5 Thoughts for February 16, 2017

1. Wheels are Coming Off: Three hours. That's how much time The Emperor spent watching cable TV and tweeting this morning from 3:30 to 6:30 am. His topic: Leaks and how he's going to make the leakers "pay a big price" if they're caught. Okay, so twice you've poked the hornet's nest and hornets came out to sting you, so you decide to poke them a third time? It's so bad, he's going to Florida on Saturday -- no joke -- to have a pep rally for himself. Not quite one month into his administration and he's already flown to Florida three times to get away from Washington. This, coming from a guy who claims that he "inherited a mess" and instead of dealing with this so-called mess, has decided to take a trip nearly every weekend. People are pointing to today's rambling mess of a press conference as signs that he's completely unhinged from reality.
2. NPR Podcast: Ugh, I give up. I can't listen to them anymore because they keep getting the facts wrong on a regular basis -- as in every podcast -- which, if you're a political reporter you should know your facts better than anyone else, seeing as you get paid for you gig? This latest podcast on Flynn's resignation suggested that Comey didn't chase Hillary because the law that she would have been charged with was rarely used -- which is completely untrue! -- and as a result, it seemed unlikely that Comey would go after Flynn using the Logan Act. The reason why Comey didn't go after Hillary was because the statutes specifically required intent and it was clear that Hillary's big fault was carelessness as opposed to intentionally violating the law.
3. Clueless Pence: Wow. WaPo states that Bannon and Priebus were both called in and consulted when WH counsel Don McGahn spoke to The Emperor about Mike Flynn's lies. None of these four people bothered to let Pence know what was going on. I get that he might be keeping his distance, knowing full well that the time will come that his distance will provide the support he'd need to take over the Presidency after The Emperor was impeached, but wow...Clueless Pence.
4. 3D Printer: It's been over a year since the Kickstarter 3D printer I signed up for, failed to make an appearance on my doorsteps at the originally scheduled period. The Tiko was supposed to be the least expensive 3D printer and would deliver 50µm resolution. They weren't able to simply translate their prototype to a fully mass-produced system, requiring a ton more steps and time fixing things, even after the RTM stage. Now, it seems that they've realized that they're going to run out of money before they complete the manufacturing and delivery of promised products to everyone so they've regrouped and have likely sought out private investment. They've delivered some 4,000 units, but that's far short of the 15,000 + units they needed to fulfill their minimum obligations and the built-from-scratch software slicer just isn't up to snuff. I'm sure that they'll deliver on their promise, but we're probably talking another 6 months I suspect. All of this has taught me one important thing about Kickstarter: A relatively inexperienced team cannot deliver technological jumps at lower costs on time. Having said that, I'm looking into getting a Monoprice because I'd like to be doing prototyping sooner than later and I've already waited for well over a year.
5. Sexless Japan: According to Japanese national statistics, one-third of Japanese women ages 35-39 have never had sex. I'm not that surprised, yet, the first thought that came into my mind was that I need to move to Japan ASAP. How the hell did Arman not hook up after 10 months at Terrace House?