Links from 2021-05-10 13-07-54

qikipedia: “In order to determine if dogs feel jealousy, researchers at the University of Auckland made dogs watch them pet stuffed dogs. The dogs were indeed jealous of the stuffed dogs.”

Cape oceans roar with life.

Baby monsters!

Ranked voting — a great explanatory cartoon: “You Can’t Waste Your Vote.” A loved one is against this, but I don’t understand why …

“But in the end, America chose the boy who stuttered over the bully.”

flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh

Reason: Watch a Cop Intentionally Damage a Car While Executing a Search Warrant

@qikipedia: “According to one hybrid naming convention, the offspring of a male polar bear and a female grizzly is a ‘pizzly’ bear; while the offspring of a male grizzly and female polar is a ‘grolar’ bear.”

Watching Sopranos and really not entranced with Meadow’s acting abilities. Very one-note.

Axios: “It has been 10 years since South Carolina last executed an inmate on death row, and lawmakers argue this is because pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell states the drugs to carry out lethal injections, per NYT. […] The bill would also bring back the electric chair as an option if the state cannot obtain lethal injections.”

“Venice-based graffiti artist Manuel Di Rita, known as Peeta, created this eye-fooling mural in Mannheim in 2019.”

NASA: “It is clear that China is failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris. It is critical that China and all spacefaring nations and commercial entities act responsibly and transparently in space to ensure the safety, stability, security, and long-term sustainability of outer space activities.”

powerjock: “gomez addams is the dream friend. id kill to have that dude in my corner. like if he found out my company closed cuz of covid he’d just give me 5k a month until ‘you get back on your feet, old boy’. I’d have to sword fight him like twice a week but then I’d just get better at sword fighting. literally what is the downside.”

A U.S. Army trainee hijacked a bus full of elementary school students Thursday in South Carolina — but let them go after they pestered him with questions.

US Quarters to Honor Maya Angelou and Sally Ride.

Bloomberg: Jamie Dimon says if lawmakers plan to raise taxes he would want an itemized list of what the money would be spent on. That plus that photograph …

@caitoz: “Make a show called Actually That Was America. Tell average Americans on the street about evil things America did, EXCEPT you tell them it was a country the US hates. Film their reaction. Scream, ‘ACTUALLY THAT WAS AMERICA!’ It never gets old; you never run out of evil things!”

Chicago heavy repair shop for locomotives, circa early 1940s. Some amazing photography there.

“And love isn’t a fact. It’s a hunch at first. And then later it’s a series of decisions, a lifetime of decisions. That’s love.” – Welcome to Night Vale #100

COVID Comic

Says it all, doesn’t it?

Links for 2021-05-08 13-00-07

Bizarro: “HR made me sign up for a personal responsibility workshop.”

Jen Psaki cuts through the BS of a Newsmax “people say” question by pinning reporter down for a source. I do so enjoy Jen Psaki. Breaks my heart she’s retiring in a year.

“The Mickey Mouse Club was introduced as a real-life club at the Fox Dome Theatre in Ocean Park, California, on January 11th, 1930. In order to watch the on-stage show, one had to become a club member.” (In case you needed to double-check like I, Steamboat Willie came out in 1928.) Minnie and Mickie are … horrific in the linked-to photograph.

“Men is too headache.”

qikipedia: “According to Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861), the principal reason Victorian Brits drizzled olive oil over lettuce was to prevent farting.”

Well-done, Onion.

No green or purple stars for us – not because they don’t exist, but because our eyes don’t perceive them in that color. I wonder what animals with a greater visual spectrum see when they look at the night sky …

Guys’ guts on The Simpsons.

This is kind of a refreshing-your-faith-in-mankind kind of story. I sent him $20.

@hottestsingles: “I don’t know who needs to hear this but … you are an irreplaceable gash in the fabric of reality, your keening static howl is like no other, and if it faded from the Abyss, the void that would remain would be unfillable and the Mansions of Silence would forever fill with our lament.”

“Capitalism has told us that the American Dream is becoming a megamiillionaire or even billionaire. The American Dream should be collectively building a society where nobody starves or goes homeless, and everybody is treated equally, fully insured and paid a living wage.”

Star Trek Hugs. (No updates since 2018, so what you see is what you get.)

Links for 2021-05-06 22-02-06

Atlantic: “After many conversations and email exchanges, I came to understand what I think of as the deep story of the American no-vaxxer.”

Two friendly humans help Mama Duck by rescuing her seven ducklings from beneath a grate.

The sheer hypocrisy of Republicans kind of blows me away on this. Facebook is a private company, and you were championing a private company’s right to serve who they deem fit just the other day. There’s no First Amendment issue here.

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai: These extraordinary times and circumstances of call for extraordinary measures. The US supports the waiver of IP protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic and we’ll actively participate in @WTO negotiations to make that happen.

This Motorcycle Airbag Vest Will Stop Working If You Miss a Payment.

The Sound of Dial-Up (iZotope Ozone 5 VST).

The musical and fashion analysis of “Baby Got Back.”

Links for 2021-05-05 17:29:00

“Here’s the latest trailer for the CGI Rugrats reboot.” Boy, that’s horrifying CGI.

Two Assholes Lost in the Woods: An Oral History of the Sopranos episode ‘Pine Barrens’.

The small coastal town of Noto, Japan, decided to spend $228,000 of its $7M+ in COVID-19 relief money on a 13 x 29-ft statue of a giant squid.

Hart Smith on Outsourcing. Why it’s not always wise.

Doctors without Borders – India.

“The US is now preparing to back the temporary waiving of patent rights over covid-19 vaccines—a policy that advocates say is needed to speed up the production and acquisition of vaccines for developing countries.“

Links for 2021-05-04 18-17-18

Group Of Friends Get Stuck On UK’s Highest Rollercoaster – YouTube

The puppy of the President of Ireland wants to play.

According to Jewish law, Shabbat begins at sundown. During Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. But what do you do if the sun does not set?

NYC Schools Cancel Snow Days … Zoom

Types in Japanese, Chinese + English. Toshiba Typewriter Model BW-2112.

Popeye-Yoda.

Star Wars Cantina Theme Remix [8 Bit Tribute to John Williams and May 4th] – 8 Bit Universe.

Links for 2021-05-03 18-30-29

‘Rasputin’ reunion (original).

@thrasherxy: “I am not cut out for this modern world, especially one where touchscreens have replaced the reliable technology of a “handle” in bathrooms—and where you can’t wash your hands because ‘internal storage running out’ means ‘applications & system functions may not work well’. The cynicism and inefficiency of the tech bro who said ‘You know where we can get their eyes, bro? We need to HACK faucets! Why should LOSERS be allowed to rest their eyes from advertising even when they turn OLD handles? We need to OWN that space!!!'”

“Someone who is CONTRASUGGESTIBLE is likely to respond to any suggestion by doing the exact opposite.”

LOGANAMNOSIS – an obsession with remembering the specific word you’ve forgotten.

“The Pastry A.I. That Learned to Fight Cancer“: ‘In Japan, a system designed to distinguish croissants from bear claws has turned out to be capable of a whole lot more.’

Easy Orbital Mechanics I – Getting to the Moon.

Links for 2021-05-02 20-46-24

Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming Trailer. Richard Hatch’s proposal, pre-Ron Moore BSG.

It is illegal to climb Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan, so no-one has ever reached the top. It is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world.

Doonesbury for May 2.

How to Turn off Message Requests in Instagram.

One of the best descriptions of Trump I’ve read, by John Scalzi:

It is a little odd to me that the very best thing about Joseph Biden in his first 100 days is that he is boring. First and most obviously, that’s in contrast to his predecessor, a narcissistic chaos engine who essentially held the nation’s attention hostage for four years

Links for 2021-05-01 17-41-27

This Florida legislation will be struck down, easily, by a little thing called the First Amendment (or the fact that private businesses can do what they damn well please, especially since “corporations are people” (*sigh*)), so it should in the end be a big time-waster:

Both houses of Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature have passed new legislation banning social media companies from deplatforming political candidates or censoring large journalistic organizations. Gov. Ron DeSantis has expressed support for the bill and is expected to sign it into law.

Kleptones – Night at the Hip-Hopera.

WE WOULD NEVER SURVIVE THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.

Arizona governor signs abortion ban for genetic issues.

Rick and Morty in the Eternal Nightmare Machine.

Different music than the original, but nonetheless really enjoyable.

The Terrible Truth About Toad.

40 million people will be left without insulin by 2030.

@aggonzalez03: “Can we just reflect on the fact that there are people buying fake vaccination cards so they can travel, but they’re the same people that frown upon undocumented immigrants that get fake documents to work & provide for their families?”

Links for 2021-04-30 19-27-21

@flyChy: “I keep getting asked about this, yes I got vaccinated and YES I’m breastfeeding. Instead of crying my child now makes the Windows 95 chime sound but other than that she experienced no symptoms.”

Mystery tree beast turns out to be croissant.

Whether or not the 2nd Amendment gives citizens the right to carry loaded firearms when they leave home, regardless of local laws.

QI: “Ultramarathon-runner Dean Karnazes doesn’t have a ‘lactate threshold’ like most athletes, which means he can theoretically run and run until he needs to sleep.” I read this guy’s book, Ultramarathon Man, and had wondered how he was such a non-stop machine.

Film Twitter is just not on TikTok enough to know that Martin Scorsese has been busy guessing at feminine products. (His daughter’s TikTok.)

Generalist Academy: “Eric Carmen wrote ‘All by Myself,’ but he’s not the only credited songwriter. The Russian classical composer Sergei Rachmaninoff also gets a credit, and his estate gets 12% of the royalties from the song too. […] Soon after the song came out, Carmen received what I imagine was a rather irked message from Rachmaninoff’s estate. Symphony No. 2 was of course still under copyright, and so the estate and the songwriter had to come to an agreement.”

Florida Passes Bill Fining Sites That ‘Deplatform’ Politicians.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines trailer. This is absolutely hysterical. I’m going to watch this.

PELOSI ON BIDEN’S FIRST 100 DAYS: “We got 200 million shots, sent out 160 million relief checks, put a trillion dollars in workers’ pockets, cutting child poverty in half, created 1.3 million jobs, and created fastest economic growth in 40 years!”

@strombo: What’s one thing you learned this year that will stick with you for the rest of your life?
@katarnett: There are two types of people: those who believe in doing what’s best for everyone even if it means personal sacrifice, and those who see their own inconvenience as unacceptable no matter what.

Hair Design By Britney:”This lovely gentleman came in today to learn how to curl his wife’s hair. His wife is unable to curl her own hair and often burns herself, so he stepped up to the plate and learned how to curl her hair. We had the pleasure of teaching him! We taught him how to do volume curls on short hair, how to protect her skin from being burned and we even taught him to put on her mascara.” Awwww.

Noah Smith, “The Vaccine Insurrection“:

[P]ersonal independence really just means exercising control over your own life. This pandemic year has seen Americans lose a lot of the control over their lives that they felt they had previously. Mask mandates and distancing requirements created new rules for everyone to follow. And the virus itself represented the greatest loss of control — a silent, insensate, ever-hungry terror that could lay low the strongest man and send the freest spirits cowering to the safety of their homes.

The plague year infantilized us, made us impotent in the face of forces beyond our control. I think that in some people, that produced a strong desire to strike back and reassert a measure of personal autonomy, even if that meant not wearing a mask or not taking a vaccine. Unable to control the virus or their own fear, people instead took the only independent action they felt they could take — they broke society’s rules.

If this is a big part of vaccine refusal, I doubt that paying people to get shots — one commonly suggested remedy — will be very effective, since to the refusers that would feel like selling their personal autonomy for money.

So I think we need to find some way to convince people that getting vaccinated increases your control over your own life, rather than decreasing it. Especially in low-vaccination red states, we have to get refusers to see it as a tool to be wielded, rather than a rule to be followed. Just like a car or a hammer or a gun, a vaccine shot allows you to escape the fear of the virus, while denying COVID simply shoves that fear back into the deep recesses of your psyche. Vaccines are liberating.

So how do we get refusers to see vaccines that way? Perhaps we can air commercials showing vaccinated people living free and normal lives, with no masks, throwing dinner parties and going to concerts without fear. Perhaps, with the end of outdoor mask mandates, fully vaccinated people can walk around maskless with shirts that say ‘I don’t need a mask, I got a VACCINE!’, or something obnoxious like that. I’m just spitballing here.