…and a few of them have, like, totally stuck (bummer)…but watching the news and hearing every answer to every question begin with "so" is driving me batty.
So, cut it out.
5.15.2021
Yesterday we had a party…
OK then, the dust under the bed stays
Stop Spending Time on Things You Hate
“The cost of a thing,” [Thoreau] wrote in Walden, “is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
5.14.2021
The hackers are not the scary part: We are
Gas crunch from cyberattack intensifies in nation’s capital
The tracking service GasBuddy.com on Friday showed that 86% of gas stations were out of fuel in Washington, D.C., more than half were out in Virginia and 42% of Maryland stations were dry. More than 70% of stations were without gas in North Carolina, and more than half were tapped out in Georgia and South Carolina.
A gas station owner in Virginia said panic buying is the problem.
Yes, ransomware is a growing threat we need to respond to firmly and soon. Yes, it's frightening to think—know—so many essential services can be interrupted so easily. But that will continue to happen for some while and we need to roll with the punches when it does.
The Colonial Pipeline shutdown would have been much, much less an inconvenience if people had just kept their cool. Just carpooling for a day or two, postponing that trip to the hardware store until next weekend, letting the grass grow a little longer…small economies might very well have finessed the whole thing.
Like with the Great Toilet Paper Crisis of a year ago, this collapse didn't really need to happen.
5.13.2021
A museum you may not miss not going to
The Gatekeepers Who Get to Decide What Food Is “Disgusting”
Svið, a traditional Icelandic dish in which a sheep’s head is cut in half and boiled, was impossible to procure, for “logistical reasons,” Ahrens said.
5.12.2021
First things first
Chick-fil-A has a sauce shortage
The shortages at Chick-fil-A come as some areas of the country are dealing with gas shortages following a ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline. Charlotte, for instance, has seen 71 percent of gas stations report they are out of fuel.
We don't have a Chick-fil-A where I live, and we don't have a gas shortage either that I can see. The price of gasoline has gone up a dime or so in recent days but I write that off to good old-fashioned American profiteering
On a pizza? Seriously?
The Cicadas Are Coming. Let’s Eat Them!
“Cicadas taste a bit like nuts, as many insects do, but with every bite, my nose is reminded of popcorn, too,” he says.
I'm filing this under People Who Torment Me For My Own Good.
5.11.2021
On giving the robots guns
The Pentagon Inches Toward Letting AI Control Weapons
“Is it even necessary to have a human in the loop?”
Do we really need to know?
[Probably we do, Alas.]
And all I got was a little sticker*
Dracula’s castle proves an ideal setting for COVID-19 jabs
Those brave enough to get a Pfizer vaccine shot receive a “vaccination diploma,” which is aptly illustrated with a fanged medical worker brandishing a syringe.
*But getting vaxxed was still worth it. And it turns out only Romanians can get their shots at Bran Castle anyway, the AP reports.
5.10.2021
Somebody needs to get these guys a map
Trillions Of Cicada Aiming To Bugout The Northeastern USA And Spur Swarmageddon Messiness For AI Self-Driving Cars
–From ForbesYou can count around fifteen states in the northeastern part of the country as subject to the burst of cicada activity, including Indiana, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, and similarly situated locales.
Indiana is northeastern? Georgia? North Carolina is at least, I guess, "north," but really?
5.09.2021
Dissonance
A couple of times, by accident, I've found myself confronted by two fictional stories that illuminate each other somehow. The first was when I read Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls and James Michener's The Bridges at Tokyo-Ri in succession. Both are stories about attempts to blow up a bridge during wartime, Hemingway's bridge in Spain and Michener's in Korea. The juxtaposition left me more impressed than ever with Hemingway's work, less with Michener's.
The second, now, is reading Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt alongside watching Apple's television production of Mosquito Coast. The novel, Dirt, is about a woman and her son fleeing Mexico for the United States to escape unspeakable violence; the TV series is about a family trying to escape the United States for Mexico to escape perceived materialism and hypocrisy. The irony is palpable.
Both stories have quite a way to go before they end: I'm just hoping my head doesn't explode before they get there.
(In the meantime, both stories are recommended if you're up for it.)
The future is out there somewhere
This morning I reached into a kitchen cupboard for a bottle of white vinegar and came out with a bottle of olive oil.
That's going to make trouble for me some day, isn't it.
Let's pay attention here
Debunking the anti-vaccine hoax about ‘vaccine shedding’
"There is absolutely no biological mechanism for any COVID-19 vaccine side effects or vaccine components to shed to others," said Dr. Shruti Gohil, the associate medical director for epidemiology and infection prevention at the University of California, Irvine.
I've been reluctant to criticize people who decline shots (the currently popular euphemism is "hesitate") since, as long as the vaccines are still not approved (as opposed to permitted) by the FDA, reluctance is at least understandable. Still, I'm convinced getting vaccinated is the right—and smart—thing to do.
Beyond being good for you, getting vaccinated is also good for other, unvaccinated people because they're much, much less likely to catch the virus, at least from you.
They are, however, not at all likely to "catch" the vaccine from you, because it can't be done.
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