Million dollar idea: a new telephone signaling protocol so that when I'm put on hold, it signals the music app on my local phone to play my tunes rather than whatever random junk has been badly recorded into their PBX.

(At least unlike “Sound and the Fury” you are aware of when the narrator changes.)

#Oops: The seminal paper that has been used for 25 years to justify that the use of #Glyphosate is safe has been retracted.

"Concerns were raised regarding the authorship of this paper, validity of the research findings in the context of misrepresentation of the contributions by the authors and the study sponsor and potential conflicts of interest of the authors. "

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273230099913715

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Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology ELSEVIER Volume 31, Issue 2, April 2000, Pages 117-165 RETRACTED: Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans Gary M. Williams 9 Robert Kroes °, Ian C. Munro © 2 This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal

Whenever I go to museums, I like to pause in front of stuff that definitely isn't art and talk about the "art" and how it makes me feel just to make the other people think they're missing something.

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I initially thought this was a step stool, but now I have no idea what it is. It's like a red metal thing that has a hinge and a shelf? Anyway, it's propped against a white wall in an art museum.

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Vintage light switch with a silver-aluminum/stainless steel switch plate in the corner of an art museum.

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Drinking fountain in a long hall in an art museum

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Restroom entrance in an art museum. There appears to have been some flooding in the past because the light wood floors have some water damage and staining.

”Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.” – Dale Carnegie

#quotes

(That is what I do for all of my extra fresh chiles when I hit up the Mexican and Asian markets here and buy too much.)

The problem with fact checking...

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Text in image reads:- I think this is all best summed up by a comment on a random right-wing typepad post from 2022 that has weirdly been making the rounds as a meme on social media lately but that is not satire, as far as I can tell, and is a genuine thought someone had. Username Right side rick says: “Unfortunately, the problem with left-leaning media is they’re intrinsically more strict with their propaganda to only using verifiable sources so it’s really hard to poke holes in their ideology and arguments in comparison to a lot of quality rightwing content. That makes attacking their points with fact checkers not very effective unless their fact checkers use misinformation tactics as well. In essence people like us on the right have to work harder and more creatively to push our agenda as statistics and, unfortunately, official studies aren’t usually on our side.” Oop! Right side rick, I think you just said the quiet part out loud buddy. But good job identifying the problem. Source https://www.leejamiller.com/episodes/2025/1/8/fact-checking-is-bad-for-business

I always thought of « ennui » as more of a state of being. However, in literature it is often used to describe something between boredom and depression. (It always brings me to French existential/absurdist literature, like Camus. « Ennui » isn't something you can give a single word definition to, but rather a concept. It's almost like “blasé” … IFKYK)

My heroine this week is ABC’s White House Correspondent Mary Bruce who asked the Saudi-Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman what Saudi-Arabia was doing at The White House, after Saudi-Arabia’s involvement in both 9/11 and the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

May her courage inspire us all.

#3166 - Big and Little Spoons

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Four-panel black-and-white comic. Panel 1: A stick figure gestures while speaking. Text: “Some people like to be the big spoon.” Panel 2: The stick figure continues, “Some people like to be the little spoon.” Panel 3: Text filling most of the panel: “And some brave truth-tellers point out that the metaphor makes no sense because different-sized spoons don’t nest right either way. You nest same-sized spoons.” Below the text are two pairs of spoons shown nested. Panel 4: The stick figure is shown lounging on a couch. They continue, “…And apparently we sleep on the couch.” Off-panel person: “Why are you still going on about the spoon thing?” Figure on couch: “Because I’m right!” Hidden text: "Are you the annoying spoon or the sleepy spoon?"

#3164 - Metric Tip

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The comic shows two stick figures. The one on the left, wearing a hat, asks, “How tall are you?” The one on the right replies, “5 ft 24 cm” - Caption below: “When switching to metric, make the process easier by doing it in steps.” Hidden text: "The package weighs 7 kg 9 oz."

So I met this Australian guy who works in IT...

I said: "Do you come from a LAN down under?"

He just smiled and gave me a mega byte sandwich ...

Surely one of the finest pieces of journalism of all time? The headline alone is award winning.

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DUCK EATS YEAST, QUACKS, EXPLODES; MAN LOSES EYE Rhadamanthus’'s Unusually Fermented Sunday Breakfast Causes It to Rise Piecemeal, Blinding Owner, DES MOINES, Jan, 2 - The strangest accident recorded in local history occurred this morning when Rhadamanthus, a duck, which took a prize at the recent Iowa poultry show, exploded into several hundred pleces, one of which struck Silas Perking in the eye, destroyIng the sight The cause of the explosion was the eating of yeast which was placed In a pan upon the back porch, and tempted his duckship, which was taking a Sanday morning stroll. Upon returning from church Mr Perking discovered his prize duck in an some what logy condition Telltale marks around the pan of yeast gave him his clue. He was about to pick up the bird when the latter quacked and exploded with a loud report and Mr Perkins ran into to house holding both hands over one eye. A surgeon was called, who found that the eyeball had been penetrated by a fragment of flying duck and gave no hope of having the optic.

An owl gliding through a cloud of helium-filled soap bubbles reveals wingtip and tail vortices.

Video credit: Usherwood et al.
Source: https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/223/3/jeb214809/223686/High-aerodynamic-lift-from-the-tail-reduces-drag

(Now I feel the need to re-read it, as well as get myself a copy the Book of Dust now that the third book is about to be published.)

Baking is science, but it is also fun. Experiment and enjoy each result.

(Sometimes I also put in some baking powder or soda to get some rise, and at least a teaspoon (5ml) of vanilla for flavor.)

Basically it's equal parts flour, sugar, and fat, with an egg to bind as needed and chips to taste. Also, letting the dough rest in the fridge for at least an hour helps, too.

#3160 - Document Forgery

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The image shows a comic depicting a fake university diploma. The diploma reads “East State University” at the top, with unreadable scribbles above and below. In the center, it says “Doctor of Philosophy in Document Forgery.” There are several illegible signatures and a circular seal at the bottom center with abstract symbols. Below the diploma, a caption reads: “If you put one of these up in your office, and no one notices, you’ve earned it.” Hidden text: "It comes with a certificate of authenticity, which comes with a certificate of authenticity, which comes with a..."