Flutterby™! From 2022-02-01 to 2022-02-28

Aside from those pieces I got upside down in the first glue-up, which I'll solve with sanding and fudging, that's starting to come together.

Doh: now with image. Aside from those pieces I got upside down in the first glue-up, which I'll solve with sanding and fudging, that's starting to come together.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Confession: Any time I start a sentence with "To be fair, though...", I'm probably not.

Hard water problems: Disassembling a Moen faucet, the valve core is clean, filled the chamber with white vinegar, something is *finally* coming out of the faucet, but... probably better to just replace the whole thing rather than further disassemble. Sigh.

[ related topics: Race ]

Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities for the First 9 Months (January–September) of 2021

Summary A statistical projection of traffic fatalities for the first 9 months of 2021 shows that an estimated 31,720 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes nationwide. This represents an increase of about 12.0 percent as compared to 28,325 fatalities that were projected in the first 9 months of 2020, as shown in Table 1. This also represents the highest number of fatalities during the first 9 months of the year since 2006 and the highest percentage increase during the first 9 months in the recorded history of data in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).

[ related topics: Television Furniture ]

RT seneris @SenerisYt

English has an active voice, a passive voice, and a secret unlockable exhonerative voice that only journalists who are describing cops and soldiers actions use

[ related topics: Journalism and Media Law Enforcement ]

I'm seeing lots of reports that the cops in Ottowa are letting the convoy of a couple of truckers run roughshod over the town, not enforcing various laws, but apparently shit has finally started to get real.

Gator⚡Gum @gator_gum

Hearing lots of trucks out of gas, and not able to get any brought it. The channel is asking for people to start loading up and using jerrycans, trying to crowd source. They're also worried about contaminated gas coming in. Big issue with some nasty weather on the way.

Carl Boucher @CarlBoucherKnee Replying to @gator_gum

It is a time-honoured tradition for Nazis to be defeated by a harsh winter and a lack of gasoline.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Machinery Government ]

It's hard to visualize how these things are good come out sometimes, but here's where I stopped sanding this evening....

[ related topics: Photography ]

When you don't understand the subject well enough to know that the attribute is negatively correlated, not positively correlated...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Corporations send large donations to GOP group behind abortion bans and voter suppression

The RSLC bills itself as "the largest organization of Republican state leaders in the country" that helps "deliver wins for Republican state legislators." It helps Republicans gain control of state legislatures through direct financial support, research assistance, campaign strategy, and policy development. The group says that it "consistently delivered positive results by targeting national resources to support state races" and takes credit for the fact that "Republicans currently hold majorities in 61 of 99 state legislative chambers."

Nevertheless, numerous corporations that publicly declare their commitment to women's equality and voting rights donated large sums to the RSLC in 2021. The information was buried in a 10,055 page PDF that the RSLC filed with the IRS on Monday.

[ related topics: Politics Sexual Culture Political Correctness Civil Liberties Race ]

Greater Greater Washington: Skateboarding is good for cities. So why is it a crime in DC?

In fact, your city should be a skate park, but we should have separate skate parks too.

I like Larry's idea of wrapping the rim in jute, and it needs a few coats of oil, but I wanted to get it up.

[ related topics: Photography ]

I'll have to take some pictures after oil and during the day....

[ related topics: Photography ]

D.C. Police Delayed Or Denied Public Records Requests From Critics On ‘Watchlist,’ Says Lawsuit

A defense attorney says in a new lawsuit that the Metropolitan Police Department maintained a “watchlist” of lawyers, activists, and reporters whose requests for public records would be subjected to additional scrutiny, delayed, or outright denied as a means to stop critical or embarrassing revelations from coming to light.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Law Law Enforcement ]

RT Jake Lambert @LittleLostLad

The spelling of Irish names is my pet piamh

Sun shade wheel during the day

[ related topics: Photography Java ]

More sun shade wheel during the day

[ related topics: Photography Java ]

More Sun shade wheel

[ related topics: Photography Java ]

One more sun shade wheel

[ related topics: Photography Java ]

Just copying over from posterity: On a MeFi entry that links to There Are Too Many Video Games, I wrote:

I think there's a question here about for whom we make our art. If we're doing it just for ourselves, great, any external appreciation is a bonus. I have a hobby like that.

If we do it for our community, or for the accolades, it gets a little harder. As has been mentioned up-thread, the mass market means there's a lot of really good art widely distributed, and unless there's something specific to a differentiated community or differentiated people, the product, of, say, the little bit of time I spend singing arpeggios at my garage walls, is unlikely to find a broad market. No matter how much my wife appreciates it.

But there's this middle-ground where there might be a community, and might not, and then we have to start to weigh off how much of that artistic endeavor we want to put into our own projects, how much we want to put into building some sort of group, and how much energy we want to expend to appreciate the art of others.

I'm the sort of person who quickly gets pushed to front and center of any thing I get interested in, but I'm not super good at building group relationships and dynamics, so I have two things where I and a few other people have built small communities and put on small events. By "small" I mean events with from, say, ten-ish to 60-ish people.

As we've talked about growing those two groups (on wildly different topics) more, we come into the problem of too damned many things to be involved in. The larger of those groups is focused on civic engagement, and we do about two presentations a month, but we're trying to get people involved in the larger community, and suddenly that's two or three City meetings a month, plus whatever sort of unofficial meetings with other groups we want to be chatting with, and...

A couple of months ago I went to a picnic organized by a local Pride organization and it was like "oh, maybe we don't need more organizers and leaders, maybe we just need more people coming to picnics".

Maybe I don't need to be the community organizer, maybe I need to be knocking on doors for candidates. Maybe I don't need to be calling the square dances and trying to build a square dance club, maybe I need to be taking swing lessons, or doing something else that roughly interchanges. Maybe I don't need to be performing, maybe I just need to be the audience.

I think a lot of us are finding that we don't have the sorts of community connections and strength that we'd really like, and we'd love for our art to be the focus of those community connections, but the sorts of people that we really want to connect with also want their art to be the focus, and we haven't figured out how to collaborate on that art.

And that's the real struggle, because, of course, the wider we collaborate, the more like bland mass-market that art becomes, and the more we're competing with the people at the top of their game who've dedicated their lives to something that replicates easily.

I mean, I've got a few friends who are making games, or writing, or whatever. I love their work, but part of why I love their work is my connection with them, their work doesn't have that thing that'd make it mass market. Do I have time to consume everything they're putting out and work on my own stuff?

I don't, and so I go on making things that, when my friends see them, say "this is really cool" and "I really appreciate that you're doing this", but that aren't really changing the world. And I deeply understand that frustration.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Writing Work, productivity and environment Art & Culture Community Video Economics Marriage ]

Darrell Owens: The Meter Maids, Bikes & Cars of L.A. — I delve into the "parking enforcement is ACAB" debate in Los Angeles.

[ related topics: Bicycling ]

For reasons, I had a restaurant web site open in a tab. I stumbled back on to it, the menu looked great, but it took me 4 clicks and a long scroll to remind myself of where the restaurant freakin' was. Hmmmm...

[ related topics: Food ]

Marvel at this sculpture made of 100 vibrators — Game of (Vibrating) Thrones.

Given that the toy has long sparked creativity from its users, Vibratex — the only North American importer of Magic Wand — decided to hold a contest aptly called "Pleasure As Art."  The winner, Miami-based artist Dafne Blade, designed and crafted a sculpture made of over 100 decommissioned wands that's not only stunning, but evocative of Game of Thrones. 

[ related topics: Erotic Games Sexual Culture Art & Culture Clowns ]

RT maxwell @maxwellstrachan

absolutely horrifying: amazon’s algorithm identified a product that people were using to commit suicide.

it then started to recommend additional products that made the suicide easier to executte. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/0...suicide-poison-preservative.html

[ related topics: Books ]

The pandemic has been hard on my enthusiasm for square dancing. In the few years the Petaluma group has been going, it's been kicked down to nothing by fires, by floods, by ... I know there was another natural disaster in there. Every time we build it up to 3 squares, something happens and kaboom. And then the pandemic hit.

And in the mean time I've been having conversations online. I was one of the first people to buy a Zoom subscription, so I've been host of a Saturday meetup for newer square dance callers that's been going strong, and having lots of conversations with various people in the square dance community, and some of it has made me wonder about whether this is the right hobby to use to hang community off of. I mean, even as the roots of square dancing are in Black America, the whole Henry Ford promoting square dance because of his prejudices thing is also real, and much of the community is... not my people, and the whole hierarchical notion of a bunch of people operating in synchrony under the direction of one can be problematic if you look at it through some of those lenses.

And I've got other venues; Know Before You Grow is growing and taking up a lot of time, the Cool Cities Challenge is starting to kick in and causing me to meet even more of my neighbors, I have no shortage of opportunities for building community.

So my enthusiasm for square dance calling has been flagging.

About a year after we started square dancing, in 2013, we went to the IAGSDC Convention in San Francisco. And had so much fun there that we went to all of the subsequent ones through 2019. At the SF convention, we met a family that was local to us that brought fantastic energy to the dance floor, and we hoped to run into them again, but we didn't, and kinda wondered. You can see them in the front square in this video (Charlene and I are visible in the square behind them). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kxZGr2SrDo Scott Byars is a caller of some renown who has been a mentor to many of us, and who is having some health problems that are stopping him from calling, and there's a celebration of his life coming up at the end of the month. And I've been looking at it like I wanna go, but I'm still not really comfortable being inside with other people yet. So last night I get a call from a friend and neighbor, saying "hey, there's this family that used to dance, that wants to go to the Scott Byars celebration, that needs a refresher, would you....?"

I offered the back deck, figured it was outside, and they all were hanging out with each other anyway. They came over. It was the same family (a decade later). We started with "join hands & circle left", got a good bit of the way through Plus, and it was So. Much. Fun.

I miss dancing. I still haven't gotten back to dancing. But calling again, getting in front of a mic again, actually using this voice I've been practicing so much with, was amazing.

Which, I guess, means that I'm gonna continue to make square dance calling a core part of my community building.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Health Movies Bay Area Sociology California Culture Automobiles Community Video ]

The fetishization of car culture goes deep: Carscoops: Google’s AI Finds This Strosek Porsche Interior Photo Sexually Arousing

Hat tip to Research Buzz

[ related topics: Hardware Hackery Photography Robotics Sociology California Culture Eric's Life Automobiles Embedded Devices Artificial Intelligence ]

Now this is some quality shitposting: Yes, I can connect to a DB in CSS. Building a bridge between CSS and JavaScript to allow querying of SQLite files...

[ related topics: Databases ]

Kellogg Insight: If you handed the same data to 164 teams of economists and asked them to answer the same questions, would they reach a consensus? Or would they offer 164 different answers?

I wasn't sure I was gonna link this one, because it's kinda nuanced and deep, but then I saw the "Suggested Citation" and had to... SSRN: Non-Standard Errors

Abstract In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data-generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in sample estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence-generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty: non-standard errors. To study them, we let 164 teams test six hypotheses on the same sample. We find that non-standard errors are sizeable, on par with standard errors. Their size (i) co-varies only weakly with team merits, reproducibility, or peer rating, (ii) declines significantly after peer-feedback, and (iii) is underestimated by participants.

https://ssrn.com/abstract=3961574 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3961574

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Mathematics Economics Woodworking ]

I've been thinking a lot recently about the ways in which the carceral system is worse than self-perpetuating. As I have more conversations with people who've been incarcerated, I start to view the prison culture that Buzzy Martin described feeling uncomfortable with in Don't Shoot, I'm The Guitar Man as not the product of violent people in a violent culture, but as rational people responding to the circumstances that the prison guards and wardens have imposed on them.

Prison culture and the "justice system" have lost any veneer of attempting to be about making society better, or reform, or what-have-you, and simply become a dumping ground where we've let the most violent and out of control members of our society go nuts on those who suffer from mental health problems or trauma from upbringing in social circumstances that we've al so created.

So this rang true this morning: Joseph Margulies in Justia Verdict: No More Prison Success Tokenism

Like most people, I love these stories and am thrilled for people like Mr. Hudson. Who doesn’t love a good redemption story with a happy ending? But something about them bothers me a great deal. Not the fact that a small number of people are achieving great and highly visible success despite decades in prison, but that there are so few who do—few enough that their jobs and awards and speeches and meetings still make national news. Not the fact that society forgives these few people who had been sentenced to so many years, but that it angrily refuses to forgive so many others in the same boat. And not the fact that the press celebrates these few people in a carefully choreographed dance between redeemed and redeemer, but that the happy coverage creates the comforting impression that as a society we are no longer so punitive, so vindictive, and so cruel, when in fact, we are—if anything—even worse.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Health Sociology Current Events Journalism and Media Law Enforcement California Culture Boats Machinery Woodworking ]

This is fantastic: Lenny Lipton, 3d technology pioneer, is also the accidental lyricist for the Peter, Paul & Mary hit "Puff the Magic Dragon". Lenny Lipton: Thank you, Puff The Magic Dragon:

This May will be the fiftieth birthday of Puff, but you might want to count the anniversary from when the record was released in 1963. In any event, here’s to Puff, the Magic Dragon. Puff was my financier. Puff funded my work in electronic stereoscopic displays. Puff, unlike my other investors, never asked for anything back.  He never grilled me at a board meeting, he never lectured me about having to make a profit, he never told me that I had to cut out projects I loved.  He never ask for subordinated this or that or warrants. He never was greedy or a pain in the ass.  He never lied to me or changed the deal at the eleventh hour. He was always respectful. Puff’s been a generous, forgiving and kindly investor – one who has never stopped giving. So thank you, Puff. Thank you, Jackie Paper. And thank you, Honalee. I’m heading your way.

Via, and more background at, Metafilter: Lenny the One Hit Wonder

[ related topics: Privacy Work, productivity and environment Graphics Clowns ]

I've been looking for inspiration on some of the local activism I've been involved in. In that vein, an interesting read on local organizing The Nation: The Town That QAnon Nearly Swallowed, about Sequim Washington, a town that seemed to be driven by Q fanatics, and when the sanity coalition organized managed to drive them out with 2 to 1 margins, with candidates at both ends of the left-right spectrum.

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Politics ]

Science Daily: Did comet's fiery destruction lead to downfall of ancient Hopewell?

The rapid decline of the Hopewell culture about 1,500 years ago might be explained by falling debris from a near-Earth comet that created a devastating explosion over North America, laying waste to forests and Native American villages alike. Researchers found evidence of a cosmic airburst at 11 Hopewell archaeological sites in three states stretching across the Ohio River Valley.

Nature Scientific Reports: The Hopewell airburst event, 1699–1567 years ago (252–383 CE)

Abstract Meteorites, Fe and Si-rich microspherules, positive Ir and Pt anomalies, and burned charcoal-rich Hopewell habitation surfaces demonstrate that a cosmic airburst event occurred over the Ohio River valley during the late Holocene. A comet-shaped earthwork was constructed near the airburst epicenter. Twenty-nine radiocarbon ages establish that the event occurred between 252 and 383 CE, a time when 69 near-Earth comets were documented. While Hopewell people survived the catastrophic event, it likely contributed to their cultural decline. The Hopewell airburst event expands our understanding of the frequency and impact of cataclysmic cosmic events on complex human societies.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05758-y

[ related topics: Nature and environment Astronomy Sociology California Culture ]

Well poop, there's a whole lot of mythology busted: Jim Lill — Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In An Electric Guitar? (YouTube video)

In which the narrator eventually gets to stretching guitar strings between two pieces of furniture in order to narrow down exactly where the differences in electric guitar sounds come from.

Context and further understanding for repeating the electric guitar build I did with Daniel

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Music Photography Movies Video ]

Forbes: Lifetime Cost Of Small Car $689,000; Society Subsidizes This Ownership With $275,000

I... uh... strongly suspect that the "Society Subsidizes.." number is very very low.

[ related topics: Automobiles Archival ]

RT milf twink @SamAllenX

yeah i'm into NFTs (nonbinary femme tops)

OMG! Need to consider this for the next time we're making desserts for some event: Twitter thread about making holographic chocolate by tempering it and pouring it on to a diffraction grating

[ related topics: Chocolate ]

Charlene forwarded me a "best of" one of those "Got Talent" compilations, and all of the performances were decent, but two stood out for me. The recent Spotify kerfluffle, and the fact that I'm kinda getting bored with our music library, made me think "I should go pick up their albums".

Yoli Mayor's last Twitter update is from December 2019, and her tweets from that era are about a free show at a coffee house in Miami. Her web site has disappeared. Jasmine Elcock's last performance updates on social media seem to be from August of 2016.

I can't find a place to buy music from either of them. The "Long Tail" appears to be non-existent.

I'm not sure what all to derive from this, but it's a gentle nudge pushing me to be supporting those smaller artists who are bringing new takes into my world.

[ related topics: Language Books Music Invention and Design Theater & Plays Journalism and Media Art & Culture Real Estate ]

If you like word guessing games, but are tired of letters and spelling: Semantle

Each guess must be a word (of any length) or short phrase. The game will tell you how semantically similar it thinks your word is to the secret word. Unlike that other word game, it's not about the spelling; it's about the meaning. The similarity value comes from Word2vec. The highest possible similarity is 100 (indicating that the words are identical and you have won).

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games ]

If you need a good satisfying Confederate flag burning today: "Scars and Bars" is Gary Chambers' latest ad for his US Senate run (YouTube video).

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Movies Video ]

Had to install a quarter of a gigabyte of Microsoft Teams for a video conference that should have been a Zoom or Meet. Went through the login process, and already convinced that this is a horrible POS.

[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Currency Video Conferences ]

radio killed the infotainment star — Radio station snafu in Seattle bricks some Mazda infotainment systems

The problem was a broadcast containing image files with no extensions.

[ related topics: Automobiles ]

Twitter 2FA text service was secretly helping governments locate people, obtain call logs

[ related topics: Privacy ]

Energizing chat in Know Before You Grow this evening with Charles Marohn, of Strong Towns fame, and author of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. Strongly recommended, including the Q&A session at the end. https://youtu.be/asKJw824bLU

Keywords: Cars, car, bollard, bollards, pedestrian, crosswalk, justice

https://twitter.com/bontrager_keith/status/1491572910149881856

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Automobiles ]

Saw an ad on Facebook for a deal on some music production electronics. Thought I might bite, but then realized Facebook ad, so interesting deal was likely a scam. Wonder what that means for Meta's future...

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

So here's the Facebook ad I was talking about. Ya click through, they're offering it for $100. List is $699-$1399 (box art vs device art). It's clearly a scam, and the result is that ads on Facebook remove value from a product.

[ related topics: Photography moron Art & Culture ]

Nature Medicine: Long-term cardiovascular outcomes of COVID-19

We show that, beyond the first 30 d after infection, individuals with COVID-19 are at increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease spanning several categories, including cerebrovascular disorders, dysrhythmias, ischemic and non-ischemic heart disease, pericarditis, myocarditis, heart failure and thromboembolic disease. These risks and burdens were evident even among individuals who were not hospitalized during the acute phase of the infection and increased in a graded fashion according to the care setting during the acute phase (non-hospitalized, hospitalized and admitted to intensive care). Our results provide evidence that the risk and 1-year burden of cardiovascular disease in survivors of acute COVID-19 are substantial. Care pathways of those surviving the acute episode of COVID-19 should include attention to cardiovascular health and disease.

[ related topics: Health Nature and environment Fashion ]

The Dutch Solution for Safer Sidewalks - Continuous Sidewalks (YouTube video)

[ related topics: Movies Video ]

https://utf-8.jp/public/aaencode.html

aaencode - Encode any JavaScript program to Japanese style emoticons (^_^)

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

DSHR's blog: EE380 Talk:

Because miners' opex and capex costs cannot be paid in the blockchain's cryptocurrency, exchanges are required to enable the rewards for mining to be converted into fiat currency to pay these costs. Someone needs to be on the other side of these sell orders. The only reason to be on the buy side of these orders is the belief that "number go up". Thus the exchanges need to attract speculators in order to perform their function.

Thus a permissionless blockchain requires a cryptocurrency to function, and this cryptocurrency requires speculation to function.

[ related topics: Weblogs Sociology Mathematics California Culture Currency ]

66 years ago, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous tried LSD — and ignited a controversy still raging today.

Via Research Buzz

[ related topics: Drugs ]

Anti-news: Washington Post — Opinion: Confirmed: Trump’s big U.S.-China trade deal was a flop

The purchases of U.S. exports that China did make in the past two years barely got back to the amount China was purchasing in 2017 — before Mr. Trump started his trade war, according to calculations by Chad P. Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. U.S. exporters will never get back the sales they lost, and few have seen any meaningful growth in their sales to China under the “deal.” “The only undisputed ‘historical’ aspect of that agreement is its failure,” said Mr. Bown.

[ related topics: Movies History Current Events Consumerism and advertising Economics ]

Calling for all cryptocurrencies and related financial products to be banned in 2022 is like calling for the Glass-Steagall Act in 1928.

Charlene mentioned wanting an outdoor bowl for trinkets by the swim spa. I had a chunk of 2 by Ipe scrap and a hankering to play with the Arbortech​​ cutter, which we've had for a while but haven't really used.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Just closing tabs. Not exactly news, but I'll want to find it again: STUDY: 20 Is Plenty — But Signs Alone Don’t Always Get Drivers to Slow Down

In a recent study from Portland State University, researchers examined what happened in the six months after the Portland City Council finished the process of reducing speed limits in residential areas from 25 miles per hour to 20 mph. In addition to updating the nearly 1,000 speed limit signs the city had already put up, the City of Roses also added more than 1,000 new signs to remind drivers to slow down in places where limits were previously unclear; they also distributed roughly 7,000 yard signs that declared to all road users that “Twenty Is Plenty,” as part of an overreaching public awareness campaign.

Although the average speed only dropped by 1.4MPH, it does seem like there were fewer very fast drivers...

[ related topics: Invention and Design Current Events Education Flowers ]

RT @rcm____

With inflation at 7.5%, you lose half your money in 9 years. The only way to outperform that consistently, that I have found, is crypto. Just this year I’ve already lost half my money.

[ related topics: Cryptography Currency Economics ]

Fixing legacy software when the runtime is the mind of a believer: For years, a Catholic priest used one wrong word during baptisms. The church now says the rituals were invalid.

The mistake goes beyond baptism, the first Catholic sacrament. Because baptism is a sacrament that opens the door to others, if an individual was improperly baptized by Arango and later received other sacraments, such as confirmation or marriage, they may need to repeat some or all of those sacraments after they are validly baptized.

Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix news release.

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama Software Engineering Sociology Current Events Marriage ]

This is exactly the sort of thing I do: ‘My wife says I’m getting weird’: Man offers free pancakes to make friends

‘She says I need to make friends,’ the fliers read, inviting neighbors to a party in front of his San Francisco home. ‘So I’m making pancakes.’

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture Marriage ]

So "metamate" has the same vowel sounds as "yerba mate", right?

[ related topics: Sociology ]

Using CSS to create a resizable element.

https://jsfiddle.net/jamesbrndwgn/24b18k9g/

The convergence of a whole lot of things here: ‘Freedom Convoy’ Truckers Struggle to Cash Out Bitcoin Worth $1 Million

It's actually not a story about converting the Bitcoin to cash, it's a story about trying to figure out how to distribute money in an environment with a lot of competing privacy and trust concerns.

Though I think their paranoia over printers may be a little bit overblown.

[ related topics: Privacy Nature and environment Civil Liberties Currency Government ]

The mental gymnastics people go through when ya point out that a lot of Sonoma County's water goes to agriculture for recreational drugs, and they try to make the case that wine has nutritional value that makes it special...

[ related topics: Drugs Health Law Wines and Spirits Sports ]

The Onion: Judge Dismisses ‘New York Times’ Libel Suit Brought By Cannibal Terrorist Sarah Palin

NPR: Sarah Palin loses defamation case against 'The New York Times'

[ related topics: Invention and Design Food Law New York ]

Interesting: Robin Sload: Bad Hosts. Some interesting looks at IPv6 and technologies which might help get past the centralization of the Internet.

I have no great conclusion to offer, and I’m sure most of this is old news to those of you who have tangled with peer-to-peer protocols before. I guess the surprise, for me — the thing I felt an urge to share — was the realization that at least some of this tendency towards centralization is inherent in the present architecture of the internet itself. The trapdoor of IPv4 exhaustion delivered us to this place, stuck behind NAT, pounding on the door. It’s a huge bummer!

[ related topics: History Current Events Net Culture Birds Architecture ]

No, Apple, I don't give a shit about Spotlight suggestions, I want to turn off this stupid "look up now" box that keeps popping up every other time I try to highlight text.

[ related topics: Apple Computer hubris ]

Just saving this off for next time there's a discussion about protesters and looting: 'Freedom convoy' disruptions cost auto industry $300M in losses

Workers missed out on $145 million in wages and car companies lost $155 million because of vaccine mandate protests at key U.S.-Canada trade crossings, a study says.

Anderson Economic Group: UPDATED “Freedom Convoy” Disruptions: Direct Loss Tally Surpasses One Quarter Billion Dollars

[ related topics: Privacy Current Events Work, productivity and environment Civil Liberties Automobiles Community Currency Economics Government ]

Google Search Is Dying

Reddit is currently the most popular search engine. The only people who don’t know that are the team at Reddit, who can’t be bothered to build a decent search interface. So instead we resort to using Google, and appending the word “reddit” to the end of our queries.

See also this Metafilter thread about trying to make Google give useful results for recipes.

[ related topics: Machinery ]

The story of the recent Pensacola cops child abuse scandal:

RT Jasmyne Cannick

True story.

So a father was asleep at home with his two kids, 1 & 3, when the police bust in the door around 4:30 a.m. Dad fires one shot at the door because he wakes up and just sees a guy in his house. Realizes after he shoots that it's a cop and puts the gun down.

Spoiler, the warrant was for computer equipment that belonged to someone else(?!), cops took the kids and charged the guy who was defending his house with attempted murder, and while the kids were in police custody one of them got really banged up. The pictures are disturbing: Police launch internal affairs investigation into baby injured in Pensacola Police custody

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography Privacy History Space & Astronomy Current Events Law Enforcement Guns Real Estate ]

Greta was really wanting my attention as I performed my morning ablutions.

[ related topics: Photography ]

So, yes, I skipped shaving.

[ related topics: Photography ]

One more

[ related topics: Photography ]

Betteridge's Law fails, because the answer is an emphatic "Yes!": Is California’s Prop. 13 racist? Homeowners in white neighborhoods of one city may get triple the tax benefit

The report found that home prices increased the most in affluent majority-white neighborhoods, creating an awkward predicament where new homebuyers can sometimes pay property taxes 10 or more times higher than longtime residents, even if the longtime owner’s house is worth more. Across the city, homes in white neighborhoods are under-taxed by an average of $693,924, the report found, compared to $216,430 in Latino neighborhoods, $317,990 in Black neighborhoods and $357,493 in Asian neighborhoods.

SPUR: Burdens and Benefits — Investigating Prop. 13’s unequal impacts in Oakland

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Invention and Design Bay Area California Culture Race Real Estate Government ]

Good thread on irony poisoning and something called Diagalon.

Interesting that we as a society decided that cryptocurrencies were something that could be property and stolen. There was this thing that was supposed to be outside government, and all of a sudden we're devoting resources to tracking down "fraudsters". Why?

[ related topics: moron ]

Fantastic series of blog posts on baking biscuits, delving into quantities of baking sodas, shortening vs butter vs cream, amount of working the dough, and more.

[ related topics: Weblogs Work, productivity and environment ]

Why do Tesla owners mock us Chevy Bolt owners #8961 in a series: Because while we're manually keying in electricity rate schedules, they just choose which plan they're using for their address and electricity supplier on their phone app.

[ related topics: Cool Science Fabrication ]

In response to a stupid meme floating around, a twitter thread on competitive transmasc athletes

[ related topics: Marketing Boats hubris ]

We're starting to plan for in-person KBYG events, but... anyone got favorite resources on hybrid Zoom meetings for in-person events? From managing multi-camera inputs to how to set up cameras to feed into something like OBS for Zoom...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Jimmy @lieslmao

Orgasms are one of the healthiest forms of stress release. So when I tell u to go fuck yourself it’s because I care.

NPR: The 'Big Sort': Americans are fleeing to places where political views match their own. This article suggests that the sorting is ideological, but I suspect there's a strong economic component to it, especially in the children of California who leave.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics moron California Culture Economics ]

Psilocybin use associated with lowered odds of having been arrested, study finds

Jones and his colleagues found that people who had used psilocybin reported significantly lowered odds of having been arrested for larceny, burglary, robbery, simple assault/battery, serious violence, DUI, and miscellaneous crimes. Peyote use was also associated with significantly lowered odds of having been arrested for motor vehicle theft and DUI. Interestingly, LSD was the most commonly used classic psychedelic substance. But the use of LSD was unrelated to criminal arrests. The use of heroin, cocaine, and cannabis, in contrast, were associated with significantly heightened odds of criminal arrests.

The findings provide evidence that “lifetime use of psilocybin is correlated with lowered odds of various kinds of arrest, even when one accounts for various demographic factors like race, class, and education level,” Jones told PsyPost.

[ related topics: Drugs Marketing Education Archival ]

An interesting read on celebrity and crime and what those things mean to the people around them: Rachel Deloache Williams: Anna ‘Delvey’ Sorokin Almost Ruined My Life. Now She’s Being Rewarded for Her Crimes.

Diving below the simple real estate and public services grift: Film: We Believe in Dinosaurs.

Young Earth Creationism is not the point for advocates of Young Earth Creationism. The goal is to have followers swallow lies so massive that future, more obviously dangerous lies will go down smooth. People who don't think our way are agents of the Adversary. Natural disasters, school shootings and terrorist attacks are God's punishment for the nation's tolerance of abortion, legalization of same-sex marriage and ceasing to compel school children to perform religious rituals in public schools.

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Politics Libertarian Erotic Sexual Culture Sociology Current Events Race Hurricane Katrina Marriage Real Estate hubris ]

Couldn't find my safety glasses, so grabbed another pair, finished that project, put them on my head, just reached up and realized I had two sets of safety glasses on top of my head... Maybe I should have a few calories before I do more power tool stuff.

Yes, I have been generating sawdust this morning...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Just out walking downtown

[ related topics: Photography ]

It is an understatement to say that I am not a churchgoer, but this morning's productivity is being accompanied by this episode of Smoky Mountain Air, and it is helping me to hear the appeal. https://www.buzzsprout.com/102...spiritual-music-in-the-mountains

[ related topics: Religion Music Work, productivity and environment ]

Among other things today, I decided I wanted another stop for my Festool MFT fence, but since I'd just spend $mumbledy on repair parts, not enough to buy the official part.

[ related topics: Photography Woodworking Festool ]

Needs a little tweaking yet, but that bathroom corner cabinet I've been working on...

[ related topics: Photography Work, productivity and environment Home Improvement ]

Some U.S. Apple Store employees are working to unionize, part of a growing worker backlash

To avoid detection by managers at the stores, employees have been meeting in secret and communicating with encrypted messaging, sometimes using Android phones, the competitor to Apple’s iOS operating system, to avoid any possible snooping by Apple.

Apple Employees Are Unionizing and They’re Using Android Phones to Keep Apple From Spying on Them

[ related topics: Apple Computer Work, productivity and environment Cryptography ]

Marjorie Greene tells Alex Jones 'they treat me like a crazy person'

Journal of Positive Sexuality — A Failure of Academic Quality Control: The Technology of Orgasm

Abstract The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel Maines is one of the most widely cited works on the history of sex and technology. Maines argues that Victorian physicians routinely used electromechanical vibrators to stimulate female patients to orgasm as a treatment for hysteria. She claims that physicians did not perceive the practice as sexual because it did not involve vaginal penetration. The vibrator was, according to Maines, a labor-saving technology to replace the well-established medical practice of clitoral massage for hysteria. This argument has been repeated almost verbatim in dozens of scholarly works, popular books and articles, a Broadway play, and a feature-length film. Although a few scholars have challenged parts of the book, no one has contested her central argument in the peer-reviewed literature. In this article, we carefully assess the sources cited in the book. We found no evidence in these sources that physicians ever used electromechanical vibrators to induce orgasms in female patients as a medical treatment. The success of Technology of Orgasm serves as a cautionary tale for how easily falsehoods can become embedded in the humanities.

I'm not sure which narrative I believe, but it sure is interesting how different authors can approach essentially the same source material and come to differing conclusions.

[ related topics: Books Erotic Sexual Culture Robotics Theater & Plays Embedded Devices ]

In Determinants of bicycle commuting in the Washington, DC region: The role of bicycle parking, cyclist showers, and free car parking at work (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2012.06.003), @the Greater Marin on Twitter points out that the odds of bicycling go down by 85% when free car parking is available, and that in The effect of work-related factors on the bicycle commute mode choice in the Netherlands that effect is still 50%.

[ related topics: Bay Area Work, productivity and environment Sports Automobiles Pedal Power Bicycling Model Building ]

Report: Missouri Governor’s Office Responsible for Teacher Data Leak

Missouri Governor Mike Parson made headlines last year when he vowed to criminally prosecute a journalist for reporting a security flaw in a state website that exposed personal information of more than 100,000 teachers. But Missouri prosecutors now say they will not pursue charges following revelations that the data had been exposed since 2011 — two years after responsibility for securing the state’s IT systems was centralized within Parson’s own Office of Administration.

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

Twitter thread on JavaScript & v8 performance. Modern JIT optimizers are freakin' weird black magic.

[ related topics: Theater & Plays Clowns ]

RT Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @perdricof

working on a piece about anti-trans laws, sports, and biopower

let me tell you this: reading about the gendered history of competitive shooting will give you a goddamn aneurysm

some highlights:

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment Government ]

Repeated low doses of LSD in healthy adults: A placebo-controlled, dose–response study

Here, in a double-blind controlled study, we studied the effects of four repeated doses of LSD tartrate (13 or 26 μg) or placebo, administered to healthy adults at 3–4 day intervals, on mood, cognitive performance and responses to emotional tasks. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three drug conditions: placebo (N = 18), 13 μg LSD (N = 19), or 26 μg LSD (N = 19). They attended four 5-hour drug-administration sessions separated by 3–4 days, followed by a drug-free follow-up session 3–4 days after the last session. LSD (26 μg) produced modest subjective effects including increased ratings of ‘feeling a drug effect’ and both stimulant-like and LSD-like effects, but the drug did not improve mood or affect performance on psychomotor or most emotional tasks. No residual effects were detected on mood or task performance on the drug-free follow-up session. We conclude that within the context of a controlled setting and a limited number of administrations, repeated low doses of LSD are safe, but produce negligible changes in mood or cognition in healthy volunteers.

Analytical Cannabis: Microdosing LSD Doesn’t Work, Study Finds

[ related topics: Drugs Health Bay Area Theater & Plays Current Events Work, productivity and environment Handicaps & Disabilities Model Building ]

This afternoon's 5 minutes of hate is directed at the Salesforce Lighting Web Components. Because of course we need another layer of abstraction which breaks everything, why not?

Facebook scammer trying to get me to chat with an "online clamming agent"? Who knew that seafood and some sort of assistance grant went together?

[ related topics: Photography ]

And furthermore, whose idea was this whole "shadow DOM" thing. Like "oh, those handy document.getElementsBy...() utility functions? Yeah, you've gotta re-implement all of those yourself...

PJ Patella-Rey: When Will the Tech World Finally Start Listening to Sex Workers?

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Pop Culture ]

Nature: The pandemic’s true death toll: millions more than official counts

Countries have reported some five million COVID-19 deaths in two years, but global excess deaths are estimated at double or even quadruple that figure.

As Eλf Sternberg @elfsternberg noted

I am struck by this figure: "50 million people died of the Spanish Flu, with 675,000 dying in the United States." So let's get this straight: COVID has killed fewer people worldwide, but MORE Americans, at a time when both the national and global population are much higher.

I am similarly struck that China's life expectancy is now higher than the US's. We have truly abdicated developed nation status.

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

iPhone using friends: I am looking for the absolute simplest software that will record in stereo using a standard USB audio interface like https://www.esi-audio.com/products/ugm192/ . Preferably start, stop, rename, and share and not much more, and that remembers its settings.

[ related topics: Music Software Engineering iPhone ]

Shout-out to the dude pressure washing his car out on Petaluma Blvd S. this morning while the rest of us are concerned about drought conditions and are irrigating with laundry water.

[ related topics: Automobiles ]

Among other projects this weekend, a small Ipe folding table I made for beside the swim spa

[ related topics: Photography Furniture ]

Another picture of that table

[ related topics: Photography Furniture ]

Racked the Pindo fruit wine today. End of June we bottle....

[ related topics: Wines and Spirits ]