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Nov 29, 2022Edited
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Sony suffered from the same lack of innovation than that Apple (and I think others) do now. At some point the "Money Guys" end up running the business, the engineers and especially any innovators are pounded down to the point that the most valuable of them quit (or are not hired or interested in being hired). Damn near killed GM. May kill GM yet.

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Nov 29, 2022
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I'm just here for the movie quotes.

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Till Tuesday, and by "Till Tuesday" I mean "Aimee Mann," is one of the greatest one-hit wonder bands of the 80's. Aimee is a fantastic singer, with an obviously amazing voice. I can not imagine another singer doing "Voices Carry" because it is powerfully angry and sanguine at the same time. I find that song to be a classic of the era.

And she was the only guest singer to appear on a Rush LP, singing on "Time Stand Still." That song is one of the best songs by Rush in the middle of their worst era of music. For real, most of the stuff they did post Signals and pre R-40 is just trash.

Aimee was also aces when she appeared in Portlandia.

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Nov 29, 2022
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That is a fantastic song. And, yes, Magnolia was a bad movie that has great scenes, because the director is very good.

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"One Hit Wonder" is a very tired and useless phrase. I like how the YouTuber "Professor of Rock" phrases it: Lightning In A Bottle. This better encapsulates the career of Aimee, who was by no means a "wonder" or some flash in the pan with some novelty song "just a gigalo" or "disco duck" or some other shit.

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I had a next door neighbor who was a one hit wonder. I used to tease him about it a bit, but pointed out that many of such songs were very special, indeed. His (from the mid-60s) was, last I heard, still a big hit in UK night club/dance club venues. At least as late as 2015.

Part of his problem was that his entire band was young enough to be drafted or need to "go to work" in the various Detroit industries of the day. They had a #1 hit in Detroit (got to #20 on the national chart I believe) but were self-produced and didn't have time to follow up. Kind of sad.

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Great story. Who was the band and what was the name of the song?

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His name was Joe Dyer, and I think the band at the time was Joe(y) D and the Days. I can't remember the song title. Joe died a few years ago. Spent a career as a drywaller, and had a nifty studio set up in his basement. He recorded Sinatra type stuff.

I have a copy of the song somewhere, but since we moved in June I'm not sure where it is.

I'll look.

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Man I'm getting old. His name was Joe CRYER. I was busy trying to solve a banking problem and my brain froze I guess. I think the band name must have been Joey and the Deys or something like that.

Don't confuse him with the Stolen Glory dude who claimed to have been a Seal My neighbor Joe never did that.

I'll dig around and see what I can find.

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Okay. Took a minute. I almost forgot (after voting for the band 6-7 times on different computers) that they eventually entered into the Michigan Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here is the link. My friend/neighbor (he was a great guy) of almost 20 years is in the picture at the bottom, top-left. Some memory. I got way too much of it mixed up. ;-) The disco song is talked about down at the bottom above the picture. And his name was Cyers. I just called him Joe, so I couldn't easily recall his last name.

https://michiganrockandrolllegends.com/index.php/mrrl-hall-of-fame/341-joey-day-and-the-dares

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"That Super Bowl spot casting IBM as the equivalent of Big Brother was a stroke of genius. "

Isn't it amazing that Apple has become the thing that they warned us about?

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Brinton and his hiring is more than a symbol of our societal sickness. When people refer to Weimarism, they include the sexual decadence (in particular, Berlin) of the time. That clown should be up there with "Man of the Year" Rachel Levine.

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Nov 29, 2022
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"look there is an element of mental illness to "gender fluidity," "

Then that element must be Hydrogen, being so plentiful.

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A lot of people remember him as Ranger Jimmy Trivette.

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That's what I came here to say.

Walker was stuck in literally the very worst prime-time slot of the week and was in the Top Ten shows of the week constantly, for years. Eight Seasons, high ratings the entire run. Definitely what he'll be remembered for.

And CNN says he's remembered for a single line of dialogue in the first Top Gun.

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Nov 29, 2022
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Damned yucky conservatives.

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I've been an Apple user since high school (side note: I graduated in 1985. So, an Apple user since the Apple IIe) I worked for Apple for about seven years in their technical department, as an instructor. Yes, I have a mac and yes I have only used the iPhone since the first one. There, got my bonafides out of the way.

That said, are they evil? Sure the F**k are, no denying it. I knew they were on the wrong side when in 2020 they took the Parler app out of the App Store. So, this is no shocker. Do I think they take the Twitter app out? No, I don't think they will because I am certain they will get sued and probably lose. But, I'm a bike riding duck not a bike riding duck/lawyer so what do I possibly know.

My only thing is this: where else am I gonna go? Android? They're just as bad, and we all know it. Am I gonna get a Dell and start doing things on the PC? What, with Windows? The company founded by Epstien adjacent psuedo-nonce Bill Gates? OK. When a compnay gets big enough, it's just a fact that have to get in the pot with all the other pieces of shit and swim in the shit stew known as "The Elite." it's how it is. I have on illusion in that regard.

Will Elon make a phone and try to compete? Sure, maybe, I don't know. Will I buy I it? I dunno, maybe. Hard to tell.

Here is what I wish we had, and what would really help in times like this: An actual journalism class that wanted the truth to get out, and weren't shills for Their Tribe. Would be nice if we had that. Would. Be. Nice.

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Nov 29, 2022Edited
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Nov 29, 2022
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Better World Books and Thrift Books. Amazingly, the American Book Exchange and Alibris are owned by Amazon. It is amazing that in an age of self-publishing, used books are becoming more expensive. I hate Amazon.

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I think that Twitter/Musk has the resources (dolla, dolla bills y'all) to wage war. I also think that Twitter/Musk has an ace up his sleeve called "internal communications between Twitter and the Feds."

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I also tend to think Musk is not only smarter than his opponents, but is a strategist when they are, at best, adequate tacticians. If they don't topple him quickly ("Get there fustest with the mostest") he'll grind them into paste.

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I respect what you're saying, but the Federal Government's war chest is unlimited. Suing Apple, however, might be useful.

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The Fed Govt's war chest is theoretically unlimited. In practical terms, it can be limited by the willingness of career bureaucrats to stick their necks out with their spending. I assume Musk knows that, too.

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Plus he doesn't GAF what people purportedly our betters think of him.

Surely that could because of the FU money but, still, I think cowering is the standard response.

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That's the general response, until it isn't. See, e.g. Revolution, French, Russian, etc. Note that frequently revolutions happen when the Head of State is incompetent, psychologically damaged, inattentive, etc. Remind you of anyone?

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You explain what I meant with the Hoffer quote (and Lord Acton) below. We simply must not allow humans to get much power lest they misuse it. That was the Founders' purpose when writing the Constitution.

However, they could not foresee huge government bureaucracies nor huge corporations. Probably we need some easy way to remove those in power anywhere after a specified amount of time. I have full confidence though that even if we did so, some power-hungry human would find a way to evade it.

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Damn, Duck! You are right. Or as I put it once, "Just how many things can we boycott?"

Where does one go, indeed.

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I also think that the non-crazy-Lefty user base of Twitter is large enough that they can't be knocked out as easily as Parler was.

If even 10% of users would pay $8/mo (I'm not on Twitter, but am now seriously considering it just because of the Left's efforts to kill it), their cash flow just from the US (based on 38M "active users" per BusinessofApps) would be $30M/mo, and that would correct for almost all the lost ad revenue. (And when the advertisers come crawling back, I'd hit them with ToS and fees that would make even Apple blush.)

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Nov 29, 2022Edited
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My kid cribbed a great tweet off the interwebs that she shares every year about the kinds of Christmas songs:

- Jesus was a baby once and He is Very Cool

-The Big Red Man is coming

-There's snow outside. That's good!

-I'm alone on Christmas and it's sad

-Santa Claus is very sexy

-Christmas trees, love 'em

-You know what? It's Christmas time

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- Mr. Grinch Sure Could Be a Nicer Guy.

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"But, I'm a bike riding duck not a bike riding duck/lawyer so what do I possibly know."

- lawyer - ??

You'll definitely be my first call next time I'm... detained. "Talk to The Duck."

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"I don’t claim to know as much as Mr. Brinton about nuclear waste and how should be disposed, but I do know you’re not supposed to steal people’s luggage."

There's a non-zero chance you do know as much.

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Re: Apple and Twitter: The Eric Hoffer quote is a propos again. “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

He had a lot of good quotes about power and those who seek or use it. Lord Acton was right, of course. "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

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"nonbinary whatchamacallit"

Pretty well covers all 73 Facebook gender options. I like it.

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How about "Useless Swiss Army Knife of Sexuality"?

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At the time of the Tiananmen I was finally finishing my BS at the University of Illinois, and was living in a apartment with 2 Chinese grad students. I spent a lot of time digging out quotes from the time of our Revolution (Paine, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and many other lesser-known patriots). I'd give them to my roommates and they'd pass them on to the 400+-strong Chinese Grad Student organization. Those grades would then use a random dialer one of them had written to try to send the copy to fax machines in China. When they hit on one they'd push as many quotes as possible through the fax until the authorities discovered it and shut it down.

They were incredibly disheartened when the movement failed. Xang Li was a member of a "landlord family" and not in good favor in China, anyway. I think he managed to eventually bring his parents to the US

Liu Fong got his PhD in Physics, then went on to make millions on Wall Street in the 90s. I lost track of both of them sometime after 2000. But they were very good people. (Fong grew up in a farming village of some 500 within 50 kilometers of the North Korean border, but was brilliant enough to go to Beijing University. He said our backgrounds gave us something in common that he felt.)

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Tim Cook and Apple are literally colluding with the enslaving CCP. Why be surprised? This is the guy who signed more than a quarter of a TRILLION dollars to sleep with the CCP.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/584796-apple-chief-signed-275b-deal-to-placate-china-report/

Duck has a great observation about where do you go? I mean really. Apple also turned on the Hong Kong protesters: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/apple-approves-then-bans-hong-kong-app-after-chinese-criticism/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_source=twitter&utm_social-type=owned&utm_medium=social

By what right is Bill Gates the largest owner of farmland in the US?: https://nypost.com/2021/01/15/bill-gates-is-the-largest-farmland-owner-in-america-report/

I guess you acknowledge it. Perhaps throw some money at Twitter as well as Treacher. You can hope for anti-trust, but Klobuchar is in favor of censorship ("content moderation"). The censors are already bragging about chasing off 50 advertisers from Twitter.

Politically, 2024 looms large. As Pi Guy and others noted, the GOP "lost" Gen Z (ages 18-29); they made up an eighth of the electorate. An ignorant vote is worse than not voting.

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Nov 29, 2022
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I was hoping that one of the "silver linings" of covid would be that manufacturers would realize that they needed to move production to the western hemisphere to avoid getting caught out if there's another event that shuts Asia down for months. Think of all the things that could be manufactured in Mexico and Central America (where's our border czarina and her root causes?) providing employment for people in their home countries. Alas, the powers that be do not want that outcome.

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Gates has bought a lot of farmland. If push comes to shove, let's see how he holds it or farms it. I doubt he can get enough trigger-pullers for his needs.

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But isn't he the guy who's bought into Eco-Doom and wants people to eat insects? What if he just wants it to lie fallow?

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If worse comes to worst and people need to eat, the fact that Gates 'owns' it and wants to let it lie fallow is unlikely to stop locals from farming there. Of course, by that time a civil war might be raging, but I can't see Gates actually commanding an army. Can you?

I'm not sure a lot of rural Deplorables would go quietly into the night, but maybe that's just me.

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I understand what you're saying, but look how many people went along "quietly" with the lockdowns and the "vaccines". And yes, I took the Moderna Omicron bivalent, thinking it would give a wider range of antibodies. Foolish.

When it comes to "commanding" an army, $$ talks. Also: Gates was friends with Epstein. His moral compass is nonexistent.

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In 2019 and 2020 most people were still doing pretty good economically speaking. People under the stress of lacking food, warmth, and other comforts are not as likely, I think, to go along with as much. Especially if they are not armed.

And mercenaries are notoriously not useful for much but terror and murder. I think it would probably take something like a 3-1 mercenary 'army' to armed individual to intimidate my home county of some 12,000 inhabitants. And that might not do it for long. Every semi-abled male age 12 -70 would be dangerous, as would a great many females. So to 'control' around 180 sq miles of good farmland would probably Gates would need about 20,000 mercs. And the logistics would be a nightmare. Probably 12,000 of the mercs would need to be fighters.

Could they recruit quislings? Oh, probably, but it's a small community, everyone pretty much knows and/or is related to everyone else, and they wouldn't be able to trust their quislings.

It would be a nightmare all around, but worst for the mercs.

Seriously. a couple of decades ago some St. Louis gang-bangers tried to take over the "production" end of the local growers operation. Within a couple of weeks they left, slunk off like beaten curs.

Farmers typically know a whole lot more than just growing stuff.

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Does it suck that companies like Apple are so dependent on Chinese labor and rare earth minerals that they dare not challenge the CCP? Yeah, it does. Is it also shameful that Western countries who chastise and complain to each other and their citizens about 'human rights' are so quick to abandon such critiques when it comes to the CCP. Again, yes. However, at some point the Chinese people themselves have to decide how much suffering they can endure... the CCP only has so much power. 10 million police: a significant portion of those have to say to themselves, "this is wrong, I cannot do this"; same with members of the PLA and members of the CCP itself. So long as the people accept tyranny, the police/military enforce tyranny, and the ruling class endorses/establishes/perpetuates tyranny, there is no hope for China. When the Soviet Union fell, it was a little at a time, and then altogether at once. It could happen again, but I have my doubts.

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Great wrap up of the last 24 hours in the high(?) lights of... the world today: China, Apple, Musk, Hunter's only 'unacknowledged' child that the White House won't even 'hang a stocking with care' for, Brinton (altho' you DID leave out his fashion tips), Miguel Almaguer's disappearance from NBC (BTW, where is the producer who obviously HAD to clear it to go on air?) & the untimely demise of Clarence Gilyard, Jr. (funnily enough, I just watched 'Die Hard' a couple nights ago - I always loved how he delivered his line of "What have we here, gentlemen? The police have themselves an RV.")

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Welcome to the party, Pal.

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Nov 29, 2022
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Yippee kai yay, MFer.

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You guys are the best! First, 'Seinfeld' now 'Die Hard'.

If either of you likes 'Star Trek: The Original Series' - this relationship is going to the next level!!

(I'm still new responding on this platform. Hope you & NotFromTexas can see this)

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Seen

*flashes Spock gang sign*

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Is that akin to the Van Buren Boys secret sign?

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Hahahaha - nice pic.

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