Well, Bird Dog has gone off for a few days to make sure his mountain redoubt/bolthole is still stocked with beans and ammo. That means you're stuck with me, Roger, the King of Sicily.
Not to worry. I'm not prone to strong opinions, so there's no need to offer trigger warnings for the faint of heart and pushy college students. The only trigger warning I ever paid attention to was a shell being racked. All the rest is conversation, and a dull one at that. On to this morning's links!
Sexual Selection Makes Female Songbirds Drab
The study, published in Nature, found that sexual selection does play an important role in creating colour differences between male and female plumage. But the contrast is largely driven by females evolving to become drab.
Life, ah,finds a way. I bought plenty of drinks for some pretty drab females back in the day.
Ancillary Copyright 2.0: The European Commission is preparing a frontal attack on the hyperlink
According to a draft communication on copyright reform leaked yesterday (via IPKat), the Commission is considering putting the simple act of linking to content under copyright protection. This idea flies in the face of both existing interpretation and spirit of the law as well as common sense. Each weblink would become a legal landmine and would allow press publishers to hold every single actor on the Internet liable.
Oh dear. Bloggers would have to produce their own text and stop linking to newspapers they purport to hate.
After 'robust' discussion, fast food giant McDonald's is not pursuing a REIT
Amid low interest rates, McDonald's also plans to add a "meaningful" amount of additional debt, said CFO Kevin Ozan in a release."As a result, we are increasing the Company's cash return to shareholders target to about $30 billion for the three-year period ending 2016 - a $10 billion increase over our previous target, with incremental debt funding the vast majority of the increase," he said.
There's a term for borrowing money to pay existing investors instead of trying to turn a profit.
Mummified Hand from Yorkshire May Be Last Hand of Glory Still in Existence
The Bladen Journal reports that a mummified hand found in Castleton, North Yorkshire, England is the only known ‘Hand of Glory’, a grotesque artifact meant to aid thieves in their work during the night, still in existence. This mummified hand supposedly has the power to “entrance humans” according to the Express. Hands of Glory were also a favorite tool for thieves and creative storytellers for over 200 years.
I hereby propose we call Obama's autopen the Hawaiian Hand of Glory.
Bob Dylan and the “Hot Hand”
But as Dylan grew older, as the immense catalogue of his songs came to embrace everything—folk, rock, gospel, blues, Tin Pan Alley—he looked back on the golden period of 1965-66, the moment of the hot hand, when the songs came two and three a day, as if from heaven, and he seemed as filled with wonder as the rest of us.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
Helmut Schmidt dies at 96; W. German chancellor fought domestic terror
Schmidt, a center-left Social Democrat, led West Germany from 1974 to 1982. He was elected chancellor by lawmakers in May 1974 after the resignation of fellow Social Democrat Willy Brandt, triggered when a top aide to Brandt was unmasked as an East German agent. The new leader brought a sometimes abrasive self-confidence and his experience as West Germany's defense, finance and economy ministers to the job, which he took during the economic downturn that followed the 1973 oil crisis.
Better than what they have now. Neither could carry Adenauer's jockstrap, however.
Life in a Studio Apartment with my Wife and Two Sons
Between July 2011 and August 2015 I lived in a ~400sqft studio apartment in San Francisco. I moved in a bachelor but by the time I moved out, I was one member of a four person family. Here are some things I learned along the way.
Six of us lived in a 960 square foot ranch, and were about average. Why do Millennials demand a trophy for everything? Move.
‘Tinder for threesomes’ gets $500K investment
There are no two ways about it: This dating app was built for threesomes.London-based startup 3nder — the name can be pronounced “Thrinder” to rhyme with “Tinder,” according to its founder — said it has raised $500,000 in seed capital from a pair of unnamed angel investors.Since 3nder’s mid-2014 launch, nearly 1 million users have downloaded the iOS app in search of kinky hookups — whether “straight, bisexual, gay, poly- or pansexual,” says founder and CEO Dimo Trifonov.
I'll bet both investors are divorce lawyers
The future of sustainable agriculture is all about smart technology and scaling up
Are the organic hand-picked tomatoes sold at farmers’ markets really better, in a technical sense, or do they just make us feel like better consumers – perhaps even better human beings? If the organic tomato is just a vehicle for romantic fallacy, then we have to look dispassionately at how they are grown from the perspective of sustainability.
I see the generation that thinks they invented small apartments thinks they invented agriculture the week before.
Well, everybody sally forth and make sure you make enough money today to buy sustainably grown tomatoes before the farm goes out of business and you're forced to buy the pinkish baseballs they always had at the A&P.
