Russia’s main art museum goes up in flames as footage sparks panic in Moscow
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts caught fire this morning…
Huh. Together with that shopping mall, makes ya go “hmmm.”
Dec 112022
Dec 102022
An impressive fire with an impressive explosion at a shopping mall in Moscow. I’m sure Ukrainians are just jam-packed with sympathy.
It seems to be either arson or lax building standards. Or both, I imagine.
Dec 102022
AI: OK.
AI learns to write computer code in ‘stunning’ advance
DeepMind’s AlphaCode outperforms many human programmers in tricky software challenges
Ruh-roh.
Wisdom:
Biden sure knows how to pick ’em
AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, nukes, politics, ಠ_ಠ
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Dec 092022
Non-binary Biden nuclear official Sam Brinton accused in second luggage heist
Here’s a thought: if someone projects an image of being a weirdo… take them at their word. They’re a weirdo. Avoid.
Details about the alleged theft are scarce, but 8 News Now stated that Brinton, 35, was charged with grand larceny with a value between $1,200 and $5,000.
Stealing *anything* should be a career-ended for someone like this. Consequently, basic games theorizing should tell you that if you are going to put your future at risk for theft… make it worthwhile. Do like the Bidens or the Clintons and go after those multi-million dollar jobs. Then if you get caught, you can simply blow it off, because for some reason those sort of crimes get a pass. But stealing *luggage?* That’s just *stupid.*
Imagine being an expert in your field. Your field is nuclear fuel, processing, waste treatment, etc. And now imagine showing up for work and being told you have to report to THIS guy.
This is how you get underlings selling secrets to the Russians or the Chinese, because you are clearly disrespecting them directly to their faces. I would feel monumentally insulted if I was told that someone so clearly insane was just installed as my boss. Pretty sure I wouldn’t sell out the country, but I’m pretty sure my work ethic would suffer.
Dec 092022
I am going forward with the return to cyanotyping. I’m gathering the supplies needed to rebuild the capability; learning some lessons from before, this setup should be a little better and a little bigger. I should be able to make prints 24 inches by up to 7 feet. It’s a bit of a chore and certainly an expense, but the end results will, I hope, be an improvement over what I produced before.
As before, I plan on taking commissions. I don’t care what it is… aerospace diagrams, ships, architectural diagrams, sci-fi movie prop diagrams, gay wedding cake layouts… if it can be blueprinted, I’ll do it (for a fee). So if you have anything along those lines you’d like blueprinted in the old-school cyanotype fashion (white lines on a Prussian blue background), made by hand using chemicals, sunlight and effort rather than hitting “print,” let me know. Something I will try again is blueprinting onto linen. I ran off a few back in the day; interesting, but perhaps a bit niche.
Dec 092022
Not so much for the US.
WNBA star Brittney Griner released from Russian detention in prisoner swap for convicted arms dealer
She is an *acknowledged* drug-transporting criminal. Whether you agree with Russia’s laws on such things or not, those were the laws. And while the US went to the bizarre extreme of returning to Russia an arms dealer for Griner, the US has done doodly squat for other prisoners currently languishing in Russian penal colonies. Why? because Griner has various and sundry privileges that others don’t. see, for example, Marc Fogel. Very similar circumstances of bringing in a small amount of pot; almost no public outcry, no celebrities or TV NPCs shrieking about how the US needs to bring him back. Why? Feel free to guess.
But hey, at least the Russian get “The Merchant of Death” back.
Dec 082022
A visualization of how high a human could jump on other worlds, due to the differences in local gravity. Not included is the difficulty in jumping while wearing a space suit…
And similar:
Dec 082022
I’m conflicted:
Big cat bill unanimously approved by Senate, heads to Biden’s desk
The legislation prohibits any “import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase in interstate or foreign commerce” and the breeding or possessing of such wildlife. Possession of big cats and cross-breeds would be limited to wildlife sanctuaries and state universities, as well as certified zoos. … Current owners of big cats will be able to keep their animals but are prohibited from breeding, selling or acquiring any of the prohibited wildlife species. They are also banned from allowing their animals to engage in contact with the public and must register the cat with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service within 180 days of the bill’s enactment.
Hmmm.
Big cats are often owned by people wholly unable to care for them correctly. But on the other hand, there are more tigers in private hands than in the wild. On the gripping hand, legislating “you can’t own that” is never a good thing. The passage of this law will doubtless be used by some to say “Well, we can ban the ownership of assault rifles. We can ban the ownership of standard capacity magazines. Internal combustion engines. Bitcoin. VPNs. Books we don’t like.” Etc.
It’s unclear to me what exactly will happen with all the privately owned big cats, especially the ones used in crappy “attractions” for some sort of income. I suspect at least some will be simply driven into the sticks and let go. Which won’t be good for anybody.
Perhaps the thing to do would be to start off by walling off Central Park in New York and turning it into a free-range sanctuary for one particular species of big cats… tigers or lions or some such. Won’t be able to sustain a lot of them, but it’ll be a start. All of those gigantic and horribly expensive sportsball stadia built at taxpayer expense might also serve.
Dec 082022
Not politically, literally:
The Great Purpling
I’ve noticed a number of streetlights around here pumping out a distinctly blue/purple light for a while now. It’s disconcerting… it’s not an unpleasant color, but it’s *different,* and everything looks funny under it. I thought it was a choice, but it turns out it’s a manufacturing flaw.
Dec 072022
If you want to get your soul crushed, try to display a classical talent before an audience composed of modern high school kids. “Disrespect” won’t begin to cover it.
So prepare to be surprised as this kid manages to get an auditorium of his classmates to fall into utter silence as he plays the theme from “Interstellar” on the piano. It’s not perfect, but damn it’s good.