Maggie's Farm

Barns Are Painted Red Because of the Physics of Dying Stars

The simple answer to why barns are painted red is because red paint is cheap. The cheapest paint there is, in fact. But the reason it’s so cheap? Well, that’s the interesting part. Red ochre—Fe2O3—is a simple compound of iron and oxygen that absorbs yellow, green and blue light and appears red. It’s what makes red paint red.

Nope. Dairy barns were painted white -- with lead paint --to indicate purity. Barns are painted all colors, but most red ones were covered with red lead primer. Lead oxide, linseed oil, turpentine and Japan drier. Most outbuildings didn't merit paint, and red lead primer was the cheapest stuff you could buy. Cary Grant learned not to mix white lead primer with red lead primer in Operation Petticoat.

Toymaker Lego returns to Danish roots with sudden CEO switch

Lego abruptly removed its chief executive Bali Padda after just eight months on Thursday, replacing the 61-year-old Briton with a younger Danish industrialist in a battle to become the world's biggest toymaker.The Danish company said it had appointed Niels B. Christiansen, 51, who joins Lego after nine years as CEO of Danfoss where by focusing on digitalization he increased sales and turned the firm into a global leader in energy efficiency.

Legos suck. Bring back American Bricks!

Butter shortage is a ‘major crisis’ in Europe 

While production of butter has slowed in Europe, the demand has increased.

You can make butter with milk and a stick. Command economies can't solve anything.

Export Business in Nigeria- The Complete Guide to Starting and Making Profit from Export Bussiness in Nigeria

Consider your passion: The place of passion in doing whatever you want to do cannot be overemphasized. When you have a passion for whatever it is you are doing, it will push you when the going gets tough. There is no need sugar coating it and making it look like it would all go smoothly. There is nothing worth having that doesn’t face challenges. But when one is faced with challenges, the motivation is usually the passion they have. So you might want to consider something you have a passion for.

We've finally reached peak passion.

Why I Was Fired by Google

I was fired by Google this past Monday for a document that I wrote and circulated internally raising questions about cultural taboos and how they cloud our thinking about gender diversity at the company and in the wider tech sector.

Look at the picture. It's like these dweebs share one, big closet to go with their one, big opinion.

The Next Moon Landing Is Near—Thanks to These Pioneering Engineers

Nearly 50 years after the culmination of the first major race to the moon, in which the United States and the Soviet Union spent fantastic amounts of public money in a bid to land the first humans on the lunar surface, an intriguing new race to our nearest neighbor in space is unfolding—this one largely involving private capital and dramatically lower costs.

Listen, poindexters. We stopped going to the moon because there's nothing to do there. It was a stunt, to outdo the Soviet Union. 

Subsunk! World's largest private submarine sinks... no, in the bad way

One Swedish journalist aboard the submarine who was reportedly put ashore before the boat ran into trouble has not yet been accounted for, according to Danish newspaper Berlingske. Bloomberg News reported that Madsen told a local TV station about the sinking, revealing that a problem with a ballast tank caused the crowdfunded vessel to sink.

"Crowdfunded vessel." Heh. Have you tried my Indiegogo vaccines? They're free-range.

What was Benchmark thinking?

Asked if Benchmark’s own investors might have the stomach to sue Benchmark, this person jokes that “every VC today could probably be sued by [their own institutional investors]” for their overly relaxed approached in dealing with startups. Either way, he believes that Benchmark’s lawsuit — which he calls a “misstep” — is “a completely obvious outcome of all this excess and absurdity of the recent years. It’s like when you’re a parent and you spoil your kid and he turns out not to be what you hoped. Are you going to love him or cut him off?”

This accurate description of recent investor/business relationships tells you all you need to know about the last 10 years.

Twitter users want Trump’s account suspended for ‘threatening violence’ against North Korea

That's what some Twitter users, including actor and former Barack Obama aide Kal Penn, are demanding, after President Trump tweeted Friday morning that U.S. “military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely.”

His motorcade doesn't obey the speed limit. They should revoke his driver's license, too.

The End of Libor and Non-Voting Stock

Of course you still need a benchmark for floating-rate loans -- and for trillions of dollars of derivatives -- and it's not exactly clear what competing "transaction-based benchmarks" will win out. Nor is it clear how complicated it will be to transition all of those trillions of dollars of derivatives to the new benchmark. It would be easier if they'd just rebrand the new benchmark "Libor," and report it in the same places as the old Libor: Then contracts that refer to "Libor" could keep referring to "Libor." It would just be a different Libor.

He just really likes typing Libor.

Review: For ‘Get Shorty,’ an Amusing Epix Makeover

The series, which begins on Sunday, takes as its jumping-off point the same book that was the basis for the 1995 movie starring John Travolta and Gene Hackman. But be advised that a title card here reads, “Based in part on the novel by Elmore Leonard,” and “in part” really ought to be highlighted somehow. This is a different story with different and reimagined characters; a point-by-point comparison of film and TV show, or TV show and novel, is even more irrelevant for “Get Shorty” than it usually is for such adaptations.

Get Shorty was a perfect movie. Get Shorty was a passable book. Get Shorty will be a terrible TV show.

How Tesla’s Elon Musk became the master of fake business

Today’s fake-industry leader is Tesla, the electric car developed by subsidy entrepreneur Elon Musk, who also heads SolarCity and SpaceX, other government darlings. Musk’s genius is primarily in the subsidy-seeking realm — by 2015, U.S. governments alone had given his companies US$5 billion through direct grants, tax breaks, cut-rate loans, cashable environmental credits, tax credits and rebates to buyers of his products. Counting subsidies from Canada and Europe, the government bankroll could be double that.

This becomes a problem when the government changes hands, apparently.

Have a great Saturday, everyone! Maybe paint your barn red, and then paint the town red.