2021-07-17

Cool

The original source for the 1981 masterpiece “Defender” is now on GitHub
Learn Something Old Every Day, Part II
Activity discovered on largest comet ever found

The comet is estimated to be over 100km in diameter, which is more than three times the size of the next biggest comet nucleus we know, Comet Hale-Bopp, which was discovered in 1995. This comet is not expected to become naked-eye bright: it will remain a telescopic object because its closest distance to the sun will still be beyond Saturn. Since Comet C/2014 UN271 was discovered so far out, astronomers will have over a decade to study it. It will reach its closest approach to the sun in January of 2031. A recent article in the New York Times about the comet details its predicted travel.
- The Largest Comet Ever Found Is Making Its Move into a Sky Near You

California drought drives demand for water witches, who claim they locate water
The Truth Behind the Amazon Mystery Seeds

Or—it appeared—seeds. If this was brushing, the fact that seeds were being sent was more or less incidental. The seeds might still represent a biological threat—e-commerce hucksters are hardly likely to have researched which species might be appropriately imported into different parts of the United States—but only a haphazard one, not a targeted attempt to disrupt American agriculture, never mind anything more sinister.

It’s not logically impossible for both explanations to be correct: that some packages were brushing and some were delayed orders. But it is hugely improbable. What are the odds that, last summer, two completely different scenarios led to a simultaneous surge in the same weird-looking Chinese seed packages arriving at American homes?
Star Trek shows that hedonism can work for everyone
Lego Demands US Gunmaker To Halt Sales Of "Block 19" Pistol | ZeroHedge

Two-thirds of Southern Republicans want to secede - by Christopher Ingraham - The Why Axis

Nevertheless, the sheer number of Americans — particularly Republicans and Independents in the South — willing to turn “blow the whole thing up” into a signal of partisan loyalty is troubling.
Teen turned away from roller rink after AI wrongly identifies her as banned troublemaker • The Register

A Black teenager in the US was barred from entering a roller rink after a facial-recognition system wrongly identified her as a person who had been previously banned for starting a fight there.
Black and Hispanic in US less likely than White to own a computer or a broadband

GSA blocks senator from reviewing documents used to approve Zoom for government use | TechCrunch
'Havana syndrome'-like mystery illness affects Vienna US diplomats
(PDF) A report on the fighting culture of the US Navy Surface Fleet

The most concerning effect identified was an inversion of the chain of command itself. In an era of social media, text messaging, and email, it is easy for a disgruntled junior officer or sailor to grind their axe with targeted leaks. Many reporters publish their contact information in their bylines. Contacting a journalist is a simple task in the digital age, even for a teenage sailor. This ease of access, combined with the Navy’s proclivity, or at least perceived proclivity, to bend the knee when a reporter files a negative story, has instilled in junior officers and sailors a notion that they can effortlessly exercise power over their senior officers with unauthorized disclosures of internal military affairs.