US Election

[Bird on a Fire]

So wait are we talking hypersonic or hydrosonic here?

I'm struggling to understand what hydrosonic would even mean.

Maybe I should give up trying to understand advanced weapons technology, and just stick with "super duper".

[jimbob]

So wait are we talking hypersonic or hydrosonic here?

I'm struggling to understand what hydrosonic would even mean.

Maybe I should give up trying to understand advanced weapons technology, and just stick with "super duper".

I guess he was told "hypersonic".

I guess he heard "hydrosonic" which indeed, is less easy to understand in context than "super-duper"

[TimW]

Missiles are only super-duper if they make a noise like water.

[Martin_B]

What do people think about the revelation of the existence of hydrosonic missiles?

Sorry, super-duper missiles.

I've only seen "hydrosonic" used to describe electric toothbrushes. How does it work in a missile context? Presumably the idea is to kill people and break things, rather than clean their teeth.

So wait are we talking hypersonic or hydrosonic here?

I'm struggling to understand what hydrosonic would even mean.

Maybe I should give up trying to understand advanced weapons technology, and just stick with "super duper".

There is a company in Perth called Hydrosonic which detects leaks in underground pipework by listening to the sound made by the leak (this is apparently a thing!)

I'm not sure how a hydrosonic missile works if it's based on this. Travels underwater (possibly in pipes) homing in on a pre-selected noise? What if someone flushes at the wrong time?

[tenchboy]

There is a company in Perth called Hydrosonic which detects leaks in underground pipework by listening to the sound made by the leak (this is apparently a thing!)

Yep, leaks from water-pipes make sounds: you sometimes see people in the street carrying a length of metal pipe with a funnel on one end, sometimes they might stop and sometimes they might place one end of the pipe on the ground and listen at the funnel.
Sometimes those people are employees of the local water company listening for leaks.

[Gfamily]

There is a company in Perth called Hydrosonic which detects leaks in underground pipework by listening to the sound made by the leak (this is apparently a thing!)

Yep, leaks from water-pipes make sounds: you sometimes see people in the street carrying a length of metal pipe with a funnel on one end, sometimes they might stop and sometimes they might place one end of the pipe on the ground and listen at the funnel.
Sometimes those people are employees of the local water company listening for leaks.

Are there others who do it just as a hobby ?

[Brightonian]

There is a company in Perth called Hydrosonic which detects leaks in underground pipework by listening to the sound made by the leak (this is apparently a thing!)

Yep, leaks from water-pipes make sounds: you sometimes see people in the street carrying a length of metal pipe with a funnel on one end, sometimes they might stop and sometimes they might place one end of the pipe on the ground and listen at the funnel.
Sometimes those people are employees of the local water company listening for leaks.

You almost had me there. In fact, they actually use dowsing rods.

[Bird on a Fire]

There is a company in Perth called Hydrosonic which detects leaks in underground pipework by listening to the sound made by the leak (this is apparently a thing!)

Yep, leaks from water-pipes make sounds: you sometimes see people in the street carrying a length of metal pipe with a funnel on one end, sometimes they might stop and sometimes they might place one end of the pipe on the ground and listen at the funnel.
Sometimes those people are employees of the local water company listening for leaks.

I like to imagine that Hydrosonic market themselves as an innovative tech startup but actually just have a pipe with a funnel on the end.

[dyqik]

There is a company in Perth called Hydrosonic which detects leaks in underground pipework by listening to the sound made by the leak (this is apparently a thing!)

Yep, leaks from water-pipes make sounds: you sometimes see people in the street carrying a length of metal pipe with a funnel on one end, sometimes they might stop and sometimes they might place one end of the pipe on the ground and listen at the funnel.
Sometimes those people are employees of the local water company listening for leaks.

I like to imagine that Hydrosonic market themselves as an innovative tech startup but actually just have a pipe with a funnel on the end.

And a microphone that uploads the sounds to Amazon's Mechanical Turk or a citizen science project for humans to classify. This part is sold with a number of machine learning buzzwords.

[nekomatic]

Why would they bother getting people to knowingly spend their time on that when they could just mix the sound which may or may not be of running water at a subliminal volume in to people’s streaming music, then look at their accelerometer and wireless/cellular network strength readings to determine whether that makes them get up and go to what has previously been identified from temporal correlations of that data with app and web browsing records as their bathroom for a pee?

[EACLucifer]

Trump's answer to being asked "Do you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transfer of power?"

"Get rid of the ballots and we'll have a very peaceful — there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation"

I am bothered by the sheer amount of very public despair about this election, mostly people outlining ways Trump could steal the election that don't actually work (ie assuming that in normal circumstances the supreme court is responsible for things that are done by the states). That said, he's made it very clear he wants to try and steal it. It's much harder, though, to pull something like Bush v Gore if the margin isn't a single state on a knife edge. I am worried that this public despair - some genuine, some looking to be ingroup signalling - might lead some voters to wonder what the point is, when as much as ever votes matter.

[EACLucifer]

Further to my previous post, the claim doing the rounds is that repub state legislatures will ignore the results and directly appoint their own electors. As calmer heads are trying to get across, this is something they will struggle with, as many of the key states with repub state legislatures have dem governors who could veto the changes to the state electoral codes this would require.

[dyqik]

The other big issue with Trump's plan* here is that at least two of the Conservatives on the Supreme Court aren't Trump loyalists, but right wing constitutional conservatives, who have ruled against Trump several times in the past two years.

I don't think it's at all guaranteed that Roberts and Gorsuch will go along with naked public power grabs that overturn results. This is likely to be significantly different to Florida 2000 (where the Supreme Court economy said that it's ruling wasn't precedent, either).

* To the extent that Trump has plans rather than things he shoots his mouth off about

[Bird on a Fire]

Still, probably a good time to stock up on guns and ammo, just in case.

[EACLucifer]

The other big issue with Trump's plan* here is that at least two of the Conservatives on the Supreme Court aren't Trump loyalists, but right wing constitutional conservatives, who have ruled against Trump several times in the past two years.

I don't think it's at all guaranteed that Roberts and Gorsuch will go along with naked public power grabs that overturn results. This is likely to be significantly different to Florida 2000 (where the Supreme Court economy said that it's ruling wasn't precedent, either).

* To the extent that Trump has plans rather than things he shoots his mouth off about

And the enormity of such a move cannot easily be overstated. It would effectively be the end of democracy, an act on a par with Hitler's enabling act.

[EACLucifer]

f.cking hell. Just seen his followup comment - "Get rid of the ballots, we'll have a very peaceful transfer.". His contempt for democracy is barefaced.

[Martin_B]

The other big issue with Trump's plan* here is that at least two of the Conservatives on the Supreme Court aren't Trump loyalists, but right wing constitutional conservatives, who have ruled against Trump several times in the past two years.

I don't think it's at all guaranteed that Roberts and Gorsuch will go along with naked public power grabs that overturn results. This is likely to be significantly different to Florida 2000 (where the Supreme Court economy said that it's ruling wasn't precedent, either).

* To the extent that Trump has plans rather than things he shoots his mouth off about

Gorsuch has sided with the liberal judges on issues such as LGBT rights, reproductive rights, native American rights, and on the release of Trump's tax records (where even Kavanaugh also voted that they should be released). I wouldn't go as far as calling Gorsuch a liberal, but he's far from being a hard-line conservative that many of Trump's supporters wanted for their first Supreme Court nomination.

[FlammableFlower]

In all the competing things going on - Trump's meandering thoughts on "racehorse" theory

[Woodchopper]

The other big issue with Trump's plan* here is that at least two of the Conservatives on the Supreme Court aren't Trump loyalists, but right wing constitutional conservatives, who have ruled against Trump several times in the past two years.

I don't think it's at all guaranteed that Roberts and Gorsuch will go along with naked public power grabs that overturn results. This is likely to be significantly different to Florida 2000 (where the Supreme Court economy said that it's ruling wasn't precedent, either).

* To the extent that Trump has plans rather than things he shoots his mouth off about

Gorsuch has sided with the liberal judges on issues such as LGBT rights, reproductive rights, native American rights, and on the release of Trump's tax records (where even Kavanaugh also voted that they should be released). I wouldn't go as far as calling Gorsuch a liberal, but he's far from being a hard-line conservative that many of Trump's supporters wanted for their first Supreme Court nomination.

There's a history of it. David Souter was appointed by Bush senior as a conservative but he ended up being considered one of the liberal justices.

[EACLucifer]

The other big issue with Trump's plan* here is that at least two of the Conservatives on the Supreme Court aren't Trump loyalists, but right wing constitutional conservatives, who have ruled against Trump several times in the past two years.

I don't think it's at all guaranteed that Roberts and Gorsuch will go along with naked public power grabs that overturn results. This is likely to be significantly different to Florida 2000 (where the Supreme Court economy said that it's ruling wasn't precedent, either).

* To the extent that Trump has plans rather than things he shoots his mouth off about

Gorsuch has sided with the liberal judges on issues such as LGBT rights, reproductive rights, native American rights, and on the release of Trump's tax records (where even Kavanaugh also voted that they should be released). I wouldn't go as far as calling Gorsuch a liberal, but he's far from being a hard-line conservative that many of Trump's supporters wanted for their first Supreme Court nomination.

There's a history of it. David Souter was appointed by Bush senior as a conservative but he ended up being considered one of the liberal justices.

In some ways, the more principled ends of liberalism and conservatism (small l and small c), can converge quite remarkably. I was struck recently by a prominent never-Trump self-identified conservative describing as a conservative virtue the idea that government should make law only when necessary and otherwise leave prople to live their lives uninterfered with, as that's a position I would personally describe as liberal.

[dyqik]

In the US, thanks to racism, the legacy of Jim Crow, etc., "Liberal" now largely means more centralized Federal government to prevent conservative local governments trampling on rights and equality, while "Conservative" means less centralized government so that local government can oppress who they want.

[Little waster]

You know who is likely to be an expert on the control of a pandemic of an infectious virus, neuroradiologists that's who.

Especially neuroradiologists who spend their time shilling for right-wing think tanks and who allegedly are only on nodding terms with things like truth and reality.

[El Pollo Diablo]

I remain amazed at how little polling has been done in Iowa. A new GE poll through gives Biden a three point lead, which is obviously welcome. But it's one of only three in September so far. The good news though is that Greenfield is looking like she's got a 1-3 point lead there in the Senate race.

Iowa is the lynchpin, really. The other close senate races (Arizona, Georgia 1, Maine, Michigan, Montana and North Carolina) have got reasonably good and steady leads for one party or the other - but Iowa is the one which gives the difference between a 50-50 finish and a 51-49 finish for the Democrabs. Obviously, that's subject to things not changing much from here, but if the Dems can get Iowa, that'll help a lot.

[El Pollo Diablo]

It does, however, remain the case that in the USA at least, men are, on average, f.cking numbnuts.

[FlammableFlower]

You know who is likely to be an expert on the control of a pandemic of an infectious virus, neuroradiologists that's who.

Especially neuroradiologists who spend their time shilling for right-wing think tanks and who allegedly are only on nodding terms with things like truth and reality.

The "Donald in Blunderland" political sketch of that press conference makes quite eye-opening reading. Even ignoring the partisan points, the direct quotes... bl..dy hell.

I wonder what the "important call" was?