Flutterby™! From 2019-01-01 to 2019-01-31

Amazing how much the soft wood and exposed end-grain just drank up the linseed oil on these coasters.

[ related topics: Photography Bay Area Woodworking ]

Seems like a morning to quote Robertson Davies: “This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free, but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Goodnight.”

[ related topics: Language Theater & Plays ]

Not happy with the shape, though I think it'll read better with feelers and legs, but just playing with technique.... Copper in walnut.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Ouch. I'd like to report a murder, the victim is every every local newspaper's restaurant section, and every hipster mixologist venue: New Bar in [Town] ‐ There’s a great new bar in the neighborhood.

Via JWZ

[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design Food Journalism and Media ]

Source, by way of Gloria Brame's Facebook page.

[ related topics: Photography Theater & Plays ]

Last night we watched He Named Me Malala. It's the tale of Malala Yousafzai, a young Afghan woman who was shot by the Taliban for speaking up for educating women. There were various portions which showed shots of Afghanistan and Taliban action with subtitled dubs of various speeches by Taliban clerics.

One that struck me particularly hard was visuals of a big bonfire of DVDs subtitled with:

We are not against advancement, we are against shamelessness and vulgarity.

which was a huge reminder that morality, community standards, the suppression of sexuality and sexual expression, are all essentially motivated by the desire to repress, to control, and especially to control women.

The whole documentary raised a bunch of questions that are pulling me to dig a little deeper (I found it interesting that the UAE paid for Malala's medical care following the shooting), but there were some strong reminders of what the culture wars are about in there.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Movies Sociology California Culture Community ]

For Charlene: Cool video of a Kaman K-MAX helicopter hoisting ski lift parts into place.

[ related topics: Sports Video Aviation - Helicopters ]

Playing with a different browser environment, ended up double-clicking stuff.

[ related topics: Sports Video Aviation - Helicopters ]

I know John Records from his work on COTS, the Committee on the Shelterless, and the associated homeless services and shelters in Petaluma.

I haven't read his books yet, but he's got PDF and audio (Soundcloud) versions of the first book in his Love In Action series in exchange for an email address, so I've got that in my queue now.

[ related topics: Sports Video Aviation - Helicopters ]

Gloria Brame's new BDSM themed novel is $.99 on Kindle today. I know nothing about it other than that it's Gloria freakin' Brame, so of course I'm gonna snatch it up, especially if it's less than a buck. https://smile.amazon.com/Champ...58&sr=8-12&keywords=gloria+brame

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Books Invention and Design ]

Went looking for info on House and Senate head coverings, now giggling like a 7 year old: “Every member shall remain uncovered during the sessions of the House.” https://history.house.gov/Hist...-to-ban-hats-on-the-House-Floor/

[ related topics: Politics Real Estate ]

Why Is Trump Spouting Russian Propaganda?

The president’s endorsement of the U.S.S.R.’s invasion of Afghanistan echoes a narrative promoted by Vladimir Putin.

Has anyone checked? Bet we could generate a lot of energy by harnessing the torsion of Reagan rolling over in his grave.

Flint Michigan's water:

For nearly two years Flint's water has been meeting federal standards. The water is now testing at 6 parts per billion (ppb) which is much lower than the federal requirement of 15 ppb. Flint's water is one of the most monitored and testing the same as similar cities across the state and country.

The Audubon Society plays Red Dead Redemption 2:

There are some minor errors I noticed, however, that as a birder and critic of these things I feel obligated to point out. In addition to the Snowy Egret, there are quite a few Little Egrets in Saint Denis, which would have been a truly rare North America sighting. What’s called a California Quail is actually a Northern Bobwhite. Tanagers are, for some reason, referred to as Scarlet Tanager Songbird and Western Tanager Songbird. But that’s all. Overall, RDR2 is absolutely the best and boldest representation of American birdlife in any video game. It’s not even close.

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Games Current Events California Culture Douglas Adams Birds Video ]

RT pete @corbynfisher:

as we are all now experts on methodological issues in participant observation, i'd like to share my favourite such controversy: male sociologist investigates fat civil rights organisation by, er, shagging them all: https://sci-hub.tw/https://lin.../article/10.1023/A:1021015016151 …

[ related topics: Civil Liberties ]

Snerk: Time For Redemption: Louis CK to Star in Upcoming ‘Leisure Suit Larry’ Movie:

“I’ve been away from comedy for a while so I wanted to do something in my wheelhouse to shake the rust off,” CK explained to an audience at the Comedy Cellar, “and I couldn’t think of a better property to adapt for film than a video game where you go around and disgust women with sexual advances they did not want.”

[ related topics: Erotic Games Sexual Culture Movies Space & Astronomy Video Aviation - Helicopters ]

Good morning

[ related topics: Photography ]

Pardon the typos, my hands are freezing...

Look, y'all can do what you want with your lives, I'm just saying that This Kaiju Life is a queue jumper in my podcast lists. http://kaiju.libsyn.com/

McMansion Hell: 2018 McGingerbread Hell Competition Winners

ACM: Hey Google, what's a moonshot?

I am having a hard time imagining Kennedy's famous speech working as a TechCrunch pitch to "make the world a better place by spending billions dollars to harvest 381 kilos of rocks." Was the Apollo program's goal to make the world a radically better place? Enough people doubted that at the time to make Apollo the most obvious symbol of the failure of technology to make the world a better place. "If they can put a man on the moon," asked critics, "why can't they do [X]." Common values for X were "cure the common cold," "end urban poverty" and "fix traffic problems." The modern version of that might be "If Elon Musk can launch a Tesla at Mars, why can't his car factory come close to production metrics for quantity and quality that other carmakers hit routinely." Sometimes the rocket science is the easy part.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Software Engineering Theater & Plays Space & Astronomy Astronomy Work, productivity and environment Automobiles ]

My path away from being a Libertarian has had many incremental steps. A strong one was reading one of the issues of Ayn Rand's "The Objectivist Newsletter" in which she defended the patent system, but talked about the length as being somewhat arbitrary, and that the notion of independent discovery really made the patent system an attempt to create a real estate like limit on knowledge.

Which, of course, led to two "aha": moments: The first was that legal systems were imperfect representations of ethical structures, had knobs that let you tweak the relative return of capital vs labor. The second was that if that knob was tweaked towards capital, then as capital accumulated you'd end up with a monarchy.

Which, of course, is the observation that Picketty made a few years ago.

Another was that in discussions with other people who claimed the Libertarian label, so many were unaware of the externalities of their actions. So many dismissed, for instance, automobile pollution, or were willing to look at the economics of subsidies and policy decisions that created the lifestyle they enjoyed.

But overall, I was willing to accept that there was at least a theory of a place with limited government that didn't deteriorate into Somalia-like warlords; that reducing the ethical notions of violence and compulsory behavior that underpinned society was a laudable direction.

Until now. Until the current rage of Trump supporters who have sprung from the woodwork claiming at the same time that government is an evil that holds us back from market-based cooperation, and that killing political opponents is completely reasonable.

An example from the faux outrage over Rashida Tlaib referring to Trump as "the motherfucker", on a Facebook thread someone said:

Rashida the muslum is not even sworn in, she did not use a Holy Bible, so go get a red dot in her head, i want to scratch it and see if i won again.

Which, initially, I and a few other respondents took to be pretty much awful bigotry, conflating Islam with the Hindu practice of married women wearing a red dot, but in a discussion about why "bigotry" and not "racism" was the correct term, another commenter clarified:

Never said anything about Indians..... just said give her a red dot which refers to banging a barrel into her head leaving a red dot. That’s not racist, it would be if referring to her as an Indian but she’s not nor was the comment. Clearly said she was a Muslim.

I'm just... completely amazed that discussing the desirability of assassinating politicians has become mainstream. Right Libertarians have long said "no, we're not talking about Somalia, with warlords and such", but the public discourse enabled by Trump's popularity has exposed that, yes, the modern Right cares nothing for the rule of law and would freakin' welcome a Somalia-like warloard-ruled death- squad fueld society.

It's pretty freakin' astounding.

[ related topics: Religion Intellectual Property Interactive Drama Politics Objectivism Libertarian Sexual Culture Ethics moron Sociology Law Automobiles Community Race Economics Marriage Real Estate ]

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution: Bitcoin is Less Secure than Most People Think

Alaska National Weather Service office begs “please pay us” in secret message

[ related topics: Current Events Alaska ]

Functional products are not profitable: You cannot continue to sell people something for which they already have a solution.

Big cars kill: 'Monster' vehicles may make Canadians feel safer, but they're more likely to cause fatal collisions:

For every 450 kilograms added to the weight of a car, a vehicle becomes 40 per cent more likely to turn an otherwise survivable crash into a fatal collision

[ related topics: Bay Area Current Events Automobiles ]

I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone:

T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to their customers’ location data, and that data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track most phones in the country.

Anyone have experience or reading on the challenges of using an Event Sourcing architecture with text documents? How to do caret management and such? Is this a matter of just recreating git?

[ related topics: Architecture ]

RT Historic.ly @historic_ly

In honor of this profoundly ignorant tweet, we need to educate people more than ever about the real American history.

So one like = one atrocity committed by the US.

and there follows a thread....

So El Chapo gave his wife and mistresses Blackberries for secure communication, but installed Flexispy on them to monitor their behavior. Of course the FBI managed to flip the spyware, allowing them to monitor the communications.... 'El Chapo' installed 'spyware' on wife's phone, FBI agent testifies.

(this Twitter thread)

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Law Enforcement Marriage ]

The rain has briefly lifted

[ related topics: Photography ]

Simultaneously fascinating and disturbing: A Biologist Reconstructs the Grotesque Efficiency of the Nazis’ Killing Machine

Lewi Stone used his statistical prowess to reveal the furious intensity of the Holocaust’s industrial-scale genocide during three months of 1942

Especially interesting is the comparison in scale to the Rwanda genocide, and the throwaway line about how it looks like Jewish doctors were especially good at managing the typhus outbreaks in the Warsaw ghetto.

[ related topics: Religion Politics ]

Vox: The TSA is a waste of money that doesn't save lives and might actually cost them:

The TSA doesn't save lives, but it probably ends them. One paper by economists Garrick Blalock, Vrinda Kadiyali, and Daniel Simon found that, controlling for other factors like weather and traffic, 9/11 provoked such a large decrease in air traffic and increase in driving that 327 more people died every month from road accidents. The effect dissipated over time, but the total death toll (up to 2,300) rivals that of the attacks themselves.

[ related topics: Aviation Currency Economics Model Building ]

Report: Marin among riskiest counties for bicyclists, pedestrians.

2018 Marin Safety Travel Plan (PDF)

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture ]

For Charlene: Dolphins along side a surfer, from the perspective of a drone above the wave.

When you accidentally use Google to find DuckDuckGo.

U.S. Approved Thousands of Men's Child Bride Requests in the Past Decade

[ related topics: History ]

Your tear-jerker of the day. This isn't a simple rescue, make sure you get to the twist: Footprints in the snow lead to an emotional rescue

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

'I don't care what they do, as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses'. — Beatrice Rose Stella (Mrs Patrick) Tanner

Florida firefighter charged with having sex in middle of road, on hood of car

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Current Events Automobiles Flowers ]

Outside Magazine: Is Sunscreen the New Margarine?

Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and unscientific, controversial new research suggests—and quite possibly even racist. How did we get it so wrong?

[ related topics: Invention and Design Java ]

Whole Foods Ranked Worst on Cancer-Linked Package Chemicals.

The study -- released by watchdog groups Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and Toxic-Free Future -- found that Amazon.com Inc.’s grocer was the biggest offender when it came to food contact papers that appear to have been treated with a class of chemicals, some of which have been linked to cancer. They found high levels of fluorine in five of the 17 items tested at Whole Foods -- four of which were containers for its salad and hot-food bar.

Trader Joe's was the vendor that had none:

“Trader Joe’s is asking its vendors to avoid the use of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in packaging for our products. In addition, Trader Joe’s does not have food bars or delis, so takeout food containers are typically not found in our stores,” a spokeswoman for the grocer said in an email.

[ related topics: Books Health Food Current Events ]

Cell Stem Cell: Human Hippocampal Neurogenesis Persists throughout Aging https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2018.03.015

vs

Letter to Nature: Human hippocampal neurogenesis drops sharply in children to undetectable levels in adults

By way of Elderly people grow as many new brain cells as young, study finds

Research contradicts decades-old theory that humans stop producing neurons in adulthood

[ related topics: Children and growing up Nature and environment Invention and Design Current Events ]

Report: Marin among riskiest counties for bicyclists, pedestrians

2018 Marin County Travel Safety Plan — Systemic Safety Analysis (PDF)

Via The Greater Marin on Twitter.

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture ]

Dear Amazon: That picture does not look like ear plugs. At all. Which might explain some of the merchandise I've gotten...

[ related topics: Books ]

Bike lanes prove that transportation solutions can be cheap and effective:

These two transportation projects, installed in months at a total cost of less than $3 million, have brought about 20,000 new commuters travelling into the downtown core each day while making the roads safer and without making commute times dramatically worse for anyone.

20k new commuters, each way, commuter autombiles generally run about 1.2 occupancy, 1800 cars per lane per hour, so $3M got them something like 26 lane hours worth of capacity? Not to mention parking issues? Hell yeah that's a pay-off.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Bicycling Aviation - Helicopters ]

After Two White Colorado Women Unearthed The History Of Their Slave-Owning Ancestors, They Turned To Reparations:

Via MeFi — My ancestors did wrong. It's right here in black and white.

[ related topics: History Current Events Race ]

Kevin Mallory: The churchgoing patriot who spied for China

The Chinese agents approached Mallory not in a bar but on LinkedIn, saying in a casual way: "Hey, will you join my network?'"

Addendum: Indian soldiers being 'honey trapped' by fake social media accounts from Pakistan

[ related topics: broadband Current Events Monty Python ]

RT Annie Bellet @anniebellet, linking to Agri Ismaïl</s>:

good thread on how easily a "both sides" argument is pushed even when one side is literally like 5 people and a bot. :P

https://twitter.com/a9ri/status/1085177058135810048

On the whole Gillette #metoo ad.

Mutiny on the Sex Raft: how a 70s science project descended into violent chaos

A teaser for a Marcus Lindeen documentary: The Raft

In 1973, five men and six women drifted across the Atlantic on a raft as part of a scientific experiment studying the sociology of violence, aggression and sexual attraction in human behavior. Although the project became known in the press as ‘The Sex Raft’, nobody expected what ultimately took place on that three month journey. Through extraordinary archive material and a reunion of the surviving members of the expedition on a full scale replica of the raft, this film tells the hidden story behind what has been described as ’one of the strangest group experiments of all time.’

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Gizmodo: Man Injects 18 'Doses' of Semen Into Arm to Cure Back Pain, Ends Up in Hospital

Irish Medical Journal: “Semenly” Harmless Back Pain: An Unusual Presentation of a Subcutaneous Abscess Dunne L, Murphy E, Rutledge R from the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Tallaght, Dublin 24

Upon further interrogation of this alternative therapy, he revealed he had injected one monthly “dose” of semen for 18 consecutive months using a hypodermic needle which had been purchased online. Upon this occasion the patient had injected three “doses” of semen intra-vascularly and intra-muscularly.

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality ]

The Dinosaur with Hair: How my meme went viral without me

[ related topics: Marketing ]

Punishment for Experian: get more rights to your personal data, or pay $20/hr for 2 hours with of time dealing with identity theft. Reminder that this company still exists despite gross negligence and incompetence.

[ related topics: Photography Civil Liberties ]

FBI interrogation of Reality Winner becomes the verbatim script of a play

[ related topics: Photography Civil Liberties ]

I actually hadn't watched the ad. I think it's worth a watch. It's also worth noting that despite the fact that much of the negative press seems to be derived from a few ~10 person Twitter clusters with high bot likelihood, this currently stands at 448k thumbs-ups vs 868k thumbs downs:

We Believe: The Best Men Can Be | Gillette (Short Film)

[ related topics: Movies ]

When architecture goes wrong: Modernist ruin is an 'albatross around our neck' says church. Includes pictures of the monstrosity of the Roman Catholic St Peter's Seminary in Cardross, near Dumbarton. I don't understand why some studio hasn't picked it up as a backdrop for death metal band videos, or dystopian movies...

[ related topics: Religion Photography Movies Current Events Monty Python Architecture ]

More evidence that those DNA kits are Twins get some 'mystifying' results when they put 5 DNA ancestry kits to the test

[ related topics: Current Events ]

After Days Of Silence, Court Says Detained Iranian-American Is Testifying.

The disclosure by Beryl Howell, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, marked the first time any U.S. authority has provided information on the mystery surrounding Marzieh Hashemi, an anchor on Press TV, the English-language version of Iran's state television.

She was arrested by the FBI at St Louis' Lambert International Airport, hasn't been charged, has a lawyer, but is testifying. That feels like a "hmmmmm".

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Aviation Law Law Enforcement Television ]

Immigrants use less healthcare than people born in U.S.

Medical Expenditures on and by Immigrant Populations in the United States: A Systematic Review

In health care policy debates, discussion centers around the often-misperceived costs of providing medical care to immigrants. This review seeks to compare health care expenditures of U.S. immigrants to those of U.S.-born individuals and evaluate the role which immigrants play in the rising cost of health care. We systematically examined all post-2000, peer-reviewed studies in PubMed related to health care expenditures by immigrants written in English in the United States. The reviewers extracted data independently using a standardized approach. Immigrants’ overall expenditures were one-half to two-thirds those of U.S.-born individuals, across all assessed age groups, regardless of immigration status. Per capita expenditures from private and public insurance sources were lower for immigrants, particularly expenditures for undocumented immigrants. Immigrant individuals made larger out-of-pocket health care payments compared to U.S.-born individuals. Overall, immigrants almost certainly paid more toward medical expenses than they withdrew, providing a low-risk pool that subsidized the public and private health insurance markets. We conclude that insurance and medical care should be made more available to immigrants rather than less so.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0020731418791963

[ related topics: Health Community Economics Model Building ]

Hmmmm. This reads like they're were no good sides in that Covington High School student showdown. I should probably watch the video. https://reason.com/blog/2019/0...n-catholic-nathan-phillips-video

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Weblogs Movies Video ]

The thing about "sex robots" is that sex isn't about the mechanics...

I bought two sex robots. One with a penis, the other with a vagina.

Have you ever seen Robot Wars?

It was kind of like that. Their passionless eyes, their eagerness to complete the task at hand.

It was like watching Furbys fuck.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Robotics ]

Rolling Stone: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Crusher of Sacred Cows:

The average American politician would lose at checkers to a zoo gorilla. They’re usually in office for one reason: someone with money sent them there, often to vote yes on a key appropriation bill or two. On the other 364 days of the year, their job is to shut their yaps and approximate gravitas anytime they’re in range of C-SPAN cameras.

Via Elf Sternberg on Twitter.

[ related topics: Politics Photography moron Journalism and Media Heinlein Currency ]

OH: "...so if you'll just pull the tip of master...". Who says software development can't be sexy?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Software Engineering ]

I have been doing my level best to not say anything negative about the various candidates who will be tossing their hats into the ring. I'm trying to be very conscious of just praising the policy stances that I agree with, and not be negative, because we're about to be awash in political negativity from various Russian bot accounts and I'd rather not be party to helping a hostile foreign power further compromise our political system.

But dayumn, The Onion cuts right down to it... Kamala Harris Assembles Campaign Staff Of Unpaid California Prison Laborers

[ related topics: Politics tolkien Food moron California Culture ]

FBI sends a strong message to MS-13 members: Cooperate with us and we'll have you killed.

Former MS-13 Member Who Secretly Helped Police Is Deported:

An immigration judge said he was “very sympathetic” to the teenager who cooperated with authorities only to be jailed with those he informed on. The judge nonetheless rejected his plea for asylum.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Law Law Enforcement ]

ADL: Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2018.

The extremist-related murders in 2018 were overwhelmingly linked to right-wing extremists. Every one of the perpetrators had ties to at least one right-wing extremist movement, although one had recently switched to supporting Islamist extremism. White supremacists were responsible for the great majority of the killings, which is typically the case.

[ related topics: Law Race ]

Farming Simulator gets an e-sports league, making the video game version more profitable than farming IRL... https://www.theverge.com/2019/...e-esports-prizes-giants-software

[ related topics: Games Software Engineering Video ]

Miami Herald: A cop kicked at a suspect’s head and another covered his bodycam. Now, it’s under review.

Ravon Boyd was cornered in an alley between homes in an Overtown development known as “The Skittles.” As police raced to the robbery suspect, Boyd put his hands in the air, then lowered himself with his face toward the ground, hands outstretched on the turf in front of him.

Just then, an officer ran up to him and kicked at Boyd’s face. That was followed by other officers pummeling him as he kept his hands up trying to protect himself.

Of course there's now evidence of several officers lying in a cover-up, and an officer deliberately obscuring body camera view.

[ related topics: Photography Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Angola decriminalizes gay sex

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

I've always cringed through these ads when I've seen them in the movie theater: Chevrolet Pulls 'Most Reliable' Ad After Being Challenged By Toyota

[ related topics: Movies Theater & Plays Automobiles ]

I'm glad the newspapers are catching on: The GOP has become the Soviet party

Apparent corruption among these kowtowing aides — including improper use of public funds or private favors for fancy travel and other pampering — remains rampant. Unlike in true socialist states, it seems, our leaders haven’t run out of other people’s money.

Meanwhile, federal law enforcement is publicly directed to pursue the would-be autocrat’s political enemies, as well as the family members of those enemies, such as former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s father-in-law. Purges of law enforcement or other members of the “deep state” are also demanded, and sometimes acted upon. Such actions, when taken by thugs abroad, were once denounced by Republicans.

[ related topics: Politics Aviation moron Sociology Law Law Enforcement Television Currency Gambling Home Improvement ]

Not really noteworthy except that I used to live there: Internal complaints allege lying, pranking, excessive force by Chattanooga police officer under investigation for punching man at traffic stop

[ related topics: Theater & Plays Current Events Law Enforcement Chattanooga ]

Joe Cortright on Bike Portland: Opinion: Portland’s scooter success exposes stark double standard

Data shows Portland’s scooter experiment worked. Maybe it’s time to critically appraise the failed, 110-year experiment with cars.

Same article, different source: Joe Cortright on City Observatory: Scooter Lessons: Success, but a stark double standard

In four months, scooters went from nothing, to providing more an average of 5,800 trips per day. About 30 percent of city residents rode the scooters at least once during the trial period. The city estimates that roughly a third of scooter trips substituted for private car trips, helping to reduce traffic congestion. Scooters also tended to be used most during peak travel hours, with 20 percent of all trips taking place between 3pm and 6pm on weekdays. City surveys indicate that six percent of scooter users reported getting rid of a private car as a result of scooter availability. In addition, the city’s survey’s also suggest that scooters effectively expanded the market for non-automobile transportation by attracting users who haven’t ridden bicycles for transportation. The survey also shows that 60 percent of Portlanders have a positive or somewhat positive view of scooters. As transportation innovations go, this seems like a pretty wild success.

Wiliamette Week: Portland Economist Says City’s E-Scooter Experiment Was a Success—and Wants to Apply the Same Standards to Cars:

“If we applied even a fraction of the scrutiny to cars that PBOT has applied to scooters,” Joe Cortright says, “we’d be looking to have radical change.”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Astronomy Current Events Television Automobiles Bicycling Economics ]

As we look at how much modern politics have changed, Ronald Reagan's Final Speech as President Was a Love Letter to Immigrants

[ related topics: Politics ]

The takeover by the rentier class is complete: U.S. Commerce chief to federal workers: Get a loan:

Asked about their struggles, Ross told CNBC: “I know they are, and I don’t really quite understand why.”

“The banks and the credit unions should be making credit available to them,” he said, noting that the government would give federal employees back pay. “There really is not a good excuse why there really should be a liquidity crisis.”

[ related topics: moron Work, productivity and environment ]

Will DOI Take Placard Abuse Seriously — Or Just Keep Abusing Placards?

Placard abuse is so bad in Lower Manhattan that an official with the agency in charge of busting illegal placard parkers is demanding that other illegally parked officials stop parking in his illegal parking spot.

Chicago City Council members react with "snitches get stitches:, although not in so many words, to the news that one of their own was wearing a wire: Chicago Tribune: 'The council needs full reform': Aldermen react to report Ald. Daniel Solis wore an FBI wire in Ald. Edward Burke case.

Via Reason: Chicago Aldermen Dismayed Not by Corruption, but by One of Their Own Cooperating With the Feds.

[ related topics: Politics Weblogs Law Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Utah Vital Statistics Act Amendment (HB 153)

56 (7) "Female" means an individual with ovaries who is confirmed before or at birth to

57 have external anatomical characteristics that appear to have the purpose of performing the

58 natural reproductive function of providing eggs and receiving sperm from a male donor.

Well that kinda lays out a certain view of the world, doesn't it?

Via

[ related topics: Current Events Mathematics ]

When I think about all the crap I had to go through to buy a house, but in Philadelphia... Stealing from the dead — Thieves and forgers are taking houses from the deceased in ‘hot’ neighborhoods — as the city stands by.

Wells Fargo only wishes they could do it this easily.

[ related topics: Current Events Real Estate ]

Remember when Ajit Pai said that repealing "net neutrality" would allow broadband providers to improve their networks? Remember when we all looked at the reality of bundling and how a stronger network wasn't in the interests in broadband providers that were also content providers and shook our heads sadly?

Guess who was right: Sorry, Ajit: Comcast lowered cable investment despite net neutrality repeal

[ related topics: broadband Economics ]

Somebody finally got indicted for Hillary's emails: Timeline: The Roger Stone indictment fills in new details about WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign.

The thing about coming of age in the '80s with all of the "red scare" propaganda is that we never believed that so many people high up in society would be agents of the enemy power.

[ related topics: Politics Invention and Design ]

Anyone have a simple CGI example of using the return URL from a PayPal transaction? (Or wanna give me an alternate payment processor that'll let me do a simple shopping cart + delivery of digital goods?)

Fantastic Twitter thread on why newspapers are dying, suggesting that Facebook and Google and Craigslist are the result, not the cause...

Facebook knowingly duped game-playing kids and their parents out of money:

Facebook encouraged game developers to let children spend money without their parents’ permission – something the social media giant called “friendly fraud” – in an effort to maximize revenues, according to a document detailing the company’s game strategy.

Polygon is a little more charitable: Facebook may have known it was defrauding children and families through its online games

Unsealed documents appear to show it also tried to stop doing it, but prioritized making money instead

[ related topics: Children and growing up Games Journalism and Media Currency ]

Nationally-recognized Attorney Launches Comprehensive Database of Clergy Accused of Sexual Misconduct in the Diocese of Scranton

https://adamhorowitzlaw.com/sex/diocese-of-scranton-database/

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Law Current Events Databases ]

2013 Mac Pro wasn't built in the U.S. because Apple couldn't get enough screws, report says.

Well, it never happened for precisely the reasons you'd think of: Supply chain issues. More precisely, according to a New York Times report Monday, Apple couldn't find enough screws to build the Mac Pro in the United States.

Via Slashdot

[ related topics: Apple Computer Invention and Design Television Macintosh Fabrication New York ]

Found because someone posted this version on Rick Gualtieri's Facebook author fan page, and that credits this original version that I posted 'cause it has the tag-back URL in it

[ related topics: Photography ]

Shadow forwards along.... one of the reasons I'm skeptical about half-assed bike infrastructure like MUPS is that it empowers motorists to act even more like assholes.

Video shot from a car driving down a bike path of cyclists on the road.

[ related topics: Automobiles Video Bicycling ]

At the Richard Janson "Fresh Air" bridge

[ related topics: Photography ]

Major iPhone FaceTime bug lets you hear the audio of the person you are calling … before they pick up

Serious FaceTime bug allows you to listen remotely before anyone answers — Apple to fix ‘later this week’

[ related topics: Apple Computer Music iPhone ]

Twitter thread on ridiculous Instragram photos of real estate and "Peloton" brand stationary bicycles brought up this comment on MeFi about spinning vs cycling:

It's like raving for people who love rules, clubbing for the over 30 crowd, a schweaty aerobics workout for the deeply uncoordinated.

And I'm thinking about what that means in terms of square dance marketing...

[ related topics: Photography Consumerism and advertising Sports Marketing Pedal Power Bicycling Real Estate ]

Security Things to Consider When Your Apartment Goes ‘Smart’ :

A couple weeks ago, I vented my frustration as an ICS security professional at my apartment building forcibly converting to networked smart locks. My tweets were widely misinterpreted, so I’d like to talk a little bit about privacy and security aspects to consider if (when) the property you rent from decides to go “Smart”. To be abundantly clear, I’m not opposed to Smart Home systems – most of us want to live in Star Trek and these devices are a way to a more convenient future. However, there are right ways and wrong ways to implement them, and many substantive privacy and security questions to ask as we move forward into that future.

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Just some sympathy for those struggling with the horrible conditions brought on by the arctic blast.

[ related topics: Photography ]

The thing missing from this article is that they've been less aggressive about this than the men running for President, but it is a good reminder about the general trend of government: The Women Running for President Have Made Life Harder for Women

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Craigslist’s Effect on Violence Against Women, Scott Cunningham, Baylor University; Gregory DeAngelo, Claremont Graduate University; John Tripp, Baylor University

Black market participants face considerable risks when providing illegal services, but sex workers are perhaps the most vulnerable due to serious threats of deadly violence. Investigative journalism and anecdotal evidence have reported that sex workers perceived significant safety benefits from advertising and screening customers using Craigslist’s “erotic services” (ERS) section, which was used almost exclusively by sex workers offering illegal sex services. Protected by the Communications Decency Act, Craigslist expanded ERS from 2002 to 2010, ultimately providing the service in every market that Craigslist served. Using the geographically-staggered rollout of ERS, we estimate that ERS reduced the female homicide rate by 10-17 percent, with the reduction driven by street prostitution moving indoors and by helping sex workers to screen out the most dangerous clients. These results suggest that there may be adverse safety consequences that result from the 2018 passage of the “Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which led to the closure of almost all websites that US sex workers had previously used for online solicitation and safety screening.

Let's repeat that: availability of the Craigslist Erotic Services "... reduced the female homicide rate by 10-17 percent ...".

As the various front-runners for the Presidential nomination start to ramp up their campaigns, can we hold their feet to the fire over their support for SESTA and/or FOSTA and get a firm commitment that they'll do better?

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Studies into the mechanism of measles-associated immune suppression during a measles outbreak in the Netherlands:

Abstract: Measles causes a transient immune suppression, leading to increased susceptibility to opportunistic infections. In experimentally infected non-human primates (NHPs) measles virus (MV) infects and depletes pre-existing memory lymphocytes, causing immune amnesia. A measles outbreak in the Dutch Orthodox Protestant community provided a unique opportunity to study the pathogenesis of measles immune suppression in unvaccinated children. In peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of prodromal measles patients, we detected MV-infected memory CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and naive and memory B cells at similar levels as those observed in NHPs. In paired PBMC collected before and after measles we found reduced frequencies of circulating memory B cells and increased frequencies of regulatory T cells and transitional B cells after measles. These data support our immune amnesia hypothesis and offer an explanation for the previously observed long-term effects of measles on host resistance. This study emphasises the importance of maintaining high measles vaccination coverage.

Impact and longevity of measles-associated immune suppression: a matched cohort study using data from the THIN general practice database in the UK:

Conclusion Following measles, children had increased rates of diagnosed infections, requiring increased prescribing of antimicrobial therapies. This population-based matched cohort study supports the hypothesis that measles has a prolonged impact on host resistance to non-measles infectious diseases.

[ related topics: Children and growing up virus Nature and environment Journalism and Media Community ]

Israeli team now claims they can’t publish ‘cancer cure’ research due to lack of funding.

United States of America, Plaintiff, v. Huawei Device Co., Ltd., and Huawei Device USA, Inc., Defendants. Fascinating read on Huawei's attempts to steal T-Mobile's robotic phone testing technologies, named "Tappy", including being caught with stolen robot arms...

[ related topics: Robotics Law Enforcement ]

Into the dark — The inside story of an improbable team of divers, a near-impossible plan and the rescue of 12 boys from a Thai cave.

I pride myself on generally being pretty cool during tense situations, but when I dive, I do tend to use air faster than I should, suggesting that I'm a little more freaked out underwater than I'm letting on. Cave divers are another breed.

Mormon porn https://www.pornhub.com/model/ryancreamer

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

How do you compost a human body - and why would you?

Earn eighty cents an hour by delivering groceries with Instacart!

In case that email is as confusing to you as it looks to us, let us help you parse it: what Brie is saying is that because the customer left a high tip on this particular job, the “batch payment” — the amount Instacart actually pays to the worker — was just 80 cents, including a mileage reimbursement.

Yeah, it's hard to make a tipped job even more exploitive, but they did.

[ related topics: Law Heinlein ]

The Stranger: The Women Running for President Have Made Life Harder for Women.

I mean, it's kinda unfair to single out the women, 'cause most Senators and a whole bunch of Congresspeople voted for SESTA/FOSTA, but yeah.

[ related topics: Sports ]

Interesting theory: 'American Dying' cooled Earth's climate:

"The Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas led to the abandonment of enough cleared land that the resulting terrestrial carbon uptake had a detectable impact on both atmospheric CO₂ and global surface air temperatures," Alexander Koch and colleagues write in their paper published in Quaternary Science Reviews.

Poynter: Want to get away with posting fake news on Facebook? Just change your website domain.

Sinclair Treadway, who runs the site from Southern California with his husband Sean Adl-Tabatabai, told Bloomberg in November that the move to rebrand was a direct result of declining revenue due to Facebook’s fact-checking program. Once a fact-checking outlet like Snopes rates a link, image or video as false, its future reach decreases in the News Feed. (Disclosure: Being a signatory ofthe International Fact-Checking Network’s code of principles is a necessary condition for joining the project.)

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In the wake of Apple revoking Facebook's Enterprise Certificate for iOS apps, now Google will stop peddling a data collector through Apple’s back door

First launched in 2012, Screenwise lets users earn gift cards for sideloading an Enterprise Certificate-based VPN app that allows Google to monitor and analyze their traffic and data. Google has rebranded the program as part of the Cross Media Panel and Google Opinion Rewards programs that reward users for installing tracking systems on their mobile phone, PC web browser, router and TV. In fact, Google actually sends participants a special router that it can monitor.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Technology and Culture Software Engineering Journalism and Media Television Woodworking ]

Insys exec allegedly gave lap dance to doctor while pushing deadly opioid:

The testimony is part of a federal racketeering trial getting underway this week against Insys founder John Kapoor and four former executives, including the sales director, Sunrise Lee. Federal prosecutors allege that the Insys executives used bribes and kickbacks to get doctors to prescribe the company’s powerful and addictive fentanyl spray, called Subsys—which was intended only for cancer patients experiencing pain that’s not alleviated by other medications (aka “breakthrough pain”). The former executives are also accused of misleading and defrauding health insurance companies that ended up covering the drug for patients who did not need it. A congressional investigation in 2017 concluded that Insys sales representatives bluntly lied and tricked insurers to do that—and the investigators released the tapes to prove it.

[ related topics: Health Law Enforcement ]

Fuck playgrounds, we've got cars to park! NYC officials pave historic 1787 Brooklyn schoolyard to make staff parking lot

The space has been used as a play yard and common area since it was incorporated as part of the city’s first secondary school, where construction began about 10 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.

Related: Strong Towns: One Line of Your Zoning Code Can Make a World of Difference:

In 2009, as buildings were being bulldozed for surface parking to meet minimum standards in Historic Downtown Sandpoint, Idaho, city leadership took bold action. Downtown area off-street parking requirements were completely eliminated.  The decision was preceded by heated debate and was not unanimous. Now, ten years later, what was the result?

Spoiler: Abolish parking minimums. Charge for parking.

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More indication that SMS is not good 2FA: Criminals Are Tapping into the Phone Network Backbone to Empty Bank Accounts:

Motherboard has identified a specific UK bank that has fallen victim to so-called SS7 attacks, and sources say the issue is wider than previously reported.

[ related topics: broadband ]