Saturday, November 6. 2021
On their excellent highways. Autogrills have excellent coffee bars, clean bathrooms, and food. And other stuff, like Euroland phone and electric plugs. Gas and diesel, of course.
Friday, November 5. 2021
It is a sad story: The Demoralization of the American Teacher. He begins:
Ten years ago, I showed up for my first day as a high school teacher. I had landed a job in the best school of what is often called a “destination district.” Still, I knew I was facing an uphill battle. Warnings abounded of an American public school system in decline. But I was undeterred. I had that youthful sense that education needed change and I was just the one to change it...
Thursday, November 4. 2021
Even adventurous tourists like us prefer to stay in old towns, or the old town centers of cities. Sometimes country villas, but that is different. I've stayed in the real, ordinary Italy, and it's not so great for me. I like the Disney Italy.
Thing about the Italian life style is that most people do not work long hours. Whether in small towns or in cities, the passagiatta at around 5 or 6 pm is a ritual with kids, old folks and, of course, dogs on leashes. Delightful. After that, some wine or aperatifs in a cafe. Dinner begins, mostly, 8-9 pm. That's when restaurants fill up. Many do not open for dinner until 7:30 or 8. After dinnertime, lovers are all out in the piazzas while kids kick soccer balls around in the dark. Cool.
Night is the time to get out and about. No danger except from growling dogs. Everything stays open at night.
Being American, dinner at 8 seems late but I am a guy who likes to get to the gym at 5 AM so I like to get to my books at 9 pm. (Readers know I do not do TV or movies.)
Sunset over the lagoon in Orbetello, which is not really a foreign tourist place but some Brits seem to like it (more night pics below the fold):
More evening and nighttime photos below -
Continue reading "La dolce vita: Evening and nighttime in Italia"
With the Maggie's General Fitness protocol (2 hrs of calisthenics, 2 hrs of HIIT and endurance cardio, and 2 hrs of difficult weights), there is no need to do any single exercise twice in a week.
Some examples:
For legs etc, you can do deadlift one day, barbell squats another. Or leg-press.
For HIIT, you can do stairmaster one day, treadmill sprints on another.
For triceps, you can do press-downs one day, skullcrushers on another.
For calisthenics, the list of choices is so long that you always vary what you do.
Varying the things you do reduces boredom, but also keeps your neuromuscular system nimble and adjusting.
Wednesday, November 3. 2021
Desserts in Italy are not worth it. If you need a sweet, grab a gelato on the street. Or a lemon ice, which the Italians learned from the Arabs who, remarkably, imported the snow and ice from the Alps.
Tiramisu seems to be a popular Italian dessert. I think it's ok, but I rarely eat dessert anywhere. I had one gelato (coffee) in Italy, and it was disappointing.
The guy who invented Tiramisu in the 1970s has died.
Tuesday, November 2. 2021
The world does not do a good job with people with the most serious mental illnesses. It is partly the world's fault, but it is partly because many of the seriously-ill reject the sorts of help which can be offered. Or, in many cases, can't get their act together enough to avail themselves of it.
From Michael Shellenberger, Madness for Decivilization
Driving north from the Rome airport along the coastal highway towards Orbetello, we had to stop in Tarquenia to look at the famous Etruscan tombs and their frescoes (the Monterozzi necropolis). This cemetary was in use from about the 9th C BC until Roman times.
Etruscans, as I view it, were proto-Romans. A fresco sample:
Monday, November 1. 2021
October is the best time of the year to visit Italy. The weather is cooler (low 70s), tourist crowds are way down except in Rome, the vineyards are turning golden yellow, and prices are off-season. Very cheap deals at elegant places to stay. Just try to stay out of the hospitals because that is no picnic.
Best thing of all: it is truffle season. Every decent place to eat had at least one truffle item on the menu, and we brought home two truffle pecorinos for Thanksgiving. Our lovely place outside Montepulciano (Villa Poggiano) put up a chalk board of things they would arrange for you to do each day. One of them was truffle-hunting. (Among others were a cooking class, horseback riding along the back dirt roads, and a rental Ferrari for 4 hours).
I declined the truffle hunt because you have to pay but of course you don't get to keep the black truffles. Also, I do not trust myself with a Ferrari although I do enjoy driving around rural Tuscany (in daylight only). We did happen to see a truffle hunter with his dogs on one of our own back-country hikes on which we got happily lost. I always have a half-roll of toilet paper in the bottom of my Osprey daypack. Who does not?
An American honeymooning couple at our place did everything on the list during their stay. Ah, youth.
As we drove around southern Tuscany looking at various hill towns and things (MapQuest got us everywhere), we stopped by a Roman bath, Bagno Vignoni. We had a nice light lunch there, pecorino ravioli with black truffle. Roasted root veggies on the side. That's Italian! I doubt that you have ever seen so many truffle slices in the USA. Naturally, I had a glass of Vino Nobile de Montepulciano. Fine for the purpose and helpful for driving confidence.
A few more pics, and a truffle hunting vid below the fold -
Continue reading "Reposted: Tuscany in October, with truffles"
 Readers know that we like jump rope as an intense cardio (ie real "cardio") exercise. The heavier the rope, the more challenging. I have used a 1 lb rope a few times and it is brutal.
Speed rope vs. Weighted rope
About jump ropes in general
Sunday, October 31. 2021
Two verses from Lewis Carroll's parody of an old sanctimious verse:
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."
 If Roger, semi-retired King of Sicily, would take over my morning links job here, we'd be a far more interesting, amusing, and educational website. But he won't.
Mrs. BD and I have been driving around northern Italy for 12 days, staying in cool places, tasting real Italian foods (avoiding pasta and pizza as usual - they are just not the best Italian food), and trying to keep to my limit of 1 museum (limit 1 hr) and 1 old church/day. And on this trip 1 Etruscan ruin/day. It got to the point that I called everything, including newstands,"Etruscan" just to calm things down.
As usual, I will post iphone photo travelogues when I get organized. For now, though, a menu from an ordinary cafe in Porto Santo Stefano. Nice lunch right on the fishing docks. We drove out there to the island Monte Argentario to look around while we were staying in Orbetello (in the Maremma). Fun to look at all of the frutti di mare in the fish stores.
Vecchia Pesa. Here's the menu. - click on it.
I am always amazed by the rate at which Octopi must reproduce given the rate at which Italians and Greeks eat them. Best grilled, I feel. I love seafood of every type.
Random bonus trivia: The police in Siena drive Alfas - Alfa Guiliettas, in fact. Me? I drive a Stelvio here at home. Fun, but this time in Italy we had a big diesel Citroen which was great especially on the highways. Mrs. BD loved driving it. Mapquest is excellent in Eurolandia.
Second tip re tourism: October is the only time to visit Italy. Off-season hotel prices, far fewer tourists, no hot weather and no rain, and everything open, cheerful, and lively. Plus it's truffle season.
Third thing: Tourists in Italy are still there in October, but in manageable and not-annoying numbers. We only saw them in Siena and some in San Gimignano. Mostly Scandinavians and Germans, bunches of Brits, a few French. Almost no Americanos or Asians at this time of year. You can ID tourists by dress, manners/mannerisms, posture, etc. Brits look and dress quietly elegantly, tastefullly, and always get lost; Scandinavians hip with their babies running around randomly or in backpacks and do not care if they get lost; and Americans and Germans dowdy, clunky, and overweight. You can easily ID the natives because they are skinny and fashionable at all times. La bella figura. If you want to look local, good luck: a cigarette, a dog on a leash in the bar, Max Mara, a Prada bag, and good shoes (so testifies Mrs. BD, who can pass for Italian even without Prada).
Re the flag - Italy has not been a nation for very long, if they even are a functional nation now. Began 1861 or so. The history of this peninsula and its surrounds is long, complex, and fun but not important in the long run. The only reason they all now speak Italian is because the Tuscans took over. Mrs. BD: "How does this country function? Nobody works hard or pays their taxes ("We prefer cash"), and everybody looks great and seems happy. And they love their untrained, ill-behaved dogs." Yeah, their dogs are terrible, untrained menaces but they all have them. They might love dogs, but they do not have a clue how to train one for a use or for civilization. All on leashes.
Mark 12:28-34
12:28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?"
12:29 Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
12:30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'
12:31 The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
12:32 Then the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other';
12:33 and 'to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,' --this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."
12:34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." After that no one dared to ask him any question.
Saturday, October 30. 2021
 Yes, you can make it at home but it's always better in a diner.
Many things taste better in a diner, especially breakfast after church.
Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm
A consulting architect on UCSB’s Design Review Committee has quit his post in protest over the university’s proposed Munger Hall project, calling the massive, mostly-windowless dormitory plan “unsupportable from my perspective as an architect, a parent, and a human being.” In his October 25 resignation letter to UCSB Campus Architect Julie Hendricks, Dennis McFadden ― a well-respected Southern California architect with 15 years on the committee ― goes scorched earth on the radical new building concept, which calls for an 11-story, 1.68-million-square-foot structure that would house up to 4,500 students, 94 percent of whom would not have windows in their small, single-occupancy bedrooms.
A crypt-keeper pal of vulture capitalist Warren Buffet came up with the plan, and the money to build it -- as long as you don't change his plan. From the photos, the rooms would be illegal as prison cells. A dorm room on the oceanfront with no windows. It's genius, I tells ya.
‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle’: Peter Yates’ Crime Masterpiece that Chose to Rely on a Completely Different Kind of Spectacle
Despite the fact that Mitchum has been married to his wife, Dorothy, for 32 years, he has the reputation of running through women like a stray dog through tall cane, and sure enough, when Mitchum emerges from his two-room camper, he’s trailed by two pretty admirers—”Girl A and Girl B,” as Peter Boyle snickeringly dubs them. “Gahdamn, man,” Boyle mutters, ogling the two women in a parody of lust. “Ol’ Bob’s entourage is swelling. I had either one of those babies, I’d die of terminal euphoria. Zowie! You know what the 2001 theme is? That’s the sound of Mitchum waking up.”
The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a great movie, based on a book from a guy who knew Boston criminals inside and out. It's also the first place I heard this quote: "This life's hard man, but it's harder if you're stupid!"
How to think like a detective
Detectives are often portrayed as misanthropic masterminds. They seem to possess almost mythical personal gifts that the average person can only dream of. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this isn’t entirely true. Not all detectives are masterminds, and you actually don’t need to be a detective to think like one. A few tools and methods can improve your inner detective, help you find facts, and learn to better understand the relationship between them.
A four-year-old with a badge and gun would be the perfect detective. Just keep asking "Why?"
The New Bogeyman
The fact is the threat from China is not really from China but from the pirates that run the economy who like doing business with China. The threat is the Western scientist who are willing to take Chinese money to perform forbidden research. It is the American tech companies willing to sellout the country for the opportunity to make money helping the Chinese communists. China is a symptom of a much graver problem, one that exists in the ruling class of the American empire.
The ZMan is a lively writer and an interesting thinker.
North and West Africa: INTERPOL report highlights human trafficking for organ removal
Organized crime groups are known to be behind trafficking in human beings for organ removal, drawn by the substantial profits that can be made. Information suggests a wide spectrum of actors are involved in organ trafficking in North and West Africa with connections to the medical sector in countries from Africa and beyond, notably in Asia and the Middle East.
See, that's why I drink plenty of whiskey. That way, no one will want my liver or kidneys.
Western Maryland lawmakers ask West Virginia officials to ‘consider adding us’ to their state
Western Maryland lawmakers have periodically raised concerns in the Maryland General Assembly that their part of the state is different from the rest of the state, with a more conservative political outlook, unique economic drivers, a media market based in Pittsburgh and close borders with surrounding states.
Many states could use a reshuffle. Rhode Island shouldn't even be a state. Delaware shouldn't be a state. Vermont should be folded into New Hampshire and stapled to Maine. California should be -- sawn off and pushed out to sea.
The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them
Ms. Fain is old enough to remember when millennials determined what was in vogue: rompers, rose pink, craft beer, Netflix and chill. Now, she gets the foreboding sense from colleagues that her AARP card awaits. Subtly yet undeniably, as generational shifts tend to go, there’s a new crop of employees determining the norms and styles of the workplace. And they have no qualms about questioning not just emoji use but all the antiquated ways of their slightly older managers, from their views on politics in the office to their very obsession with work
We went over this yesterday. Zoomers don't like Millennials much. Never mind that. Try to wrap your head around this New Yoik Toims writer who thinks Millennials have an "obsession with work." That must be why they were all able to pay off their student loans early, huh?
Why AC won the Electricity Wars
Both direct and alternating current could light up a light bulb just fine. And both could be generated easily enough (although the AC generator was more elegant, omitting the brush contacts). DC’s advantage in electric motors was leveled when the brilliant engineer Nikola Tesla invented an AC motor (it depended on “polyphase” AC, that is, multiple alternating currents where the alternations were out of phase with each other). The real, insurmountable difference was in transmission, because here AC could do something that DC could never do, something that would solve the problem of long-distance power lines and establish it as the electrical standard.
The Current War is a terrific movie about this topic, despite being badly written and chaotically directed. Westinghouse was the shizzle.
Responsibility Without Power
In this context, however, PTSD should surely stand for “pre-traumatic stress disorder”; that is to say children are being trained up so that, when they really do suffer from something rather than merely imagine it at some time in the future, having hitherto lived privileged lives by the standards of all previously existing human beings, they will be nice and vulnerable, requiring an army of therapists, counselors, social and auxiliary support workers, etc., to get through the rest of their lives. This is necessary demand management for the professionally compassionate, who need a constant supply of the wretched upon whom to exercise their compassion.
I'm always worried I'll run out of things to worry about. Thank heavens for social media.
Microsoft Becomes World’s Most Valuable Stock as Apple Slumps
Doesn't matter. Next year is the year for Linux on the desktop. Just like last year was.
Zillow’s Zeal to Outbid for Homes Backfires in Flipping Fumble
The shift has been on display in places such as Atlanta and Phoenix, two markets where home prices have been surging. Zillow’s roughly 250 active listings in Phoenix are currently priced at 6% less, on average, than what the company paid for the homes.
I remember when fixing dilapidated homes was a job for regular people and first time home buyers, not page thirteen on some arsehole's slidedeck pitch to venture capitalists for a javascript empire. I hope Zillow chokes on it.
Enjoy your weekend, folks!
Friday, October 29. 2021
 Do you aspire to climb Ben Nevis in winter? Or, God forbid, Mount Washington?
Autumn is the time for serious hiking in whatever the weather serves up. Adventure.
We feel the best stuff is made by Montane. It's a Euroland company so it has an Alpine feel.
LL Bean is fine, but not for winter climbing. Patagonia has the brand, but check out Montane. Bear in mind that they use Euroland sizing, which is different.
Scientists recreated classic origin-of-life experiment and made a new discovery
This finding supports the authors' original hypothesis. Corrosion on the surface of the glass (due to the hot and caustic water circulating through it) plays a key role, since this releases silicon-dioxide molecules into the solution. This in turn acts as a catalyst to speed up the chemical reactions between the nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen atoms that ultimately create organic molecules.
No, this finding supports my hypothesis that the glass was dirty. You know, with organic molecules. Scientists haven't been very scientific for a long time now.
Why do dogs tilt their heads? New study offers clues
A quick internet search turned up plenty of speculative results positing that dogs tilt their heads to hear better, to listen for specific words or tones, or to see past their snouts. Sommese found one poster hypothesizing that shelter dogs do it more often because they know on some level that humans find it irresistible.
Well, pit bulls tilt their heads to make them more irresistible to humans, and to make it easier to get the toddler's head in their mouths. Duh.
Remote-first work is taking over the rich world
One possibility is that they can more easily focus on tasks than in an office, where the temptation to gossip with a co-worker looms large. Commuting, moreover, is tiring. Another factor relates to technology. Remote workers, by necessity, rely more on tools such as Slack and Microsoft Teams. This may allow bosses to co-ordinate teams more effectively, if the alternative in the office was word-of-mouth instructions that could easily be forgotten or misinterpreted.
So, "That meeting should have been an email" was right on the money, and at least fifteen years ago at that.
HTTP 419 Never Gonna Give You Up
I get tired of error reporting services, like Rollbar, blowing up when a bot scans my websites for URLs like the infamous /wp-admin.php so why not rickroll them? It won’t do much except make website owners feel better, but I’d say that’s worth it.
A website error message that Rickrolls the bot. Like most coder things, it's almost clever, but not quite. It's also childish, kinda pointless, and the name of the object of the exercise (Rick Astley) is spelled wrong.
Troll A – The Tallest Structure Ever Moved by Mankind
Located about 80 km off the west coast of Norway is Troll A, a colossal natural gas platform and the tallest structure ever moved by mankind. It’s construction is regarded as one of the largest and most complex engineering projects in history.
"It is construction"? Man, noone can spell anymore. They're's mispellings everywere.
Practical Time Machines
Your computer can travel to the future even more easily than a DeLorean. The UI isn’t quite as cool, but it doesn’t require plutonium. Simply open your system control panel, turn off the “Set time automatically” option, and click the button to adjust the system date/time to your target.
Isn't that supposed to be spelled "Time Masheen"? Oh well. It's an interesting idea about checking software reliability. Of course a much more useful tool is to set your computer's clock backwards in time. You can use timestamped software trials forever that way. You didn't hear that from me.
Neuroscientist argues the left side of our brains have taken over our minds
"The left hemisphere's goal is to enable us to manipulate things, whereas the goal of the right hemisphere is to relate to things and understand them as a whole. Two ways of thinking that are both needed, but are fundamentally at the same time incompatible."
Nope. I've seen Twitter. The spleen has taken over our minds.
‘Astounding’ Roman statues unearthed at Norman church ruins on route of HS2
More than 1,000 archaeologists have worked at more than 60 sites along the HS2 route between London and the West Midlands over the past three years. At Saint James’s Garden near Euston station in central London, more than 50,000 skeletons were exhumed from a burial ground. In Birmingham, more than 6,500 skeletons were uncovered from an 18th-century cemetery.
A new railway built on bulldozed graveyards. I think I've seen that movie.
Elon Musk wants to start a university in Texas that will have epic merch
Tesla & SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has just posted on Twitter that he wants to start a new University in Texas. He wants to name it “Texas Institute of Technology & Science (TITS)”.
I've seen college bookstores. There aren't any books in there, so worrying about the college themed merchandise before founding the college isn't that dumb. Infantile, but not dumb, which is what Musk should have on his business card.
Feds cuff Russian said to be developer of 'Trickbot' ransomware
Indictment reveals org behind banking trojan even had nifty jobs titles like 'Malware Manager'
I still prefer "infantile but not dumb."
For the Price of a Tesla Model S, You Can Buy a Flying Car That Doesn’t Require a License
For that price, you will get a half assembled kit, which includes an aluminum space frame, motor controllers, propellers and motors, as well as an assembly guide. Weighing only 40 kilograms (88 pounds) when empty, Jetson One is categorized as an ultralight aircraft in the U.S., which doesn’t require a pilot license to fly.
John Denver acutely unavailable for comment.
Facebook’s lost generation
At the same time, a rising crop of younger social networks has continued growing in popularity with young people — a phenomenon Facebook has closely tracked with its own research. In an internal presentation earlier this year, employees estimated that teens spend 2–3x more time on TikTok than on Instagram and that Snapchat is the preferred method of communicating with best friends for young people.
Zoomers ain't Boomers. Sorry to break it to dullard Millennials who think Zoomers are going to help them smother Boomers with a pillow, but Zoomers don't like Millennials much, either.
Have a great Friday, everyone!
Thursday, October 28. 2021
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Why Do They