Translucent microbe deviates from universal genetic code PNAS
Why My Recession Rule Could Go Wrong This Time Claudia Sahm, Bloomberg. URL: “one-highly-accurate-recession-indicator-could-be-wrong-this-time.” Why didn’t the editor just write “This One Neat Recession Trick”?
How one patient found errors in the algorithm making transplant decisions FT
Couchfish: The Rent Seekers Of Travel Couchfish. Well worth a read, especially for the twist at the end.
#COVID19
Long COVID changed the disability landscape. What does that mean for HR? HR Dive.
Many HR people, [Disability Management Employer Coalition CEO Bryon Bass] has found, are expecting employees to “”use the magic words of FMLA, or ‘I have a disability and I need a reasonable accommodation.'””
“”That’s not something that the average person is going to just spew,”” Bass said.
So write those words down. Also, “spew”? From an advocate?
China?
China slips back into deflation in worrying sign Straits Times
Discontent in China on the rise as economy slows: survey Business Times
Myanmar
A turning point in Myanmar as army suffers big losses BBC
Chinese Evacuate Border ‘Scam Town’ Besieged by Myanmar Resistance The Irrawaddy. If China had an aristocracy, Southeast Asia would serve as “a gigantic system of outdoor relief” for them, much as the Colonies did for the UK in the days of the Empire.
India
Bihar Caste Survey: The Who’s Who in the Data The Wire
Why The Demand For Art Brushes Is Decimating India’s Mongooses Madras Courier
Syraqistan
Tunnel Rats Redux (excerpt) Spy Talk. The moral is in the lead, though.
Inside Israel’s tunnel war in Gaza: The terrifying reality of clearing Hamas’s ‘city beneath a city’ that stretches for miles – as witnessed by The Mail’s NICK CRAVEN who joined IDF soldiers who found at least 17 subterranean fortifications Daily Mail. That said, the Hamas tunnels…
… remind me powerfully of Al Quaeda’s mountain redoubt. Same energy:
The redoubt that Bin Laden had somehow managed to wrestle his kidney dialysis machine into. Anyhow, IDF assures us that everything’s going according to plan:
IDF combat engineers are currently working to expose and destroy Hamas terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including tunnels. Water and oxygen storage discovered inside the tunnels indicates Hamas' preparations for prolonged stays underground.
130 tunnel entrances have been… pic.twitter.com/McuxQHc1b2
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 9, 2023
So, since the IDF line is the official line, what Seymour Hersh and his sources emitted a mere three days ago was cope?
Some Israeli officials fear that time is running out because it’s not known how long the air in the tunnels will be breathable.
Meanwhile, the Hamas soldiers still alive in the tunnels underneath Gaza will be suffocating soon from a lack of fresh air, as there is little fuel left to run the generators necessary for a constant flow of oxygen.
I mean, either “time is running out” out on Hamas or they’re prepared for “prolonged stays underground.” One or the other I wouldn’t presume to say who’s lying — and they all could be — but somebody is. (Oh, and all the coverage seems to say “130 tunnels” have been destroyed. But I’m not sure whether it’s tunnels per se, or tunnel entrances. The mostly duplicative photos suggest the latter.)
Investigation disproves Israel claim of Hamas tunnel under Gaza hospital Al Jazeera. One for the judges, I suppose.
* * * A broken Netanyahu is miscalculating over Gaza, former Israeli PM says Politco
Parody: Psychiatrist of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Commits Suicide SOTT. From 2020. Note the word “parody.” This story has now mutated and propagated widely. Search on the most vivid phrase, in this case the putative psychiatrist’s “I can’t take it anymore” — a good rule, and in this case clearly directionally correct — and you’ll find a slew of recent screen shots (although nary a link to this, the original source).
* * * A Biden goal is restraining Israel ‘through the bear hug’ The Editorial Board. It is true that embracing Bibi before slipping in the shiv would be very on-brand for Democrats. I haven’t seen any signs of it, though. It is, after all, entirely possible that Biden is actually deranged enough to believe what he’s saying….
US calls for Palestinian Authority to run Gaza and West Bank after the war with Hamas FT. I dunno. Will the PA have time for that, what with wiping down the settlers’ granite counter tops, cleaning their pools, and providing other miscellaneous services?
* * * The World Won’t Be the Same After the Israel-Hamas War Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy
How Would a Humanitarian Pause Work in Gaza? The New Yorker. “Work” for whom?
Palestine complains to IAEA about Israel’s threat to drop nuclear bomb on Gaza Anadolu. Yes, “Heritage Minister” and goat-sacrifcing loon Amichai Eliyahu, did rather let the cat out of the bag on Israel’s nuclear status, didn’t he? Good to have that cleared up.
A History of Helplessness Dror Poleg
Dear Old Blighty
Starmer sacks Jewish staffer for helping organise pro-Gaza protests The Sqwawkbox
Brexit Impact Tracker – 8 November 2023 – Honesty Is not An Option: Evolving pro-Brexit arguments in post-truth Albion Gerhard Schnyder
Building Increasingly Complex LEGO Machines In Order to Sink Progressively Larger LEGO Boats Laughing Squid
New Not-So-Cold War
Zelensky fears that the West wants a way out The Spectator
KYIV BLOG: Beginning of the end of the war in Ukraine? BNE Intellinews
Was the death of Zaluzhny’s Military Aide an Assassination? Weapons and Strategy
Russia’s Sandworm – not just missile strikes – to blame for Ukrainian power blackouts The Register
Russian political elites on their U.S. counterparts: card cheats! Gilbert Doctorow, Armageddon Newsletter
The Caribbean
The U.S. Is Preparing an Outsourced Invasion of Haiti Foreign Policy
2024
Who’s Ready for a Trump-Biden Rematch? Anyone? Hello? Bloomberg
Do unbiased jurors exist to serve at Trump’s 2020 election trials in the age of social media? PBS. From September, still germane. Good question!
Voters Overwhelmingly Pass Car Right to Repair Law in Maine 404 Media
Spook Country
3 are charged with running sex ring that catered to politicians, military and others NPR. My goodness. Sounds like a honey trap. I wonder who could have been running it?
Court rules automakers can record and intercept owner text messages The Record. Not sure about the venue, but links in both SlashDot and Hacker News.
Digital Watch
G.M.’s Cruise Moved Fast in the Driverless Race. It Got Ugly. NYT. The lead is buried one paragraph from the end:
Half of Cruise’s 400 cars were in San Francisco when the driverless operations were stopped. Those vehicles were supported by a vast operations staff, with 1.5 workers per vehicle. The workers intervened to assist the company’s vehicles every 2.5 to five miles, according to two people familiar with is operations. In other words, they frequently had to do something to remotely control a car after receiving a cellular signal that it was having problems.
“Driverless” my Sweet Aunt Fanny. The Cruise cars were “driven” by Mechanical Turks (and to think I imagined Detroit would do better than SIlicon Valley, because Detroit actually builds cars. OTOH, for all we know, maybe they are!).
Best Way to Extinguish a Flaming Electric Vehicle? Let It Burn WSJ
Andreessen Horowitz would like everyone to stop talking about AI’s copyright issues, please Business Insider. IOW, AI cannot function as a business without the theft of intellectual property, on a positively grandiose scale, to create its training sets. That sounds rather like “the tendency of the rate of profit to fall,” to me.
Is the web actually evaporating? Garbage Day. Personally, I would categorize the web as more solid than liquid. YMMV!
Supply Chain
Greeks and Chinese dominate global fleet market Container News
Zeitgeist Watch
Antidepressants or Tolkien character? (game) Vercel (?).
Feral Hog Watch
Wild pig-like animals are tearing up an Arizona golf course. The internet is delighted Salon
Guillotine Watch
Former Google CEO Launched A $100 Million Company With His Girlfriend. It’s Not Going Well Forbes. That’s a damn shame.
Since When Do Millennials Love to Sew? WSJ
‘I just lost the fear’: why more older people are founding start-ups FT. I wonder why. ‘Tis a mystery!
Class Warfare
SAG-AFTRA Approves Deal to End Historic Strike Variety. As usual, if you only read the headline, you won’t understand that union members must still vote on the deal.
SAG-AFTRA and the studios just reached a deal to end the actors’ strike. What’s next? LA Times
Las Vegas Strip Workers Reach Tentative Labor Deal with Caesars WSJ
* * * Pilot shortage spurs six-figure bonus offers and poaching of personnel Marketplace. Something seems to be affecting the labor market, but what? ‘TIs a mystery!
Real Estate Helped Drive Wealth Gains during the Pandemic Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis
The significant health benefits of walking backward CNN
Why the fairies disappeared Unherd
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
The bond between a mother orca and her calf is as strong as any in the animal kingdom. #orca #blackfish #nature #whale pic.twitter.com/X6b6xEGquT
— Domenic Biagini (@DolphinDroneDom) October 30, 2022
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
169 comments
Comments are closed.
RE:Former Google CEO Launched A $100 Million Company With His Girlfriend. It’s Not Going Well
Can you think of a more offputting name for an ‘AI’ startup than PRYON?
Seems like an awful lot of dough and paperwork just to get your leg over.
Not to be confused with prion, the thing that causes mad cow disease. /
Did Skynet suffer from mad bot disease?
I wonder if the real problem was that that former Google CEO was thinking with the wrong head.
Well, since there were two of them involved, (a wild leap of logic, I know,) this would be a case of parallel processing, aka. “horizontal thinking.” Cf. Willie Brown and Kamala Harris. Going back a few years, also see Charles Foster Kane and Susan Alexander.
This story is actually older than most hills, or should that be Hillz?
Perhaps he had a case of PRYapism … 😁
I wonder if the less than 10% of reforms still needed by mrs der leyden for ukranian accession to her organisation, includes not sending live hand grenades to political rival’s staff?
> not sending live hand grenades to political rival’s staff?
Does make you wonder if the rules-based international order has a rule for that…
Wasn’t Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Wagner boss – killed in that plane by hand-grenades? They did find grenade fragments in his and the other bodies-
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/05/hand-grenade-explosion-caused-plane-crash-that-killed-wagner-boss-says-putin
Pro tip. Don’t play with hand-grenades. It will end in tears.
As the USMC says, after the pin is pulled Mister Grenade is no longer your/our friend.
Oh, it does. See the faith of NS1 & NS2…
It’s those European values don’t you know?
What do the Rules of Kanly have to say about it?
“Starmer sacks Jewish staffer for helping organise pro-Gaza protests”
This is standard Keir Starmer. Eject everybody that does not absolutely agree with him and all his ideas. So I take pleasure in learning that Starmer has eviscerated himself over the issue of Gaza from The Duran. Before this war he had a clear glide path to the Prime Ministership but then he came out and said that it was a great idea to cut off food, energy and water to the Gazans as that is allowed by international law. This from a former human rights lawyer. So now he is facing a revolt by his own party which cannot be ignored as Muslim voters are a mainstay of the Labour vote and now they are turning away from Labour. He might still get the top job through Tory incompetence but it will be no longer by a solid lead-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjzGEN_5HVE (13:39 mins)
Funny how the crushing empathy deficit of the uppers for the lowers is becoming ever more obvious. After all wealthy Israelis and blue eyed Ukraine are “people like us” versus the savages “outside the garden.” Some colleges are now banning Palestinian activism because it might hurt the fee fees of other students. This tries to give the impression of sympathy and caring even as all those brown strangers are being bombed to smithereens.
What’s encouraging is that the public at large is believing, to an increasing extent, their “lying eyes” rather than the spin. It had to happen eventually.
What exactly is a smithereen, anyway?
A very small smither, I guess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smithereens
Do realize, Rev Kev, that whatever his deficiencies, the alternatives to Starmer are currently either another term moving to the right under Sunak or, more likely, after a failed Starmer government, a further lurch to the far right under someone like present Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Her latest foray into lunacy has just been to accuse Britain’s police of favouring left-wing protestors over right-wing ones. I kid you not.
Britain’s police are of course well-known, like the police in the US, for their left-wing sympathies. The UK miners no doubt remember well how their strike in the 1980s was broken by Thatcher’s police sitting down and singing Kumbaya at Orgreave (sarc.)
This is why Labour is son utterly unresponsive to its constituencies. They have no other place to go.
By contrast, their American Masters have both choices and leverage. A snap of the fingers and the knees hit the floor.
Looking the hilariously captioned cartoon, what chance does the poor IDF have?
A common threat for the characters not showing enough enthusiasm is to be sent to the Eastern Front, we need more of that for our neo-cons.
But wait! There is an Eastern front. And it is located in eastern Ukraine. And like the original, you have lots of guys named Ivan shooting at you and pretty soon it will be just as cold.
And here Netanyhu, in spite of all the warnings from the professionals, was in his Sergeant Schultz mode – ‘I hear nothing. I see nothing. I know nothing. Nothing.’
@Rev Kev You could have put it more succinctly:
“Winken, Blinken and Nod”.
> Former Google CEO Launched A $100 Million Company With His Girlfriend. It’s Not Going Well
That’s what Schmidt calls his dick, is my guess.
For some reason, this reminds me of yet another old John Prine song:
I met a girl from Venus, her insides were lined in gold
Well, she did what she did, said “How was it, kid?”, she was politely told
“Pretty good, not bad, I can’t complain
But actually, everything is just about the same”
Fairies–
Happy to see a piece by Mary Harrington, the “reactionary feminist,” in the links. Readers will see several parallels to what John Michael Greer has been writing about in the past months. Harrington once debated Oxford transhumanist Elise Bohan where in Harrington opined that birth control pills were the first effort at transhumanism. She’s an interesting thinker with an interesting background.
ja.
Mary has had a standing invitation to the Wilderness Bar since i first ran across her.
i’m certain we’d argue…but the good kind of arguing.
she did an interview with Kingsnorth a while back…covering the same sort of sentiments.
(he’s another with a standing invite)
and related: my youngest…in spanish class, no less…had a philosophy project: write something about Plato’s Cave that the teacher hasnt heard or considered before(!!*).
so he asked me,lol.
and i introduced him to one of my favorite words:”Thaumazein”=”strange Wonder”…as in when encountering the Numinous.
same thing Mary’s talking about.
and also related, tangentially: been re-watching a Sky tv show: Britannia…which contains a bunch of shroomed up pseudodruidry throughout.
this form of…call it cthonic…or emergent…or spontaneous….druidy mysticism is where i’ve been for 35+ years, on the spiritual side of things….due to growing up in the east texas piney woods…as well as myriad psylocybin influenced excursions in said woods.
the 3 decade “hangover” from all that has definitely informed my relationship to the genii and lares of this place.
Henry Moon Pie: She may be a feminist, but she’s also an imperialist.
Sez Harrington: “For inhabitants of mainstream modern British culture, raised in the birthplace of science and engineering,…”
Oh? Sez I? Who is she kidding? Is she that detached from the history of the rest of the world?
Yet she repeats the same assertion lower down in the piece.
Living here in Italy, with its eight million rambunctious saints (like the eight million kami of the Japanese), I remain skeptical of her assertions. And, you know, Archimedes lived in Sicily, well before Anglicanism–and he wasn’t even the first scientist or first great engineer.
A better writer in the same vein is Rhyd Wildermuth, who is easy to find on-line.
Yeah, Rhyd has dibs on the couch.
I found that article confused in mistaking idealism for enchantment, then in putting idealism as the successor to, rather than cause of, disenchantment. (p.s. I should add that enchantment seems to me a sense of harmony with that which cannot be explained.)
At least the materialists got to kick back in the comments section.
Fairies and their fools are all well and good, but the beam of my flashlight is far more help to me than the host of half-seen ha’ants hovering dimly at its edges.
She was on Red Scare podcast in the spring. It was interesting but not very informative and in the end I was not sold on Harrington. I was left with the impression of someone bitterly contemptuous of a culture that she had been a part of until she did a 180.
…or maybe it was a 540. Whatever, it can make you dizzy.
I read an article by someone who said he started seeing fairies after he spent a month out in the country in a cabin with no electricity. His idea was that modern people are over-stimulated by electric lights, TV, etc and lose the ability to see things our ancestors saw routinely. So it’s less about concepts than it is about technology.
I’d say the exact opposite. Having been exposed relentlessly to “electric lights, TV, etc”, once removed from such stimuli the human mind takes over to replace it – wherever and under whatever circumstances, at least for a certain period of time until becoming adapted to the new circumstance.
I’ll never forget walking home through Central Park after work one evening and witnessing bizarre yellow lights coming up from the ground wherever I looked. I thought I’d gone quite mad and feared for my very sanity…turned out the local fire flies were in full season – of which I was utterly ignorant.
Embarrassing. The strange lights coming up from the ground were in fact a sort of neon green, not yellow.
point being,Mary…yer not used to such things.
i most definitely am so habituated.
…but even i can see the Wonder of it.
soak it in.
wherever it presents itself.
(yes, i’m on a Thaumazein Kick)
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/aft.4.20711438?journalCode=aft
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/uanckx/wonder_in_ancient_greek/?rdt=34313
Neon green is how I remember fireflies. I only saw them once in my life, at my uncle’s house in New Jersey. We didn’t have them in the Pacific Northwest where I grew up, or in Hawaii where I live now. They’re amazing.
As discussed in a presentation “In Defence of King Arthur’,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvphkrnMEbk&t=4398s
it was Geoffrey Chaucer, in the Wife of Bath’s Tale who said:
“In the olden days of King Arthur,
Of whom Britons speak with great honour,
All this land was filled full with faerie.
The Elf-Queen with her fair company
Danced full oft in many a green mead.
That was the old opinion, as I read –
I speak of many hundred years ago.
But now no man sees elves I know …”
“It would seem that not only did King Arthur free Briton from the Saxon invaders, from the Roman Empire and from the magicians, but he also freed the artists, and the musicians, and the dancers, and the poets, and Briton was filled with elves and faeries.
But when we lose our independence, do we also lose our ability to see this land of fairy?
Because now, no one sees elves anymore (maybe Robert Frost was the last one) –
we’ve become literalists and scholastics and nominalists and empiricists –
we can’t see the land of faerie anymore, we are instead shown the land of escapism,
but it’s not like the escape of the prisoner, but it’s more like the escape of the deserter.”
> KYIV BLOG: Beginning of the end of the war in Ukraine? BNE Intellinews
The interesting part of this Ben Aris’ article about the West trying to get out of UA is in the last paragraph:
Mearsheimer called it “primrose path”…
That paragraph sees to assume Zelensky is a) still breathing and b) still anywhere near Ukraine. Given that it looks like his NATO backers seem a bit unhappy and he seems to be doing a bit of a military purge, I think his tenure is getting very shaky.
If he tries to deal with Russia is he likely to really annoy the surviving Banderites who will see him as a traitor?
I don’t see him running for re-election. I think he is going to be very lucky to get out alive.
Re: Difficult to sink LEGO boats
LEGO drones
Melvin Goodman@Counterpunch:
US Advice to Israel: “Use Smaller Bombs”
Military sales are up!
Spent the weekend with my friend who has been on a quest to find the largest trees in the world in small snatches of time when work isn’t beckoning.
It’s a funny thing in that Americans are into BIG… houses, cars, bodies, etc.
We reckoned there might be only a handful of enthusiasts in pursuit of prized Giant Sequoias, and one of them lives in Sweden!
He’s got a few grand worth of digital measuring tools in order to size them up, and it takes about 30 minutes to get ‘R done per tree, the easiest measurement being the tale of the tape in terms of circumference.
One of the objects of his desire was a big one that lost about 100 feet off its top eons ago and had a couple of trees sprouting from its 150 foot top now that would be perfect candidates for xmas trees @ Rockefeller Center, as they were ramrod straight and tall, not the usual broccoli tops you see on aged Sequoia trees.
This was a Sequoia with character, and character counts.
It came in at 59 & 1/2 feet in circumference and you divide that by Pi, to get to a respectable 19 feet wide at eye level, whereas all of the other digital measurements have to be coalesced into one another to get a precise-ish number. This task gets done when he gets home.
https://sequoiaquest.com/index.html
Earlier in the year he played ‘location scout/guide’ for the BBC on one of the segments of Our Changing Planet.
https://sequoiaquest.com/our-changing-planet-513202322.html
How about this one?
“The Tree of Tule dwarfs the town’s church, is more than 2,000 years old and is still growing. Its weight is almost 550 tons, its volume is 705 cubic meters and it has a diameter of 42 meters.”
On “sewing millennials”: everyone I am acquainted with in online sewing communities thinks that the new home sewing machines discussed in this article are inferior to the old, all-metal ones, which can be found for less than 100 dollars. I would never spend money on a new Singer sewing machine.
Links? I have an 11 year-old granddaughter whom Juana is teaching to sew. I want to encourage practical education.
I love my 1950s era Singer 301. Doesn’t have fancy stitching patterns available at a touch of a button like modern units, but it’s all metal, well engineered, has simple user maintenance, is easily serviceable, and runs and runs and runs consistently and reliably. When I want a stitched pattern, there’s the zig-zagger attachment and its set of pattern cams — quirky, but rewarding.
Dave, same. Would never buy a new Singer. I grew up using my mother’s old metal Singer and it was great. The machines now are cheap plastic garbage that are not sturdy and do not last. Even the used to be great Scandinavian machines are now made in Asia. Someone bought out Singer, Viking, and Pfaff, created SVP Worldwide, and moved the production to China. The Viking and Pfaff machines used to be known for very high quality, and had been an option after Singer had gone downhill. Not anymore. Rant over. Seconding what FreeMarketApologist said.
I’ve had my Bernina 830 for 50 years. it is a classic Swiss machine, completely metal except for a few knobs. It still performs perfectly. Heavy monster.
Sometimes I think about getting a serger, but zigzagging the raw edges works well enough.
Every now and then when I’m fixing a button or tear or hole in a sweater I curse my Mom for teaching me basic sewing. It has, nonetheless, proved an ever-useful skill and I know exactly where my box of buttons, thread and needles is.
Never learned the sewing machine. That was a girl thing and skill, so not interested, and Mom knew better than to fight on that hill against her Aspie son. But as I contemplate my desire for a full-length hooded woolen cape for the coming winter, I realize that if I could use a sewing machine then it wouldn’t be so hard to make one that was actually long enough for my lanky 6’4.5” frame. Can’t complain, though. That’s what I get for being sexist like that. Choices have consequences.
I watched this video just this morning. He makes sewing a cape look very easy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeZGIiF06v0
I can’t use a machine either but do basic repairs by hand. One of my great joys in life recently is sitting out in the back yard on a sunny day, sewing up holes in my boxer shorts, much to the embarrassment of my teenaged spawn. Mentioning that there will be more in the college fund because of it only brings another eye roll, and a big chuckle from me!
It’s not too difficult to learn to use a sewing machine. I recently learnt how to use my granny’s old singer sewing machine which had been in storage for 20 years. I found the trickiest part was threading the bobbins but there are loads of brilliant YouTube videos telling you everything you need to figure out all the details for every model
The sewing machine “Every Guy Wants”: Alexander Dyer on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbhWnIwu8rk
I bought a used Consew 206 RB-5 off of Craigslist a few years ago. Worked great to repair the boys school backpacks. Zipper replacements, patching holes, and putting the straps back on.
Works great to patch up work pants. If you can get it under the needle it will feed it.
Later next year I’ll sew up a set of soft luggage for my motorcycle out of heavy cotton duck canvas from BigDuck canvas.
My Mom taught me to sew on a button, by hand, but her sewing machine remained a mystery to me. I don’t recall much about it other than that it was built into its own table such that it could be flipped up from what otherwise looked like an ordinary desk of sorts.
Do wonder if i still have the old apron i made back in school, as sewing and knitting was part of the curriculum alongside woodwork.
It was something of a rite of passage, as the apron was for use with the cooking classes in later grades. At least back then schools tried to equip us for adulthood.
I just got my 40 year old Viking Husquvarna a tune up. Weighs like it’s made of cast iron. I wonder if the home made mask making got the young people started; it did for my college kid. Buying new fabric isn’t cheap though, and now you can find ever more tempting choices via the internet. Then it’s hard to find ways to get rid of all the fabric we’ve hoarded over the years. I’ve got three boxes of untouched fabric in the garage that I persuaded a disabled friend to de-clutter.
I have a seventies era Sears Kenmore. It’s all metal and solid.
I also have an old Kenmore…it will sew through anything.
However I have a fancy embroidery machine that works well as long as it is looked after. I have a heavy duty Jukie for jeans etc. and 2 sergers, one is from the 70’s, I keep it threaded white thread as I have never been able to figure out the treading sequence, and I have a newer Baby Lock Serger that also works well if looked after.
I am in my 70’s now and I really hope 1 of my 2 dil’s take up sewing.
I loved to read that there is a generation coming up, perhaps to be like my generation of “make do and mend”
I, too, am in my seventies and due to circumstances entirely of my own making I need to make do and mend and mend again.
My Amish friend, L, does a brisk trade in the antique treadle sewing machines at her dry goods store, since her community eschews electricity. She has a network of people, who frequent auctions and estate sales, who supply her with these gorgeous machines: solid metal mechanisms, shiny black with swirly gold designs, embedded in sturdy yet elegant wood cases.
That was my mom’s sewing machine and I remember thinking it was an antique in the 1970’s… and she was the queen of the hem, among her many alteration accolades.
Lots of ladies learned to sew during WWII. My mother was one of them. She made clothes from whole cloth and patterns; just for the heck of it.
Onset of age and cheap clothes led to disrepair.
I may not sew much, but I seem to have a thing about collecting sewing machines. I do have an acceptable plastic Singer from the early 2000s. But the real deals are a tiny portable Kenmore mostly metal “starter” sewing machine from the 70’s that was probably their updated take on a featherweight but with multiple stitch settings, two actual featherweights, and a Singer treadle machine I need to service and replace the belt on. The kenmore was a gift in high school, one featherweight was a thrift store find for twenty dollars, the other one was found, and the treadle was owned by an older resident who passed away where I work and no one else wanted it. I would not let it be put on the street.
As people have discovered the value of vintage machines you don’t find the bargains that were there even a decade ago. But yes, older heavier all or mostly metal machines are absolutely the way to go. They can sew almost anything. Yes they can be messed up, but short of taking a sledgehammer to them they can be repaired. I will also say to newer converts learn to do basic service, more if you are mechanically inclined. And just for those times the newbie manages something you never imagined could be done to it learn who the best machine service person in your area is just in case. It will always beat throwing away the expensive plastic computerized junk, which has to happen a lot.
For those who don’t know the Featherweight machine –
https://singer-featherweight.com/
Portable so lusted after by modern day quilters. Easy to carry to workshops and group stitch n’bitch sessions.
I have something similar. Used it to make camping equipment (sleep bags, tents) in the 70’s and 80’s.
I find I cannot access links like this one to the WSJ – I get a screen from archive.ph with a Captcha – which never works. Anyone?
Try accessing the archive.ph link with Javascript disabled.
Lena the Corporate Raider sewed with a pre-1917 Singer, a treadwheel model. She said it still worked well, even after being used for generations.
Singer had done a huge amount of sales in Tsarist Russia, and pre-WWII Singer sewing machines are still in use today.
A lot were converted from treadle to electric motor in the US. I used to use one for aircraft upholstery.
Like the meme of the 1970s avocado green refrigerator: “I will outlive you and everyone you love. I am eternal. I am time itself.”
Btw, one of my sons has several sewing machines and a serger and sells custom clothing on Etsy. My mother who has her own sewing studio is very happy.
A friend of mine (mechanic/truck driver) was introduced to quilting (“you can quit anytime, it’s not addicting”) and ended up buying a quilt sewing machine and starting a company.
Indeed. I have and use my Grandmother’s 1917 Singer Treadle. Easy to use, fun, beautiful, and heavy!
For the mechanically inclined, tuning up an old Mitsubishi.
Since When Do Millennials Love to Sew? WSJ
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I noticed a huge upswing in Millennials backpacking in the past decade in the Sierra Nevada, and I think one of the principle reasons is it doesn’t cost hardly anything after an initial outlay of say $500 to $1000 for gear that will last you a decade or more.
Similar gig with sewing, a low cost hobby that akin to backpacking, takes a lot of time to do compared to covering the same miles in a car, or in lieu of sewing-just buying clothes/garments off the rack.
There seems to be an upswing in younger people upcycling clothing and home decor items they get at resale shops too. YouTube is full of this. Money is tight and they can say they do it to help the environment whether that is the main reason or not.
Visible mending:
https://egausa.org/visible-mending-introduction/
Yes, that is beautiful and making it can be a form of meditation!
Thanks!
Lately if I’m standing in line at JoAnne’s, the customers on either side of me are likely to be considerably younger and not all female. It helps that the company offers weekly coupons online and has big seasonal sales.
I can think of even slower methods called ‘slow stitching’ and it’s mostly what’s new in my Youtube feed right now. The fabric section of Goodwill, ARC, and Habitat here are sorted through continuously; it’s highly competitive. Likewise the average age in those stores skews younger and younger.
What is one to do with all those fabric scraps, embroidery threads, yarns, beads, lace, and tatting one has collected over the years? Add to them of course and come up with something new. I’ve been collecting books on mending methods for some time. I think we’re coming to an end to our ‘throw away’ attitude; sashiko and boro are on the upswing.
We were in a 5th-wheel for a month but the first thing I did before packing anything else was gather my knitting and cross stitch projects and make sure I had all the supplies I’d need. Camping is when I have a nice concentrated amount of time to work on those projects without distractions. Still couldn’t resist buying more hand-dyed yarn in Sister, OR though… doh! Buying yarn is an addiction for which there’s no cure. Ask any knitter, it is a source of pride and shame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtsC7emyg90
We should consider the immigrant influence to this trend, coming from cultures where embroidery and hand sewing have never gone out of fashion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXOTS6xu_ss
Yes, Lexx. I patched the holes in my spouse’s comfy but worn work jeans this summer, using scraps of brightly colored cotton (yup, I collect scraps), anchoring them with heavy cotton thread and my unskilled version of sashiko stitches.
Bravo to you! Having to discard a pair of jeans just as they were getting to be their most comfortable is heartbreaking.
Lately I’ve been bidding and winning lots of clothing that include pieces worth repair, like wool jackets in need of new linings. I was thinking maybe something whimsical in the inside, conservative on the outside, with a small bit of embroidery on the upper pocket that hints there’s more going on.
There’s one other idea I’d like to float here about why sewing may be skewing younger and that’s about intimacy. Alot of their relationships are transactional or online or both. Really it’s everyone but the young may feel the lack of intimacy more keenly. Wearing something you’ve made close to your body is intimate, it’s not a fashion statement, not intended to impress… it’s about how comfortable you are with yourself at home and in public. Focus, patience, quality over quantity, character over looks, sensuality over sexuality, experiences over goods… these will define that generation differently of necessity… they’re on an accelerated timeline, skipping middle-age and heading for the leisurely bit at the end, and something about the consequences of the elders in their tribes not being able to afford to retire themselves.
My daughter still wears a sweater that an old girlfriend of mine knit for me in uni — I still do a double take of recognition whenever I see her in it.
Gilbert Doctorow. Russian elites wondering about the U.S. elites and brainlessness.
Definitely worth your while.
Here is more Russian humor: “By a curious irony of fate, the Americans appear to Russian sophisticates to be the conniving rubes that Americans once saw in the Soviet leaders of Khrushchev’s time in power.”
There is a whole visual aspect to the U.S. elites that reinforce the look of “conniving rubes.” Antony Blinken in those undoubtedly expensive but poorly tailored suits. That photo of him on the tarmac in Iraq, posted here at Naked Capitalism the other day, with his chest protector over the high-poly suit was pure “conniving rube” coming over for dinner. Then there’s the moral authority and sartorial splendor of Jake Sullivan, who comes across as the coffin salesman at the funeral parlor in our current Dance of Death.
Pete Buttigieg? Compared to, say, managers of a collective farm? I guess that I’ll take Svetlana and Nikolai over the curiously incompetent nerd-apologist Buttigieg.
O tempora. O mores.
Our Nikki considers Blinken to be a rube amateur and seeks to bring the real thing to the White House using her high heels that also function as weapons and some nuclear tipped passive/aggression. What could go wrong?
Vivek in the debate last night called her “Dick Cheney in three inch heels” although the correct zinger would be Dick Cheney meets Sarah Palin in three inch heels. She’s the back to the future candidate.
Based on memorable one-liners, I’d say that among the Republican pretenders Ramaswamy has the best writers. I really like your modification, though.
I saw that last night. She uses her heels for “ammunition”? For whom could that possibly work?
That is one creepy group of people.
I wonder how she would look in a “Bullet Bra?”
Then she could be the RNC “Point Gal” on foreign policy. (And here you thought that Hillz “Goldwater Girl” Clinton was that.)
an aside: “brainless elites”…
NC linked the NPR brothel story. Denninger’s take on the CNBC version of the story, quoting the CNBC reporting.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=250060
And from the CNBC story:
““Each website allegedly described a verification process that interested sex buyers undertook to be eligible for appointment bookings — including requiring clients complete a form providing their full names, email address, phone number, employer and reference if they had one,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said.”
Sounds like many of our “elites” are morons. Who couldn’t see that setup from a mile away? Some of our “elites”, apparently.
Well, now that Epstein’s Island is under New Management…..
Brothel, can you spare a paradigm?
Dang. I thought you were writing about Stanford.
We here at N.A.D.S. Self Expression Centre LLC have a “Half Way Around the World” Special available now! (We chose the direction of travel.) Somewhat recommended by partially satisfied customers.
Here are the names of the principals from the NPR story:
Dennninger heavily insinuates that this was a Chinese operation, from the surnames. However, “Lee” is also the second-most common surname in Korea, so I’m not sure how far that goes. Also, “hundreds of thousands of dollars” is not very much at all.
My guess is that the Lee guys are straws. The timing does seem significant, no? My ill-informed speculation is that this is a Mossad operation the FBI decided — or was told to — roll up. And it would be interesting to know if they “turned” any clients that Mossad had already “turned.”
Tinfoil hat time!
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
North or South? / heh
According to cnbc, not all the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” were “earned.”
And junmy… was a “student.”
One of those brilliantly entrepreneurial “foreign students” who should have “a green card stapled to their diploma” no doubt, because they’re so much more economically desirable than the homegrown version.
Jung-myung is a Korean given name.
Lambert Strether: Koreans.
https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2023-11-08/us-says-prostitution-ring-counted-politicians-tech-execs-lawyers-as-clients
Taking K-Pop to new heights.
There is a Korean novelist named Lee Jung-myung who is going to be having a couple of difficult days ahead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Jung-myung
oooh. Tinfoil hat time? My fav fun time. CCP or CiA or Mossad or FBI? So many acronyms? Could almost be a musical number from the old stage show HAIR. ” Initials”. LBJ took the IRT down to 4th St. USA / heh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1zy9MW8CkA
Everything old is new again.
When he got there what did he see, but the elites of America brain-addled by COVID-19.
Lee (李) is spelled as Li in the Mainland. It’s only spelled Lee for Chinese diaspora in/from Taiwan/Malaysia/Singapore (eg. Lee Kuan Yew). However, as Junmyung is a distinctly Korean name, and Lee and Han are also popular Korean surname and name respectively, one can surmise that they are from the peninsula.
Rhee Syngman would like a word…
Also, looking at how Lee/Li/Rhee is spelled in the Chinese form of the Korean name can tell you what village that particular Lee/Li/Rhee is from.
Yeah, the chump-change revenues is what immediately struck me — a barely surviving mom-and-pop retail store or restaurant easily has these levels of revenues.
Re CNN made me look
Uh, couldn’t you get the same effect by riding a bike and therefore not tripping over a rock and getting a concussion? However the entertainment value may overcome the safety factor as seen in Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Silly_Walks
Nope. Not at all. No one is going to advise adding core work to protect you lower back from walking.
That article is … odd. The benefit of walking backward (and similar moves in yoga and Tai chi) are to strech and strengthen low back, core, and pelvic floor. All the stuff we sabotage with sitting and sitting and leaning forward.
Right up there with pig-like animals – sounds like someone desperately trying to sound original when rewriting something they hasn’t really thought about, at all.
I read “Greeks and Chinese dominate global flea market”. Sigh. Life was more simple when a glut of fake Gucci bags was humanity’s existential threat du jour.
“Inside Israel’s tunnel war in Gaza: The terrifying reality of clearing Hamas’s ‘city beneath a city’ that stretches for miles – as witnessed by The Mail’s NICK CRAVEN who joined IDF soldiers who found at least 17 subterranean fortifications”
I can see it now-
Sergeant: ‘Hey you. The short guy!’
Private: ‘Yes sergeant?’
Sergeant: ‘I want you go down that tunnel and look for Hamas.’
Private: ‘Who, me sir?’
Sergeant: ‘And take off your body armour and helmet or you won’t fit.’
Private: ‘Wait, what?’
Sergeant: ‘Your rifle won’t fit here either so take this pistol. Also take a bayonet and a torch.’
Private: ‘??!?’
Sergeant: ‘Watch for booby traps, snakes, cave-ins and anything else that Hamas has put there the past coupla years.’
Meanwhile Hamas soldiers would be shouting out of those tunnels ‘Welcome to the party, pal!’
ya’ know IDF caught flat-footed and ignorant about the 10/7 attack but now they seem to know everything about Hamas based on the the illustration in the Daily Mail. “That said, the Hamas tunnels…” – so interesting – now Hamas in ambulances, hospitals, churches, temples, refugee camps – go figure – too bad that sort of specificity couldn’t have saved children and civilians from mass murder –
Have a hard look at that Daily Mail graphic and you can see a child about to die. Right under the Bunker Buster Bomb info box.
I get a kick out of how the hostages are safely out of harms way in the deepest part of the tunnel system
I particularly enjoyed the glaringly obvious propaganda of declaring that Hamas tunnels are built under hospitals, schools, etc. This is not only blaming the victims, but setting the stage for a complete repudiation of any International Conventions concerning the rights of non-combatants in war zones. In this case, the IDF, or their civilian masters, are adopting a basic terror practice; there are no innocents.
If the IDF ground forces attack the hospital in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, then Israel will have jumped the shark.
There haven’t been “non-combatants” since at the least when the US declared “free fire” zones in Vietnam. Heck, in WWII Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki (to name just a few) were free fire (literally) zones where there were no non-combatants. Israelis are doing more than what the British and Americans have long done. That’s why neither country has any moral authority to press Israel to change its tactics.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you are saying: Neither Britain, nor the USA, nor Israel (and doubtless, many others) have moral authority to proclaim about war crimes and genocide? If that is your point, I agree.
That graphic is something out of a comic book – well done for propaganda purposes as it makes the absurd believable and the believable absurd. To bad comic book level graphics are the ones that work so well in todays imaged soaked pool – what a bloodbath
Considering how much fun people had with memeing Netanyahu’s Acme bomb graphic at the UN, I think the tunnel graphic could be done over in a Richard Scarry style.
Sample
In ROW parlance, shouldn’t the day of the uprising be known as 7/10?
Yes, it takes me forever to realize it US format and convert.
I’d prefer standard ISO.
Re: Biden bear hugging Netanyahu.
This has panic driven excuse. Blinken isn’t complaining the way he did about African countries but Nas a defeated look. I’m sure in private he is being told the US isn’t trustworthy and this is their bizarre counter, claiming Biden is playing 2 dimensional chutes and ladders with a strategy.
That must be why they want to kill all those Hamas soldiers associated with these attacks. They want no survivor’s testimonies or witnesses.
According to Jonathan Cook pretty much everyone who was burned or blown up. Also, if you believe surviving eye-witnesses, it was the IDF who “eliminated everyone, including the hostages because there was very, very heavy crossfire.”
I remember several smaller news items from that day about units of Israeli security forces firing at each other and at the armed settlers in the chaotic out-of-control situation, which kinda fits with the above.
Volodymyr, me gotta go
Volodymyr, me gotta go
Fine little Bibi waits for me
Me send your ammo over to he
You might say you’re all alone
Good luck in Slava Ukraini home
Volodymyr, me gotta go
Volodymyr, oh, me gotta go
These nights and days they assail contentedly
Me think of polls constantly
On the flight I dream 2024 is still there
I smell the cordite in Gaza everywhere
Volodymyr, me gotta go
Volodymyr, me gotta go
{OK, lets give it to them right now!}
Me see an occupation on the rubble above
It won’t be long, me see when push meets shove
Me supply him with arms and then
I tell AIPAC I never leave again
Volodymyr, oh, me gotta go
Volodymyr, me gotta go
I say, me gotta go
I say, me gotta go
Louie Louie, performed by the Kingsmen
“Friendly fire” is always attributed to the enemy, the fires would not happen without HAMAS!
Same for blowing up hospitals and open air concentration camps aka refugee shelters…..
Similar to the ‘foreigner is always at fault in a traffic accident’, because if the foreigner were not here the accident would not happen.
“The World Won’t Be the Same After the Israel-Hamas War”
This war must be totally frustrating to Washington. Any weapons that they had for the Ukraine now have to go to Israel instead. But more to the point, that thought that the Middle east was quiet so then they could start moving forces to the Indo-Pacific to threaten China. Instead, half the US Navy is sitting off Israel holding their hand and not doing much of anything while China gets shoved once more on the back burner. That is the problem with the Middle East-
‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!’
Not sure about the whole world, but for me it definitely will be. I didn’t know much, if any of the history of the region now I do, and that does not redound favorable to how I view Israel. I always thought the topic was to complicated, but viewed historically it is not complicated in terms of how and why this conflict erupted. What is complicated is how to unravel it.
“Wild pig-like animals are tearing up an Arizona golf course. The internet is delighted”
Can’t they spray bear-pee around those links to put those Javelinas off or the smell of some other of their predators.
One of my sisters lives in Tucson and we were there for xmas around the turn of the century and her neighbors let us use their place, and behind a low wall in the backyard of say 3 feet they kept a bucket of potatoes to feed the Javelinas in the hood.
It was the only time I was close to them, and rather all of the sudden a dozen appeared 15-20 feet away when I tossed a raw tater their way, including a recently born one with umbilical cord still attached.
If that was wild boar i’d be in perhaps deep kimchi being that close to what certainly looks like a hog to me, but they were pretty mellow.
When we had a lawn once upon a time in Tiny Town, wild boar tore it up on a few occasions just like the golf course in Az.
It happened so often, you’d hear things such as:
“I heard Steve got pigged again, what is that the 4th time now?’
After the courses shut down for the night, bolt action .22-250 +P with night vision scopes. Find where the critters enter the courses and set up firing lines behind hides next to there. It’s a full on cottage industry in Texas now.
The new Civic Motto in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone:
“Four legs good! Six legs bad!”
In my youth, in the old country, villagers would protect their crops by collectively guarding with guns and Indiana Jones type of whips the corn fields, etc. Quite a show.
In Neal Stephenson’s “Termination Shock”, giant feral hogs play a significant role, with Rufus Grant as a part Comanche professional hog exterminator. Not Stephenson’s best work, but it does have some cool crazy stuff.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_Shock_(novel)
re: Hamas’ tunnels
How far above sea level is the Gaza strip? Wouldn’t that limit how deep or how many levels of tunnels there could be?
Gaza Strip sits atop several (underground) limestone ridges that run parallel to the Med. Sea.
Pretty sure that the Vietcong didn’t need electrical ventilation. Good tunnel design should create decent natural ventilation, presumably
Just spitballin’, but if the tunnels are as intricate and deep as some suspect, they could be longer as well. Why wouldn’t some exits be in neighboring territories?
It’s been reported for years that they extend into Egypt.
Given the proximity of the Mediterranean, why not just get a big pump, and flood the tunnels?
It would wreak havoc with the (marginally) potable groundwater supplies, but it does not seem that this is much of a concern for Israel right now.
I recall the Egyptians already did that with some of the tunnels on their end back in 2018. I believe they used water and raw sewage.
IIRC, the groundwater in Gaza isn’t potable without extensive treatment – hence the desalination plant and the importation of water from Israel.
The aquifer in Gaza is oversubscribed, and sea water is infiltrating, and it is now considered unsafe to drink, though one could drink it.
There’s a hole in my nations soul where all the money goes
Jesus Christ died for nothing I suppose
The MIC says it’s for defense
when they turn wedding parties into red mist
The empire’s soldiers came home
To their wives and families
After serving in the endless wars overseas
And the time that they served
Had shattered all their nerves
And left them with prosthetic arms and legs
But the Oxycontin eased the pain
Of a country that didn’t know or care to explain
About the bombing and torture and murder non-stopping
When they could just go shopping
There’s a hole in my nations soul where all the money goes
Jesus Christ died for nothing I suppose
The MIC says it’s for defense
When they turn wedding parties into red mist
A parody of John Prine’s–Sam Stone
American nurse who got out of Gaza describes desperation she saw
This nurse’s account is so horrible, particularly the part about having to release severely burned children into refugee camps where there is no water, food, sanitation or medicine.
If you’ve ever been severely burned, you can only imagine the suffering these children are being forced to endure. A case could be made that those children who were killed instantly were the “luckier” ones.
Meanwhile, AP is reporting that “Israel agrees to 4-hour daily pauses in Gaza fighting to allow civilians to flee.”
Flee??? As the nurse in the interview states, Palestinians are refusing to leave their injured family and friends to save themselves. And what about bringing in supplies?
But biden “asked.” That’s how a corrupt, lifelong political parasitic grifter with advancing dementia does “the most powerful man on earth.” He “asks.” While signing the check. It’s pathetic.
It’s dreadful, and unless I’ve missed it, the water, food, fuel and medicine are still shut off except for a trickle at the Rafa crossing. Though even that does not include fuel.
Slight pauses for civilians to flee is another phrase for ethnic cleansing, imo.
Sex ring entrapping muckety mucks.
I found it interesting that AP used a picture from 2015 for an article in 2023.
Is their network so weak they cant get a fresher picture?
Or, is there some subliminal message there- showing 4 cops who are either standing around doing nothing in the bitter cold, or, 4 cops who are almost ready to storm some building. The facemasks and all black tactical gear is odd for cops just standing guard outside a courthouse.
Or yet another option, do cops circa 2023 look so much scarier and creepier than the 2015 version?
I would think rather than this 8 year old picture (of a courthouse) they could have just put up a photo of Ghislaine M. Or Jeffrey E. Or Bill G. Or Bill C.
Or better yet, how about a photo of one of these oligarchs that funnels cash and RVs to Supreme Court justices?
Funny that this should be bubbling up now.
Calling all new urbanists….
Irony alert: Biden admin approves new FBI HQ at a suburban greenfield site, overturning the Trump admin that wanted a new HQ at FBI’s current location in DC.
what is good for thee is not for me.
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/facilities-construction/2023/11/future-fbi-headquarters-coming-to-greenbelt-maryland-gsa-decides/
I guess this a is a testimony to how bad a lot of ’60s and ’70s architecture and construction really was, especially when built by the lowest bidder. It also doesn’t say much for the quality of GSA maintenance. I remember the fanfare that surrounded that building when it was finally finished and how “state of the art” it was supposed to be.
Still, Greenbelt isn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere and it’s on the Metro, so that’s something.
The “evaporating Internet” is directly adjacent to dead Internet theory, which is directly adjacent to the “ephemeral Internet” — With the the Internet splintering into jealously-guarded fiefdoms, people not using those services have no idea a discussion is even taking place (Telegram, TikTok, Instagram, et al. are invisible and not discoverable as far as the wider world is concerned). This is compounded by the “ephemeral Internet” which is better known as link rot; which means even if this discussion took place, if you weren’t there — using the service the discussion took place on — at the time, it may as well never have happened from your perspective, and those involved could not even prove it did. This has long been one of the primary criticisms of chat services like Discord.
I went back to read the link after your comment, and other than the clickbait title, there’s nothing there about the “Internet”. It’s all TikTok this vs Twitter that. The real story is the internet is still there, just most users can’t be bothered to be anything but a passive audience for the algorithm. (now get off my lawn…)
I was hoping for an informed discussion on changing trends in hosting, or maybe new ideas towards user focused search to be able to find what’s out there, or (wishful thinking!) maybe a partnership between browsers and the Internet archive to combat link rot, but no…… : (
I was hoping for a revival of USENET, myself.
Well, this sucks.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/09/microplastic-eating-plankton-worsening-crisis-oceans-plastic-pollution
After the discovery that Antarctic krill can break down microplastics, researchers decided to examine whether other aquatic life with similar chewing apparatus could do the same. They settled on rotifers, which are found in temperate and tropical climates around the world.
After some testing they discovered yes they can break down micro plastics and turn them into nano plastics.
Multiply that by a sickening amount to get a global figure and it’s probably well short of the truth since we don’t know what other microscopic animals are doing the same.
For the past 5+ years I’ve added backward walking to my daily walk. Close by my neighborhood is a quiet and hilly subdivision with smooth pavement. I walk uphill backwards there – approximately 1 mile in distance as part of my overall 5-6 mile walk. I find it very beneficial as the article states. I used to get odd looks from the neighbors, but now they are used to me. :)
A few decades ago, there was a researcher at Bell Labs in Murray Hill who only walked backwards. He was considered a little (but only a little) eccentric by his peers, but maybe he was on to something.
When I was a student at Hampshire College (finished at UMass Amherst when in my misguided youthful zeal I decided that I wanted to be a mechanical engineer) I did a division one exam (I examined a subject) reviewing an article, “Use of the UGA terminator as a tryptophan codon in yeast mitochondria.
That article was dated 1979.
This has been a known fact for over 40 years.
What are you referring to?
First link “Translucent microbe deviates from universal genetic code” (PNAS)
A terminator coding for an amino acid. Same as in 1979.
I dunno – $100 million seems like rather expensive “dating”, but that’s capitalism for you. A willing buyer and a willing seller is all it takes to make a market, I guess.
My favorite quote:
I’ll just bet he is. Still, if it’s a “very typical CEO-chairman” relationship, I guess that explains a lot about how the economy works. And I thought only workers were the ones who were getting [family blogged].
It can still evaporate. Think of dry ice sublimating, though there is very little sublime about the web these days.
And all we’ll be left with is a case of “the vapours?”
https://therecord.media/class-action-lawsuit-cars-text-messages-privacy
Has this one run in links or watercooler yet?
Thanks again for Watercooler; it’s great.
From the NYT – I like Cornel but his wheels don’t seem to hit the pavement and the Greens do have ballot access.
Jill Stein Announces Third-Party Bid for President
Court rules automakers can record and intercept owner text messages The Record – Simple solution; just copyright your texts.
This would explain a lot. The mad rush to the ethnic cleansing proposal, without securing Egyptian bribe money first. The hasty round up of international allies, but without a PR campaign follow up. The quick drawdowns of US/UK support fleets, with nowhere to deploy them. The push to get the army deployed in Gaza, but without a timetable or plan to get them out. Fire and motion, signifying itself. If this shark stops swimming, he will die.
“US calls for Palestinian Authority to run Gaza and West Bank after the war with Hamas”
Blinken has proved himself a total disaster as SecState and no countries are bothered listening to him anymore or even wanting to meet him. This idea for example. If the Palestinian Authority tried to take over Gaza they would be hunted down and killed. Nobody wants them back as they know them for the sell-outs that they are. In any case, the Arab countries, along with the countries of the Global majority want to concentrate on a cease-fire right now. These plans for some future time that the US comes up with like the Palestinian Authority taking over Gaza are totally irrelevant and are just meant to waste diplomatic time to give the Israelis the time and space to continue their genocide. Right now it is a toss up who is going to do worse geopolitically after this war – the Israelis or the US – but the treatment of Blinken seems to indicate the latter.
Time for the diplomats to step in: Out
To allow myself a nerd digression, when i see images of orca i think of a tabletop RPG called Blue Planet. It is set on a planet humanity is colonizing after discovering a stable worm hole past Pluto. As the planet is mostly ocean but for some archipelago, the colonists include uplifted dolphins and orca. The latter often serving as soldiers for the various governments and corporations establishing claims on the planet.