Quartararo put the factory Yamaha in third for qualifying. The pair of VR46 Ducatis were next, and Maverick Vinales managed to put a Tech3 KTM as high as it's been this season in 6th. A late qualifying crash found Bagnaia adrift in 11th. Notably, Honda continues its streak of Q2s with Zarco in 7th.
The sprint was business as usual this season with Marc Marquez handily winning and reclaiming the championship lead by a commanding two point margin; Alex in second; Morbidelli on his VR46 ride in third. Quartararo lost out on battles to finish down in 5th. Bagnaia picked up a pair of points by jostling his way to 8th. Jorge Martin improved from 14th and was fighting it out in the first 5 or so laps before his pace reduced dramatically and he landed back in 16th.
Keeping tabs on the rookies - Chantra continues his fervent chase to be DFL at all circuits this season on his LCR Honda; Fermin Aldeguer showed up in a big way with great late pace putting him in fifth and showing why he deserved to move up to MotoGP after a so-so start to the year; and Ai Ogura again was the best finishing Aprilia on the circuit for the sprint.
The race started off with a bang as an out-of-control looking Alex Marquez crashed into Marc (who claims he rolled off throttle and aided the collision, which is true) and then crashed into Fabio Digiantonnio a few laps later while failing to slow appropriately. Alex's 2nd place streak came to a halt as he had to go through a long lap loop early in the race and drop a half dozen spots after colliding with Digi put him in 7th. He would climb back through the field for a 6th place finish, but remains 2nd in the championship standings. The early contact between the Marquez brothers gave Morbidelli the race lead for quite some time before fading grip reduced him to 4th place running. Bagnaia had an almighty barn burner of a race and worked his way up within the first three laps to the podium placements. He would maintain strong pace throughout, but was unable to hold off the surprise run from Maverick Vinales, of all riders, who managed to fight to the front and stay up there with Marc Marquez behind for a good quarter of the race. The shrewd veteran Marquez, though, kept some tire in reserve and put on a late charge which again showcased his talent as he seemingly cruised to another victory without worry. His first win in Qatar since 2014! Vinales 2nd on a KTM, and Bagnaia third.
Jorge Martin crashed out in the latter half of the race and received some chest bruising for his troubles. Again, his pace looked alright in the first portion, and then saw a fairly quick drop off from fatigue or pain.
Keeping in touch with the rookies - Ai Ogura struggled and went down to 16th place, in spite of the DNFs in the field, Chantra hoists another dead last trophy high in the air, and Aldeguer was unable to realize the late pace promise of the sprint into a podium spot but finished a more than respectable 5th ahead of his collision prone teammate Alex M.
Did you really think Vinales and KTM had 2nd place? Well, the tire pressure rules say FUCK YOU as he is penalized 16s for running under pressure. This, of course, only occurred because his pressure was set for a battle in the pack and not to be front runner which means his race leading laps lost him a podium. This rule badly needs to be revised or trashed. Bagnaia goes to 2nd, Morbidelli to 3rd, and Vinales plummets down to 14th!
Next week MotoGP runs at Jerez (Jereth).
Marc had them covered (barring chaos). Paraphrasing Alex, when he saw Marc do a 51.8 towards the end of FP2, "oh, he must have stuck in a new tire". Alex was doing 52.2 on new tires. His tire guy informed Alex that Marc was on really used tires. Alex: "You fucker."
The pressure rules have to be revisited.
Martin fractured 11 ribs and collapsed a lung in his crash - he can't even leave Qatar for a week or so, probably be out several months. In hindsight his move to Aprilia was a really super very bad idea.
Wow, that is much worse than the initial reports for Martin. Lord have mercy.
Hindsight is always 20/20 and the man is a talented rider, being snubbed by Ducati (admittedly Marquez is THE STAR a la Rossi) and shown no loyalty I'm sure rankled him.
Apparently DiGiannantonio's front tire clipped Martin when he fell, causing the damage. Sucks, I like the guy.
I apologize for the repetition; my timing has been off, but this is an EXTREMELY important story (from a "proudly liberal newspaper") for understanding the current context. It even includes a vindication arc about a guy who was fired for being correct.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-steel-china-sabotage-ministers-b2733156.html
Pinned.
It's pretty clear to me from the behavior of Jingye, the Chinese corporate owners of the steel mill, in trying to divert supplies of coking coal to the plant, that the CCP wants that mill permanently shut down. Once the furnaces cool down they are very difficult (some reports say impossible) to start up again.
It would roil things considerably, but maybe the current American administration should tell Beijing that it has no more obligation to honor the Treasury bonds that previous administrations have sold to China than the current Chinese government has to pay off trillions in railroad bonds that previous Chinese governments have sold. More seriously, I think the old saying about when you owe the bank a million dollars and don't have it you're in trouble but if you owe the bank $100 million and don't have it the bank is in trouble, applies to the amount of American debt China holds.
I have also heard that the furnaces would be extremely difficult to restart.
As to why the CCP might want the mill to shut down:
1) Even before the creation of the EEC and Euratom, the Treaty of Paris in 1951 established the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in order to control Germany's ability to wage war again: No steel = no military.
2) Guns are made of steel, so Jared Diamond's 1997 book _Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies_ simplifies to "Germs & Steel." The PLA-backed Wuhan laboratory released germs, and now the CCP is taking the steel.
I wonder what sort of naval escort the coke boat (settle down, South Floridians!) is receiving. I would be proud to be part of that mission.
The U.S. and UK barely have basic steel industries to nationalize.
I’m holding out hope that somehow Great Lakes Steel gets started back up. The area needs it.
Fortunately hopium is free.
In this one, it’s not going down in the DMs but the comments.
My friends in the UK have long said that their country was lost, but the comments on that article are something else.
It's all thatchers fault!
What a bunch of cucks.
YouTube's algorithm has been showing me shorts from British series like The Crown and if Mrs. Thatcher is portrayed, it's usually in some kind of negative light. For certain parts of British society it seems de rigueur to loathe her.
There is only so much reality that humans can cope with!
It’s like how many parts of American society detest Republicans or conservatives.
The Crown portrayed Thatcher as going to war in the Falklands because her son had gone missing in the Paris-Dakar Rally and she was hysterical about it. In reality, Thatcher's son was found in mid-January and the Falklands War didn't start until three months later. Blatant lies about one of the strongest female heads of state of my lifetime.
I’m starting to sour on movies and tv series “based on a true story”. I’ll see a film like that, be inspired to learn the actual story, and then find out that a large fraction of the film is complete fiction and much of the rest is half true. The general public, though, sees those films as documentaries. There’s a reason why Thomas Keneally said that his book, Schindler’s List, is a novel, not a history book. He combined characters and invented dialog.
There’s a talented musician on YouTube that I watch and actually met in person at a NAMM show. He’s from Eastern Europe and has a green card and was whining about the deportation issue. He did a version of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues, changing Folsom to Guantanamo, which I thought was rather disrespectful to the murderers and rapists in Folsom, who are criminals, not terrorists, and then said that Cash was criticized by the Christian community for the song. I asked him where that is documented and he said, “It’s in the movie,” referring to the Walk The Line biopic. I looked it up. When the song came out in the mid ‘50s it was a Top 10 hit with no apparent controversy. In 1968, after Cash recorded and released Live At Folsom Prison according to Grok some local preachers were unhappy over how they thought Cash was minimizing the guilt of the inmates, but whatever protests there might have been were so minor that the AI can’t find names or places. Billy Graham, the most prominent Christian clergyman in America, supported Cash.
Hollywood typically does everything in their power to hate on Christians, especially Catholics, while revering degenerates, criminals, and perverts. There are probably exceptions but it is so standard I don't even bother to try finding exceptions anymore. Plenty of pro catholic/christian books.
Even if that were a true statement, it’s the defeatist attitude that really got me.
“Aye well blokes ol’ Madge properly knackered things, nothing to do but watch footie now lads.”
The US sales arm near Chicago was a client of mine for many years. I have to agree with Trump - and apparently the Chinese do - as well:
“We must protect our country and our workers. Our steel industry is in bad shape,” Trump tweeted. “IF YOU DON’T HAVE STEEL, YOU DON’T HAVE A COUNTRY!”
Kind of wondering if that was gross incompetence or outright sabotage.
I’m here to get absolutely wasted and I even bought my own glass, so piss off bitches!
Wrong glass, sir...
How much for the little girl? (Throws cocktail shrimp)
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
sir, we're going to need you to stop pissing in the glass and step outside.
I feel seen.
The fastest way to get absolutely wasted is to dispense with the glass and drink straight from the bottle.
Trust me, I have ample experience in this area. (Long since sober, but the game has not changed since I last played it.)
The interior of that van looks like a bizjet.
Truly does. The seats are BRILLIANT.
How's the luggage space? In the photo it's hard to tell if it will fit five passengers' worth.
They are big vehicles... for Japan. If you don't bring your whole wardrobe you'd probably be fine.
I NEED ONE
"Hey honey, check out this new van!"
"No"
I would like a Dajiban or that Renault with the detuned F1 V-10.
DAJIBAN! I love that the Ferrari 360 brakes _bolt right on_ to the Dodge. And every van looks better rolling on Watanabes.
Actually, everything looks better rolling on Watanabes
About what you get in the trunk of a Camry sedan.
I’m amazed that there’s not a Lexus version.
THERE ABSOLUTELY IS
https://discoverlexus.com/models/lm/
Oh, I know they exist, I meant over here. They would sell like crazy.
We had no trouble, but it was just my wife and I. This obviously doesn't apply when you fly into the country, but when traveling within Japan by rail, most people ship their luggage. It saves them from having to schlep it on the Shinkansen, where luggage is typically placed in racks above the seats. Space for oversized bags is somewhat limited, and you are charged for it.
My wife and I did this when we traveled from Tokyo to Kyoto. The hotel handled everything, and we arrived at the hotel in Kyoto to find our luggage already placed in our room. It could not have gone any more smoothly, or been executed any more efficiently.
I would only trust the Japanese to do that hahah
the backs recline and the leg rests extend. It was just the thing after a trans-Pacific flight in coach.
The exterior looks like something that would make a samurai puke! 🤮
The grille makes some of the recent U.S. Toyota offerings look reasonable! And don’t nobody complain about the lighting bolt on the Honda Odyssey after seeing what could be done!
Those Japanese commercials with A+ list Hollywood stars were *everywhere* back in that day. Harrison Ford (Kirin), Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, *Arnold Schwarzenegger*, you name it. Because they *paid* and promised to never show it outside Japan. There was even a series of commercials for canned coffee that had the entire cast of Twin Peaks.
https://youtu.be/oH9iueYtnSk?si=kHChNcDEb9_O6rbt
Ichiban, for men! That's a Friends reference.
Wait, so we couldn't watch Bruce Willis selling a Lexus, but we COULD get Fabio hawking I Can't Believe It's Not Butter...Spray?!
Back in the day there was that messy prestige hierarchy. Movie Stars didn't do TV until they were old enough to do guest spots on The Love Boat. No one famous, TV or movies, did commercials. Fabio was famous as the model for romance novel covers, so commercials were lateral/step up.
He also took a goose to the face on that roller coaster!
Let's not forget he completely humiliated George Clooney face to face at some dinner.
Did George Clooney ever record anything on this level?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-53BcfsIs
Crystal Bernard for Parkay!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga3bG55_1uQ
Michael J. Fox peddled Honda Integras back in the day. (Same as our Acura version, except we didn’t get the Type-R until late.)
it should come as no surprise that a role as do-nothing and in some cases value destructive as "CLO" was the brain child of jack welch, himself the THOUGHT LEADER behind the outsourcing and financialization of GE which to this day has left a smoking hole of civilization as his legacy in Bridgeport, CT.
unfortunately, i've had the displeasure of knowing a "CLO" (very rarely, if ever, an actual C-suite position) for several name brand companies. basically, if you take a sociopathic, ladder climbing know-it-all with double the intelligence of your standard HR grifter (so, approximately on par with your average FP&A associate or equity comp accountant) and let them loose in an organization that has unlimited dollars to dump into non-revenue generating initiatives, you will get a CLO. fortunately, these positions are dwindling as businesses of scale reassess spending that does nothing for anyone and these do-nothing millionaire gigs are drying up. here's hoping that creepy beard boy stays on unemployment for many months to come - and coincidentally, thats a form of equity i can actually support!
I have a client who was making millions and paying their CEO half a million a year to give DEI speeches. They've basically gone bankrupt in 3 months because 100% of these speeches were funded with taxpayer dollars and those dried up. It used to be a non parasitic business.
Used to be? When, the 15th century?
Before they hired the last CEO and it was a legitimate business.
I left the sarcasm tag off.
Welch also popularized rank and yank. So I assemble a great team of A’s but I have to give one a bad review because of a curve. Gee I wonder what sort of games might then result.
always be sure to hire 10% idiots ......
Yep and then you spend the time you should be working on core business managing the idiots and then managing the idiots out.
"Please go sit in that cubicle and don't EVER bother me or attempt to do any work"
I think I'd rather work in a factory than have a bullshit job. It amazes me that cubicle dwellers don't see themselves as toiling in a digital factory.
I got burned by that myself. I was transferring out of a department, so my boss gave ME the Needs Improvement rating because somebody's gotta be last.
Or the welcome to the group. Here’s your needs improvement.
When I was at DuPont, I had a supervising chemist whom I figured out was determined to eventually get me fired, so when an opportunity to make a lateral move came up, I took it. I still had to have one of those final evaluations, which were supposed to be negotiated. After about six months of going back and forth, wherein when I'd push back on negative stuff, and he'd respond by expanding on that and minimizing the positives, I finally just gave copies of everything to his group supervisor and my own group supervisor with a cover letter saying it was obvious what he was trying to do. Eventually, he got fired when they found out that he'd lied about having a PhD.
And probably blew up a laboratory or two in high school and college!
He wasn't incompetent. You don't need a PhD to do paint chemistry. He was, however, unethical and dishonest, and a prick in general. He and his wife were planning on building their dream home until the perc test on the property revealed the presence of a 30 inch oil pipeline traversing the property, making even making a driveway almost impossible. After I switched jobs, every time I'd pass him in a hallway I'd ask, "How's that new house coming?"
I have a friend who was in that scenario as a manager, generally very happy with the work the handful of people on his team did, but forced by company policy give someone a shitty grade anyway.
I’ve had it happen on both ends. Had to give a mediocre review to a new person and had it happen to me when I changed groups.
I had to get a “needs improvement” rating in order to get laid off after I volunteered to do so. Funny thing was I spent a large portion of my day fielding questions on how to do stuff, much of it from people who made more money than me. To my credit, I never went golfing with those people when given the chance.
just shows how completely clueless and stupid and grossly overpaid the CEOs are to allow CLO positions to be created and burn up $$$.
Okay, I don't watch F1 anymore, haven't in decades, but WTH? They have a 'turbo button' in the cars? WHY?
Whatever happened to 'you can go as fast as you dare for as long as you want'? And it all being about skill and not some stupid little 'cheat' button?
Gimmick-ry to improve the 'racing'.
Soon KITT will do the driving too.
We'd better get Super Pursuit Mode, too.
because without it there would be NO passing whatsoever, just a long parade.
It's not a cheat button. It's both about activating aero devices where legal AND also deploying electric assist to facilitate passing.
It isn't easy to do or even really a cheat... unless your rear wing flexes greatly at speed both pre and during DRS... or you over-ride your DRS outside the DRS zone. (This over-ride happened twice over the weekend with no penalties!)
Equivalent of pushing the throttle down harder like I’ve seen in the movies.
Sort of. It has a cost in that you have to capture the energy when you're able. Use it too much and you deplete your battery and risk being overtaken. It's hard to really stress how much it is a chess component of current F1 racing. Hell, I don't even try to use it when racing online(yeah, yeah). I just leave it in auto because it's way, way too hard to master in any casual sense. The fact that these guys can deploy and capture so efficiently while also seeing things happening in real time is incredible. So incredible that it makes it look incredibly easy.
My comment was a sarcastic joke. I was too lazy to tag it as such.
HOW DARE YOU /sarcasm
But yeah, I honestly did hate the DRS thing until I got more into F1 and then start sim racing it. I tell ya, full length even in a sim kicks my ass.
Yep, five laps online is a serious enough challenge for me, and I don’t have to contend with g-force, heat, or an irritating race engineer on the radio urging me to “push, push”.
DANGER TO MANIFOLD!!!
Monica!!! NOOOOOO!
then why is your use of it limited to so many seconds per race?
Because that's the theoretical limit of capture and deployment over X number of laps. It also can be remotely shut off as seen during storms where they'll turn DRS completely off because it "isn't safe". Cue the ROFLMAO memes
None of what you said makes any sense to me.
It's a system that allows the car to go faster, period.
The limits seem to be set by a committee or warden, not by physics.
Not everyone will get DRS. There are also technical limitations in that some cars make good use of DRS and other cars do not. If you drop out of the 1 second trailing zone then you'll not end up with DRS again until you get close enough to a car (or have a car pass and are within a second of it) to use it.
It is a thing that EVERYONE has access to, but it is NOT the same for everyone due to manufacturer and team issues. Hell, if you're a shit driver, you'll hardly ever get DRS during a race. Ask the backmarkers. They get to use it during qually but it's limited during the race.
That's why the RedBull of a few years ago was so freaking impressive. It didn't need DRS and with Max it was DRAMATICALLY faster than the rest of the field. Then McLaren exploited the flexy wing loophole. RedBull largely has not. Mercedes HAS and that's honestly another reason why they haven't fallen back in the pack. But, come mid season, there will be a real tightening of regs and performance as every team looks to next year's brand new cars.
TLDR: It's a system that everyone has access to if they meet criteria. Everyone knows the criteria. Some suck at using it or just suck in it.
So what you're saying is that it's RULES driven by a committee and has absolutely nothing to do with anything physical.
John, is it possible that you are referring to the IndyCar series which raced at Long Beach on Sunday? That open-wheel car has a “push to pass” button on the steering wheel. All the drivers get the same amount of “push to pass” time per race, and must be strategic with its use.
No, I’m talking about the race that Jack was talking about and put a clip up from. I do not understand the whole ‘you can speed up if you push this button but can only use it for X seconds’.
It’s not a mechanical limit. It’s not a human limit. It’s a rules by committee limit. I’ve never been a fan of those in life.
Too much for my pea brain, “may the fastest car driven the best win” sensibilities!
That button's been around for nearly 40 years. My Nintendo Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing had it.
So did my Gateway 2000.
LOL, I remember that button!
Danny Sullivan’s Indy Heat, which was just Ivan Stewart’s Super Offroad reskinned.
MotoGP has gotten a bit gimmicky as well. They've got stupid aero and ride height devices that make them look like drag bikes at times. Thankfully they're banning the ride height and severely limiting aero in the nest rule set.
Yeah, verily, I am looking forward to the rules change now (I was excusing the aero before)
I'm leery of the engine change. No more stupid ride height and aero that breaks off all the time I'm all for.
Engine change as level playing field is what I'm looking forward to after such an unbroken Ducati streak in that department.
I wasn’t even aware that button existed. Very dumb.
We're in the process of planning our trip to Japan (next spring) and the Alphard is on the short list of cars I'm looking at renting. My heart screams at me to get that old-world Jaguar XJ, but I'm just not sure our kids want to sit three abreast in the back seat any more, and the Alphard will make me look like I have money and prestige I don't, especially in its home market.
go with your heart
Neither you...
Just got a note from an ACF reader who rented an Alphard earlier this year and was eminently satisfied.
...nor you has made this decision any easier!
C’mon, be the cool Dad!
The cool Dad in this case may end up being the one who gets the Alphard so none of my kids has to share butt space with each other. They can fight over the middle seats, which in some trims appear to have massage functions. Maybe I should save the Jaguar idea for when it's just me and Mrs MD.
YES! that would be the 2 seat Jag.
Mission impossible
Read the room.
Do better.
Educate yourself.
Check your privilege.
Y'all (unless you are black, Southern, or both).
All these phrases signal that the speaker is someone whose opinion I can safely ignore.
Oh no! I'm partial to ya'll for its efficiency.
same. I lived in Texas for 8 years. everyone used it. I stopped for many years after leaving, but it has in the last year or so slowly crept back into usage.
Texans fall under my "Southern" exception. I was thinking primarily of pink-hairs saying things like "Y'all defended Kyle Rittenhouse, and now y'all got a problem with Karmelo Anthony, so y'all are racist, y'all y'all y'all," when they're from Portland, OR.
I should have mentioned that I haven't lived in Texas for 30 years and still occasionally use it, so I can see how its use has spread beyond the South.
Still, it does seem for some people to be more of an affectation than something they were raised with or exposed to by people for whom it is as common as saying "hello" or "good morning."
Don’t forget “all y’all”.
I hate the word "Y'all," and yet it's better than "Yinz."
Y’all is the approved replacement for “guys”.
That's a joke, right?
No joke as the cadaver used to say. I’ve noticed the correct pronouns crowd will no longer say hey guys for hey everyone, but will now say hey y’all.
I think I’m going to start using cats and kittens
"Guys" has become the worst word.
My daughters can bring up my use of Guys to their therapists in 20 years.
I just refer to my kids as "you mother fuckers" these days.
hmm, I have female colleagues that use "guys" all the time.
No, that would be "uzeguyz" :-)
Damn. I’m glad I work alone most days.
the hell is yinz
That's Blawnoxican for "You ones."
FYI Blawnoxican is another word for Pittsburgher.
i have no idea how to even begin pronouncing blawnoxican
Phonetically.
Blaw-NOX-ih-kan.
Much like the Continental Divide, the Pennsylvania Divide is the transition between Phillies / Eagles / "youse guys" and Pirates / "Stillers" / "yinz".
I once had a lovely “sout side” girl in Chicago who was the receptionist in an upscale corporate office tell me and a buddy that our meeting was ready by saying “youse gentlemens can walk right in.”
Before that I did not know the plural of gentlemen.
Was she chewing gum?
Good inference, but no.
She was very cute. Kind of a Marisa Tomei as Mona Lisa DeVito type.
I went out with one of those gals 20 years ago. I did not pick up on the social class world differences we had and missed out on a lot of fun. Probably for the best. Instead, I married a south side gal 17 years later.
It’s y’all but stated by a person from Pittsburgh.
For this reason, Pittsburghers can also be referred to as “yinzers”, a term of both endearment and light jest.
america is an interesting place
Please move here and we’ll give you lessons.
sounds like a plan
lessons #1, we don't use the term "hoser"
Some men like feet, I maintain a Salena Zito fetish....
https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/289926-yinz-guysits-ok-to-call-trump-a-jagoff-nat/
When I hear the phrase "do better", I reach for my revolver.
Better this!
If you ever want to sell that!
Unless it's your brother on the radio as you're doing your stint at an AER event.
Actually, maybe even then, too.
"folks"
or somehow worse "folx"
Folx is a signal that you're part of the left, but I use folks all the time. I like the informal touch it brings.
We had a corporate trainer who called people in his trainings “friends” and I always thought that was pretty bad. We’re not friends, the only reason we even acknowledge each other is because we’re paid to.
Cringey! 😬
Or was he a Quaker?
That's the term my son's pre-k teacher uses to refer to the students.
I’ve heard of other teachers saying that and I’m not a fan of the practice.
Folx is the kind of word you overuse in an office setting to clown on people who take that sort of thing seriously. They can’t really say or do anything about it.
I'd never use it myself but I rather like, "All y'all."
I'm here for an "All y'all" now and again.
verified TRUE by a real corporate american slave. i use y'all to hide in plain site with my clients all the time.
I do, but I also wear cowboy boots at work most days. Part of our benefit package is a boot stipend.
god bless. i need to get out of this state. not only do they fuck my wallet like a p diddy freak party, but if i wore cowboy boots they would 5150 me just to be safe.
Most of the guys out on the floor think that us office drones are do-nothing jerkoffs. They’re mostly right.
It helps that I’m still a good ol’ boy at heart. Some probably still think that I’m a jerkoff, but at least I’m not too good to come out of my office. That sort of thing goes a long way.
its easy to get soft and doughy in the ivory tower. i used to laugh at old folks who seemed to lose touch. its definitely easier to do than the alternative, but the effort does go a long way.
That guy at Frod DID get to his position WHILE being an idiot.
Everything you said is incorrect about inferring his station and how he probably belonged there.
Speaking of parasites....
I don't see that guy as an idiot. I see him as someone who recognizes a system and who learned to play it. The system is corrupt and downright evil, but it's a system and he recognized that he could extract a very high level of living for himself by gaming it. And for a long time it's worked out for him splendidly.
But like Jack said, he doesn't realize that the system he bet on is thoroughly discredited and the public is increasingly reviling his play, not rewarding it because he lives in multiple layers of bubble world.
He was a gay DEI hire who hadn't been held accountable for so long that he forgot the importance of hiding how stupid he is.
The thing about playing the identity politics game is that the people most invested in it do not realize that it's over. He's more like the Mandarins in China who didn't realize their species was extinct the minute Europe sent steam powered gun boats up the Yangtze. They were utterly blind to the hollowness of their empire.
That's where Western Civilization has been headed, but a course correction may well be in progress right now. Here's hoping.
in our case it is the Chinese cargo ships sailing into our ports ....
As nice as the Toyota might be inside, I can’t believe you are suggesting that the Chinese bland van looks worse than it. That toyota is almost English family car of the 50s ugly. Yikes.
At least all the panels on the Alphard will line up!
I say, the chaps at Riley would like a word in your shell-like.
Oh gosh, I just meant that they WON'T line up on the Chinese van!
The lads at the Coventry works say all is forgiven
and the paint doesn't contain lead.
Yeah, that Alphard looks like a bad mashup of French and Japanese designs. Those '50s English things are better looking than a lot of the French abominations I saw over there a decade or so ago.
The number of attractive Japanese car designs can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. It's a car, not Samurai armor. If it looks like a bug, it probably didn't come out of their studio in southern California.
Mazda has more than 5 models......
From Grok:
The Mazda USA Design Center, part of Mazda North American Operations (MNAO), is located at 1421 Reynolds Ave, Irvine, CA 92614. Established in 1987 alongside Mazda’s research and development facilities, this studio plays a significant role in shaping the design of Mazda vehicles, particularly for the North American market. It has contributed to iconic models like the first-generation MX-5 Miata, the third-generation RX-7, the CX-5, Mazda6, CX-50, and CX-90. The studio, led by Senior Director of Design Jacques Flynn as of 2024, focuses on advanced and production design, integrating local inspiration and collaborating with Mazda’s global design teams in Japan and Germany.
Interesting! They always try to sell their design department as if it is Japanese artists drawing on that special Japanese paper with Quill pens and carving clay with katanas.
A few years ago at the Detroit auto show, Infiniti had some traditional Japanese craftsmen making wooden boxes and hand-formed metal tea containers said to be water tight. The Japanese, though, aren't the only ones hyping traditional craftsmanship. Somewhere around here I have a Bentley logo laser cut and engraved out of burled maple veneer, given to me by a guy demonstrating marquetry at the Bentley booth.
My son is not quite 15 and is already saving for his first car (he has a part-time job at the local farmer's market). I have told him in no uncertain terms that his first car ~WILL~ be a manual transmission. A few weeks ago I even let him drive my '01 Miata (6-spd manual) for the first time in a parking lot and he picked it up pretty quickly. (I learned to drive a stick shift at the same age). The Singer Milan would be perfect for him, but since we're still a ways off from him getting his permit there's no way I could convince his mom that this is a perfectly reasonable purchase to make at this time.
I made my son learn to drive an ‘84 Rabbit GTI. If you can drive an 80’s VW manual, you can drive anything.
How about a 1971 Zaporozhets with a reverse shift pattern and leaking clutch hydraulics? And if you stall it you have to push it back to the garage to plug a homemade "booster" to get enough power for spark so you can use the hand crank starter.
"She'll go 300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene. Put it in 'H!'"
Bless you, GT.
“In mother Russia, learning car drives YOU!”
Old joke. A Russian factory worker finally gets his order approved for a new Lada.
The Russian auto dealer calls to tell him, “Comrade, we are pleased to inform you that your new Lada will be delivered on April 16, 2032. Congratulations!”
The factory worker says “I cannot take delivery that day”.
The stunned auto dealer says “How can this be after the Motherland has blessed you with this good fortune?”
The factory worker replies “The plumber is coming over that day”.
https://youtu.be/zaqGnIH5z4g?si=4SREjYaaHqlltAg5
Fantastic, that’s even better!
I drove a Zhiguli in the Soviet Union, and to this day it had one of the sweetest clutches I have ever experienced. Likely a manufacturing defect. The transmission wasn’t bad either.
Oh yes Ladas are in a different realm from ZAZes and Moskvitches, remember back in the day a Lada was an aspirational high tech “western” car (Fiat). They have very nice feeling shifters (right on top of the transmission so no linkage slop) and good clutches if everything is in repair.
I watch Garage 54 on YouTube. They have a few Lada 'projects' on the go, and I was interested to see double wishbone front suspension.
For me it was a ‘68 Power Wagon.
'72 GMC C10. 3 on a tree.
Last US truck with 3 on the tree was the 1987 Chevy C/K. Last car was the 1979 Chevy Nova. Kind of stunning.
I'd like to think somewhere there's a 79 year old woman Pall Mall hanging on to her bottom lip as she slaps the Nova into third while yelling at her great grandson to sit the fuck down or roll up the window before he falls out. Back seats filled with the 2 cases of Strohs just picked up at the drive thru for her boyfriend.
Perfect! I remember the days when my old relatives had the base model Chevys or Ramblers. My aunt had a Nova with the straight six, AM radio, and houndstooth cloth interior. I loved that car.
Gee that is hard to believe. I did not know it was the Nova, but I should have guessed. My want to be girl friend in college had a 1976 Gold colored slick top Nova with a three on the tree and black vinyl seats and no carpet. She told me her father bought it for her to use in college. He went to the local Chevy store and ordered the most inexpensive midsize car they had, and the Nova was it.
Perplexity is great for looking up trivia like that, it can be addictive.
Last 3 speed on the floor was the 1981 Malibu and Camaro! Crazy
I learned on the not GTI, never thought of it as bad, just everything else being better and easier! Always thought someday I would find something worse.
Even front new, the rabbit’s manual setup was crap. I drove my high school girlfriend’s dad’s new rabbit diesel once in 1982 and thought it to be crap. Bought the 84 GTI in 2013, rebuilt the linkage with all new bushings and it was still crap.
Early Buses and Beetles were worse, though 1st was so low it was hard to stall.
No Ronnie, a six cylinder F-100 with a four speed manual had a first gear so low that it was worthless for any except pulling tree stumps. You could not stall that pickup in first even when trying to. 😉😉
Old Ford Transits were the same. I remember trying to stall it and having no success.
you, sir, are a contender for the Cool Dad Award.
I learned to drive stick in a Datsun 240-Z and an Isuzu Impulse Engineered by Lotus (TM)
Smart? No, he's not at all smart. He got the job because of who he's related to and who he's friends with. I'd bet money on it.
As for the wheelchairs? I don't know how it is -now- but back when I was dealing with this for someone else about 20 years ago, you had to subscribe to a service. It wasn't exactly expensive, but you had to PAY for their to be a wheelchair to get you on and off of flights. It wasn't a service that most airlines (if any) offered.
Now maybe this was because most of the flights I was dealing with were overseas, but the service worked here as well. I don't know if the service is now provided because Congress passed a law, or if it's just the airlines doing it to be 'nice'.
But I have noticed it's been getting Abused a LOT in the last few years.
I don't fly much now but when the wife and I want to the bahamas right before we had our first child, the amount of 50+ women who used the wheelchairs to get priority seating was astonishing. And it must have been a miracle from God or Jesus in flight because when we landed, every one of their fat asses walked off the plane without assistance.
I once saw a bunch of those fat asses sit in the Emergency exit row. They were NOT pleased when the stewardess came and moved their asses OUT of there.
As a teenager I once flagged an elderly Asian (national) on the exit row; the FA attempted conversation and then deemed her to not meet the FAA's English proficiency requirement for an exit row passenger and relocated her (it may have been an entire group, actually).
It was entirely professional all the way around and no one seemed offended. The replacements were American men who were both English proficient and strong enough to operate an escape door.
Most people are. But the wheelchair cheaters... well, I think that says it all.
I don’t think they even bother with that anymore. There’s been people in the exit row that were clearly not able to assist yet answered “yes.” FA’s seem to nowadays not be ableist and take people at their word.
Or don’t want to be at the end of consequences for “offending” the passenger.
Flight attendants refer to "Jetway Jesus" in these cases.
Could he please fix my knee?
Well it he does, please send him out my way to also fix mine.
I know a really good orthopedic surgeon here in Texas (I'm going under the knife Friday for shoulder issues).
That, and people bringing their alleged emotional support animals on the plane.
No matter how cuddly my pet skunk is, it's not his job to keep me from starting a Film-At-11 SWAT standoff.
I would have loved to have brought my emotional support leopard - she beats up assholes for me! :-D
wonder if one could claim a 20' boa constrictor as emotional support. "here, could you hold this while I use the lavatory"
IT'S BEEN DONE!
And when they tried to stop the kid (this was at Ralph's Grocery stores in California) he threw a fit, and won MILLIONS of dollars in Court.
That was when ALL of the grocery stores in California stopped blocking people from bring their pets into the stores. Same for a lot of other chains.
Health inspectors couldn't say shit, because the courts had ordered it.
Man, that was a shit show for like 20 years.
Meijer has fliers near the front door that say "NO PETS".
That’s because Meijer is a proper store.
About 10 years ago now, they got it all sorted out. At least I think they have.
apparently an emotional support cougar is too much to take on a plane even if she did drive me there
its fine as long as she fits on your lap or under the seat in front of you.
The car or the driver?!
ADA requirement, from 1990.
ADA requires access but I don't think it required them to be the ones to provide the wheelchairs.
After more research, it's the Air Carrier Access Act that goes to that specific detail.
https://www.govinfo.gov/link/uscode/49/41705
Hey, it says here as Chief Constable, I'm entitled to a pig every month...and two comely lasses of virtue true!
I may have missed it, but I didn't see anything in there that requires the air lines to provide wheelchairs. They just have to make accommodations for your personal wheelchair.
It's the "timely and effective assistance" that prompted supporting regulations requiring it.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-II/subchapter-D/part-382/subpart-G/section-382.95
Ah, okay. So it's a Tax levied by the government.
This isn't all of the passengers 'chipping in to help'.
This isn't the airlines providing a service 'out of kindness'.
This is a federally levied TAX.
Which makes the guy's comments even more of an indication of just how F'in stupid he is.
He was smart for figuring out how to rig the system and get a job like that. He was dumb for publicly harassing an old man whose viewpoints differed from his, and then amplifying the conversation on social media, expecting the accolades and attaboys to roll in.
Even if you think it was ethically appropriate to confront the dude—I’d have just rolled my eyes and ignored it—the fact of the matter is that people with vastly different viewpoints do exist. And, as someone in a public, C-suite role, your job is first and foremost not to piss them off to the point where you alienate them and jeopardize your employer’s customer base.
Also, there are less confrontational ways to have that conversation. Like "let's hope that DOGE doesn't revert the FEDERAL LAW that requires the airlines to provide that wheelchair to you free of charge. But I'm OK with that, because that's how we live in a civilized community."
How about you just be a good Stoic and not waste time trying to argue with strangers over your own beliefs and then wasting more time posting your bragging about it on social media and self destructing?
Posted the “Stoic”🤪
Oh I completely agree in this case. Just pointing out that in OTHER situations, a conversation might be warranted rather than a confrontation from a position of intellectual and moral superiority.
Shooter, I see that you have stumbled on the great secret of happiness (or avoidance of the alternative) - minding one's own business!
Or just follow the advice of one of my favorite license plates: MYOFB
I saw that plate back in Illinois.
No idea how that got past the censors. But there was an Illinois mom in a suburb I lived in driving a Toyota minivan with plate RYFKM. Which would fit with hauling a bunch of kids around.
I’m sure he has lost sight of the fact he works at a place that makes things that people voluntarily buy. If he ever did understand that.
"as someone in a public, C-suite role, your job is first and foremost not to piss them off to the point where you alienate them and jeopardize your employer’s customer base"
Exactly. One of the responsibilities of being a corporate officer at that level is the recognition that you are ALWAYS representing the company.
just when I think this corporate title nonsense can't get any stupider, what the f' is a Chief Learning Officer??? what's next?
Chief Lavatory Cleanliness Officer?
Chief Lawn Height Officer?
cripe, I should ask for the title of CGOF.
P.L.O. - Permanent Latrine Orderly
why does that Li Auto blob thingy look like someone took a side grinder to a Cybertruck in a futile attempt to make it less ugly?
Looks like something Italdesign would come up with...if they didn't give a fuck.
Perfectly stated. It's an Espace as described by someone who never saw one.
Oh YEAH...I see it now!
worse
its a restomodded espace done poorly
An Espace generated by AI
THAT'S perfectly stated.
Isn't it just a blatant copy of the Hyundai Staria?
Do they sell that in the USA?
The Staria (not sold in the US) is a lot more sophisticated and better proportioned
Working from old memory the Espace today is a slightly sleeker version of an Element.
My first thought was that it looked like a 2nd gen Prius at it's 20 year high school class reunion. Recognizable, but swollen.
Harsh, but fair
As a bit of a fan of Lewis in his post-dominance era I have to give the nod to Yuki for this year. Both made recent switches, but Yuki with much less time behind the wheel and into a seemingly much more diabolical Red Bull. Yuki is paired with an honest candidate for GOAT while Lewis is paired with the "pretty good but not great" LeClerc (I put him along with folks like Coulthard, Hakinnen, Raikonnen, Villeneuve, etc - great under the right circumstances). So far a fun season, especially if Max can keep it interesting with the two McLarens splitting the points.
turning into ham bot ver but with mclaren instead of mercedes