Posts tagged “China”

• The Falconer time travel sketch is genius, and I can’t believe it took me almost twenty years to see it.
• Space Pants is almost as good. (Check out its Reddit thread and backstory, too.)
• Ballad of a Thin Man has always reminded me of The Second Coming. It’s more than a little disturbing that they’re equally relevant these days. – via my dad
• The Roman Empire’s original smartwatch: portable sundials
• I have been using Dotster as my registrar for this site for more than 25 years. I was a little miffed to learn last year that they were acquired by Web.com, but didn’t think much of it because my site’s registration is paid far in advance and I rarely think about it. Today I got an email telling me that Web.com was acquired by Network Solutions, and I cannot stand their platform. Most of my 50+ domains are registered at Dreamhost, so I’ll likely be switching soon.
• Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world:
  • “The last ship from China will dock at a West coast port on the 29th, and the last Chinese ship will dock on the East coast around May 10th. […] We’re screwed.“
  • [Current] administration officials are placing dozens of posters of arrested unauthorized immigrants along the White House driveway.
  • POTUS pardons Nevada politician who paid for cosmetic surgery with funds to honor a slain officer.
  • A little-known firm with investors linked to JD Vance, Elon Musk, and POTUS could get a piece of the federal expense card system — and its hundreds of millions in fees.
  • Republicans are trying to steal an election in North Carolina.
  • Please understand that when 2A cultists point their fingers at bizarre tragedies – like what happened recently in Vancouver – as some sort of justification for their infantile predilection for firearms, an excruciatingly rational response is that the entire automobile industrial complex is also misguided, cancerous, and evil.

• On The (Apocryphal?) Rules of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Cartoons – via kottke, natch
• With the possible – possible – exception of Sonny Corleone‘s toll booth scene, I cannot think of anything in the universe that wouldn’t be dramatically improved by adding a college marching band.
• Netflix is developing a reality television series based on the classic board game Monopoly. Fingers crossed that the producers convey that the only realistic way to win the game is to hoard all the money and property, causing everyone else to eventually quit in despair and destitution, and that unfettered capitalism is actually terrible for any species. – via The Dailies
• Good news! AP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its journalists
• A federal judge ruled former Florida QB signee Jaden Rashada can proceed with his lawsuit against Gators football coach Billy Napier over a $13M NIL deal gone wrong.
• There are actually a few cool items in this Wirecutter article: 18 Things You Didn’t Know Your iPhone Could Do
• Instagram users under 16 will no longer be able to livestream or unblur nudity in direct messages without parental approval. This seems like something that should have already been the policy, but I guess I’ll take the win. – via me
• Why don’t we remember being a baby? Infants can encode specific memories, a new Yale study shows, suggesting “infantile amnesia” might be a memory retrieval problem.
• When Is This Going to Stop?
  • POTUS signs executive orders to… boost coal production.
  • China slams Vance for ‘peasants’ slur as tariff war intensifies – via thebasement.nz
  • WTF? Administration orders half of national forests open for logging – via moudhy.bsky.social
  • 20 Rude Questions the Media Should Ask – via markjacob.bsky.social
  • Inside ICE Air: Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Looms

• This LA Times interactive map of the Southern California wildfires has been very handy. – via @dansinker.com
• “Just a reminder that the French revolution started with a climate crisis-induced famine, an empire that had overexpanded into too many foreign wars, and parasitic nobility that funneled all the wealth upward while regular citizens suffered.” – via @chris.writes.books
• If you want to “follow” me somewhere (other than here, of course), you should use my verified account on bluesky. I adored Twitter when it launched, and for many years after. But I haven’t looked at that social network in months and deleted my account a while ago. I’ve been enjoying Threads, but it looks like it’s time to abandon that platform, too. I’m very, very glad I have my own personal website. (I hardly ever look at Instagram, and doubt I’ll keep my account there for much longer. If I didn’t feel obligated to remain on LinkedIn, I’d quit that site, too.)
• In China, there are registries of haunted apartments. If you’re willing to live somewhere with a sinister history, you can get a discount of 30%. – via @tomwhitwell
• I am starting to get concerned about the bird flu, H5N1. Paying attention to updates from Your Local Epidemiologist is a good way to be prepared.
• A wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover, climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell his family or friends. Then, in 2023, a ProPublica reporter received an envelope with no return address. Inside was a flash drive containing tens of thousands of secret files. – via @propublica
• “In species where males invest in weaponry (antlers, horns, tusks, etc.), female brains are bigger.” – via Kent Hendricks

• “When I see a guy alone at a café without a device open, I assume that he’s either got the iPhone antenna problem or that he’s a serial killer… I’m almost never alone with my thoughts anymore.” (from Blogging from the Shower, by Dave Pell)
• I really love these vintage social media advertisements. Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce would be proud. (See also: The Periodic Table of Mad Men)
• The last six pictures from July’s massive oil spill in China are terrifying and heartbreaking.
• It’s pretty tough to argue that Apple doesn’t do everything better and smarter than everyone else, especially when you look at how amazing they made a simple battery charger. (I want one.)
• Research proves that happiness is probably not as expensive as you thought.
• “A 95-page court ruling on a college volleyball budget sounds like a Monty Python sketch — because Title IX itself has become a Monty Python sketch… Title IX strictures that were needed a generation ago simply aren’t needed any longer. But because no government program is ever shut down, they slog on, causing asinine intrusions.”
• It’s just not a real party until one of the guests decides to start smashing watermelon fruit bowls on the heads of the dancers.
• I absolutely must get a speech bubble whiteboard lamp for my office.

Bonus: Five Feeds I Recommend

1. Snarkmarket (subscribe)
2. shooshee (subscribe)
3. A Conversation on Cool (subscribe)
4. the impossible cool (subscribe)
5. All Day, Everyday (subscribe)

• Team owners Frank and Jamie McCourt paid a Russian physicist at least six figures — for five years! — to transmit positive energy to the Dodgers from his home in the Boston suburbs.
• These LEGO recreations of iconic photographs are pretty cool.
• Some friendly Mormons have posted an exhaustive guide to overcoming masturbation.
• Everyone knows that Jack sits right on the court. But who are all the other purple and gold fanatics? Someone has investigated and detailed the entire (updated) arrangement of Lakers courtside seating.
• Die-hard college sports fans will likely enjoy following The Bylaw Blog: The Unofficial Blog of NCAA Compliance. (RSS feed)
• I’m fairly confident that the NCAA and / or the NFL will not be happy about broncogator.com.
• California has — of course — the coolest proposed license plate redesign.