Lincoln kids are in school, so we were the only people at the Angry Birds 2 matinee.
THE University must have started up again - so many kids getting on the bus with me this morning
Indeed. The annual "How can classes be starting already?" panic. I agree that it's annoying to stop wearing shorts to work when it's still August (with Baltimore in August levels of heat and humidity). Not that there's an actual dress code, but I feel like I should at least try to keep up appearances.
I started using fiscal years all the time in workday conversation at the beginning of this decade, and for clarity I fell into always referring to a fiscal year naming both its numbered years in the same breath: 11-12, 12-13, etc.
Those abbreviations will be a lot more cumbersome in the mouth next decade: the sequence starting 21-22 is usually six syllables, whereas the sequence starting 11-12 is usually four.
So I may have to bite the bullet and spend a lot of time reminding everyone that when I say "'21", I mean the fiscal year ending in 2021, not starting. Of which fact you'd think there would be a more universal understanding of, but I work with many different organizations with different internal cultures, and there are major risks to mixing it up. And our fiscal years are July-June, so they are half-and-half in each year.
So I may have to bite the bullet and spend a lot of time reminding everyone that when I say "'21", I mean the fiscal year ending in 2021, not starting. Of which fact you'd think there would be a more universal understanding of, but I work with many different organizations with different internal cultures, and there are major risks to mixing it up.
We would always call it "FY21".
You're saying "20 - 1" and people are mishearing "21"? Why not say "20-21"? I must be misunderstanding.
Oh, because it sounds like 2021?
What I was confused about was Ned saying, "We would always call it "FY21"." Ie, are fiscal years labeled by the end half or the beginning half?
Either way, you're going to have to visually karate chop in the middle of 20-21, with great dramatic physical humor. Maybe say "hi-yeagh!"
Twenty-twenty-one isn't so much longer, but twenty-one-twenty-two and its successors are.
And yeah, 20-21 sounding like 2021 is a unique challenge (I think it only comes around every 101 years?) but not my main focus.
Ie, are fiscal years labeled by the end half or the beginning half?
Ours at least are by the end half, and we refer to them Ned's way.
See, does that mean 13-14 WTF or 14-15 WTF?
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"For those who are looking to undermine the treaty framework and reap a significant strategic benefit from Antarctica, you are going to need to set up camp and wait for all the right elements to align."|>
I don't see what's so confusing about it. Fiscal Year 2020 runs from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020 and we refer to it as "FY20." I mean, obviously the whole thing is confusing and I don't know why everyone doesn't just use calendar years instead, but it's only one arbitrary convention to remember, and the shorthand for it is unambiguous in context.
A more interesting question is why the fiscal year starts in July for most entities.
Wikipedia agrees with the consensus that you refer to them by the end year. The US government starts the FY in October (since 1976), which allegedly is to give Congress more time to agree on a budget. Oh, quaint naivete of our recent forebears!
I forgot to mention: in the UK and in many British influenced places, the FY starts in early April, because the old calendar started the year on March 25, and you add 12 days to account for the switch from Julian to Gregorian calendars. India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, South Africa, ... all use April 1 or 5th.
Ours is from October to September so we obviously refer to it by the year that makes up 9/12 of the fiscal year. Now it's switching to September-August for some reason.
There is a reason, dammit (and in fact there is something closer to a reason buried under the pseudo-reason): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Day
It was sensible to move and hence to reckon up when nothing else needed doing on the farm and that became the obvious basis for the tax year and religion got involved and then it was too late to dig it out of hundreds of years of bureaucracy. Especially after computers.
About to take my boyo to Temple in Philadelphia for his "move-in" day. Can't even believe he's old enough for college. Wait, what?! How and why and when did this even happen?
Be sure to pack some dead batteries for him to throw at Santa Claus.
I'm taking my young giant to Toronto weekend after next. And leaving him in a foreign country, which seems weird.
You need to be sure he doesn't throw dead batteries at anyone. Toronto is really nice. I recommend the one museum which explains Canada by starting with a stuffed beaver.
Toronto has an underground system of trains, which might take some getting used to if he's never seen one before.
I thought the July-June year was preferred because nobody wants the biggest accounting months to be December and January, and possibly more of a 19th-century innovation. (The US did calendar year until 1843 says Wikipedia, then July-June 1843 to 1976; I have a vague recollection before the switch to October-September the budget was chronically late every year for which "more time for Congress to agree" is a euphemism.)
I agree referring by the back half shouldn't be confusing, but it still seems to elude people. Or different organizations take it up to different degrees.
ours ... took a train across the bay tomorrow to get his ac transit free rides clipper card. tomorrow he takes the train to some looooooong into-the-evening orientation, he's already scheming how to get out of most of it, the misanthrope. totally got that from me! permission has been obtained via e-mail to enroll in intriguing upper division seminars! books have been purchased! they just granted the equivalent of an entire damn year of credit for ap results! i thought he went overboard on taking those, but what the hey!
happy back to school to all!
||Via Saiselgy: research shows that investigating crimes has a strong positive effect on your chance of solving them, contrary to prevailing police belief. https://phys.org/news/2019-08-sustained-police-effort-higher-gun.html
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I think what I liked best about that was the "contrary to the prevailing belief".
I had somehow assumed that, if you asked the police "Why do gun murders have a higher clearance rate than gunshot assaults?" they would say that it was because murders tended to get investigated much more thoroughly, and this was the right thing to do in a context of limited resources because murder is a serious crime, and, sure, if they could throw that many resources at every assault they'd probably solve loads of those too, but, you know, budgets are limited. The same answer you'd get from any civil servant if you asked "why is your department doing better on X than on Y".
I would never have thought that most police believed that investigating crimes was pointless.
I forgot to mention: in the UK and in many British influenced places, the FY starts in early April,
I think in practice most UK companies now do their accounts on a calendar year basis (listed ones, certainly), though the tax year still starts in April. There are still a handful of companies I cover that don't, though.
Turns out one of the companies I thought started in April, the AA, actually starts in February. Weird.
Heebie - have you ever thought of wearing dressy long shorts with a dress (like maybe, silk)!tank top and a light blazer.
Professional, comfortable and cool.
the wearing of professional clothes in 90-100+ degree weather
I would totally wear short-sleeve dress shirts if it were possible to do so without looking like I worked for NASA in the 1960s.
23. That's what I said in FY20 about comments 20, 21.
37. You can start your FY any time you want to, if you tell the IRS about it. They're very accommodating.
We strictly observe White Claw Summer, so the October start to the fiscal year is best.
39: You won't - you'll look like a hipster circa 2008. And isn't that your real self?
The two older Geebies are starting to suffer social consequences of their general prickliness and inflexibility, and it's making me a little sad.
A dress with blue jeans was a good look from back in the day. Probably not good for the heat though.
I blamed my son's prickliness and inflexibility on his being an only child, but I could be wrong.
Have they considered socialising with cacti?
I would totally wear short-sleeve dress shirts if it were possible to do so without looking like I worked for NASA in the 1960s.
Wear them untucked!
Or just don't do up the top four buttons.
My son was a prickly and inflexible grade-schooler/middle-schooler -- a know-it-all and self-righteous about it (he was also a lovely appealing child in many ways, but that was part of his personality). He very successfully managed to mellow way out around the beginning of high school -- still identifiably that sort of person (I don't know where he could possibly have gotten it from), but with a sense of humor about it and a willingness to listen to other people without running them over. So, maybe the little Geebies will follow a similar path?
Looking like you worked for NASA in the 60s is a feature, not a bug. That being said, long-sleeved dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up is the way to go.
Rolled real tight, so the track marks in your elbows really pop out. All business, all badass.
52: I hope so. I keep hearing about our friends' kids getting together with each other, without Pokey and Hawaii where it would be natural to include them. I wouldn't want to force a situation where they just don't quite have the social grace to keep up with these other kids, so I'm just not doing anything about it and letting them explore different friendships. But it does make me a little sad.
56: When they're older, than can send comments into the void of their future eclectic web magazine and find imaginary friends.
I think in general, prickly/odd/smart kids do better as schools get bigger (or they get to move away) and they can find their people. Grade school with 25 classmates was the worst for me - easier to find friends with a pool of 350 (middle school) or 1,000 (two grades at high school).
35: Stick with that original assumption. That paper is straight up classic ivory tower nonsense and of course Yglesias parrots it. "If only the police realized more investigation would solve more crimes..." God these people are stupid.
Re: back to school stuff, ugh. Last year we had conflicts with the administration at Atossa's school. Some of our friends with kids at different schools found out who their kid's teacher would be weeks ago. We're still in the dark. A week ago, in response to an email from them that didn't have useful information, I called them to ask. On the phone I was told that everyone would find out teacher assignments on the first day, which seems very disorganized, but at least we shouldn't take it personally. I meant to forward the email to Cassandane with a summary of the phone call. I actually replied to the email. I found out when the assistant principal replied to mine and let me know that we'd actually get teacher assignments a few days before the actual start of classes. This probably made relations even worse, and beyond that was just embarrassing.
39:
I would totally wear short-sleeve dress shirts if it were possible to do so without looking like I worked for NASA in the 1960s.
Heh. I never wear blank white short-sleeve dress shirts like a Mormon, but I often wear a short-sleeve dress shirts that's a shade of brown, or shirts with stripes or some other pattern. One time last summer I met some friends for a happy hour after work. 4 or 5 guys, me in a SSDS, all the rest of them with long sleeves rolled up to their elbows. I asked why I was the only one dressed like that when it was clearly easier than what they were doing. The most fashion-conscious of them replied that it made me look like a lifer government bureaucrat. I found this hilarious, considered that all of us worked in or alongside the federal bureaucracy and the speaker actually was a government employee whereas I'm a lowly contractor.
60: What's awful? Not getting teacher assignments so late (to be specific about it, the emails and phone call were 8/14, classes start 8/29, and we're going to something at the school on 8/23 but I'm not sure what it is) and with mixed messages between the principal and the secretary, replying to an email I meant to forward, or both?
Obviously the second thing isn't great. I've already apologized for it and shouldn't make a mountain out of a molehill; I wasn't going off on a rant about them, I was just expressing annoyance, saying to Cassandane basically what I said above. That being said, it worsens existing problems and makes me look like an idiot. I'm still not sure how frustrated we should be by the first thing.
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Maybe an early WTF post is in order? The Greenland/Denmark thing, the King of the Jews thing. I know there is no bottom but what the hell?
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There was a one of the Herods who did that and had his dick rot off.
Add to that the "I am the chosen one"
Also 59 et seq. WTF? Who cares?
62, 64: This does seem like an exceptionally bonkers week or so even by Trump standards.
Rumours going round too that he has decided not to run for re election. Don't know how well sourced yet...
What if Donald Trump really is the chosen one? Then we are even more fucked than I think we are.
67 Kings don't run for re-election.
Rumours going round too that he has decided not to run for re election.
!!!
67: optimist.
59: than what they were doing. The most fashion-conscious of them replied that it made me look like a lifer government bureaucrat
surely now the coolest trangression going.
If any of us mean what we say, what could be better than being a deputy director of a regional Rijkswaterstaat?
I could see him announcing that he's not running just to get vocal swathes of the population to beg him to run, and then he would reappear gloating over how much the people love him.
The main set ended on an odd note with an apparent medley of two new tracks, "Greenland/Chosen One"...
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The king was an easily influenced man, inefficient but with tyrannical tendencies.|>
There's absolutely no chance whatsoever that he doesn't run for re-election.
Exactly. All the serial bankruptcies persuaded him only that he was a genius developer. In his own head he's a great president.
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OK, smart people, I'm looking for some advice.
My dog -- 9 years old, 80 lbs -- has a billiard ball sized growth in her armpit. The vet drained it, and said if it fills back up, she'd need surgery. It filled back up. We took her in for the surgery, but they wouldn't operate, because she had a heart arrhythmia. Got pills for that, tokk them a week, and went back: sill some risk from surgery. But on more discussion, the surgery didn't sound that great. If the tumor (we're using that word) in on the body wall, then she has to go through a whole big thing (going out of state, etc.) Vet thinks it might well be cancerous. She's eating, running, and swimming as eagerly as ever. Our current stance is to enjoy every day, and wait until fall, then re-assess with the vet. I'm not interested in putting her through a long (and expensive) process.
So, we're out at the river yesterday, and the wife runs into a friend, who sings lavish praises of colloidal silver. Internet research isn't exactly encouraging. But it's also not looking like there's much downside. Thought?
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Master Twyti drew one leg slowly from under the boar, stood up, took hold of his knee with his right hand, moved it inquiringly in various directions, nodded to himself and stretched his back straight. Then he picked up his spear without saying anything and limped over to Beaumont. He knelt down beside him and took his head on his lap. He stroked Beaumont's head and said, "Hark to Beaumont. Softly, Beaumont, mon amy. Oyez a Beaumont the valiant. Swef, le douce Beaumont, swef, swef." Beaumont licked his hand but could not wag his tail. The huntsman nodded to Robin, who was standing behind, and held the hound's eyes with his own. He said, "Good dog, Beaumont the valiant, sleep now, old friend Beaumont, good old dog." Then Robin's falchion let Beaumont out of this world, to run free with Orion and roll among the stars.
I'm so sorry to hear that. Pet cancer is awful. We went through that three years ago and it broke our hearts. Value every day.
That being said, I am against using colloidal silver. Colloidal silver is not medicine. It does not cure cancer. In the best of all possible worlds, it does nothing for the patient and helps you feel like you're doing something. It'd be a placebo for you, essentially. Ethically, that seems iffy--it's one thing to take an alternative medicine for yourself that has no proven efficacy; it's another to force it on another creature. It's also not without side-effects. It bioaccumulates (in very long-term cases, it stains humans blue) and may reduce uptake of some antibiotics.
This is probably not a problem for you, but there's always a hazard that by taking an ineffective treatment there'll be less movement towards effective treatments or palative measures. (In the limit, this is what makes some fake cure-alls extremely dangerous, especially in the hands of unscrupulous people who prey on the desperate and uninformed.)
73 sounds plausible. I am also doubtful of these rumours but they're sourced fairly well within HMG, for what that's worth. The only two possible reasons require him to have a modicum of self awareness: he's afraid of losing , and failing to be re elected would be an inarguable loss in a way that 2016 wouldn't (remember he didn't expect to win, if Michael Wolff and others are right); or his health is degrading very fast and his court have persuaded him to go out on a high.
Donald "Never Lost An Election" Trump would be the most insufferable history, so it must be what comes to be. Also allows for a stronger backstab legend.
The only way he won't run is if he's so sick that even he notices. Therefore either 73 or 84.2.
I'll take insufferable Trump over president Trump, thanks.
80: I'm sorry, that's not a fun road to travel. I'm surprised your vet couldn't re-aspirate the growth and diagnose cancer or not; that's pretty standard (and would give you a better idea of whether you'd want surgery). On average, doggy chemo buys months, but isn't especially awful for the dog (ie they don't have the really awful side effects humans do). It's sort of a question of how much you want to spend on those months (quality of life generally will be good).
Colloidal silver is 100% woo, though. Cures colds AND cancer. And everything in between. Don't waste anyone's time with it.
The interesting challenge for the President is when to pull the plug. Obviously, he has an interest in the contest of who gets to be the one true heir of Trumpism. Can he possibly favor anyone but his daughter for that role? Obviously, a contested primary season may well not lead to that result, but instead could be Cruz or worse. Does he announce that he has to step down at the convention, and have the delegates pick her?
91: Why would he be thinking about pulling the plug? Is this based on the assumption that he is dying soon and he knows it? Or?
In all scenarios, he needs a successor who'll pardon him.
The counter-argument is: even if there is a good reason for him not to stand, he may well still stand, because he really really enjoyed running for election, more than he has enjoyed pretty much everything that has happened since, and if he ran again it would be fun again.
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Off topic, but since this thread has drifted anyway...
I'm currently reading Days of Rage, a history of 70s era radical/underground groups. I'm still in the first section of the book which is focused on the Weathermen.
I'm probably inclined to dislike people like these in the first place, buy seriously, what a bunch of assholes.
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94 Oh yeah, I don't think he'd drop out even if his whacky doc told him he had 3 months to live. I suppose Putin might be able to convince him not to run -- I will bury you, and you know that I can do it -- but that's even less likely than Trump voluntarily standing down for health reasons.
So sorry about the pup, Charley. I'm glad she's doing okay for now.
Earlier this summer I was talking to a friend about dogs, and how she'd love to get another one but her husband is absolutely opposed. "Because he thinks they're too high maintenance?" I asked sympathetically. She shook her head: "No" -- opened her eyes wide -- "because THEY DIE, that's why."
I'm not even convinced that he wouldn't run again in 2024.
If one invented an elixir of immortality I think they would be morally obligated to first offer it to dogs and then to everyone except Peter Thiel.
I assume that Trump is going to live to 100 and never see the inside of a jail cell because clearly, the universe is fucking with us.
I'm taking my young giant to Toronto weekend after next. And leaving him in a foreign country, which seems weird.
Toronto is a great place to live, even if it's in a foreign country! If your boy shows signs of becoming a Leafs fan, though, I would call for an intervention...
Following up on 59 and 61, we had that "find out who your kid's teacher is" event, but we still don't know, because they won't finish the hiring process until about two weeks after the school year starts. One thing we do know, though, is that the kid who was threw a chair at her last year is still in the same class. Yay.
Oh btw: the "that's awful" up above was just a lighthearted commiseration to email awkwardness. Later it became clear to me that it read as more dire than I'd intended.
102. Ugh. I hope that kid has gotten less violent.
Been appropriately medicated, perhaps.
What do you take for being hit by a chair?
Can anyone recommend good journalism on Brazil Burning?
On theme, apparently the Burmese have gone into meth so hard that now Indians are growing opium to export to Myanmar.
109: I put some stuff in the WTF thread, although not much on the fires per se. Here's a pretty recent piece on Lava Jato with many links, including to this Guardian piece on purges over satellite data.
Brazil had previously tried to portray itself as a leader in protecting the Amazon and fighting global warming. Between 2004 and 2012, the country created new conservation areas, increased monitoring and took away government credits from rural producers who were caught razing protected areas. This brought deforestation to the lowest level since record-keeping began.
But it has suffered setbacks before. As the economy plunged into a recession in 2014, the country became more reliant on the agricultural commodities it produces -- beef and soy, which are drivers of deforestation -- and on the powerful rural lobby. Land clearing began to tick upward again.
I haven't started going through all the Intercept material...