Maggie's Farm

I got to thinking yesterday. That's always a mistake. I'm not a clear thinker, being human and all. But I had to look at the news media a bit, to find links for you fine folks, and it got me ruminating. Since there was nothing but bad news, I renamed the process "doominating."

There's nothing but impending doom in the news. Not actual doom in the regular news. The regular news has shifted 180 degrees since they pitched the mean tweeter out on his ear, and muzzled him. Everything's fine now. No matter how not fine the news is, it's fine to them. They still find doom, of course. It's over there behind the invisible 800-pound gorillas.

The purpose of aggregators like Maggie's Farm is to collate an alternative slate of information for people looking for interest or entertainment outside the usual bubble of daily life. It's a kind of magazine, not a newspaper. Magazines have themes. Everywhere I went yesterday, looking for stuff, it was nothing but doom, doom, doom. There are two alternate sets of doom, but it's all doom. My version of Maggie's theme gets harder and harder to cobble together, because I don't really like posting doom drivel and exclaiming harrumph.

It occurs to me that the doom fetish means the average American likes doom. They like being told the world will end, and yesterday to boot. They like movies about apocalypse and TV shows about the dead wandering the earth and munching on the straphangers. The average Joe is getting their jollies by wallowing in their own little doomworld. What is Twitter but an IV drip of doom?

So it's incumbent on me to apologize (again) if the articles I collate aren't depressing enough to make you happy. I'm being as dour as I can, but I can't seem to keep up.

How is Bamboo Lumber Made?

I'm fairly certain the the substance described isn't technically "lumber." Lumber qua lumber is cut up timber. The stuff in the article is "manufactured lumber." Why yes, I'm lots of fun at parties, why do you ask?

Billions of banknotes are missing. Why does nobody care?

Central banks everywhere seem to care little about missing cash. The total value of US dollars in circulation jumped by 16% in 2020 alone, passing $2trn for the first time, quadruple the value of notes 20 years ago. There is more than $7,000 in paper money out there for every American, and more than €4,000 for every resident of the euro zone. Yet in America and Europe, as in Britain, most people use cash for little more substantial than a cup of coffee.

Got that? To dweebs at the Economist, and the central banks, if regular people have any money, it's "missing." 

Quick Look: Altitude and Child Development

Children raised at higher altitudes do worse on developmental tests. There is a fair amount of data supporting this, and some even attempt to control for things like familiar wealth, prematurity, etc. I’m not convinced. The effects are modest, I expect families living at very high altitudes (typically rural) to be different in many ways from lower altitudes (typically urban) in ways that cause their children to score differently on tests without it making a meaningful impact on their life

Yes, I've noticed that places like Switzerland keep churning out citizens who need a hockey helmet to ride the bus. It would explain a lot about Denver Bronco fans, though.

How the Kodak Brownie Changed Privacy Rights Forever

It has now been well over a century since Joel Benton’s poem “The Kodak Fiend” warned, in ominous verse, “Oh, de Kodak fiend, he’s sly an’ mean / An’ you can’t go out near his machine.”

I love listening to people clutching an iPhone, sitting next to an Alexa on their couch, complaining about privacy. I have weird hobbies, I guess. And shades on my windows.

When and why did human brains decrease in size 3,000 years ago? Ants may hold clues

"We propose that this decrease was due to increased reliance on collective intelligence, the idea that a group of people is smarter than the smartest person in the group, often called the 'wisdom of the crowds,'" added Traniello.

An elephant's brain weighs 10 pounds. An elephant can't even dial an iPhone, or plug in an Alexa, so you're going to ask the ants different questions, research guy.

Alec Baldwin “Discharged” Prop Gun That Killed ‘Rust’ Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins & Injured Director On Set

The castmember, now identified as Baldwin, was unaware of the type of ammunition in the gun, we’re told. A rep from the production said that “Production has been halted for the time being” on Rust and that “the safety of our cast and crew remains our top priority.”

Remember, guns don't kill people -- gun control advocates kill people

Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks, restrict trading following controversy

Those new rules come on the heels of a swelling ethics controversy over whether central bank officials should be able to trade while their policies can, and often do, move markets.

I believe this problem has previously been solved, as the Fed owns everything already.

Volcanically driven lacustrine ecosystem changes during the Carnian Pluvial Episode 

It is postulated that the voluminous emission of volcanic CO2, with consequent global warming and enhancement of a mega-monsoonal climate, was responsible for the CPE (9, 16), although the link is imprecise (2, 17) because the interval of Wrangellian eruptions have not yet been traced in the sedimentary records encompassing the CPE.

Oh, great. I'm no meteorologist, but I've been pluvial once, after an ill-advised trip to Chipotle, so I'm warning you: If you live in Pangea, you better be prepping for a tougher winter than usual.

This ingenious wall could harness enough wind power to cover your electric bill

His wind turbine wall consists of a grid of square panes spinning simultaneously along 25 axes. The exact size and format aren’t set in stone, so variations of that wall could be used anywhere with a decent span, like on the side of a highway or the fence around a building.

On today's episode of "Confuse a Cat"...

NIH acknowledges US funded gain-of-function at Wuhan lab, despite Fauci’s denials

"Fauci’s public persona as a cautious, careful medical professional is contradicted by his central role in kickstarting exceptionally fraught gain-of-function research in the United States after the ban introduced in the Obama era, along with his role in funding coronavirus research in China in unsafe laboratories. Laboratories that intelligence agencies suspect may have sparked the pandemic"

To paraphrase the usual media headline: Wuhan chimera experiments proven; minorities, women, and Zachriel hardest hit.

Have a great Friday, everyone!

Well, hello all. Roger here, the king of Sicily. Bird Dog is off getting his annual flea bath, and he's left me to guard the henhouse while he's away.

I apologize unreservedly, in advance. I'm really no use to you fine folks. I don't read newspapers and I don't watch TV. How am I going to discharge my duties as a blogger if I can't claim that I read the newspapers and watch TV harder than you, so my opinion trumps yours? I'm barely aware of what's what in the manufactured reality everyone lives in nowadays. I will shamefacedly admit that I sometimes go outside, during the daylight hours. How can anyone trust my judgment on anything?

For instance, I was barely aware that there are hearings or something being held somewhere, where panels of grim-faced blacklisting, witch-hunting martinets are interrogating people with questions like, "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Las Vegas Raiders coaching staff"? 

So here's a smattering of random information you might find amusing or informative or silly or whatever. Also, did you know the Raiders moved to Las Vegas? I didn't. The Rams still play in Los Angeles, though, just like when I was a kid. They'll never move.

Head of California’s largest union arrested on theft, fraud charges

Alma Hernandez, the executive director of SEIU California, and her husband Jose Moscoso were charged on Thursday with allegedly underreporting some $1.4 million of income between the 2014 and 2018 tax years. Another complaint alleged that Hernandez, while working on a political action committee for a Democratic state senate candidate in 2014, approved a $11,700 payment to her husband for services he did not provide. Moscoso also allegedly did not disclose that his air duct-cleaning business had multiple employees, resulting in over $300,000 in unreported wages.

You know, if I ever run for state senate, the first thing I'm doing is getting my ducts cleaned. Because it's all about ducts, really. Since Katherine Helmond is speaker of the US house of representatives, it's all starting to make sense. 

Evidence for European presence in the Americas in ad 1021

Our new date lays down a marker for European cognisance of the Americas, and represents the first known point at which humans encircled the globe.

I deal with Europeans from time to time. They don't seem to be cognizant of anything but America, now. We're villains to them, of course, but at least we're the main characters in their lack-of-passion plays, so we have that going for us.

Commerce Tightens Export Controls on Items Used in Surveillance of Private Citizens and other Malicious Cyber Activities

The United States Government opposes the misuse of technology to abuse human rights or conduct other malicious cyber activities, and these new rules will help ensure that U.S. companies are not fueling authoritarian practices.

The United States Government opposes the misuse of technology to abuse human rights unless you're an American, they mean. Say, where did you get that $600 in your bank account, prole?

FlixMobility acquires Greyhound to Expand U.S. Intercity Bus Services

André Schwämmlein, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of FlixMobility, said, “Consumers across North America are increasingly seeking affordable, comfortable, smart and sustainable mobility solutions. A compelling offering will draw significantly more travelers away from private cars to shared intercity bus mobility.

There are those Europeans again (FlixMobility is German), getting all cognizant of the Americas again. I've never found Greyhound to be affordable, exactly, or egad, comfortable, or smart, no matter how you define the word. And if it was "sustainable," they wouldn't have been able to buy the company. But hey, I'm quibbling about sunny language used in a press release, and I can't help noticing that the press agent at FlixMobility is named Goebbels. Well, at least they're not buying railcars.

The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

People with mild or moderate hearing loss could soon be able to buy hearing aids without a medical exam or special fitting, under a new rule being proposed by the Food and Drug Administration.

But not Ivermectin. With or without a prescription.

Cannabis and Male Fertility: A Systematic Review

Research supports a role for cannabis in reducing sperm count and concentration, inducing abnormalities in sperm morphology, reducing sperm motility and viability, and inhibiting capacitation and fertilizing capacity.

Remember, correlation does not equal causation. How do we know it's not a Cheeto overdose causing the problem? Huh, science dudes? What was the question again?

Trump announces media company, social media platform coming next month

Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) said in a statement that its mission was to “create a rival to the liberal media consortium and fight back against the ‘Big Tech’ companies of Silicon Valley, which have used their unilateral power to silence opposing voices in America.”

Dumb and tone-deaf, as usual. You might as well call it WalterSobchak.com, tagline, "we're not wrong, we're just ***holes. You should have advertised it as the "social media company for everyone, not just lunatic leftists." See, this is why the other side still hires people named Goebbels. They know how to play this game.

Check out the original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick

The rarely imagined character [Ahab] has been grievously spoiled, nay altogether ruined, by a vile overdaubing with a coat of book-learning and mysticism; there is no method in his madness; and we must needs pronounce the chief feature of the volume a perfect failure, and the work itself inartistic.

I've read that the really hard thing to do in fiction is to create memorable, believable characters. Captain Ahab is one of the most memorable characters every produced by a writer. Everyone knows who Captain Ahab is. No one knows who William Young, critic at the New York Albion was.

Facebook settles a federal lawsuit over allegations it favored foreign job applicants

The department's civil rights division said the social network giant "routinely refused" to recruit, consider or hire U.S. workers, a group that includes U.S. citizens and nationals, people granted asylum, refugees and lawful permanent residents, for positions it had reserved for temporary visa holders.

Remember, it's only evil colonialism if you set up shop in sunny climes and lord it over the locals. If you import the benighted to do your scut work for a pittance, it's social media! Sanjay lives in the Amistad Arms apartments, barely scrapes by on what they pay him, and he can't quit or he immediately becomes a fugitive. That arrangement sounds familiar, but at least it's not colonialism.

Have a great day, everyone, and keep those ducts clean!