Interesting Stuff You Saw on the I-net Today

[crp]

On 2/13/2020 at 6:28 PM, sunrat said:

Maps Of The World That Will Make You Say "Whoa"

 

No.6 is amusing - "2,066 Americans Asked To Locate Ukraine On A Blank Map". If you allow a margin of error of several thousand kilometers, a majority got fairly close.

well North America is fairly simple, so not much help at home with this issue. Someone from Asia would have just as much difficulty with South American countries.

[crp]

got an hour to spare? https://everydaykoala.com/post-f60f5d5e/?dai=27rcB4VIWmRdqWWFo8ctqK&inf_scroll=true

 

lots of amazing perspective photos from drones.

 

[abarbarian]

On 2/18/2020 at 10:18 AM, crp said:

got an hour to spare? https://everydaykoala.com/post-f60f5d5e/?dai=27rcB4VIWmRdqWWFo8ctqK&inf_scroll=true

 

lots of amazing perspective photos from drones.

 

 

 

Father-of-two Russ Howey, who lives in Duns, Borders, appealed to friends living nearby in the toilet roll crisis.Fortunately his pal Scott Cullen had some to spare and delivered the bathroom essential to Russ’s back garden using a drone.

 

Drones are pretty useful if used correctly.

 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

OK, some seriously weird and fudged up folks in this beautiful world we live in:

 

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory

[sunrat]

Bismuth crystals can be stunningly beautiful. Ugly duckling boring metal becomes glorious swan.

Image from https://me.me/i/not-my-post-check-this-bismuth-crystal-out-c30e57fa52984a6bbc9af70849591897

 

Search Google Images for lots more amazing crystals

 

Grow your own:

 

[sunrat]

Couldn't embed this video but it's very short and very WTF. It's in Poland.

 

Car Goes Airborne At A Roundabout

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Umm... oops!

[abarbarian]

On 4/26/2020 at 1:30 PM, sunrat said:

Couldn't embed this video but it's very short and very WTF. It's in Poland.

 

Car Goes Airborne At A Roundabout

 

I want a case of what the driver pilot was drinking.

[sunrat]

2 hours ago, abarbarian said:

 

I want a case of what the driver pilot was drinking.

 

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.

[abarbarian]

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

 

[abarbarian]

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

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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,

 

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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?

 

[abarbarian]

 

[abarbarian]

 

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

[sunrat]

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.

[abarbarian]

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,

 

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“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.

 

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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.

[abarbarian]

 

[abarbarian]

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

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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.

 

 

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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.”

 

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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.

 

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“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.

 

 

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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.”

 

[abarbarian]

The Tiny “Spite Triangle” That Marks a Century-Old Grudge Against New York City

 

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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.”

 

[abarbarian]

Getting Back to Work: Could Intel's Bunny Suits Be in Our Post COVID-19 Future?

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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.

 

 

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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.

 

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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 ??

[abarbarian]

New York’s Invisible Island of the Dead

 

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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.

 

 

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“Who ever heard of a cemetery you can’t go to, guarded by armed guards? It should not be run like a prison.”

 

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“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.”

 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

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?

[abarbarian]

Treasure chest hidden in Rocky Mountains finally found

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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.

 

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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

 

[abarbarian]

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
 

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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.

 

 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

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.

 

[abarbarian]

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

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Heh! Not me, bro. I'm a neat phreak... my desks:

 

 

 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

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.

[abarbarian]

Plastic rain is the new acid rain

 

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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.

[abarbarian]

How an artist made a concert from five 40-year-old Commodore computers

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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”.

[abarbarian]

Father and son duo speed painters raise millions of dollars for charities across the country

 

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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.