Monastery of the Holy Trinity, Meteora - updated

I've always been fascinated by places like this.  The one in this image is the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Meteora in Greece.  

Prior to the twentieth century, Holy Trinity had a very difficult approach, requiring crossing a valley and climbing through the rock outcrop to reach the building's entrance. Provisions were placed in baskets drawn up by rope-ladders (now with a winch). In present day, one can walk from Kalambaka for 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) along a foot track to reach the monastery, or use a winch-operated lift. There is a road from the back side of the cliff. It is currently reached via tunnels and 130 steps of stone. The grounds include a 2-acre (0.81 ha) garden at the summit.

When I first blogged Meteora fifteen years ago, I offered this observation:

Meaning ‘suspended in air’ the name Meteora includes the entire rock community of 24 monasteries. There were no steps and the main access to the monasteries was by means of a net that was hitched over a hook and hoisted up by rope and a hand cranked windlass to winch towers overhanging the chasm. Monks descended in the nets or on retractable wooden ladders up to 40m long to the fertile valleys below to grow grapes, corn and potatoes... the ropes were replaced, so the story goes, only "when the Lord let them break..."

In ancient times building materials would have been winched or hand-carried; perhaps nowadays they use helicopters.  I can guess how human waste was disposed of in the 14th century; not sure how that is managed now.

Photo credit Michael Probst / AP, via The Atlantic.

Reposted to insert this awesome 70-minute video about all six monasteries in Meteora, submitted by reader Aleksejs:

The Trump effect on the Canadian elections

(Note: in the Guardian graph embedded above, the liberals are in red, the conservatives in blue)

Justin Trudeau's liberal party was effectively "dead in the water" with a 20% public opinion poll favorable rating, impossibly behind the conservatives.  After Trump initiated his economic war on Canada, public opinion has shifted massively.  Trudeau stepped down, and the liberal party replaced him with Mark Carney, who has an ideal C.V. for managing economic turmoil:

He graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University in 1988, then studied at the University of Oxford, where he earned a master's degree in 1993 and a doctorate in 1995. He held various roles at Goldman Sachs before joining the Bank of Canada as a deputy governor in 2003. In 2004, he was named as senior associate deputy minister for the Department of Finance Canada. In 2007, Carney was named Governor of the Bank of Canada, where he was responsible for Canadian monetary policy during the 2008 financial crisis. He led the Canadian central bank until 2013, when he was appointed as Governor of the Bank of England, where he led the British central bank's response to Brexit and the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Canadian election is coming up in a couple weeks.  Carney will be doing battle with a man who has taken four (or six) companies into bankruptcy.

This was Carney's address to the people of Canada:

He did an interview with Jon Stewart three months ago.

Meeting the parents

Chuckleworthy.  Found on the Oakville Chamber Orchestra Instagram account, with a tip of the blogging cap to Austin's Swamp Campground in Longville, MN. 

Addendum:  Readers old enough to decipher script have identified the cartoonist as Tony Husband (additional panels at this archive link).

How artificial intelligence views TYWKIWDBI

I asked the Google AI to give me information about this blog.  The embed above is the response.  Reasonably accurate, IMHO.

"Eyestalk ablation" explained

"Eyestalk ablation is the removal of one (unilateral) or both (bilateral) eyestalks from a crustacean. It is routinely practiced on female shrimps (or female prawns) in almost every marine shrimp maturation or reproduction facility in the world, both research and commercial. The aim of ablation under these circumstances is to stimulate the female shrimp to develop mature ovaries and spawn.

Most captive conditions for shrimp cause inhibitions in females that prevent them from developing mature ovaries. Even in conditions where a given species will develop ovaries and spawn in captivity, use of eyestalk ablation increases total egg production and increases the percentage of females in a given population that will participate in reproduction. Once females have been subjected to eyestalk ablation, complete ovarian development often ensues within as little as 3 to 10 days. The practice was a major development for the commercialisation of shrimp farming in the 1970s and 80s since it enabled reliable production..."

Image from the Interesting subreddit thread, where the discussion thread comments express surprise, dismay, and horror.

Amazing dishwasher

I particularly like the claim that it "cuts cycle time by over 4000%."  Via Neatorama.

An argument that birders and bikers should be more like hunters

Excerpts from an op-ed in the Minnesota Star Tribune:

In a few weeks, some 200 Minnesota birders will flock to the Salt Lake Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Lac qui Parle County near the South Dakota border... How much, you ask, will the birders pay to visit Salt Lake and similar important wildlife meccas?  Nothing. Nada. Zero.

Meanwhile, the wildlife photographer Bill Marchel of Brainerd — who is a birder by any definition — will need a virtual billfold full of licenses this fall to hunt on Salt Lake and nearby WMAs.  Required will be a $22 small game license, an $8.25 state duck stamp, a $25 federal duck stamp and an $8.25 pheasant stamp.  Salt Lake WMA’s 768 acres were, in fact, purchased by the Department of Natural Resources using money raised by hunting and fishing license sales... 

“Unfortunately,” Henderson said, “birders in Minnesota are so used to getting a free ride from habitat created by hunters that they’ve become accustomed to it. In every season other than fall, when hunters are on WMAs — which they’ve mostly paid for — birders are the biggest users of these areas."..

What does Johnson pay to ride on Minnesota’s more than 4,000 miles of paved bike trails?  Nothing. But, like a lot of bikers, he’d be glad to chip in.  “In fact, I believe I should help pay for the trails,” he said.

Minnesota bikers — like the state’s birders, and in fact hikers and others — can thank hunters and anglers for the nearly $700 million in Clean Water, Land and Legacy funds that have been spent building, improving and expanding the state’s parks and trails since 2010.

And birders can thank the same hunters and anglers for the $1.7 billion spent on Minnesota wildlife habitat and related projects in the same years...

As hunters and anglers continue to decline as a percentage of the state’s population, more Minnesotans of common interests are needed to join the conservation fight. 

This old post didn't age well...

Hat tip to Tom Thoresen.

Good vibes

The lyrics are Japanese tongue-twisters.  Discussion at the oddlysatisfying subreddit.  Original of the cover.

Geometry puzzle

I wasn't able to do it, but this is solvable using only simple geometry without trigonometry.  The answer is in this video.  Via the SmartPuzzles subreddit.

News from The Onion

Story here.

"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign..."

I think my favorite one (not shown in this photo from The Atlantic), was something to the effect that "You Know Things are Bad When the Introverts are Marching."

"The Residence"

I step away from the blog for 10 days and the world economy enters a tailspin that threatens a global recession.  It's time to stop doomscrolling and focus on other things, including this trailer for a series currently streaming on Netflix.  

The Residence is an 8-episode "mystery comedy drama" styled in the fashion of a classic English country-house murder with dozens of suspects and motives.  What struck me was the high quality of the acting by a large cast of dozens of characters - a reminder that the world is full of outstanding actors that are not famous-name Hollywood celebrities.  This is not something I would re-watch, but it did provide four evenings of pleasant entertainment.  Readers are welcome to leave reviews in the Comments.

What do billionaires want?

I'll resume serious blogging after the weekend, but wanted to share this Sarah Cooper video now.

I'm taking a momentary break from my blogcation to post this video.  Like many readers here, I have been watching with fascination and horror the evolving economic turmoil generated by tariffs [I'll note here in passing that "tariffs" ends with FFS...]

I have been bouncing between reading mainstream media, fringe media, Reddit, The Onion, Facebook, Bloomberg TV, and the esoteric sources I browse to compile this blog.  For a while I was fascinated by the somewhat conspiracy-minded proposal that the crashing of the stock market has been intentionally engineered by business oligarchs and billionaires who are encouraging Trump to implement his tariffs and thereby trigger recessionary forces that are already driving down asset prices of commodities and equities, thus setting the stage for their repurchase at bargain-basement prices by those with boatloads of $$$.

Maybe more on that later.  But for now I'll just share the short video above.  The embed is about 12 minutes long, but if that is to long for the TLDR crowd here, just use the slider to skip to the 6:20 mark to learn the real WTF fact about Trump's decision to use tariffs.

My list of bookmarks of "things to blog" has grown massively in the last couple days, but I'm going to wait to resume writing for TYWKIWDBI until after my taxes are done, the winter garden debris is cleaned up, the Easter season activities are over.  Bye for now.  And good luck.

Relevant addendum: "Billionaires Start to Buy Their Own Stock Amid Market Turmoil"  "Some of the world’s super-rich are increasing allocations to their major listed assets amid the bedlam in global markets, defying fears of the worst stock meltdown since 2020 being far from over."

Another addendum: Trump ignites ‘insider trading’ accusations after global tariffs U-turn

(regular blogging resumes after the weekend before my folder of bookmarks explodes....)

Blogcation begins today for about two weeks

A simple April Fools' prank

Works with reasonably-intelligent primates only. 

You were warned.

Here's something to try tomorrow

Post this sign above the photocopier at your place of work. 

"So many people falling for it - every few minutes I can hear loud yelling coming from the print room."

The Reddit thread had links for other brands of photocopiers (and for a Coke machine and various other pranks) fourteen years ago, but those have undergone linkrot.  This is the only one I saved.

Clever rebus

"The “Hi Neighbor” is just a tagline for the Narragansett beer company, so you can ignore that on the coaster."

Found at the rebus subreddit, where there are many may more.  I've put the solution in the first comment.

"Sometimes I Think About Dying"

I watched this movie last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The title is a bit misleading in that the lead character (Daisy Ridley) is not suicidal or morose. Her thoughts about dying probably arise as a result of her rather boring routine life as a young woman with limited social skills; these thoughts are interspersed in the movie as several surreal but not morbid moments.  

This is not your typical "rom-com."  There is tentative romance, but only awkward moments of comedy.  The overall experience of watching the movie is to spend an hour and a half experiencing the life of an intelligent attractive young woman lacking in standard social graces.  As what I would call a "slice-of-life" movie, it reminded me of the equally quiet and introspective movie "Perfect Days." 

Readers are invited to leave their own reviews in the comments.

"Bye and Bye" (Punch Baldwin, with the Georgia Mass Choir)

 

Hard to sit still while listening to this music.  Here are the lyrics:

(Bye and bye) Bye and bye

(Bye and bye) Bye and bye

(When I reach) When I reach

(That home) That home

(Beyond) Beyond the sky

(Where the) Wicked will cease from troubling

(And the) Weary will be at rest

(Every day) Every day will be Sunday

Bye and bye

When I reach that city (oh yes)

City so bright and fair (oh yes)

When all my friends and loved ones (oh yes)

Are gonna welcome me up there (oh yes)

Put on my long white robe

Lay down my heavy load

(Everyday) Everyday will be Sunday, bye and bye

Chorus

Verse

When I reach that city (oh yes)

City so bright and fair (oh yes)

Well all my friends and loved ones (oh yes)

Are gonna welcome me up there (oh yes)

Gonna look up Job, John, and Elijah

God told them to prophesy

(Everyday) Everyday will be Sunday, bye and bye

Chorus

When I reach that city (oh yes)

City so bright and fair (oh yes)

Well all my friends and loved ones (oh yes)

Are gonna welcome me up there (oh yes)

Gonna look up Job, John, and Elijah

God sent them to prophesy

(Every day) Every day will be Sunday, bye and bye

Chorus

(Every day) Every day will be Sunday (4 times)

(Oh Everyday ) Every day- (Will be Sunday) Every day

(Every day) Every day- (Will be Sunday) Every day (3 times)

(No more crying) Every day- (Over yonder) Every day

(No more dying) Every day- (Over yonder) Every day

(No more sickness) Every day- (Over there) Every day

(No more pain) Every day- (Over there) Every day

(Nothing but Joy) Every day

(Joy) Every day (7 times)

(Joy Joy) Every day-(Joy Joy) Every day-(Joy Joy) Every day-(Joy Joy) Every day

(Will you) Every day - (Be There) Every day (2 times)

(Wave your hands) Every day- (If you?re going) Every day (2 times)

(Will you) Every day- (Be There) Every day (2 times)

(Over Yonder) Every day (4 times)

( I feel like Praising) Every day ( I feel like dancing) Every day( I feel like Dancing) Every day

(When I get to Heaven) Every day- (Gonna shout) Every day (2 times)

(Nobody there) Every day- (Nobody) Every day- (Nobody there) Every day- (Will put me out) Every day

(Every day) Every day- (will be Sunday) Every day

(Every day) Every day will be Sunday bye and bye

bye and bye

"The Georgia Mass Choir is an American Gospel music choir from Macon, Georgia.  The ensemble, which numbers 150 members, was founded in 1983 by Rev. Milton Biggham, the lead vocalist and songwriter for the group. He put together the group from over 600 applicants, and recorded with them on his label Savoy Records in the middle of the decade.  In 1996 the ensemble appeared in the Whitney Houston movie The Preacher's Wife and performed at the 1996 Olympic Games."

This gospel song is different from the Christian hymn (and country western favorite) In The Sweet By and By that has been covered by Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley et al, but I wonder if there might be some relationship between the two.

Reposted from 2021 to share with a Zoom group in which I'm currently participating.

From The Onion...

Source.  Another news story is ‘I Messed Up At Work Again,’ Crestfallen Michael Waltz Texts Wife, National Geographic Editorial Staff."

Hiking the Iditarod

"A Minnesotan following a famous sled dog path was the first woman to arrive on foot Saturday night in the human-powered version of the race across interior Alaska.

Pulling a sled packed with 55 pounds of gear, Kari Gibbons hiked into Nome after a little more than 27 days navigating the Alaska wilderness to win the Iditarod Trail Invitational 1000." [1000 miles]

The story continues at the StarTribune [gift link].

Addendum:  Found an artile about bicycling the Iditarod (in winter).  Hot tip:

"The day before the race was spent cutting all the food into bite sizes (you can’t bite into a frozen candy bar and have a pleasant experience), assigning pockets for spare batteries, inhaler, toilet paper, chamois cream, eye drops, and everything that needs to be kept close to your body so it won’t freeze solid, and keeping an eye on the forecast..."

Pallets of American alcohol returned from Canada

There are multiple reports confirming this activity.  This image via a Boycott USA -UK Facebook thread.  It previously was posted in a BuyCanadian subreddit thread, where the long discussion makes note of the fact that these products are shipped to retailers in Canada on consignment, and the costs of return shipment have to be eaten by the manufacturer.

Here's my protest:

When I moved from Texas to Kentucky, I switched my favorite recreational beverage from tequila to bourbon.  Now, 40+ years later, I'm switching to Canadian whiskey.  Turns out I like the taste better, so it's a win-win for me.

Posting this to ask readers' advice as to whether there are any low-priced Canadian wines that are readily available in the U.S.  

"The Beaverton" is Canada's "The Onion"

Homepage.

These demons are all possessive

Via.

Ocean currents visualized

Very cool five-minute animation if you can view fullscreen on desktop rather than phone.  Interesting how the Pacific equatorial current smashes into the Galapagos.  Wish they had shown the Southern Ocean in some detail.  Via Miss Cellania, where there is also a humorous photo of Riley and Albert.

Scalpers selling appointments for drivers' licenses

"Scalpers have been known to buy and resell hot tickets for big-name music acts or sporting events, like Taylor Swift concerts and the Super Bowl. In Florida, some were using the same tactics for a less glamorous pass: a driver’s license appointment in Miami-Dade County.

The county tax collector’s office announced on Monday that it had “uncovered a network of appointment scalpers” benefiting from access to motor vehicles offices by “hoarding free appointments and reselling them for a profit.”

The scalpers found so far have not been punished, because the practice was not illegal, but there is already an effort to change that and make it a civil offense...

The scalpers booked the appointments by using bots and fake accounts, and then resold the appointments for $25 to $250, the office said...

Residents have been forced to book their appointments online weeks or months away, only to stand in lines that often wind out the office doors when they arrive."

More information at The New York Times [gift link].

Try to guess the purpose of this table design

Described at the WhatIsThisThing subreddit as "A table with a slightly recessed top with a depressed surface near one end. Found at a thrift store, the table is about 25” tall, 3’ long and 18” wide.  The table appears to be made of painted beechwood while the surface is stained wood. The depressed area makes me think the table is made for sorting or is intended for some sort of game."  

Image cropped to highlight the object, which many of us have seen without knowing so.

Stories from a used book store owner

A very nice, well-appointed lady spends about an hour browsing the stock, including the locked cases. After building a rather formidable stack of unrelated books worth over $3,500 (including some very scarce Mark Twain first editions), I couldn't resist asking:
What do you collect?
Oh nothing, but I will purchase these.
(My curiosity getting the better of me) A gift?
No. I am going to use them to decorate my daughter's bathroom.
(Silly me! I failed to notice that the books were all various shades of green. This is a good thing, since the books will soon be color-coordinated with the mold).
Let me help you carry these out to your car.

(phone call - grownup)
I have a book I want to sell.
What is it?
It's by John Stainback. It's called "The Wayword Bus"
Who's the publisher?
I just said, John Stainback
He's the author, sort of. Let's try again, what does the copyright page say?
Where's that?
Sorry, I can't use it. Thanks for calling.

phone call...
I have a bunch of old books I want to sell on e-bay. Can you tell me what they are worth?
Why would I want to do that?
My friend said to call you and that you know a lot about books.
You are missing my point. Why should I waste my time helping you?
So I can know what reserve to put on my books.
I charge for appraisals.
Well this isn't an appraisal. I just want to know what they are worth.
Sorry, you will have to call someone else. Good luck!

(Woman mid-thirties, pondering a purchase)
I have never read a book this long. It would really have to be good for me to read this one (149 pps.).

(Woman, in her mid 30s)
Do you have the "Titanic" book?
No.
I'd like to read it.
Uh huh.
Did you know it's a true story, except for the romantic part?
(this is worse than I thought!)

You have a book I want, but it's $30. Would you take less? I just want to look at the pictures.

It's too hot in here! Why don't you turn on the air conditioning or something?
You could take off your sweater.

Have you read all these books?
Of course! I never sell a book without reading it first.
(Real long pause)
When do you watch TV?

Hi, are you hiring?
No. Not at this time.
I like books.
So do I.
I promise not to get in the way. I could just read or something.

Have you ever seen the Guggenheim Bible?
Yes.
Wow!

phone call...
Are you hiring?
No.
Good! Can I have your company's name?
Why?
I have to tell the Unemployment Department that I am looking for a job.
This is the Unemployment Department. Can I get your name?
(click)

phone call...
I have a rare book.
What do you have?
It's called Sea Wolf.
By London.
Yea.
What makes you think it's rare?
It's signed by him.
Is it a first edition?
Yea.
Who is the publisher?
Dell.
It's a paperback?
Yea.
What year was it published?
1976.
He must have been pretty old when he signed it.
Yea, he was.
I have to go now.
Do you want to buy it?
No.

(Customer fills out search card: 16 Chapels)
(me) Oh, you're after books on European Churches?
No, just books about the 16 Chapels.
16 Chapels?
Yea, you know the one with the big painting on the ceiling.
We will let you know what we find (once we stop convulsing).

There are more at the BookMine, which also has this interesting column.

Reposted from 2016 in order to end my blogging morning on a cheerful note.

An example of why many people detest ultraprocessed foods

The photo shows a Johnsonville brand sausage.  The discussion thread at the mildlyinfuriating subreddit thread suggests that these are probably plastic fibers rather than animal hair.

Black Medal of Honor recipient - a DEI beneficiary?

"The US defense department webpage celebrating an army general who served in the Vietnam war and was awarded the country’s highest military decoration has been removed and the letters “DEI” added to the site’s address.

On Saturday, US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers’s Medal of Honor webpage led to a “404” error message. The URL was also changed, with the word “medal” changed to “deimedal”.

Rogers, who was awarded the Medal of Honor by then president Richard Nixon in 1970, served in the Vietnam war, where he was wounded three times while leading the defense of a base.

According to the West Virginia military hall of fame, Rogers was the highest-ranking African American to receive the medal. After his death in 1990, Rogers’s remains were buried at the Arlington national cemetery in Washington DC, and in 1999 a bridge in Fayette county, where Rogers was born, was renamed the Charles C Rogers Bridge..."

More information at The Guardian.

Addendum:  the alterations appear to have been reversed.

65th anniversary of The Day I Didn't Die

It was 1960.  I was flying from Minneapolis to Florida via Chicago for a spring vacation with a school classmate (on the left).  That was the era when you got dressed in your best clothes, and you walked out on the tarmac to climb the steps into the plane.  And you loaded up on some comic books for in-flight entertainment:

You can imagine the excitement for a Minnesota boy to get to go to Florida to visit family.  My dad took these photos, and on the back of one of them I found a message that I wrote several years later when my parents told me a little more backstory...

I suppose technically every day is the anniversary of a day one didn't die, but some of those days are more memorable than others.

Happy St. Urho's Day !!

"Saint Urho (Finnish: Pyhä Urho [ˈpyhæ ˈurho]) is a fictional saint of Finland, created and elaborated by Finnish Americans in Northern Minnesota in the 1950s, to celebrate their heritage and extend celebrations of Saint Patrick's Day. His celebration day is set to March 16, the day before the March 17 feast day of Saint Patrick...

According to the original "Ode to St. Urho" written by Gene McCavic and Richard Mattson, St. Urho was supposed to have cast "tose 'Rogs" (those frogs) out of Finland by the power of his loud voice, which he obtained by drinking "feelia sour" (sour whole milk) and eating "kala mojakka" (fish soup)... The legend now states that St. Urho drove away grasshoppers (rather than frogs) from Finland using the incantation "Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä helveteen!" ("Grasshopper, grasshopper, go from hence to Hell!"), thus saving the Finnish grape crops."

With a tip of the blogging cap to Meg Lindberg for bringing this to my attention.

A period should signify a full stop

The news as it was written for the newscaster:

“Good evening, I’m Ken Bastida; Dana is off tonight.

He was murdered and then set on fire while celebrating his birthday. The body of Jimmy Frezshi was found by firefighters on Monroe Street…"

The result when read off the teleprompter:

“Good evening, I’m Ken Bastida. Dana is off tonight; he was murdered and then set on fire while celebrating his birthday.

The body of Jimmy Frezshi was found by firefighters on Monroe Street…"

Reposted from 2009 to add this example from the BBC:

 

Listen again... "This is BBC World News.  I'm Jonathan Charles, kept hidden for almost two decades and forced to bear children."

Reposted from 2018 because I needed a laugh today.

"My wife asked me why I spoke so softly in our house..."

I told her I was concerned that someone might be listening.

She laughed.

I laughed.

Siri laughed.

Alexa laughed.

Reposted from 2022 to add the following from Ars Technica:

"In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon’s cloud. Amazon apparently sent the email to users with “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” enabled on their Echo. Starting on March 28, recordings of everything command spoken to the Alexa living in Echo speakers and smart displays will automatically be sent to Amazon and processed in the cloud.

Details at the link.

Sonic weapon used on peaceful protestors

As reported by AP News:

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbian officials denied Sunday that the country’s security forces used a military-grade sonic weapon to disperse and scare protesters at a huge anti-government rally in the capital.

Opposition officials and Serbian rights groups claimed that the widely banned acoustic weapon that emits a targeted beam to temporarily incapacitate people was used during the protest Saturday. They say they will file charges with the European Court of Human Rights and domestic courts against those who ordered the attack.

Serbia has not denied that it has the acoustic device in its arsenal.

At least 100,000 people descended on Belgrade on Saturday for a mass rally seen as a culmination of months-long protests against Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic and his government.

The rally was part of a nationwide anti-corruption movement that erupted after a concrete canopy collapsed at a train station in Serbia’s north in November, killing 15 people...

Footage from the rally show people standing during 15 minutes of silence for the rail station disaster while suddenly experiencing a whooshing sound that immediately triggered panic and a brief stampede.

An Associated Press photographer at the scene said people started scrambling for cover, leaving the middle of the downtown street almost empty as they started falling over each other.

Those exposed to the weapon experience sharp ear pain, disorientation and panic, military experts say. Prolonged exposure can cause eardrum ruptures and irreversible hearing damage. 

The "sonic cannon" is an LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device).  Discussion at the woahdude subreddit included a link to this video on how to defend oneself against acoustic weapons:

I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that the U.S. and other Western regimes have these weapons as well.

Addendum:  this from The Guardian:

"Vučić has cultivated Donald Trump, approving the construction of a Trump hotel in Belgrade, and on Thursday gave an interview to the US president’s son Don Jr, who echoed the Serbian government’s unsubstantiated claims that the protest movement was fuelled by foreign funding.

The younger Trump suggested the protests had been “weaponised … to incite, potentially, a revolution”, airing conspiracy theories about how the protests were organised and paid for."

Divertimento #197

An analysis of 50,000 punts in the NFL (2000-2018).  Begins with the Bears punting 10 times in one game (every time they had the ball).

Kratom is either a performance-enhancing herbal supplement or a lethal opioid.

"John Wayne’s racist comments, lack of World War II service resurface in heated Twitter debate."

A photo of a rhino with an "oxpecker Mohawk"

There is a beach in Thailand that nobody is allowed to touch.

Aerial photos from around the world show the sharp demarcation between the homes of rich and poor people.

The important distinction between anti-semitism and anti-Zionism.

The history and usage of the phrase "enemy of the people.' "The expression enemy of the people dates to Imperial Rome. The Senate declared Emperor Nero a hostis publicus in 68 CE. Its direct translation is "public enemy"... The words ennemi du peuple were used extensively during the French Revolution. On 25 December 1793 Robespierre stated: "The revolutionary government owes to the good citizen all the protection of the nation; it owes nothing to the Enemies of the People but death".... Soviet Union... Cambodia... Albania... Nazi Germany... England... and Donald Trump.  "From his inauguration in January 2017 through October 15, 2019, Trump called the news media the "enemy of the people" 36 times on Twitter."

In major league there are now (1919) more foul balls than balls hit in play.

There is a subreddit devoted to insanepeopleFacebook entries.

A brief explanation of intermittent fasting.

Charles Dickens tried to place his wife in an asylum: "Over two decades of marriage, author Charles Dickens grew more popular and powerful, while his wife Catherine bore ten children. Charles apparently grew tired of Catherine, and blamed her for having ten children and also accused her of not taking good care of them. The couple separated after Dickens' affair with 18-year-old actress Ellen Ternan was revealed. Catherine was compelled to leave the family home with only one of her children. More details of the breakup were revealed when a caches of letters was discovered at Harvard University. The stories she told her neighbors portray Dickens as cruel as one of his literary villains."

"A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss can push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point in as little as a century."

An anti-vaxxer Texas legislator says he is not concerned about the rise of measles and other viral diseases because we no have antibiotics.

"Toledo voters passed the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, a unique charter amendment that establishes the huge lake as a person and grants it the legal rights that a human being or corporation would have.  The final results weren’t even close, as it passed by a 61% to 39% margin."

A new and unusual disease in Africa is afflicting children.

"An ‘emotional support’ pit bull mauled a 5-year-old girl in an airport terminal."

"It's interesting growing up and learning that most adults are not smart."

A striking visual display showing the effect of mussels on cleaning the water in a stream.

A long longread about the history of arsenic poisoning.

Cows are fed magnets to collect metal particles they might ingest.  Cows also tend to face north...

An askscience subreddit thread discusses coronal mass ejections.

In defense of the funds expended on space exploration.

"At the height of the Empire, a select band of British people renounced Christianity and converted to Islam. These are the stories of three such pioneers, who defied Victorian norms at a time when Christianity was the bedrock of British identity."

The discovery of a human footprint in Chile from 15,600 yeas ago indicates settlement in Patagonia long before Clovis.

A graphic illustration of the popular perception of the ethnicity of Jesus Christ.

"Bill-wiping is not the hottest topic in ornithology, but curiosity has drawn the occasional researcher to the behavior over the years. Although they haven’t arrived at a definite, universal explanation, we can summarize their reports on the role of bill-wiping this way: It definitely acts like a napkin, probably as a file, and maybe even as a cologne spritzer."

"Should 11-year-old girls have to bear their rapists’ babies?" (2019 article)

A history of cannabis cuisine in British colonial India.

A poster from the BasketballsAreFlat society.

A history of contaminated water at the White House, and its possible role in the deaths of three American presidents.

"Public enemy No. 1 for corn and soybean farmers, the Palmer amaranth weed, has made new incursions into Minnesota by way of livestock feed. .. This is bad news for corn and soybean farmers, both because the weed grows and proliferates quickly and because it is resistant to multiple herbicides. It can grow up to 8 feet tall with a woody stem thick enough to damage farm equipment that tries to mow it down... The weed, which grows up to 3 inches a day and can produce a half-million seeds per plant..." (photo at the link)

"Last month, the Swiss unveiled a smart new banknote to stash in their wallets. The purple 1,000 franc bill was the latest in the Swiss National Bank (SNB) series to undergo a revamp. And this is no ordinary note, it’s one of the world’s most valuable banknotes, worth around 880 euros ($1,007, £764)... In Switzerland, cash remains the dominant payment method. Here, there’s an assumption everyone carries cash, even in an increasingly digital economy. Most don’t get caught out buying a sandwich or paying for a haircut when the card payment machine is out of order."

"The archive [of Gabriel Garcia Marquez] includes manuscript drafts of published and unpublished works, research material, photographs, scrapbooks, correspondence, clippings, notebooks, screenplays, printed material, ephemera, and an audio recording of García Márquez’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. It was bought by the University of Texas for US$2.2 million.  The searchable, online archive features almost 30,000 items, so it’s easy to get lost in there."  And its free to use.

"Combining both brains and brawn, orcas have been known to kill sharks in surprisingly complicated ways. Some will drive their prey to the surface and then karate chop them with overhead tail swipes. Others seem to have worked out that they can hold sharks upside-down to induce a paralytic state called tonic immobility. Orcas can kill the fastest species (makos) and the largest (whale sharks). And when they encounter great whites, a few recorded cases suggest that these encounters end very badly for the sharks."

A Reddit thread discusses education in India following a report that 19 teenagers in India committed suicide after a softwar error botched their exam results.

Photos and videos of Freddie Mercury and his cats.

A story about Walt Disney's housekeeper.

"I dug through the privacy settings for the five biggest consumer tech companies and picked a few of the most egregious defaults you should consider changing. These links will take you directly to what to tap, click and toggle for Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple."

"Italian police have arrested 34 people allegedly involved in a "bone-breaking" medical insurance scam in Palermo, Sicily.  The perpetrators allegedly broke people's limbs and staged road accidents in exchange for part of their insurance payout... The victims were anaesthetised with drugs and had their limbs held on blocks of stone or cement, which were hit with bags of weights or large rocks... Among those arrested are doctors and physiotherapists who allegedly filed false medical reports, and a lawyer who filed the insurance claims."

Don't wear mirrored glasses when you play poker.

"TIL light bulbs in the New York City subway system screw in "backwards" (i.e. with left-handed threads) so people won't steal them to use at home."

A list of works of fiction involving time travel.

"Cleopatra was born ~2,500 years after the Great Pyramid at Giza was built, and ~2,000 years before the first lunar landing. That fact means that Cleopatra is closer to our present time than to the times of Ancient Egypt's early dynastic past."

A suprising lot of things happen when you check "I am not a robot."

Escalators can be designed to be curved.

How to evaluate and grade sea glass.

If you're wondering about the workload and pay for Pat Sajak and Vanna White...

The smearing of Ilhan Omar (2019 article but probably still relevant)

Some Antarctic icebergs are green because they are heavily laden with iron.  "Writing Jan. 10 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Ocean, Warren and his colleagues report that the marine ice at the bottom of the Amery Ice Shelf has 500 times more iron than the glacial ice above. This iron comes from the rocks under the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which are ground into a fine powder as glaciers move over them."  This iron gets delivered to phytoplankton in the ocean that need it for nutrition.

A treasure trove of Cambrian fossils has been discovered in China: "The creatures are so well preserved in the fossils that the soft tissues of their bodies, including the muscles, guts, eyes, gills, mouths and other openings are all still visible. The 4,351 separate fossils excavated so far represent 101 species, 53 of them new."

A longread about cast iron skilets and the misconceptions about them.

"Meaning ‘atlas’ or ‘sheet of the world’ in Latin, the Mappa Mundi is an incredibly detailed 1.59m-long by 1.34m-wide map depicting the history, geography and religious understanding of the known world from the point of view of 13th-Century European scholars."

“We can be proud to say that, for the first time in 400 years, Manneken Pis is not peeing out fresh drinking water. The municipality is now intent on inspecting all the centrally located fountains to avoid similar waste.”

A complete list of the winners of the Costa Book Award.

A photograph of scalping survivor Robert McGee.

How to make leech traps.

"Researchers in Israel say they have developed such malware to draw attention to serious security weaknesses in critical medical imaging equipment used for diagnosing conditions and the networks that transmit those images — vulnerabilities that could have potentially life-altering consequences if unaddressed.  The malware they created would let attackers automatically add realistic, malignant-seeming growths to CT or MRI scans before radiologists and doctors examine them. Or it could remove real cancerous nodules and lesions without detection, leading to misdiagnosis and possibly a failure to treat patients who need critical and timely care."

"Padding is the extra time airlines allow themselves to fly from A to B. Because these flights were consistently late, airlines have now baked delays experienced for decades into their schedules instead of improving operations."

"When a young Taiwanese woman named He took herself to a hospital this week complaining of a swollen eye, she expected to be treated for a simple infection.  Instead, the 29-year-old and her doctor were horrified to discover four bees living under her eyelids, feasting on her tears."

What is Michael J. Fox's middle name?  (scroll down to "early life").

Three tips for making a better cake from a mix in a box.

Woman eats 86 ounces of mayonnaise in 3 minutes.

Butterflies puddling.

Embedded images from the The New Yorker Book of Dog Cartoons (Knopf, 1992).