Remember how, back in September 2015, researchers revealed that virtually every "smart" baby-monitor they tested was riddled with security vulnerabilities that let strangers seize control over it, spying on you and your family?
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Let me get the obvious out of the way: you are not going to win friends, neighbors with whom you share airspace or small children over with cabbage casserole. It’s beige and gray with traces of drab green. It’s cooked forever, or until whatever vim and vigor may have initially been in the leaves has departed. At best, it’s akin to unstuffed cabbage, which means that it will be comfort food to some but torture to others.
Just 62 people own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world together. Of this elite, 52 are men. Moreover, the richest 1 percent now own more than the other 99 percent.
But the divisions go far beyond those that exist between the haves and have-nots. In the Middle East, the divide between Shi'ites and Sunnis has reached crisis point, with Iran and Saudi Arabia jostling openly for influence in a region reeling from war and the barbarism of Islamic extremists.
The conflicts there have spilled over into Europe, causing deep ideological rifts over how to handle the worst refugee crisis since World War Two and - with Britain threatening to leave the European Union - raising doubts about the future of Europe's six-decade push towards ever closer integration.
The shock emergence of Donald Trump as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has exposed a gaping political divide in the United States, stirring anxiety among Washington's allies at a time of global turmoil.
In the great tradition of political heroes, Martin Luther King's legacy has been sanitized and purged of its most radical and urgent notions, watered down to a kind of meek pacifism that omits his beliefs in radical political change as a necessary condition of attaining real justice.
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Janna sez, "For as little as a dollar a day, you can help demoralize the Bundy Militants. Funds raised will support causes the Bundy Bunch hate; per the Oregonian, monies raised will be donated to a gun control campaign, a group that supports the wildlife refuge the occupiers want to privatize, an organization that has labeled Bundy and company as extremists, and the Native American tribe whose members claim the refuge as their ancestral land."
I noticed something odd for the first time recently: women’s clothing buttons differently than men’s. I’d been previously oblivious, but just noticed because I put on this nice roomy button-down Christmas sweater my wife got, and realized that all the buttons are backwards from what I’m used to. How strange. I asked her if this was normal, and she told me that yes, this was the convention. Which made me wonder…why? It’s not as if women and men differ in handedness, or are consistently asymmetric in different ways. My first thought was that it was another arbitrary signifier of sex, like the absence of pockets in women’s clothing, only more random and less malicious.
So men button in one way for reasons of utility: a man’s role as hunter required that he pull a weapon from left to right. Fastening a garment from right to left would impede the movement of our ancestors. This makes no sense. You button your shirt in one direction because you’re typically holding a weapon in your right hand? But how often are you simultaneously buttoning up a shirt and spearing an antelope?
But women button the other way, because babies. Given right-hand dominance, women tend to hold their infants in their left arms, keeping their right arms relatively free. So shirts whose open flap is on the right, one theory goes, makes it easier for them to open with those free hands for breastfeeding. I suppose it’s typical that male traits are explained by their likelihood of holding a weapon, and female traits by baby handling, but again, it makes no sense. I’ve held babies, and I recall holding them on whatever side was convenient at the time. The tricky part to holding a baby or a spear and unbuttoning your shirt is the unbuttoning bit — that requires a bit more dexterity than holding a bulky objects. So both men and women face the problem of unbuttoning while holding an object, and they get completely reversed solutions to the problem?
And then there’s this explanation:
Women, to the extent women rode horses, rode sidesaddle, to the right—so putting their shirt and dress buttons on the left reduced, to some extent, the breeze that would flow into their shirts as they were trotting along.
Face it, people. You’re just making this stuff up. Like this story, that women mocked Napoleon by putting their hands in their vests like he did in that portrait:
One theory (which, warning, I can’t find much corroboration for, but I put out there for your consideration) holds that Napoleon ordered women’s shirts be buttoned on the opposite side of men’s to end all the fun-making at his expense.
No evidence, but hey, let’s just throw it out there. Apparently, Napoleon did not get so upset at men mocking him that he upended the garment industry to get back at them.
So basically that whole article is a lot of bullshit. I’m going to suggest that there are two likely alternative explanations:
It’s a frozen accident. In the early days of mass production of garments, industries specialized to deal with men’s and women’s clothing, and early chance decisions fixed the women’s industries to one way, and men’s another way. They could have both standardized on the same direction, or opposite directions, but by chance they didn’t, and now it’s an established convention.
It’s a conscious distinction, but still arbitrary. The specific orientation has no functional consequence except that it’s supposed to be different for men and women, because God forbid that a man might accidentally put on a woman’s shirt. His testicles might fall off.
It seems to me that all the contrived scenarios ought to be informed by historical evidence, which is not given. Was there an abrupt flip of the French clothing arrangement in the early 19th century? Do we have women’s diaries complaining of that awful side-saddle breeze (I suspect that if functionality were a defining constraint here, they wouldn’t have been riding side-saddle in the first place)? Were duelists facing a pressing need to unbutton their clothes in the heat of battle?
Also, I think it’s a minor issue compared to that real pressing question, about the absence of pockets in women’s clothing. I think that one is good evidence that there is a patriarchy, and it is evil.
Well, the winter holidays are long gone, but den vut doesn’t want the outdoor fun disappear. So, here is his Arctic Truck Mk II – an ultimate snow-rover in the scale of a regular Technic minifigure. One may find the exterior quite plain, but Technic vehicles are all about functionality.
Check out this video to see this impressive crawler in action.
And I can’t help mentioning a couple of the builder’s other models.
As long as there is a biting frost in Moscow this winter, den vut surprised us with a stunning functioning ice-breaker.
And, of course, his War Rig from Mad Max was a huge thing among Russian LEGO enthusiasts during the last summer.
A leaked Vancouver internal police bulletin sent the city into a tizz when they learned that the cops were trying to locate three "Middle-Eastern" men who'd been taking a suspicious amount of photographs of a shopping mall.
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If you've grown weary of recaptioning your New Yorker cartoons with any of the other universal punchlines ("Christ, what an asshole," "Hello, I'd like to add you to my professional network on Linkedin" and "What a misunderstanding," to name only three), Matthew Garret invites you to try "Late stage capitalism." Works a treat!
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How It Works: The Most Powerful Space Rocket When the firm SpaceX launches its Falcon Heavy rocket into space late this year, the craft will become the mightiest rocket in the world. Only NASA’s Saturn V, which sent Americans to the moon, has ever generated more power. In rockets, the most important measure of power is thrust. Falcon Heavy’s 27 individual booster engines together generate 3.8 million pounds of thrust—enough to lift the 3.1-million-pound rocket and its 117,000-pound payload toward low-Earth orbit. The rocket’s success is critical for both SpaceX and the U.S. space program: The Air Force has already hired SpaceX and its Falcon Heavy to send two satellites into orbit sometime in 2015.
1) ENGINE CLUSTER
Nine SpaceX Merlin 1D engines sit at the bottom of each of the craft’s three cores, or boosters. The engines are identical to those on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
2) FIRST STAGE: THREE ROCKET CORES
Falcon Heavy’s first stage consists of three cores. All three cores operate together at liftoff. About T+2:45 minutes into flight, the center core throttles down while the two side cores continue at full thrust until their fuel is nearly spent. At that point, pneumatic separators release the side cores, which plummet into the ocean, and the center core throttles up.
3) CENTER CORE
For payloads heavier than 100,000 pounds, Falcon Heavy uses a cross-feed system to run fuel from the side cores to the center core, leaving the center core almost fully fueled after the side boosters separate. What’s left is the equivalent of a complete Falcon 9 rocket already high in space.
4) FUEL TANKS
A liquid-oxygen tank at the top of each core feeds the engines through a center tube; the lower portion of the tank contains rocket-grade kerosene. The propellants are turbo-pumped into each Merlin engine’s injector, where they are mixed and fed into the combustion chamber.
5) SECOND STAGE
Powered by a single Merlin 1D engine modified to operate in the vacuum of space, the second stage delivers the final push that gets the payload into orbit. The engine can shut down and reignite as needed, enabling Falcon Heavy to deliver multiple payloads to different orbits.
6) FAIRING
Falcon Heavy can carry either a Dragon capsule—SpaceX’s free-flying spacecraft, currently used to resupply the International Space Station—or up to 117,000 pounds of payload (think multiple military and commercial satellites) enclosed in a shell 45 feet long and 17 feet in diameter. The fairing consists of two clamshell-style halves made of an aluminum honeycomb core and carbon-fiber face sheets. When the second stage nears the desired orbit, pneumatic pushers split the halves apart, exposing the payload.
7) MERLIN 1D ENGINE
A single Merlin 1D generates 147,000 pounds of thrust at sea level, burning rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen fed by a turbo-pump into the combustion chamber. Falcon Heavy’s liquid propellant has an advantage over solid fuel: Liquid-fueled engines can stop and restart in flight, whereas solid-fuel engines burn until they are spent. Through proprietary adjustments that SpaceX won’t disclose, engineers recently lightened the engine to increase its efficiency, making it the most efficient rocket booster engine ever built.
TIMELINE OF A LAUNCH
T – 3:00:00 Falcon Heavy is ready on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral. Engineers time liftoff to achieve the optimal flight path and desired orbit.
T – 0:10:30 The countdown begins. All actions from here forward are pre-programmed, although Mission Control can abort the mission at any time.
T – 0:02:30 The launch director issues the final launch command.
T – 0:00:40 Propellant tanks are pressurized.
T – 0:00:03 First-stage engines ignite.
0:00:00 The onboard rocket computer commands the launch mount to release. Liftoff.
T + 0:01:25 The rocket reaches maximum aerodynamic pressure; mechanical stress peaks.
T + 0:02:45 The rocket has now burned enough fuel (thus decreasing its mass) that the center core engines can throttle down.
T + 0:03:00 The side cores separate and fall into the ocean, while the center core’s nine Merlin engines continue to burn for approximately 30 seconds.
T + 0:03:30 The second stage separates from the remaining first-stage core. The second-stage engine ignites and continues toward orbit.
T + 10–20 MINUTES When the rocket nears the desired orbit, the two halves of the clamshell fairing open and fall away. When in position, the payload separates from the second stage. Both the fairing and second stage eventually fall back to Earth.
STATS
Total Thrust: 3.8 million pounds
Maximum Payload: 117,000 pounds
Number of Engines: 28
Size of the Fairing: 45 feet by 17 feet in diameter
NOTE: The SpaceX Falcon Heavy will be the world’s most powerful rocket when it launches later this year. It can carry a payload of up to 117,000 pounds in its clamshell fairing. The fairing is shown here (image 2) open with the payload exposed, but on a mission it would remain closed until the first stage has separated and the second stage has nearly reached orbit. credit: Nick Kaloterakis
I’m so glad I have actually seen not the merlin engine I have also see the rocket. Space x is cool
A 12-year-old honor student from Texas got suspended from school for giving her asthama inhaler to another girl who was wheezing and gasping in gym class. She could also be tranferred to an "alternative school" for up to 30 days. The girl told Fox 4 News she feels the punishment is not fair. “I was just trying to save her life. I didn't think I was trying to do anything bad,” she said.
The district says 30 days at alternative school is an initial automatic punishment for sharing a controlled substance including prescription drugs like inhalers - until there's a hearing to weigh all the facts. The final punishment could change and range from no days to the maximum of 30 days.
First, albuterol is not a controlled substance. Second where was the teacher or coach and why didn't they do anything to help the girl who was wheezing and gasping?
In 2009, Indian women sent pink underwear to Shri Ram Sene, a right-wing, conservative Hindu organization that had promoted street-violence against women who were perceived as "immodest."
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I like to buy these adorable little critter-shaped paperclips from stationary accessories maker Midori of Japan on Amazon. They work just the same as regular paperclips, but they add a lot of sweetness and personality when the design matters, not just the function.
U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to grab all the media attention, and Hillary Clinton remains a Wall Street favorite--so why is underdog Democratic Party candidate Bernie Sanders suddenly surging again in the polls? In a Guardian op-ed, Trevor Timm argues that part of the reason is his common-sense, non-hysterical approach to ISIS/ISIL and related Islamist terrorist threats.
“When you’ve got immigrants who are coming here legally, we’ve never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion.”
Karen Tripp modified the classic "Battleship" game for homeschooling purposes.
She created the game using four laminated copies of the Periodic Table which were labeled alphabetically by row and column, then inserted into two file folders [sheet protectors?] with jumbo paper clips.
“The kids can then mark where they want to place their ships by circling rows of 2, 3, 4, and 5 elements on the lower table.. They play by calling out coordinates. If they miss they put an X on the spot they chose on the upper table. If they get a hit, they circle it.”
Sadly, after coming up with this innovative idea, she then dumbed it down by labeling the rows A through H and the columns 1 through 18, so the children instead of calling out "phosphorus" or "cadmium" or "oxygen" just call out "D-11" or "F-4" or whatever. An opportunity missed there, I think.
Cooking show I desperately want: Professional chefs compete to wow and astound totally amateur food critics who don’t know dick about shit. Get eliminated on totally arbitrary grounds such as “I don’t like sour cream.”
So it’s like actors on auditions, but with chefs. I’m into it.
Here’s a most likely futile attempt to convince you not to worry about Powerball, which (1) you are virtually certain not to win, (2) will cost you money you can’t afford to waste, and (3) would ruin your life if you did win it. Also, if you buy any more tickets you’re going to lower my odds, so just stay home, would you please? I really need this one.
First, will somebody win? Yes. Will that person be you? No. Or, at least, so close to no that it’s probably closer to no than any other non-no answer you would get if you kept answering questions so long that the only answer left was no. I have no idea whether that sentence makes any sense, but it makes more sense than playing the lottery. Probably.
The odds are said to be 292,201,338 to one that a given ticket will be a winner of the current jackpot, which is something like $1.5 billion with a B. Those are about the odds that you’d pick one particular name out of a hat filled with the name of every living American, which don’t seem like great odds, do they? I mean, what are the odds you could even get a hat that big? You are roughly 250 times more likely to get hit by lightning than to win Powerball. But the pot is so ginormous now that it actually seems to make sense to buy a ticket, or at least get together and buy 292,201,338 tickets, as I heard some pretty intelligent people say out loud the other night. Doesn’t it? It doesn’t.
As Wired magazine lays out here, the maximum number is what you’d get if you took the payout over 30 years. You’re not dumb enough to do that, so you’d take it in cash, giving you just $868 million. Wait, who’s that at the door? Most likely an IRS agent, dressed just like the one also waiting at the back door, so don’t bother trying that. That big bag slung under a helicopter is to take away about 40% of your winnings. The less-well-dressed agents behind them, with a smaller bag under a smaller helicopter, are there to take your state’s cut, unless you had the good sense to move to a state with no income tax before you won the lottery. But you didn’t. Now you’re down to $394 million, barely enough to get you a decent condo in the Bay Area, and according to Wired this brings your expected return on a $2 ticket down below $2. But the more people who play, the more likely it is that the jackpot will be split anyway, and then it just gets worse.
Oh, and if you guys have $584,402,676 between you to buy that many tickets, WTF are you doing buying lottery tickets anyway? Ever heard of an index fund? Or retirement?
Well, most of those people do have alternatives to the lottery, which is why the people who buy most of the lottery tickets are the people least likely to afford it. They may also be the least likely to have any money-management skills, or at least that is one explanation for the many, many cases in which lottery winners end up broke.
Pretty good list of those here at the Daily Beast, and not surprisingly the legal system is involved in more than one of the cases. There’s the amusing case of Denise Rossi, who in 1996 suddenly demanded a divorce, shocking her husband who did not know, because she had not told him, that she had won $1.3 million in the California lottery 11 days earlier. California, you see, has “community property” rules in which income is generally split 50/50 during marriage. She did not want to do that. But two years after the divorce, her ex got a letter intended for her from a company that helps “lottery winners like you.” What might that mean? Fraud. A judge ultimately ordered her to give him all the money.
That reminded me of a similar case I wrote about in 2008. In that case, a Florida woman got a postcard congratulating her and her husband on buying a new home, which was news to her. This led to Google searches and then to the question, “Do you have any news you want to share with me?” Oh, he had news—he had won part of a $19 million jackpot—but he did not want to share either. (He disconnected their phone and TV to keep her from learning about the win, but apparently forgot about the internet.) It was not clear at the time whether she was entitled to a share anyway; at press time a judge had ruled that she had to allege he bought the ticket with marital assets, not his own money. But he chose to disappear rather than fight it out. I don’t know what ultimately happened in that case, but I did come across a LinkedIn profile for someone with the same name who currently lives in Trinidad and Tobago. So that might be the answer.
Finally, on the topic of odds and profitability, the L.A. Times has a Powerball simulator that will generate a series of winning numbers and match them against your picks. A few minutes ago I told it I wanted to spend $584,402,676 on tickets and started it running. So far it’s spent about $138,000 of that and I’m about $125,000 in the hole. But it’s still early.
The Book Mine is a used book store in Fair Oaks, CA (Northeast of Sacramento) has a web page with snippets of funny conversations with customers who are obnoxious, rude, or weird.
Do people donate all these books to you?
Yes. We show up for work every morning and there are boxes of valuable books sitting at the front door.
Wow, really! I could open a book store?
Sure!
If I opened a store, how would people know where to leave the books?
***
(phone call)
You buy books?
Every day
I've got something you're really going to want
Lay it on me
It's a set of Tom Sawyer
Really! Who wrote it?
I just said, Tom Sawyer
He was quite a guy. Who published it?
Beats me!
Could you look? I'm mildly curious
Wait a minute
(a couple of minutes of my life go by that I will never see again)
You still there?
Barely
Gosit and Dunlop
It's a reprint set and a non-starter for me. Gotta go. Thanks!
***
Older guy comes in...
I'm here for an appraisal.
I charge for appraisals.
No, I don't want to pay for nothing.
What do you have?
A book I wrote. It's about gambling.
Has it been published?
No, that's why I need a (sic) appraisal.
I only deal in old books.
Hey, gambling is old. It's been around a long time.
I don't think I can help you.
Yea I know, you're really wasting my time.
***
(grown-up, looks around)
Do you have any real books?
Yes.
Well, not like the ones you have here. You know, real books!
(Image: I don't have a photo of the Book Mine, so I used a photo I took last month at Bart's Books in Ojai, California. It's a bookstore without a roof!)
Why anyone would want to keep a wild animal like a tiger, monkey or bear as a pet is beyond me. But in the U.S. it’s not a federal crime to own exotic animals – it’s up to the states to decide which animals are legal – with or without permits – to keep as pets.
The six U.S. states that have no restrictions on keeping large cats, primates and bears include Nevada, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina. Other states allow primates but not bears and tigers, such as Virginia and Tennessee. Even more states allow all three of these exotic animals to be kept as pets once a permit is obtained.
The Humane Society lays it all out for you here:
Thanks Tech Insider!
Thanks Tech Insider!
