The escalator actually gives me vertigo at the top.

And come up with a better weapon for shooting down balloons.

I don’t think anyone believe that an infrared missile is the best possible option for shooting down a spy balloon, it’s just the best one that we have.

Hell, an airplane with a stall speed of over 200 knots really isn’t a great tool for taking out a slow moving balloon.

NASA has flown propeller drones at that altitude, maybe something like that …

Have you seen the pictures?

Those aren’t 10 dollar balloons with a Huawei phone mounted on them, they’re basically spy satellites…

I’m surprised sidewinders can even track balloons, frankly. They’re heat seeking missiles, a balloon has to be pretty close to ambient air temperature, unlike a jet engine.

Sidewinder may have been the best option for the job—there’s a general quotes as saying it was—but I don’t think the military actually has any good weapons for taking down balloons. Not exactly a modern battlefield threat.

I’m surprised sidewinders can even track balloons, frankly. They’re heat seeking missiles, a balloon has to be pretty close to ambient air temperature, unlike a jet engine.

Did you know about East New York, Brooklyn?

Pretty sure it was named that when Brooklyn was it’s own city, but we still call it that.

They just sound so dumb now.

There is a culture, but I agree with everything you said but it’s not particularly relevant.

A school principal or lieutenant in the military is a MUCH more tactical role than that of a department commissioner. They are themselves boots on the ground personnel.

The commissioner of the NYFD (and the NYPD) is a civilian administrator, deliberately separate from the department, whose job is set strategic priorities with the advice of their senior officers.

Regarding culture, there are as many reasons to have leadership from outside of the culture as there are to have leadership beholding to the existing culture.

The President of the United States is the Commander in Chief of the US armed forces. He is not required to be a veteran.

Franklin’s D Roosevelt, one of Americas most famous wartime presidents, did not serve. Most Presidents who did serve were not senior positions, i.e. anything remotely close to being commander in chief.

Biden, Trump, Obama, and Clinton did not serve.

The secretary of defense—basically next in responsibility under the President—must be out of military service for at least seven years to be appointed to the position.

This system of civilian control over the military is the global standard.

“On the ground” experience as a management official in a large organization is just a merit badge to make someone a more appealing candidate. It has little bearing on their actual job, because no senior official can actually have a useful working knowledge of everything their organization does.

It’s not completely pointless—your public image being a pretty important part of being a public figure—but it’s not a critical requirement.

Exactly, it’s a symptom of a greater problem, not a failure of the MTA.

Ehhh…maybe if they’re relatively new, like in some Asian countries.

People like to tout the Paris metro as an example of mass transit expansion, but many Paris subway lines have trains with manually operated doors. Train advancements are not a priority there.

I’ve ridden the MTA, DC Metro, Paris subway, several Tokyo train lines, and the subway in Seoul, and the MTA measures up fine.

The main way the MTA falls short these days has more to do with our homelessness and mental illness crises than details of the subway.

Edit: Paris trains also don’t have AC.

Well, it’s hard to do anything without cash, and it’s hard to get cash if no one knows about you.

That’s why like, Tesla announced pre-order for the cyber truck—to gauge interest, get some cash in hand, and to build more interest.

Obviously this isn’t open for pre-orders, but good publicity draws in more investors.

We do….they just evolve so we have to constantly develop new ones.

They were almost non-existent in the mid 20th century due to the invention of powerful insecticides like DDT.

There’s similar trends in basically every pest control field, and in antibiotics. It’s an ongoing battle against nature, and frankly nature is way more consistent than human beings are.

I had bed bugs and got my apartment treated with Aprehend, which is a relatively new product that involves spraying fungal spores that infest and kill bed bugs. Which is some “The Last of Us” zombie sci-fi horror shit, but it did work.

There’s also a surprising amount of bad information out there, much of it promulgated by pest control technicians.

I’ve heard “they can’t climb metal” and “they don’t bite fingers”. You can literally find videos of bed bugs climbing metal online. And if I’m in the middle of a bed bug infestation (confirmed with a captured bedbug) and I’m waking up with bites on my fingers…where do think those came from? He just didn’t want to come back for a respray, even through he was contractually obligated to do so if they we’re willing active after thirty days.

Touch screen computers suck if you try to use them exactly like desktop computers with a bonus input device.

If, on the other hand, you have valid use cases for using touch screen computers—or say, an entire ecosystem based around touch screen devices that are approximately the same size as a small computer screen, aka the iPad—it can be great.

That being said, I feel like the iPad and Surface already have that space covered…so they really should just be merged with the lowest tier models of laptops.

It’s changed a bit over the last 5 years I guess?

There’s an entryway from the Dining Concourse to the new Grand Central LIRR platforms, so I expect foot traffic will will be up significantly in 2023.

Virtually all of the chairs in the dining concourse are gone now except for the dedicated seating areas for a few restaurants.

No.

But many are—especially the ones that are directly public facing.

They’re basically just trying to add a technology dimensions to things that already exist, and convince investors and customers that it isnt just incremental improvement, but a qualitative leap.