Hello all. Roger de Hauteville here, sitting in for Bird Dog. He's gone for his yearly sojourn to get a flea bath and his nails clipped. If he plays his cards right, maybe he'll even get a belly rub from Mrs. Bird Dog.
While it's true I'm "sitting in," there will be, thankfully, no sit-ins on my watch. I'm Sicilian, remember? Haven't you seen the Godfather movies? We don't do sit ins. We don't riot. We don't hold placards and march in a circle. We say nothing about our affairs to strangers, and precious little about them even to our friends. If any action is required, we visit you in the night, and whisper your transgressions in your ear. These remonstrations beat demonstrations every time. Act accordingly.
Woman in China, 45, made $589,800 by buying insurance on flights she predicted would get delayed
The Paper, citing Yangtse Evening Post, said she was able to receive relevant information beforehand that tells her if the flight was going to be delayed or cancelled. Thereafter, she would purchase the tickets to the flights that are likely to be delayed or cancelled, before checking if there is any extreme weather along the route the flight is going to take that day.
Wow. $589,000. That's almost enough money to take two extra bags on her next flight.
ACH payments cost less. Will online shoppers ever switch?
Those numbers underscore the appeal of ACH payments: they are often significantly cheaper than other methods. For example, a $5,000 transaction made with ACH could cost the originator anywhere from $0.25 - $5, whereas the same transaction would cost $90 if it were made with a credit card.
Remember Betteridge's Law of Headlines. If a headline ends in a question mark, the answer is always "No."
Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts At China's Request
Teleconferencing company Zoom acknowledged it shut down the accounts of several activists and online commemorations of the Tiananmen Square massacre at China's request. The revelation followed media reports, citing Hong Kong and U.S.-based activists, who found their accounts suspended.
The current administration uses the wrong casus belli to address the problem with uniformly left wing online platforms. Don't break them up because they're monopolies. Jail Zoom execs because they're unregistered lobbyists. Don't break up Google. Jail them because it's fraud to call yourself a search engine while selling the top spots to advertisers. Twitter is a political action group that forgot to register. Jail time. See? Problem solved.
This is the word that exists in all human languages, according to research.
Our languages are incredibly diverse and it is highly unlikely to find a word or a handful of words that sound the same in all languages. Except that there is a word that is shared by all human languages, according to research. Surprise, surprise..the word is ‘huh’. Weird, huh! Well, it turns out that this is probably a universal word.
One notices that the word "probably" appears in the first paragraph, but not in the headline. Can't go admitting the truth right away, or people won't read it.
Scientists close in on 12-billion-year-old signal from the end of the universe's 'dark age'
Today, stars fill the night sky. But when the universe was in its infancy, it contained no stars at all. And an international team of scientists is closer than ever to detecting, measuring and studying a signal from this era that has been traveling through the cosmos ever since that starless era ended some 13 billion years ago.
It's probably an old I Love Lucy episode.
The First Woman PhD in Computer Science Was a Nun
She was passionate about providing access and information to everyone, not just computer scientists. She also envisioned a world in which computers made people smarter and learned to think on their own.
Yeah, about that last bit, sister...
Popular Pirate Sites Slowly ‘Disappear’ From Google’s Top Search Results
Someone searching for “Game of Thrones torrent” was not going to find The Pirate Bay in the top results. Similarly, filters were set up for music-related queries as well.
As a result, pirate sites saw their search traffic decline drastically. This meant a drop in new visitors to these sites. However, people could still find these pirate sites by searching for their name. We use the past tense here because that has changed for many sites as well.
Kids these days. You're pirates! Look up the word in the dictionary. Banks don't have drive-up windows reserved for bank robbers. Have a little gumption. It's no fun stealing movies if they make it too easy, anyway.
Archaeology: Thracian pit sanctuary found in Bulgaria’s Bourgas
Items found include fragments of ceramic vessels, including bowls and amphorae. There are human and animal bones in the pits, as well as coal. No finds of metal objects have been made at this stage.
I saw Thracian Pit Sanctuary open up for REO Speedwagon at the Providence Civic Center once. Great show.
Astronauts say riding Falcon 9 rocket was “totally different” from the space shuttle
The Crew Dragon astronauts said the ride on the Falcon 9 rocket was smoother than the space shuttle for the first couple of minutes. The space shuttle launched with two solid rocket boosters, which provided more than two-thirds of the shuttle’s total thrust at liftoff.
They didn't like parking overnight on the moon to recharge the batteries, but other than that, it was fine.
Engineers find neat way to turn waste carbon dioxide into useful material
The researchers, who carried out their work in the Particles and Catalysis Research Laboratory led by Scientia Professor Rose Amal, show that by making zinc oxide at very high temperatures using a technique called flame spray pyrolysis (FSP), they can create nanoparticles which act as the catalyst for turning carbon dioxide into ‘syngas’ – a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide used in the manufacture of industrial products. The researchers say this method is cheaper and more scalable to the requirements of heavy industry than what is available today.
Waste carbon dioxide. Useful material. Farmers scratch their heads and say, "Huh?"
Have a great Monday, everyone!
