Modern torture chamber uses a dental chair

As reported by The Guardian:

The discovery of a soundproofed torture chamber believed to have been used by a narcotics gang should remind recreational cocaine users of the consequences of their habits, a Dutch public prosecutor has said...

Two years ago, police officers, acting on intercepted messages, discovered seven shipping containers in Wouwse Plantage in Brabant, six of which were allegedly used as cells containing handcuffs and legcuffs.

In the seventh container was a refashioned dentist’s chair, with straps for tying arms and legs, finger clamps, scalpels, claw hammers, pliers, loppers, pruning shears, gas burners, tie wraps and duct tape. The container was sound proofed...

In both sites, officer found stolen police uniforms, bulletproof vests and blue flashing lights.

"They paved paradise... put up a parking lot"

Downtown Houston, 1970s.  Not to imply that before the 1970s Houston was "paradise," but Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi seems so appropriate here.  Some relevant comments re Housto at the via.

Are these real?

Both images were sent to me via email from an unattributed source.  The one above purports to be from Popular Science magazine, and while the recommended behavior is probably in tune with the ethical standards of the time, in this day of trolls and spoofs I would like some affirmation that it was published.

Addendum:  This was a real suggestion.  Multiple readers found the original page via Google Books (links in the Comments)

This next one looks scary as hell -

- but a careful reading reveals that the suggestion is not to pump exhaust into the car's interior, but rather to use the exhaust to generate a Venturi effect to pull air from the hose.  My gut feeling is that auto exhaust (especially at idle) would not exert enough effect to measurably affect flow through a hose that long.

Slavery in pre-contact North America

"... we should note that in any true Northwest Coast settlement hereditary slaves might have constituted up to a quarter of the population.  These figures are striking.  As we noted earlier, they rival the demographic balance in the colonial South at the height of the cotton boom and are in line with estimates for household slavery  in classical Athens.  If so, these were full-blown 'slave societies' where unfree labour underpinned the domestic economy and sustained the prosperity of nobles and commoners alike.  Assuming that many groups came south from the Northwest Coast, as linguistic and other evidence suggests, and that at least some of this movement took place after about 1800 BC (when slavery was most likely institutionalized), the question becomes: when and how did foragers in the 'shatter zone' come to lose the habit of keeping slaves?" 

"As we mentioned, the Yurok and their immediate neighbours were somewhat unusual, even by Californian standards... On the one hand, they actually did hold slaves, if few in number.  Almost all the peoples of central and southern California, the Maidu, Wintu, Pomo and so on, reject the institution entirely.  There appear to have been at least two reasons for this.  First, almost everywhere except in the northwest, a man or woman's money and other wealth was ritually burned at death - and as a result, the institution served as an effective levelling mechanism..." 

---excerpts from Chapter 5 of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow

The origin of "left" and "right" as political terms

"One reason intellectual debates of the mid eighteenth century seem so strange to us nowadays is precisely that what we understand as left/right divisions had not yet crystallized.  At the time of the American Revolution the terms 'left' and 'right' themselves did not yet exist... they originally referred to the respective seating positions of aristocratic and popular factions in the French National Assembly of 1789."

--- from The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow

A successful strategy for playing Wordle

There are lots of ways to start solving a Wordle puzzle.  I've seen several suggestions to start with ADIEU in order to identify the vowels.  That seems inefficient to me since only six entries are allowed, and all of them will have at least one vowel.  And for me it's easier to suss out a word from component consonants rather than vowels (as illustrated above).

I started playing Wordle in early January, and after missing a word I decided to come up with a strategy that would be more effective than random guessing.  The first four entries allow one to test 20 different letters, so I looked for words that would use the 20 most likely letters, winding up with BRINK, CADGY, WHELM, and POUTS [or SPOUT].  Those four words include all the letters except F and the uncommon J, Q, V, X, and Z. 

What order one enters those words in will make a difference, but there's no way to know a priori which one should go first.  The only "2" I've ever achieved occurred when by chance I started with BRINK and the answer was BRISK.  

In the example above, the first two entries revealed that the word was _ OI _ _, with S and T in two of those blanks.  That narrowed the options to TOILS, FOIST, HOIST, JOIST, and MOIST.  One could simply guess and try to score a rare "3", but entering WHELM eliminated HOIST and identified MOIST.  (see also the example in the last addendum)

This is not necessarily the best strategy, but it does work efficiently (see below).  I'm sure words will come along that will elude solving this way, but it's the best I can offer at this time.  I'll open up the comment thread to let others make suggestions for improvements and to share their own strategies and test words.

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging cap to reader John for recommending The Math of Winning Wordle.

Addendum: The video Solving Wordle Using Information Theory is a highly relevant (and 30 minutes long).

Addendum:  Those who enjoy Wordle might enjoy Squabble.

Addendum:  And there's also Quordle (four words to solve simultaneously).  So I tested the same strategy (entering SPOUT, WHELM, CADGY, BRINK), and it worked perfectly:

- but tbh, it isn't much fun.

Addendum:  And now Phrasle (basically Wheel of Fortune).

Addendum:  This video shows a man using the technique I describe above to solve 10 Wordle puzzles in 69 seconds.  His four starting words are BRICK, PODGY, SHUNT, AND FLAME.  So he has an "F" in his four starters, while I have a "W."  Otherwise we are equivalent.  And Unscramblerer has come up with BRAKE, CLOTS, DYING, and CLUMP - which use the same 20 letters as my grouping, but in words that are more familiar.  Another useful grouping is DERBY, FLANK, GHOST, WINCH, AND JUMPS (omits only QVXY).

See also Wordle Unlimited and this collection of 30 spinoffs from Wordle.

Addendum:  Now there's a Hurdle (instructions at the link).  And a WordleBot at the NYT that will analyze your Wordle entries and explain how a computer would have done better than you did.

And finally (??) Waffle.  Addendum: Waffle turned out to be too easy:

Basically the way to proceed to achieve the maximum 5 stars is to figure out what the six words in the puzzle are.  Then look for a tile switch that will generate two greens; there are usually about 2 of those.  Then look for combos where two tile switches will generate 3 greens; there are usually 2-3 of those.  Then move the final tiles.

Addendum.  Octordle offers 8 simultaneous games.  And not a word puzzle, Yeardle invites you to guess the years of historic events.

Addendum.  Here's a good example of the value of starting with the four standard words.  Recently I decided to break my own rule and try to solve the puzzle in four:

The three standard entries provided four letters including one green.  I tried to randomly guess the answer in four, then in five, then in six... and failed.  Had I entered the "standard" WHELM as the fourth entry, HOUND would have been obvious for the fifth spot.

Addendum:  After a little more than a year, I'm done playing Wordle.  Here are my final stats:

Average score a little under 4.5.  Switching over to a daily challenge at Clickword.

Choose the vaccine first

Photo from a patisserie in Prague, via.

The U.S. response to covid is the worst in the world

Worst deaths among large high-income countries.  Note this is not because we're a big country.  The graph shows deaths per capita (per 100K).  And we all know why -

And we all know who is responsible for that - people like the lady "Trump-World Beauty Queen" who is paying kids at Target to take their masks off.

Addendum:  Among the deaths, the culture-war anti-vax hero Robert LeMay, who was repeatedly promoted by FOX News propagandists -

LaMay likely reached his biggest audience the following night when he appeared on Laura Ingraham’s prime-time Fox program. Ingraham has been a relentless critic of the vaccines and efforts to get people like her viewers to take them, and she used LaMay’s story to advance her anti-vaccine narrative, portraying him as one of a host of people who have been ill-used by the government because they don’t want to get their shots. ..

Regardless, LaMay’s brief blip of right-wing “celebrity” won’t comfort his widow or help to raise his four children. And Fox’s stars and the executives standing behind them will continue to encourage more of these tragedies.

I'm not going to rant any longer about this.  Graphs from the New York Times, where there is lots more information.

Snow fleas (springtails) are not insects

Not any more.  They've been reclassified - as explained by Karen Oberhauser, Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum:

If you’re thinking that the snow fleas you might see count as insects, think again! As I’ve recently learned, snow fleas are no longer considered insects. Their old insect order, Collembola, was moved into a new class called Entognatha. Collembola, more commonly known as springtails, comprise the largest order in this class.

Why aren’t they insects? Like insects, they have bodies with three parts, and six legs. But unlike insects, they have soft bodies, no wings, and simple eyes. Their eyes, for example, are more like the eyes on crustaceans or on immature insects like caterpillars. Their mouthparts are tucked into their heads, not out in the open like insects’ mouthparts. The source of their common name, “springtail,” is an appendage that many Collembola have, a “furca,” which is held under their abdomen and allows them to jump – or spring – away from danger. Given the abundance of springtails, the furcas appear to be quite effective.

For an outstanding source on soil microfauna, visit A Chaos of Delight - whence the photo (cropped for size), with many more in the gallery.

Wall Street is not worried about the U.S. economy

As reported by Bloomberg:

Ten million dollars, $15 million, $25 million, more: Big money is back on Wall Street.

Not since the late 2000s, when lavish bonuses rained down before and after federal bailouts, have pay packages at U.S. investment banks swelled as much as they have right now...

After years of restraint, bank leaders are once again projecting a “whatever it takes” approach to compensation, vowing they won’t be outbid for top performers, lest they lose an edge in a hot market for trading and deals. That has their employees in Manhattan uncorking $2,000 bottles of wine at the fastest pace in years, buying bigger homes in fashionable TriBeCa, and snapping up yachts.

It’s a long-awaited moment for a generation of rising executives who’ve spent years missing out on the riches reaped by those before them...

In recent days, Dimon, Solomon and Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman were each awarded about $35 million for their work last year — more than any of their banks have lavished on a CEO since 2007. That, in turn, has lifted the ceiling for money makers within those firms...

As commerce shut down in 2020, government programs and Federal Reserve stimulus propped up the economy, unleashing a frenzy of trading and corporate dealmaking.

Investment banks, worried about the optics, showed some restraint when setting bonuses at the end of that year. But as the boom rumbled into 2021, Wall Streeters demanded more and began defecting, pushing firms to pay up.

“As a full-blooded progressive, I can appreciate how the public would feel cynical about Wall Street’s efforts,” said Jon Corzine, the former Goldman CEO and ex-New Jersey governor. “But it is a necessity in the context of the competitive nature of hiring and retaining the best talent.”..

At Babbo in Greenwich Village, sommelier Juan Pablo Escobar keeps adding to the list of big-ticket Barolos customers have ordered in the past week or so, many costing a few thousands dollars — such as 1.5 liters of 1985 Bartolo Mascarello for $3,700...

At Lola Taverna in SoHo, “we had a loyal client buy two magnums of Cincoro Anejo to share with everyone in the house,” co-owner Cobi Levy recently recalled. The price for the tequila: about $1,850 apiece. “He had just closed a monster deal.”

One-dimensional lines at center of Milky Way

An interesting article at Phys.Org describes a new discovery near the center of the Milky Way.

An unprecedented new telescope image of the Milky Way galaxy's turbulent center has revealed nearly 1,000 mysterious strands, inexplicably dangling in space.

Stretching up to 150 light years long, the one-dimensional strands (or filaments) are found in pairs and clusters, often stacked equally spaced, side by side like strings on a harp. Using observations at radio wavelengths, Northwestern University's Farhad Yusef-Zadeh discovered the highly organized, magnetic filaments in the early 1980s. The mystifying filaments, he found, comprise cosmic ray electrons gyrating the magnetic field at close to the speed of light. But their origin has remained an unsolved mystery ever since.

Asking for help here (it's faster to ask my readership than to try to look some things up).  I don't understand how a line can be one-dimensional.  I thought a dot was one-dimensional and a line by definition has two dimensions.  Help received.  Tx.

National Butterfly Center closed by QAnon threats

I've not featured any posts about the National Butterfly Center, but it really is quite a remarkable place.  Located in Mission, Texas near the Mexican border, it is far enough south to be visited by subtropical species, but that location also puts it in the crosshairs of those demanding a wall be erected along the length of the U.S./Mexican border.

The National Butterfly Center, located less than a half-mile from the U.S.-Mexico border, is a battlefield in the conflict over President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall, which is still being built through federally protected land just south of the Center. But this week, the conflict took a distinctly more conspiratorial—and disturbing—tone when, according to an email blast put out by the Center, it was forced to close for three days “due to credible threats we have received from a former state official.”

Center director Marianna Wright “was advised by [a] former state official (whose daughter is the Hidalgo County GOP chairperson) that she should be armed at all times or out of town this weekend,” due to a caravan of attendees at a MAGA-themed border security conference taking place in McAllen, Texas, eight miles away, that same weekend. The “We Stand America” event is scheduled to feature speeches from a host of luminaries in the stolen election/QAnon/anti-vaccine/MAGA universe/build-the-wall universe, including disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, “Stop the Steal” advocate Rep. Mark Finchem (R-Ariz.), stolen election figurehead Patrick Byrne, and QAnon promoter Mel K.

The email from the Center makes it clear that the grounds themselves are in direct danger from conference attendees who intend to form a “rolling car protest,” described as a ’Trump Train’-style “caravan to the border” that will likely make a stop at the National Butterfly Center. The Center’s location just minutes away from the Rio Grande has made it a hotbed of conspiracy theories and rumors, which claim it’s a hub of drug smuggling and human trafficking. Many of these rumors are pushed by Brian Kolfage, the leader of an eight-figure fundraising effort to privately build Trump’s border wall

Kolfage, who has called the Center’s employees “butterfly freaks” running a “sham” sanctuary devoted to profiting off human misery, has pushed the theories hard, including sharing doctored photos of rafts at a dock outside the Butterfly Center. He’s also spammed Wright with violent threats over Twitter, eventually resulting in his account being suspended. Kolfage himself is not speaking at the event, presumably because he’s currently under indictment for wire fraud and tax evasion due to allegedly stealing from the We Build The Wall nonprofit he founded.

Despite there being no evidence of trafficking or smuggling being run through the Center, the MAGA faithful have already started to make it a target. The email blast described an incident that went from troubling to potentially deadly when on Friday, Jan. 21, an unnamed “congressional candidate from Virginia” showed up with someone claiming to be a Secret Service agent, and “demanded access to the river so they could ‘see the rafts with the illegal crossing’ our property.”

Photo via My SanAntonio, where there is additional information.

Addendum:  The NBC has extended its closure beyond the time frame of the original protest in response to ongoing threats.

“Why are you more concerned about butterflies, than you are [about] little children who are being trafficked?” she added, claiming that human traffickers “use the butterfly land.”

Another clip was posted over the weekend by Ben Bergquam, a correspondent for Real America Voice, a far-right news site that also hosts Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast.

In it, he is holding a child’s shoe with the butterfly center’s sign in the background, claiming the shoe is from “one of the children that was trafficked.”

Why do we need an emoji of a pregnant man?

Unfortunately I've lost the source for this depiction of some recent additions to the world of emojis.  I do remember the discussion noted that among the new emojis was one of a pregnant man.

At the risk of being insensitive, I have to ask what purpose that emoji serves?  To whom would one send that, and what would be the intended message?  Note that I'm new enough to the world of emojis that I'm still satisfied by writing :-)

Addendum:  my question answered within 10 minutes by several readers.  Tx.

How to respond to the banning of books

Relevant:  A blizzard of snowflakes in the red states

The American Library Association tells me that there were 330 “challenges” in the three months between Sept. 1 and Dec. 1, 2021, with December still to be tallied. That compares with just 156 in all of 2020, and 377 in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. This means book bannings are happening at roughly quadruple the previous pace.

And that’s just the beginning of the thought-police problem. PEN America, a free-speech organization, reports that in the first three weeks of January 2022, 71 “gag-order” bills banning the teaching of certain concepts were introduced or pre-filed in state legislatures across the country. Since January of last year, 12 such bills have become law in 10 GOP-run states, and 88 bills are still working their way through the legislative process. Virtually all of them have been sponsored by Republicans.

Not long ago, those on the right howled about ultrasensitive “snowflakes” and “cancel culture” when woke activists sought to replace racially insensitive texts. And it’s true progressives have gone overboard at times; the Mukilteo, Wash., school board is the latest to remove the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” from its reading list because of racially offensive terms. 

"The most renowned music teacher in the world"

Her students included "Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, Quincy Jones and many many more."  Via Kottke.