2024-04-03


etc

  • Temporary Shipping Channel Reopens Near Baltimore Bridge Collapse For Small Vessels

  • Owners of Cargo Ship Behind Baltimore Bridge Collapse: Don't Blame Us

  • What makes housing so expensive? - by Brian Potter

    We can divide the costs of a new home into roughly three buckets: “hard costs” (physically constructing the home), “soft costs” (design, administration, marketing, and other non-physical construction costs), and the costs of land. Per the NAHB, on average hard costs are about 56% of the total costs, soft costs (including builder profits) are about 25%, and land costs are about 18%.

    We see that hard costs are roughly 50/50 split between materials and labor (and we saw something similar when we looked at how the cost of individual construction tasks has changed over time). This is yet another thing that makes reducing construction costs difficult. A large fraction of hard costs are due to the cost of materials, and there’s no obvious path for making these cheaper. Bulk building materials are already mass-produced in factories, and are among the cheapest materials civilization is capable of producing. As we’ve noted previously, modern buildings are fairly materially efficient, and there’s no obvious path for using substantially fewer materials that doesn’t come with significant tradeoffs.

  • Eliminate the Chassis Requirement to Free Manufactured Home Development

  • Some people may see more images per second than others

    researchers found that if a light source flickers above the limit of how many images per second a person could perceive, the person will not perceive the light source as flickering at all. To discover the maximum number of images per second each study participant could perceive, scientists measured each person's “critical flicker fusion threshold.” Some people perceived a light to be completely still even when it flickered about 35 times per second, but other participants could still detect the rate of a light flickering even when it was flashing more than 60 times per second.

  • Lifelong ‘Star Trek’ Fan Leaves Behind a Massive Trove of Memorabilia - The New York Times

    The items took up two living rooms and a bedroom, all lined with bookshelves, according to Elena Hamel, one of the brothers’ nieces. The centers of the rooms were lined with additional bookshelves — all packed to the brim — to create aisles. There were jewelry cabinets serving as display cases. The shelves contained action figures. Dolls. Models of ships. Posters. Ornaments. Lunchboxes. Legos. Several toy phasers and tricorders. (For non-Trek fans, the phaser is a weapon, and a tricorder is, essentially, a fancy smartphone.) Multiple “Star Trek” lamps. (Yes, there are “Star Trek” lamps.) Trading cards. Comic books. Trek-themed Geeki Tikis (stylized tiki mugs). Life-size cutouts of famous characters. A life-size captain’s chair.

Horseshit


Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

  • Health Alert: First Case of Novel Influenza a (H5N1) in Texas, March 2024

  • U.S. dairy farm worker infected as bird flu spreads to cows in five states

  • Avian flu: Birds, cows, and now a human

  • First human case of bird flu reported in Texas, following exposure to infected cattle.

  • The WHO’s Power Grab | City Journal

    With the support of the Biden administration, the World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking unprecedented powers to impose its policies on the United States and the rest of the world during the next pandemic. It was bad enough that America and other countries voluntarily followed WHO bureaucrats’ disastrous pandemic advice instead of heeding the scientists who had presciently warned, long before 2020, that lockdowns, school closures, and mandates for masks and vaccines would be futile, destructive, and unethical. It was bad enough that U.S. officials and the corporate media parroted the WHO’s false claims and ludicrous praise of China’s response. But now the WHO wants new authority to make its bureaucrats’ whims mandatory—and to censor those who disagree with their version of “the science.” The WHO hopes to begin this power grab in May at its annual assembly in Geneva, where members will vote on proposed changes in international health regulations and a new treaty governing pandemics. Pamela Hamamoto, the State Department official representing the U.S. in negotiations, has already declared that America is committed to signing a pandemic treaty that will “build a stronger global health architecture,” which is precisely what we don’t need.

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

TechSuck / Geek Bait

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

  • Blaming Russia For “Havana Syndrome” Pushes The Opposite Narrative Than Intended

    CBS News, The Insider, and Der Spiegel released the findings of their joint investigation on Sunday blaming Russia for “Havana Syndrome”, which refers to the mysterious ear and head pain that over 1,500 US Government (USG) staffers across the world claim to have experienced since 2016. It appeared timed to coincide with Congress’ plans to vote on Ukraine aid sometime later this month, with the intent obviously being to scare lawmakers into approving more funds for America’s proxy war on Russia. It might have the opposite effect than intended, however, since those outlets’ dramatic claims paint a picture of deep Russian intelligence penetration of the US’ diplomatic and security services that can’t be remedied by simply sending more money to Ukraine. If what they wrote is true, then Russia has created a mobile directed energy weapon (DEW) that it’s already successfully used over 1,500 times, including against the US’ “top 5%, 10% performing officers across the Defense Intelligence Agency”.

  • New evidence "Havana Syndrome" caused by GRU sabotage squad of Russian Military

Russia Bad / Ukraine War