Bitchin Dave's Newsletter - November 10th
As I noted previously, this election felt different than others. We were battling for the "soul" of the country to a large degree. Would we head more toward autocracy, from which recovery would likely be long, or would the pendulum swing back toward the middle and start us back on the path of a functioning democracy?
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Bitchin' Dave's newsletter is published weekly. Please feel free to forward it around. If you want to subscribe or unsubscribe, send an email to geezergamer92@gmail.com
Heading into the midterms, it was never really clear what would happen. Sure, there were hopes and dreams that there might be a "blue wave" that would hand at least some control back to the democrats and keep the orange man in check. But it would take all of us to get out and vote to make it happen.
Quick aside: polling was all over the place, I would assume because polling methods have become more political, and don't necessarily ask the right questions or keep up with the way people behave, hiding behind anonymity. So generally, they were no help in understanding what might happen.
Anyway, we - all of us - came through! At a national level, the results could not have been more clear. A blue TSUNAMI. The Senate and House both handed resoundingly to the democrats. Governors and other local elections went to dems all over (and in unexpected places). The gerrymandering efforts brought by the GOP failed spectacularly.
While the orange man talked about "being on the ballot" heading into the election, afterward he told us all that if he had been on the ballot he would have had a resounding victory. And, blamed any - and every - one for the defeats.
But the reality is that this is a middle finger directed AT him.
He is now in a spot that some have termed "dead man walking" ... make no mistake, he will put up a fight, but it seems many of his supporters are like rats jumping off a ship since his relevance is fading.
And don't miss that what happened in Texas was a rebuke of that Musk fellow. He spent a ton (though it's obviously not much to him) to try and get Texas to go how he wanted. And voters thoroughly rejected him.
All of that said, Flori-duh did what Flori-duh does best, and acted stupidly. Apparently the memo that was circulated about a "blue wave" didn't reach the state, so most things went very MAGA. Sure, some of the gerrymandered seats went to the dems. But overall, it was a bit of a failure at the state level, likely due in part to the "No property tax amendment" which was on the ballot (and which is not accurate anyway).
I suppose you can argue that the races were close, and the dems broke the long-standing supermajority in the Florida legislature. So there's that.
But overall, I take this as a step in the right direction.
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Last week, I read two articles about wealthy, entitled people who are trying hard to defend their absurd position on money.
The first is about a guy who managed to secure a TV deal for flipping houses. He made his money and bought his teen daughter a ridiculously expensive car.
He says she earned it?! My ass! I hate people.
The second may be the dumbest argument I’ve ever read about child support, courtesy of a former NBA player.
The guy says he needs to spend $7000 / month (about $230 / day) on food. And essentially says "I need to eat expensive things, so I’m okay with my kids going (relatively) hungry."
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The mission had a specific point at which the spacecraft was to get to (its apogee) and then it would fire the rockets to return.
But as it rounded the moon, the indicator of how many miles from earth “ticked past” the number they were using.
And that caused a mild panic among the astronauts. Reed discussed what he was thinking as he saw the ship continue on into what we would consider deep space.
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The story is behind a paywall, but in short, an immigrant from Ghana to Canada emigrated to the United States.
He became a pastor and maga influencer. And he talked about deporting all illegals - “including me”…
And ICE did just that.
That, in turn, led to some reactions from maga. Some (of course) don’t care. All means all. But a larger group sees this as an affront, because it’s supposed to be about deporting the bad people, not the disciples.
As they say, F— Around and Find Out
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Color me intrigued. I mean it might be technically illegal, but the design is interesting. What this person created is a piece of smart glass that covers the license plate.
He then wired it to an Arduino, which is like a raspberry pi - a small computer, basically. And he wrote a little code that checks the car's GPS position against the database with the flock locations.
When it triggers, the glass goes grey so the camera can’t see the license plate; the greying lasts for just a moment or two, but that’s the part that is most likely illegal. You can’t technically obscure your plate, but the law is broad enough to make this a question of interpretation.
And I’m not saying I plan to install one, just that I am intrigued by how people think. And using these small computers for a purpose like this is interesting.
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The article is from a few years ago. But Avani showed up in the news again recently with an expanded product line (beyond the plastic bags).
The plastic is derived from cassava pulp, while other products are made from other otherwise-discarded plant matter.
A win for the environment!
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Disney wants to cut 20% of their costs, and to get there, the plan is to lay off thousands of employees across the company.
The thing that caught my attention in all of this is a plan to increase the use of AI. But surprisingly, Disney had made a significant investment into a large AI company, but about a week ago announced that they were terminating that agreement.
Now I know that Disney has a large tech division, and also has partnerships with other companies that have AI services. But I have to wonder what their future plans are in the AI space.
I mean in guest-facing jobs in theme parks, you can’t move to AI. And the maintenance department maybe could be aided with AI, but you can’t eliminate those roles.
While it’s possible that they want to streamline sports reporting or streaming, you still need to produce content.
I guess we’ll see what they do.
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Bitchin' Dave's newsletter is published weekly. Please feel free to forward it around. If you want to subscribe or unsubscribe, send an email to geezergamer92@gmail.com
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