Flutterby™! From 2019-11-01 to 2019-11-30

Rudy Giuliani needed Apple genius help to unlock his iPhone after being named Trump cybersecurity adviser

Giuliani’s actions call into question his understanding of basic security measures, two former FBI cyber experts told NBC News.

(if you were wondering if this general cluelessness was a one-off, we can go back to last year: Rudy Giuliani is Trump’s cybersecurity adviser. He might want a refresher.)

[ related topics: Apple Computer Interactive Drama Current Events Law Enforcement iPhone ]

7 plus me at square dancing tonight, low because of Halloween, but I think we've picked up another dancer. Charlene says that if everyone shows up we're close to 3 squares.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Television ]

Update: Characteristics of Patients in a National Outbreak of E-cigarette, or Vaping, Product Use–Associated Lung Injuries — United States, October 2019

What are the implications for public health practice?

Most EVALI patients report using THC-containing products before symptom onset. CDC recommends that persons should not use e-cigarette, or vaping, products containing THC. Because the specific compound or ingredient causing EVALI is not known, persons should consider refraining from use of all e-cigarette, or vaping, products.

[ related topics: Health ]

Researchers unearth malware that siphoned SMS texts out of telco’s network

Messagetap monitored telco's network for messages sent between high-value targets.

[ related topics: broadband ]

The Risk of Dying Doing What We Love. Various activities (driving, cycling, base jumping, etc) ranked by risk of death per time doing the activity.

[ related topics: Sports Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Man who advocated caning for adultery gets caned for adultery

(CNN)An Indonesian man has been publicly flogged for adultery, under a draconian law he helped create.

Mukhlis, a member of the Aceh Ulema Council (MPU) in the deeply conservative Aceh province of Indonesia, received 28 lashes in front of a crowd on Thursday after being caught having an affair with a married woman. Like many Indonesians, Mukhlis goes by a single name.

[ related topics: Sociology Marriage ]

Joi Scientific technology NB Power poured millions into doesn't work

One of the company's patents claims it can generate hydrogen at 200 per cent efficiency. For one watt of input energy, the patent says two watts of energy in the form of hydrogen gas are produced.

There's a MeFi thread which points to all the warning signs, but one of the recurring ads on Facebook is some Wall Street Journal pitching a magnets perpetual motion machine thing.

On the other hand, the CEO of New Brunswick Power was on the board of Joi Scientific, so this may have just been a bog-standard case of money-laundering.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Invention and Design Law Current Events Work, productivity and environment Currency Economics ]

Wandered down to North Bay Python, picked up my badge, realized I didn't want to spend this gorgeous day inside. Gonna head back down for the terrible robot, afternoon tea, and TensorFlow talks. Might find a place to hang out and chat until Guido's talk if anyone wants.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Robotics Monty Python California Culture Python ]

Aargh. Ubuntu 19.10 upgrade brook my power management, so my laptop is dead. Sigh. Did enjoy the "How To Build A Terrible Robot" session at North Bay Python, settling in for the machine learning on your cell phone talk. #nbpy

[ related topics: Wireless Robotics Monty Python California Culture Education Python ]

I'm so old, I remember when XUbuntu was the stripped-down lightweight Ubuntu variant that didn't have a lot of bloat and just worked. (This message brought to you by disabling "tracker", which kept crashing on startup, and trying to figure out how to make lightdm work correctly)

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Holy shit, Shadeed Wallace-Stepter's talk at North Bay Python 2019 is a must watch when that video gets published. For everyone, not just tech nerds. #nbpy

[ related topics: Movies Monty Python California Culture Video Python ]

Seriously, go throw this project a few bucks! https://www.gofundme.com/f/growing-up-behind-bars #nbpy

Feeling old is being at #nbpy and having someone describe a computer as "tiny" because it only has 256k of memory. Back when I was a kid, we valued every kilobyte, and we talked to our REPL in hex.

[ related topics: Nostalgia ]

Mind-blowing machine learning technology of the moment: Spleeter has TensorFlow models to split audio tracks. I've been playing with the "remove the voice track" model, and it's blowing my mind.

Related: If anyone has ideas for taking the vocal track and turning it into something that sounds more instrumental or synth-ish so that it doesn't compete with the vocals, I'd love to use this for automating square dance music creation.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Education ]

Researchers hack Siri, Alexa, and Google Home by shining lasers at them

MEMS mics respond to light as if it were sound. No one knows precisely why.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

In overworked Japan, Microsoft tested a four-day workweek. Productivity soared 40 percent.

The test run, which took place in August and gave employees five consecutive Fridays off, boosted sales per employee by 40 percent, compared with the same month a year earlier, according to the post. The number of pages printed in the office fell by 59 percent, electricity consumption dropped 23 percent, and 94 percent of employees were satisfied with the program.

[ related topics: Humor Cool Science Microsoft Software Engineering moron Work, productivity and environment ]

Carve out some time and watch this. This was the morning opening talk at North Bay Python yesterday, and is a powerful look at how our justice system is failing all of us.

"From Prison to Python" - Shadeed Wallace-Stepter (North Bay Python 2019)

I'll look for a transcript, too.

The immediately subsequent talk: Mass Decarceration: If We Don’t Hire People With Felony Convictions, Who Will?

[ related topics: Movies Monty Python Law Enforcement California Culture Python ]

Saved so I can show to my square dancing friend John, who collects Nash Metropolitans: For sale: Tiny Gasser: 1954 Nash Metropolitan, configured for drag racing.

[ related topics: Sports ]

There's that old line about how computers let us make more mistakes faster than Tequila and handguns combined. But if we learn from our mistakes, and combine all three...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

When the YouTube ad is a music producer pitching classes, and has all sorts of sibilance... Hmmm...

[ related topics: Music ]

Sheriff: Gun thieves targeting pickups with hunting stickers and patriotic emblems

[ related topics: Current Events Guns ]

‘OK, boomer’: 25-year-old lawmaker shuts down heckler during climate change speech

Bonus: https://www.facebook.com/stfUb.../117432869693198/?type=3&theater

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment Theater & Plays Global Warming ]

I know a lawyer for whom this is a great victory, and this is the second Contra Costa judge removed in a short time, out of something like 111 in the history of California: State Comission removes Contra Costa Judge from bench for multiple acts of misconduct.

The Commission on Judicial Performance, which disciplines judges, determined Laettner engaged in five instances of willful misconduct and 11 instances of prejudicial misconduct. The commission launched a formal investigation into Laettner last year into nine counts of bad conduct alleged by public defenders who appeared before him.

Laettner is the second Contra Costa judge to be removed for misconduct since late 2018, when the commission kicked ex-Judge Bruce C. Mills off the bench for multiple counts of misconduct.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Theater & Plays Law California Culture ]

Like omigosh, you should like visit gay Philly on Facebook. Language is weird.

[ related topics: Photography Sexual Culture ]

The Effect of District Attorneys on Local Criminal Justice Outcomes Sam Krumholz, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Department of Economics, January 3, 2019

Abstract

In the United States, elected district attorneys' offices prosecute over 85% of all felony cases, but we know little about their effect on local criminal justice outcomes. Using a newly-collected dataset of district attorney elections, I show that the a Republican district attorney leads to a 18-21% increase in new prison admissions in the two years following their election, while a nonwhite district attorney leads to a 10% decline. In both cases, there are no significant effects on local crime or arrest rates. These results show that the identity of local district attorneys is an important determinant of incarceration rates.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Law Law Enforcement California Culture Education Gambling Economics ]

Gender reveal stunt led to plane crash in Texas

Another gender reveal stunt went horribly wrong and led to a recent plane crash in Texas, according to a National Transportation Safety Board accident report released Friday.

[ related topics: Cool Science Aviation Heinlein Woodworking ]

How to read sheet music (YouTube video)

(I think this one came in by way of Mark)

[ related topics: Music Movies Video ]

Osthemo Michigan man uses battle ax to fend off home intruder

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Twitter thread on the economic effects of railroad land grants

The paper is Land Concentration and Long-Run Development:Evidence from the Frontier United States Cory Smith

Summary: Because of the competing desires of the Homestead Act and wanting to get the railroads built quickly, alternating blocks of land were given to lots of individual small owners, or put under the ownership of one large company, and this paper looks at their relative economic productivity. Spoiler: The small land grants were way more productive.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Machinery Trains Economics Real Estate ]

Via Shadow, shades of Cloud to Butt: RT The Daily Show @TheDailyShow:

Trump changed his permanent residence to Florida, so we made a browser extension that changes his name to "Florida Man."

Download: http://MakeTrumpFloridaMan.com

You've seen this guy, he's got the strange grimace and is often holding a coffee cup with one hand on a laptop, and the stock photo of him has garnered all sorts of captions... Experience: my face became a meme

My wife hated Hide the Pain Harold – until I got paid for a Hungarian TV commercial

[ related topics: Photography Technology and Culture Television Marketing Economics Marriage ]

No helmets, no problem: how the Dutch created a casual biking culture

They ended up gathering enough material for a book, which was released in August 2018 from Island Press: Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality. It’s a tour of Dutch bicycling culture that attempts to extract lessons that can be applied to other cities, including, yes, American cities.

Walking and cycling good for health even in cities with higher levels of air pollution

The health benefits of walking and cycling outweigh the negative effects on health of air pollution, even in cities with high levels of air pollution, according to a study led by researchers from the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) and Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge. This new evidence strengthens the case for supporting cycling even in polluted cities – an effort that in turn can help reduce vehicle emissions.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Books Health Invention and Design Sociology Law Current Events California Culture Sports Education Pedal Power Bicycling ]

98-Year-Old Man Fulfills Mother's Dying Wish To Turn Her SF Property Into Affordable Housing

When San Francisco artist, scientist, and activist Maria “Mitzi” Kolisch died in 1987, she was in the process of trying to turn her humble cottage property in Diamond Heights into housing for low-income adolescents who had aged out of the foster-care system. 32 years later, her son — now 98 years old himself — has finally succeeded in redeveloping her property into eight affordable family townhouses with the help of Habitat for Humanity.

[ related topics: Bay Area Sociology Art & Culture California Culture Real Estate ]

ACLU: Federal Court Rules Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

BOSTON — In a major victory for privacy rights, a federal court in Boston today ruled that the government’s suspicionless searches of international travelers’ smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry violate the Fourth Amendment. The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and ACLU of Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.

[ related topics: User Interface Privacy Aviation moron Law Civil Liberties ]

Further filling in the "how did life form?" question: Unified prebiotically plausible synthesis of pyrimidine and purine RNA ribonucleotides Science 04 Oct 2019: Vol. 366, Issue 6461, pp. 76-82 DOI: 10.1126/science.aax2747

In the absence of biological catalysts and metabolism, can atmospheric and geochemical processes provide the substrates and conditions required for production of biological molecules? Becker et al. devised an abiotic synthetic scheme that allows for accumulation of both purine and pyrimidine nucleoside mono- and diphosphates (see the Perspective by Hud and Fialho). A key starting material for this chemistry, hydroxylamine and/or hydroxylamine disulfonate, can form under plausible early atmospheric conditions. Cycles between wet and dry conditions provide the environments necessary to complete formation of purine and pyrimidine bases essentially in one pot.

[ related topics: Theater & Plays Work, productivity and environment ]

This is fascinating, it's how one producer and a lack of transparency in the supply chain led to a whole bunch of vape oil producers using tocopheryl-acetate in their products pretty much simultaneously, leading to all sorts of health-related issues. Leafly: From ‘Veronica Mars’ to toxic vapes: The rise and fall of Honey Cut

[ related topics: Health Astronomy Current Events ]

A tiny pharmacy is identifying big problems with common drugs, including Zantac

Clark-Joseph, an economist with some chemistry training, was drawn to the idea because he kept getting sick. In graduate school, he refilled a prescription only to find that the new, supposedly identical drug didn’t work. When his doctor told him to try another pharmacy because he probably got a bad batch, he was appalled. After similar incidents occurred, he started searching for a lab that would verify the chemical contents of his medication. When he didn’t find an obvious solution, he called his college friend David Light, who had worked in biotech, and suggested that they partner on a business that would verify the chemical contents of drug

It's a marketing piece for Valisure, an online pharmacy that buys drugs in batches and tests for conformance to the expected, and has found problems large enough to cause recalls.

But the notion that there's that much variation in our drug supply (not to mention the various ways in which there are unanticipated drug behaviors in drugs that have gotten to market) is wow.

[ related topics: Drugs Children and growing up Health Invention and Design Consumerism and advertising Work, productivity and environment Marketing Education Economics ]

Electric cars are changing the cost of driving

Few have driven a Tesla to the point at which the vehicle really starts to show its age. But Tesloop, a shuttle service in Southern California comprised solely of Teslas, was ticking the odometers of its cars well past 300,000 miles with no signs of slowing.

[ related topics: History Space & Astronomy California Culture Economics ]

Exclusive: Mother speaks about autistic son who died after being restrained at El Dorado Hills school

Max grew up in Davis and started his education at a nearby public school, Birch Lane Elementary. His family called those two years a wonderful experience — he had autism, but required no aid and very few services from his teachers. Max later began attending Sacramento’s Sierra School before he enrolled at Guiding Hands in the fall of 2018, and spent only a few months there before he died.

Manslaughter charges filed against staff at El Dorado Hills school in autistic student’s death

[ related topics: Children and growing up Sociology Current Events California Culture Education ]

Five myths about Ukraine — There’s no civil war. Corruption is getting better. And it’s not “the Ukraine.”

[ related topics: Microsoft History ]

The Atlantic: My Friend Mister Rogers — I first met him 21 years ago, and now our relationship is the subject of a new movie. He’s never been more revered—or more misunderstood.. So hard to find a summary pull quote of this, but...

I had counted on the plot’s many departures from my life to insulate me from the emotional effect of seeing some version of myself up there, but in the screening room I had no such protection, because the director, Marielle Heller, had been so faithful to the essence of the story. A long time ago, a man had seen something in me I hadn’t seen in myself, and now I was watching him see something in me and couldn’t help but ask, all over again: Who was he? Who was I? And what did he see? “You love people like me,” Matthew Rhys tells Tom Hanks. And when Hanks asks, “What are people like you?,” Rhys answers, “Broken people.” And that broke me, though I had never uttered those words to Fred in my life. He saw something in me, yes. Did he also see through me? Was my brokenness so obvious to him back then? Was Fred’s offer of friendship also a form of judgment?

[ related topics: Movies Invention and Design Gambling Woodworking ]

Just keeping this around for finding later: FactCheck.org: Posts Falsely Claim Trump ‘Stole’ From Vets

State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla, in her Nov. 7 court order, wrote that the $2.8 million donated to the Trump Foundation “was used for Mr. Trump’s political campaign and disbursed by Mr. Trump’s campaign staff, rather than by the Foundation,” in violation of state law. However, she acknowledged that “the Funds did ultimately reach their intended destinations, i.e., charitable organizations supporting veterans.”

[ related topics: Politics moron Law Enforcement ]

NewsThump: ‘Suspicious object’ at Daily Mail offices identified as a piece of factual journalism

[ related topics: Journalism and Media ]

3 Indiana Judges Suspended After White Castle Brawl That Left 2 Of Them Wounded A night of drinking led to trying to go to a strip club at 3AM, finding that it was closed, which resulted in a trip to White Castle ('cause, hey, who hasn't been there, even if the local version of White Castle was Krystal), which ended up in one of them making gestures at a passing car that resulted in a fight and two of the judges getting shot.

Or, as I called it in my 20s, Thursday.

In between, the three judges took a number of actions that "discredited the entire Indiana judiciary," according to an opinion posted by the Indiana Supreme Court this week, suspending the judges.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Sexual Culture Travel Automobiles Race ]

On the ground in Chicago. Don't expect to see a fire like that during the interminable O'Hare taxi...

[ related topics: Photography Pyrotechnics ]

NoFap Founder Is Suing a Neuroscientist Who Thinks Masturbating Is Fine

Nicole Prause, a neuroscientist who studies sexual science through a neuroscience and physiology lens, has researched so-called "porn addiction" and found no scientific basis for it. “These online communities have whipped themselves into a frenzy when in the past men wouldn’t have been concerned," Prause told the Guardian in 2016. "Then the next time they go to have sex they are causing themselves more distress."

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

I'm signing up for yet another freakin' social network web site. As if there weren't a gazillion places you could already find me. This one's the Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia guy) founded WT:Social, which started out as some sort of Wiki news site.

Membership has a waiting list unless you donate or get people to sign up using your personal links; I may donate, although right now the fact that they hide the API docs until you've signed up, and that it's yet another centralized social media site, means I'm not too excited about that, but my links are:

• Friends https://wt.social/gi/dan-lyke/friends/h8z3
• Family members https://wt.social/gi/dan-lyke/family/p2yn
• Work colleagues https://wt.social/gi/dan-lyke/work/7ui3

[ related topics: Interactive Drama broadband Sociology Current Events Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment ]

Minneapolis police discover 1,700 untested rape kits spanning 30 years — Some date to 1990s; the number far surpasses the 194 reported in a 2015 audit.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

I grew up, from 1st through 7th grades, in a place we called Willowbog. It was an old farmhouse, built in 1790. It was a grand 2 story 4 bedroom house on a dirt road mid-way between East Chatham and West Lebanon New York. As I remember it, when we moved in we had no running water and no electricity, though the young mind probably exaggerates. I think in second grade I was given an ax and asked to remove the lath and plaster on a wall. I learned sweating copper pipe, and wiring, and built tree forts with spare construction materials.

I also learned to solder, basic electronics (from breadbording 555 timers to soldering together a Heathkit oscilloscope), built a coaster go kart out of an old baby carriage left in one of the barns, helped raise goats and sheep and ducks, and when I entered my pyro phase, my dad showed me how to make igniters out of multi-strand wire, gave me a pair of goggles and a can of black powder, and told me to go nuts.

We skied at the Mount Greylock Ski Club, a nominal membership rate and time spent being lift attendants or keeping the big long rope tows running. We rode those with nutcracker like devices that dangled from belts; one hand to clench the rope, the other swung the open nutcracker up under the rope, deftly catching it and clamping on, pulling us up the slope.

One day skiing I decided that my goal for the morning was to not fall. At some point I excitedly reported my success to my Dad, and he observed that I must not have been pushing myself very hard. It wasn't a judgmental thing, but it's a great example of the spirit he imbued in me: always be failing, so I could improve.

This was the era of Pong and Breakout and Atari was becoming a thing, but if I wanted video games I needed to build then myself. My dad brought home a KIM-1 from work, 6 digit 7 segment LED display, a 20 key hexadecimal keypad, 1k of RAM. I learned to hand assemble machine code.

Music was expected, my mom tried to teach me piano, I was later unleashed on trumpet. My mom also insisted on chemistry and physiology: a formative moment involved finding something that conflicted with Waldorf philosophy in Gray's Anatomy, being shot down by my teacher, and gaining a lifelong distrust of formal education. But I did get a 98% on my chemistry final in high school. Probably my only high school grade of note; I was a bad student because school got in the way of learning.

So when, two or so years into college, I spent a semester rock climbing and my grades didn't change and I realized I was wasting my time (with the school, not the rock climbing), I had all the technical skills to drop into a career. And the physical skills to guide whitewater on the weekends.

I lacked some of the social skills; isolated communities aren't the place to develop those, but we do what we can.

A few years ago we decided to build a workshop in our back yard. My upbringing meant I thought it normal that I drew the plans, annoyance that I had to pay Professional Engineers to sign off on my calculations for the added weight of a living roof and energy use for Title 24 compliance. But the greatest gift was that my Dad came out to help me build it, and we spent a month and change from raising studs to mudding drywall.

And my Dad, this man with an engineering masters from Cornell and an MBA from Emory, who could swing a hammer and run a lathe and build drawers, expressed that he thought I'd outdone him.

In late July, he was diagnosed with, as he put it, "4 lumps in my skull, the smallest of which is my brain". He'd been out in April, to help crew our team in the Bodega Bay Wooden Boat Challenge, and slowed down a bit, but I kinda figured he had another decade or decade and a half of vibrance left in him.

I've been back three times to visit, and leaving this time was almost certainly the last time I'd get to say goodbye.

I'm sure I'll have regrets, things I wish I could have told him, laughs I'd like to share, but in the end it boiled down to three things: "I love you. Thank you, for every thing. Be good to yourself."

Since I never know when a conversation with someone is the last, it bears repeating, and to y'all, too:

I love you.

Thank you, for every thing.

Be good to yourself.

[ related topics: Nostalgia Children and growing up Interactive Drama Music Games Cool Science Invention and Design Work, productivity and environment California Culture Sports Pyrotechnics Boats Machinery Community Fabrication Education Douglas Adams Whitewater New York Video Philosophy Real Estate Model Building Woodworking ]

Visit with me, for a moment, in the house in which I spent my formative years, 1st through 7th grade. That cluster of foliage to the right is a purple lilac, overshadowed by a large maple. The cluster to the left is a white lilac, I forget what kind of tree towers over it, but I remember a swing hanging from it, and then a rope with a couple of pulleys with which I learned about reduction of force, using my own body weight.

The purple lilac cluster grew dense with foliage, but was relatively open on the inside, so was one of our many outdoor houses and forts.

To the right is a gentle slope, presumably where the old carriage path ran, because there were ruts on it, where I broke my left arm riding a tricycle down it, and deliberately crashing the tricycle.

If you click through https://binged.it/2XExB6e , turn right, and go down road a little, you'll see two barns to your left. The first was the garage; I remember my dad replacing chipped gears in a transmission in one of the Volvos, I remember setting up a Jacobs Ladder, with its rising arc, because of course everyone had a neon sign transformer or two in their parts box.

I remember using an old car starter motor and a battery to try to electrify that coasting go cart I built from an old baby carriage. Didn't work, 'cause I couldn't figure out how to get from the starter gear to the wheels; just ground away the tire rubber. If you go a little further north, across that culvert, you can see the hill we'd coast down.

The second had hay chutes, and was spectacular for hide and seek, and climbing up the hay chutes, and jumping down from the second story. And an old metal sign on it advertising De Laval Cream Separators, how I learned about centrifuges.

When we moved in, the house across the street was owned by a lady named Belle, who did not think we were good neighbors. Might have had something to do with goats getting out and gallumphing across her porch early in the morning. But at some point she sold, and a family from New York City bought it as a weekend place. Their son, Marco Puccio, and I got into all sorts of trouble, from studying the bats in the old ice shed(?) on their property, to, one day, deciding we wanted to go all the way to the top of the hill to the north. Our parents made us wear helmets for bike riding, and we thought that'd be a good idea, and we raided the attic for the most padded winter clothing we could find. Tearing down the hill, I was steering, he slid back and mucked up the balance, and we veered off into the swamp to the east. Right beside all the sharpened tree stumps left by the beavers.

We decided that maybe that didn't warrant another ride down the hill, so, in the middle of July or August, wearing our deepest winter clothing, soaking wet, we nonchalantly walked the go kart back to the barn, past our parents who were engaged in some conversation, as though nothing at all was amiss.

Bing used to have a closer aerial view. It looks like the house has been turned since the last time I was there, and when that aerial view was taken, but the house was, authentically, painted white on three sides and barn red on the back, because back in the glory days of the house white paint was expensive, so you'd only use it for the visible sides.

If you switch to satellite view, there are a few new houses in the area now, the place is kinda built up since we lived there, but behind the house is a pond. My grandfather made me a little rowboat, and we spent many hours exploring that pond and the stream and swamp, fishing for catfish, smashing the leaches that attached to our paddles.

There's a hill down to the pond from the back of the house. In winter we'd skate on the pond, and toboggan down the hill out on to the ice. My dad found a big ol' surplus sodium vapor lamp, probably brought it home from work, and hooked it up. It probably took half an hour or 45 minutes to come up to temperature, especially in the cold cold winters, and get bright, but it meant we could continue into the evening.

And skate while the ice developed cracks with loud booming from expansion. And try to lure the goats on to the toboggan.

I learned to shoot beer cans filled with water with a bolt action 22 on that back hill, the pond made a backstop, the cans would jump and fly with water spewing out of them.

There's a berm just south-south-west of the house, jutting out over the hill, that had an old outbuilding on it when we moved in. I remember my dad and someone else, maybe a friend, maybe his brother Ron, knocking that building over using an old car axle as a battering ram.

We had probably 3/4 of an acre of land as garden. We had a Kubota B6000 tractor with a Woods RM48 rear mount mower with which we cut paths through the brush, out through the evergreen grove to the southwest of the house. My dad wondered why the setup did a great job with the brush but not really on the lawn, and then discovered the b blades were on backwards.

There was an old outhouse on that field to the south, I don't remember if we actually ever used it, and we had bees by the garden there...

And, of course, the giant old willow towering over the pond and the beavers and the great blue heron and all of the other wildlife...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Privacy Nature and environment Invention and Design History Sociology Consumerism and advertising Work, productivity and environment Heinlein Beer Automobiles Fabrication Skating Clothing Pedal Power New York Race Bicycling Real Estate Gardening ]

Singing lesson this evening. We decided that this was not the night to do Cat's In The Cradle...

PSA: The microphone is not a magic device that allows you to be heard as long as you're holding it; it's a musical instrument that requires precise placement relative to your mouth and body in order to effectively help you.

[ related topics: Clowns ]

Office chatter, and the Tesla owner observed: "Did you guys see the electric Mustang? It's the second-most hideous vehicle announced this week."

Rolling Stone: That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda.

[ related topics: Politics Journalism and Media ]

How could a cop fired for dishonesty end up teaching criminal justice at a Bay Area university?

Under California’s strict police privacy laws in effect in 2016, it would have been difficult for the university to learn anything about Neithercutt’s status with the Newark Police Department that he didn’t volunteer, said Jim Ewert, general counsel of the California News Publisher’s Association.

“This is a clear example of why SB 1421 is so important,” Ewert said. It allows the “public understanding of officer behavior and the ripple effect of where they end up, like colleges.”

[ related topics: Privacy Current Events Law Enforcement California Culture Education Government ]

Not what I expected: I Wanna Be Sedated with a Dulcimer (YouTube video)

Punk dulcimer. Cover of the Ramones classic, "I Wanna Be Sedated," played on electric dulcimer by Sam Edelston.

Electric Appalachian dulcimer. Complete with a cool flanging pedal effect.

[ related topics: Movies Pedal Power Video ]

Cannabis reduces headache and migraine pain by nearly half

PULLMAN, Wash. – Inhaled cannabis reduces self-reported headache severity by 47.3% and migraine severity by 49.6%, according to a recent study led by Carrie Cuttler, a Washington State University assistant professor of psychology.

Journal of Pain: Short- and Long-Term Effects of Cannabis on Headache and Migraine

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2019.11.001

[ related topics: Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Current Events Education ]

RT Will Stancil @whstancil

I am just going to do a thread here of shocking revelations that Democrats have ignored because they thought it would be more convincing to talk about a single phone call with President Zelenskyy over and over and over.

Rundown of other things coming out in the Trump impeachment hearings that are pretty damning.

Sure, some people complain that Perl is hard to read, but I just wrote

@"JSON.stringify((() => {%@})())"

in my Objective-C-talking-to-Javascript-in-WKWebView code, and I don't feel dirty at all.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source hubris ]

Catholic order moved pedophile priest to church property with summer camp after CNN investigation

Father Luk Delft was recalled to Belgium in June this year after CNN informed the order that two boys in the Central African Republic had accused Delft of abusing them.

Read the full CNN investigation

The Salesians of Don Bosco, a religious order established specifically to protect children, housed the convicted abuser on the campus in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe in Belgium after the 50-year-old priest was removed from his role as country director of the Catholic charity Caritas in the CAR.

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Sexual Culture Automobiles Race Gambling ]

Shout-out to the dude in the mobility scooter who recognized the dangerous design of this MUP and took the lane with the cars. When we talk about making environments safe for the elderly and disabled, this ain't it.

[ related topics: Photography Bay Area Graphic Design Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Shadow forwarded along a picture of a 3d model of a tracked mountain bike concept, and it's interesting to think about why, even if the materials science allowed something like this to work without huge efficiency losses from the flex keeping those front tracks round, this wouldn't work. Like the fact that during turns the front and rear wheels have different radius circles, so you'd be sliding all over the place...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Work, productivity and environment Graphics Bicycling ]

Smokey Chipotle is the hero of my new hyper-testosteroned genre fiction series.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

We're in Fresno, inn a Lithuanian grocery, and I think my Christmas gifts are sorted now

[ related topics: Photography California Culture ]

Fresno, where 4 lanes each way one direction and 3 lanes each way in the other, the day after a heavy rain, still has a tumbleweed in the middle of the intersection...

[ related topics: California Culture ]

The Atlantic: Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s

A new study finds that people today who eat and exercise the same amount as people 20 years ago are still fatter.

Obesity Research & Clinical Practice: Secular differences in the association between caloric intake, macronutrient intake, and physical activity with obesity

Results Between 1971 and 2008, BMI, total caloric intake and carbohydrate intake increased 10–14%, and fat and protein intake decreased 5–9%. Between 1988 and 2006, frequency of leisure time physical activity increased 47–120%. However, for a given amount of caloric intake, macronutrient intake or leisure time physical activity, the predicted BMI was up to 2.3 kg/m2 higher in 2006 that in 1988 in the mutually adjusted model (P < 0.05).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orcp.2015.08.007

https://getpocket.com/explore/...easier-to-be-skinny-in-the-1980s

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design Food Model Building ]

You can tell it's been a while since I've lived in any place with any sort of warnable threat, because that siren on a pole seems like some sort of Cold War throwback artifact.

[ related topics: Photography History ]

Christmas decorating: nailed it.

Christmas decorating: nailed it.

[ related topics: Photography ]