Linkee-poo lost myself in a familiar song, I closed my eyes and I slipped away

The Hidden Brain podcast on the power of positive thinking (not) and the WOOP method. For your writer's block times.

Open air, full scale demonstration of the Hyperloop. So, you may remember that Hyperloop is the brain child of Elon Musk (also of SpaceX and Tesla). So, anyone want to speculate that the Hyperloop is actually a first step in a rail-based launch system? (Grokked from Robert J Bennett)

No no no, in my day history was in black and white. Artists and colorizers add color to vintage photos of monuments being built. There's at least two anomalies in there, but mostly because the color studies they went from (I'm assuming here) were done long after the finished construction. Damn you, Ted Turner! (Grokked from Dan)

"Now scientists think they have an understanding about how Zika causes these severe brain malformations. The findings come from a series of mouse experiments, published Wednesday in three leading journals." Pointed to because until this year we thought of Zika as daily benign (there actually was research on it, but it was dropped to look at other diseases). Think of what else we may think is benign but is actually changing out brain structure (every time I hear/read about Zika I'm reminded of John Scalzi's Locked In and its Hayden Syndrome). Just a note here, while there's been a lot of attention paid to babies born with microcephaly, that's only because those make for sensational photos. Zika also causes Guillain-Barré Syndrome in adults.

More guns means we're more safe, right? Nope. Besides all the stories about toddlers killing/shooting their parents or siblings or themselves there are stories like this. A barber pulls a gun after refusing to "cut black hair." No mention of the race of the customer. And it's not the first time for this barber (although the other run ins with the law were over pepper spray). I'm sure he has some deeply held religious convictions, no doubt.

Before you rip off that tweet or blog post about how backward less developed countries are when it comes to women's rights, in the UK a company fired a woman for not wearing high heels, as they asked her to. And there might be very little recourse. Remind me to tell you about the time a coworker wore a pants suit to our Dallas office (this was in '93 I think). (Grokked from Kelly Link)

"While (NC) Republican state leaders have complained about being 'bullied' by the federal government over House Bill 2 (the "bathroom bill"), lobbyists in Raleigh tell WRAL News they and the businesses they represent are being bullied by state lawmakers seeking to silence business opposition to the new law." So, let's see, one side believes they're being bullied because the Federal Government says, "wait a minute, you're in violation of the law here" while at the same time those very same people are telling businesses and lobbyists to STFU or face punishing legislation. Which side is the bully, again? "'That's not a threat,' Hager, R-Rutherford, explained (about asking if a lobbyist really wanted to work with the majority)… 'We want people that'll work with us. We don't want people that'll go out there and bash us on Twitter and bash us on Facebook'…Hager wants to remove state tax breaks that currently benefit American Airlines, NASCAR, Google, Apple and Facebook, all of which have taken public positions against House Bill 2. But he said that's just a coincidence." Uh huh. Sure it is.

The natural gas economy, now killing the environment only half as much as coal. Okay, well, it might be more than that. Methane is tricksy it is. Say, know what is released when permafrost melts? (Grokked from Robert J Bennett)

More in the politicians feel they are "special". In this case, in the Oklahoma Capitol, GOP lawmakers walk through the metal detectors setting them off, but aren't called on it. Laws, after all, are for the plebes.

And in other Trumpster news, the Donald takes credit for your good bowel movements. I mean he takes credit for the Budweiser/Amurika thing. Hey InBev marketing pros, you gonna sit down for this one? (Grokked from Chip Dawes)