June 26, 2021

The "good guy with a gun" myth disproven...again

https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1408193836736651264

June 22, 2021

Raiders DE Carl Nassib, who came out yesterday, has had the top selling jersey two days in a row

http://bleacherreport.com/post/las-vegas-raiders/6a0ed79c-1391-4dfc-aeb1-2edbd147effd

June 14, 2021

A Karen moment at a Ross Dress for Less

https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1404107815850057735?s=19

May 23, 2021

The Confederacy was a con job on whites. And still is.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article136803208.html

This is a great summary of how racism has long been used to convince poor white people to give everything over to the wealthy, yet feel that they are somehow benefiting.

April 24, 2021

Anyone who ever worked retail will love the angry IKEA guy

Everyone who worked behind a counter, or in tech support, has wished they could say this. It’s actually a comedian named Scott Seiss.

April 3, 2021

New songs by Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse, written by computer

This is interesting. A new project called Lost Tapes of the 27 Club is trying to bring attention to the mental health challenges that musicians face by creating new songs by members of the so-called 27 Club - famous musicians who died at the age of 27, typically by either drug overdose or suicide. They selected four of the most famous members of the 27 Club - Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse - and fed 20-30 of each artist’s compositions into a computer, which generated a new song from it, both music and lyrics. Most of the music is also computer generated, although they got other artists to do the vocals.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/nirvana-kurt-cobain-ai-song-1146444/

Here’s the Jimi Hendrix song.

Here’s the Kurt Cobain song.



Here’s the Jim Morrison song.



And here’s the Amy Winehouse song.

March 26, 2021

A wild coincidence happened at yesterday's NBA trade deadline

In 1995, the Bucks drafted Gary Trent and traded him to Portland before the season started. In 1998, Portland traded Trent to Toronto, exactly halfway (41 games) into his third NBA season.

Within a year, Trent’s son, Gary Trent Jr., was born.

In 2018, the Kings drafted Gary Trent Jr. and traded him to Portland before the season started. Yesterday, Portland traded Trent to Toronto, exactly halfway (41 games) into his third NBA season.

What are the odds of that?

March 16, 2021

Which is the right cat to be?

Or, which one describes you?

https://twitter.com/lindsaycrouse/status/1371245179735310338

March 5, 2021

More evidence that Star Trek is visionary - warp drive may be possible

Technology that was correctly predicted by Star Trek...

Automatic sliding doors. On the set of the original Star Trek, there were guys you didn’t see physically pulling the doors open. The Star Trek blooper reels included several shots of cast members walking into doors that didn’t open in time.

Cell phones. The prototype for the first wireless phone came out 8 years after we saw Kirk use a communicator. The flip phone was directly inspired by the communicators in the original series.

Bluetooth earpieces. The first wireless earpiece was in Uhura’s ear.

Flat screen monitors and TVs. In 1966, most TVs were giant boxes. Many were still black and white.

Voice assistants. We alert them now by saying “Alexa”, “Siri”, “Hey, Google”, etc. On the Enterprise, they just said “Computer”.

Universal translators. Although they haven’t figured out how to translate languages that we’ve never heard before. I never figured out how they did that on the show.

Tablet computers. Kirk and Uhura would occasionally write on bulky tablets. The Next Generation brought with it slimmed-down devices that more closely resembled iPads.

VR. Holograms don’t yet look as good as the those on the DS9 holodeck, but VR goggles are getting pretty good.

3D printers. That’s basically what the replicators were. At the time, replicating food seemed like a stretch to me, but now they can actually make food with 3D printers.

Tractor beams. Scientists at NYU have developed devices that can push, pull or hold matter, which they actually refer to as tractor beams, in honor of Star Trek.

Antimatter. Scientists had created antimatter when the show debuted, but it has only been about a decade since it could be captured and stored. Until then, the notion of a matter/antimatter power source was a pipe dream. It may be a long time before it happens, but that’s what I would have said about many things on this list a few years ago.

So, if that’s not enough, now this comes up...

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35718463/scientists-say-physical-warp-drive-is-possible/

March 2, 2021

Did anyone else in the St. Louis area get a tornado warning this morning on their phone?

It happened to my wife and me while we were driving, a little after 10 AM...it was only in effect until 10:15, and the weather was fine, no sign of a tornado. A few minutes later, a radio alert told us there wasn’t an actual tornado, that this was a test or something, and we should spend the time to study what to do in the case of a tornado. But if we hadn’t been listening to the radio, we would have had no way of knowing that.

The whole thing seemed like a bad idea. What if there’s a real tornado warning on our phones at a later date? How would we know if it was real? This could have a real “boy who cried wolf” consequence.