Thought for the day...

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,330
What cup?
https://www.9news.com.au/national/2...favouring-hot-female-fans?ocid=Social-9NewsGC
World Cup broadcasters have been given a stern warning by FIFA ahead of the final about singling out ‘hot women.’

It’s common for broadcasters to pick attractive female fans from the crowd to use for ‘cutaways’, but FIFA diversity boss Federico Addiechi isn’t happy about it.

“FIFA will take action against things that are wrong – we’ve done it with individual broadcasters. We’ve done it with our host broadcast services”, he said.
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,776
I thought about posting this on the weird thread:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-44855696

China's big-budget fantasy epic Asura has been pulled from cinemas after a dismal opening weekend. The 750m yuan ($112m; £85m) film reportedly made less than 50m yuan on its weekend debut.
But man ... this is just too serious... ouch! ... whatever was it that drew the producers to bring this failure to reality?
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,776
Was it that obvious that it would be a failure? If so, why?
No, it wasn't that obvious. At least not to me.

I'm not Chinese, but considering their population, a movie about a traditional legendary hero should've been a slam dunk... someone miscalculated, obviously, but it also tells me their culture is looking for novelty.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,883
No, it wasn't that obvious. At least not to me.

I'm not Chinese, but considering their population, a movie about a traditional legendary hero should've been a slam dunk... someone miscalculated, obviously, but it also tells me their culture is looking for novelty.
I have no idea what it tells me about their culture. Hollywood has certainly had some pretty big flops and I don't know that many of them have ever told us anything about OUR culture.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,330
http://www.kptv.com/story/38660432/...iles-to-first-day-of-work-ceo-gives-him-a-car
News outlets report that hours before his first day working for Bellhops movers, Walter Carr set out from Homewood at midnight, making it to Pelham by 4 a.m. Friday. There, he encountered Pelham police officers, who took him to breakfast and dropped him at his assignment.

"We all decided, hey you know let's go get him some breakfast and get him somewhere safe," officer Mark Knighten told WBMA.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
18,111
Wait. A kid walks 20 miles to a job, and he gets fame and a new car?

Damn, how far our standards have collapsed.
The advice to "work smarter, not harder" comes to mind as well. Was walking the best idea he could come up with? Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do, and that's worth recognizing, but was there really no bicycle, no friend, no ... any other choice?

My daughter often has the chore of interviewing candidates at her work. She's always amazed at how many fail to show, arrive late, are unprepared and on and on. I'm sure she would be impressed with someone showing this level of responsibility.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,883
How many of us had times where we did what we had to do -- and we didn't expect someone to feel sorry for us and give us a damn car!

When I was on active duty I got permission to take an off-base job at a Pizza Hut. It was 8.8 miles away (just checked with Google Maps). For the first couple months I was working 40 hours a week there and I had no transportation so I had to walk each way. That was on top of working normal duty hours on base. On M-W-F I would go to work on base by 7 am and get released at 4 pm. I'd take a quick shower at the shop and then walk three hours to the Pizza Hut getting there shortly before my 7 pm start time. I would then close the restaurant, usually getting off somewhere around midnight and walk home getting to the barracks around 3 am. Three hours of sleep and then up for work again. I usually had T-R off from Pizza Hut so that was nothing but straight to the barracks and crash. On weekends I didn't have duty on base, but almost always worked a 6/6 split shift at Pizza Hut both days so it would be leave base about 6 am and get to Pizza Hut around 9 am to open and work until 3 pm. Then an hour off and work 4 pm to 10 pm then three hours walk home. I had zero time for anything else. The biggest hassle was laundry, but I worked out a way to do that over lunch. That went on for about two months until I had enough to buy a bicycle. That was a god-send! If I remember correctly it reduced that three hour walk to reliably less than an hour bike ride (and OH how I didn't realize how different the muscle groups are on a bike versus walking!). That freed up 20 hours a week right there. I worked out a different schedule at Pizza Hut so that I worked 8 hours a day three days during the week and an 8/8 open/close split on Saturday, giving me Sunday off. I still remember how I felt like I had all the free time in the world even though I was still working 80 hours a week -- of course, my free time on Sundays was mostly spent hanging around the barracks. After about six months I dropped my hours back to twenty or so a week and bought a $400 motorcycle. That freed up the time and gave me the wherewithal to start taking classes at the community college.

But on top of all that -- I wasn't alone. There was an E-5 that was working at the same Pizza Hut and he and I sometimes walked home together. We were simply both in situations -- of our own doing -- where we needed all the extra money we could make and neither of us had a car and there simply weren't enough off-duty employment opportunities on base (though in retrospect I bet I could have found something had I known then what I know now). So we did what we had to do.

Ah, but to be young and vital enough to be able to do something like that -- it would be a death sentence, now!
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
5,012
Oh, I'm aware of the very low pressure of Mars' atmosphere. My thought was around some sort of very slow working pump mechanism. Something that would accumulate enough air during the course of several months, so that only a couple of yearly blasts would be performed for maintenance purposes.
What about statics on panels? Does it work there as in Earth?
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,330
"foot travel in a thermal area" What does it actually mean?
http://www.kulr8.com/story/33709627/man-killed-in-yellowstone-hot-spring-allegedly-trying-to-hot-pot
Veress explained, “There’s a closure in place to keep people from doing that for their own safety and also to protect the resources because they are very fragile. But, most importantly for the safety of people because it’s a very unforgiving environment.”

But, according to the official incident report released by the National Park Service, 23-year old Colin Nathaniel Scott of Portland, Oregon, and his sister Sable Scott left the boardwalk near Pork Chop Geyser, then walked several hundred feet up a hill.
...
The report did quote Sable as saying, “her brother was reaching down to check the temperature of a hot spring when he slipped and fell into the pool.”

Search and rescue rangers who arrived later did find the victim’s body in the pool, along with his wallet, and flip flops. But, a lightning storm stopped the recovery efforts. The next day, workers could not find any remains. Veress says the water was churning, and acidic.

He remarked, “In a very short order, there was a significant amount of dissolving”
https://www.denverpost.com/2016/06/09/gruesome-hot-spring-death-highlights-problems-at-yellowstone/

 
Last edited:
Top