February 26, 2019

On the Importance of Bloggers Checking Out the Other Content on the Site Hosting That Post They Just Found Via a Google Search






Well, THAT post is sidelined indefinitely.   

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February 25, 2019

Meanwhile, in France

15 weeks on, the Yellow Vests continue to march.



This situation has not gotten anywhere near the attention it deserves here. 

Note though, that there has been a glimmer of coverage today as there are signs that after almost 4 months, the French public are growing tired of the protestors and Pétain Macron is recovering in the pols.

As to what the go to what our favorite English language Parisian blogs have been saying...

Dissident Frogman's site has burned down, fallen over and is awash in the swamp. The site is, as of yesterday, being rebuilt as per a note in the sidebar, though the most recent post on the site is from 2017.

There hasn't been a post on  ¡No Parasan! in over two weeks as I type this.

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February 24, 2019

While We Were Distracted, Boreas Went Color Blind

Here in the U.S., when making snow cream, we must be on alert for the occasional patch of yellow snow and just refrain altogether when it is pink.

In parts of Russia now, they long for such simple, days. 


Pink and yellow are bad, but green and black are just wrong. 

At least with our orange alligators you can see them coming and avoid the problem.

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February 22, 2019

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

Over at Ambient Irony, Pixy discusses technobabble, space exploration, developments in server farm technology, trends in the stewardship of You Tube commentary and milestones in the history of Invader Zim slash. 






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February 20, 2019

Huh...



This may just be a technical issue tonight, but I hear this is happening a lot. 

I have no love for Patreon, but there are good people who depend on the company remaining solvent and giving them their actual checks. The signs are not good however

There is more here. There are indications that the issue actually comes from a huge influx of venture capital. That is, the business model of Jack Conte was sound, but the company accepted a huge influx of money, from people who expected a very large return and now have Conte by the shorthairs. 

While I'm a member of Subscribe Star and am quite impressed with their apparent dedication to free speech and how they have recovered from their deplatforming by MasterCard and Paypal.  I have no illusions regarding the implications and future prospects of a free-speech platform operating out of Russia. 

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Meanwhile:

Jussie Smollet appears to still be a liar, the Covington Kids still haven't done anything particularly racist, and Trump is still literally Hitler (and a very, very bad one at that), so is there any other news?


Well, while we weren't looking....

India and Pakistan haven't gone to war and popped off any of their 260+ nukes yet....emphasis on yet

Ebola has killed over 840 people this month and the hot zone is doubling as a war zone so it's pretty much hell on earth.

The Air Force has had an intel specialist defect to Iran and give the Iranians a bunch of secrets, including the names of U.S. intel agents. 


We don't have flying cars yet, but Tam points out that we are living in the future! (Albeit a William Gibson novel)

Perhaps an Asimov future instead, as Pixy links us to news of a robot uprising in Germany

Or maybe it's The Crazy Years 'cause this is where we righties all stand up and say "Thank you and AMEN!" to the writings of The Notorious RBG.

We end with a story of terrible mistakes and redemption that comes to us, again via Pixy...

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February 19, 2019

That Venn Overlap Between TOS and POS

A screencap of a screencap from today's Dumping with Scrump...screencapping a random sentence buried in the new Discord terms of service.





Now this almost certainly won't stand up in a court of law. However, to regain control of one's IP one has to hire a lawyer. This, of course, is beyond the means of many who's IP will get looted like this. Which, is, of course the point.


While it's an interesting discussion, describing the disturbing decline and degeneration of Discord, I do not necessarily recommend listening to today's episode. It goes into dreadful places. For instance, I could have lived a full, happy, and productive life never having had explained to me what the actual hell cubbycon meant and now that path of pleasant innocence is forever closed to me.  

more...

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Some Damned Fool Thing on the Subcontinent.

It's not getting a lot of coverage here in the U.S., where news has been dominated by various and sundry dumpster fires, but things have really been heating up over the last few days between India and Pakistan.  


Both countries have over 100 nuclear weapons. Their use could have direct implications even for those on the other side of the world.



Light absorption by the estimated soot from 100 Hiroshima sized bombs. The estimate is probably pessimistic, but an actual nuclear exchange between the two countries might use 3 times as many bombs so it probably balances out. The effects amount to 1-3weeks shorter growing season for a year or two.  

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February 18, 2019

Balls of Brass

Mike Ritland has an interview with CBS's Laura Logan about her wide ranging journalistic career starting with her days in South Africa. While most coverage of the interview is focusing one three minute segment, the whole three and a half hour interview is really fascinating and worth a look.



Be advised that around 2:46 she also opens up in considerable detail about her 2011 gang rape in Egypt. Be aware that even giving the disturbing subject matter, it's a very grim segment. 

That said this is a really really good interview, with a very substantial woman who has lived a hell of a life.

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Taking Electoral College Pieces Off the Board...In Innovative Ways

So. 

Speaking of that mysterious, exotic, place between Duluth and Dikson.

There is now a Change.org petition to sell Montana to Canada for a trillion dollars. This is being cleverly presented as a means to reduce the debt.

The proposal itself is fairly laconic.

 We have too much debt and Montana is useless. Just tell them it has beavers or something.

This particularly cunning because, while Montana is replete with uses, the statement is, in fact two thirds true (The debt is too big, and Montana does, in fact, have beavers) . 

As I typed this the proposal had 6,941supporters out of a goal of 7,500.


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Signs & Portents: Unrest is Everywhere.

Civil uprising, Canadian Style.

3 years old, but still illustrative of...something.

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February 12, 2019

What's the Difference Between Writing a Story With an Awesome, Strong Female Lead and Writing A Bitter, Mary Sue Fan Fic?

I'll just leave these here to 'start a conversation'...



Discuss....

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February 10, 2019

Vault 21 Goes Up For Sale!

Mr. House call your office.



A CGI rendering of what the the facility might look like after some use and urban redevelopment.

Girard Henderson's 14,620  square foot underground fallout shelter just off  the Las Vegas strip has gone on sale again for a mere 18 million dollars. 



Actual photo of the interior of the facility.

It appears to be the most '70s bunker ever, including in its living arrangements a small cluster of 1 story "houses" around an astroturf garden with a swimming pool. It had been sold 4 years ago to a shadowy organization that totally claimed not to be named Vault Tec, so its resurfacing on the market for such a comparatively modest price given the size and location is almost certainly not some sort of ill omen or indication of a trap.

REMEMBER! "Everything's better when you experience it in a vault!"

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Just a Link to a PDF.( For Historical Purposes)

When the "Green New Deal" first came out there was a FAQ sheet and I downloaded it got halfway through page 2 and reralized that the Cray-Cray was stronger in this document than I'd thought possible...and stopped reading. 


I commented on another blog that nuclear power was not just absent from the proposed solutions, it was specifically singled out for elimination. 

to wit:
A Green New Deal is a massive investment in renewable energy production and would not include creating new nuclear plants. It’s unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.

The blogger asked for a citation saying he could not find that in the document. This struck me as odd because Lowther does his research and, as I said, it was on page two. 

Well lo and behold it appears that online versions of the FAQ page are being removed and/or edited; It's just that crazy a document. 

Well, I downloaded it and it's HERE (WARNING: May cause SAN loss)

It will remain here at least until Mee.nu gets blowed up. 

Neo has thoughts on the purpose of releasing the document as crazy and incomplete as it is. 

Pixy meanwhile, has run the numbers

They are not little numbers.

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February 09, 2019

New Asteroid Discovered

Via Instapundit comes this story about the discovery of a new asteroid inside the orbit of Venus. One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes explains why this is object is so potentially interes....



"Forget that! It's not important anymore. 
I've uncovered proof that our society is over"

Wha..?



Well. That's it.

UPDATE: I have a question. Would this be transhumanist furries or would the lack of fur preclude that and if so would these be shinies?

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Meanwhile, In the Kuiper Belt

N.A.S.A.s New Horizons probe has just had its best pictures of " _2014_MU69">Ultima Thule" processed. Now we've sent one of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes to bring us the latest on this Kuiper belt object. However, given what we've seen so far it's fairly clear that it is just a bog standard comet and pretty much uninteresting in any way. 



"That last sentence is about as wrong as is grammatically possible."

Oh.

Well, it appears that Ultima Thule still had some surprises, one of which  was only revealed when the spacecraft flew past it. 

You see, according to the mission webpage, this is believed to be the best picture that New Horizons took of Ultima Thule...



There's a lot of oddness, including the fact that it appears to be a conjoined comet. Then New Horizons flew by the object aaand....









Why that should be is unclear to say the least, but it is interesting that one of the explanations for the weirdness of the recently departed Omuamua is that it was flat enough to be affected by solar pressure. Perhaps something causes objects on edge of interstellar space to flatten. 

In any event, it's NEAT!

 And, rarely does science give us such a straightforward and unambiguous lesson in the importance of perspective. 

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February 08, 2019

Well...

...I'm sure this has no troubling implications whatsoever.



Yahoo and Tech Crunch also report this.

Over at /r/EmergingRisks this quote from the Gizmodo article is highlighted...
The apparently impending Reddit-Tencent marriage is complicated by the fact that Reddit, one of the most popular websites on the internet, is regularly—and is currently—blocked in China as part of the world’s most notorious and sophisticated censorship regime, the Great Firewall of China.

Further complicating matters is the fact that Tencent is not merely a resident on China’s internet—the company is one of the most important architects of the Great Firewall. It’s an interesting source of cash for a Silicon Valley company whose product is essentially speech.

The quote keeps using the word "complicated". There's nothing complicated about a speech platform getting involved with an entity like Tencent. It's simply, straightforwardly, terrifying. 


"What!? They couldn't sell out to Weyland-Yutani or Vault-Tec?"

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February 07, 2019

Dispatches From the Dumpster Fire

As some of you know, I live in Virginia, where the top 3 elected officials have all been outed as stupid, creepy, and/or servants of Moloch. 


I will be using this dumpster fire as the go-to excuse for the recent limited blogging because it's so much sexier to be struggling against the intersection of racists, predators and a Dr. Mengele  than to be waylaid by the intersection of  a cold, lots of kanji homework and a research paper.

Anyway, as compensation, here is Vararia, who exists at the intersection of 'kawaii' and 'kowai'.



Art by Lansane, who you can support via his Pixiv Fanbox page

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February 06, 2019

Worst. Hitler. Evah.

Literally...


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