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Off Key - General Discussion

3.7k Topics 25.6k Posts

A place to talk about whatever you want

  • Pinned threads

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    Great!
  • 60 Minutes

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    ShiroKuroS
    I hadn't been following it either, so I was quite surprised at this news. @Mik said: 60 Minutes ceased being honest journalism decades ago. I mean, that explains the Payam infomercial segment...
  • LGBLT

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    ShiroKuroS
    @RealPlayer I love it!! I would absolutely buy a sandwich from that guy!
  • Hay Mary Anna

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    ShiroKuroS
    @Mary-Anna said: (Why didn't they insulate under the kitchen floor? Why does the insulation the kitchen wall stop a foot above the floor, causing the water line to the dishwasher to freeze up? We will never know, and we have washed our hands of them. We've got somebody who will fix these things properly.) Why are there contractors who do stupid things? It's so frustrating. I'm glad you have someone else to deal with it. How is your piano room? Am I remembering right that you were trying to decide whether or not to keep it in a 2nd floor location??
  • Sold for $4.5 million

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    ShiroKuroS
    @AndyD said: It's not often you can say "That piano is way too small for the room" Good grief, that piano looks comically small, not just in that space but also amongst all those other things... If you can afford 20+ cars, your own private bowling alley and arcade, at least get yourself a 7-footer. It's embarrassing. it looks like a Schoenhut in there! [image: s-l1200.jpg]
  • The Obama Presidential Center

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    RontunerR
    Nice local write-up https://www.wbez.org/architecture/2026/06/02/museum-tower-obama-presidential-center-maligned-signature-building-worthy-consideration "The center, with its companion buildings, plaza and redesigned park space, is among the best urban spaces in the city, maybe second only to Millennium Park."
  • Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs

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    I'm only using it for one thing, but I'm thrilled. I've been taking sumatriptan for migraines since 1990, about the time it became available in pill form. It was very expensive. Back then, my insurance mostly defrayed that. It stopped debilitating headaches. Great! "One day, it will be generic," I thought. For the next seventeen or so years, multiple doctors tried to switch me to newer drugs that weren't much different, just time-released or fast-dissolving. This would have extended the time to a generic version. Indefinitely, if I kept saying yes. "No, thank you. This one works." At some point, I received a letter from my insurance company that said, "No matter what your doctor says, we will only cover eight pills a month." I've never received a letter about that about any other drug. It must have been REALLY expensive for them to cover it. The generic date came. The price didn't go down, because the drug company sued. I had gone on COBRA after my divorce and it didn't cover prescriptions, so I was paying $200/month for those eight pills, but they prevented days of debilitating pain, so I forked it over. When they lost the suit, the price went down to generic levels, but I still only got eight pills a month and they'd gotten years of my money at the non-generic rate. I had became very skilled at deciding how bad I needed to feel before I took one of the precious jewels. (Also, I'd gotten prescription insurance again.) We got new insurance last year, and suddenly I could only get 50 mg tablets for the generic price. My usual 100 mg tablets went up to $80/month. I could still only get eight. Tony said, "Have you tried Mark Cuban's outfit?" Well, Mark Cuban sells me 30 pills/month, and they cost $12, including shipping. Just being free of worrying whether I'm going to run out is life-changing.
  • What do chefs cook at home?

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    MikM
    Sounds delicious and healthy. Going into the bookmarks.
  • Tulsi resigns

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    J
    Matt Yglesias putt it well - his only qualification is a demonstrated willingness to engage in abuses of power.
  • The Future of U.S. Science Research Funding

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  • ICE and DHS strike again

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    ShiroKuroS
    Both of these incidents are terrifying to me. I feel like there’s less news attention to ICE’s activities, but the activities themselves continue.
  • For our train buffs

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    wtgW
    [image: IKQ7HYOFINFIJMSPYHCPTZ4RH4.jpg?auth=5a5fdc2d282f1ada0a865ffc14dec1eb33e9eaea7d92a07926c41c0fccb96409&width=1280&smart=true&quality=90] Big Boy is in our area. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/here-he-comes-million-pound-steam-locomotive-big-boy-rolls-into-chicago-area-this-week/3943201/ @steve-miller - Coming your way very soon! https://www.cleveland.com/news/2026/06/big-boy-no-4014s-northeast-ohio-route-is-set-see-the-towns-it-will-roll-through.html
  • Fog and bacteria

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    C
    I knew fog was creepy. Did not know it was infected.
  • Towns rebel against data center projects

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    AxtremusA
    Erin Brockovich gets involved: https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/erin-brockovich-says-people-angry-165957745.html For now she's not taking side (at least not overtly). She's just advocating for more transparency and crowd-sourcing information about plans for data centers.
  • Stalin's wine cellar

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    MikM
    Good use of ill-gotten gains. I've read that the wine industry in Georgia is booming. Never had one but I'm sure we will.
  • Solving the Saturn rotation rate mystery

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    Well, "science" is a interesting topic but like any sub-branch of any epistemological system, science is not an exact science (pun intended). Questions like these aren't "solved" and then set in stone or displayed in a glass case. "Measurements suggested the giant planet's rotation rate was changing over time, as if Saturn were somehow speeding up or slowing down. That puzzling result left scientists searching for answers." I'd venture to say it appeared to be "changing" in fact because it was and is always changing. This isn't so much a mystery as it is the nature of the universe. I just posted about this topic in my Chronos and Kairos thread. https://wtf.coffee-room.com/topic/3681/kairos-the-ancient-greek-art-of-knowing-when-to-act#:~:text=Kairos%3A The-,ancient,-Greek art of We human beings have to be vigilant continuously about what Karl Marx (the writer whose work is canonical among intellectuals, not the "communist" we all love to hate) called reification. Reification involves setting up a continual feedback loop where we "play back" what we think we know in a way that the only outcome is our belief, whatever it was when we started believing it, can only end up being fallaciously reinforced. The planets, the galaxy, the universe-- are never static and if a human being truly wanted to map their machinations, he or she would die trying...
  • And so it begins. (weather)

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    D
    Highd up to 89, scattered showers. Lows around 80, but for some reason the lows are are going to drop to low to mid 70s for several days. That will be nice. Not worried about hurricane season. I'm actually more worried about tornadoes after experiencing one.
  • Kennedy Center

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    D
    I'm a layperson and even I can tell you the applicable law is as plain as day.
  • Population boom to bust

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  • Remarkable use of our tax dollars

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    He took the Commissioner of Social Security (or Acting... I should know this) and gave him a second job sinultaniously with a new (never existed before) title-- "CEO of the IRS." He was going to dispuse the monies through SSA payments.