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  I've seen industry giants publish studies in academic conference proceedings which reach conclusions the complete opposite of what their own data show. In one prominent example, Google simply binned their data such that nearly all the entropy was smoothed away. I've seen the direction of entire industries, nations, cultures, and the world steered wherever industry wants, supported by academic trust washing. I've seen leading academics cynically sign on as lying industry stooges. We s...

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  One elevator town on the westernmost edge of cultivated land east of the Rockies.

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  A sign that hasn't had a purpose for half a century.

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  Courthouse stairs.

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  On YT there has emerged a network of 24x7 news channels laser focussed on criticism of DJT, MAGA, the Republican Party, and fellow travelers. The channel "Meidas Touch" appears to be the center around with they all orbit. They are competent, and fact-based while also being relentless and mocking. They are Fox/NewsMax if those two networks were anchored in the truth. I don't like it, but I get it. And it might be effective. Meidas videos have been appearing on Nazi/cons...

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  Maybe I've led an unusually cursed existence, but, starting at around age six, the white people I've encountered have been deeply racist. Some of them celebrate their racism. Some of them seem unaware. But their racism runs deep either way. Playing in a park with a Black friend when I was six, a slightly older white boy from the neighborhood approached us and demanded we give him our toy. When we refused, he called my friend "ni**er." In my segregated Texas to...

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  Here's the Wikipedia entry for the "New" US embassy in Moscow, constructed between 1979 and 2000. Possible connections to current events in Washington DC are for the reader to imagine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_States,_Moscow#New_building

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  Just encountered the word "apolaustically". The OED says it occurs less than once per 100,000,000 words in modern written english. It has two definitions: A. adj. Concerned with or wholly devoted to seeking enjoyment; self-indulgent. B. collect. sb. A suggested synonym for ÆSTHETICS; the science of the pleasurable.

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  In light of recent events which seem likely to have revealed considerable detail regarding US intelligence sources and methods, I went looking for information about the devastating November 1940 Luftwaffe raid on Coventry. Several sources have claimed Churchill chose not to evacuate Coventry before the raid because he feared doing so might reveal the existence of Ultra - the Bletchley Park codebreaking effort. Recent scholarship suggests these accounts are apocryphal. https://winstonchurchill...

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  By default, all Wikipedia pages now open with a site menu that consumes the left ~20% of the page width, and an editing menu that consumes the right ~20%. Why? I can't imagine I'm alone in only wanting to see either of those menus, maybe, 1% of the time.

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  Many years ago, I was sent down to the Lowell Observatory to set up a machine to stream data from an instrument straight to tape (DLT). A few things stuck with me from that trip. Flagstaff was still a little western town. Walkable. Independent bookstore. A coffee shop / hippie cafe called Macy's. The dorm at the observatory felt lost in time. But the big standout among all the high points was the IT systems manager and what a great job he'd done. Don't recall his name, b...

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  Lately, I have had very strong cravings for donuts. Not any specific extra tasty donut, just donuts in general. Even shitty supermarket donuts will do. When I buy a box, I immediately sit down and eat three or four in a row. What's that say about my overall nutrition? That my body is in critical need of palm oil or artificial chocolate?

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  Anyone here (still) using TcL/TK?

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  Bought this back at the start of the GW Bush administration.

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  @sk76 A while back I tooted about being stuck in a small town near Rovaniemi one night in the early 80s when hitching in Lapland. Not sure if I mentioned how the high school kids would load up on food from these carts and "drag main" in their parents' old Volvos and Saabs. Made me laugh to see how similar small town life in Lapland and the American midwest were/are.

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  @ChanceyFleet I'm not sure I've ever intentionally used an emoji. Some software automatically replaces emoticons with emojis, and I know I've been bit by that when moving fast. But intentionally? I don't think so. THIS, OTOH, I am here for :BreakDancingWombatWearingChapsAndClownShoes