2022 - Wk 14 - Notes and Links
Wk 14
Retired Santa Fe assistant fire chief injured in blaze that destroyed his home.
An opinion piece by three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman arguing that greener energy is the best response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nothing has distorted foreign policy, commitments to human rights, national security and, most of all, our environment than our oil addiction. Let this be the last war in which we and our allies fund both sides. As long as we're addicted to oil, we are always going to be begging someone, usually a bad guy, to move the price up or down, because we alone are not masters of our own fate.’Friedman notes that global oil prices collapsing between 1988 and 1992 "helped bankrupt the Soviet Union and hasten its collapse.... We can create the same effects today by overproducing renewables and overemphasizing energy efficiency."
The best storm photos of 2021. Good for your computer wallpaper.
The most useless non-trend to written about this week is…
Don’t hold back, Trainspotting author. Tell us how you really feel.
You can’t be surprised feral pigs might outsmart Albertans given who they elected.
Managers are desperate for workers to come back to the office so that their jobs can be justified.
It's all fun and games until your teddy bear tuns out to be a Russian hacker
And we have to X-Ray your cane before getting on the plane, sir. Oh, my dear lord. Um, do you really need that for your flight, sir?
High-Ranking Naked Mole-Rats Are More Resilient. So you just watch your step.
The Ukraine War
It's old now and I am sure scholarship has moved on but William L. Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is probably worth a read. It's not a military history as that material is not really the focus of the book. A phrase I remember from it that was repeated endlessly was 'according to captured documents'. The mountain of evidence from operations during the war was what helped hang a lot of the leadership and front line war criminals.
Why bring this up?: Hey Russia: you just keep writing everything down.
Germany closed its last coal mine a few years ago. My theory is they’ll start digging for coal again soon. Don’t believe me? Here’s some context. Of course, I could be wrong as Germany has announced a new green energy expansion. My thinking is that coal is too assured a side bet to ignore.
Speaking of context, a Finnish intelligence officer looks at Russia’s strategic thinking, courtesy of one of our subscribers.
Ever thought about creating the most statistically optimal strategy for for the board game Battleship? 1) You have to much free time. 2) This guy beat you to it
Well, this is creepy: visualizing faces using only voices as input
DALL-E 2, is an AI system that can create realistic images and art from only a one-sentence description.
Are 'person' or 'people' gender-neutral concepts? New study finds male tilt in analysis of billions of words
Fox News viewers who were paid to watch CNN for 30 days eventually became more skeptical and less likely to buy into fake news, according to a new study.
Microplastic pollution has been discovered lodged deep in the lungs of living people for the first time. The particles were found in almost all the samples analysed.
Early in the pandemic, the World Health Organization stated that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted through the air. That mistake and the prolonged process of correcting it sowed confusion and raises questions about what will happen in the next pandemic.
A 93-year-old runner secured three records on the weekend while you got wheezy getting up from the Chesterfield. Tangentally, mortality risk was reduced by 50% for older adults who increased their daily steps from around 3,000 to around 7,000, according to new medical research. Axios reports: 7,000 is the new 10,000, in terms of steps you should shoot for, The Lancet medical journal reports. This is all it takes for those 60 and older to dramatically increase their lifespans. Even for younger adults, the benefits of daily walking actually level off around 9,000 steps per day, not 10,000, the researchers found. The risk reduction plateaued beyond that number.
When men and women experience more orgasms in their relationship, they expect and want more. The opposite is true for women who experience fewer orgasms.
The United States said on Wednesday that it had secretly removed malware from computer networks around the world in recent weeks, a step to pre-empt Russian cyberattacks and send a message to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Also, security researchers have uncovered a long-running malicious campaign from hackers associated with the Chinese government who are using VLC Media Player to launch a custom malware loader.
Half of U.S. Lakes and Rivers Are Too Polluted for Swimming, Fishing, Drinking
“What's happening on social media is rather a simulation of discussion and debate. Or, as I like to put it, Twitter is a debate-themed video game…So we only have one choice as a public space, and it's a spurious one. It's one that can't be a public space because its raison d'être is something quite different” says a professor who explains that the Internet is not what we think it is.
Twitter co-founder/former CEO Jack Dorsey made a remarkable statement Saturday on Twitter. "The days of Usenet, IRC, the web...even email (with PGP)...were amazing. "Centralizing discovery and identity into corporations really damaged the internet. I realize I'm partially to blame, and regret it."
A doctor says what everyone is thinking so of course he got shitcanned.
What3words differs from most location encoding systems in that it uses words rather than strings of numbers or letters, and the pattern of this mapping is not obvious and deeply weird. And just because, there's a Britain-only four-word NSFW version.
How to swear in Ukranian. For some reason I cannot fathom, this one keeps getting swamped and is occasionally unresponsive.
The first audio recording from the surface of Mars. Think about that for a moment. This is the wind on another planet.
Why this British man travelled 2,000 km by train in 1 day
The greatest XKCD comic ever. A nine hour reading of the LOGO instructions needed to draw this week’s cartoon. This was sent in by one our subscribers.
In Our Time: Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the myths that gave rise to a novella from 1819 by Byron's physician, John Polidori, and the works such as Bram Stoker's Dracula it inspired.
Seven Signs it's time to end an adult friendship
Anyone interested in the history of war crime investigations of the intentional destruction of cultural monuments (such as museums, churches, and other historic art and architecture) as what happened prior to and leading up to WWI, WWII, Milosevic, ISIS, etc, please check out the documentary, The Destruction of Memory (2016).
A super cut of every scene in all three of the Lord of the Rings films where two women interact.
A TV writer and producer on Star Trek The Motion Picture Director's Cut that’s now remastered in 4k, finally using the correct ADR dialogue, rather than what was recorded on set, completed special effects and they finally fixed the colour timing,. This is a repeat, but here’s a look back at the film by two film producers who explore the film’s virtues and faults and the initially less than stellar reputation that has been improved after putting back in all of the character moments that the studio took out when rushing the post production.
The first neanderthal we discovered had arthritis which is why they got saddled with a reputation for walking bent over.
States that voted for Trump in 2020 had an average 40 per cent higher murder rate that year when compared to the states that voted for Biden. Trump-voting states accounted for 8 out of the 10 highest murder rates in 2020.
Why It Can Be Harder to Get Over Almost‑Relationships Than Actual Ones. Actually, this reminds me of a song by a group called Find Frenzy called ‘Almost Lover’.
Dumb Criminals
If you steal some engineering prototype bicycles worth over $80,000, it is probably not a good idea to walk into into local bike shop with the unique looking two-wheeler ... along with "bolt cutters sticking out of his backpack"
Strange Headlines
A Tepid Dystopia
Jampel tweeted (now deleted)she has “represented cops who lie in court, teachers who molest children, prison guards who beat inmates. It is a job I have done proudly. Until tonight. Fighting to keep masks on toddlers is shameful. I am ashamed of my office.”
“As US Nears 1 Million Covid Deaths, One Hard-Hit County Grapples With Unthinkable Loss.” Given that it was a Trump heavy county with has one of the highest Sars-Covid death rates among U.S. counties with at least 40,000 people, unthinkable seems to now be a synonym for predictable.
Sixty three GOP members just voted against upholding the founding democratic principles of NATO.
The biggest nutcase in Texas and his insane ideas about abortion laws.
Man submitted work for his own campaign for governor as the 40 hours of public service.
Missouri fires teacher for teaching ummm… witchcraft. Actually it’s communism. It doesn’t matter. Just get rid of her and make sure we have no competent teacher.
This week’s nincompoop is from Lansing, MI.
Blowing twice the legal limit had driving on two flat tires is no way to go though life, State Rep. Mary Cavanagh.
Weird Wiki: The Orthodox Jewish Divorce Coercion Gang
A woman who is transitioning to being a man makes an observation about how men go through life.
What happens when you’re personally responsible for a car recall?
Picasso's art in the 1930s and '40s had a relatively scant record of world events.
No wonder Hemmingway couldn’t take it any more.
Parallels may be drawn between the war in Ukraine and Napoleon’s terrible decision to invade Spain. He called that war his ulcer because it never finished and consumed time, resources and troops. The leader of the Allied forces, Wellington, led men into battle but preferred the company of intelligent women.
I wasn't the only one bluffing my way through the tech scene. Everyone was doing it, even the much-sought-after engineering talent. I was struck by how many developers were, like myself, not really programmers, but rather this, that and the other. A great number of tech ninjas were not exactly black belts when it came to the actual onerous work of computer programming.
So many of the complex, discrete tasks involved in the creation of a website or an app had been automated that it was no longer necessary to possess knowledge of software mechanics. The coder's work was rarely a craft. The apps ran on an assembly line, built with "open-source", off-the-shelf components. The most important computer commands for the ninja to master were copy and paste...
[M]any programmers who had "made it" in Silicon Valley were scrambling to promote themselves from coder to "founder". There wasn't necessarily more money to be had running a startup, and the increase in status was marginal unless one's startup attracted major investment and the right kind of press coverage.
It's because the programmers knew that their own ladder to prosperity was on fire and disintegrating fast. They knew that well-paid programming jobs would also soon turn to smoke and ash, as the proliferation of learn-to-code courses around the world lowered the market value of their skills, and as advances in artificial intelligence allowed for computers to take over more of the mundane work of producing software. The programmers also knew that the fastest way to win that promotion to founder was to find some new domain that hadn't yet been automated.
Every tech industry campaign designed to spur investment in the Next Big Thing -- at that time, it was the "sharing economy" -- concealed a larger programme for the transformation of society, always in a direction that favoured the investor and executive classes.
Can you imagine how impossible it would be to get smoking banned in the social media era? Politicians would be screaming about freedom.
Once in my life I’d love to sweep everything off a table to explain the plan on the giant map underneath.
I feel a great surge of pride when I successfully outsmart one of my cats. Go me!
A dog we’ve never seen walked in our back door and adopted us.
You don't have to worry about cognitive dissonance if you don't have cognitive ability.
I got released from jury duty by disagreeing with the statement that chiropractors are physicians.
It doesn't matter how absurd the argument is as long as the lawyer isn't lying.
Internet polls like this are pointless. You always end up selecting for people with too much time on their hands who want so desperately for their narrative to be true that they will go to great lengths to skew the results with bots and brigades.
Friend came over for a spaghetti dinner when we were in high school and instead of saying there's a plethora of spaghetti, accidentally said there's a placenta of spaghetti.
After a long period I decided to start speaking to my employees. By and large they are nice and do good work.
You might want to try reading something other than Twitter - JK Rowling.
There's two things Lauren Boebert apparently really hates. 1. Being called racist. 2. Brown people.
Thank you for your letter. Please go roger the moon.
A former Fox News director arrested in London and charged by the US DOJ with helping a Russian oligarch evade sanctions by laundering money. Is anyone surprised? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
There are not enough libraries on the planet to record the things you don't know.
Every time I hear that guy saying what should be a serious line, it comes off as completely hilarious. Like someone reciting Shakespeare on helium.
How to deal with family members who lie or impersonate being a nurse? In public. Meaning at a hospital.
Believing Mueller would take down Trump was reasonable. Believing he'd be frogmarched into a party van on Jan 20th would have been optimistic. Believing he's going to be brought in on the final month of the NYAG's grand jury before it expires makes you a maniac. I'd love to be proven wrong, but it ain't happening.
Why is theology still a respected field of philosophy? You can get a degree for asking questions akin to "Is the original 1938 Action Comics Superman canon, or is the later one with heat-vision a more accurate portrayal?"
My self-respect can go fuck itself if it meant getting those kinds of paychecks.
Open cup bras seem like rip off no matter how much lace and frill is on them.
I’m a great driver. People like me shouldn’t be forced to spend on car insurance.
Russia has show itself to be superlatively incompetent in this conflict so far, but that doesn't mean we should lull ourselves into a false sense of security by believing they will always continue to be so.
Every generation thinks that every new thing they encounter is unique to them and often insist on defining it in their own language and slang. Language evolves every generation and sometimes many times in a generation as the older generation sits on their porch shaking their heads in disapproval and lamenting why things are changing.
I think he's fallen prey to one of the classic extremist blunders: the assumption that expertise is meaningless.
I’ll be honest, I’ve felt more “spiritual” after orgasming than with prayer.
Radioactive only issue if you open and lick or sniff it.
Right now China’s leadership okay, so that’s what happens when you piss the west off. I hope this convinces them to leave Taiwan alone.
The US is breathing a sigh of relief that Vietnam is no longer the biggest international wartime embarrassment.
I cannot work in a country that is at war with its neighbors. That's why I'm moving to Israel.
If you are describing the notch on Apple phones and displays as ‘controversial’ you have a comfortable life.
I have an annoying boss that made my life a living hell.I always want to make him pay for what he did. My friend always hears me complaining so she suggested to screen shot his profile pic and post it on there, even tho I’m not gay just to annoy the shit out of him I chat with the gay dudes and give them his number.I heard him scream from my cubicle 2 times today.I don’t think I’m going to stop anytime soon.
That truck looks like it would be a villan from an unreleased Cars movie.
Bread is a lot like the sun, it rises in the yeast and sets in the waist.
Us military spending 2020 : 766.58 billion U.S. dollars Russia military spending 2020: 61.7 billion U.S. dollars Unsurprisingly one is effective and the other is not! For reference China is spending about 200 billion.
I’m not a fixer upper, I’m just a late bloomer
a noticeable portion of the population going "you know what will fix this? Fascism." It's supremely idiotic, but base of Maslow's hierarchy is instinctual and reptilian.
Putin’ll put the 'poor' in Standard & Poor
I’m an actual living and breathing socialist. Please stop comparing the Democrats to me.
Of course the GOP cares about the homeless, that’s why they create so many
Russian corpses have a hard time retreating, particularly when they are considered less important than stolen washing machines.
No. No I am sure China is not invading New York by sending troops over the Canadian border.
Lung damage is visible to the naked eye. And as far as brain damage goes, what fucking country is she living in? Has she not met her fellow Americans?
The moment Vladimir Putin was born, a golden beam of Jesus-light shone down from the sky and illuminated his mother's hoo-ha. Angelic choirs were heard singing, and a rainbow stretched from East Germany to Kamchatka. Not one of them sissy LGBTQ rainbows, though, it was manly and extremely hetero.
When life gives you lemons, you make lemon bars and then drop them on the kitchen floor. Goddamnit so much.
Worth noting that Soviet casualties are kinda obscured by frequent local uprisings against the Stalin regime.
The one thing you should never do during an active fire is go back to bed and leave your drunk roommate to sort it out, no matter what he says.
Russia is the good guys because Ukraine has tunnels full of mole children.
If you don't look up the asteroid won't kill you
If you attract what your fear then let it be known that I’m terrified of money.
Ever really, really be trying to read a medieval romance by the neighbours won’t stop fucking?
Great. Now all we need to do is find a Ford truck with some sort of torn-US-Flag license plate: the kind that conveys, "I love America more than you, and I'm also a Badass." There shouldn't be that many, right?
Acne Is A Huge Feminist Issue
If you watch it muted, you can still feel the condescension.
The jug band residents of bumfark county woud like to see San Francisco and Disney World look like Mariupol, and the neanderthals they elect are doing the best they can to bring this to fruition.
I regularly have to tell my friends “you don’t have a spouse, you have a dependent. You’re just raising somebody’s child”
At this rate, Russia may some problems with its long term reputation.
When my wife excuses herself to 'freshen up' before our romantic endeavours I try really hard to fart so I don't let one go during coitus.
