September 21, 2017
Wherever you go, there you are
Location History Visualizer does what it says on the box, using Google location history json files. So if you have an Android device, and location tracking switched on (or have ever had this) you can view your own movements around the world over time as a heat map. [more inside]
"It releases a hormone called oxytocin, which reduces stress."
Voiceover artist Paul Rugg demonstrates why the best way to relax is petting your dog.
bleep. bzzt. yay.
Simon the Magpie makes noises, makes things that make noises, and makes things that make noises that make music.
He will also bend your circuits.
Oh, he also makes noises with his cat.
The Senators Strike Back
The Republican attack on the Affordable Care Act has returned, in the form of the Graham-Cassidy bill. Think Progress reports that the bill, will, among other things, gut Medicaid and throw 32 million people off of insurance. The Center for American Progress says that premiums for those with preexisting conditions will skyrocket: for instance, a $17,320 surcharge for a "preexisting" pregnancy and a $142,650 for a 40-year-old with metastatic cancer. Graham-Cassidy seems to have a good chance to pass. Or maybe it can still be stopped, says Politico. Late night host Jimmy Kimmel is fighting the good fight against the bill. There is still time to contact your Senators and Representatives. [more inside]
Pam showed up with more news: She’d recovered a memory!
The only possible motive connecting all three cases was money. Hupp, who’d held several jobs in the insurance industry, was the beneficiary of both her friend’s and mother’s policies. But would somebody really stab a sick friend and shove her own mother off a balcony to get cash she’d receive in a few years anyway, then shoot a perfect stranger just to twist the plot?
"Catholic Alt-Right" organizes online to stifle Jesuit speaker
The Jesuit priest and writer James Martin, S.J., has had three recent talks cancelled after a coordinated campaign by the "Catholic alt-right," because of his recent book on connecting the Catholic church with LGBT Catholics.
As in the secular sphere, web sites, Twitter, and FaceBook groups are being used to organize actions to promote alt-right agendas, as described by the NYT here. [more inside]
the loneliness of the long-haul mover
My destination is the ultrarich haven called Aspen, Colorado. This makes perfect sense because I’m a long-haul mover at the pinnacle of the game, a specialist. I can make $250,000 a year doing what is called high-end executive relocation. No U-Hauls for me, thank you very much. I’ll take the movie stars, the ambassadors, the corporate bigwigs. At the office in Connecticut they call me the Great White Mover. This Aspen load, insured for $3 million, belongs to a former investment banker from a former investment bank who apparently escaped the toppled citadel with his personal loot intact. [more inside]
Well Executed Madness (SLCFYTV*)
The Spa Car is the latest mad creation of Colin Furze. On commission for a Google ad, an E30 was sealed, and equipped with a grill, leaf bubble blowers and turf exterior.
(* Single Link to a Colin Furze YouTube Video)
A revamp of an equally awful sitcom
As the fall season in TV picks up steam (don't forget to check FanFare), Flashbak takes a look at the September 1989 TVGuide season preview. [more inside]
Isle of Good Boys
Wes Anderson's latest movie is a stop-motion animation, set in a future Japan where dogs have been banished to an island made of trash. Trailer #1
This is my Once-A-Year Day!
Boil The Frog
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This Post is Intentionally Left Blank "Common in all areas of publishing, the phrase “This Page is Intentionally Left Blank” has been found in peer-reviewed academic articles costing $30 to access. To the best of our knowledge, this paper represents the first known review of Intentionally Blank Pages (IBPs)." [more inside]
Free The Land!
“This is the building of the new society,” he said, adding later: “For so long Mississippi has been known as the symbol of limits. It has been known as a haven for oppression, for some of the most horrible suffering in the history of the world. So it is only fitting that we should become the leaders of that change.” - In Jackson Mississippi, a new vision of society istaking root with its bold new mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba - The Socialist Experiment - Oxford American
The Brutal Truth About Growing Up In The Top 1%
Well there's brutal and then there's *brutal* Nicolas Cole, Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Digital Press bares his soul to reveal the hardships he endured growing up as a child of 1%ers.
Mavens of funk mutation
An article from internet magazine Paper that champions bassist Tina Weymouth as the most valuable but still under-recognized member of the Talking Heads was Tweeted by Brian Eno, who knows a thing or two about the subject at hand. [more inside]
Never mind the bollocks
‘I wake up in the morning and I just realise that I am chaos.’ Marilyn Manson interviewed by the Guardian.
Angry about "Sandwich au fromage fondant"? Send a courriel about it.
BBC: "...the Canadian province of Quebec has relaxed its guidelines around some common 'anglicisms'." The Register: "Quebec takes mature approach to 'grilled cheese' ban. It's for the grater good." The Globe and Mail: "...the agency gives the green light to technical words from English such as mayday and humidex, along with bluegrass and haggis." CBC News: "...and mot-clic as an alternative to hashtag." National Post: "And tennis players can take satisfaction from a well hit “smash” after the Office acknowledged that its recommended replacement - “coup d’écrasement” - just hasn’t caught on."
Fromages Du Quebec, cheeses of Quebec, Best Quebec Cheeses, On the Quebec cheese trail, and Cheeses from Quebec.
[previously]
“it's easy to spot temporary distortions in the reviews...”
Valve aims to combat Steam review bombing with new 'histogram' charts by Andy Chalk [PC Gamer] “Valve looked at a few possible solutions to the problem, including the elimination of review scores altogether, although that was pretty much a non-starter since they were added in response to user demand in the first place. Thought was also given to locking down reviews temporarily when "abnormal behavior," which is to say a review-bombing campaign, was detected. But that was rejected as well, because Valve doesn't want to "stop the community having a discussion about the issue they're unhappy about, even though there are probably better places to have that conversation than in Steam User Reviews." Ultimately, the decision was to do nothing, at least with regard to the review scores themselves. Instead, Valve is now providing consumers with more information about the reviews by way of a histogram that compares the ratio of a game's positive to negative reviews over its lifetime.” [more inside]
Access denied: wheelchair metro maps versus everyone else's
Thresholds of catastrophe in the Earth system
"Five times in the past 542 million years, more than three-fourths of marine animal species have vanished in mass extinctions. Each of these events is associated with a significant change in Earth’s carbon cycle. ... The modern critical size for the marine carbon cycle is roughly similar to the mass of carbon that human activities will likely have added to the oceans by the year 2100. ... Although the uncertainty of [these predictions are] considerable, all scenarios for cumulative uptake at the century’s end either exceed or are commensurate with the threshold for catastrophic change." [more inside]
Imagine a future where 50% of our killer robots are programmed by women
Welcome to Centrism.biz We oppose extremists on the right who want to murder all non-whites, ground their bones into dust and build a perfect Aryan union fueled by a hatred unimaginably pure. We also oppose equally extreme movements on the left who want a higher tax rate on incomes over $200,000. [more inside]
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