Boat trails and Dam Busters

Just found this funny item. Why are the media not reporting on boat trails??? Must be a conspiracy!!!

Also, I ran across this somewhere: the famous “attack the Death Star” scene in Star Wars was deliberately a close copy of a similar scene in the movie The Dam Busters from 1955: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNdb03Hw18M (2 min 37 sec).

And good news from a recent Fix the News:

Deaths from air pollution falling worldwide
The Lancet has found that the number of people killed by air pollution from fossil fuels fell by almost 7% between 2016 and 2021, from 2.25 million to 2.09 million people. Researchers have attributed this to the closure of coal-fired power stations; $1.8 trillion went into clean energy last year, versus $1.1 trillion into fossil fuels. The Times

Despite world population increasing over that time period!

Husky attempts escape, throws party

How about something short, light, and amusing this week? A husky at a rescue shelter somehow got out of his cage and tried to free the other dogs. He didn’t succeed, but he did reward himself with goodies…

https://www.cnn.com/videos/entertainment/2024/01/10/husky-escape-artist-moos-cprog-orig-bdk.cnn. 1min 56 seconds.

Oh! And let’s remember good news from this week’s Fix the News:

For what it’s worth, the US stock market is at all-time highs, the uninsured rate is near an all-time low, life expectancy is at highest level ever, apartment construction hasn’t been this hot in half a century, inflation, illegal immigration, crime and obesity are falling, wages are higher than any point in history, the percentage of the population that is employed is near an all-time peak, productivity is outpacing every other comparable country, carbon emissions are declining, clean energy production is soaring, next month America’s factories will start mass producing the most advanced technology on Earth, and it’s still the wealthiest and most important nation in the world.

Let’s hope this continues…

Font follies

So some fonts get together to chat: Times New Roman, Garamond, Futura, Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Papyrus, Comic Sans.

Times New Roman: “Do I miss being default font? No. Like I told Calibri back in 2007, I’ve done my time.”

Garamond: “Yes, you were made for newspapers darling. You should not be languishing in double-spaced essays written by eighth-graders.”

Futura: “Serifs. I get a headache just looking at them.”

Courier: “Back in my day, we didn’t have none of this variable width hanky-panky, see?”

1 minute 16 seconds: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3QVZHDx8A6/?igsh=MWVvanczdWZua2RmMA%3D%3D. Remember to click the speaker icon at the lower right if you’re not hearing it. Also see https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KnIZFlHI3-I for a Star Trek item, or https://www.youtube.com/@ElleCordova/featured for yet more of Elle’s quick videos!

And just two of many good news items from this week’s Fix the News:

Towards the elimination of a Biblical scourge
A new WHO update on Hansen’s disease—more commonly known as leprosy—shows that from 2014 through 2023 ((just ten years!)), the number of new cases globally decreased by 14.6%, from 214,001 to 182,815. New leprosy cases among children also significantly dropped during this time, from 18,862 cases in 2014 to 10,322 in 2023, representing a decrease of 45.3%. WHO

Domestic violence in America down by two-thirds in 30 years
In September 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act, the country’s first federal law criminalising domestic violence and providing support for community-based efforts against sexual assault. According to the FBI, between 1993 and 2022, domestic violence rates dropped by 67%. President Biden, who authored and championed VAWA as a senator, has announced that future renewals will include over $690 million in grants to support survivors. PBS

“Scientists use food dye found in Doritos to make see-through mice”

I was just stopped in my (reading) tracks by this headline. And I knew I hadn’t been smoking anything.

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/09/05/see-through-transparent-mice-food-dye/. If you can’t access that, try https://laughlearnlinks.home.blog/scientists-use-food-dye-found-in-doritos-to-make-see-through-mice/.

How does bright yellow food coloring turn tissue transparent? To understand why, it’s essential to consider the reason things look opaque in the first place. The bits of our body — cell membranes, proteins, fluids — all cause light to refract, or bend.

If light bends just once — think of a beam of sunlight hitting a sheet of glass — the image it carries is still mostly clear. But as light refracts over and over, off fluids, proteins and other cellular miscellany, it scatters in lots of directions. All that scattered light, Rowlands said, makes it hard to see through — “like watching TV through a glass of milk.”

…By applying textbook physics principles, the researchers were able to screen for molecules that they predicted would, when absorbed by the body, change how biological tissues refract light. They hit on tartrazine, dissolved in water. But the proof was in the experiment. They soaked a slice of raw chicken in a tartrazine solution and found that the chicken turned clear as they increased the amount of tartrazine. When they rubbed that solution onto the skin of mice, they saw internal organs come into view. The tartrazine reduced the amount of refraction, the light scattered less and the tissue appeared clear.

When the dye was washed off, the tissue returned to normal and the scientists reported “minimal systemic toxicity” in the mice.

Other news sites had less dramatic headlines (eg The Guardian: “Common food dye found to make skin and muscle temporarily transparent”; CNN: “Scientific discovery that turns mouse skin transparent echoes plot of H.G. Wells’ ‘The Invisible Man’”.)

And just two of many good news items from this week’s Fix the News:

Cigarette smoking in the United States is at an 80-year low
When Gallup first asked about cigarette smoking in 1944, 41% of U.S. adults said they smoked. In the most recent Consumption Habits poll, 11% of U.S. adults say they have smoked cigarettes in the past week, matching the historical low of 2022. A major reason for the decline is that cigarette smoking has plunged among young adults, previously the most likely age group to smoke. Gallup

Ozempic and Wegovy’s final frontier could be ageing
When people lose weight, it has a whole lot of further health benefits: lower chances of heart failure, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, and cancer, amongst others. A new study that tracked more than 17,600 overweight or obese people who took semaglutide for three years has found that they died at a lower rate from all causes. “It wouldn’t surprise me that improving people’s health this way actually slows down the ageing process.” BBC

Kids these days

So I was tired of “Things are so terrible! Kids these days! The world is coming to an end!” when people suffered a stolen bike or a dog owner not cleaning up after their dog. I noticed these markings on my walk, took a couple pics, and tried to be funny on NextDoor:

Comments generally fell into three categories:

(a) They got the humor and added to it: “I see them doing it sometimes. They’re bold. They wear yellow safety vests and act like they’re some kind of construction crew!”

(b) Literal: “It’s construction markings.” Got it in one try.

Here’s the whole thread:

This was long enough. Good News next week.

Flight safety video

The Hobbit was filmed in New Zealand. Air New Zealand takes advantage… (4 min 38 seconds): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOw44VFNk8Y. This one is based on the third movie, others include https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBlRbrB_Gnc.

And more good news from FutureCrunch (now Fix the News):

The proportion of the world’s adults with a net worth of less than $10,000 has plunged from 75% in 2000 to less than 40% in 2023. The percentage of American workers earning under $15 an hour has dropped from 32% to 13% in just two years. The US Internal Revenue Service just collected a record $1 billion in past-due taxes from millionaires. Gavi’s Big Catch-Up begins, allocating 200 million vaccine doses to children missed during COVID-19. Saudi Arabia announces an unprecedented pension reform package, addressing critical issues such as retirement age and maternity leave. Johnson & Johnson agrees not to enforce its patent on critical TB medication in South Africa.

From the internet 2015 (part 1)

More stuff I saved because it was funny or useful or otherwise worth saving:

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(Still Drinking, http://www.stilldrinking.org/god-s-not-dead-a-film-student-s-review)

“Don’t try to be clever. Just tell the truth.” I am absolutely behind this extremely reusable piece of advice that works in any context outside of politics, job interviews, and first dates.

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Article in ArsTechnica: New neural implant reads a person’s intentions to control robotic arm

Erik Sorto, 34, has been paralysed from the neck down for the past 13 years. However, thanks to a ground-breaking clinical trial, he has been able to smoothly drink a bottle of beer using a robotic arm controlled with a brain implant.

To which one commenter replied:

I admire this man’s priorities.

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A Grand Master was talking to another GM at the chess club.

“I played an anonymous opponent online last night. He was good, I think it was God.”

The other GM replied, “God? Really? You think God plays anonymous chess online?”

“Yes, He was really good.”

“Maybe it was Carlsen, he’s played anonymously before.”

“No, He wasn’t that good.”

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QA Engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders 999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a sfdeljknesv.

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It’s gibberish all the way down.

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Article title in The Register, 9/2015 (this headline made me get a subscription):

MAMMOTH MAMMOTH fossil find with BONUS BISON BONE BONANZA

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Karen Ravn (via Ad Astra):

Only as high as I reach can I grow,
only as far as I seek can I go.
Only as deep as I look can I see,
only as much as I dream can I be.

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I just got a message from USA Today that Xerox split into two companies. I bet they both look exactly alike…

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Infinity4011:

I have been trying to find a Toyota dealership that will even take a custom order for a new Tacoma. They all try to sell me last year’s model with similar options, or this year’s new model with different options but the same color. I don’t want a red crew cab automatic with a short bed. I want a red access cab with a long bed and a manual transmission, and a specific set of options. I don’t want a 2015 model, even if it’s close. I want a NEW model Tacoma, but the dealerships where I live just look at me like I’m trying to buy a car and pay with bags of Ebola virus or something. They want absolutely nothing to do with someone who wants to custom order a vehicle.

(Yes, this was pre-COVID.)

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Personally, I’ve been hearing all my life about the Serious Philosophical Issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I’m willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes. – Patrick Hayden.

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I’m not a lawyer, but my lawyer is.

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My dad was a pastor in northern Wisconsin. As such, he couldn’t tell Finnish jokes because that area has a strong Finnish population. To make up for it, he would tell jokes about an extinct civilization – the Hittites. That way no one could be offended.

“So these two Hittites, Eino and Toivo…”

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General Peter Pace, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, once told me, “If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”

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Give a man a fish and he’ll come back tomorrow for another one. Teach a man to fish and he’ll start looking for someone who will just give him a fish instead…

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That’s the nice thing about kleptomania: you can always take something for it.

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My favorite Latin words to live by: Carpe Deim. 10 cents a fish.

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Veni, vidi, visa.

I came, I saw, I charged it.

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Not my circus, not my monkey.

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And more good news from FutureCrunch (now Fix the News):

Good news for the planet

Something approaching a miracle has been taking place in California this spring. Beginning in early March, for some portion of almost every day, a combination of solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower has been producing more than a hundred per cent of the state’s demand for electricity. . . . It’s taken years of construction—and solid political leadership in Sacramento—to slowly build this wave, but all of a sudden it’s cresting into view. California has the fifth-largest economy in the world and, in the course of a few months, the state has proved that it’s possible to run a thriving modern economy on clean energy.
Bill McKibben in The New Yorker

Firesign Theater

I ran into The Firesign Theater back in my college days (yes, many years ago). Their humor is… different. Here’s an ad for Mr. Leonardo’s Warehouse of Eternal Art (1 min 13 seconds), and their own High School Madness (8 min 5 seconds). A comment from YouTube: “Visionaries; masters of parody on reality and play on words. The Firesign Theatre wrote, recorded, and produced, brilliant comedy. The kept a whole generation sane during the Vietnam War.”

“Don’t eat with your hands, son! Use your entrenching tool!”

More Firesign Theater is available on YouTube.

And more good news from FutureCrunch (now Fix the News) (bolding is mine):

Ghana’s fight against malaria has seen a major breakthrough, with a 90% reduction in malaria mortality since 2012. Mass shootings in the United States are down 29% from last year. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia just pledged $500 million to end polio for good. Real solutions to homelessness in the United States exist; Houston and New Orleans show the way. Student debts will be lowered for more than three million Australians.

Math jokes

And several other kinds. (You will need some specialist knowledge to get some of these.) If eleven pages of this aren’t enough, check the comments from the tech people on Hacker News. Some examples:

—Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip?
—To get to the other… er, um…

Not all math puns are terrible. Just sum.

The barman says, “We don’t serve time travelers in here.”
A time traveler walks into a bar.

Eleven pages: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.01010.

Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39659383.

And more good news from FutureCrunch (now Fix the News):

From the internet (2018, part 2)

More stuff I saved because it was funny or useful or somehow worth saving:

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Changing life patterns: use habit substitution (replace smoking with chewing gum – can’t do both); habit attachment (append new habit to existing one, like floss after brushing).

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When dealing with clutter, I pick up an object and go “where should I put this?”, and of course this doesn’t work, because if I knew that, I would’ve put it there in the first place. It’s clutter because I didn’t have an answer.

So instead, I say “Where should this be a year from now?”

For some reason, this elicits entirely different answers. It cuts through the paralysis and imagines a future where the needful has been done.

Start with a very small habit that doesn’t take a whole lot of willpower to do and consistently do it…like do 1 sit up, and do it EVERY DAY.

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((I actually found this one to be helpful:))
Procrastinate later! What’s the rush? There’s always tomorrow!

((Also on procrastination:))
“Discipline is much more valuable than motivation.”

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In times of crisis, the wise build bridges, the fools build barriers.

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“When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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Look for the word “homeopathic” on the label: that’s Greek for useless.

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I had no idea so many women wanted to be my friend until I started dating …@Spaziotwat

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The duty of the general is to ride by the ranks on horseback, show himself to those in danger, praise the brave, threaten the cowardly, encourage the lazy, fill up gaps, transpose a company if necessary, bring aid to wearied, anticipate the crisis, the hour, and the outcome. – Onasander

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And in good news from FutureCrunch (2024!):

Everything in America is awful
Apart from the fact that marriage rates are up and divorce rates are down, the percentage of Americans without health insurance has fallen by almost half since 2010, employment for people in their prime working years is at its highest level in more than two decades, manufacturing construction spending has climbed to $225 billion per month, cholesterol levels are gradually improving across the country, and life expectancy has increased for the first time in two years thanks to a levelling off of overdose deaths.