Happy birthday to Dashiell Hammett.
The comprehensive map of Clichea. That is excellent. (Grokked form Tor.com)
"Navy veteran Ron White honors fallen U.S. service men and women by writing their names on a wall, all from memory." White has won the USA Memory Championship twice. Now he's taken the skills he has learned and memorized the more than 2,300 military who have lost their lives in Afghanistan. And then he sets up his platform and writes every single one, in the order of their deaths. Stands and salutes.
"To some social observers, petting parties of the 1920s were a natural, post-First World War outgrowth of a repressed society. To others, the out-in-the-open hug-and-kissfests were blinking neon signposts on the Road to Perdition." Those damn kids with their hipping and their hopping.
Robert De Niro's NYU/Tisch School of the Arts graduation speech. "'Tisch graduates, you made it… and you’re fucked… The good news is, that’s not a bad place to start.'" Also, "Rejection might sting, but my feeling is that it often has very little to do with you."
You have a face for radio. NPR uses software to just listeners voices. Damn, I missed this open call for samples. I've been told I have a voice that could put rocks to sleep.
Good news, everyone! Bonuses for everybody! The rise of bonuses over getting, you know, actual pay and actual raises. Been here (part of my pay is tied to performance bonuses, and my "cost of living" raise for 2015 is now tied into those bonuses). Remember when companies actually paid people for their work? And why? "'It’s so much easier to not give a bonus than to cut someone’s pay,' Ms. Barrington said." Yep. BTW, no bonus for 3rd quarter 2015, no notice if the bonus plan is still in place (because that wold involve actual communications).
As someone who works in the industry that uses a lot of paper, it may be boring, but paper isn't dead yet. What is dead is the market for speciality papers (not all paper is the same, how you make toilet paper is different than making paper for cartons and for printed materials). In the 90s as we moved toward the "paperless office" we saw a decline in specialty sheets, but a sharp uptick in copy paper. Now copy paper has leveled out (note, copy paper isn't on their chart), but newsprint and book paper have declined. The much scarier chart is the decline in mid-market print shops.
The Planetary Society Lightsail Kickstarter. The prototype is currently in orbit, however that cubsat is just a proof of system (it will deploy a lightsail to test the mechanics, but is it too low an orbit to escape Earth's gravity and will burn up in the atmosphere. You may also remember that the original Lightsail cubesat was set to launch from a repurposed Russian submarine ballistic missile, which never made it to orbit. (Grokked from John)
"Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, Commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and Air Force Program Executive Officer for Space, has announced the certification of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation’s (SpaceX) Falcon 9 Launch System for national security space missions." Okay then. (Grokked from Robert J Bennett)
Finally, after years of reporting on the corruption, FIFA gets the knock on the door from law enforcement. Also noted for how reach people are treated when they're arrested as compared to the rest of us schlubs.
Shooting the messenger. "Arkansas state Sen. Bart Hester (R) told local TV station KFSM that he believed Springdale Police Chief Kathy O'Kelly compromised the identities of the eldest Duggar's alleged victims by releasing the police report." Except "… In Touch Weekly on Thursday published the offense report, which it obtained through a public records request. The names of the victims, as well as Josh Duggar's name, were redacted." I'm sure this has nothing to do with being embarrassed by having one of those "Family Values" shows being exposed for harboring a rapist.
A municipality in Oklahoma decides it wants to restrict fracking within its borders, state government freaks out and bans them from banning. Because it's all about local control, folks. Just like Texas. Except when the GOP led state government disagrees with local decisions. Also note, in Ohio our "home rule" rights have also been taken away by our GOP led state government.
So, let's take those "parental consent" laws and make it even tougher for teens who can't go to their parents but need a judge to approve their abortion. Because that seems fair.
A Texas Militia leader tries to be recognized by the county as a back up contingency force (a reserve militia). My country continues to look like a 3rd world hell-hole as these idiots gain more and more notoriety. If they weren't given cover by the right, it would be easier to dismiss them.
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