Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:03 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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We've mentioned this before, but here is an actual lawyer talking for just under an hour about the COPPA mess.



A reminder: Today is the deadline to send polite feedback to the FTC on this looming fiasco.

He provides some suggested talking points for creators here.
He also has some suggested talking points for viewers here.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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....or it could be Brilliant!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:18 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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They still do not yield.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Every muscle hurts.
I am completely beat.
A kidney stone has embarked upon its journey to find the true meaning of Christmas.
I have to work through the weekend.
The boxes continue to come.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:20 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Somewhat related picture by Senri Kita

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:23 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Of course the story's a few days old, but this cartoon by Bob at the Telegraph is just worthy.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:58 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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How is gunfire not in the thesaurus?

I just had to stand up, reach onto the bookshelf over my computer and pull out a BOOK. (Oh the indignity!)

Specifically, the Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus American Edition Edited by Frank R. Abate Published by Oxford University Press (New York, Oxford) in 1997.

And there on page 347 in column one sits "Gunfire".

Winston Smith does love his job I suppose.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:28 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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...except that the incoming fire is all boxes and we have nothing with which to shoot back.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here's a quick Google Translate of relevant portion of the notice I got in my Pawoo account.

Pixiv Co., Ltd. (Head office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director: Shingo Kunieda) has a Mastodon instance "Pawoo" operated on December 2, 2019. Crossgate Corporation (Funabashi City, Chiba Prefecture, Russell Co., Ltd. (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director: Tatsuya Yonekawa) took over the operation.  With the transfer, the operating company of "Pawoo” will be changed to Crossgate Co., Ltd. and Russell Co., Ltd. from December 2, 2019. "Pawoo” will continue to be operated as an independent site by Crossgate Inc. and Russell Inc. You can continue to use your current account.  We thank you for your continued patronage of "Pawoo” at our company, and even after the operating company has been changed to Crossgate Co., Ltd. and Russell Co., Ltd., we will continue to show off "Pawoo” as before. Thank you very much.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So. I put a piece of leftover chicken in the microwave this afternoon for 45 seconds as I have done many, many times before. At about 30 seconds there was a loud explosion as the as the flesh of the chicken bird evenly dispersed itself around the interior of my microwave.

It's all clean now but golly, I haven't had a microwave mishap like that since that time when I was a kid...with the egg.

So perhaps the takeaway here is that moisture can flash to steam in unpredictable ways. However, if  we were to err on the side of caution and assume that chickens of any age have the potential to interact catastrophically with radiation, then this has implications!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:21 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Dev just showed up in Discord chat.

The Blizzard Police^(tm) did not get him.

The Gearbox Goons did not get him.

A polar bear did not get him.

So all my theories were wrong.

_{(Rumor is his internet is out. Or more properly oout.)}

_{Actual footage of Komomo Niji by Saru.}

Komomo Niji, the Chinese voice of Girls Frontline's UMP9 was in ">Australia when the Chinese Govt found out about her old tweets.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thanksgiving is a quintessentially American holiday, but it wouldn't be isekai without anachronisms, so here we go.

  ^{Some adventuring party giving thanks for a successful dungeon crawl by RFF}

^{Thankful bunny mummy is by Romana}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:14 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Lech Walesa is going to Hong Kong. There's an interview of him last week by Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka here.

The people of Hong Kong have shown indefatigable courage in their tenacious attempt to preserve their most precious freedoms. Vast swaths of their population have participated in peaceful protests and voted in the face of intimidation and terror. They risked everything physical and have stood their ground in the face of tyranny despite an assurance that if they loose this they will be sent to the most brutal of gulags.

The people of Hong Kong are putting everything on the line for the most precious freedoms in a fight based on principles that they can likely not win, against a system that is institutionally dedicated to violating those freedoms.


We can offer the Hong Kongers little beyond prayers and support. However, part of that support is to withdraw it from those who continue to Kow-Tow to their tormentors. This cancer will not stay in the Pearl River Estuary. It is already here and metastasizing.

Here in America and much of the west, our captains of industry and media have been implacably relentless in their  pursuit of Chinese markets and investment, eagerly sacrificing our most precious freedoms for vast quantities of Yuan and an assurance that they will be spared any inconvenience. Those among them for whom the merciless obliteration of Muslims serves to blow ever so lightly upon the dying embers of their conscience, smother those uncomfortable sparks by reminding themselves that its being done to those they hate as well.

Here, despite institutional safeguards that are the envy of much of the world, and when preservation of our rights still requires no physical risk and just the modicum of courage required to risk one's social circle, our creative and administrative classes are  working overtime to bypass those safeguards to get those pesky rights out of their hair.

The loathsome Quisling was less despicable than these recreants, at least his country was conquered first.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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While conducting a search for "leaked Google memo" (as one does) I blundered into this video, which is allegedly an internal video that is, allegedly, required viewing among senior management.



As for the provenance, after uploading it to Bitchute, I successfully tracked it down to an article at The Verge which was published 19 months ago, so this is not breaking news, but it is really creepy.

Only eight minutes long, it starts off with a explanation of the sort of proto-evolutionary theories of a Frenchman named Lamarck, the mention of whom, if you are not in a history of science class, is generally a sign that things are about to go terribly pear shaped, because Lamark's theories are better known under the name Lysenkoism.

The video name drops a few other very smart people and at the 4 minute mark the video gets to subtly and then not so subtly creepy until by the end it looks like a manifesto of a supervillian organization or a cult.

It isn't just the business aspect of big data, (which is worrisome enough given  the context of how a 3d printer is used here), it's the fact that the ideas put forth and the goals are profoundly anti individualistic and diametrically opposed to free speech.

Anyway.

Watch the whole thing.
But not before bed...because this is high octane nightmare fuel.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:22 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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First his rocket goes all 'splody and then this happens...



In fairness, it probably would stop almost any handgun round aside from those in the same class as .45/70, heck, a ball bearing of that size would crack, but not penetrate a lot of armored glass. Still, unlike the rocket, which was being intentionally pushed to it's limits in a test,  this was an inconceivably ill-thought out demo that has distracted from what ought to have been a very impressive roll-out. Also, couldn't they have come up with a better name than CyberTruck.

Unforced errors aside, the claimed stats for this thing are quite impressive, 500 miles on a charge is beyond respectable for any EV.  The body, unlike the glass, performed in the dent test against the sledgehammer quite well, and the fact that it's made out of STAINLESS STEEL is important and potentially game changing for a pickup. 



 Coverage of this unveiling has universally seemed to dismiss the notion that anyone in the current pickup truck market would be interested in this thing. This is not necessarily true and seems to be more a reflection of how the media views people who own pickup trucks than any insight into their needs.

To be sure there will be and should be some healthy skepticism, but this angry, shiny trapezoid is in the price range of an F-150 and handily bests it in most areas, at least on paper. A 7 US ton towing capacity and 16 inches of clearance are vastly superior stats to other pickups in the price range.This model has a crew cab and its bed (or "vault"because...Tesla) is advertised as 6.5 feet long which is 18inches too short for standard pieces of plywood with the tailgate closed. It's much closer than most crew cab trucks are in this regard though and there looks to be more than enough room with the tailgate down, so a stowable bed extender, perhaps in what appear to be 2 compartments in the very thick sides of the bed would potentially make this a really solid and desirable work truck for any tradesman, farmer, or contractor, especially given that sledgehammer-proof stainless steel body. However, one of the reasons that material is so important is that pickup trucks often go fording and mucking and I'm not sure that I trust an electric vehicle to handle water well or to be safe to stand next to when it's driving through high salt or brackish water. This drive train and power pack need to be demonstrated to be safe and durable in water.

Hopefully Musk will check with his engineers first and not electrocute himself in the process.

If that is done with no shocking revelations then this odd looking but theoretically capable and competitively priced truck has the potential to make impressive inroads into the massive U.S. truck and crossover market despite its Syd Mead styling.




I must confess I actually like the styling.

^{I had never considered what would happen if a DeLorean had sex with a CitiCar. Now I know.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:41 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Has anybody else lost all of their subscriptions?

Just asking.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:35 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Don, he of the Zoological Practical Scooper has, after 7 years, finally been proven wrong about something.

Long ago he wrote this...

Joshiraku — Nobody is ever likely to license this.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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^{"New evidence regarding organics and seasonal methane emissions seems to support her conclusions and if these pan out, it'll be important to remember that it was Dr. Straat and her team who first discovered life on Mars, probably before the first people who will first see it under a microscope were born. "}

Time will tell but her argument seems compelling. Indeed, its looking more and more like she's right and that the decision to not put any life detecting experiments on the subsequent probes was ill-conceived at best. She has a book on the topic that is, for some reason, not available in the usual places but you can buy it here.

_{Full Disclosure: "Science Babe" is actually Makise Kurisu from Stein's Gate, but you know that, because you've seen it, unless you haven't in which case you're wrong.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:19 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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