Mike's Exobrain

Links for 2021-04-15 21-00-38

Brazil’s President Mocks Claims He’s ‘Genocidal’ While Doing Nothing About Covid-19 Killing 4,000 People a Day:

Bolsonaro filmed a YouTube video outside the presidential palace in Brasilia on Tuesday mocking claims his government’s widely lambasted response to the crisis amounted to intentional mass killing: ‘They called me homophobic, racist, fascist, a torturer and now… what is it now? Now I am… someone who kills a lot of people? Genocidal. Now, I’m genocidal.’ The next day on a visit to the southern city of Chapeco, Bolsonaro didn’t appear to be taking the matter any more seriously and continued to insist on a policy of inaction.

Howard Dean’s racist, genocidal pharma sellout:

Dean works for Dentons, the largest law firm in the world, alongside Newt Gingrich, as a ‘senior advisor’ to the firm’s lobbying arm. “…] Dean published a remarkable op-ed in Barron’s, opposing any measure to permit the world’s poorest countries to manufacture generic versions of the covid vaccines they desperately need.

Embrace the Grind:

I don’t disagree: being able to offload repetitive tasks to a program is one of the best things about knowing how to code. However, sometimes problems can’t be solved by automation. If you’re willing to embrace the grind you’ll look like a magician.

I Spent My Life Consenting to Touch I Didn’t Want:

I did not hesitate to assess whether I really wanted to spoon with him. I had no lucid thought about it at all. I simply agreed

Kati Kariko Helped Shield the World From the Coronavirus:

A molecule called pseudouridine in tRNA allowed it to evade the immune response. As it turned out, naturally occurring human mRNA also contains the molecule.

Added to the mRNA made by Dr. Kariko and Dr. Weissman, the molecule did the same — and also made the mRNA much more powerful, directing the synthesis of 10 times as much protein in each cell.

The idea that adding pseudouridine to mRNA protected it from the body’s immune system was a basic scientific discovery with a wide range of thrilling applications. It meant that mRNA could be used to alter the functions of cells without prompting an immune system attack.

Letter from Leslie Knope on Trump’s Election (2016).

Nearly 7 million Americans might not get a COVID-19 vaccine because they don’t know it’s free:

6,900,000 U.S. residents don’t plan to get vaccinated against COVID-19 because they’re mistakenly concerned about the cost of the shot. In reality, the U.S. government is paying for the vaccine, making it free at the point of service to all U.S. residents

The Republican Party’s Loathsome New War on Trans Kids:

A bill filed in North Carolina would require that any government agent — including teachers or any other public school officials — ‘immediately notify, in writing, each of the minor’s parents, guardians, or custodians’ if a minor exhibited ‘gender nonconformity.’ Is that boy’s hair getting a little too long? How are that girl’s jeans cut? If that bill became law, the school would have to write a letter home warning that the child is not displaying the proper gender conformity.

Police Officer Stationed in My High School:

He took me to jail where I sat for hours. My parents were on vacation, there was no one I could call. He then told me I was not under arrest but that he was trying to teach me a lesson.

Tiny Particle’s Wobble Could Upend the Known Laws of Physics.

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

Links for 2021-04-15 18-17-22

Snowball fight 124 years ago. Lyon, France, 1896. Colorized and speed adjusted. Original in black and white by Louis Lumiere.

The Surgeon General has a very cute “thing” that keeps “popping up” in his interview. Definitely worth an ‘aww.’

I have bought a stuffed plague doctor penguin.

Skee-Lo: The Tale of Mr. Morton. Grammar has never been so cool.

CBC: “[A]fter being on the job for about six weeks, her boss at the cleaning company sent out a companywide message — telling employees to download an app on their personal phones that would check their location and ensure they were working their scheduled hours. Dionne found the request offensive and refused. […] Less than two months later, the single mom was fired — her refusal to download the app was mentioned in her letter of termination.”

Arkansas joins Georgia in passing voting restrictions: “These bills don’t just make it harder to vote, they also make it easier for partisan politicians to interfere with local election administrators – something that could have disastrous consequences for democracy.” I sometimes wonder if these state bills are the first steps to a fascist Presidency and the death of democracy.

You lose your election? Just try to recall them for no legit reason whatsoever!

Boing Boing: “Six years [after Gravity Payments Dan Price announced in 2015 that everyone in his company would get a pay raise to at least $70,000 a year], Dan Price tells us with a series of tweets that his company’s revenue has tripled, their company base has doubled, homes owned by employees grew by 10x, and 70% of his employees have paid down debt.”

In case you ever wondered what a harp string snapping sounded like.

More realistic photographs of Lincoln and Tesla — basically the B&W film stock was orthochromatic, catching details that would be smoothed out by more natural-to-the-eye lighting.

A woman saves her dog, who had sunk to the bottom of their frozen pool (surprise ice storm + broken water pump). Pretty amazing footage.

Monk, 1420: “Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others [other cats] too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come.”

Discord has to block its NSFW servers because … Apple. It’s crap like this that makes me glad I am not on the Apple ecosystem.

Texas Republicans are now trying to pass Bill SB1646, which would remove transgender minors from parents who affirm their gender and support them getting proper transition care.

A Karen who’s mad because she can’t concentrate … in a playground. And promptly yells at the kids.

The Salk polio vaccine. No patent, and America erupting in joy to take it. Jesus, how times have changed.

“Robert Redfield, the Trump Administration CDC Director known for his chinstrap beard and his complete failure to effectively control Covid-19, not in that order, has taken a job at Big Ass Fans, a company that sells a $9,450 fan which produces “electrically charged particles that are proven to attack and eliminate pathogens,” scientifically known as ‘grifticles.'” The name … is not fictional.

“Does anyone remember the episode where Colin Robinson was up against another psychic vampire, and she was a woman who fed by telling everyone lengthy sob stories about all the awful things that happened in her life? I love the psychic vampires on this show. I hope in the third season he encounters a psychic vampire who’s a project manager. Those guys have a lot of psychic vampires in their number. :-)” (link)

The name for the division symbol is an obelus.

Links for 2021-04-12 19-22-26

Some really well-written satire by Kathony Jerauld of Amador City:

Welcome to the Freedom Cafe!

We trust you to make your own choices if you want to wear a face mask. And, in the same spirit of individual liberty, we allow our staff to make their own choices about the safety procedures they preter to follow as they prepare and serve your food.

We encourage employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom, but understand that some people may be allergic to certain soaps or may simply prefer not to wash their hands. It is not our role to tell them what to do.

We understand that you may be used to chicken that has been cooked to 165 degrees. We do have to respect that some of our cooks may have seen a meme or a YouTube video saying that 100 degrees is fine and we do not want to encroach on their beliefs.

Some servers may wish to touch your food as they serve it. There is no reason that a healthy person with clean hands can’t touch your food. We will take their word for it that they are “healthy and clean”.

Water temperature and detergent are highly personal choices, and we allow our dishwashing team to decide how they’d prefer to wash the silverware you will put in your mouth. Some of you may get sick, but almost everyone survives food poisoning. We think you agree that it’s a small price to pay for the sweet freedom of no one ever being told what to do — and especially not for the silly reason of keeping strangers healthy.

YT: Adult Twins, Separated at Birth, Have Emotional Reunion.

2021-04-11 19-58-29

A Neuroscientist and a Physicist Used AI to Recreate a Lost Painting Buried Under a Beloved Picasso Canvas.

C3PO has a bit of a badonkadonk in this image.

The shape of our field of vision.

According to Bronnie Ware, the five most common regrets shared by people nearing death were:

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”
“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
“I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

Jean-Paul Sartre, 1944: “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

The Return of My Garbage Self.

2021-04-10 20-38-03

“Have you heard about the drowned towns in Alabama? Some of my family are descendants of one. It’s something we just don’t talk about, but the world should know…”

Light a virtual candle for a victim of the Holocaust. It’s really very moving.

A infographic demonstration of why herd immunity is important — in other words, why we have to get people to take the vaccine. In order for this thing to end, we have to give the virus nowhere to go …

2021-04-10 18-17-22

Very powerful Tiktok from Sally, a 65-year-old woman.

The Mountain Goats’ “This Year” in the style of Bob Dylan.

Why No iMessage for Android: “the #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage … iMessage amounts to serious lock-in” … “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why.”

Hasbro’s New $700 Optimus Prime Transforms All By Himself. Neat.

“My nephew, who is like 11 or 12, is playing ‘5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel’, which is exactly what it says on the tin, and I have never been more terrified of the youth of today.”

“Paula, my clothes are broken.“

2021-04-08 23-13-56

Also sometimes something happens and that’s it, it happened, there’s no going back to a time when it didn’t happen and there’s no fixing it to a state where it’s like it didnt happen. But there is going ONWARD from it.

turdferguson007: “Once I took a girl out and we were walking by a river in my city so we took a picture together with the water behind us. She cropped me out of the picture and captioned it ‘much needed alone time’.”

@welcomewords: If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to figure out what the heck was wrong with it. When humans do it, we put them on the cover of Forbes. (Commenter: “Fun fact: monkeys will attack the hoarding member, and literally fucking exile them from the group forever.”)

Seinfeld’s hallway can’t, structurally, exist.

Timelapse: Heatherwick’s Rolling Bridge, Paddington.

Photo of Chevy Chase in Rolling Stone magazine, 1980. Amusing.

We produce two different kinds of sweat. One is sweat from eccrine sweat glands, which doesn’t stink because it’s water and salt. Apocrine sweat glands are in your armpits and crotch, have proteins and fat that attract bacteria, and develop mostly during puberty.

Twitter: Typos of the New York Times.

STAR WARS 80’s High School re-design by Denis Medri. LOVE this.

@nmannathukkaren: “‘The hand of God‘ — nurses trying to comfort isolated patients in a Brazilian Covid isolation ward. Two disposable gloves tied, full of hot water, simulating impossible human contact. Salute to the front liners and a stark reminder of the grim situation our world is in!”

National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising e-mail: ” … we will have to tell Trump you’re a DEFECTOR … ” WHAT. THE. FUCK.

How Snoopy became NASA’s safety mascot.

@charlesjkenny: “I just got vaccinated by a woman born in Vietnam, with a vaccine created by two Turkish [migrants] living in Germany and manufactured by a US company run by a Greek migrant. Thank you, world.”

“Radio Silence“, by Ben C. Bartlett (read aloud). “What great message to another civilization can you possibly send with only 248 bits of information?” DAMN. Very good short-short.

HAMFATTER: a terrible, second-rate actor.

Manifestations of the mind, by Shawn Coss. Deeply disturbing illustrations of mental disorders as monsters, but also definitely accurate in many respects.

“[Trump] is hiding his Diet Coke bottle behind the phone a day after telling everyone to boycott Coca-Cola.”