abarbarian Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 Torn between posting this here or in the funnies thread. FBI, NSA to hackers: Let us be blunt. Weed need your help. We'll hire you even if you've smoked a little pot in the pastNow that's what we call a joint task force: Uncle Sam chills out, relaxes recruitment rules on drugs 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 On 4/28/2020 at 12:51 PM, sunrat said: I had a girlfriend whose parents were Polish. This always made an appearance when we visited for dinner: Didn't take much to give one that flying feeling. Wyborowa is a decent drink and there are many other Polish vodkas that are worth a try, Beginner’s Guide to Polish Vodka However my favourite Polish vodka is Żubrówka, Bison Grass Vodka Is the Stuff of Bartenders’ Dreams Quote Pronounced "zoo-broov-ka," the vodka itself calls on over 400 years of history and is made from rye (as are almost all Polish vodkas) and then infused with a specific grass, hierochloe odorata, which is native to the Białowieża Forest in north eastern Poland. The grass contains a chemical called coumarin which, apart from being used to flavor tobacco and cakes (among other things), also has certain medicinal value, such as being a blood thinner. Healthy vodka? Well, that might be a stretch. Oh and it is not just a modern day fad either, Quote Somerset Maugham, the famous British playwright and novelist, wrote in his 1944 tome The Razor's Edge that Żubrówka "smells of freshly mown hay and spring flowers, of thyme and lavender, and it's soft on the palate and so comfortable, it's like listening to music by moonlight." Isn’t that the most poetic description you’ve ever heard for a spirit? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted May 6, 2020 Share Posted May 6, 2020 Latvian drone wrests control from human overlords and shuts down entire nation's skiesPlease phone us if you see our missing 26kg aircraft, say authorities Skynet is almost a reality , the above was just a test by the robots to see how we would react 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted May 6, 2020 Share Posted May 6, 2020 Humans losing control is not the same as machines revolting. I've seen it happen a few times at the RC Model Aero club where I fly helis. They usually end up crashing in the gully next door though. Drones on autopilot usually have set waypoints. Or maybe it has a failsafe to maintain altitude if control is lost but usually they are programmed to return to base if that happens. It would be a challenge for it to refuel when it runs out anyway! I imagine it's a pretty expensive piece of gear if it's 26kg so heads are gonna roll. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted May 7, 2020 Share Posted May 7, 2020 On 5/6/2020 at 10:24 AM, sunrat said: I imagine it's a pretty expensive piece of gear if it's 26kg so heads are gonna roll. It is pretty large too as well as being heavy, Quote “Residents who notice a 5.5-meter-wide and 3.5-meter-long unmanned aerial vehicle are asked to contact the Aviation Search and Rescue Coordination Center immediately at 29 337 238 or 65 703 988,” concluded Apollo. Quote It is thought by local sources that the drone was last seen flying at an altitude of 200 metres, or 600ft in aviation-standard units. The craft itself measures 3.5m x 5.5m, weighs 26kg and has a top speed of 70kph. Helpfully, it also took off with fuel for about 90 hours of flying time – meaning Latvian airspace could be closed for most of this week unless the rogue drone is found. Latvia is not that big so if it travels at 70 kpm for 90 hours it could have escaped to Estonia or Lithuania or even Russia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Four really interesting news items. Microsoft, Visa and others worth combined $11.5 trillion want Congress to include climate in COVID-19 recovery plan Dramatic effect of coronavirus lockdowns seen from space Secret Service unearths overseas fraud ring stealing millions in unemployment benefits An this one highlights the different approach to a similar virus outbreak in the 60's. Why American life went on as normal during the killer pandemic of 1969 Quote H3N2 (or the “Hong Kong flu,” as it was more popularly known) was an influenza strain that the New York Times described as “one of the worst in the nation’s history.” The first case of H3N2, which evolved from the H2N2 influenza strain that caused the 1957 pandemic, was reported in mid-July 1968 in Hong Kong. By September, it had infected Marines returning to the States from the Vietnam War. By mid-December, the Hong Kong flu had arrived in all fifty states. But schools were not shut down nationwide, other than a few dozen because of too many sick teachers. Face masks weren’t required or even common. Though Woodstock was not held during the peak months of the H3N2 pandemic (the first wave ended by early March 1969, and it didn’t flare up again until November of that year), the festival went ahead when the virus was still active and had no known cure. Quote Both pandemics brought drama to outer space: During an Apollo 8 mission in December 1968, commander Frank Borman came down with the Hong Kong flu while in orbit. And in early April, three NASA astronauts returned to Earth after seven months aboard the International Space Station, with astronaut Jessica Meir remarking that it felt like coming home “to a different planet.” Quote The virus rarely made front-page news. A 1968 story in the Associated Press warned that deaths caused by the Hong Kong flu “more than doubled across the nation in the third week of December.” But the story was buried on page 24. The New York Post didn’t publish any stories about the pandemic in 1968, and in 1969, coverage was mostly minor, like reports of newly married couples delaying honeymoons because of the virus and the Yonkers police force calling in sick with the Hong Kong flu during wage negotiations. Quote “If I were 48 in 1968, I would have most likely served in World War II,” said Moir. “I would have had a little brother who served in Korea, and possibly might have a son or daughter fighting in Vietnam.” Death, he said, was a bigger and in some ways more accepted part of American life. The Hong Kong flu also arrived in a particularly volatile moment in history. There was the race to land a man on the moon and political assassinations and sexual liberation and the civil-rights movement. Without 24/7 news coverage and social media vying for our attention, a new strain of flu could hardly compete for the public’s attention. Quote In 2020, we feel that being denied music festivals and restaurants is an egregious attack on our liberty. “A big part of our freakout over COVID-19 is a reaction to everything in this country that we’ve taken for granted,” Moir said. “When it’s taken away, we lose our minds.” 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 The Tiny “Spite Triangle” That Marks a Century-Old Grudge Against New York City Quote By 1922, Hess had already died, but his heirs weren’t about to give the city the land, no matter how useless it was. Instead, they laid down a mosaic of tiles inside the two-foot-wide triangle to serve as a reminder that it was private property, not just another stretch of sidewalk. It’s now known as Hess’s Triangle. The tiles read: “Property of the Hess estate which has never been dedicated for public purpose.” 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Getting Back to Work: Could Intel's Bunny Suits Be in Our Post COVID-19 Future? Quote It is interesting to note that at Intel, these suits became surprisingly popular. Other employees would go out of their way to visit Fab 3 so they could wear them long before Intel turned them into a part of its Pentium ad campaign. My wife, who worked at Intel at the time, had her purple bunny suit, and these things were surprisingly popular as costumes while the ad was running. Quote The bunny suits are designed to be worn for hours. They can be cooled individually (depending on configuration), potentially cutting down on air conditioning costs. It should be cheaper to cool the suits than an entire building. With effective dressing and undressing protocols, they allow people to work in close proximity for years in areas that need to be kept exceedingly clean. Quote Now the suits would need to be altered to better allow for eating and drinking safely. They should be supplemented with technologies that would enable tracking an employee's temperature and blood oxygen level, and provide an alert if an employee should become distressed. There is potential to give the suits the ability to regulate temperature, and used in connection with earbuds and head-mounted displays to provide a level of situational awareness that we currently do not have. Coupled with the tracking that Google and Apple are implementing, they should give far better protection than home quarantine, while allowing most people to continue to work. So why are we all not wearing one ?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted June 6, 2020 Share Posted June 6, 2020 New York’s Invisible Island of the Dead Quote The Department of Correction estimates that more than 850,000 people are now buried on Hart Island, noting that the actual number may be somewhere between 750,000 and a million, a standard deviation that is jarring when you think about it. In the last few years the old cemetery filled up, so the burials moved to Hart Island’s south side. In 2010, there were 695 adults and 504 babies buried there. Four days a week, prisoners from Riker’s Island lay plain pine boxes into two mass graves. In the adult grave, coffins are stacked three high. It will be filled with between 150 and 165 bodies (depending on the number of extra-wide coffins), plus separate coffins for body parts, and covered with 36 inches of dirt. The other grave, for fetuses and stillborn babies, will be loaded with 1,000 miniature coffins buried five deep. Quote “Who ever heard of a cemetery you can’t go to, guarded by armed guards? It should not be run like a prison.” Quote “What they’re doing is wrong,” says Grant, who is now a board member of the Hart Island Project. “I think it’s a basic human right for the family to go and see the grave and pay their respects.” 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted June 6, 2020 Share Posted June 6, 2020 Hasn't NY heard of cremation? It's much more efficient and uses less real estate. Next, I guess they'll be floating the dead out to dump off the continental shelf like they used to do with the garbage barges in the 60s and 70s. Actually, they may still dump garbage like that. I don't know for sure. Is there a Soylent processing plant in NYC? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 Treasure chest hidden in Rocky Mountains finally found Quote SANTA FE, N.M. — A bronze chest filled with gold, jewels, and other valuables worth more than $1 million and hidden a decade ago somewhere in the Rocky Mountain wilderness has been found, according to a famed art and antiquities collector who created the treasure hunt. Quote Hundreds of thousands have hunted in vain across remote corners of the U.S. West for the bronze chest believed to be filled with gold coins, jewelry and other valuable items. Many quit their jobs to dedicate themselves to the search and others depleted their life savings. At least four people died searching for it. https://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/store 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 On 6/6/2020 at 5:45 PM, V.T. Eric Layton said: Is there a Soylent processing plant in NYC? There are plans to build one On 6/6/2020 at 5:45 PM, V.T. Eric Layton said: garbage barges They stopped in 1934 to be replaced by todays wonderful system. https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/01/05/wasted-potential-the-consequences-of-new-york-citys-recycling-failure-1243578 Quote New York City had a landfill of its own once. Staten Island was home to Fresh Kills, the world’s largest garbage dump, whose closure in 2001 spurred the current and elaborate waste export system. Staten Island’s borough president, Jimmy Oddo, expressed resentment over Fresh Kills in a recent interview. "The moment the garbage left their hand going down the garbage chute on the 30th floor of an apartment building on the Upper East Side is when they ceased caring about it. That's how we felt,” Oddo said, referring to one of the city’s toniest neighborhoods. "We were the punchline in many a joke." Nearly two decades since Fresh Kills closed, there’s little indication the city is going to end its reliance on out-of-state landfills anytime soon. One former Bloomberg official warned that strategy is unsustainable. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 Humans produce massive amounts of garbage. All cities everywhere have issues getting rid of it. In my area, the County uses landfills primarily. In the city, though, they burn much of the garbage. We have a recycle system, but I read recently that due to China no longer accepting recyclables from other countries, that the recycle system has become problematic. I believe that most recyclables in my area are being burned along with the rest of the garbage... or ending up in landfills. Humans are very messy creatures. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 5 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said: Humans produce massive amounts of garbage. All cities everywhere have issues getting rid of it. In my area, the County uses landfills primarily. In the city, though, they burn much of the garbage. We have a recycle system, but I read recently that due to China no longer accepting recyclables from other countries, that the recycle system has become problematic. I believe that most recyclables in my area are being burned along with the rest of the garbage... or ending up in landfills. Humans are very messy creatures. That is awful, I see you do not smoke your fags all the way down to the tip, how wasteful 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 Heh! Not me, bro. I'm a neat phreak... my desks: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted June 10, 2020 Share Posted June 10, 2020 My work benches out in the shop are always neat and tidy, too. I had a pal who worked with me at Sony back in the day who gave me one of these signs: His bench always looked a lot like the one above with all the cigarette butts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 Plastic rain is the new acid rain Quote Plastic rain could prove to be a more insidious problem than acid rain, which is a consequence of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. By deploying scrubbers in power plants to control the former, and catalytic converters in cars to control the latter, the US and other countries have over the last several decades cut down on the acidification problem. But microplastic has already corrupted even the most remote environments, and there’s no way to scrub water or land or air of the particles—the stuff is absolutely everywhere, and it’s not like there’s a plastic magnet we can drag through the oceans. What makes plastic so useful—its hardiness—is what also makes it an alarming pollutant: Plastic never really goes away, instead breaking into ever smaller bits that infiltrate ever smaller corners of the planet. Even worse, plastic waste is expected to skyrocket from 260 million tons a year to 460 million tons by 2030, according to the consultancy McKinsey. More people joining the middle class in economically-developing countries means more consumerism and more plastic packaging. The good news is that if enough gets into our bodies we will never ever wear out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 How an artist made a concert from five 40-year-old Commodore computers Quote The entire show is produced using five 40-year-old Commodore CBM 8032 computers, built using the same processor as the iconic Apple One and Two. “They are incredibly powerless”, says Henke, when we caught up with him backstage at his London show. The computers run at a “sturdy” 1 MHz clock speed, which makes complex operations impossible. However, “it’s totally liberating”, he says. “You can bypass any notion of an operating system, and that means you can do things that are totally impossible with modern machines. It’s unchartered territory”. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 Father and son duo speed painters raise millions of dollars for charities across the country Quote MAGNOLIA, Texas -- This is something you have to see to believe! When speed painters Dan Dunn and his son, Harvey Dunn, pick up a paintbrush, magic unfolds before your eyes. Each of them can create a portrait of any celebrity in just three to five minutes, painting the image upside down and then spinning it around to reveal an amazing work of art! The pair performs their colorful "PaintJam" shows all over the world, often raising money for charities. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the father-son team has begun a virtual "PaintJam-a-thon" to raise money for Feeding America. They share new videos to their Facebook page and auction off paintings to help support food banks across the U.S. Very impressive show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted June 29, 2020 Share Posted June 29, 2020 watch: penguins get private tour of nelson-atkins museum of art in kansas city Quote despite the many performances and cultural institutions you can virtually visit, watch and enjoy from home during the COVID-19 lockdown, boredom has affected us all as the weeks roll on. and this also seems to be the case for the penguins at the kansas city zoo in missouri, who recently took a field trip to the empty galleries of the nelson-atkins museum. on their private tour, our winged friends studied key movements in the field of art, from baroque to french impressionism. its not animals in art; its animal enjoying it. watch the video to join the full field trip, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted July 3, 2020 Share Posted July 3, 2020 Students are throwing ‘coronavirus parties’ to see who gets infected first Quote Students in Alabama have been throwing ‘Covid parties’ to see who can catch the virus first, an official has claimed. Tuscaloosa City Councillor Sonya McKinstry said guests invited to the bashes all ‘put money in a pot’ and ‘whoever gets Covid first gets the pot’. Trump says coronavirus ‘will disappear’ despite 52,000 new US cases in one day Quote In an interview with Fox News, the US president continued to describe coronavirus as a nuisance that he hopes will just go away. He said: ‘I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that, at some point, that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.’ But according to data from Johns Hopkins University, there were 52,898 new cases yesterday, while the number of deaths stands at 128,062 – the world’s highest number by far. Thoses students need keeping an eye on as they seem to have the potential to become future presidents 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 Breathing new life into colonizing the Moon? ESA to begin producing oxygen from LUNAR DUST Quote Based on samples brought back from the Moon over the years, it turns out that lunar regolith (moon rock) is made up of 40 to 45 percent oxygen by weight, making it the satellite’s single most abundant element, which is incredibly fortunate for future human colonization plans. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 Not an early riser? Here's some good news if you're hoping to view Comet NEOWISE Quote Stargazers have the opportunity to spot a rare object in the sky this month as a newly discovered comet flies through the inner solar system for the first time in 6,800 years. Comet NEOWISE has been getting brighter and brighter in the early-morning sky, and this week, it will become visible in the evening after sunset. “Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) – discovered back in March by NASA's NEOWISE mission – is getting the attention of skywatchers across the Northern Hemisphere this month,” NASA said. Also apparently you can see five of the planets in the night sky this month too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted July 24, 2020 Share Posted July 24, 2020 barcelona opera house reopens with a concert for more than 2,000 plants Quote following the COVID-19 lockdowns, barcelona’s el liceu opera house has reopened with a concert to an audience of 2,292 potted plants. created by spanish conceptual artist eugenio ampudia, the concert for the biocene saw the UceLi string quartet perform ‘crisantemi’ by puccini as a response to ampudia’s quarantine time which allowed him to build a greater connection with nature. Quote it was like ‘a visual poem, both a subtle metaphor but one which makes us smile,’ said the liceu’s artistic director victor garcia de gomar. Quote once the concert was over, the plants were subsequently delivered to 2,292 health professionals, specifically from the clínic de barcelona hospital, accompanied by a certificate from the artist. if you missed the livestream presentation, you can watch it again on the above video and make sure you share it with your plants. Personally I think these folk are totally barking or they have smoked and snorted too many of the plants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 Swarm of flying ants caught on weather radar over south coast Quote The Met Office’s radar imagery picked up the cloud of ants, around 50 miles wide, over Kent and Sussex. Smaller swarms can be seen over London. The Met Office tweeted a video of the swarm and said: “It’s not raining in London, Kent or Sussex, but our radar says otherwise. “The radar is actually picking up a swarm of #flyingants across the southeast.” Quote Flying ant day occurs when males and new queens leave the nest to mate, with many ant colonies doing so on the same day. According to the Royal Society of Biology, there is not always one flying ant day, but as many as 96% of days between June and September flying ants are spotted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 The Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries Quote Every morning, every day, 85 percent of Americans alter their state of consciousness with a potent psychoactive drug: caffeine. Their most common source is the roasted seeds of several species of African shrubs in the genus Coffea (coffee), while other Americans use the dried leaves of a species of Camellia plant from China (tea). Americans love caffeine, but few realize just how ancient the North American craving for caffeine truly is. North Americans have been enthusiastically quaffing caffeinated beverages since before the Boston Tea Party, before the English founded Jamestown, and before Columbus landed in the Americas. That is to say: North Americans discovered caffeine long before Europeans “discovered” North America. Cassina, or black drink, the caffeinated beverage of choice for indigenous North Americans, was brewed from a species of holly native to coastal areas from the Tidewater region of Virginia to the Gulf Coast of Texas. It was a valuable pre-Columbian commodity and widely traded. Recent analyses of residue left in shell cups from Cahokia, the monumental pre-Columbian city just outside modern-day St. Louis and far outside of cassina’s native range, indicate that it was being drunk there. The Spanish, French, and English all documented American Indians drinking cassina throughout the American South, and some early colonists drank it on a daily basis. They even exported it to Europe. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted August 2, 2020 Share Posted August 2, 2020 Qantas just retired its last 747. It traced the company's classic kangaroo logo in its flight path after leaving Sydney on its final journey to the Boeing resting place. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted August 2, 2020 Share Posted August 2, 2020 10 hours ago, sunrat said: Qantas just retired its last 747. It traced the company's classic kangaroo logo in its flight path after leaving Sydney on its final journey to the Boeing resting place. Aw that is so sweet what a nice way to sign off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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