TDS 3.0: Season One Talk

[DeLurker]

I'm not gonna lie, I would totally buy those bear-fur leggings. They look super cozy.

All I could think of is that it would be a major turn-on for furries.

[Hanahope]

I had to love the one guy on Hardball just cracking up about Ben Carson thinking the Palestinians could relocate in Egypt.  I mean talk about a complete foreign policy fail.  I'm not a fan of politicians, but at least most know their shit, and this is why you can't necessarily have an "outsider" or at least a "complete outsider" as president.

 

Schall's piece was great.  Seriously, have to prepare girls to dress appropriately for jobs when boys are running around in jeans?  And leggings are that much worse than jeans?  Have you seen skinny jeans?  And you realize that boys see girls' bare legs in gym, right?  These people are just preparing girls to accept blame when they are later sexually harassed and raped.

[ganesh]

Being an outsider or not doesn't have anything to do with being stupid about world geography and general world politics though. 

 

I was fine with the school official saying, "we're preparing these kids to be adults and professionals," until they showed the boys in shorts and jeans. You know what though? These kids are stuck in school for 7-9 hours, plus activities. Let them wear something comfortable. I'm at work about ten hours. People wear jeans here, and shorts. I don't but I wear comfortable clothes. I take my shoes off and wear my fancy slippers where I get there. Or, just start slapping down detention when the boys are out of line. They'll behave quick. 

You know what else? Just have a dress code if it's that much of an issue for you. 

 

It also didn't help with those guys on the news woofing over the women either. 

[attica]

Just have a dress code if it's that much of an issue for you.

 

Most of these places already have dress codes. The problem is, most of the violations fall on girls. Especially non-skinny girls (or girls of color) -- a slender girl in a tank top is overlooked; a bustier girl is punished.  So it's girl behavior that gets criminalized, if you will. Boys' "distraction" is never ever addressed but that it's all the girls' fault/responsibility to fix. Uniforms are a way out, but 1) they're costly, which is a burden that falls more heavily on poor families; 2) some public school districts have problems getting them instituted.

[SmithW6079]

I like Kristin Schaal's voice-over work -- Louise on "Bob's Burgers" and Mabel on "Gravity Falls" -- but in real life, her voice is worse than nails on a blackboard, and I have to mute her or change the channel.

Trevor's impression of Ben Carson is never not funny.

[kassygreene]

Here's the thing: Koppel really is a hack. I know he has a venerable reputation (and a stentorian voice, which helps), but I remember reading one of his memoirs in the 90s, wherein he put Chicken Little to absolute shame predicting the coming apocalypse that would be Y2K. Like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo: buildings would topple, fires would erupt, citizens would flee in terror. He was apoplectic that nobody else seemed to grok how disastrous it was no doubt going to be, and  my weren't we completely unprepared and vulnerable!!  Plus, he cited all the same kind of experts he cited here in this interview. Except he didn't cite any computing experts. And you know, computer experts kinda know what they're doing when it comes to this kind of thing. Y2K was literally nothing (and probably would have been without all the money spent on changing calendar coding, but you know, if there's money to spend, it will be.). Now, I'm not saying cyber crime isn't a thing, but I am saying we cannot take Ted's word for squat. 

 

...

 

Ok.  I was a Y2K fix-it nerd, and the Y2K date problem was partly a leap year problem (every fourth century year is a leap year, but programmers tended to not know that part of the rule), and mostly a date storage, display, and arithmetic problem.  

 

Knowing that 29-Feb-2000 was a legitimate date was down entirely to how the OS or the program dealt with leap days and leap years.  Storing, displaying, and doing arithmetic with dates, which were traditionally stored as text strings, required much elaborate coding in the early years of computer software, which happened to be mid-20th century.  Because most business software was expected to deal with a narrow range of dates, and because most software was expected to have a short-ish shelf life and then be replaced, who needed to worry about the year?  Hand to god, in the beginning programmers did not properly understand miserly business practices that would look at a working (and expensive) piece of software and feel no urge to replace it (especially with a lengthy software development process).

 

I can't find the book you are referencing, but the late 90s is when even the most tightwad-ish managers had to yield to the need.  In my workplace, a comprehensive migration to Unix was deferred five years so that all existing software could be made Y2K compliant (it was a bank, and "little" mistakes could and did cost millions).  There were three major software programs that were replaced instead of fixed, two because the replacements were timelined out to less than the compliance checks, and the third because there were six different versions of the code and no one knew which was the one actually in use, making it safer to replace it no matter what the cost.

 

Yes, it was a big deal.  Yes, it took a long time so people heard about it for a long time.  Yes, there was a lot of "the sky is falling" claims, because non IT-literate management needed to be scared into motion, or to hear about it at their manager conventions and need projects of their own to brag about (in the 90s, only the IT people and managers promoted from IT were computer-literate).  Yes, the media went stoopid - this is what the media does.  Yes, we fixed Y2K before it could destroy the cyber-structure and we fixed 29-Feb-Y2K at the same time.

 

You are welcome.

Edited November 20, 2015 by kassygreene

[Qoass]

 

Uniforms are a way out

 

I've never understood why uniforms are considered a way to make everybody equal when they usually consist of pants for boys and skirts for girls.  Why can't everybody wear a unisex choice?

 

Although if distraction is a problem maybe the boys should have to wear blinders so they keep their eyes front.

 

Last night's guest was adorable in all ways.

[Ottis]

I've finally decided that Trevor and this DS, when it comes to political humor, goes for easy laughs ("Department of commerce! Twice!") instead of exposing meaningful hypocrisy through humor. Some of the Republican candidates provide easy laughs. Bernie provides easy laughs. Hillary takes more effort, and the show makes a half-hearted attempt and then returns to Ted Cruz. When there is only Hillary and probably Rubio left, the show will run out of easy material and return to observations about Hollywood. I'm about ready to move on from TDS as well.

[LADreamr]

I had to love the one guy on Hardball just cracking up about Ben Carson thinking the Palestinians could relocate in Egypt. I mean talk about a complete foreign policy fail. I'm not a fan of politicians, but at least most know their shit

That sadly seems not to be so much of a given, anymore. Especially on this issue. Most of them seem to just know the side Israel presents, not the truth, which is wildly different. I don't want someone in charge of an issue as difficult as that one, whose own advisers complain about his dumbness.

[Qoass]

I have a similar belief that whoever is in charge of the bombs should be able to pronounce "nuclear".

[Brandi Maxxxx]

I've finally decided that Trevor and this DS, when it comes to political humor, goes for easy laughs ("Department of commerce! Twice!") instead of exposing meaningful hypocrisy through humor. Some of the Republican candidates provide easy laughs. Bernie provides easy laughs. Hillary takes more effort, and the show makes a half-hearted attempt and then returns to Ted Cruz. When there is only Hillary and probably Rubio left, the show will run out of easy material and return to observations about Hollywood. I'm about ready to move on from TDS as well.

Trevor did make a point on Monday's show about how people are talking about Cruz's "department of commerce" mistake instead of talking about what will happen if he shuts down the 5 departments. Of course he still makes the obvious jokes when the opportunity arises but the show still covers serious topics. And Jon was definitely not above going for easy laughs: mocking Lindsey Graham's accent, comparing Mitch McConnell to a turtle, rants about the proper way to eat pizza, etc.

[fastiller]

Ok.  I was a Y2K fix-it nerd, and the Y2K date problem was partly a leap year problem (every fourth century year is a leap year, but programmers tended to not know that part of the rule), and mostly a date storage, display, and arithmetic problem.  

<snip>

In my workplace, a comprehensive migration to Unix was deferred five years so that all existing software could be made Y2K compliant (it was a bank, and "little" mistakes could and did cost millions).  There were three major software programs that were replaced instead of fixed, two because the replacements were timelined out to less than the compliance checks, and the third because there were six different versions of the code and no one knew which was the one actually in use, making it safer to replace it no matter what the cost.

<snip>

You are welcome.

 

Are you me?  I lived the Y2K at an IT company, I had five Banking clients.  Most of them proceeded how you described.

 

I have a similar belief that whoever is in charge of the bombs should be able to pronounce "nuclear".

My favourite living ex- President Jimmy Carter was a Nuclear Submarine Commander and he said "nook-cu-lar".  Must be a Southern thing?

[peeayebee]

The handshake was great. 

 

I remember that book about sharpening pencils. I never read it, but I heard about it on Twitter from John Hodgman, I believe.

 

I'm forgetting the correspondent's name, but I didn't like the way he presented the story about the city in Missouri that wanted to sneak in a sales tax. The story was interesting though.

 

So funny how often Huckabee uses food metaphors. To make his tainted peanut analog more accurate, instead of throwing away all the peanuts, you could test each one to see which were poisonous. So there. Oh and not all Chipotle restaurants closed during that outbreak. I ate there during that period.

[attica]

Oh, and beeteedubs, all of the refugees will indeed go through screening (which they would've done even before the House's latest 'FBI director must do all paperwork personally' nonsense bill), so no tainted peanuts will get through!

[Brandi Maxxxx]

So funny how often Huckabee uses food metaphors.

He knows what Americans want to hear.

[kassygreene]

Are you me?  I lived the Y2K at an IT company, I had five Banking clients.  Most of them proceeded how you described.

 

...

Yep.  Date problems equal lost money, and banks tend to understand that...  My predecessor got himself fired about 36 hours after he did a very stupid thing to the computer date that would have been fairly easy to fix, especially if he had sounded the alarm and gotten help like he was supposed to.  Instead he tried to cover it up, denied doing the typo, and even though he should have known that the security keystroke log files (which he couldn't delete) showed the whole sordid history.  The nightmare of that man-made error persuaded any lingering management doubters that Y2K Was Indeed A Thing.  

[KerleyQ]

So funny how often Huckabee uses food metaphors.

 

 

After the peanut and Chipotle meat clips, I said "is Huckabee hungry?"  So I loved that Trevor followed that up with a montage of him talking about food.  I think he's just constantly hungry. 

[Victor the Crab]

I never understood the deal about women's leggings. Some might think it's a distraction for males? They've never grabbed my attention the way a pair of tight jeans would. But I guess there are those that feel the need to control young women, like the douches on that Fox News panel.

[Brandi Maxxxx]

Clearly the solution is for American girls to start wearing burqas. There's no way Fox News could have a problem with that, right?

[attica]

As long as they could still parade scantily clad models around on set for ratings (and host-boners)....

[Skyfall]

Where should we discuss Trevor's comedy special that aired last night?

[Miss Dee]

Maybe start a thread here that discusses Trevor's stand-up comedy in general?

[formerlyfreedom]

Where should we discuss Trevor's comedy special that aired last night?

 

You can take it the the Trevor Noah topic here.

[SmithW6079]

So funny how often Huckabee uses food metaphors. 

 

 

He knows what Americans want to hear.

 

 

After the peanut and Chipotle meat clips, I said "is Huckabee hungry?"  So I loved that Trevor followed that up with a montage of him talking about food.  I think he's just constantly hungry. 

Well, Huckabee used to be quite overweight and lost something like 100 pounds. I believe he even wrote a diet book, so food probably isn't too far from his mind at any time.

 

 

But I guess there are those that feel the need to control young women, like the douches on that Fox News panel.

Or maybe we could just teach people what's appropriate to wear in school, at work, or generally out in public. But then, that might smack of setting standards and infringing on someone's creativity to express themselves, and we must protect the fragile self-esteem of our special little snowflakes at all costs.

 

The panel of Fox commenters was creepy, but the underlying issue remains.

[ganesh]

Is wearing leggings to school really that inappropriate?

[zxy556575]

Is wearing leggings to school really that inappropriate?

 

I generally think of leggings being worn with a tunic/long top, but if not, then yes, I would consider them inappropriate for elementary or secondary school. Same with yoga pants or tights; anything that hugs like a second skin and outlines the butt and crotch. Might as well use body paint to "wear" a pair of jeans. Same goes for boys and spandex bicycle shorts or if they were in the habit of wearing ballet tights in public. I don't need to see anyone's genitals outlined, male or female.

 

College students and other adults are on their own.

[trow125]

Well, Huckabee used to be quite overweight and lost something like 100 pounds. I believe he even wrote a diet book, so food probably isn't too far from his mind at any time.

"Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork." For some reason, that title has stuck in my mind all these years, though I would imagine the Huckster doesn't care to remind people of that book. Eating healthfully is now too strongly associated with Michelle Obama. His latest masterwork was titled "God, Guns Grits & Gravy."

[KerleyQ]

"Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork." For some reason, that title has stuck in my mind all these years, though I would imagine the Huckster doesn't care to remind people of that book. Eating healthfully is now too strongly associated with Michelle Obama. His latest masterwork was titled "God, Guns Grits & Gravy."

I think he gained some of the weight back after Michelle started her healthy eating kick. That's how much some of those on the right need to be contrary to the First Family. Eating healthy is for the liberal Muslim lovers or something.

[Gulftastic]

The show is on a break when Trump mimics a person's disability for a cheap laugh. Holy shit, they must be itching to get back to work.

[Victor the Crab]

The show is on a break when Trump mimics a person's disability for a cheap laugh. Holy shit, they must be itching to get back to work.

 

Monday's only four days away.

[shok]

It was good to see Dimples back in place and he brought a good show tonight, even though the continuing idiocies of Donald Trump made it easy for the writers after a break. It was also one of the few times I enjoyed a bit with Jordan Klepper too but that was more because of the thought provoking material rather than Klepper.

 

I continue to be impressed with how much Trevor is growing into this show and slowly, slowly, starting to make it his own.

[angora]

As disgusting as Trump is, Trevor getting caught up on Trumpire was so much fun.  "The disabled journalist is the bad guy!?!  Nobody saw that coming!!"  I thought that whole segment was really well done.

 

The Colorado Springs piece of course reminded me of when he talked about the "lone (white) gunman with no ties to society" in his standup special, and how white men who commit acts of terror deserve to be called terrorists.  And since, as evidenced by his special, that's clearly a topic he's given some thought to, that in turn reminded me of his recent NPR interview; he remarked that, if there's a certain issue they want to address on the show but don't have a current-events reason to bring it up, sadly, all they really have to do is wait and their reason will come along soon enough.

Edited December 1, 2015 by angora

[attica]

My inner pedant kept correcting TN's use of 'professorial' when he probably wanted 'prophetic' in his discussion with Spike. My inner pedant is very loud and shouty. And yet I cannot help but love her.

 

Speaking of which, I'd really like it if TN started pronouncing the plural of woman as 'wimmin.' That might be an ask too far, seeing as how several of my American-born coworkers can't manage it.

Edited December 1, 2015 by attica

[peeayebee]

Trump's BS is so transparent that I'm aghast his supporters have blinders on and refuse to see him for what he is. "You tell me." Some people really accept this as a reasonable response? I saw his spokesman being interviewed by Jake Tapper, and the guy (who's clearly built in the mold of Trump) basically blamed the mainstream media for there not being a video of the 1000s of NJ Muslims cheering on 9/11. It's comical and sad and maddening.

 

I think Trevor meant 'prophetic' rather than 'professorial' in talking about Chi-Raq. 

[CaughtOnTape]

"Whoa Chuck, you're acting like a Charles right now." made me laugh out loud.

[gesundheit]

I have a similar belief that whoever is in charge of the bombs should be able to pronounce "nuclear".

Obama can't, W couldn't, and I'm trying to remember farther back. Who was the last one who could pronounce it? I feel like Clinton could?

 

My inner pedant kept correcting TN's use of 'professorial' when he probably wanted 'prophetic' in his discussion with Spike. My inner pedant is very loud and shouty. And yet I cannot help but love her.

That was driving me nuts. I've never even heard that variation. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, that maybe "prophec-orial?" is a word used in South African English? But I was really wishing he'd just leave it at one!

[Qoass]

It may be all in my head that Sarah Palin hesitated before slowly enunciating the word for the first time during her debate with Joe Biden and then mangling it for the rest of the night.

[ganesh]

Yeah, it's always a groaner to those of us in nuclear fields, when others say it wrong.

 

Good interview too. 

 

Edited December 1, 2015 by ganesh

[Victor the Crab]

Donald Trump is such an obnoxious bully. That's why it was so great of Trevor to pull out the clips of Trump bragging about what a great memory he has after denying he knew anything about the New York Times writer he was mocking.

[Milburn Stone]

My inner pedant kept correcting TN's use of 'professorial' when he probably wanted 'prophetic' in his discussion with Spike.

 

That made me crazy. If you don't know big words, it just makes you look dumb when you try to use them.

[possibilities]

Donald Trump is such an obnoxious bully. That's why it was so great of Trevor to pull out the clips of Trump bragging about what a great memory he has after denying he knew anything about the New York Times writer he was mocking.

Trump alone provides enough material to replace the mocking of all of FoxNews and CNN combined.

[Victor the Crab]

Poor Jessica. The future's not that bright upon arriving. As for the competing "hoverboards", lame ass toys that would seem to appeal to douchebags.

[attica]

For all my complaints about TN's pronunciations, I have to say I think 'con-TRAH-versy' is hella sexy.

 

I would like one of those wheeled hoverboards, but I fear I would wreak such destruction on one, not unlike Godzilla in downtown Tokyo: buildings crumbling, fires erupting, citizens fleeing in terror. I am ungraceful, is my point.

[dusang]

For all my complaints about TN's pronunciations, I have to say I think 'con-TRAH-versy' is hella sexy.

 

I would like one of those wheeled hoverboards, but I fear I would wreak such destruction on one, not unlike Godzilla in downtown Tokyo: buildings crumbling, fires erupting, citizens fleeing in terror. I am ungraceful, is my point.

 

After some of the comments here, listening to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast interview with TN I was much more alert to his pronunciation.  Although there are some oddities at the same time I'm like, I fuck up words in the one language I know and he's balancing at least six languages in his head, I can forgive him some stutters or odd inflections.

 

I haven't watched this particular episode yet but I did listen to the most recent NPR Planet Money episode yesterday which also featured "hoverboards" (AKA "Swagways," "HoverTrax," or "SkyWalkers").  I just find it odd that such a random thing would pop up so simultaneously.

[peeayebee]

Walking the dog in the evening, I've seen and talked to a guy on one of these boards. Actually, the first time I saw him, he was on one of them, and the second time he was on a different one that had lights and I think bluetooth capability for music. He had given the first board to his son. Anyway, I thought it looked pretty cool and fun. I never heard 'hoverboard' as a descriptor of them. I just called them sideways skateboards. I like the term Swagways.

 

I loved Jessica's segment. She's so funny, a really good actress.

 

The audience didn't seem to be into Nick Cannon. I'm not into him either. He was a dud on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I don't watch America's Got Talent, so I don't know how he is on that show. He's chairman of Teen Nick? How did that come about? I guess I need to google him.

 

And wasn't a different guest scheduled for last night?

[gesundheit]

And wasn't a different guest scheduled for last night?

My DVR description said Chris Brown, which made my skin crawl and I was immediately going to delete it until he announced that it was Nick Cannon. 

[dusang]

And wasn't a different guest scheduled for last night?

 

 

My DVR description said Chris Brown, which made my skin crawl and I was immediately going to delete it until he announced that it was Nick Cannon. 

 

The change has been discussed in the Upcoming Guests thread.

[Ottis]

Donald Trump is such an obnoxious bully. That's why it was so great of Trevor to pull out the clips of Trump bragging about what a great memory he has after denying he knew anything about the New York Times writer he was mocking.

 

 

That part was good. But then the show took the easy way out and went on and on and on about Trump's utterances that were a week or more old. Yes, the show was on break, but we weren't. Make the main point and move on. I stopped watching for a few weeks and then checked in. Nothing has improved.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Ottis

[shok]

Donald Trump is such an obnoxious bully. That's why it was so great of Trevor to pull out the clips of Trump bragging about what a great memory he has after denying he knew anything about the New York Times writer he was mocking.

 

Wish Trevor had pulled up the quick clip that Larry Wilmore used of Jake Tapper on CNN interviewing one of Trump's minions who was blathering on about Trump's amazing memory and he said that Trump has never been wrong in his life about something he remembered. Tapper wasn't paying that much attention to him and was about to go on with his next question when I guess the statement/lie registered with him and he looked up with the most incredulous look on his face and said "Seriously??????"  One word and it said so much. It was really funny.

[DeLurker]

For all my complaints about TN's pronunciations, I have to say I think 'con-TRAH-versy' is hella sexy.

 

I would like one of those wheeled hoverboards, but I fear I would wreak such destruction on one, not unlike Godzilla in downtown Tokyo: buildings crumbling, fires erupting, citizens fleeing in terror. I am ungraceful, is my point.

Growing up with a Mom who learned English after 18, I rarely notice if someone's pronunciation is wrong.  My ears just automatically translate.

 

Unlike you, the destruction would be on me.  I suspect I would end up meeting the pavement or a stationary object before I could Go Go Godzilla something.