May 26, 2021

Poke!

Banality is below the fold. The pic is just a placeholder, but some of you may glean more from it. 


Art is by Taiwanese Artist Ikaridon, who can also be found on Pixiv Sketch, and you can also support her on Fanbox
more...

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May 23, 2021

Dave Rubin asks....the Question.

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May 20, 2021

In the Intrests of Evironmental Awareness, Food Security, and Economic Prosperity

... The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes are celebrating WORLD BEE DAY!




Bees are vital to the ecosystem but vulnerable to environmental toxins. Bees can be a sign of environmental problems much like a canary in a mine. 




Bees provide pollination for many plants including primary and secondary food crops. 



Bees have an exoskeleton and no bones. But, unlike me,  they have all the other organs



Commercial beekeepers alone produced 37,830,000 pounds of honey which at 207.5 cents a pound comes to a contribution of  $78,497,250.00 dollars to the economy irrespective of their secondary benefits to other types of agriculture.  



However, bees are threatened by Colony Collapse Disorder which is kind of like Coronachan for bees, but worse. 

It's unclear what causes it, and since bees don't wear masks, the government is banning certain pesticides and beekeepers are applying medications like menthol, which is used to treat certain bee parasites. 

 
Art is by Houtengeki (who has "issues" involving bees apparently.) Support him on Fanbox

Random Non-contextual facts; mostly from Wikipedia

Note: 
This post has determined by this blog's office of standards and practices to bee educational in nature and not appeal to the prurient interest of normal Americans which we are defining as "those people who do not want to have conjugal relations with bees". 

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Aw Crap.

Another passes

Dr. Kentaro Miura, the author of "Berserk", passed away on May 6, 2021 due to acute aortic dissection. We would like to express our utmost respect and gratitude to Dr. Miura's painting work and pray for his soul.

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May 18, 2021

9-0

Good GRIEF!


A unanimous decision from SCOTUS. Meaning it's not another example of our liberties hanging by a thread. Also meaning that they'll now have to go for a 19 justice court. 

More here, here, and here

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against a warrantless seizure of guns while a man was in a hospital for a suicide evaluation.

That there was any question about this is a sign of how screwed up things are, but the decision, especially its unanimity is a most welcome surprise.  

This may well kneecap the red flag laws in addition to the now debunked idea that people can just express "concern" about a gun owner and have all their guns seized without so much as a warrant. 

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May 16, 2021

This is a Worthy Video.

Issac Arthur looks at less grounded scifi weapons and comes to some interesting conclusions.

Watch on Bitchute



Isaac Arthur mentions a light-saber video. It is here and it is awesome! There are follow-ups here and here, where they demonstrate that Styrofoam is a sub optimal armor material, and mobile homes are weak to light sabers as well as tornadoes. 

UPDATE: 
There is a moment in the video where Mr. Arthur predicts that hacking will be viable for only a short period as cybersecurity is becoming much better. 

Colonial says "Hi!". 

 Admittedly he's talking long term but I was under the impression that anything can get hacked. I am curious what IT experts think of his rather optimistic prediction.

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Gas is Back

Almost all the gas stations now have fuel. There are no lines to speak of. 


"Yay!"

" I don't have gas." Will no longer be an acceptable excuse for work. Hopefully, things will be better staffed and less hellish than they were this past week.

I fully understand why the volume spiked with people stocking up on supplies via online orders, but I cannot for the life of me grok why THOUSANDS of people looked at a petroleum shortage and said "Now's the time to buy a petroleum powered generator!" 

My back still hurts. 

UPDATE:
Gas stations not ghast stations. There are no Ghasts in Southeastern Virginia. 
Fortunately. 

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I Did Not Realize How Prophetic This Show Was

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May 13, 2021

Oh. Dear.

I have a degree in History. It's not worth a lot and its acquisition realistically passes no cost-benefit-analysis. However, that useless degree does foment a bit of dread in me when I read this


Affirmation is not always a cause for unbridled joy.

Now for some music...

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May 11, 2021

No Gas

There is one gas station out of the four I passed on the way back from the dentist that still had gas. Given the line that was shutting down one lane of traffic I expect that is a transient situation. Two of the now empty stations had gas when I went TO the dentist. 


 Unlike the other stations, Royal Farms has no sign announcing their lack of gas, they have little signs on each gas pump and people are wasting that extra little bit of precious petrol to line up to read the signs. 

I would take pictures but the areas around gas station are filled with agitated angry people acting and driving crazy. 

I'm glad I filled up on Friday. 


UPDATE: Because some people are perplexed by the fact that the colloquial term in the U.S.A. for gasoline is gas despite it being a liquid... 

"Gas" was once  the colloquial term used to refer to the hydrocarbon gasses being pumped through cities (at the time mostly for illuminating and occasionally cooking). It came to mean, in that context, not the third state of matter, but a hydrocarbon fluid used for combustion. GasOl refered to a hydrocarbon fluid that behaves much like oil. And GasOl-ine appears to have been a trade name. "Gas" is a shortened form of that. 

Remember too that petrol is short for petroleum and even the kerosenes like diesel and jet fuel are much closer in behavior, (if not appearance) to heating Oil than gasoline is...Gasoline is a light end, behaves differently from other petroleum based fuels and is in some ways more dangerous to handle, making a different term a good idea. As an aside, gasoline has a very low vapor pressure and is constantly trying to be a....gas. 

In fairness, none of this is particularly obvious if one is upside down and surrounded by fires and angry spiders.

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May 09, 2021

ODD TAXI

This is NOT a show that I would ordinarily have watched. From the promo material and character designs it would appear to be a show aimed at either little kids....or furries. 


However, Don over at Zoopraxiscope is a man of impeccable taste and he suggested it may be the best show of the season. I just watched episode one and it is certainly interesting. 


The show is indeed odd and much of the episode takes place in or very near a taxi so it already has truth in advertising going for it. 



Thus far it concerns a taxi driver in funny-animal-Tokyo. Oderoki, the fellow in the center of the bingo card above, is an anthropomorphic Walrus who drives a taxi and seems to be "on the spectrum" since he tries to make a mental conversational flow-chart with 5 or so options every time he sees somebody because he has no idea what will offend people. 

He is....blunt.  

This show has, even in subtitles, snappy and engaging dialog that seamlessly transitions between the anodyne and the...other side of this show, which sneaks up on one.


The art is unremarkable but it works and its soundtrack is absolutely superb. I'm not sure I'd buy the BGM but it complements the story very well and sets the tone in a way that few scores come close to.  

The cast of everymen and women are completely believable beyond the whole "anthro" thing and this show is astonishingly interesting. 

I'm definitely watching this one. 

Go visit Don. He's got all the necessary screencaps. 

Odd Taxi is fascinating actually and has fully grabbed me. 

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Golly

So THAT'S how they did it before NJ Star.



That amazing bit of Babbagery has to have the capability of typing a MINIMUM of 1945 characters. I wonder if some of those keys are just radicals and there's a function similar to capital and lower case for putting together select words. Anybody used one of these?

Anyway, with the development of the integrated circuit and word processors the procedure today is much simpler allowing a larger pool of typists. 




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May 08, 2021

Invest in Physical Petrol

...if you're on the East Coast of the U.S.

There has been a cyber-attack that has shut down over half of the oil flowing into the East Coast from Texas. The Pennsylvania fields alone can't carry the load and so if its not resolved by tomorrow night there will be shortages in very short order. This appears to be a ransomware attack and this may be the most consequential one ever. 

Picture is (hopefully) unrelated: 



I'm curious if the IT professionals in the audience have anything to add. 

UPDATE:

Via Pixy comes this article with a map of the affected area. Note that amongst the many affected parties are the big military fuel depots. The U.S. Navy's in Yorktown (servicing Norfolk), The Army Transportation Command at Fort Eustis, and Langley Air Force Base. 



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Meanwhile: In Chernobyl

One of out Crack Team of Science Babes has called our attention to happenings in Ukraine. 



"I guess it's true then. 2020 won."

Uh. She seems dismayed. Well, lets look at her tabs...
 Thirty-five years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded in the world’s worst nuclear accident, fission reactions are smoldering again in uranium fuel masses buried deep inside a mangled reactor hall.

Oh. 

Oh dear. 

A quick perusal of the article indicates that rainwater leaking into the sub-basements of the stricken power plant was acting as a moderator and facilitating increased nuclear reactions in the solidified mass of uranium that constitutes the now solidified melted-down fuel pile. To combat this, the powers that be erected a rain-proof shelter over the highly radioactive ruin. Unfortunately there has recently been a spike in neutron emissions from a particularly isolated room where the formerly molten mass solidified. There are concerns that the water had been acting as a moderator there as well, but in such a way as to prevent  chain reactions rather than facilitate them, and now that the water has drained/ evaporated out this area is getting all fissiony. 

Pouring water into the catacombs paved with uranium risks causing chain reactions in other areas.

This is a mess. While a runaway chain reaction would not cause an actual nuclear bomb equivalent, it could cause a steam explosion and possibly fires which would spread radioactivity. 

Or not...because these are counterintuitive neutrons and scientists are unsure of what is actually going on. 

There is more coverage of this here, here, and here at the U.K. Sun, which manages to work the word "zombie" into the headline. 

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May 05, 2021

Will There Be 'Splodies?

There may not even be a burn. As this is being typed there appears to be an issue and Space-X trucks have arrived at the launch-pad and disgorged technicians, while the rockets flaps are being tested. 



However, the FAA mandated launch window extends until 8PM Houston time. For now the commentators are discussing the relative merits of cooking bacon in the oven. 

UPDATE: 
One of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Explodemologists has an update as of 17:37.


"They're pumping in fuel! The countdown has restarted! 
Fireworks are likely!


UPDATE 2:

It looks like they did it! no explosions are in evidence and a small fire on the pad has been extinguished. It appears this was completely successful.


A superb celebration of the 60th anniversary of Alan Shephard's 1961 flight


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A Question for You, Gentle Reader

Has "Minecraft" become the latest code word for what was previously referred to as a b00g@L00? 'Cause I just blundered into some discussion concerning the relative merits of .308 versus .223/5.56 caliber ammunition in the context of.... "Minecraft". This was not a video game board.



Minecraft LARPing sounds like it could get out of hand. 

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May 04, 2021

A User's Manual For the Society We're Entering

Devon over at SFO has thoughts on how the cancellers are coming to terms with their increasingly being the targets of their own cancellation. Unsurprisingly, the chosen examples are not exhibiting introspection and/or awareness. 





 I, like Dev, know, have known, and/or have talked to several people who have lived through the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the fall of Weimar, the former USSR and Maoist China. To a person their reactions to the current climate is one of dread and foreboding. As some have told me "There is nowhere left to run". 

I suggest watching the whole thing, which is half an hour, However, there is a clip that must be seen to be believed at 15:37. In the clip, ContraPoints suggests as a solution to the increasingly frequent cancellation of lefties. Instead of stopping the whole process, she describes what amounts to a Maoist style struggle session in which people will be able to prostrate themselves before the mob and emerge, like a prodigal child, rehabilitated. One of the co-hosts points out (approvingly) how this is literally Maoist and they all agree that this is a point in its favor. The clip from Linday Ellis, going through a process similar to what these people imagine it would be, (rather than what it WOULD be) is terrifying for different reasons. 

I know a woman who lived through the Cultural Revolution and spent 10 years in prison and work camps. To have people nodding enthusiastically about this is bewildering and horrifying. It's like 9 year old boys playing war, but these aren't children. 

Dev's a (liberal) leftie and an Atheist, so there's things that he and I don't agree on. But he is an excellent videographer and he really nails it here. 

There is a related vid of his that is also relevant from some years ago concerning just HOW onerous this can be (doing a deep dive on a point I'd briefly touched on as one of many, earlier in the month). That video of his puts to rest the notion that one can simply batten down , move to the country and keep ones nose clean until this passes, for Lindsay Ellis is correct about one thing. It is a "Beast"; a manifestation of the darkest angels of human nature and now that it is unleashed it is insatiable. 

Stay safe everybody. Good night and good luck. 

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May 03, 2021

SENPAI NOTICED ME!!!

"Banned in Boston" used to be a selling point for books. 


As a Z-list blogger of diffident posting frequency such PR gold is closed to me. 

Oh wait. 

According to commenter MadRocketScientist:

Your blog, and possibly all of mee.nu is now banned by T-mobiles censorship application (which I need to figure out how to disable.)

Was it downvoting communism or a picture of an empty vaccine line?
 


"Hey girls! T-Mobile says The Brickmuppet's a...Bad Boi! Let's check him out!"

Hey ladies. Yeah. I'm...dangerous

Hahahaha! I have arrived! No doubt I've said SOMETHING too close to the truth. 

The omnipotent, ubiquitous "They" do not want people to hear me. 

So come one, come all, to read that which is FORBIDDEN

Now to take advantage of this public relations coup. I must think of something forbidden to write. 

Or anything to write really. 

It ought not be hard. I am, after all, quite radical.



UPDATE:  I finally got some people who have T-Mobile to look into this and it IS now blocked by T-Mobile's Web Guard parental filtering software.  

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May 01, 2021

Happy Mayday Everybody.


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April 29, 2021

Speculations From the Cutting Edge of of Isekaiology

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