Twenty minutes of major corporations making astonishingly bad social media decisions. Prepare to larf.
Sep 282019
Sep 282019
And here. We. Go.
Anti-racism event hosted by Edinburgh University bans white people from asking questions
Even better, there will be race-segregated places where white people will not be allowed to go. And what is the title of this “anti-racism” event? “Resisting Whiteness.” It’s being held in Scotland. ᚠᛖᛣᚳᛁᚾᚷ ᚷᚩᛏᛞᚪᛗᚾᛖᛞ Scotland.
Jane McColl, an anti-racism campaigner, said the event itself was “blatantly racist”, adding… “Imagine if this event was called ‘Resisting Blackness’ and non-white people were told they could not ask questions, nor access a room because they were the ‘wrong’ colour.”
Quiet, you.
Sep 282019
Homina.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light pic.twitter.com/aGRw4VowAQ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2019
The Starship program will be updated during a livestream later today:
Forget about the design specifics; the thing that will impress me the most *if* the Starship prototypes work is the fact they were built not in a robotic factory in cleanroom conditions, but basically on a beach.
Sep 282019
It’s my understanding that criminal trials pretty much grind to a halt if, right up front, the defendant pleads guilty. I’m not a lawyer and nor do I play one on TV so I may be wrong but that’s how I understand it.
So a thought occurs: what if the defendants at the Nuremburg and Tokyo war crimes trials had all pleaded guilty right up front? Would the trials have just kept trucking along, or would they have more or less ended, going straight to sentencing? Given the historic nature of the trials and how important they were in setting legal precedent, having the trials short circuited could have played merry hell with future international relations. One might even consider that future war crimes trials might have been torpedoed, since if the WWI-trials had all gone differently it could be argued that the whole process was not valid.
Sep 282019
Heh.
Sep 272019
Stratolaunch rebuilds team for the world’s biggest plane after Paul Allen’s death
They’re hiring pilots and a few other positions. Just exactly what’s going on is unclear.
Sep 272019
Continuing…
This kinda made sense while the Shuttle was being developed, but by 1985 the idea of a reusable flyback external Tank seemed kinda silly. The only way it could have made financial sense to recover the ET would be if the Shuttle were to fly *far* more often than it actually did.
Sep 262019
Organized Retail Theft On The Rise; Cops Blame Prop 47, Safe Neighborhoods Law
California effectively decriminalized theft with a value of less than $950. Lo and behold, theft has skyrocketed.
It’s like a low-rent, 24-7 version of The Purge. I’m sufficiently cynical realistic enough to recognize that if you cease to make it seriously illegal to steal, say, TVs, a lot of people will decide to steal TVs. Makes me wonder if They legalized murder, just how many people would decide to go ahead and do it.
I do also wonder about the possible *useful* applications of laws like Prop 47. Go ahead and make retail theft essentially decriminalized, penalized solely by a minor ticket. make it known that this sort of anti-social behavior is essentially tolerated. Then, after a few years… pass another law. One that collects all the data recorded since the original law, allowing the government to simply round up everyone who has been ticketed for thefts like this. And then… strip them of citizenship and deport them. Unconstitutional? Sure. But get around that by calling it the “O’Rourke/Swalwell Nuke’ em Now Executive Order.” “Hell yes we will deport you.”
Sending a million or two people who are clearly of detriment to society somewhere else would do wonders for the crime rate… and the gene pool.
Sep 262019
I have a vintage Geiger Counter. Seems to be from the 50’s or the 60’s, looks it pretty good condition, no obvious damage. Some signs of age in the chrome finish, some genuine artisanal Utah dust. I have no idea if it works, but I bet there’s a good chance that if you plugged the right batteries into it it’ll start clicking away. Comes with the headset that plugs into a jack on the upper face of the unit. Whether it works or not, it looks great as a display piece. If you are interested, it’ll go to the highest bidder, plus postage. Auction starts when this is posted, ends 48 hours later. Minimum bid, $50. If you’d like to submit a bid, email it to: 
A blog-rez photo:
Nine full-rez photos are available at the following link (should be, anyway… anyone have any trouble accessing the folder, let me know):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pjm2xpr0p1jf4h7/AAAFTI06RWi1W0-70Ymgh0GVa?dl=0
Sep 252019
Produced at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, this depicts a black hole with an accretion disk. Views from different angles show how the extreme gravitational lensing turns a simple flat disk into something truly bizarre and difficult to understand.
A fixed view:
And an “orbit:”
Some variations on these vids are here:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13326