2
The_Watcher 2 points ago +2 / -0

I find it noteworthy how many of the reported "extreme weather events" involve flooding caused by rain. It is almost as if some evil person was causing it to rain. Surely people do not have that kind of power?

What's this? Project Popeye?

2
The_Watcher 2 points ago +2 / -0

I made some "jottings" about Ukraine. The first clip of Jeffrey Sachs has a summary of how it started. RFK Jr in clip 2 connects events to money.

2
The_Watcher 2 points ago +2 / -0

I may be wrong but I regard a presidential pardon not as a "get out of jail free card" but more as an admission of guilt.

25
The_Watcher 25 points ago +26 / -1

Suggestion: The 80% reduction is not entirely real. The letters are still being posted but USPS is not delivering as many Republican ballots as it receives so the numbers look low.

The extra staff are required to filter out those Republican ballots!

(I think I am becoming too cynical in my old age!)

4
The_Watcher 4 points ago +4 / -0

I can identify some:

  • 00:02 President Andrzej Duda of Poland
  • 00:09 ?
  • 00:13 President Zelensky of Ukraine
  • 00:16 Laura Mattarella wife of Sergio Mattarella
  • 00:19 President Sergio Mattarella of Italy
  • 00:32 ?
  • 00:38 Prince Albert II of Monaco
  • 00:45 Queen Mathilda of Belgium
  • 00:51 King Philippe of Belgium
  • 00:55 Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg
  • 00:58 Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg
  • 01:00 Prince William representing King Charles II of UK
  • 01:09 Antoinette Sassou Nguesso First Lady of the Republic of the Congo
  • 01:13 Félix Tshisekedi President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
24
The_Watcher 24 points ago +24 / -0

I hear that the appropriate collective noun for 100 Navy Seals in Washington is an "Insurrection" as in: "An insurrection of Navy Seals approached the Capitol today ..."

4
The_Watcher 4 points ago +4 / -0

I thought there were no polar bears left now - due to climate change?

If it had happened in the (far) north of the UK it would have been caused by Brexit. If all else fails, there is always white supremacy!

7
The_Watcher 7 points ago +7 / -0

I remember Compuserve back then. It cost me a phone call to get a 9,600 baud link to my ISP. It cost extra for a 14,400 baud connection and I had to pay for a long distance call if I wanted to go to 28,800 baud. That was as fast as my modem went. It took about 20 minutes to download a 1MB picture. Oh, and if you received an email you had to pay money to Compuserve! Those were the days.

I had to pay for an add-on to get a proper browser and it took most of the weekend to get it all working. Games relied on DOS so you had to specify IRQ and DMA numbers.

It is amazing what you could do with 16MB of RAM.

My first work computer came in three boxes each the size of a refrigerator and it had a total of 16kB of RAM and no disk. Paper tapes were fun. How did we ever manage?

3
The_Watcher 3 points ago +3 / -0

In fairness, that is a pretty low bar.

Here is the current state of the petition asking for a new election.

3
The_Watcher 3 points ago +3 / -0

I read somewhere that if you connect the top of Minnesota with the top of Maine, about 40% of all Canadians live below that line. That could easily be State 51.

6
The_Watcher 6 points ago +6 / -0

I am not promoting electric cars but think back to the late 1800s, for instance. Where would you fill up with gasoline? A small number of people might have had electricity at home but where were the gas stations?

According to Brave Search, the first gas station was in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1905. That is a long way to travel for most people just to fill up your car - even if you could wait for 25 years!

19
The_Watcher 19 points ago +19 / -0

Electric vehicles go back to the 1800s!

I believe that ,when there was an upcoming choice between electric vehicles and ones with internal combustion engines, John D Rockefeller intervened. His oil was used for heating and lighting but he saw an opportunity in motor vehicles.

So, he leaned on the legislators to force electric vehicles to require a safety certificate of some sort. Electricity is dangerous! Consequently, the extra bureaucracy put up the price of electric vehicles and they never took off. John D laughed all the way to the bank, again.

3
The_Watcher 3 points ago +3 / -0

I liked the one about un-resealable packages containing only one serving because science.

How I laugh at bars of chocolate that come in resealable packs. I never had cause to re-seal one!

2
The_Watcher 2 points ago +2 / -0

I think AI will go the same way as search engines. They will start out basic, they will improve, people will start to rely on them and then they will be subverted to project whatever version of the truth "they" want us to find out.

2
The_Watcher 2 points ago +2 / -0

In colour, too!

What is it about that film? Maybe it is because I am the same age but it tells a story much better than all the modern sci-fi movies and it manages it without loads of special effects.

I do wonder how "Klaatu barrada nikto" sounded so Indo-European as a language even though it was an alien language. "Klaato (name) barred not." Gort, the ultimate: Get out of jail free card!

1
The_Watcher 1 point ago +1 / -0

Often, if a site is paywalled or "not available in your area" it is still possible to archive that page and then view the archived copy. Like this, for instance.

1
The_Watcher 1 point ago +1 / -0

I thought the charges at Anne Boleyn's trial were adultery, incest, and treason not witchcraft?

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