Linkee-poo weekend

Yes, Ralph Northam must resign. He had exactly one path to escape that fate, and he blew it.

So this tomorrow I have moh's surgery for my basal cell carcinoma. Posting may be erratic this week.

Subterranean Press is offering eight tickets to Neil Gaiman's story telling class.

Manta rays (one of the more beautiful of creatures) leaping out of the water. Agog.

"This isn't the first technology that can turn water vapor in the atmosphere into liquid water that people can drink, but researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, say their approach uses less power and works in drier environments." Dune moisture collectors? Also, "The new approach makes use of a substance called a MOF, a metal-organic framework. As the name suggests, these are materials made of metals mixed with organic compounds. Powders made from MOFs are very porous, so researchers have proposed using them to store hydrogen or methane fuels or to capture carbon dioxide."

Not our first climate change. "European settlers killed 56 million indigenous people over about 100 years in South, Central and North America, causing large swaths of farmland to be abandoned and reforested, researchers at University College London, or UCL, estimate. The increase in trees and vegetation across an area the size of France resulted in a massive decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, according to the study." Guns, steel, and germs. (Grokked form Joy Reid)

"In sworn testimony filed recently as part of a class-action lawsuit against IBM, a former executive says she was ordered not to comply with a federal agency’s request that the company disclose the names of employees over 50 who’d been laid off from her business unit." You know, when I was younger companies were better at hiding their blatant disregard for the law and common human courtesy. Note that if you believe you've been targets by ageism, you have less than a year to bring suit. It's a law designed to make sure you can't sue while proving cover that the problem has been addressed. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)

"Last month, Matt Crull, 29, of Martin County, Florida, was sleeping in his van when police came to investigate what they described as a 'suspicious van.' Martin County Sheriff’s deputy Steven O’Leary found a plastic bag of white powder, claimed to run a field test on it, and arrested Crull for possession of 92 grams of heroin. Crull went to jail where he sat for over a month. Thing is, the heroin was actually laundry detergent." Suspicious Van is the name of my next Weird Al cover band. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)

How goes the death of Net Neutrality? "A year later, Charter has joined Comcast in announcing major cuts to its capital expenditures budget, slashing spending from $8.9 billion under Net Neutrality to $7 billion under Net Discrimination, which allows the company to extort funds from online services on pain of having their data slowed down when Charter customers request it… But Charter isn't done! They're also raising prices an average of $91/year/customer." America, land of the slowest and highest price internet connection. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)

"Last fall, Corey Chase drove 6,000 miles around his state to ground-truth what every Vermonter with a cell phone knows: there are many, many places in the state where you simply can't get a signal, not to mention the 5 megabits per second data download speeds the carriers were claiming." Now do Ohio. Fuck, just come to the office I work at during the day (in Cuyahoga County, not particularly rural in nature, right outside a major population center).

"Foxconn says it is returning to its plan to make flat screen panels at a new plant in Wisconsin following an appeal from President Donald Trump." I give it 3 months. But I'll note that actually Foxconn has just committed to building the factory.

So why did that Houston shooting with 5 officers drop off the radar? I'm sure it can't be because the suspects who were killed are white? I mean, I'm sure that couldn't be the case. Also if they had that much cocaine or fentanyl, why the fuck were they selling black tar heroin (which is the poorest quality, hell I didn't even think it was around anymore). (Grokked from Michele)

"Employers added 304,000 jobs last month — topping analysts' expectations and the 223,000 average monthly gain in 2018. The string of job growth underscores the long economic expansion since the Great Recession… In December, the economy added a revised 222,000 jobs. That was less than the blockbuster 312,000 first reported, and it followed the revised 176,000 jobs added in November." I get the feeling January's report will also be revised down next month.

So, how did that announcement of pulling out of the INF work? "But adding to a sense that the broader architecture of nuclear disarmament has started to unravel, Mr. Putin also said that Russia would build weapons previously banned under the treaty and would no longer initiate talks with the United States on any matters related to nuclear arms control." Yeah, just what Putin wanted, but when called on it can now blame the US.

"Citing multiple in-person episodes, these intelligence officials say Trump displays what one called “willful ignorance” when presented with analyses generated by America’s $81 billion-a-year intelligence services. The officials, who include analysts who prepare Trump’s briefs and the briefers themselves, describe futile attempts to keep his attention by using visual aids, confining some briefing points to two or three sentences, and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible." He will get us all killed. (Grokked from Joy Reid)