the_quark
the_quark t1_jd6hgzc wrote
Reply to comment by Doggleganger in Japan defeats USA 3-2 in WBC Final. by AJMax104
They "temporarily" did it as part of the Coronavirus rule changes. But they just made it temporary.
And yeah, MLB sees all the excitement around Ohtani and their immediate response is "obviously no pitchers should hit."
the_quark t1_jd6hc7w wrote
Reply to comment by MightGuy420x in Japan defeats USA 3-2 in WBC Final. by AJMax104
My kids and I were all "this had better not result in a walk, this either has to be a strikeout or a homerun." Was glad not to be disappointed, even though we were rooting for Team USA.
the_quark t1_j7ms4fv wrote
Reply to comment by svarogteuse in Would the Allies have kept fighting if the axis powers stopped? by Techno-87
This is the answer. The Allied leadership - and respecially FDR - felt very clearly that WWII came out of not really beating Germany to the ground in WWI. There was a very conscious desire on the part of American leadership at least to get an absolutely unconditional surrender from both Germany and Japan in order to restructure those countries in ways intended to prevent WWIII from just inevitably coming along twenty more years later.
the_quark t1_j6dkhi8 wrote
Reply to comment by chefblaze in Thoughts on The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson? by chefblaze
That series are absolutely my favorite of Stephenson's and I wish he'd do more challenging works like that, again.
Just to be clear though, you should definitely read Cryptonomicon first.
the_quark t1_j6d1sc0 wrote
Reply to comment by _temp_variable in Floor drain screw refuses to come out, even with upward pressure by _temp_variable
Welp. Yeah there's something we don't understand going on here, but I think if I were you I'd grab my drill.
the_quark t1_j6cz3zd wrote
I just want to add my voice to the idea that you've got drain cover with a captive screw. It doesn't come out of the drain cover, but you've unscrewed it. Use a flathead screwdriver and lever the drain cover up and see if it just pops out.
the_quark t1_j59djhm wrote
Reply to comment by General_Chairarm in A study of lights at night suggests dictators lie about economic growth by im11btw
So...how do you do that, exactly?
the_quark t1_j5768n1 wrote
Reply to comment by r2k-in-the-vortex in A study of lights at night suggests dictators lie about economic growth by im11btw
The worst part seems to be that their leadership is reading their own press releases.
It's the same thing that happened in the Soviet Union. You are given an aggressive target for your five-year-plan. You don't make it, but you fudge the numbers a little to make it look like you did.
Next five-year-plan, they give you an aggressive target from your new baseline (that you didn't actually achieve). There's no way you're making that without fudging, so you fudge away.
Never five-year-plan, they give you an aggressive target from your new baseline - which would itself be an aggressive target for you to achieve in five years.
Repeat this enough and the official numbers become completely unmoored from reality and literally no one knows what's going on.
the_quark t1_izc59cy wrote
Reply to comment by mcr1974 in Have living things always had an immune system? How did they survive / evolve to deal with diseases, and how does that compare to modern immune systems? by bruceleroy99
They might have started simply as self-replicating sets of chemicals in the early ocean. At this point though we've only been able to speculate about their (and life's) ultimate direct origin.
the_quark t1_jdlarvk wrote
Reply to comment by sciguy52 in How does the rabies virus actually compel the host to bite? How does it know how to tell the brain to bite another living thing? by Lettuce-b-lovely
And this is why human-to-human transfer of rabies is very rare. Even confused, aggressive, delirious humans don't generally tend to bite as their main attack.