Things that make us go "Hmmm...." (2019 edition)

The rise of "surveillance capitalism":

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/thieves-of-experience-how-google-and-faceboo...

(Another good one from Gord)

>1 CliffBurns:"Silicon Valley’s Phoenix-like resurrection is a story of ingenuity and initiative. It is also a story of callousness, predation, and deceit. Harvard Business School professor emerita Shoshana Zuboff argues in her new book that the Valley’s wealth and power are predicated on an insidious, essentially pathological form of private enterprise — what she calls “surveillance capitalism.” Pioneered by Google, perfected by Facebook, and now spreading throughout the economy, surveillance capitalism uses human life as its raw material. Our everyday experiences, distilled into data, have become a privately owned business asset used to predict and mold our behavior, whether we’re shopping or socializing, working or voting."

Nah, Nah - wimpy whiner! I happen to be reading "AI Super-Powers China,Silicon valley and the New World Order" by Kai-Fu Lee. Lee {an A.I. expert, researcher and China biz tycoon}, explains that {in the first 40 pages - the best part so far} with the "self learning" A.I. software there ...ahh I am gonna try my typing skills and just quote part of the book :

"So how does deep learning do this? Fundamentally, these algorithms use massive amounts of data from a specific domain to make a decision that optimizes for a desired outcome. It does this by training itself to recognize deeply buried patterns and correlations connecting the many data points to the desired outcome. This pattern-finding process is easier when the data is labeled with that desired outcome -"cat" versus "no cat":"clicked" versus "didn't click";"won game" versus "lost game". It can then draw on its extensive knowledge of these correlations- many of which are invisible or irrelevant to human observers - to make better decisions than a human could.

Doing this requires massive amounts of relevant data, a strong algorithm, a narrow domain, and a concrete goal. If you're short any one of these, things fall apart. Too little data? The algorithm doesn't have enough examples to uncover meaningful correlations. Too broad a goal? The algorithm lacks clear benchmarks to shoot for in optimization.

Deep learning is what's known as "narrow AI" - intelligence that takes data from one specific domain and applies it to optimizing one specific outcome."

The "massive amounts of data" he explains are crucial and all of that can be derived from internet transactions which China has no boundaries on data collected - there is no "opt out" button on personal info gathered in China. He goes on to explain that the self and government restricted Silicon Valley companies will quickly not be able to keep up with China A.I.s because of lack of data depth.

His description of cut throat entrepreneurial companies in China where instant copying, creating false impressions/news of competitors, and government and venture capital subsidies for all of this makes infractions of USA based companies seem banal.

He has the chops for all his assertions, wiki link below of his resume. After the first 40 or pages he begins a rant on Chinese & rest of the world contrasts in style and tempo that extends to at least half way through the book, where I am now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-Fu_Lee

I still find it stunning how much money these mere "platforms" can haul in, using pictures and data created by users. Billions and billions earned and all the hard work is done by your members (who then have their data mined and sold to advertisers, earning even more income for the Zuckerbergs et al).

Can't get my 20th century brain around that concept (the processing power is too low, not enough RAM).

I'm already surrounded by books: https://roadtrippers.com/magazine/unexpectedly-whimsical-guide-los-angeles/?fbcl...

Now that's one tour I'd love to take.

>3 CliffBurns: - there is less money in most IT platforms than the media would have you believe. Amazon, Google and Facebook may be raking it in but other 'big' players like Netflix and Spotify are losing money hand over fist. They are trapped in a financial hell when they need to keep providing more and more content but can't actually charge their subscribers enough money to cover their expenses, never mind make a profit.

>6 Jargoneer: Amazon retail has never turned a profit. Bezos is making his money with AWS, his cloud infrastructure and services.

Homelessness in America has many facets and faces:

https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/02/managed-obsolescence-homelessness-in-...

>8 CliffBurns: thanks for that long read about homelessness in LA. This is the sector I work in, in Portland. We are doing things much differently than LA and I think the picture here is much more positive overall, but our situation isn't nearly as bad in terms of numbers. Whew.

I think too many of us just blot homeless folks from our perceptions and so we really can't conceive of the numbers, or the degree of trauma and addiction those people endure.

I liked the piece so much, I printed a hard copy so I can re-read it.

It is a long read and I can see many people switching off partway through.

But they shouldn't, it's powerful stuff.

Here is a horrific long read for all who were not sufficiently depressed by the homelessness article.
I've been following Manafort's career since the Torturer's Lobby article which I read when it was published in 1992. I can safely say that this guy is a real monster. His treatment of his wife says more about how these stories are reported on than it does about him.

https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/kompromat-or-revelations-from-the-unpubl...

Wow, Anna.

Hard to think of anything else to add.

Wow. The man is utterly vile.

He started his career in partnership with Roger Stone and Lee Atwater. I don't think anymore has to be said.

Gord found this one--God, I love THE ONION:

https://www.theonion.com/man-playing-battlefield-v-has-now-spent-more-of-life-18...

Failchildren of the rich, you don't even have the embarrassment of being a legacy admit (someone who got a leg up because a prior generation went to the same school) or someone whose daddy built a new wing or whatever. Too public! Instead, for low sums of thousands in unmarked bills, you can forge your way in by having others take your SATs.

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/12/702539140/u-s-accuses-actresses-others-of-fraud-i...

These rich twats can send their kids to all the best private schools, hire tutors and groomers...and they still have to cheat because their brats are too stupid and unmotivated and spoiled to make it on their own.

Shame on William Macy for not making the perp walk with his idjit wife.

>15 anna_in_pdx: >16 CliffBurns: Weird, I thought tax deductible contributions to the school were a part of the formula for acceptance years ago. I think there should be courses like check book balancing and estate maintenance for students with “special talents” {large contributions}. Make fine curated mates for other students?;-)

I was going to post some links to the latest Brexit fiasco but then I realised that's more more of a thing that makes you go WTF than hmmmm.

>18 Jargoneer: Dunno, it makes me snicker. Repeatedly. (disclaimer: I live in Ireland)

>19 bluepiano: Well, if things go on the way they are doing, when I come to the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin this August, I may ask for political asylum.

>20 RobertDay: Are you sure you'll get there? I imagine by then Jacob Rees-Mogg will be President of New Great Britain and building a wall along the Irish border (as well as bricking up the Channel tunnel).

>20 RobertDay: I've already fled the country and become a Brexile

Garage band + Sonnet 20 + Warhol = Hmmm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=128&v=vP_RPe0JdQY

>23 bluepiano: - as both The Fleshtones and Ian McKellen are still going strong it must be time for a reunion. Although this time the band make to make more an effort.
On the same subject this musical opened for a short time in London last year - https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatre-news/news/shakespeare-rock-musical-featu...

Herodotus was right, dammit!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/mar/17/nile-shipwreck-herodotus-archaeo...

Nobody can call him "father of lies" any more.

Giant, gold-digging ants are next.

I don't have a twitter account so I am amazed that I have not seen more comments on the recent SpaceX "Heavy" launch that not only made orbit on its first commercial launch but landed the twin boosters simultaneously and the center landed onboard a recovery ship in the ocean {but fell off the platform on the way back to launch site due to rough seas}.

BBC youtube 49 second post of the twin boosters landing. I am old and find this fascinating I can only guess that most of the younger population takes this stuff for granted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkk9VIKWw2w

I still marvel at anything to do with humankind in space. And it enrages me that our footprint right now extends only about 200 miles up. That's a fucking shame.

Well, just when you thought warfare and government suppression were moving inevitably to robots and technology we find that actually the zombie pig head apocalypse is upon us. Just think, millions of giant pig heads angry at being mostly turned into bacon rising up to turn the {supper?} tables on their oppressors .

In Which I Summarize the Plot of Porkenstein

>28 DugsBooks: - I'm not sure that the younger population takes much interest in space exploration although that may change when the first Mars mission becomes a reality TV show. (I just hope it's called Mars Today with the tagline 'Watch them work, rest and play').

It appears that Ian McEwan has published a novel with an idea straight out out Philip K. Dick but with one major difference - it's not science fiction. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/18/it-drives-writers-mad-why-are-auth...

There's been a lot of on-line snarkiness directed at McEwan because he's a mainstream, literary writer treading on the sacred territory of science fiction hacks, without giving them the credit they feel they richly deserve.

It goes back to the insecurity SF authors feel compared to their more respected and celebrated counterparts.

Years ago, I wrote a blog post called "Good Science = Bad Fiction" and a number of SF hacks and fan-boys took me to task over it.

They're a thin-skinned, in-bred bunch and, as my dad would say, I wouldn't cross the street to piss on them if they were on fire.

There are plenty of literary authors who have written science fiction, without having to not only re-invent the wheel but also claim it's their own invention. The snark directed at McEwan was well-deserved. And, to be honest, he hasn't written a good book in years. I stopped reading them after the awful Saturday, but then was foolish enough to give Solar a go, and it was even worse. I've also been told that back in the day when he was one of Granta's Best British New Writers he was an arrogant arsehole.

>34 iansales: - The strange thing about McEwan is that for the last twenty years all his novels have received good reviews in the quality newspapers and yet you can never find anyone who actually rates them.
He made that list on the back of The Cement Garden which bore more than a passing resemblance to Our Mother's House. Julian Gloag was so angry about the 'theft' that he wrote Lost and Found about a young author who passes off an older writer's manuscript as his own. (This is not the only time McEwan has been dogged with accusations of plagiarism).

It's time to give up that boring novel you're reading and be free to enjoy yourself - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/20/adults-should-read-childrens-books...

>34 iansales: And all this from someone who sold an early short story to Analog...

Canada has finally caught up with the rest of the world and now has a football league (and I mean real football, the one you kick the ball with your feet, not one where you use your hands all the time) - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46988859 - first matches this weekend.

Don't think there's enough interest or quality players for a Canada-wide league but we'll see.

I'll never forgive soccer players for teaching the rest of the sports world to dive, writhing around on the ground like they've been shot after the most incidental contact.

I come from a hockey background--break my leg and I'll try and crawl off the ice, rather than lie there whimpering.

A TED Talk about the role social media played in Brexit:

https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_facebook_s_role_in_brexit_and_the_th...

(From my pal Gord)

>38 Jargoneer: my Egypt-raised kids call American football "tackleball".

I don't know if anyone has been following this but the it seems that romance genre has some real issues - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/25/nora-roberts-files-multi-plagiaris...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/28/plagiarism-book-stuffing-clickfarm...

New words for book readers - https://www.theguardian.com/books/picture/2019/apr/26/tom-gauld-on-new-words-for...
...worth looking at some of his other cartoons

>43 Jargoneer: The one on Herzog is particularly good.

#42 Does Nora Roberts have a distinct style and approach to romance that is absolutely indistinguishable from other horrible romance writers?

Terrible writers suing worse ones--a bad precedent.

Think if that happened in every genre: why, publishing would grind to a halt...

>42 Jargoneer: Not familiar with most of those authors' work. Out of purely academic interest do any of the titles mention bustiers or corsets?

::edit:: {had to look up " plural possessive noun"}

>46 DugsBooks: - As Nora Roberts has published over 200 novels I imagine she has covered, or probably more accurately uncovered, every possible undergarment.

>43 Jargoneer: Tom Gauld also contributes science-based cartoons to New Scientist. He did the wonderful cartoon about science fiction versus literary fiction ("You're all just jealous of my jetpack") and two of his books were in my Christmas stocking last time: Baking with Kafka and Mooncop.

>43 Jargoneer: I didn't realise that he also did cartoons for the New Scientist. I've seen the science fiction versus literary fiction one, it neatly sums up both sides of the argument since year one.

I keep telling people that I now only read The Guardian for the cartoons and the BTL comments. It's only a matter of time before David Squires gets awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his cartoons that highlight the absurdity of modern football (life). (See this piece about a goalkeeper who was cleared by the FA of doing a Nazi salute on the basis that he didn't know anything about them - https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2019/apr/23/david-squires-on... - ps...you need to know about the UK and EPL to get some of the references).

One of my heroes, Bill McKibben, on the horrors of climate change--not 50-100 years from now, but in the present day:

https://lithub.com/its-not-coming-its-here-bill-mckibben-on-our-new-climate-real...

>50 CliffBurns: - I read a review of this book and after he deals with climate change he has warnings about AI and genetic engineering but I couldn't help thinking that AI and genetic engineering may help humanity cope with climate change.

I think the notion of a technological "fix" to our problems is a lot more comforting to some than having to make huge changes in our behavior, relying on OURSELVES to change the world, rather than the "aimless blade of science" (as Neil Young puts it).

It's like those fuckers pushing the notion of geo-engineering--introducing substances into our atmosphere to reflect more of the sun's heat away from the earth. Coping with the disaster we've wrought, rather than adopting an utterly different attitude as to the way we view the planet and our role as stewards, not plunderers.

Each of McKibben's books has become increasingly pessimistic and that alone is cause for alarm and perhaps even despair.

That said, can't wait to read this latest one, currently have it on order through my library.

Woody Allen can't sell his memoir to ANYONE:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/movies/woody-allen-memoir.html?action=click&a...

Really? REALLY?!!!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48257825

>54 CliffBurns: - anyone still on Twitter is a fool. It is a place for bullies of all races, colours & creeds. It just proves that there are many many individuals incapable of any kind of nuanced thought. What are the people who accused this woman of racism actually saying? That it's OK to break the law if you are a black woman? Would people have been as upset if it was a white woman eating on the train? Would it even be reported? You could accuse the original poster of being petty but other that what did she do wrong? Do people trawl Twitter looking for something to be outraged at?
These questions—and many others—will be answered in the next episode of...

It may be stating the obvious but sometimes the obvious needs to be stated - Inequality driving 'deaths of despair' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-48229037

Oh lordy re that tweet, whether she's racist or it's people heartsick to death of being singled out because of their race are protesting it or whether a bunch of tumblrina white girls are or whether instead she's an authoritarian personality, and leaving aside the ethics of publicly calling out a person for something so fucking trivial, what I really want to know is how someone who writes like our Natasha was given a contract for her book. 'Foreward: I think you should read this BOOK to the very end. If you don't, I expect you to get in touch and tell me why. Buying a book and not finishing it is completely unacceptable. It's against the RULES, and if you break them I'll tell facebook and my thousands of friends will laugh about how you're not nearly as acceptable and not nearly as always right as I am.'

Maybe the publisher was a vanity press, though.

The lines that got me from the article, quoted someone posting:

"Anti-Black racism is shamefully all too common among non-Black people of colour. I would add classism to the list of bigotries that we must fight too."

If you walk around with your antennae fully extended at all times, you're bound to find something to offend you. Eventually. If you keep looking hard enough.

Get a life, people.

>55 Jargoneer:

Here in Toronto not long ago someone took a photo of a TTC worker who'd fallen asleep in the ticket booth. Posted it on "social media", unleashed a public torrent of abuse on the poor sod. The man in question, it turned out, was seriously ill and died shortly afterwards.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ttc-collector-caught-napping-dies-1.96387...

Robitaille, 55, died Saturday, after suffering a stroke on Thursday. He had been on medical leave, and had explained after the napping incident that medications, including heart medication, had contributed to his falling asleep at work.

And as for the Twittering twat, live by the Tweet, die by the Tweet. She meant to bring public shame on another and even threaten her job (NB: when the woman was OFF said job). Fucking bitch deserves a stint working for the metro herself.

>58 CliffBurns:

How about you get a clue.

The future of work:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/temporary-workers-employment-1.5135310

Jellyfish for all - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/15/jellyfish-supper-delivered-b...

Jellyfish and seaweed main course, with pine cones for dessert.

Welcome to the Canada Food Guide, 2076 C.E. version.

I think I am ahead of the curve on insect protein. I keep seeing what appear to me to be cricket and or cockroach legs in the last few meals I paid for. No extra charge however that I noticed.

On the tweeting stuff I think the tweeter came off as privileged economic class making fun of “the help”. Here in the USA I learned to late that health care, retirement benefits etc. that the average joe does not have is a part of a government employees life.

>65 DugsBooks:

This, exactly. Thank you.

Note: if the person attacked had been a white man instead of a black woman, this aspect would have been unmissable, the twitterer would have been shredded to confetti here fast enough.

Instead, you get righteous comrades sneering at the supposed PC lunacy of calling out racism. Must hit very close to home.

Gary Numan was right - We Are Glass - http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190516-the-princess-who-thought-she-was-made-...

>67 Jargoneer: Thanks for that.

Office life and aliens - http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190523-what-ridley-scotts-alien-can-tell-us-a...

Naomi Wolf is wrong about a thing (that she wrote a whole book about)
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/naomi-wolfs-book-corrected-by-host-in-bbc...

>70 anna_in_pdx: Ouch.

>70 anna_in_pdx:
*shudder*

>70 anna_in_pdx:
Bill Bryson notes In a Sunburned Country that “By the late 18th century Britain’s statute books were weighty with capital offenses: you could be hanged for any of two hundred acts, including, notably, ‘impersonating an Egyptian.’” Sounds like the Brits really needed that “death recorded” option.

>70 anna_in_pdx:
Yeah, OK. That's really awful. But you know what, though? I think that putting her on the air to blindside her like that was an unnecessary stunt. Given that Sweet had research showing her error, a more responsible journalistic avenue would have been to report about the error, and then interviewed Wolf afterwards about what he'd learned.

#74

But Ms. Wolf's research and sourcing were so sloppy and flawed, I believe she deserved to be publicly called out on it. Witness this telling paragraph from the article:

"Wolf cited on Twitter historical findings from a peer-reviewed article written by A.D. Harvey, a historian who’s been labeled a hoaxer. (He deceived the public into thinking that Charles Dickens and Fyodor Dostoyevsky met once and created several online personas and an entire fake community of academics.)"

>75 CliffBurns:
I see your point, but "publicly called out" doesn't have to be done with her there live on air in a gotcha moment. The process I described in my post above would also serve as calling her out publicly.

Whatever she may or may not have deserved in your view or mine does not necessarily correlate to journalistic best practices. To me it's a stunt, as the motivation for doing it that way seems to me to be sensationalism. It was not necessary to do it that way in order for the public to be informed of the information.

>76 rocketjk: - she picked the wrong show to talk about her book. (Art and Ideas is the BBC's highbrow arts show). More worryingly this book is the basis of her PhD from Oxford so her tutor didn't stop this error either.
She does have history doing this - in The Beauty Myth she claimed 150,000 Americans were dying every year from anorexia when that was the number suffering from the condition and in Vagina she appears not to understand neuroscience - https://www.wired.com/2012/09/naom-wolfs-vagina-the-perils-of-neuroself-help/ . Not to mention her belief that the vapour trails of aeroplanes are due to chemicals.
The fundamental problem is that Wolf wants to be seen as an intellectual but from the evidence doesn't want to put the work in learning the topics she writes about.

>77 Jargoneer: Point taken.

Morrissey, from pop icon to far right icon - https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/30/bigmouth-strikes-again-morrissey-s...

>79 Jargoneer: And thanks again for a link. More interesting than surprising, that one.

Jonathan Lethem on Trump. The concluding remarks are particularly spot-on:

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/04/novelist-jonathan-lethem-there-is-no-allegory-c...

Anyone here heard of "spomeniks"?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/spomenik-memorials-yugoslavia-balkans

>82 CliffBurns: Wow. They look like something out of a video game.

CliffBurns that's fascinating--thanks.

'In an English-language context the word (spomenik) sounds exotic, alien, and critics say its use risks otherizing and exoticizing them.' One despairs. One will never again use terms like menhir, espirit d'escalier, far niente so as to avoid otherizing. Not that one would ever be likely to slip them into conversation. but still. Actually I'd guess that it's a matter of (American) people being so uneasy with the foreign that the acceptance of it must be condemned but in a way that sounds, you know, Caring. Feck sake.

I've ALWAYS loved the word "menhir".

"Spomenik" is right up there too.

Those monuments commemorate some of the most tragic events, usually on the site of those events, in a country that came in third in civillian losses in the WWII, after USSR and Poland. They are not "surreal", they are not out of "video games", they are not there for assholes to ridicule although I guess that can't be helped. What would you say to someone behaving like that at the Vietnam memorial? Or any other of the monuments to YOUR dead? Still giggling?

The word "spomenik" is no more weird or exotic or alien than any other word in any language that is not English. It's an ordinary word (not "made-up by Communists", if that's what you're tempted to think), as ordinary as "memorial" and meaning exactly that.

Apologies. I certainly did not mean to imply any disrespect. I found them amazing because I have never seen anything like them in my limited experience. I was surprised to learn that such monuments exist.

>87 Taphophile13:

The monuments exist because of the history and they can only be surprising if one doesn't know that history. As for their appearance, if that's what's so astonishing, I don't see how they are more weird than the Vietnam memorial, the obelisks, pyramids, or a gajillion white crosses stuck in the grass, or the cube in Vienna on the site of the ancient Jewish synagogue, or the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Many, like the rose in Jasenovac, are quite beautiful. To people who know what they commemorate, they can't fail to be moving.

The WWII didn't start with the London Blitz and end at Dunkirk, whatever the BBC and Masterpiece Theatre may think. It's in the East that the WWII truly exploded, into a bloodbath without compare. The Yugoslav Communists mounted the most sizeable, vigorous and sustained resistance in all of the Axis-occupied territories. It's the only country that could legitimately claim independent liberation, with neither Americans nor Russians entering it. Tito successfully prevented both mastodonts from doing so. The war was devastating but the victory provided momentum for hope and idealism as well. The yet-again-unified country had to recover but it also needed, wanted to remember. Croatia had been the site of a shamefully "efficient" extermination camp at Jasenovac. In Serbia, Kragujevac had seen the massacre of hundreds of children in one day, a Gestapo retaliation for a partisan attack. And so it goes--a litany of hundreds of camps, mass killings, marches, unequal battles, hangings in city squares, shootings in schoolrooms, slaughter in churches. Behind every one of those "surreal" monuments is some event of that sort.

That's why they exist.

And, to tout "ideology" like that article does, as if the Western monuments are built without "ideology", is contemptible.

The events were indeed tragic but those monuments are truly kitschy.

>89 mejix:

Truly, they are not. Some are (much) better than other, but none fit properly the concept of Kitsch. Not that I want to put a cramp in this group's nincompoop self-satisfaction and ignorance. Smug away, "snobs" of my ass.

Of course they are kitschy. They are the very definition of totalitarian kitsch.
Oh well, bye Felicia.

https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/47514/image.jpg. Quietly chilling & visually satisfying, not attributes I associate with the kitsch. (Compare with https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/WTCmemorialJune2012.png, a couple unfilled swimming pools with startlingly large plugholes.) One or two look odd to my eye (though appealingly so) and one looks top-heavy. But 1) The images are primarily works of photography not of reportage--the monuments, & esp. their context, would look different in RL than in a photgrapher's frame; 2) A lot of Soviet art & works were indeed kitsch, but not all and besides these monuments were built on citizens' initiatives & sometimes with only their funding rather than being state-imposed Communist kitsch.

There's nothing quiet about these buildings. That's precisely the point.
I'm sure they would look different in person but I doubt they would be any less absurd. We have enough information.
Even if these were the result of citizen's initiatives (in totalitarian regimes? all of them?) they are still fantastically awful structures and saying so is not disrespectful to the dead.

>82 CliffBurns: I have a book of photographs of them by Jan Kampenaers. I think they're amazing. I love that whole style of architecture. But they're also war memorials, put up by a programme initiated and run by the Yugoslavian state. When the state grieves those it lost to war, it means so much more than when some random charity does so. "Charity begins at home," we're told, but it's complete bollocks. There should be no need for charity. That we need it indicates a failing on the state's part. And you see that in the spomeniks: since the fall of Yugoslavia, some of the spomenicks have fallen into wrack and ruin, others are looked after carefully. To paraphrase a famous world leader: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what the fuck you're paying taxes for.

>82 CliffBurns: I have seen various photos on "clickbait" links of the structures - with no context to their presentation. They look for the most part fantastical to me {great backdrops for SF movies} but all the photos I have seen are of objects that in their setting could easily be {and are} contemplative - as is their purpose, to remember an event. A "Stonehenge effect" but with purpose.

>3 CliffBurns:
Platforms, like Facebook, should probably be referred to as cyber-spy agencies, and their CEOs as "double agents," willing to sell information to both sides with loyalty to none.

Social media platforms are the best eavesdropping services a government (or corporation) can hope for.

We happily violate our own privacy and hand outside agencies the keys to the kingdom.

This story apparently warranted a place on the BBC News home page:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48731431

A vision of New York in the very near future:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/opinion/future-climate-change-flooded-new-yor...

The TLS on why we should still read John Updike - https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/why-we-should-read-john-updike/ (there is more on this in their podcast). (See also - https://slate.com/culture/2012/01/john-updike-the-bizarre-and-misguided-assault-...

Why people still believe he moon landings were faked - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/10/one-giant-lie-why-so-many-people...

Hard to predict which writers will be saved by posterity or the reasons proffered for dismissing them from the canon. Shakespeare an anti-Semite, Bellow and Updike misogynists, Ted Hughes and Hemingway arseholes...

As for Flat Earthers and conspiracy freaks...fuck 'em.

Gord sent me this: "The Simpsons", Russian style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1u7XZ9c8fI

Canucks on the moon:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canadian-apollo-11-1.5197187

Al Franken--Republican shills used the "MeToo" movement to destroy a progressive law-maker:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken

>103 CliffBurns: Whew! That was close! We barely avoided the first beer cans on the moon! ;-)

The USA space program was a VERY international effort, I am finding details on that while reading American Moonshot - a thick book.

>104 CliffBurns: certain democrats didn't help much (maddening and depressing article about him in the NYer

Comedy isn't for overly sensitive people:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/jul/28/can-comedy-survive-in-an-age-of-ou...

Scary people:

https://lithub.com/apocalyptic-prophets-reading-the-fine-print-of-ammon-bundys-d...

There's a podcast called "Bundyville" interested folks should check out.

Brexit shenanigans made some people millions of pounds on referendum night:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-25/brexit-big-short-how-pollster...

Big space rock kinda makes you pause and think for a second......

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/07/26/it-snuck-up-us-city-killer-aste...

>109 CliffBurns: After watching the stock market for a while you get kind of numb to the rich getting richer.

A Texas man brings home a souvenir from his visit to Kuwait. Which was just fine until he landed in D.C. and was questioned about what was found in his baggage. It was no key chain.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/us-airport-security-finds-souvenir-missile-laun...

Holy shit:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/true-cost-of-gun-violence-in-americ...

>112 CliffBurns:

Add my "OMG"

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/guns-bullying-open-carry-women-moms...

Canadian-made hypocrites:

https://www.popmatters.com/left-right-yves-engler-2638967490.html

I'm going to grab a copy of Engler's book at some point. Sounds like it's a perfect fit.

>114 CliffBurns:

Maybe it's not Canadian hypocrisy as much as it is standard American "moral" behavior demonstrably illustrates that they are superior, if not to everybody else, at the very least, to us in the USA.

>112 CliffBurns: Startling numbers there - I had no idea...

You mean the numbers the NRA has tried so hard to suppress over the years?

"It's the Benjamins, baby..."

Sacrificing Truth for Truthspeak:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/technology/amazon-orwell-1984.html

The dangers of artificial intelligence:

https://lithub.com/if-planet-death-doesnt-get-us-an-ai-superintelligence-most-ce...

Russell Brand, in conversation with Mehdi Hasan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3PalrfEF4g

119> But what about the dangers of, or lack of, human intelligence? Exhibit A - the UK government.

>121 Jargoneer: Exhibit B - the US government.

>122 justifiedsinner: That's almost a category mistake. You stand for a long in front of exhibit A chortling at the toddler-level cluelessness. Exhibit B you cautiously glance at from the corner of your eye because it's way more frightening than anything Mme Tussaud ever put on display.

Science is so freakin' cool:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49571917

The 1970s was the era of the "psychonaut":

https://longreads.com/2019/08/30/in-the-age-of-the-psychonauts

(Another good one from Gord.)

>123 bluepiano: You have to see both from a cosmic perspective. For the people who would be affected when the UK economy descends to that of Balkan state it's not going to be funny at all. (Except for the plutocrats of course).

How to rescue a wet damaged book:
http://www.openculture.com/2017/09/how-to-rescue-a-wet-damaged-book-a-short-hand...

#127 A handy short video.

Now I just have to buy a book press...

>128 CliffBurns:
And a lot of paper towels.

>128 CliffBurns:

Would a panini press work? You could make a sandwich when not drying/ironing pages in a book.

I get genuinely annoyed when I see a book that has been mistreated--someone returned my copy of Don DeLillo's UNDERWORLD with the final fifty pages of the novel furled with moisture damage.

If I had caused the damage, I would have immediately ordered a replacement book--instead I got an embarrassed shrug.

I am reluctant to loan out my books and that is one reason why.

>131 CliffBurns: I keep waiting for the local library to accuse me reading while soaking in a tub ...but I contend that sometimes books flat on a shelf can have the “bottom” half extended off the shelf and subjected to higher atmospheric humidity than the rest of the book resulting in the lower portion exhibiting a water line.

The accusatory notion of someone nodding off during a soak and letting a book rest on a wet tummy is a far fetched and rash assumption.

People who read in the tub are akin to war criminals in my eyes.

(Full disclosure: my wife reads in the tub but I...cannot. I just can't.)

People who read in the bath should only do so with ebook readers that carry a hefty charge...

The New York Times has a first article by a writer who is also an experienced pilot on the reasons the Boeing 737 planes crashed. He goes into great detail and some length in the article and if you slog through the minutiae {to me} of the story you come out the other end a little nervous and angry.

What Really Brought Down the Boeing 737 Max?
Malfunctions caused two deadly crashes. But an industry that puts unprepared pilots in the cockpit is just as guilty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html

I really needed that--I'm a nervous flyer at the best of times.

>135 DugsBooks: - Perhaps all prospective airline pilots should be forced to front Iron Maiden as part of their training. As far as I know Bruce Dickinson has never been involved in any accidents.

For those of us who loved to read about Marsh and Cope and Andrews and Colbert, as kids:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/09/dinosaur-fossils-collector-fe...

"Classic" books that haven't aged so well:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190920-the-cult-books-that-lost-their-cool

Elon Musk at https://www.spacex.com/starship has given an update on the rocket he intends to use to go to Mars. He gives an interesting explanation for changing to {501?} stainless steel which costs 2% of what a carbon composite does and gets much stronger in "cryonic" temperatures.

Does anyone else notice that the ship keeps evolving to look more and more like the, usually shiny, rockets on the covers of 1950's SF books?

As an old sci fi guy, I personally love it.

My feelings toward Mr. Musk, however, are...complicated.

Jonathan Lethem wrote an in-depth appraisal of the new Edward Snowden book:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/10/24/edward-snowden-labyrinth

> Just scanned the article but have to read the book now. Snowden had access to millions of people, and he and his fellow low level but unbelievably enabled brethren, logged into their phones and computers to watch them !!

No wonder Mark Zuckerberg has tape over his laptop camera and so long to thinking I am just being paranoid.

I happened upon this link at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory site. I have not tried any of the apps.

" Looking to explore your favorite space images in striking detail or take a virtual trip to Mars? JPL has apps for that. We're taking all the best JPL science, images and more to bring you applications that'll keep you informed and entertained no matter where you are."

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/apps/

Space nerds thank you!

First human to be cloned?

“9-year-old boy graduating college next month plans to get a Ph.D in electrical engineering and a medical degree”

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/14/europe/university-graduate-child-genius-scli-intl...

Could you live your life based on a roll of the dice?

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/nov/07/the-dice-man-elusive-author-luke-rh...

>147 CliffBurns: I loved that book.

Holy fuck, how could the Brits be serious about putting Boris Johnson in power?

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/mbm8p3/boris-johnson-lies-media-bbc

>149 CliffBurns: Corbyn. What I can't understand is why the Lib Dems aren't doing better.

>151 justifiedsinner: Personally, I've had no time for the LibDems ever since they ditched Ming Campbell for being too old. He was the only party leader at the time who had even the faintest idea about issues relating to low income workers; one of their previous leaders, Charles Kennedy, publicly called £45k a "modest income" when the LibDems were promoting their then-current policy of local income taxes. Ming was closer to the mark when he talked abut £18k, though at the time (and since), plenty of people have had to put up with less.

>152 RobertDay: That was 12 years ago. A better case might be how crap Nick Clegg did and what a sell-out he's become. But they are still the only major party that is clear about Remaining. Poor people aren't going to be better off when the UK leaves the EU.

>153 justifiedsinner: Then that's twelve years where I haven't had much time for the LibDems; and the whole Brexit issue is so muddy that their pro-Remain stance is likely to do them little good in the overall scheme of things. Nothing else they have done of any consequence in that time suggests to me that I'm wrong in my view. And my constituency is so solidly safe Tory (consistently 14-16k majority) that even the Labour candidate, who picks up on the rust-belt industry remnants and one-time council tenants, is always firmly in second place, so no tactical voting will have any effect.

Although I voted Remain - and would again - I don't want a second referendum. The first one was mad enough. And neither side presented any sort of plan; Remain made as bad a case for staying as Leave did for leaving. Rather, I'd prefer to see a) the sheer criminality of the Leave campaign exposed, taken through the courts, and the guilty parties thrown into jail, and the fallout from that to land where it might; whilst b) all the effort and energy that's gone into trying to unwind the 2016 Referendum being put instead into working with reformist elements in Europe to build a body we could all sign up to joining in five, ten or fifteen years' time when hopefully sanity might have set in.

As for me: if I were twenty years younger (and so not within four years of retirement) but knew as much about my job as I do now, I'd be taking the Ian Sales option and finding work in the EU - at the same time claiming political asylum if necessary.

For Beckett fans:

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/my-grading-scale-for-the-fall-semester-compo...

"Bookstagrammers"???

https://litreactor.com/columns/10-reasons-why-bookstagrammers-are-awesome

No explanation required:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/12/what-can-we-learn-from-lond...

Home security or corporate surveillance?

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/google-nest-or-amazon-ring-just-reject-the...

>158 CliffBurns: I literally had my finger on the Button to buy a ring & echo set for a relative when I read a recent “don’t buy” article. It explained the doorbell records and shares ALL visitor video clips with neighbors & the police with no way to turn it off.

>158 CliffBurns: There are plenty of people in the industry who are well aware of this:

https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/mackey-iot-security/

Wow:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-whales-alive-today-who-were-...

Something to start 2020 off on a hopeful note. An art project that should receive international attention/awards IMOHO.

Someone Installed See-Saws At The US-Mexico Border So Kids Can Play Together

edit, this is dated July 2019 but just came to my attention - still worth contemplating.