New posts from the.micro.blog
🔗 Articles: Tuesday 19.Mar.2024
NYT: Oprah Takes on Weight Stigma in the Ozempic Era in New Weight Loss Special
Oprah Winfrey, a longtime figure in the national conversation about dieting and weight bias, devoted an hourlong prime-time special on Monday to the rise of weight loss drugs. Her goal, she said, was to “start releasing the stigma and the shame and the judgment” around weight and weight loss — starting with her own, she said.
“For 25 years, making fun of my weight was national sport,” Ms. Winfrey said in the show, titled “An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution.”
Shame has become a focal point in that conversation as new drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro, which are widely used for weight loss, shift how people think about treating obesity. When Ms. Winfrey disclosed in December that she was taking a medication to manage her weight, she said she was “done with the shaming” that had followed her through decades of dieting.
UPI: SpaceX successfully launches another batch of Starlink satellites
The Falcon 9 rocket topped with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites launched at 7:28 p.m. PT from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The launch was the first-stage booster’s 10th flight. It returned to Earth where it landed on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, which was awaiting its descent in the Pacific Ocean. The booster previously launched two U.S. Space Development Agency and seven Starlink missions.
UPI: Pioneering Gemini, Apollo astronaut Thomas Stafford dies at 93
Former Gemini and Apollo 10 astronaut Thomas Stafford died at his home in Indian Harbor, Fla., on Monday, NASA said. He was 93.
Stafford, a retired Air Force lieutenant general, was a test pilot during the early days of the U.S. space program, flew on the first Apollo-Soyuz mission and was head of NASA’s astronaut office in the early 1970s, as well.
David Bushell: CSS Button Styles You Might Not Know
Have you ever repeatedly tapped on a button only for the page to zoom in unexpectedly? Rewind and fast-forward buttons in an audio player for example. This unwanted side effect can be removed with
touch-action:…
via Baldur Bjarnason (micro.blog: @baldur)
“There are times when I have sort of a negative chemical state in my brain,” Musk tells Lemon, adding that it’s “like depression, I guess.”
Depression is a common mood disorder defined by persistent symptoms such as sadness, a lack of interest in doing anything, and a loss of energy. Situational depression, is a type of short-term depression often brought on by stress, and can lead to similar symptoms, like feeling sad, hopeless, anxious, or irritable, according to the National Institute of Mental Illness.
“Some people are just wired to be happy all the time. Some are unfortunately wired to be sad a lot of the time,” Musk says in the video interview. “In my case, I’m generally pretty positive and optimistic, but once in a while I don’t know what happens … It’s like a brainstorm.”
Undecided with Matt Ferrell (YouTube): Tesla Solar Roof vs Solar Panels: Which is Worth It?
Some of you may have seen Marques Brownlee’s video from a few months back about how he hasn’t paid for electricity in a year because of his Tesla Solar Roof. But…this got me wondering why I’m still not seeing a lot of Tesla Solar Roofs around. I first hit on this issue in a video two years ago, and since then I’ve only seen one Solar Roof in my old neighborhood in Massachusetts … compared to dozens and dozens of homes with solar panels. I’ve also been asked a lot as to why I didn’t get a Solar Roof on my brand new house.
Well, I thought it might be interesting to compare my house to another house from here in New England that does have a Solar Roof. A friend of the channel, Paul Braren, invited me into his house to check out his setup. Both his system and my system were installed last year, so I thought it’d be really interesting to compare the two, the reasons why we did what we did, the costs, and our initial thoughts. By the end, maybe we’ll be able to figure out an answer to my question…why aren’t we seeing more solar roofs?
Special thanks:
Paul & Margaret Braren for inviting me into their home. Check out Paul’s work over at TinkerTry.
PBS News Weekend: The plastic industry knowingly pushed recycling myth for decades, new report finds
The world produces an average of 430 million metric tons of plastic each year. The United States alone produces tens of millions of tons of plastic waste annually. Yet on average, only about 5 to 6 percent of plastic in the U.S. is recycled. NPR correspondent Michael Copley joins Ali Rogin to discuss a new report on the plastic industry’s tactics to push recycling and avoid regulation.
MacRumors: Apple Rolling Out Updated Firmware for AirTags
Apple does share release notes for AirTag firmware updates, but the document has yet to be updated for the new release so there’s no word yet on what might be included in the update.
As is typical for AirTag updates, today’s firmware release will be rolling out on a staggered basis. One percent of users will get the update today, and then it will expand to 10 percent of users on March 26. On April 2, the update will expand to 25 percent of users, and then it will be available to all on April 9.
It is not possible to force an AirTag update, as it’s something that’s done over-the-air through a connected iPhone. To make sure the update happens, you can put your AirTag in range of your iPhone, but you have to wait for the firmware to roll out to your device. You can check your current AirTag firmware version through the Find My app, with instructions available in our how to.
Kingstonist: Suspended justice: Who is Napanee’s Jane Doe?
On December 30, 1984, a young woman’s remains were found on the edge of a farm just outside Napanee. The above are the things those in the community at the time still remember – that and the deep sadness of wondering if her family was looking for her.
Four decades have passed since she was found, and no one has claimed her. Her picture hangs in the Lennox and Addington Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police, …
Last Updated: 19.Mar.2024 23:35 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Wednesday 20.Mar.2024
Guardian: Scotland’s pledge to cut emissions by 75% by 2030 ‘no longer credible’
In a damning report submitted to the Scottish parliament, the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) accused the Scottish government of repeatedly failing to live up to its legally binding targets.
Despite missing the annual emissions reductions required by law in eight of the last 12 years, ministers still have no meaningful plans for hitting that target after failing to produce the climate change strategy due last year, the CCC said.
Its action and policies “continue to fall far short” of what was needed. Most sectors, such as housing, transport and farming, remained so far behind their interim targets “the acceleration required [to] meet the 2030 target is now beyond what is credible”.
Disappointing.
NYT: DNA From Discarded Gum Leads to Conviction in 1980 Oregon Murder
In the end, it was a discarded piece of chewing gum, casually spit on the ground in 2021, that was the key to solving the cold-case murder of a college student that had confounded the authorities in Oregon for more than four decades.
Robert Arthur Plympton had been under police surveillance since the authorities determined that year that he was a “likely contributor” to a DNA profile developed from swabs taken from the body of Barbara Mae Tucker, who was 19 when she was murdered on the Mount Hood Community College campus in 1980.
On Friday, Mr. Plympton, 60, was found guilty of murdering Ms. Tucker after a three-week bench trial in Portland, Ore. According to The Oregonian, which reported on the investigation and Mr. Plympton’s conviction, it was the oldest cold-case homicide in Gresham, Ore., east of Portland.
He was 16 at the time.
NYT: New Rules Will Still Push Carmakers to Sell More Electric Cars
Even if clean air rules announced on Wednesday in Washington are less forceful than some environmentalists would have liked, they should still have a powerful effect on the kinds of cars appearing in showrooms over the next several years, experts said.
The rules will amplify market forces pushing the industry toward battery power, giving automakers a strong incentive to sell a broader, more affordable variety of electric cars – not just the expensive sport utility vehicles that have dominated sales so far.
“It probably means more models and lower prices,” said Craig Segall, former deputy executive officer of the California Air Resources Board, an agency that played a key role in promoting electric vehicles in that state. “The way you win,” he said, referring to carmakers, “is making sure you have an E.V. in each segment.”
New Yorker: The Crime Rings Stealing Everything from Purses to Power Tools
A dozen detectives from the California Highway Patrol gathered in a Los Angeles-area parking lot the other morning for an operational briefing. In about twenty minutes, they would drive to a nearby Home Depot, where customers were known to regularly wheel carts of merchandise out the door without paying, and to stick power tools down their pants. The investigators had planned a nightlong “blitz”—surveillance, arrest, repeat. Anyone caught stealing would be handcuffed, led to a back room, and questioned: What did you plan to do with these items? Did you take them on behalf of someone else? The goal was not to micro-police shoplifting but to discover and disrupt networks engaged in organized retail crime, a burgeoning area of criminal investigation.
Letters Live (YouTube): Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave’s stirring letter about ChatGPT and human creativity
In August of this year, as part of his Red Hand Files correspondence project, legendary musician Nick Cave was asked questions about creativity and ChatGPT by two fans, Leon and Charlie.
Nick replied with a single letter, which Stephen Fry joined us to read at the 10th anniversary Letters Live show at London’s Royal Albert Hall in November 2023.
via John Philpin
Sulluzzu: Håg Capisco (and Unintended Consequences)
My company provides employee benefits annually that I can put towards things such as technology, ‘lifestyle’, ISAs, medical care etc. This year I decided to put all of my £500(before tax) towards a better task chair for home. To mitigate the discomfort of aging joints my wife had previously bought a Steelcase Gesture at great expense for her rented office, loves it, and now it felt like a good time to upgrade at home too.
Even buying refurbished chairs, a Steelcase would have burst the budget so I ordered a Håg Capisco with leather upholstery in near mint condition from a company called Corporate Spec.
My hunt for a good chair continues…
via BestOfTimes (micro.blog)
9to5Mac: Apple starts rolling out new AirTag firmware update
The new version of AirTag software build rolling out today is build number 2A73 and firmware version 2.0.73. This is up from the previous firmware version of 2.0.61, which was released with “bug fixes and other improvements” back in October.
There’s no word on what’s new in AirTag Firmware Update 2.0.73 just yet. Apple has a support document with AirTag update release notes, but that webpage hasn’t been updated to acknowledge today’s release just yet.
The process of checking your AirTag firmware version is a bit hidden. On your iPhone, open the Find My application, then choose the Items tab in the bottom navigation bar. Then, choose your AirTag from the list of items and tap on the name of your AirTag. Doing this should reveal the serial number and firmware version of your AirTag.
Again, if your AirTag does not show that it’s running the latest firmware, there is no way to force it to update. Instead, just make sure your AirTag is in range of your iPhone, and it should automatically update.
Last Updated: 20.Mar.2024 19:45 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Thursday 21.Mar.2024
The Economist: The Octogenarian Radical
Five elements stand out. The first is a desire to boost workers, mostly through unions. The second is more social spending, especially on early-childhood education. Third is tougher competition policy to restrain big business. Fourth, a wave of investment intended to make America both greener and more productive. Last, Mr. Biden wants to tax large firms and the wealthy to pay for much of this.
The Economist, February 3, 2024, pg 61
Vanity Fair: Throne of Games
There’s a completed puzzle onscreen, along with little video boxes for editors beaming in, including Sam Ezersky, joining from upstate New York, and Christina Iverson, from her Iowa home, where a cat can occasionally be heard meowing in the background. A few seats away, Joel Fagliano, sporting a New York Times T-shirt, a hoodie, and Allbirds sneakers, hunches over his computer and clicks around the grid while reading each clue and its answer aloud. Fagliano, known for never letting a meeting run long, works efficiently but also lets the group nerd out when appropriate. Like now. “All right, ‘Norwegian city depicted in’– oh really? I didn’t know Oslo was in the background of The Scream,” Fagliano says. He pulls up an image of the iconic Edvard Munch painting. “Hard to say what’s back there,” he chuckles, squinting at the ghostly image. “It seems like it’s sort of a whirling.”
The other editors are similarly skeptical as to whether the city of Oslo, the answer to the proposed clue, is clearly identifiable in the painting. “It’s just a blur. Maybe Munch says it was. I know it’s in Oslo,” says Iverson, referring to the physical location of the work. “If the painting is in an Oslo art gallery, I like that,” Ezersky says. Fagliano, still googling, adds, “This says they located the spot to a fjord overlooking Oslo.”
WSJ: U.S. No Longer Ranks Among World’s 20 Happiest Countries
The U.S. has fallen out of the top 20 happiest countries for the first time since a global ranking began in 2012, due in large part to a drop in happiness among younger adults.
Americans fell to 23rd place in happiness, down from 15th a year ago, according to data collected in the Gallup World Poll for the World Happiness Report 2024. Costa Rica and Lithuania were among the countries that reported being happier than Americans, according to the annual survey, which asks respondents to rate their current lives on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the best possible life for them.
Nordic countries dominate the top 10, with Finland at the top.
Guardian: Trump pleads with supporters for cash to help pay soaring legal bills
Donald Trump on Thursday again asked loyal supporters for cash to help him meet mounting legal expenses and keep the “filthy hands” of the New York attorney general off Trump Tower and other properties.
The appeal came as Trump faced an imminent deadline to pay a huge bond from a New York fraud trial that ended in a $454m civil judgment against him for overstating his net worth and the value of his real estate properties. If he is unable to post it, authorities could start to seize the former US president’s assets.
Under the headline “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower!” a Trump fundraising email sent to supporters read: “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia James wants to SEIZE my properties in New York. This includes the iconic Trump Tower.”
Last Updated: 21.Mar.2024 22:58 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Friday 22.Mar.2024
UPI: FBI probing Alaska Airlines flight with blown-out door plug as ‘possible crime’
The 171 passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines flight in January that suffered a sudden mid-air decompression when a fuselage panel unexpectedly blew out may have been the victims of a crime, according to the FBI.
TidBITS: US Files Antitrust Lawsuit against Apple, Alleging iPhone Monopoly
The US Justice Department, 15 states, and the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit against Apple, accusing it of violating antitrust laws to maintain an illegal iPhone monopoly. The lawsuit focuses on five areas: super apps, cloud streaming game services, messaging apps, smartwatches, and digital wallets, arguing that Apple explicitly took steps to prevent other companies from competing with Apple on the iPhone platform. Apple’s stance has long been that it restricts what third parties can do on the iPhone platform to protect users.
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The lawsuit claims that Apple’s iPhone market share by revenue in the US is 70% of the “performance smartphone market” and over 65% of the overall smartphone market.
Those statistics will come under scrutiny. Apple’s market share by revenue is higher than Android’s in large part because iPhones are more expensive. The market share of users is much more equal, with Statstista saying that the iPhone holds 54% of the market share compared to Android’s 45%. Even more telling is the iPhone’s global market share, which Statista puts at 20.1%. That makes Apple foremost in the global smartphone market by manufacturer (Samsung is second with 19.4%), but it is far behind in platform, given Android’s nearly 80% share. (Are there any other smartphone operating systems of any import?)
NYT: Kate Middleton Reveals Cancer Diagnosis: Live Updates on Princess of Wales
The princess described the news as a “huge shock” and asked for “time, space and privacy” in a prerecorded video broadcast on the BBC on Friday evening in Britain.
This is a significant event, but I don’t intend to “follow” this story.
NYT: What’s Next for the Coronavirus?
Scientists studying the virus’s continuing evolution, and the body’s immune responses, hope to head off a resurgence and to better understand long Covid.
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Many countries, including the United States, ramped up tracking efforts at the height of the pandemic. But they have since been cut back, leaving scientists to guess the scale of respiratory virus infections. Wastewater and hospitalizations can provide clues, but neither is a sensitive measure.
Globe: Capitals’ Wilson suspended six games for stick to the face of Leafs’ Gregor
The NHL’s department of player safety gave Wilson a suspension tied for the longest of any player this season after a disciplinary hearing with him on Zoom. The league offering that type of hearing instead of a phone call allowed senior vice-president of player safety George Parros to hand down a suspension of six or more games.
Wilson can appeal, first to commissioner Gary Bettman and then, if he and the NHL Players’ Association choose, to a neutral arbitrator. He had a 20-game suspension for a blindside hit to to the head in 2018 reduced to 14 games by an arbitrator on appeal after he had already served 16.
Is it enough?
Globe: Andrew Coyne: The productivity puzzle: How could we be doing so poorly? We did everything right!
So we are agreed that Canada is in a growth crisis. Attempts have been made to downplay it. If you calculate real per capita GDP using the Consumer Price Index as your deflator, for example, rather than the GDP price index, you get a marginally less depressing result. I stress marginally: Instead of fourth quarter per capita GDP being slightly lower than it was nine years earlier, it is slightly (1.1 per cent) higher. And yes, other measures of living standards, e.g. real wages and disposable incomes, have not stagnated to the same degree. But sooner or later these, like per capita GDP, tend to rise or fall in line with productivity
Which is really the issue. Labour productivity — output per hour worked — in Canada has not just been falling for the past year and a half, or moving sideways for nine years. Relative to other countries, it has been falling for the past 40 years: from close to 90 per cent of U.S. levels in the early 1980s, to nearer 70 per cent today. That, more than any short-term trend, is what really ought to worry us.
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But while we’ve got a lot of things right, we’ve also got a lot of things wrong. We might have liberalized much of our international trade, but important sectors of our economy — telecommunications, financial service, air travel — are organized as protected oligopolies, theoretically open to competition but effectively off-limits thanks to restrictions on foreign investment. Others — the post office, rail travel, liquor boards — remain government monopolies to this day, for no reason than because it would be too hard to break them up.
Globe: Letters
To the point
Re “So, what expenditures should Canada cut to meet its NATO obligations?” (Report on Business, March 21):
Nothing. Restore two points to the GST.
Craig Sims Kingston
Finally!
Lots of interesting letters on the “carbon tax” too.
Last Updated: 22.Mar.2024 23:35 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Saturday 23.Mar.2024
Guardian: Coffee drinkers have much lower risk of bowel cancer recurrence, study finds
People with bowel cancer who drink two to four cups of coffee a day are much less likely to see their disease come back, research has found.
People with the illness who consume that amount are also much less likely to die from any cause, the study shows, which suggests coffee helps those diagnosed with the UK’s second biggest cancer killer.
Looks like I picked a bad week to quit coffee…
Guardian: Medieval Christian misogyny shapes how we judge women today, says scholar
One of the first Christian authors to object was Tertullian, a Roman born around AD160. Other patristics – “fathers” of the early church – were persuaded by his theory that women who wore makeup were unnatural and even diabolical. Zhirnova added: “He’s thinking about it in terms of creation. So, God did not make eyeliner, therefore you should not use it. He has this hilarious argument, which is: if God wanted us to have purple wool, he would have given us purple sheep.”
In a fourth-century treatise on modesty, Saint Ambrose, a theologian and bishop of Milan, concurs with Tertullian. “Nothing counterfeit is pleasing,” he writes, adding that a woman’s beauty should be “natural and artless … nothing must be added for the sake of splendour”.
Interesting reading. I’m not sure how she separated speculation from fact.
Guardian: Canadian students hunger-strike for college to divest from Israel-linked firms
“McGill has ultimately pushed us to take this extreme form of action and put our bodies and our health and our lives on the line to make them know that it is absolutely unacceptable that they use our tuition money to invest in this way.”
The students are calling for McGill, one of the most prestigious universities in Canada, to divest about $20m from various companies.
Amine said the McGill administration had acknowledged the strike, and agreed to a public forum on the issue, before cancelling the meeting. The school proposed a private meeting in early March, the students said, which was turned down.
Dire Straits (YouTube): Down To The Waterline (What’s On, 22nd June 1978)
Dire Straits performing Down To The Waterline in a very early TV performance live on ITV’s What’s On in June, 1978.
I wasn’t familiar with this song. Quite the guitar work.
Mark Knopfler, Emmylou Harris (YouTube): Full Concert - Real Live Roadrunning (14.11.2006)
Enjoy the full concert “Real Live Roadrunning” only on the official Mark Knopfler YouTube channel: … [set list]
Can’t watch just one!
Last Updated: 23.Mar.2024 23:58 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Sunday 24.Mar.2024
Whig: Carpet Magic’s diminutive dynamo, 84, to retire after this year’s ‘BS’
That such energy, effort and efficiency are generated by an 84-year-old man is nothing short of incredible. And that it all springs from a jockey-sized body simply boggles the mind. On request, Tran sizes himself up. “One and a half metres, 50 kilos,” he says smartly, the latter number likely unchanged in decades. For you folks who still think in Imperial measurements, that’s four foot nine and 110 pounds, all tightly packed. Somewhere jockey Willie Shoemaker is smiling and saluting his fellow “little fellow.”
“Now coming busy, busy time for cleaning carpet,” Tran says, more as a reluctant reminder to himself.
He can take solace in this: Retirement beckons. This is Quan’s swan song, beginning and ending with the last nine months of 2024. Once that BS [busy season] is cleaned up, his 44th and final year of tireless toil — all at Carpet Magic, including the last 37 years as its owner and lone employee — will be over. He’ll hang up the hoses and brush aside the brushes. No more 15-hour workdays and seven-day-a-week work schedules. Come this time next year, Quan will have parted ways with a faithful old ally: his industrial-strength vacuum.
Whig: Kingston city council backs plan to cancel natural gas subsidy
Environmentalists welcomed Kingston city council’s support for an Ontario Energy Board’s plan to end subsidies for new natural gas pipelines.
Council voted in favour of a motion supporting the OEB’s decision and calling on the provincial government to end its effort to overturn it.
KitchenArm: Cloud Multigrain Bread Recipe
This recipe was carefully developed and tested at the normal room temperature 68°F - 77°F (20°C - 25°C) using Instant Dry Yeast, NOT Active Dry Yeast or Dry Yeast. Yeast is the only wildcard for a successful loaf.
It’s recommended to measure yeast by teaspoons and confirm by grams; measure flour by grams instead of by cups. If measure flour by cups, please observe these FIVE precautions: (a) Use US Standard measuring cup or the provided cup (b) Don’t use cup to scoop flour (c) Don’t fill cup from flour sack (d) Use a big spoon to loosen flour well, scoop flour, then loosely fill the cup (e) Level off flour at the cup top using a dinner knife.
Bread recipe with portion calculator.
Wikipedia: Start Me Up
The song has been included on every major Stones compilation album since its release, including Rewind (1971–1984), Jump Back, Forty Licks and GRRR!. Writing for AllMusic, Stewart Mason called it “the last great Rolling Stones song.” Rolling Stone magazine ranked it the 8th Best Sports Anthem.
Maybe my favourite Stones song.
ScienceAlert: Landmark Study Confirms Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is ‘Unambiguously Biological’
In 2016, years before long COVID was a thing, the US National Institutes of Health, the largest single public funder of medical research in the world, launched a study into a long-neglected and puzzling condition: chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME/CFS.
Eight years later, the results of that study are finally out. In one of the most thorough investigations to date, researchers took a deep dive into a small group of 17 people who developed ME/CFS after an infection and found distinct biological differences compared to 21 healthy controls.
“Overall, what we show is that ME/CFS is unambiguously biological, with multiple organ systems affected,” neurologist Avindra Nath, lead researcher of the study and clinical director of NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), said in an interview with JAMA.
For decades, many doctors had dismissed ME/CFS as a psychosomatic condition that was ‘all in patients’ heads’. Now there is little doubt: a host of biological changes underpin ME/CFS.
This is hugely important to getting funding to search for effective treatments.
Mermaid: About Mermaid
Mermaid allows even non-programmers to easily create detailed and diagrams through the Mermaid Live Editor.
Tutorials has video tutorials.
Last Updated: 24.Mar.2024 23:59 EDT
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