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.
Eloquent. Extraordinary. Timeless. Paradigm-shifting. Classic. Six decades after it first appeared, Leonard Read’s “I, Pencil” evokes such adjectives of praise. Rightfully so, for this little essay opens eyes and minds among people of all ages. Many first-time readers never see the world quite the same again.
Try searching on the Internet for information about Thor. Good luck if you're not interested in comic book movies. The Internet is a million miles wide and 1/16" deep, and it's turtles all the way down. References to Thor, the actual Norse god of thunder, are an afterthought. The actual Thor, not the wisecracking Australian guy, seems like he was pretty important back in the day. When a day of the week is named after you, you matter.
I'm always fascinated to see who matters on the Internet, because I wandered the Earth before it existed. The Internet likes all kinds of people who seemed half a joke in their heyday to me. I think it's a totally ingrained fetish for pointless contrariness. It's a Howard Zinn world, and whatever you trot out, there must be a cranky alternative we can decide to like instead. That's why the Internet loves Tesla, a weird, mostly useless crank, and hates Edison. The daily Google Doodles are always nobodies that somebody has decided to exalt in place of people who accomplished a lot. I prefer the real deals. I have no interest in a movie about comic book Thor. The original article was interesting enough.
Speaking of original articles, How about Jack Kilby? Who's that you say? Oh, he's not Internet-famous enough to get welfare queens like Elon Musk to name their subsidized cars after him. He just more or less invented the integrated circuit by himself in 1958:
It was in a relatively deserted laboratory at TI's brand new Semiconductor Building where Jack Kilby first hit on the idea of the integrated circuit. In July 1958, when most employees left for the traditional two-week vacation period, Kilby -- as a new employee with no vacation -- stayed to man the shop. What caused Kilby to think along the lines that eventually resulted in the integrated circuit? Like many inventors, he set out to solve a problem. In this case, the problem was called "the tyranny of numbers."
Almost all of the truly useful things in the world are invented by invented by guys like Kilby, not Tony Stark wannabes. They bring lunch to work in a paper bag, wear short sleeve shirts and clip-on ties with their J. C. Penney suits, and have ink stains on their shirt pockets. The Internet's not interested in them. Then again, the Internet isn't all that useful, so it's foolish to think a Facebook world would be interested in a real god, when a comic book god is available.
The Gallivans initially found humor in their odd situation. But after months of deliveries—which turned from fun to creepy—they just want to be left alone.When Kelly and Mike contacted Amazon about the perplexing parcels, the online retailer told them everything had been paid for via gift card; the sender (or senders) remain anonymous. Presumably ruling out family or friends who might be playing some kind of sick joke on the Acton pair, experts suspect the Gallivans are the victims of a scam.
The Gallivans don't sound like Internet people. The Free Sh*t Army wouldn't have asked for the packages to be stopped.
Prices were already rising in Hungary after the war because production capacity fell due to the destruction. With no tax base to rely upon, the Hungarian government decided to stimulate the economy by printing money. It loaned money to banks at low rates who then loaned the money to companies. The government hired workers directly, they provided loans to consumers, and they gave money to people. The government literally flooded the country with money to get the economy going again.
It's interesting that post-WWII Hungary didn't bother to collect taxes, because the money was devaluing so fast. They just printed some more and spent it. Stop me when I say something that sounds unfamiliar.
Google was guilty. The European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, made that brutally clear. “Google abused its market dominance,” Vestager declared as she announced her judgement in Brussels on June 27, 2017. She handed Google a £2.1 billion fine – the largest antitrust penalty ever handed to a single company, and gave it 90 days to change its ways.
I'm a grown man, more or less. Like I said, I don't have heroes, or go to comic book movies looking for them. But Adam and Shivaun will do in a pinch if you put a gun to my head. Slaying dragons that desolate the landscape and sleep on mountains of gold still cuts some ice with me.
So play to each platform’s strengths. Recruiters don’t want you to treat LinkedIn like Twitter and share your every thought. But don’t treat Twitter like LinkedIn, either! While you’ll want to avoid tweeting anything offensive or crude, Lopez encourages job seekers to be themselves. If you’re showing more attitude on the one social network, just make sure you’re making up the difference in aptitude on the other.
The Soviet Union used to announce they were lightening up every once in a while. Perestroika, tovarish! After a few months of letting you vent your spleen at the party meetings, they'd say, "Never mind," and anyone who opened their yap would be mining gold in Siberia with their bare hands for twenty years. Giving a recruiter access to your social media accounts is about the same idea.
Emerging evidence suggests that living near major roads might adversely affect cognition. However, little is known about its relationship with the incidence of dementia, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis. We aimed to investigate the association between residential proximity to major roadways and the incidence of these three neurological diseases in Ontario, Canada.
I'm so old I remember when "scientists" warned us that living near power lines would give us cancer, but major roads giving us dementia is almost as good. Of course since next-to-no-one lives far away from power lines or major roads, your study can be bent, folded, or mutilated to suit any agenda.
Cybersecurity experts call it “cryptojacking” — hijacking computers to produce digital currency, like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Monero that have been in the news. Infected networks or computers perform double duty, conducting normal functions (perhaps a bit more slowly) while also obeying remote commands to do calculations that generate digital currency for the criminals, or wrongdoers, who may be company insiders.
Yeah, but at least your computer is finally doing something productive. I say leave it.
On Monday, Amazon reportedly began a series of rare layoffs at its headquarters in Seattle, cutting several hundred corporate employees. But this week, something quite different is happening at the company’s warehouses and customer-service centers across the country: Amazon will politely ask its “associates”—full-time and part-time hourly employees—if they’d prefer to quit. And if they do, Amazon will pay them as much as $5,000 for walking out the door.
For $2,500 I'll promise to never work there in the first place.
When it comes to pricing, Chipotle tried to woo customers back after
its setback over food safety with low prices and promotions, but this
did not translate into a longer-term benefit. The restaurant chain needs
to try something better and permanent which it might under the new
leadership.There are speculations that additions to the menu could include breakfast options and alcohol.
Breakfast options and alcohol? That's a redundancy at my house.
This was Dark Valentine, a special event held February 9 and 10 to transform Cupid’s favorite holiday into a far more sinister and gruesome occasion. Hollywood discovered some time ago that there’s no reason to restrict horror movie releases to October, and haunters are learning the very same lesson. “There’s an audience for blood and guts all year round,” says Larry Kirchner, owner of The Darkness, celebrating its 25th year of terrifying the good people of St. Louis. The Darkness offered up Yuletide scares last December and hosted a “Scream Break” in March, but My Bloody Valentine’s is the Missouri haunt’s first foray into seasonal romance.
I think there are still four or five days on the Millennial's calendar that aren't Halloween, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Currently, SNAP benefits are delivered in the form of cash added to an electronic benefit-transfer (E.B.T.) card, and they’re spendable at almost any store that sells food. The Department of Agriculture wants to dock about half of that money and replace it with an “America’s Harvest box,” consisting of “100 percent U.S.-grown and produced food.” Not freshly harvested fruits and vegetables or meat, mind you, but processed “American” food in cans, tins, and jars.
What's for dinner tonight, mom? Cling peaches in heavy syrup, creamed corn, and cranberry sauce with indentations from the can. You know, same as last night.
The universality and popularity of general fitness programs is partly because they have nothing to do with physical talent.
Your genetics do determine many of your physical capabilities at advanced levels, but rarely at ordinary levels. Short people can be fine basketball players, for example - but not at a college level. Long-limbed people can do good bench presses and deadlifts, although not as readily as compact people. Everybody can run, swim, and do bench presses. Most people are physically effective but not blessed with special talents. That is why general fitness is popular - anybody can engage in it.
Besides your physique/physical structure, genes determine your ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch muscle fibers, your neuromuscular connections, your brain-neuromuscular responses, eye-hand coordination, your aggressiveness and energy, lung volume, etc.
Not to mention non-genetic factors like drive, training, and practice.
The point I wish to make is that, as with musical talent or intellectual horsepower, everybody has a level at which they can best perform, and few people ever reach those levels. In fitness, your only competitor needs to be yourself from last month.
Of course, we all have varying degrees of competitiveness, but that should never be any obstacle. Not one of our readers will play in the NFL, the NBA, or in the US Open. Or, for that matter, perform in the NYC Ballet.
My advice, to be able to engage in the fullness of life, is to get out and move hard every day with weights, calisthenics, cardio, etc - and to do a lousy job of it if need be because there are no grades. Giving it your all is all that is required.
Here we go - planning a Maggie's Farm Urban Hike is a great Valentine's Day conversation for your spouse, significant other, or someone you'd like to impress. It's time for the first glimpse of the 4th Annual Urban Hike Itinerary. As we ate pizza last year outside of Chelsea Market, there was a general consensus that we needed to see the sights a girl can see from Brooklyn Heights. As you know, there's nothing in Brooklyn aside from a bridge, some heights, and possibly Patty Duke's identical twin cousin. And for those of you into bad 1970's B movies, The Warriors. Fuhgeddaboudit. Leave the gun, take the cannoli (Clemenza's house is in Gravesend, Brooklyn, but Paulie was probably killed in NJ since we see the back of the Statue of Liberty).
We're only about 60 days away. Halfway through February, then March, and right now we're pegging some weekend post 4/13 (so we're thinking 4/14, 4/21, or 4/28). Sundays are a possibility, but much more difficult. Saturdays are always better, so we're planning on those 3 weekends for now.
As usual, all are invited and welcome. I expect this may be our most well-attended hike yet. Last year I was surprised to learn one couple was from my hometown (hope we see you again), while yet another travels quite a distance from the MidWest just to share a few hours with us. They've attended the last two, and I hope we see them again, as well (my wife and I speak about your wandering ways often). A number of people in my office heard about last year's hike and asked me to inform them about this upcoming one.
Last year we were all dazzled by the 'secret lair' of the Manhattan Contrarian (my wife is still gushing). I suspect we'll be equally dazzled by some new sights this year. So feel free to add comments, observations, or suggestions. Even if you're not plannning on joining us (please join!), but you have suggestions, we'll welcome them if they fit into the time span/distance. We encourage additions, we encourage any additional commentary during the walk which you find useful (last year we even managed to glom on to a professional tour at one location). This is all about knowledge sharing.
The current plan is to start in Manhattan, possibly at a Dunkin' Donuts on Fulton, by Gold, about 3 blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge. We'll walk over the bridge, then head north to Dumbo, east to Vinegar Hill, the Navy Yard, and Admiral's Row. We'll then double back to the Heights where we'll take a look at Roebling's apartment (I think I've got the right address - 110 Columbia Heights at Orange and Pineapple), a brownstone that isn't a brownstone, the Atlantic Avenue tunnel, the original Abraham & Straus (a New York thing, A&S was an iconic store), the Wyckoff Street Mosaic, Gowanus Ballroom, the Gowanus Canal, the Red Hook Warehouse and the Red Hook Grain Terminal. Some other places of note where there may be stops include 299 Sands St (King's County Distillery - but it's early in the hike so maybe not), 141 Lawrence (Circa Brewing), Cacao Prieto (chocolates!), Prospect Park (a bit of a stretch, but we'll see), 195 Centre St (Other Half Brewing), 40 Van Dyke (Sixpoint Brewing), and 218 Conover (Widow Jane's Distillery - great bourbon). Once we're in Red Hook, we can take a water taxi back to Manhattan, which I've heard tell is good fun.
So that's a preliminary plan. I think it came out to about 11 miles. That's a good stretch of the legs, but we're open to changes and ideas.
Hello everybody. Roger de Hauteville here, King of Sicily. Bird Dog has asked me to sit in for him while he's away at a retreat. It's not exactly summer camp. He's in a 12-step program for toxic masculinity. He's been leaving puddles of masculinity on the floor here and there, and his minders have decided it's got to stop. So you're stuck with me again. I was available because I'm on a forced hiatus from my job, too. Damn HR harpy got me in hot water with the shareholders. She secretly recorded a marketing meeting I called. Total entrapment, in my estimation. I'll let you be the judge:
HR Harpy: Roger, I think we should stop testing our products on animals.
Roger de H: I don't.
HR Harpy: It's cruel.
Roger de H: Hey lady, it's not like I invented the practice. Cosmetics companies have been doing it for years.
HR Harpy: Yeah, but we make hammers.
See? This is why American industry is falling behind the rest of the world. No respect for old fashioned quality control.
A Denny's wedding ceremony typically costs $199, and includes extra frills like use of the photo booth, a Wedding Pancake Puppies Cake, two wedding t-shirts, and a coupon for two Grand Slams on your next visit to Denny's.
Many said they were left confused and reeling and weren’t even aware that Snapchat was planning an overhaul, they simply woke up one day to find the app looked completely different. Hundreds if not thousands of teens lost their streaks, some of which had been maintained for hundreds of days, because they were confused at how to send snaps using the new interface.
For the sane reader who's avoided Snapchat's charms, a "Streak" is an endless stream of pointless, ephemeral messages sent between two instant message accounts. They give you a little gold star if you keep it going for 3+ days. Pavlov was born too soon, I guess.
Let’s start with 1000 archers with a light bow in their hands, drawing from thirty to fifty pounds. A recent post on American Indian archery established that a champion archer could get eight arrows off before one hit the ground. Even if we reduce this to a more conservative five, a thousand archers could get 5000 arrows in the air over fifteen seconds.
Remember, if you want to test this theory, don't test it on animals if the HR lady is looking.
On a credit card, this contingency isn’t such a big deal. It’s applied against your credit line. The car rental agency just verifies that you could charge up to the amount that’s required. It doesn’t charge the whole amount at once. With a debit card, they freeze the total amount they need to cover any potential charges. That means your money will be held in your debit card account until the transaction is complete.
I didn't think this was possible. Apparently, you can rent a car with cash, too. The smart traveler always relies on carjacking only as a last resort.
After debating whether or not they felt comfortable stepping foot in a paranoid Communist state with a record of human rights abuses, Will and Sam decided that being the first foreigners to hit the slopes after they were opened to non-Koreans was too good an opportunity to pass up.
They wouldn't have debated an invitation to golf with Donald Trump.
1753 saw the arrival of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke’s Marriage Act. This was seen to be a way of banning clandestine marriages once and for all. Parental consent was required for any person wishing to marry below the age of consent, i.e. 21. The marriage had to be conducted in church during the day by a clergyman, banns had to be read or a license issued. Falsification or errors made could result in the marriage being nullified.
Now all you have to do to nullify your marriage is let your Snapchat Streak lapse.
Then, in October of that year, following Russia's space launch of Sputnik I, the American scientific community came under considerable pressure to achieve a major technological accomplishment of its own. At the University of California's Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, scientists responded by recommending to the AEC that earth excavation offered the "highest probability of early beneficial success" in the Plowshare Program. Actively supporting the proposal, Dr. Edward Teller, 'father of the hydrogen bomb' and director of the Radiation Laboratory, suggested that the AEC detonate a 2.4 megaton atomic device on the northwest coast of Alaska in the region of Cape Thompson. Such an explosion would create a deep water hole to be used as a harbor for the eventual shipment of coal, oil, and other non-renewable resources thought to exist along this part of the coast.
Mr. President, we must not allow a radioactive harbor gap!
The company was formed in 2002 for creating crowd scenes for the Hollywood movie Sea Biscuit. Their inflatable crowd have since appeared in over 80 feature films including many memorable ones like The King’s Speech, Frost/Nixon, American Gangster, Spiderman 3 and many more. These plastic men and women were featured in many TV shows and commercials as well.
Do they have styrofoam classical columns for rent, too? Those things work great. You can pay for them with untraceable foreign credit card payments, too.
US scientists have discovered a new family of antibiotics in soil samples.The natural compounds could be used to combat hard-to-treat infections, the team at Rockefeller University hopes. Tests show the compounds, called malacidins, annihilate several bacterial diseases that have become resistant to most existing antibiotics, including the superbug MRSA.
Further down the page there's a similar headline: New Macrobiotic family discovered in Whole Foods.
The discovery of a burial containing 8,000-year-old battered human skulls, including two that still have pointed wooden stakes through them, has left archaeologists baffled, according to a new study from Sweden. It's hard to make heads or tails of the finding: During the Stone Age, the grave would have sat at the bottom of a small lake, meaning that the skulls would have been placed underwater. Moreover, of the remains of at least 11 adults placed on top of the grave, only one had a jawbone, the researchers said.
It's probably part of an ancient tradition that continues to this day. You make a pilgrimage to the shrine that holds the triptych with the sacred runes of plenty scrawled all over it. There are fantastic, indecipherable signs everywhere. You beg the totem for succor, and then while you're fumbling for a sacrificial offering, a disembodied, sonorous, god-like voice booms: Do you want fries with that?
"Amazon is thinking of offering a checking account. For a fee of $5-10 a month, the service will include cell phone damage protection, ID theft protection, roadside assistance, travel insurance and product discounts." Forty-six percent of “Old Millennials” (ages 31-38) and 37 percent of “Young Millennials” (ages 22-30) say they would open that account... When the same responders were asked about a free checking account from Amazon, without the bundled services, interest in opening the account is lower.
That's nothing. Over 70 percent of Gen X-ers said they'd be willing to have their heads pounded onto a stake in a Swedish lakebottom for six months of free Netflix.
One of the most glaring perversities of the modern labor market is credential inflation. While the education workers need to do a job is quite stable, the education they need to get a job has skyrocketed since the 1940s. Sure, the average job is more intellectually demanding than it once was, but researchers find that only explains 20% of the workforce's rising education. What explains the remaining 80%? Employers' expectations have risen across the board. Waiter, bartender, cashier, security guard: These are now common jobs for those with bachelor's degrees...
What is higher ed for? It's used for all sorts of things, including credentialing, career training, adulthood-avoidance, beer-drinking, mating, social and networking opportunities, life-enrichment, a foundation for lifetime learning, etc. etc. From a purely career standpoint, there is no doubt that the first job somebody gets after higher ed can be the most important in career trajectory regardless of the school, major, or grades. Changing trajectory can be done, but it is more difficult if the first rung of the ladder is low.
How often do you feel "bursting with physical energy"? It's a wonderful feeling. We see it in kids all the time. They have to run, have to move, have to dance, have to climb, can't sit still. It's hard to know what it's about, though.
Feeling as energetic as a 7 year-old, with that need for physical activity, is rare in those over 30. A sedentary lifestyle (roughly defined as less than 6-8 hours of exertion/week - not including walking unless elderly) is a mental habit rather than a measure of any sort of true physical "energy." Energy, however, accrues to the energetic even though we will never be 7 again.
I make distinctions between these biological and psychological things:
1. The drive, need, and desire for challenging physical activity that derives from high fitness (Get Up and Go is a result of fitness + attitude), 2. The ability to recruit the mental energy to complete hard things in a dutiful way or with external demand, but without the need or drive to do them (70/30% mental/physiological), 3. The state of one's capacity for muscular and cardiac function (100% physiological) 4. "Low energy," aka "laziness", ie lethargic life habits (90% mental, but the physiological obviously deteriorates rapidly with disuse).
OK, so subjective "energy" is not mainly related to actual physical "energy". Same word, different things. #3 is of most interest to me even though it has nothing to do with how much Get Up and Go you feel when you wake up in the morning. I have a strong bias in favor of those with that Go Go attitude regardless of age or physical conditioning.
Unhinged Conspiracy Theorists: Leftwing Professor Lawrence Tribe Floats Theory that a Carter Page Associate Was Murdered in an Engineered Plane Crash, Then Deletes His Noxious Tweet
Four companies dominate our daily lives unlike any other in human history: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. We love our nifty phones and just-a-click-away services, but these behemoths enjoy unfettered economic domination and hoard riches on a scale not seen since the monopolies of the gilded age. The only logical conclusion? We must bust up big tech.
After last weekend's exciting trip to the Super Bowl, I was having some conversations with a good friend about our various superstitions. Invariably, big games include a conversation about how we're going to be managing ourselves, or how we behaved.. I've never hid, nor have I pretended to not have, my superstitions. They are a part of how I enjoy the game.
I told a workmate, prior to leaving, that I was seriously considering not attending since my nieces felt I was a jinx. After all, the team did quite well with me lying on the floor in front of my TV, why change what works? He laughed and said "You're the most rational person I know. I had no idea you were so superstitious. You do know you have no impact on the outcome of the game, right?" I looked at him and said "Maybe I don't. Maybe." Then I smiled and gave him a nod. Of course I have no impact. But I'll never believe I don't.
In 1997, I traveled to Scottsdale with friends to watch Syracuse play Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl. Syracuse took an early lead, relinquished it, and made a strong comeback in the second quarter. Things looked pretty good. I decided to go to the bathroom, and it was all downhill from there. My good friend was with me, and he explained to me my little trip was the problem. Obviously, I had to take care of business before the game starts, and just deal with it after that. Over the years, we've developed a good repertoire of what works and what doesn't. In 2003, when Syracuse won the Men's Basketball National Championship, I was communicating with him every step of the way. No missteps could take place on the part of anyone in our group, and none did.
Dr. Michael Robillard is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford working on the ethics of counter-terrorism. He has also written on the ethics of autonomous weapons, military recruitment, veteran moral injury, and war and its relation to future generations. Michael is an Iraq War veteran, United States Military Academy graduate, and Airborne Range
At 11 p.m. on Wednesday high school students competing at the Kentucky Music Educators Association’s All-State Choir came out of their rooms at the Hyatt Regency Louisville to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Youtube poster: "The Kentucky State Choir Finals schools are all staying at my hotel. They decided to sing the National Anthem together on every single floor." The effect of the singers on each floor of the atrium hotel makes for powerful acoustics.
The universality and popularity of general fitness programs is partly because they have nothing to do with physical talent. 
Why 
