2021 - Wk 30 - Notes and Links

Andy's Newslather

Notes and Links - 2021 - WK 30

Hi everyone: As you can see I've shifted to a new system. I'm using an actual mail list system rather than my e-mail because there were so many links that the newsletter was triggering anti-spam systems.

Let me know if you have issues but also any other feedback is of course welcome.

- AG

Ten things in the news this week

1. Can we get a commentator who does this for all the countries - https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/25/asia/south-korea-broadcaster-blunder-olympics-intl/index.html

2. Dear China:Hahahaha. No. - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/25/china-criticizes-nbc-universal-for-incomplete-map-during-olympics.html

3. Consumer losses due to Covid-related fraud top $500 million, according to data from the Federal Trade Commission - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/26/consumer-losses-top-500-million-due-to-covid-related-fraud.html

4. 'Disinformation for Hire' is Becoming a Booming Industry  - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/world/europe/disinformation-social-media.htmlAlso, Sunday the BBC reported YouTube influencers were offered money to spread vaccine misinformation - https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/07/25/1351226/youtube-stars-were-offered-money-to-spread-vaccine-misinformation

5. Tesla apparently asking employees to hunt down social media posts and ask for deletion if these say mean things about Elon Musk and his hair plugs - https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-delete-mean-posts-elon-musk

6. Abandoning a stolen vehicle on the highway due to fuel trouble is never ideal, especially when you're stealing an aeroplane - https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/abandoned-plane-on-highway-93-leads-to-arrests

7. Exec involved in mailing live cockroaches, a funeral wreath, and a bloody pig mask to critical reporters blames ’The Drinking Culture At eBay' - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/lawsuit-ebay-tried-to-terrorize-stalk-and-silence-couple-that-ran-news-site/

8. Johnson cannot deliver strategic diligence any more than Theresa May could dazzle with dextrous wit. It doesn’t come naturally and can’t be faked. The Conservative party chose its current leader precisely because he was uninterested in the practical reality of government - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/28/boris-effect-britain-political-prime-minister-voters

9. Just know that no matter how bad you mess up at work you will never be worse at your job than cops in Sherbrooke, Quebec - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/woman-body-sherbrooke-police-firefighters-container-1.6122481

10. Former NRA head ghoul had elephant he shot secretly brought to America to have its feet made into stools and trash cans - https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-nra-head-wayne-lapierre-and-wife-susan-worked-to-secretly-turn-elephant-they-shot-into-stools-report

This week in Data

• Lonely, older adults are nearly twice as likely to use opioids to ease pain and two-and-a-half times more likely to use sedatives and anti-anxiety medications, putting themselves at risk for drug dependency, impaired attention, falls and other accidents, and further cognitive impairment - https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/07/421126/over-65-and-lonely-dont-talk-your-doctor-about-another-prescriptionAnd here are some people discussing what it is like to have no close friends - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/osip5u/the_percentage_of_men_with_at_least_6_close/

• Record-shattering heatwaves, even worse than the one that recently hit north-west America, are set to become much more likely in future, according to research which suits me because at 53 I have shovelled enough fucking snow - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/26/record-shattering-heat-becoming-much-more-likely-says-climate-study

• Nautical depth chart - https://usa.fishermap.org/depth-map/atlantic-ocean/

• Hiding unhealthy heart outcomes in a low-fat diet trial: the Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial finds that postmenopausal women with established coronary heart disease were at increased risk of an adverse outcome if they consumed a low-fat ‘heart-healthy’ diet - https://openheart.bmj.com/content/8/2/e001680

• Hate to breakit to you but this also applies to men - https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2021/07/26/leader-effectiveness-may-depend-emotional-expression

• Majority of Arabs in the United States are Christian - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Americans#Religious_background

• Like playing aroundwith Covid data? - https://healthdata.gov/Hospital/COVID-19-Reported-Patient-Impact-and-Hospital-Capa/g62h-syeh

• Billions in 'unknown' funds flowing into Canada's housing market - https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/real-estate/video/billions-in-unknown-funds-flowing-into-canada-s-housing-market-transparency-international~1644554

This week in science and tech

• Just five per cent of the world’s power plants account for almost three-quarters of carbon emissions from electricity generation. - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01983-z

• How a West Africanlake once killed 1800 People - https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/645217/lake-nyos-deadly-lakes

• Submarines havea vertical tower that houses the periscope, antennae, and it also acts as a stabilizer on single-screw boats. Future designs may lack this notable feature - https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41614/the-navys-future-attack-submarines-may-be-fitted-with-inflatable-sails

• To cool down,seals urinate on themselves, bees vomit, storks defecate. Sweating doesn't seem so bad now, eh? - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/books/review-joy-of-sweat-sarah-everts.html

• What Buzz Aldrin saw will really hit you  - https://petapixel.com/2021/07/26/unwrapping-buzz-aldrins-visor-in-moon-photo-reveals-what-he-saw/

• A 48 group coalition asked the Federal Trade Commission to exercise its rulemaking authority by banning corporate facial surveillance technology, banning continuous corporate surveillance of public spaces, and protecting the public from data abuse - https://athenaforall.medium.com/ftc-surveillance-letter-efc225d028ab

• Google's reputation for aggressively killing products and services is hurting the company. Any new product launch from Google is no longer a reason for optimism; instead, the company is met with questions about when the product will be shut down. It's a problem entirely of Google's own making, and it's yet another barrier that discourages customers from investing (either time, money, or data) in the latest Google thing. Google Cloud wants to address this issue, though, with a new "Enterprise API" designation - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/new-api-stability-tenets-govern-google-enterprise-apis

A tepid dystopia

• Just five per cent of the world’s power plants account for almost three-quarters of carbon emissions from electricity generation. - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01983-z

• How a West African lake once killed 1800 People - https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/645217/lake-nyos-deadly-lakes

• Submarines have a vertical tower that houses the periscope, antennae, and it also acts as a stabilizer on single-screw boats. Future designs may lack this notable feature - https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41614/the-navys-future-attack-submarines-may-be-fitted-with-inflatable-sails

• To cool down, seals urinate on themselves, bees vomit, storks defecate. Sweating doesn't seem so bad now, eh? - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/books/review-joy-of-sweat-sarah-everts.html

• What Buzz Aldrin saw will really hit you  - https://petapixel.com/2021/07/26/unwrapping-buzz-aldrins-visor-in-moon-photo-reveals-what-he-saw/

• A 48 group coalition asked the Federal Trade Commission to exercise its rulemaking authority by banning corporate facial surveillance technology, banning continuous corporate surveillance of public spaces, and protecting the public from data abuse - https://athenaforall.medium.com/ftc-surveillance-letter-efc225d028ab

• Google's reputation for aggressively killing products and services is hurting the company. Any new product launch from Google is no longer a reason for optimism; instead, the company is met with questions about when the product will be shut down. It's a problem entirely of Google's own making, and it's yet another barrier that discourages customers from investing (either time, money, or data) in the latest Google thing. Google Cloud wants to address this issue, though, with a new "Enterprise API" designation - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/new-api-stability-tenets-govern-google-enterprise-apis

This week in listening pleasure

• A Death in Cryptoland, in which host Takara Small explores the cataclysmic chain of events after the young CEO of Canada's biggest cryptocurrency exchange is reported dead. - https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/listen-a-death-in-cryptoland-1.6035764

• But what happens after the cameras shut off and the reporters walk away? Just because a story disappears from the news doesn't mean it's gone...On this episode Erica Vella revisits the SARS epidemic that gripped parts of Canada in 2003. - https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/sars-4/id1537834558?i=1000503941669

• Astronomer Seth Shostak and science journalist Molly Bentley are joined each week by leading researchers, techies, and journalists to provide a smart and humorous take on science. - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mars-attracts/id73329638?i=1000508208917

• Someone knows something - https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/128-someone-knows-something

• Celebrating the 75th birthday of one of the most successsful singers of all time: Linda Ronstadt - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000xtf4

This week in viewing pleasure

• This is basically my life - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

• The mysterious Chinese art heists across Europe - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LDVQYfeseo

• A psychologist looks at the life of the great John Candy - https://youtu.be/72B36VcLCE0

• No-one needs to see your photography - https://youtu.be/wEbwT2Ay3qg

• Dubai's dark side - https://youtu.be/DhPwQu_woiw

This week's headlines

• Ex-strip club becomes church in Alaska - https://pix11.com/news/national-news/divine-transformation-ex-strip-club-becomes-church-in-alaska/

• He seems nice- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-27/video-appears-to-show-canberra-man-chasing-partner-with-chainsaw/100327556

People watching

• Memoirs of a Montreal Journalist - https://journeymansjourneyinjournalism1960-2020.com

• Cultural biases have an impact on native fish, too. Wait, what? - https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/historic-racism-impacted-native-fish-too

• The ethical dilemmas of on-line shaming - https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jcpy.1227

• Why do we go to war? Margaret Macmillan identifies three causes: greed, self-defense, and ideas. Idea-driven wars are often the cruelest - https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/macmillan-war-sherwin-cuban-crisis-review/

• Nudist party full of Brits on boat gatecrashes couple enjoying romantic wedding anniversary dinner, leaves them shocked and not hungry anymore (possible nsfw content on page) - https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/15687265/couple-romantic-anniversary-dinner-gatecrashed-nudist-cruise/

• Li and her colleagues report they can now tell roughly how much pee is in a pool by measuring the artificial sweeteners carried in most people's urine - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/01/517785902/just-how-much-pee-is-in-that-pool

• Our fact-challenged times have inspired a cottage industry testifying to the prescience of Hannah Arendt. But what was she actually saying? - https://harpers.org/archive/2021/08/men-in-dark-times-hannah-arendt-post-truth/

• What narcissists dream about - https://www.quora.com/Do-narcissists-dream-when-they-sleep

• Interesting differences between female and male muscles, joints and bones - https://fairplayforwomen.com/biological-sex-differences/

• What is the strangest mystery in your town? - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ou0tos/small_town_redditors_whats_the_weirdest_unsolved/

Post of the week

• Covid rises -> CDC recommends wearing masks

• Vaccine Developed -> 50% of the US population gets it

• Covid falls -> CDC Recommends vaccinated people can unmask

• Delta Variant Appears

• Covid rises -> CDC Recommends masks

This does not appear to required a Harvard Law degree to figure out. It's weird to hear people complain that tbe CDC is "flip-flopping" or "changing their tune." 

Like, it's science guys, it updates as information and trends change. 

Well, adapting to change is not the strong suite of conservatives. Conservatism is in fact the polar opposite of adapting to changes based on new knowledge.

Quotes found on-line

• Anyone here wanna join me and create a new martial arts? We'll split the profits.

• In psychotherapy the patient and the therapist cannot have sex or kill each other but everything else is game.

• This is gonna be a weird ass world, man. Little kids growing up in a world where they've gotten all their lessons from people fishing for likes.

• Either walk like the king, or walk like you don’t care who the king is.

• Steve Perry was the worst thing to happen to music until Celine Dion. 

• I did it all. Then they added more to it. I could not keep doing it. Now I do not do it but just watch them doing it.

• My math teacher said I was average which is just mean

• I don’t really care if I manipulate people I don’t care about

• I wish the plural for moose was meese and the singular for sheep was shoop

• I'm not weird. Well, I am, but not weird weird. Just limited edition.

• The song "Summer of '69" is not about the year 1969. 

• If you see a flying purple/blue striped large eyed cow it is mine

• OMG!! This jail cell gets free wifi!

• The only reason billionaires aren't going to space is cause they know guillotine needs gravity to work

• Realization: Narcissists don't "Raise" children, they groom them to fill needs in their lives. I think that there is a massive disconnect that begins with the narcissists assumption that doing the bare-assed minimum (Food, Clothing, Shelter, possibly less beatings than the nparents got) in child rearing is a Gold Metal performance. I don't think a Narcissist is capable of raising a child. They groom them to fill roles in their life. If a narcissist doesn't have a role for you to fill, then they just emotionally abandon you, or at least that's my experience. And generally the roles are "Golden Child", "Scape Goat", "Servant", "Retirement Plan", etc...

• My wife has some pretty pronounced hemorrhoids that came about after childbirth. She has the same concern. I don't see the hemorrhoids, i just see best balloon knot in the world.

• Just got out of the insane asylum? Why not put on a yellow dress and have some adventures

• Map the terrain of your ignorance, plot its mountains and rivers, and try to navigate it.

• I’m sick of antiheroes. I want a movie about an antivillian - a guy who is completely ethical but everyone decides just not to like him.

• The author saw this twice on YouTube and now it’s a ongoing problem? I am curious as to how often the author has seen or heard of this in real life

• Some people punch up.  Some people punch down.  I think I punch myself.

• You people do realize that even KKK members could become obese, right?

• I'm not pompous, I'm pedantic. There's a difference.

• My wife tells me our son has been looking at porn on the family computer and I gotta act shocked so she doesn't know it was me

• Satan demands two Deep fried chickens...eaten with 5 loaves of white bread. Each weekend for 30 years

• A foolish man complains about his torn pocket, but a wise man uses it to scratch his balls.

• I have found that three shots of vodka really helps before my waxing.

• People who are completely ignorant of any science have assured me that the mRNA is "how they get you", despite being unable to say what any of the letters in mRNA stand for.

• Americans probably don’t realise the diversity we have in Yorkshire. I mean there's the South, North and Doncaster.

• Butterflies are not insects. They are self-propelled flowers. ― Robert A. Heinlein

• Have you ever felt a deep personal connection to a person you met in a dream only to wake up feeling terrible because you realize they never existed?

• Today, my calves look like Michelangelo forged them himself during Renaissance Italy. 

• You’re wearing Crocs with dress trousers. What the fuck is wrong with you?

• Also, apologizes for my English, I graduated a prestigious private school in the Southern US and got my bachelors in Criminology and am working on my Masters at a University in the midwest.

• Isn’t Elon musk per definition an African-American?

• I had this friend who claimed he could tell the difference between what is and what is not. I asked him what I was, and without hesitation said that I was not. I happened to know that this so-called friend was also not, and I remarked that I guessed that was why were were friends, we were both not.

• People that could be held accountable because of what captured phonecam footage reveals should not be in a position to dictate if recording should or should not be permitted.

• The communists have control of most of our government and institutions now thanks to David.

• Abolish dog speak

• Dear God, It's not even August and they are already starting on the pumpkin spice

• Can media outlets please stop manufacturing news stories out of a handful of mentally unstable idiots tweeting angrily about something?

• I think I may have committed some light treason..

• When I stood there at my own wedding without a best man, I knew that forming and sustaining friendships was a skill I sucked at.

• We’re just experiencing a time of unparalleled peace when these wackjobs are allowed an extended time on the microphone.

• That said... when they die they won't be attending his church any longer. So he's really providing a valuable public service - killing the kind of people who would follow and listen to a dipshiat like him.

• I can't spurn? Aw hell naw, you can't tell me when I can spurn and when I can't. Who the f*ck do you think you are? I'll not only spurn, but I'll mock, belittle, taunt, insult, discredit, criticize, disparage and scorn every right-wing antivaxxer nutjob I encounter while I prance and caper maskless in their immediate vicinity in hopes that although vaccinated I am a symptom-free carrier of the cock-loving omicron variant.

• Which insect repellent is best for children? By that I mean safe to put on kids.

• I'm not feisty. But when you're as small as I am and female if you don't stand up for your rights, you're sure to be pushed around by big, hairy, smelly men with delusions about male superiority.

• Why are people seemingly more bothered about slavery that ended over 150 years ago that they can’t do anything about, than modern day slavery, which we can do something about?

• Two things: Turns out I am not a Jedi. I am also in hospital.

• You smell like a circus act.

• I know the Christian god is fake because he never makes good on smiting these frauds.

• This is what happens when you get your history from shitty costume dramas and internet memes. In that world, China isn't nearly a hundred different ethnic and linguistic groups, recognized and unrecognized, all of which have their own histories and conditions, in a landmass that's both enormous and heavily interconnected with neighbours. They didn't have leadership that had to consider the conditions and their goals, the public narratives, the questions of legitimacy. There were no ideologies, no philosophies, no compromises of same. There were no sociopolitical and economic fault lines. There was no dissent, no disagreement, no resistance.

• Even if I'd never read a single book, or watched one hour of TV news, or taken one history lesson, I would still know how this plays out. The rest is just watching the dominoes fall.

• They never claimed to despise Nazis. They just hated people calling them Nazis

• I'm an asshole, but I also think I am hilarious, this is a horrible combination

• What really gets to me how that kind of person speaks the language of progressivism but really embodies the worst impulses of suburban America. Like there are whole mounds of literature written about the environmental and racial impact of car culture and the destruction it wrought- but here the poster is demanding moaaar parking spots in what sounds like a dense, walkable area because privilege something something. Not to mention she’s complaining all the way to a massage appointment. 

• Women should not have kids after 40 because 40 is more than enough children.

• What can I take for kleptomania?

• The song 'Pump Up the Jam' should be replaced with 'Ham' and sung whenever pork is prepared.

• We should give flight attendants body cams.

• I think there may be a bit of buyer’s remorse. They voted Trump because "economy reasons" which was code for religion and racism. He turned out to not be the religious leader they wanted; literally breaking commandments while giving Presidential speeches. But Q and the like have given them an out; "all of this is an act to remove Satan and the swamp and pedos and . . ." and they really want that to be true. They can't admit they chose wrong.

• There isn’t a single sport that wouldn’t be made better by putting a giant angry bull in the middle

• Eating too much cake is the sin of gluttony. But eating too much pie is okay, because the sin of pi is always zero.

• This isn't what I was hoping for when I heard we're shooting billionaires to space now.

• Why are you playing hard to get when you're already so hard to want?

• 68 is a proposition, not a promise. Particularly as it gets harder for me to concentrate.

• Have you ever noticed what a woman's asshole does when she has an intense orgasm? He's probably out, drinking with his buddies...

• Goodhart's Law "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". Idiotic, literal and slavish attempts to focus on meeting the target at the cost of all else follow inevitably from the introduction of the target.

Infographics

Bon Mots

Funny

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