His Republican defenders are half-right: Trump has learned his lesson from the impeachment trial. The lesson he’s learned is that the Constitution and law don’t apply to him.
The latest:
All 4 federal prosecutors quit Stone case after DOJ overrules prosecutors on sentencing request www.cnn.com/2020/02/1…
They put the cheap, filling stuff first. They charge for extras. They save money on personnel, of course.
One thing I would not have guessed: Preparing foods in bulk, as you do for a buffet, is far less expensive than one meal at a time. Much less food waste. And you can re-use stuff. Today’s fresh vegetable side-dish is tomorrow’s vegetable soup.
I’ve never cared for buffet dining. If I’m eating out, I want somebody to bring me my food.
My work takes me to a lot of professional conferences, where I eat a lot of buffet hot lunches. Two tips:
Skip the leafy salad. It had nearly zero nutritional value. It isn’t even filling, and it just takes up room on your plate. You may not have a chance to go back for seconds.
Also, there’s usually some kind of roasted green veggie. Fill at least half your plate with that.
The making of “2001: A Space Odyssey”
www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/2001–a-f…
Stanley Kubrick didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew what he didn’t want. Which means his production staff had to give him a lot of choices, and he shot a lot of scenes that were never used – expensive!
In a sense, Kubrick’s process matched Arthur C. Clarke’s vision of the evolution of humanity. Clarke’s vision was it was that we didn’t just invent tools. Instead, we invented tools and then the tools changed us, and we changed the tools to match our new needs, in a continuous feedback loop and cycle.
Kubrick was originally going to have a score for the movie, but ended up dumping it at the last minute and just using the classical music that he had left on the soundtrack as a placeholder.
Kubrick’s perfectionism continued throughout his career. In “The Shining,” he did 127 takes of a single scene, which made the Guinness Book of World Records and drove actress Shelley Duvall mad.
2001 originally had a voice-over, which, like the original soundtrack, was scrapped. The movie is designed to be enigmatic, to ask questions that don’t necessarily have answers. That’s a contrast to science fiction movies and TV today, where every detail needs to be explained and contradictions are considered by fans to be deep flaws.
Actor Steve Buscemi (“Fargo,” “Boardwalk Empire,” etc.) is interviewed by Gilbert Gottfried and Frank Santopadre. www.gilbertpodcast.com/steve-bus…
This is one of the filthiest podcast I’ve ever heard. I loved it
Entertaining interview of comedian Lewis Black by Gilbert Gottfried and Frank Santopadre. Many F-bombs were dropped that day.
“Captain” Jack McCarthy hosted the New York St. Patrick’s Day parade for 41 years, as well as Popeye cartoons on children’s TV in the 1960s and 70s. Another fixture of my childhood
“Officer” Joe Bolton hosted The Little Rascals and the Three Stooges for children’s TV in New York 1955-75. A fixture of my childhood afternoons after school.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bolton_(television_personality)
Comparing the relative sizes of fictional buildings. Fun.
Margarine vs. butter is a case study of naked, corrupt regulatory capture. The dairy industry spent more than a half-century getting laws to block competition from margarine.
This magnificent, green condo is for sale - in Ramona, California, which is just a short drive from us here in San Diego.
Nice, but not enough green.
“A few, you know, a few weeks back, when I was quote-unquote snubbed by the Academy, it reminded of when I briefly attended high school and was overlooked for the coveted yearbook superlative category Best Looking. That accolade was given to a jean jacket–wearing featherhead douchebag by the name of Skipper Jenkins.”
In leaked audio, Michael Bloomberg defends racial profiling: “throw them up against the wall” boingboing.net/2020/02/1…
Bloomberg: “Ninety-five percent of murders- murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16-25.”
Whoops. And just when I was starting to warm up to Mike.
I saw this school walking today.
I wear flip up sunglasses. Flip ups are cool now.
Better audio quality here but no video.
Gilbert Gottfried and Frank Santopadre interview not one but TWO Catwomen: Lee Meriwether and Julie Newmar! I feel a stirring beneath my utility belt! gilbertpodcast.com
Amazon pulled out of this month’s Mobile World Congress because of the coronavirus outbreak, in another blow to one of the telecom industry’s biggest gatherings, which attracts over 100,000 visitors to Barcelona. reuters.com
The GSMA is putting restrictions on Mobile World Congress attendees from China as big companies, including Ericsson and – reportedly – Amazon, pull out. - lightreading.com
I’ve switched my podcast player from Castro.fm back to Overcast on the iPhone. Castro has advantages in its user interface – it’s much easier to decide on which order you’re going to listen to podcast episodes – but the audio clarity on Overcast is just plain clearer, particularly at the 2X+ speeds I listen to podcasts at. That means I can get through my massive podcast queue faster.
However, when you have 260+ unlistened podcast episodes, as I do, switching between podcast players is tedious. Fortunately, there is some part of my brain that finds that kind of fussywork soothing.
Zappos has quietly backed away from holacracy.
Aimee Groth at Quartz:
Six years ago, Amazon-owned Zappos began upending its traditional management structure. In lieu of a typical corporate structure, with power concentrated at the top, the online shoe retailer would adopt a decentralized system with “no job titles, no managers, no hierarchy.”…
But in the last few years, Zappos has been quietly moving away from holacracy. It has done away with its at-times rigidly (and ironically) bureaucratic meetings and brought back managers, while retaining its circular hierarchy, a key artifact of holacracy.
Reagan and Gorbachev Agreed to Pause the Cold War in Case of an Alien Invasion. The Gipper was a bigtime science fiction fan. [Danny Lewis/Smithsonian Magazine]
Amid Layoffs, Xilinx Warns of Pause in 5G Activities - Mike Dano/Light Reading
Xilinx, once a darling of 5G bulls on Wall Street, has hit hard times. The company said it will cut 7% of its workforce partly due to an unexpected slowdown in its critical 5G business.
Canary in a coal mine?
Missing the Bus on 99% Invisible:
If you heard that there was a piece of technology that could do away with traffic jams, make cities more equitable, and help us solve climate change, you might think about driverless cars, or hyperloops or any of the other new transportation technologies that get lots of hype these days. But there is a much older, much less sexy piece of machinery that could be the key to making our cities more sustainable, more liveable, and more fair: the humble bus. Steven Higashide is a transit expert, bus champion, and author of a new book called Better Buses Better Cities. And the central thesis of the book is that buses have the power to remake our cities for the better. But he says that if we want the bus to reach its potential, we’re going to have to make the experience riding one, a lot more pleasant.
These days when I hear about proposals for light rail or trains, I ask, “What about buses?”
Why the wrong movies win Oscars - Today, Explained
Amazon wants to depose the President and Secretary of Defense as part of its lawsuit to fight losing the lucrative government JEDI contract.
The Justice Department indicted four members of the Chinese military for the Equifax breach.
This will be a buzzkill for making relations between the two countries more friendly.
Advice from Medieval Monks on Avoiding Digital Distraction
Others have tried this tactic without success — remember Hillary Clinton? — but Mike Bloomberg plans to attack President Trump on his business record.
One difference: Trump’s pre-White House career can now be linked with his decisions as president. Another difference: Bloomberg will be making this argument as a multibillionaire who built a multinational company.
How women left the GOP and became Democratic partisans: Blame the Gipper
None of the movies nominated for an Oscar deserved to win, because none of them has Luis giving exposition or an ant playing drums.
I’ve been on a nostalgia kick the past couple of days. This morning, I hit YouTube and found and listened to the theme song to a kiddie TV show I adored when I was 5: Winchell Mahoney.
The good news is it drove the F Troop earworm out of my brain. Hooray, hooraw!
Person who offered $500 for lost cat gets mad when cat finder wants the reward
WTF? If you offer a $500 reward for whoever finds your lost cat you should not be surprised and offended if the person who finds your cat asks for the reward.
South Korea is a 5G pioneer but the latest financial results from its telcos demonstrate why investors are nervous about the technology. https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/south-korean-telcos-still-waiting-for-5g-benefits/d/d-id/757355?_mc=RSS_LR_EDT
Ericsson Shareholder Urges Firm to Explore Sale to US - Report
Shares in Ericsson and Nokia received a boost on Friday after an Ericsson shareholder responded positively to US comments about taking ownership of one of the companies to counter Huawei. https://www.lightreading.com/5g/ericsson-shareholder-urges-firm-to-explore-sale-to-us---report-/d/d-id/757366?_mc=RSS_LR_EDT
College essay writing services – contract cheaters –are using aggressive email marketing and on-campus parties to attract customers, many of whom are unaware of the shadiness of the business. www.edsurge.com/news/2020…
ME: I have very important financial documents I need to review today.
ALSO ME: Helllooooooo, social media!
After a vote in Iowa that reeked of third-world treachery – from monolithic TV propaganda against the challenger to rumors of foreign intrusion to, finally, a “botched” vote count that felt as legitimate as a Supreme Soviet election – the Democrats have become the reactionaries they once replaced.
The Iowa Caucus Was Waterloo for Democrats - Matt Taibbi/Rolling Stone
Climate change killed libertarianism - Jacobin
Tyler Cowen coins the phrase “state capacity libertarianism” as an evolution of libertarianism that recognizes that a big, muscular, strong state is necessary to preserve and extend markets and individual freedom.
(1) This is just plain silly. The defining characteristic of libertarianism is that governments should be tiny, ideally only providing police, military and contract enforcement. To call yourself a “state capacity libertarian” is like being a “meat eating vegetarian.”
(2) I have always considered myself a liberal or progressive but I may in fact be a “state capacity libertarian.”
Fortunately, this is perfectly compatible with being a Democrat. The Democratic Party is the natural home in the US for every political philosophy other than moron racist kleptocrats.
Many others contributed pieces, I decide what goes and and often end up fixing all the bugs. Vim is now the most popular text editor. Linux Journal stopped doing a poll for “best text editor” because Vim would always win.
We must fact-check this. Mission accepted.
San Diego is a great pizza town. Here are the top 10. [San Diego Union-Tribune]
“Now we’re going to hear more suggestions from the failed mayor of Chicago and New Jersey’s corrupt ex-governor, who should be in prison.”
Marie Dressler was the biggest female star of American movies in 1933. She wasn’t a sex symbol like Jean Harlow or Marlene Dietrich. Dressler was homely, overweight, in her 60s – and moviegoers adored her.
The public loved nothing better than to see their Marie play a drunk or a dowager and steal every scene from the glamour girls less than half her age. Dressler had been down and out for most of the 1920s. That she became a star at age 60 was an achievement that told Depression-battered audiences it was never too late.
The Ukraine was part of a broad pattern of behavior that makes Trump manifestly unfit to be President. Why didn’t Congress go after all of it rather than just one, very narrow incident?
On Impeachment: A Daily Podcast with Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and host Brian Lehrer.
Animal rights activists say it’s cruel to keep elephants in captivity. [San Diego News Fix]
Ezra Klein: America is a better country today than it has ever been: More inclusive and more prosperous. There has been no better time to be alive and be American. But the trend is going in the wrong direction. Things are not getting better. They’re declining rapidly.
Acquitted [Today, Explained]
Gilbert Gottfried and Frank Sontopadre interview the delightful Ken Berry, star of “F Troop” and “Mama’s Family.” Berry discusses working alongside George Burns, Don Rickles, and Carol Burnett, as well as a brief variety series he did in 1972, “The Wow Show,” featuring then unknown Steve Martin, Teri Garr, and Cheryl Ladd, then known as Cheryl Jean Stoppelmoor. I was 11 when “The Wow Show” aired, and I remember I loved it.
Berry also avoids answering whether Forrest Tucker and Milton Berle, respectively co-star and guest star of “F Troop,” were really massively hung.
I love this podcast. I’ve already listened to about a dozen episodes and I’ve got about 80 queued up.
Ken Berry [Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast!]
PETA claims victory after SeaWorld says no to trainers riding atop dolphins [San Diego Union- Tribune]
PETA launched a campaign in 2019 to pressure SeaWorld parks to ban “circus-style” behaviors where trainers stand atop the dolphins’ snouts during park performances.
How will coronavirus end? [Today, Explained]
Youtube: Charlie bit me.
Some days you’re Charlie. Other days you’re Charlie’s brother.
A brief history of YouTube’s codependent relationship with content creators, after Google disclosed, for the first time, how much revenue YouTube generates.
Nat Eliason: How to take notes on what you’re reading.
I never did highlights or took book notes in school. I just did the reading (or didn’t – I was a slacker student), crammed everything into my brain and hoped it stuck there.
Likewise, I tried to highlight text, but I didn’t really see the point. I ended up highlighting more than half the book … or nothing.
Eliason proposes a simple rule: Only highlight passages that give you an idea. Then make a note of that idea. What does the passage make you think of? If the passage simply conveys information or opinion, and doesn’t spark further thought, just read it and move on.
And here’s a tool for note-taking, for those of us who read electronically: Readwise archives your ebook and article highlights from Kindle, Instapaper and iBooks.
Candidates don’t matter much. What matters is getting your voters to come out and vote against the other party.
Yep.
An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter [David Freedlander/Politico]
Not a lot: What $250,000 buys in NYC right now [Curbed NY]
I can think of a couple of theories why the Republicans might want to do this. But it’s weird:
GOP-affiliated group intervenes in Democratic primary for US Senate seat in North Carolina [CNN]
The first significant ad buy for state Sen. Erica Smith, a Democratic candidate for US Senate in North Carolina, appears to be backed by Republicans.
Faith and Power, a new political action committee with ties to Republicans, formally launched on January 29 and spent more than $1.9 million to influence the Democratic primary, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission and the Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. The television and radio ads aims to boost Smith over Cal Cunningham, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and has raised significantly more money. “Who’s the Democrat for US Senate endorsed by progressives and unions? Erica Smith,” says the ad’s narrator. “Who’s got the courage to vote for ‘Medicare for All’? Erica Smith. The number one supporter of the Green New Deal? Erica Smith again.”
Via @iamjaco. Thanks!
Dave Winer says we need a candidate who a Republican who believes in the rule of law will vote for. Respectfully to Dave, but this is dead wrong. No Republican will vote for a Democrat in 2020. Trump has 90+% approval rating in his party.
The winning candidate in 2020 will be the one who gets their own party most excited. We don’t need a candidate who will appeal to Republicans. We need a candidate who gets out Democratic votes, and win even though Trump has his thumb on the scale, in the form of Republican election chicanery.
Like a wise man said: Given a choice between a fake Republican and the real article, the voters will choose the real thing every time.
RIP Issur Danielovitch, aka Kirk Douglas, 103 [nbcnews.com]
Why IBM Choosing Arvind Krishna Over Jim Whitehurst Was a Smooth Move [Christine Hall/ITPro Today]
I’m working on updating my resume today. I’ve decided to use the Pet Resume template in Google Docs.
In other news: Google Docs has a Pet Resume template.
Why does a pet need a resume? What are their skills? Minnie is a dynamic leader in eating poops from the ground.
Werner Herzog: ‘Piracy Has Been The Most Successful Form of Distribution Worldwide’ [Jenning’s Brown/Gizmodo]
He also shares thoughts on Twitter: “I have never seen a single tweet that I found interesting at all.”
And Pokémon Go: “When two persons in search of a pokémon clash at the corner of Sunset in San Vicente is there violence? Is there murder? … Physically, do they fight?… Do they bite each other’s hands? Do they punch each other?”
Podfasting: I Tried Listening to Podcasts at 3x and Broke My Brain [Steve Rousseau/OneZero]
Most of us are familiar with binge watching and speed reading, but there’s a relatively new mode of conspicuous consumption that’s emerged in recent years: podfasting. First profiled in 2017, podfasters love listening to podcasts so much that they’re speeding them up — 1.25x, 1.5x, and even 2x speed — in order to fit more into their day.
I listen to about 15 hours of podcast weekly, and normally do it at 2x-2.5x speed when listening through AirPods, which is what I do most of the time.
In case you’re not familiar with how this works: Podcasting software like Overcast, the app I use, adjust the tone of voices when you speed up the play, so it doesn’t sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. In the case of Overcast in particular, the software also normalizes speaking volume and chops out little bits of silence.
In my experience, different apps use different algorithms to speed up play. I’ve tried Overcast and Castro, and they are both terrific, but I prefer Overcast’s audio quality, and better ability to “podfast.”
Brave, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla gather together to talk web privacy… and why we all shouldn’t get too much of it [Thomas Claburn/The Register]
You know the President is able to shut down all US comms, yeah? An FCC commish wants to stop him from doing that [Kevin McCarthy/The Register]
Does Donald Trump have the legal authority to demand that mobile phone networks be shut down? Yes. That Twitter and Facebook stopped sending updates? Yes. That the internet itself be suspended? Yes. Does he has the same authority to push his own messages? Yes, it is literally written into US law…
Which leads to the question: would Trump do it? And the answer: yes, of course, he would at least try to float the idea if he thought it would benefit him. The President has yet to accept a single instance, theoretical or otherwise, of where his authority is limited. He has literally argued that he is not capable of committing a crime while President.
If the polls swing against Donald Trump, if he feels his presidency is under threat, does anyone seriously imagine that he wouldn’t do anything and everything within his power to retain his position?
Ex-principal in Holocaust furor defends his right not to say the genocide is a fact [The Palm Beach Post]
Former Spanish River High Principal William Latson defended his refusal to call the Holocaust a historical fact, saying opinions on whether the genocide occurred are a “personal ideology” and that it was his job to be tolerant of people who didn’t believe.
While acknowledging the Holocaust was a real event, the ousted principal said Monday that some parents at his school did not agree, and that state law required him to show “tolerance” in dealing with them.
That tolerance, he said, was a main reason for his decision to tell a school parent in April 2018 that as an educator he had “the role to be politically neutral” and that he “can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event.”
The school is, of course, in Florida. Slogan: “The WTF? State.”
I think I need to read “Atomic Habits." All four of these tips excerpted from the book seem like great advice.
It’s the usual love story. Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl drives a borrowed Cadillac Eldorado from Southern California to Colorado to break up boy’s wedding. And by the way, the boy is the girl’s therapist, which is perfectly fine because she loves him and she is sure that he loves her. Pretty sure, anyway.
OK, so Laura Preble’s new novel, “Anna Icognito,” is not your usual love story. Which is perfectly fine, because Anna is not your usual heroine.
Anna is a germaphobe who rarely leaves the house for fear of what horrors she might touch, inhale or inadvertently ingest.
Seems like a good book. Reminds me of the Bill Murray/Richard Dreyfus movie “What About Bob,” which I loved.
But hugging a germaphobe seems like a bad idea because germs.
The drawbacks of electronic voting have been well known for more than 20 years. Republicans want a voting system that’s easily hacked, because Republicans can’t win honest elections. Democrats should know better.
My crystal ball says Iowa’s importance in the primary/caucus process is done. It’ll continue first chronologically but its position will be ceremonial. Maybe Bloomberg is right and the real action starts Super Tuesday. As I recall, in previous primaries the action pretty much ended then too.
IBM, Marriott and Mickey Mouse Take On Tech’s Favorite Law [David McCabe/NYTimes]
Section 230 protects Google, Facebook and other platforms from legal liability from content users post to them. The law has been a shield for abuse and harassment. But IBM, Marriott and Disney aren’t heroes here. Likely they just want to change the laws to protect themselves and other big business interests.
If You’re Over 50, Chances Are the Decision to Leave a Job Won’t be Yours [Peter Gosselin/ProPublica]
My prospects are looking good but that’s far from true for everyone. Most workers over 50 will be laid off, and for most it’s a financial blow they won’t recover from. It will take them a long time to find work and when they do it will be a fraction of their former pay.
Socially conservative mom says racy halftime entertainment drove distraught 13-year-old son to his bedroom [Mark Frauenfelder/Boing Boing]
At that age sometime I became distraught five times a day.
Corruption in America: How the US became the center of global kleptocracy - Casey Michel - Vox
When it comes to the US’s role as a massive laundromat for dirty money, the Trump administration is simply continuing a trend years in the making.
The US money laundering business has been decades in the making; the Obama administration gave it a big push forward.
Remarkably, this is six years to the day after I started at LR. I opened my journaling app to make a note of the event, flipped through the “on this day” timeline and found my “first day at Light Reading” entry for Feb. 3 2014.
Big news: I’ve left Light Reading after six years. It’s been a great ride but it’s time to move on. I’m looking into other options now and excited for the future.
