Flutterby™! From 2020-09-01 to 2020-09-30

How to deal with kidnappers: Undercover police in Belarus attempting to kidnap someone getting punched up by protestors and forced back into their van.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

Given the lead times on actual air filters, I just bought a couple of fans and some furnace filters to slap over them. They seem to be helping, but PurpleAir also says that the PM2.5 AQI in my neighborhood is only about 250 right now (it's been over 400 Sunday and yesterday).

Whistleblower Testifies Deputy Who Shot Gardena Teen Was “Chasing Ink”

“It is very disturbing – to say the least – that gangs are commonly known to exist within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. These reports go to the heart of our concerns that the Sheriff’s Department promotes and harbors a culture of violence against the public. Make no mistake, we have every intention of conducting a thorough investigation into the potential involvement of any Sheriff’s Department gang in the shooting of Andres Guardado.”

More than a dozen deputies have matching tattoos and belong to a violent clique called the Executioners at the station, according to Deputy Art Gonzalez, who filed a whistleblower complaint regarding the Executioners in June.

(And because I wondered about credibility: Spectrum News is a brand owned by Charter Communications from it's Time-Warner acquisition)

[ related topics: Sociology Art & Culture California Culture Pop Culture ]

Fuck. We did not need this sort of bullshit right now. Nancy Pelosi got indoor hair care at San Francisco salon, report says

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had her hair shampooed and blow-dried indoors at a San Francisco hair salon Monday, although city rules do not allow for such care during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report.

Fox News reported the visit Tuesday and obtained security footage of the styling treatment.

[ related topics: Politics Invention and Design Bay Area Current Events California Culture Real Estate ]

Okay, I'm liking this person's work a lot: https://www.instagram.com/cassius.k1ng/

Got there via the Al Green / (W)algreens sign rework.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

I have found a reason to like Slack! The Jira integration is the best way to organize and keep track of Jira tasks, because otherwise Jira is unusable...

Oh, yeah, one way to get my ire is Nextdoor users posting "As a lead or leads, do your job." You think I get fucking paid to wade through your bullshit?

[ related topics: Heinlein ]

A little rabbit hole that I want to document. Trying to find the source of the Martin Luther King standing in front of a burning city saying "I'm going to lead another non-violent march tomorrow" cartoon led me to Joe DeVilla — Same Old Song And Dance, which also included a Herblock cartoon from 1965 with an octopus pretending to be an elephant.

I didn't find a clean version of the MLK comic, but I did find an Archive.org mirror of it once hosted at The King Center with some interesting notes on the margins.

And the elephant and octopus image in the Herblock 1965 archive at the Library of Congress.

[ related topics: Language Politics Books Photography moron ]

Happy 25th Anniversary to the Kevin & Kell web comic

Center for Strategic and International Studies Briefs — The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States

Between 1994 and 2020, there were 893 terrorist attacks and plots in the United States. Overall, right-wing terrorists perpetrated the majority—57 percent—of all attacks and plots during this period, compared to 25 percent committed by left-wing terrorists, 15 percent by religious terrorists, 3 percent by ethnonationalists, and 0.7 percent by terrorists with other motives.

Yeah, there are a number of very troubling trends here:

[ related topics: Religion Photography ]

Came in handy today when we were trying to figure out WTF a Unicode character in source code was that we couldn't see the glyph of because the character set or editor or something didn't display it, this thing helped decode it: https://qaz.wtf/u/show.cgi

[ related topics: Open Source Typography ]

Not news to anyone who's been paying attention, but some new quotes about, among other things, that missed visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetary: The Atlantic: Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’

[ related topics: Quotes Politics Invention and Design History Current Events ]

My guess is that the overlap of people complaining about this and those complaining about rioting and looting is minimal: Congressional investigation finds over $1 billion in coronavirus aid fraud

Over 600 loans, for nearly $100 million, went to companies that had been barred or suspended from doing business with the federal government. More than 350 loans, worth nearly $200 million, went to government contractors flagged by the federal government for performance or integrity issues. Over 11,000 borrowers had red flags in the government's System for Award Management, such as mismatched addresses.

[ related topics: moron Theater & Plays Economics ]

New York Magazine: Here’s All the Corroboration for the Atlantic Story on Trump Attacking Troops

Whenever a new report with an inside account of President Trump’s immorality or ignorance appears in the press, it includes a paragraph for official White House spokespeople to issue an indignant denial calling the media and its dozen or two sources liars. Jeffrey Goldberg’s blockbuster revelation in The Atlantic followed the ritual in form, though not in degree. The scope and intensity of the pushback was nuclear: Virtually every White House press official, past and present, denounced the story. Additional support for Trump poured in from several unofficial White House spokespeople in conservative media, including Kurt Schlichter, Mollie Hemmingway, and Ben Domenech, who solemnly promised, “I’m confident I have better sources within this White House than @JeffreyGoldberg, and I expect that upon investigation his anonymously sourced story will live up to the quality we can expect from The Atlantic under his leadership.”

A few tweets on The Atlantic's fact-checking.

Twitter clip of a Fox News reporter confirming from their own sources

[ related topics: Invention and Design History Theater & Plays Current Events Journalism and Media New York Race Real Estate ]

No shit: ‘We were not okay.’ Active shooter drills may do more harm than good, study shows.

Meanwhile, for-profit companies charge schools thousands of dollars for the training, making the active shooter drill industry worth an estimated $2.7 billion — “all in pursuit of a practice that, to date, is not evidence-based,” according to the researchers. [emphasis mine]

The Impact of Active Shooter Drills in Schools — Time to Rethink Reactive School Safety Strategies

[ related topics: Children and growing up Current Events Television ]

Careful, that's just what a zombie would tell you.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Although it's over 100F outside, it's not too bad inside. You'd never know that by the cat, however

[ related topics: Photography ]

This is some serious bullshit.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Fiscally got around to building stops for the router table fence rather than just clamping on whatever scraps I had lying around.

[ related topics: Photography Furniture Woodworking ]

Magnifying glass in holder

[ related topics: Photography ]

StackOverflow: gamifying stupid answers. Sigh.

[ related topics: hubris ]

I really don't want to run wire down the walls by the closets for light switches, but the pull cords stick and don't work very well, so I made some maple blocks with rounded holes to help give a straight pull, and these seem to work awesomely.

[ related topics: Photography Nature and environment Work, productivity and environment ]

No, The Government Did Not Break Up A Child Sex Trafficking Ring In Georgia

Federal agents did not rescue a large number of children from a single location — or even a single jurisdiction. Kirby told HuffPost that only two children were recovered together. The other kids were found individually across 15 Georgia counties and six other states: South Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Florida, Kentucky and Michigan. The operation took place over two weeks, not one night.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Erotic Sexual Culture tolkien moron Chattanooga ]

Twitter tells me the Walbridge fire flared up last night. Purple Air claims the AQI is between 28 and 47 in my neighborhood, but damn you'd never notice from the visibility.

[ related topics: Photography Pyrotechnics ]

IZA Institute of Labor Economics — The Contagion Externality of a Superspreading Event:The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and COVID- 19

Large in-person gatherings without social distancing and with individuals who have traveled outside the local area are classified as the “highest risk” for COVID-19 spread by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Between August 7 and August 16, 2020, nearly 500,000 motorcycle enthusiasts converged on Sturgis, South Dakota for its annual motorcycle rally. Large crowds, coupled with minimal mask-wearing and social distancing by attendees, raised concerns that this event could serve as a COVID-19 “super- spreader.” This study is the first to explore the impact of this event on social distancing and the spread of COVID-19. First, using anonymized cell phone data from SafeGraph, Inc. we document that (i) smartphone pings from non-residents, and (ii) foot traffic at restaurants and bars, retail establishments, entertainment venues, hotels and campgrounds each rose substantially in the census block groups hosting Sturgis rally events. Stay-at-home behavior among local residents, as measured by median hours spent at home, fell. Second, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a synthetic control approach, we show that by September 2, a month following the onset of the Rally, COVID-19 cases increased by approximately 6 to 7 cases per 1,000 population in its home county of Meade. Finally, difference-in-differences (dose response) estimates show that following the Sturgis event, counties that contributed the highest inflows of rally attendees experienced a 7.0 to 12.5 percent increase in COVID-19 cases relative to counties that did not contribute inflows. Descriptive evidence suggests these effects may be muted in states with stricter mitigation policies (i.e., restrictions on bar/restaurant openings, mask-wearing mandates). We conclude that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally generated public health costs of approximately $12.2 billion

and

If we conservatively assume that all of these cases were non-fatal, then these casesrepresent a cost of over $12.2 billion, based on the statistical cost of a COVID-19 case of $46,000 estimated by Kniesner and Sullivan (2020). This is enough to have paid each of the estimated 462,182 rally attendees $26,553.64 not to attend. This is by no means an accurate accounting of the true externality cost of the event, as it counts thosewho attended and were infected as part of the externality when their costs are likely internalized.

Mother Jones: Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Is Now Linked to More Than 250,000 Coronavirus Cases

Newsweek: Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Linked to More Than 260,000 Coronavirus Cases, Economists Estimate

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Wireless Health Food Law Flowers Economics ]

Inside the daring helicopter flights that rescued 200 from a California fire

Military helicopters rescue more than 200 people trapped by wildfire in California

Rescuers in military helicopters airlifted 207 people to safety over the weekend after an explosive wildfire trapped them in a popular camping area in California's Sierra National Forest, one of dozens of fires burning amid record-breaking temperatures that strained the state's electrical grid and for a time threatened power outages for millions.

Creek Fire: National Guard Helicopter Crews Rescue 200+ Trapped Sierra Campers

https://twitter.com/ai6yrham/status/1302450062669148161

[ related topics: Nature and environment Aviation Current Events California Culture Pyrotechnics Aviation - Helicopters ]

A Black seventh-grader played with a toy gun during a virtual class. His school called the police.

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

Since we're clearly stuck on Barsoom, can anybody check to see if the access codes for the atmosphere plant still work?

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

I'd sprayed off this windshield yesterday...

[ related topics: Photography ]

The good news is that we installed those monster lights in the living room to help deal with the seasonal darkness blues; we just didn't think that season was gonna be September...

[ related topics: Photography Current Events ]

[ related topics: Photography Bay Area Machinery ]

Current inappropriate earworm: Nat King Cole's "Orange Colored Sky"... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-6QknAOsVo

[ related topics: Movies ]

The (Columbus Ohio) circus bus saga continues

[ related topics: Current Events Public Transportation ]

Swept up in the federal response to Portland protests: ‘I didn’t know if I was going to be seen again’

Videos obtained by The Washington Post show agents’ tactics during Trump operation

Interesting how many detainees were released without charges. It's almost like the DHS goons were just trying to make a show of force without actually basing their actions on anything...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Graphics ]

Twitter thread on Roman sex coins and a follow-up thread

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Currency ]

This morning I am pissed off enough at computers to consider ditching Ubuntu, rewriting all of my Perl stuff in something else, and adopting a no-database solution.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source Databases hubris ]

It was a rough week, so after the "Woke" binge, we said "what else is on Hulu?" last night and stumbled onto "We Are Freestyle Love Supreme". That was fun, a bunch of friends improv rapping, presented in a way that was inspiring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWrOxKt9yQc

[ related topics: Movies ]

September, when every car in the Bay Area is covered in a white layer of alkali dust. Even this year, without Burning Man...

[ related topics: Burning Man California Culture Automobiles Race ]

While I've been building stuff, I've had Song Exploder on my podcasts, but I just got to 99 Percent Invisible, and I do not need another book to read, but I think I'm gonna have to add Sarah Seo's Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom to my list. The fact that we subsidies cars heavily enough that we have to have one, and then have built a legal structure that's so discretionary, has caused... well... more reason to be working on unwinding some of the automobile impacts.

As if the existential threats we're facing weren't enough to begin with.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/policing-the-open-road/

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Books Privacy Law Work, productivity and environment Civil Liberties Automobiles Government ]

L.A. deputies tackled and arrested a reporter. Her videos contradict their claims about the incident.

Police claimed Huang, who also reports for LAist, didn’t have credentials and ignored demands to leave the area.

But those claims are contradicted by video Huang shared on Sunday showing her quickly backing away from police when ordered to do so and repeatedly identifying herself as a journalist. Huang said she also had a press badge around her neck.

Golly, LAPD lying about incidents that were caught on camera? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

[ related topics: Photography Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Video ]

Mashable: Twitter-controlled anal vibrators are the cyberpunk future we need

Say hello to the Double-Oh, a custom-built battery which theoretically allows for wireless control of any device that uses AA batteries. And, as its inventor Buck — the pseudonymous fursona of a 31-year-old maker based in Berlin — let Twitter know on Friday, that control extends to anal vibrators. 

To demonstrate his invention, Buck connected a Double-Oh-augmented vibrator, which was at that time in use, to a Twitter poll.

[ related topics: Wireless Erotic Sexual Culture Heinlein ]

Oracle Wins TikTok Sweepstakes, Rewarding Trump Donor Larry Ellison

Alleged cheating billionaire yachtsman Larry Ellison has long been very visible about his high-rolling Trump fundraisers and full-throated support of the president, so it’s little surprise to see the federal government shepherd a billion-dollar megadeal his way. Still, not many saw his Redwood City cloud company Oracle as a real contestant in the TikTok takeover frenzy, where US tech players like Microsoft and Twitter were bidding against one another for the short form video-sharing app that President Trump had deemed a Chinese state security threat. But the New York Times reports on a wild (and completely vague) last-minute deal that came together rather out of the blue on Sunday, just days before a Trump-imposed September 20 deadline for a sale, that sees Oracle win the bid to become a "trusted technology provider" for TikTok — which is clearly not an outright sale — but certainly gives the Trump-supporting Ellison a major victory and reason to donate more by gaining a new swath of 100 million new TikTok users who largely occupy the 18-24 age demographic.

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft Nature and environment Invention and Design moron Work, productivity and environment Marketing Currency New York Video Databases Woodworking ]

It's a new era of transparency for the Republican National Committee: Trump ad asks people to support the troops. But it uses a picture of Russian jets.

Edit: Twitter thread looking at stock footage in a Trump ad

[ related topics: Invention and Design Current Events ]

If you read only one security vulnerability disclosure about finding a former Australian Prime Minister's passport number from an Instagram post of his boarding pass today, make it this one. https://mango.pdf.zone/finding...tts-passport-number-on-instagram

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

CNN: House report blasts Boeing for its handling of 737 Max program

House Transportation Committee: Final Committe Report on the Boeing 737 Max

Twitter thread with some highlights from the report

Washington Post: Boeing 737 Max crashes were ‘horrific culmination’ of errors, investigators say

[ related topics: Politics Aviation Software Engineering Real Estate ]

For reading, from this Twitter thread about how historians view Howard Zinn, Dissent Magazine: Howard Zinn's History Lessons, and a Reddit collection of links on Zinn

Officers rewarded for use of force with steakhouse gift cards, former Williamson deputies say

Among the deputies who received gift cards to places such as Logan’s Roadhouse were J.J. Johnson and Zach Camden, the officers involved in the March 2019 death of Javier Ambler II. Officers used their Tasers on the Black 40-year-old father four times as he gasped that he had a heart condition and could not breathe.

Texas deputies reportedly received gift cards for use of force:

Former Sgt. Troy Brogden, who resigned from the department in 2019, confirmed Pisa’s claim and told the American-Statesman that Deaton gave the cards “for what he considered good uses of force.”

“He would talk about it in groups, including supervisors meetings and classes,” Brogden told the Statesman. “I was like, ‘What the hell?’”

[ related topics: Photography Movies Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Champion Of Gender Equality, Dies At 87

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Outsider’s Champion, Has Died at 87

[ related topics: Content Management Political Correctness Law Enforcement ]

Dave Grohl at Lemmy's funeral (YouTube video)

[ related topics: Movies Video ]

Obviously nothing that happens on your phone is private, but apparently the amplifier circuits in modern cell phones leak enough energy that audio can be listened to 20' away with a standard AM radio. Be interesting to see how directional antennas change this...

https://hackaday.com/2020/09/1...ning-to-an-iphone-with-am-radio/

[ related topics: Music iPhone ]

Twitter thread about how Twitter chooses which region of a picture to show, with examples using Mitch McConnell and Barack Obama

New Yorker: The Man Who Refused To Spy:

At the legal library in Seneca County Jail, Asgari happened on a quote from Robert Jackson, a Supreme Court Justice in the nineteen-forties and fifties: “Procedural fairness and regularity are of the indispensable essence of liberty. . . . Indeed, if put to the choice, one might well prefer to live under Soviet substantive law applied in good faith by our common-law procedures than under our substantive law enforced by Soviet procedural practices.” Asgari concluded that he was a victim of American law enforced by Soviet-style procedures.

[ related topics: Language Interactive Drama Books Invention and Design Theater & Plays Law Law Enforcement Gambling ]

Just a little reminder of the history terrorists and arson in Oregon:

Trump Pardons Ranchers Dwight And Steven Hammond Over 2012 Arson Conviction

Trump pardons Oregon cattle ranchers in case that sparked 41-day occupation of national wildlife refuge

[ related topics: Politics Law ]

35 years ago the Senate held hearings on rock lyrics. It was a First Amendment showdown for the ages.

Frank Zappa:

"The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years, dealing with the interpretation and enforcement problems inherent in the proposal's design. It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation."

Dee Snider:

"This was the Reagan years. Conservatives were reigning, and Al Gore was very much a conservative Dem," Snider said. "He changed his cloak when he started with [Bill] Clinton, and suddenly he was Mister Hipster."

"There was a point when I was doing my testimony — I think I said his wife had a dirty mind — if he could have me taken out and shot, he would have. His eyes were so hostile and infuriated because I was taking them at every turn. No matter what they tried to throw at me, I had an answer for it — except for the name of the fan club."

Via Sensible Endowment, in the comments there there was a link to current events: Twisted Sister singer to anti-maskers: Don’t use our song:

In a tweet Wednesday, Snider called the stunt “moronic,” and shared a video that was recorded by an upset customer inside the Target at Coral Ridge Mall in Fort Lauderdale. The video had more than 30 million views.

[ related topics: Ziffle Children and growing up Interactive Drama Politics Civil Liberties Graphic Design Marriage ]

"I need to stop by the hardware store for a screw." "Yeah, the bars aren't open these days."

Glue up for the headboard, it's coming together...

[ related topics: Photography Gambling ]

Lower shelf for the headboard, with the standing desk linear actuators

[ related topics: Photography Gambling ]

Oh look, the Democrats have decided they want to run after all: Cannabis in the presidential race: Biden-Harris pledge to decriminalize marijuana

[ related topics: Drugs Current Events ]

Bicycling: Everyone Has a Tom Pritchard Story. Only I Have His Bike.

This chef with a thousand tall tales lived a life too mythical to be true—but it was. Now, his legend lives on in a charmed, mysterious bicycle.

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Food Sociology California Culture Sports Pedal Power Bicycling ]

The air isn't great, but it doesn't actively smell of smoke

[ related topics: Photography Gambling ]

Buzzfeed on the FinCen leak, part 7 — HSBC got busted for moving dirty money.

“I thought imposing a big fine, appointing a monitor, and giving the bank a chance to change might work," said Bean. "But when the Justice Department, backed by the courts, became very secretive about what the monitor was finding at HSBC, that was the death knell. Secret oversight and secret reports don’t produce meaningful change.”

[ related topics: Health Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement Currency ]

Police misconduct, such as falsifying evidence, is a leading cause of wrongful convictions, study finds

Researchers studied 2,400 convictions of defendants who were later found innocent over a 30-year period and found that 35% of these cases involved some type of misconduct by police. More than half – 54% – involved misconduct by police or prosecutors.

National Registry of Exonerations — Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent — The Role of Prosecutors, Police and Other Law Enforcement

[ related topics: Politics moron Current Events Law Enforcement ]

RT sunny @PhysInHistory

The Feynman Lectures on Physics, the most popular physics book ever written, are completely online. Read it here:

Volume 1: https://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_toc.html

Volume 2: https://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_toc.html

Volume 3: https://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_toc.html

[ related topics: Books ]

Finishing up Vincent Bevins's "The Jakarta Method". Wondering if I want to read more about the impacts of US foreign policy in the latter half of the 20th Century, or if I want blissful ignorance, here as the US is descending into civil war.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama History ]

Copied over from Facebook:

A number of my friends have linked to https://spotthetroll.org/, but... it seems like their criteria are kinda loose, and this is more like an exercise in "guess what criteria we've used to decide who's a troll and who isn't" than anything. I mean, sure, some of these posters are indeed identifiable individuals in the real world, and some of them aren't, but in the case of several examples here, if they're actively pushing misinformation, does it matter that occasionally they post a snippet of humanity?

The real problem is that we let the social media aggregators decide which posts we see (and which ones we're shown over and over and over again, even when the original poster didn't intend to make that strong a point) in order to sell "engagement".

Anyway, blog, y'all. Or publish on IPFS or SSB or something so that we can get some disintermediation going here.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Weblogs Law Journalism and Media ]

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Sociology California Culture Race ]

Dutch lawmakers demand answers after U.S. ambassador holds party for right-wing populists at embassy. At issue is how clearly it was a fundraiser for the Forum for Democracy (FvD) party.

Sjoerd Wiemer Sjoerdsma, a member of parliament and foreign policy spokesman for Democrats 66, a liberal party in the Dutch coalition government, raised the issue at parliament Tuesday and called on the Foreign Ministry to investigate whether Hoekstra had “facilitated a fund raising event for a political party.”

“That would be a violation of the Treaty of Vienna,” Sjoerdsma said in a message to The Washington Post, referring to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations — an international agreement to which the United States and the Netherlands are signatories.

[ related topics: Politics moron Community ]

It's decorative gourd season, motherfuckers!

[ related topics: Photography ]

RT Greg Linares @Laughing_Mantis

Ever want to test systems & see if your password is ever stored/sent in plaintext?

Make it: X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

I am on the phone with a vendor right now because my test account is in an inoperable state.

In case you don't recognize that string immediately, it is the EICAR Standard Antivirus Test File:

This test file has been provided to EICAR for distribution as the „EICAR Standard Anti-Virus Test File“, and it satisfies all the criteria listed above. It is safe to pass around, because it is not a virus, and does not include any fragments of viral code. Most products react to it as if it were a virus (though they typically report it with an obvious name, such as „EICAR-AV-Test“).

The file is a legitimate DOS program, and produces sensible results when run (it prints the message „EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!“).

[ related topics: Interactive Drama virus Bay Area Software Engineering Law ]

Older people have become younger: physical and cognitive function have improved meaningfully in 30 years

The functional ability of older people is nowadays better when it is compared to that of people at the same age three decades ago. This was observed in a study conducted at the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The study compared the physical and cognitive performance of people nowadays between the ages of 75 and 80 with that of the same-aged people in the 1990s.

Koivunen, K, Sillanpää, E, Munukka, M, Portegijs, E, Rantanen, T. Cohort differences in maximal physical performance: a comparison of 75- and 80-year-old men and women born 28 years apart. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glaa224.

Munukka M, Koivunen K, von Bonsdorff M, Sipilä S, Portegijs, E, Ruoppila I, Rantanen T. Birth cohort differences in cognitive performance in 75- and 80-Year-Olds - A comparison of two cohorts over 28 years. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-020-01702-0.

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design Theater & Plays Mathematics Education ]

Mother Jones: The Cop Who Quit Instead of Helping to Gentrify Atlanta:

It dawned on me that the entire system, the entire thing, was just a shitty mafia system. If you tried to do a good job and say, “I’m going to be a good cop, and I’m going to obey commands,” they would abandon you, charge you, leave you behind, and not even think twice. If you didn’t obey the rules, then they were gonna charge you for that. And if you tried to remain quiet and do your job, you are going to be a piece of modern-day redlining that way, too. There was no way that I could exist and feel good about it. And because I didn’t have to—and that’s the privilege part—I just decided not to.

When I told the department I was quitting, they said, “Good for you. If I could quit, I would quit.” My supervisor literally said: “Can we get together after work and you tell me what else I can do? I don’t know what else to do and I cannot stomach being here.”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement Heinlein ]

Pineville Louisiana Police Department says officer made up ambush story, booked on charges

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement ]

What to Remember When You’re on a Zoom Call

Some absolutely amazing "anarchist jurisdiction" cover art about Seattle and Portland from David Walker https://www.facebook.com/KeepP...landWeird/posts/4410187159022868

[ related topics: Art & Culture Seattle ]

So the question we Californians have to be asking is: How good is Scrub Oak as a smoking wood? Because we need to keep the fuel load down, we have an overpopulation problem involving a lot of very muscled low fat pigs... I'm thinking that we may just have to go on a diet of smoked pulled-pork barbecue sliders.

For the environment.

North America faced with 'time-bomb' of millions of 'super pigs'

Later addendum: More seriously, apparently hunting doesn't work well: Feral hog experts to lawmakers: 'You can't hunt your way out of this problem'

“Allowing people to hunt them, putting a meat market in there and not regulating the movement of pigs allowed us to go from a few thousand pigs to 2.6 million to 3 million pigs,” Bodenchuk said. “Our experience is that’s a train wreck.”

[ related topics: Drugs Nature and environment Food Current Events Woodworking ]

Sitting here giggling: McSweeney's: Bruce Springsteen or Stephen King by Amanda Lehr

I'm liking what thinking about this framing is helping me consider: These Are Words Scholars Should No Longer Use to Describe Slavery and the Civil War

[ related topics: History ]

Hackaday — Dynamic Soaring: 545 MPH RC planes have no motor. Slope soaring R/C glider enthusiasts have learned that they can use the vortex on the lee side of the hill to get into a tight loop where they can gain energy.

[ related topics: Toys Model Building ]

please wear a mask @mountain_ghosts

data science is when you have a lot of points in a sort of cloud shape and you draw a big straight line through them. the more points you have the more data science it is

Ah, leaving an AWS console up overnight...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Assorted fabrics and sewing supplies for Freecycle

[ related topics: Photography ]

Coming together. Strategizing on the upper door tracks and (sliding bypass) doors now...

[ related topics: Photography ]

First off, this is 81.1.1-beta.5, second, if given a choice, I trust Firefox way more than Lookout Security...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography ]

AirNow claims the AQI is 25, but we're starting to smell the smoke, and there's falling ash...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Obviously still needs the doors, but here the headboard cabinet is in place

[ related topics: Photography Home Improvement ]

Headboard cabinet in the up position. Room for hampers on the side, and high enough above thefloor even when retracted that the cats can get under the bed (where they nest in the drawer with my socks and t-shirts).

[ related topics: Photography Clothing Furniture Home Improvement ]

RT MSNBC @MSNBC

Biden campaign on President Trump's attempts to make up a drug test policy for the upcoming presidential debate:

Joe Biden "intends to deliver his debate answers in words. If the president thinks his best case is made in urine he can have at it." (1/2)

and

"We’d expect nothing less from Donald Trump, who pissed away the chance to protect the lives of 200K Americans when he didn't make a plan to stop COVID-19." (2/2)

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Health Law ]

Everyone with a pulse has seen New York Times: The President’s Taxes — Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

It's interesting not just because of the tax avoidance, but because there are a lot of outstanding debts there, and interesting side revenue streams.

But one of the strategies he may have used for tax avoidance involves claiming 10x the purchase value on donations of failed ventures... A Failed Trump Golf Course Is Now a Dilapidated State Park – but Is It Worth $26.1 Million?.

And, just because I was gonna use the "They made Carter sell his peanut farm" trope, but went to verify. From a year ago: The story of Jimmy Carter’s peanut farm is a bit more complicated than you may have heard

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Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody indicted, arrested on felony tampering with evidence charge in Javier Ambler death case

The charge comes after months of calls for Chody to resign, after the in-custody death of Ambler, which was recorded during a taping of the A&E reality show “Live P.D.” The chase that ended in Javier Ambler’s death was never aired on television and all footage from the scene was destroyed.

All footage was destroyed? Oh hell yes there need to be indictments.

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Fox News: California sheriff's deputies say they didn't know it was illegal to lie about evidence on police reports: report

Bryce Richmond Simpson, 31, and Joseph Anthony Atkinson Jr., 39, testified to a grand jury on Sept. 21 that they were never told it was illegal to write in police reports that they had submitted evidence when they actually had not, the Orange County Register recently reported, citing transcripts of their testimony. Deputies were typically expected to submit evidence by the end of their workdays.

OC Sheriff Evidence Booking Scandal Expands With 15 More Investigations of Deputies Disclosed

“Literally 1,100 deputies booked evidence late, and that was only doing a partial audit. So there should be hundreds more deputies subject to prosecution,” [Assistant Public Defender Scott] Sanders said.

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement California Culture Gambling ]

Well, I just had a square dance calling gig reschedule from February '21 to February '23. I think they're being realistic, but damn, that's pretty realistic.

[ related topics: Gambling ]

Albuquerque Police Surveillance Linked to Companies Who Work with Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, CIA, Documents Show

The Albuquerque Police Department (APD), with the help of private companies, built a large and sophisticated intelligence gathering operation. One company is slowly building a database of every license plate in the United States. Another has clients that include neo-Nazi and white supremacist websites, and more than a half dozen groups listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. Department of State. A third sells its surveillance technology to authoritarian regimes that use it as part of investigations that include torture. A fourth is partly owned by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). And a fifth, as we previously reported, is linked to a company investigated by the New Mexico Attorney General for hosting child pornography on its servers.

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My hobby is accidentally creating infinite recursion crashes by creating Objective-C setter functions with poorly chosen names.

Jill Filipovic @JillFilipovic

“Will you shut up, man” is the line of the night 😂😂

RT Jill Filipovic @JillFilipovic

I so feel for Hillary right now because I’m positive she wanted to say that and couldn’t.

RT @HillaryClinton

You have no idea.

RT Mike Reese @SheriffReese

In tonight’s presidential debate the President said the “Portland Sheriff” supports him. As the Multnomah County Sheriff I have never supported Donald Trump and will never support him.

RT dontdrinkbeer @dontdrinkbeer

If the debate was going to be one incoherent dude constantly interrupting with rambling nonsense, then it should have been moderated by a brewery tasting room server.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

What a fucking dissembling liar. Trump says he doesn't know who Proud Boys are after telling them to "stand by":

TRUMP: "I don't know who the Proud Boys are. You'll have to give me a definition because I really don't know who they are. I can only say they have to stand down and let law enforcement do their work. ... As people see how bad this radical liberal Democrat movement is and how weak, the law enforcement is going to come back stronger and stronger. But again, I don't know who Proud Boys are, but whoever they are, they have to stand down and let law enforcement do their work.

And:

...but again, I don't know who Proud Boys are, but whoever they are they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work. ...

Let's go to the transcript, where the first use of the word "proud" occurs at 42:18:

President Donald J. Trump: (42:10) What do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name, go ahead who do you want me to condemn.

Chris Wallace: (42:14) White supremacist and right-wing militia.

President Donald J. Trump: (42:18) Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right wing problem this is a left wing.

I don't know how we'd ever prove it, but if the phrase "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by" wasn't explicitly part of the debate prep, I'll eat my hat.

Jason Kottke has it right: The President Is a White Supremacist. And So Are You if You Support Him.

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Fascinating look at how the lore of an industry overtook optimization: Ag Web: A Skeptical Farmer’s Monster Message on Profitability

“That was when a light bulb truly came on in my head. We started making room in the budget, prioritizing cover planting in the fall, and covering every acre when possible. Cover crops were no longer optional—they had to be on every acre. No doubt, if we hadn’t changed our way of farming, we’d have been out of business. In my opinion, farming has become a convenience-first enterprise, and not a profit-first enterprise. So many of the things I see in farming that make no sense really come down to convenience.”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Gardening ]