We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Today I stopped at Costco after working at the food bank. I had to buy some things, but most importantly I had to return the laundry detergent I'd purchased. Naturally, not being aware of anything besides price, I'd bought a brand I was familiar with, but for some reason was on sale at a rate considerably cheaper than Costco's house brand. Seems like a deal. Until Mrs. Bulldog said "No, return it." So today was return day.
As I stood in line, I noticed the 3 people ahead of me having their returns rejected, which I thought was odd. I've returned a few things to Costco, and it's rarely a problem especially if you have a receipt or plan to use the credit immediately (as I intended to). When I got to the desk, I was told that Governor Murphy had passed a "Hoarding Law" which meant certain items couldn't be returned because they were deemed "essential" and the government had worried in March that hoarders would purchase large amounts to gouge prices. Laundry detergent is on the list.
Now, I really have no problem with price gouging. It's part of the natural turn of events in certain crises and will usually help increase production (which eventually drives down prices) and services to the areas which are impacted by a crisis. I don't even have a problem with hoarding. I'm not likely to do either of these things, but if others want to, that's their gig, not mine. But now I'm stuck dealing with this detergent and the ire of Mrs. Bulldog, clearly an event our governor, who is obviously kindly and greatly more intelligent than everyone else in the New Jersey area, doesn't care about. Actually, I'm less concerned with the ire of Mrs. Bulldog and really was more concerned with the people I noticed who were distraught because they'd purchased things they didn't want/need and just wanted to return them.
I should be clear that my Costco isn't exactly in a really wealthy part of my county. Lots of locals, many who probably have been very adversely affected by Covid, shop here. So seeing them getting upset at the counter didn't surprise me. But it's just an annoying example of how politicians insert themselves into everyday lives and make life difficult. Sure they "mean well" - but they rarely realize they are hurting the people they are trying to help more often than not.
It's not kind to find amusement in other people's distress. So I won't. I'll just casually mention that it's a tremendous waste of money to send some people to college. So it's not that big of a deal that this money was dumped into a meme stock at a stratospheric high, shortly to make its way to the Pink Sheets. According to modern monetary practice, it's a much better allocation of the same money to send a stockbroker's kids to college. In a Porsche.
As much as young people on the internet like to imagine this as an epic, David vs Goliath, Wall Street vs Main Street showdown for the history books, from a bird's eye view it's actually just a brief dumpster fire where a couple hedge funds lost their shirts betting on one little small cap stock. It has happened before, and it will happen again. In 6 months, nobody will remember or care, except that (maybe) it will become more difficult for retail investors to trade options.
Ah, GameStop remorse will become a thing now. Well, say what you want about the Tulip Mania, but at least you could grow some flowers with what was left of your investment. Experts suggested planting the bulbs point down in the smoking hole of your finances.
The reputation of Dante Alighieri needs little burnishing: his Divine Comedy, tracing the poet’s journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, is widely regarded as one of the greatest works ever written. But more than 700 years after Dante was accused of corruption and condemned to be burned to death, his descendant is looking to clear his name. Sperello di Serego Alighieri, an astrophysicist, and the law professor Alessandro Traversi are working to see if Dante’s 1302 sentencing for corruption in political office can be reversed.
They're also thinking of revising the book to be more topical. They're adding a tenth circle to hell. It has a bad internet connection.
It used to be a joke, but it’s not so funny anymore. Google is threatening to block searches in Australia if the country implements a compulsory profit-sharing deal that would force tech giants like Google and Facebook to pay media companies for their content. But Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, isn’t sweating it. Morrison suggested Monday at the National Press Club of Australia that Australians can just use Microsoft’s search engine Bing if Google really wants to leave the country.
There are only two ways to look at this situation. If there is no adequate alternative to Google, then Google is a monopoly, and it can safely be regulated into the ground. If there are adequate alternatives, then Google can safely be regulated into the hereafter. Simple.
Amazon is paying nearly $62 million to settle charges that it took tips from its delivery drivers. The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that Amazon didn’t pass on tips to drivers for more than two years, even though it promised shoppers and drivers it would do so. The FTC said Amazon didn’t stop taking the tips until 2019, when the company found out about the FTC’s investigation.
I have no idea where the exact inflection point was, but somewhere along the way WalMart became a charming, plucky, mom and pop store compared to Amazon.
It has been announced that Andy Jassy will become the new CEO of Amazon at the time. Jassy currently oversees the company's booming Amazon Web Services (AWS) division. Bezos says that he will be leaving Amazon in good hands as Andy is "well known inside the company" and has been a part of the Amazon family for "almost as long as I have."
He's going to retire to spend more time with his family and his employee's tips.
This paper explores the consequences that language change might trigger in the languages of crew members during a long journey in space or interplanetary settlement. Languages drift apart as communities grow more isolated from each other, so the long isolation of a traveling community may lead to enough difference to render its language unintelligible to the original community it left.
I don't know what this dialect would sound like, but I know that no matter how far out into space they go, no one is ever going to be able to correctly spell loser, rein, definitely, compliment, it's, or their ever again.
Suspected Chinese hackers exploited a flaw in software made by SolarWinds Corp to help break into U.S. government computers last year, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters, marking a new twist in a sprawling cybersecurity breach that U.S. lawmakers have labeled a national security emergency.
Research leader Prof Chris Stringer, from London's Natural History Museum, said: "Given that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthals in some parts of Europe after 45,000 years ago, the unusual features of these La Cotte individuals suggest that they could have had a dual Neanderthal-modern human ancestry."
No word on modern New Jersey teeth, but after watching Jersey Shore, I have my suspicions.
The new code of conduct bans harassment on and off the site, barring behaviors like hate speech, the use of slurs, stereotypes or attacks based on personal characteristics, as well as threats of physical violence and ‘hounding,’ or following someone across different articles to critique their work. It also bans deliberately introducing false or biased information into content. Wikipedia is a relatively trusted site compared to major social media platforms which have struggled to curb misinformation.
I can't imagine from what political perspective information will be determined to be "false or biased." It's a deep mystery.
Leasing fell by nearly 47% from the same period last year. That came even as asking rents dipped for the seventh straight month to $73.65 a square foot on average, the lowest in almost three years.
It's going to be really hard to get the working wealthy back into pants.
All female mammals have clitori and so are capable of orgasm with sufficient stimulation and arousal/excitement. I am not sure about other sorts of animals. The clitoris is a residual embryological penis with similar nerves.
Many sorts of mammals use sex recreationally. Monkeys (and apes like us), especially. A blast of oxytocin and various endorphins is a nice thing regardless of whether it is a part of bonding or just for fun. For non-humans - and most humans now, it is not purposeful reproduction but a simple biological urge like thirst. Hence masturbation in various forms in mammals including dogs.
It's a shame that so many female humans find orgasm so elusive or difficult to reach whether in an exciting new relationship or an old one. I have spoken with many women of all ages about this. (Yes, women in their 80s like sex.) While a lucky few are able to orgasm at the touch of a penis, most not. It depends on level of attraction and arousal - the psychological component; and stimulation - the biological component. Re the latter, I sometimes recommend vibrators. Why not?
However, this is not a sex therapy post. I am skeptical about this theory: Why do women orgasm?
Last year, students at New York’s elite United Nations International School launched an anonymous social media campaign denouncing the school’s teachers and administrators for their “vast history of systemic racism,” “white liberal racist thinking,” and “direct, intentional, repeated racial trauma.” The students threatened to “cancel” their “oppressors” through social media shaming. Administrators immediately caved to their demands.
Well, the whole country is shoveling today. The West Coast is shoveling mud, the Midwest is shoveling snow, the Northeast is shoveling slush, and you know what they're shoveling in Washington. Hint: It's not shinola. By the way, our first item is an entire rundown of how that offal gets shoveled. Pay attention.
These organisations constantly cite each other’s work, recycle the same personnel and fund, ‘support’ and ‘partner with’ each other’s projects on multiple different levels. Moreover, perhaps the most startling thing for me in conducting this impromptu investigation was how many people I knew who were on the boards, steering committees or staff of these organisations. And I don’t mean know of. I mean, personally, know. Because that’s how far-reaching and yet incestuous this sector is. It’s virtually impossible to be politically active without running into them, yet they stick together like a highly-funded clan.
I hate to break it to you, but deplatforming conservatives from any meaningful place online was the last step, not the first. Act accordingly.
The Inspiration4 crew will receive commercial astronaut training by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft, orbital mechanics, operating in microgravity, zero gravity, and other forms of stress testing. They will go through emergency preparedness training, spacesuit and spacecraft ingress and egress exercises, as well as partial and full mission simulations.
It's impolitic to say so, but America's trips to the moon were just stunts. Yeah, yeah, we got Tang and Velcro, and showed up the Soviets, but the moon is just a really boring Disneyland with a very expensive ticket. Well, pretty soon, you can buy tickets, too.
During a routine compliance evaluation, the department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs identified pay disparities affecting female employees in software engineering positions at its facilities in Mountain View, and in Seattle and Kirkland, Washington. The agency also identified hiring rate differences that disadvantaged female and Asian applicants for software engineering positions at Google’s locations in San Francisco and Sunnyvale, and in Kirkland.
Recent attempts to unionize at Google are superfluous. Apparently everybody's got to be paid the same already. Or else.
Ford Motor Co. and Google on Monday said they have formed a six-year "strategic partnership" under which the automaker will introduce the Android operating system into millions of vehicles and use Google technology for everything from in-vehicle connected services to manufacturing processes.
Ford and Google Cloud? I don't know why, but I'm reminded that two drunks often lean on each other to keep upright. Have fun with your new Woke dashboard.
To recreate a meal that comes close to what may have been served here, one can begin by looking at the archaeological remains found inside. This includes the imagery in the frescoes painted on the service counter and the contents of the amphorae and the dolia. One dolium contained the bones of duck, swine, goat, and fish, as well as shells from land snails. The duck bones in particular correspond to the fresco of two mallards painted on the front of the counter, perhaps as a pictorial menu for the illiterate majority at the time.
Pretty interesting, but if you're prone to telling the truth, the counter of the excavated food joint in Pompeii looks exactly like a Subway sandwich shop.
The warrior interred with the ship is thought to have been an Anglo-Saxon king, perhaps Rædwald of East Anglia, who ruled a kingdom that included Suffolk between about 599 and 624. Dates on coins buried at the site coincide with his reign, and the quality and value of the grave goods suggest a person of extreme influence.
Two women meet at the mall. -Hello Gladys, it's nice to see you. I was sorry to hear that your husband passed away. -Yes, he was a good man, always looking out for me, even in death. -Really? What do you mean? -On his death bed, he told me not to spend more than $10,000 on the stone. The widow then holds out her hand with a giant diamond ring on it. -How did I do?
In a press release, the company said its contract, with the U.S. Defense Department, will help fund construction of Ellume's first manufacturing plant in the U.S. Once completed, it will produce more than 500,000 tests per day, according to the company. The test uses a relatively short nasal swab to collect a sample. The sample is put into a digital analyzer linked to a smartphone app. In December, the company told NPR that the test would be available for about $30.
It'll be fun to sneeze on your phone instead of just cursing at it.
Simpson is CEO of OTC bulletin board company Zann Corp, a provider of advanced technology products for niche markets, and has experienced an inexplicable excess shares situation over the past two-and-a-half years. Since November 2003, Zann's stock price has plummeted over 98%. This, Simpson claims, makes no sense since his company has performed relatively well. The reason for this extreme underperformance, Simpson believes, is that his company has been subject to severe naked short selling – where stocks are short sold without having been borrowed before the time of settlement, if at all.
Those crazy kids at Wall Street Bets have stumbled onto a real nest of snakes. They'll eventually be broken on the Wall Street wheel, of course, and blame the wrong people for their troubles, and the problem won't get fixed, but think of the demagoguery and additional taxes we can look forward to from all this!
The patent, which was filed in 2018 and granted on 12 January, would allow the streaming giant to "make observations" about a user's environment and emotions using speech recognition technology. Spotify could then play music reflecting their mood or even their social setting - "e.g. alone, small group, party," according to the patent.
Why does Spotify keep playing Rage Against the Machine songs over and over? I went as far as saying I liked disco and Wayne Newton, but it saw right through that ruse.
Bird Dog's at the vet, getting his teeth sharpened or something. Sorry, you're stuck with me again. I'm afraid I'm rather cranky this morning. On top of my general demeanor, I haven't read a newspaper or watched TV in over 20 years. That indicates that this isn't shaping up to be an informative session for you fine people. However, I'll do my best, because back in my day, we gave everything our best effort, even if it was doomed to failure. You know, like elections and public school.
“It won’t work on Internet Explorer; it only works in Chrome. The ‘Next’ button is all the way down and to the right, so if you’re on a cell phone, you literally can’t see it,” says Rowe. “In the first round, people using VAMS mostly had advanced degrees. If you’re 75 and someone asks you to log into VAMS, there is zero way it’ll happen without help.”
Back in my day, a woman with a beehive hairdo and more eyeshadow than Cleopatra wearing eyeglasses on a chain would make our doctor's appointments, and we were too terrified of her to miss one.
Well, I didn't browse 1990s television in the 1990s, and I'm not going to start now. And back in my day, we used a compliant toddler to change the channel, not a remote.
All but two US states — Montana and Wyoming— now have police or fire departments participating in Amazon’s Ring network, which lets law enforcement ask users for footage from their Ring security cameras to assist with investigations, the Financial Times reported.
Why, back in my day, we made the Stasi build their own system of totalitarian surveillance.
Silveti had paid his brother-in-law to send his workers on vacation and broke a hole in an exterior wall large enough for a truck to pass through. CIA station vehicles idled outside, their drivers studying their mirrors for agents of the KGB. Meanwhile, the farewell party was underway at the hotel. According to Silveti, the Soviet soldiers “let loose with the American prostitutes, and with the drinks.” Zambernardi’s son Paul told me that his father bought LSD to “put a Mickey on them all.” With every shot of tequila, thoughts of shipping manifests and cargo evaporated.
Why, back in my day, we had to pay for our own LSD and prostitutes.
Silver broke above $30 an ounce for the first time since 2013 on Monday as an army of retail traders stormed into the metal after betting billions of dollars on stocks last week, triggering risks of a multi-asset melt-up in global markets.
Why back in my day, we had to mine our own silver.
I loved building those crazy WWI biplanes and triplanes. The construction was unbelievably intricate. It was basically building the actual plane, just smaller. The wings and fuselage would get covered with some sort of flimsy paper stuff, and you’d paint it with some kind of toxic goo that gave you a headache for a month
Why, back in my day, our parents encouraged us to sniff glue.
Online retailers know a lot about how their customers are navigating their virtual stores. Offline retailers are not so lucky. Together with consumer behavior experts B:Clarity and a multinational home appliance brand we built a system to help understand customer movement and behavior.
Back in my day, you had to shoplift something to get followed around the store like that.
Policymakers are growing increasingly interested in the effects of vocational training on labour-market outcomes. This column uses a quasi-experimental design based on admissions cut-offs to secondary education in Finland to study the long-term effects of access to vocational education.
Why, back in my day, we'd greet research like this with a resounding, "Duh." And vocational training consisted of a very dirty plumber yelling at you to go get a Stilson wrench off the truck, and be back in two minutes or you're fired.
The New York-based hedge fund sustained a $4.5 billion fall in its assets from the end of last year to $8 billion, even after a $2.75 billion cash injection from Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel. Melvin became the target of retail traders who coordinated to drive up the share price of GameStop on online message boards such as Reddit, after the firm disclosed its bet against the company in regulatory filings.
Back in my day, you didn't have to hire an expert to lose half your money in the stock market. You could just buy ten shares of anything and vote democrat.
The coup follows a disputed election in November that Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won by a landslide. The main opposition party, the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, claimed the vote was marred by fraud. Myanmar's election commission rejected the allegations but tensions between the two sides had been rising for weeks.
Back in my day, jokes about coups following stolen elections didn't just write themselves. And we called it Burma.
And of course, back in my day, we told everyone to have a nice day. I still do, and mean it.
Mrs. BD and I have a disagreement about boats. Maybe readers can offer us some marital help.
She wants a Great Loop boat, a trawler with a couple of staterooms, galley, head, shower, etc. She prefers these Beneteau Swift Trawlers to the Grand Banks trawlers. She wants to do the Great Loop (in bits) but I'd rather do the Appalachian Trail (in pieces, of course) as an adventure, since travel is sort-of out this year. Those big trawlers, I feel, are just too much boat for my comfort and skill (even with bow and stern thrusters). I could learn for sure, but do I want to? In fact, I am more comfortable with sail than power even though most sail has accessory power too.
I've had boats much of my life, and thought I was done with them. Less things to worry about makes me happy. Kayaks are great fun and good exercise, and zero worries. But when it comes to real boats, my preference is for jaunty Downeast-style boats. I can handle them just fine. They are ok for overnights, but not for lengthy cruises.
Except for Blueberries. There is no reason to even think about this topic unless you want to lose weight, or unless the physiology is interesting to you. Fruit is a fine dessert because its main nutritional ingredient is sugars. Especially Fructose. There is nothing "healthy" about fruit or fruit juice.
Fructose is metabolized in a different way than is Glucose.
The very short story is this: All sugars are not created equal. Fructose is metabolized into fat. Glucose in moderate amounts is turned into glycogen for energy. Table sugar is Sucrose, which is metabolized first into its components of Glucose and Fructose.
8:1 Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
8:2 Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge;
8:3 but anyone who loves God is known by him.
8:4 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that "no idol in the world really exists," and that "there is no God but one."
8:5 Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth--as in fact there are many gods and many lords--
8:6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
8:7 It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
8:8 "Food will not bring us close to God." We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.
8:9 But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.
8:10 For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols?
8:11 So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed.
8:12 But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.
8:13 Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.
Following its release Friday, “Fake Woke” soared to #1 on the US iTunes Hip-Hop/Rap Song Sales Chart. It is concurrently up to #2 on the all-genre listing.
I had to write and read a few paragraphs on that topic in middle school. I can't remember what I said but it was probably something optimistic about the "American mythology."
“Nationalism” is now seen as a destructive ideology, next-door to or perhaps cohabitating with “fascism.” Our would-be liberators hold that the Declaration and the Constitution are instruments of tyranny, and that taking them seriously poses a grave threat to the kind of wise, benevolent government that the experts are earnestly trying to “deliver” for us. A nation, after all, has borders and other kinds of boundaries. If it is a republic, it expects its citizens to take responsibility for electing its leaders and helping to shape its laws. These are unquestionable goods in the eyes of those who uphold the teaching of the American Founding, but they are obstacles to progress in the eyes of those who are eager to move us into a new historical epoch.
A friend sent his photos of Snow Geese wintering around Lake Wyandotte in Kansas this week. They are abundant. In fact, they are accused of destroying the tundra. Last I heard, during hunting season there is no limit in many states.
Unlike Canada Geese whose feathers can bounce off birdshot at distance, Snow Geese, in the words of a friend, "go down like a prom dress."
Except me. Well, I call them iCameras but whatever. When they refuse to recharge wirelessly, turn them off and turn back on. Then they will happily recharge. I thought my wireless rechargers were broken.
There are too many things in life that I do not know.
Except for Blueberries. 
How ecstasy and psilocybin 