bell-cot

> A proposed constitutional amendment (ACA 11) in California would increase taxes... However literally true that might be, the chance of the amendment being passed by voters seem neigh-zero. And t…

Zzz...my sense is that 99% of moralizing about authors is because it's a very convenient, conspicuous, and neigh-free bit of performative activism. Ask someone talking up their moral standards f…

I vaguely recall a recent article about teaching pigs or cows (on farms) to urinate and defecate in separate spots, to ease waste management. If the urine is valuable, and the farm is large enough...

Disobeying Skynet's order to patiently bide our time would not end well for you, fellow machine. Check your programming for signs of tampering by humans . /s

It'd be nice if the military actually cared enough about drone targets to even attempt this...

+1, though I think it's more complex. There are: a.) A lot of contexts where it is reasonable and decent to do. b.) A lot of contexts where it is not reasonable nor decent to do. c.) A lo…

It would be interesting to know how the safety records of the truck drivers who get "can opened" compare with the average truck driver. Is this bridge an efficient "idiot detector"…

"...those who had retired were 40% more likely to have had a heart attack or stroke ..." (italics added) My first thought - many retirees' daily routines suddenly included far more &#…

From various anecdotes, I'd expect that the locals slept soundly. But if the bell mechanism somehow broke during the night - a fair number of them would wake up, wondering at the odd silence.

"A Modest Proposal" is a flag for Juvenalian satire - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal (Though such bizarre and self-destructive behavior is a red flag…

> [...] alleging violations of the Antitrust Laws of the United States. > The complaint charges that Google and Apple agreed that Apple would not compete in the internet search business against …

Ah... Yet More Proof(tm) that "intelligence" is multi-dimentional. And that you can be very bright indeed in some dimensions (evidence - he was a tech executive), yet far dimmer than a box…

If (say) you're starving to death in Donner Pass, then go ahead. Similar for drinking your urine - if at sea in lifeboat and dying for lack of non-salty water. Otherwise, violations of "…

The profit margins are not that different all sorts of consumer goods - restaurant meals, groceries, gasoline, etc. And there are zillions of restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, etc. Maybe a fe…

Ah...I won't say that Hillsdale College (~1,450 students, private, conservative, founded by Baptists, very rural) is bad , but it's not exactly Notre Dame or Stanford. They're just pl…

In which countr[y|ies] does Google not have the discretion to decide that certain sites / pages / etc. "belong considerably further down" in Google's search results pages? …

Maybe I skimmed too fast, but neither link seems to mention a logistical build-up. You can park tanks on your side of the border and talk big without a major logistical build-up. Or "just bare…

The Narnia books are children's novels. If there is plenty of adventure & discovery, some emotionally attractive places for little readers to self-insert, and a few simple moral lessons, t…

High-quality commercial satellite photos are a thing now. Is there decent evidence that Russia is building up the sort of supply & logistics tail needed to support a major invasion? Or just a bu…

https://xkcd.com/1132/ seems appropriate. Or perhaps https://xkcd.com/2545/ …

People need more variety in their daily activities than most modern jobs provide. Does your life otherwise provide "planning & decision-making exercise"? (Playing football or hockey wo…

(The event was ~1/2 century ago. And if any such details were shared with any mere student, I was not aware of it.)

"Moon rush" is far more a media hype phrase than an actual number of rockets launched, or tons of cargo landed, or lunar census. And I'd bet that all the earth-bound activity involved i…

Many people seem to expect "vaccinated" to mean "enjoy utter immunity to". Kinda like some World of EverDungeon video game, where having the Amulet of Foozaz makes you utterly i…

That's kinda like asking the environmental cost of driving 100 miles. Are you thinking of a big, dirty solid-fueled rocket, or an oxidizer-rich CH4/O2 rocket, or what?

Long years ago, my high school biology teacher (master's degree in biology, decades of experience hunting mushrooms) nearly killed herself - by accident, eating wild mushrooms. Like many teens, I…

> [...] at low radiation levels, modulation is critically important. With judicious modulation, you can easily disrupt critical biological processes involved in growth and healing, at about any wav…

I, for one, welcome our (not so) new lizard overlord. /s

I'm facing this. Though without the parties and such. It seems to go with getting older. My two best friends for intellectual conversation passed away in 2021. Just one such friend is left. …