Steve has some thoughts.

I just had my first decent breakfast in weeks. I had my last good breakfast in Ireland, during my recent trip. Every breakfast since then was lame. Until today. I just visited McDonald’s.

I don’t know why people don’t man up and admit McDonald’s makes some of the best breakfast food on the planet. It must be snob anxiety. They’re afraid of what other people will think. I remember seeing Candice Bergen brag that she had never had a McDonald’s hamburger. She sounded like a fool to me. Sure, she said the right thing to avoid raising the anemic eyebrows of her elitist vegan peers, but she sounded like a snob who was more interested in currying favor than in enjoying good food. For all she knew, McDonald’s burgers were wonderful, but she was afraid to try them because the unwashed intracoastal masses ate them.

I know Mcdonald’s burgers are NOT wonderful, but then I’ve eaten them. I gave them a shot. I didn’t sneer at them in proud ignorance.

Today I had a sausage and egg McMuffin, a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit, and hash browns. I mixed Hunt’s All-Natural ketchup with a little Frank’s Red Hot, and I dipped liberally. I’m still basking in the afterglow.

Concur. I have great respect for the Sausage Egg McMuffin. It isn’t the best breakfast sandwich available, but it’s far from the worst.

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The hup, as it’s sometimes known, is the onomatopoetic vocalization of effort given by the player-character when initiating a jump. While a gleeful bloop traces back to Donkey Kong (if not earlier), and Z-axis movement dates to the vehicular combat sims of the mid-’70s, a human character jumping in first-person perspective wouldn’t be achieved until 1992’s Ultima Underworld: the Stygian Abyss—released two months before BJ Blazkowicz would begin clearing bunkers full of Nazis with both feet firmly planted on the ground.

An unacknowledged ancestor of the ‘hup’ can be heard in the musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the scene where the two German spies are carrying a beam and need to cross railroad tracks.

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A gene-laced topical gel can heal the wounds of children with “butterfly disease” — a painful, potentially deadly disorder that makes the skin so fragile, even touching it can cause tears to form.

That makes me hurt just thinking about it.

Stanford University-led team has now developed an easy-to-apply topical gel to treat recessive dystrophic EB (RDEB), a form of butterfly disease that prevents the production of the skin-binding protein collagen VII.

The gel is a kind of gene therapy, which delivers working copies of the gene right to the site of a wound, allowing the skin to hold together as it heals.

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Swords and Ravens is a online adaptation of the excellent board game A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) edited by Fantasy Flight Games. You can play with players from around the world either in live or via email, for free.

 

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Before Ma Bell came to town, and long before DSL, it was barbed wire, of all things, that brought rural communities together. A Sears telephone hooked up to barbed wire—miles of which were already conveniently strung along fences—connected far-flung ranches in the recently settled American west. Thus an ingenious and unregulated telephone system sprung up a hundred years ago.

More than just physical wire differentiated these rural telephone systems and their more formal urban counterparts. Without switchboards, without individual lines, and without telephone fees, the barbed wire telephone system became its own social network. Today, we might see elements of “personalised ringtones, chat rooms and online music” in this telephone network, as Bob Holmes writes in a feature at New Scientist.

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Doing well by doing good.

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A process for making wastewater drinkable again is now revealing hidden benefits. The discovery comes thanks to Stanford engineers, who’ve developed a cost-effective way to convert a toxic byproduct of the process into useful chemicals.

“Hopefully, this study will help accelerate adoption of technology that mitigates pollution, recovers valuable resources, and creates potable water all at the same time,” lead author Xiaohan Shao said in a press release.

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On Tuesday, prolific author Brandon Sanderson surprised fans like me by announcing that he had written 4 extra books (beyond his normal publishing obligations) during the pandemic. Even more of a surprise was the Kickstarter campaign he launched for those books, which has raised over $18 million in less than 48 hours.

Can’t say he isn’t worth it.

Read it.

And watch the video.

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YourFonts.com is an online font generator that allows you to create your own OpenType fonts within a couple of minutes. Go make your own handwriting as a font!

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Across the last couple of weeks of January, the Internet in North Korea was observed to be down. The blackout of Kim Jong-un’s internet connectivity, although intermittent, was hugely disruptive with reports suggesting an “attack against North Korean servers took the entire country off the internet.” The timing of these attacks coincided with the latest bunch of missile tests, the internet blackout just mentioned coming the day after the fifth such test took place. It should come as no surprise, then, that suspicion for the takedown fell upon nation states in the west. In particular, the U.S. Cyber Command was thought to be a primary suspect.

But what if it were not a coordinated nation state military response? What if a single hacker, out for revenge, was behind the attacks? Well, guess what, that does indeed seem to be the case. In an interview with Wired magazine an American hacker, identified only as P4x, claims to be person behind the blackouts. Wired has seen the evidence to back up the claims.

According to the Wired article, P4x wanted to send a message to the North Korean government. “I want them to understand that if you come at us, it means some of your infrastructure is going down for a while,” he told Wired.

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The Natural Programming Project is working on making programming languages, APIs, and programming environments easier to learn, more effective, and less error prone. We are taking a human-centered approach, first studying how people perform their tasks and then designing languages, APIs, and environments around people’s natural tendencies. We focus on all kinds of programming, including professional programmers, novice programmers who are trying to learn to be experts, and end-user programmers (EUPs), who program to support other jobs or hobbies, such as multimedia authoring, simulations, teaching, prototyping, and other activities supported by computing.

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An 11-year-old Florida boy decided to try out magnet fishing with his grandpa in a canal and discovered two .50-caliber M82A1 Barrett sniper rifles submerged beneath an overpass.

Allen Cadwalader had a five-pound magnet on the end of a rope and tossed it off a bridge off the C-102 Canal on Sunday. Within minutes, he’d struck the first rifle, his grandfather, Duane Smith, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

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I’m waiting for the first company to convert it into a motor home or camper.

I’d buy one.

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The Ghost Gunner 3 is a 3 Axis CNC machine that can take a metal block and create a lower receiver in a relatively short period. You can then assemble that lower into a completed firearm without it being registered.

Since the only part needed to create these homemade firearms is a block of metal (pictured below), it would be entirely impossible for the ATF to regulate these without an act of congress.

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Cancer biologist Yibin Kang has spent more than 15 years investigating a little-known but deadly gene called MTDH, or metadherin, which enables cancer in two important ways — and which he can now disable, in mice and in human tissue, with a targeted experimental treatment that will be ready for human trials in a few years. His work appears in two papers in today’s issue of Nature Cancer.

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Within hours of taking office, Virginia’s newly sworn-in Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) cleaned house – firing dozens of lawyers, including those in the Civil Rights division – and announcing investigations into the Virginia Parole Board and Loudon County Public Schools.

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You want policies? We’ve got policies….

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This game guides you through a series of questions that help you practice self care.

It’s especially useful for people who struggle with self care, executive dysfunction, and/or reading internal signals. It’s designed to take as much of the weight off of you as possible, so each decision is very easy and doesn’t require much judgment.

Take your time. Set aside some time–maybe an hour total–to allow yourself to work through each step. Don’t rush or skip ahead; just follow the directions. Self care is important, and you deserve to devote some time to it.

You can even go through this routine as soon as you wake up, as a preventative measure.

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At last! Something a Tesla is good for. (Until it blows up.)

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..aboard the legendary RMS Titanic recreated with unprecedented historical accuracy. From the lavish balustrades of the Grand Staircase to the coal dusted air of the boiler rooms, Titanic is yours to explore and her many stories are yours to discover.

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I am not making this up.

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We are currently on version 6 of the tractor. This is an articulated-steering, hydraulic drive tractor. It has a modular Power Unit and modular wheel units, and features a Bobcat standard quick attach.

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Follow a watershed to the sea.

A lot starts in Wyoming.

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Adam Leeb ’07 is not a writer, but he’s devoted a lot of the past decade to improving the writing process. For him, it’s about designing products to increase focus and productivity, which is exactly what the modern-day typewriters created by Astrohaus do, he says.

And of course you can’d do that on your own, millennial slacker, so we’re going to create another widget for you to buy and stick in your closet after a month. KA-CHING!

Perfect for use in the railroad dining car.

Leeb graduated from MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering and an interest in entrepreneurship and product design, thanks to business courses he took through MIT Sloan as a senior. He felt like he’d finally figured out how to optimize his skills and interests—only he couldn’t get a job.

Gee, I wonder why not?

“He was telling me about a software that he had used to do some writing, just for fun. I started learning about all this distraction-free writing software and I was like, ‘Why isn’t there a dedicated device that can do this?’”

Maybe because you don’t need one? Software runs on a computer, and who doesn’t have a computer these days?

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Jim Puckett put all his eggs in one basket when he started building what he hopes will be the tallest topiary in the world. But his dream tourist attraction cost him his job as mayor — and now the steel framework of a giant chicken looms over the town of Fitzgerald, Ga.

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Palm Beach County school district has ended a mask mandate just days after a second grade girl told school board officials they should all rot in jail for forcing children to wear face coverings against their will.

Out of the mouths of babes….

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Most readers are aware that unvaxed activists have been trolling the vaxed snowflakes online by referring to those who have not been injected with the experimental mRNA treatment as “Purebloods”. It’s a good tactic, because it takes the conversation to a place the pro-vaxers would be smarter to avoid.

…

As our dystopia emerges fully in the next few months, it’s possible that the unvaxed will start wearing buttons or hats with “Pureblood” emblazoned on them to proudly proclaim their dissident status. I’m a severe introvert, so I probably won’t do it myself, but the idea of it makes me smile.

 

Robin Hanson.

In fact, I’m so impressed with how well The Profit scenarios illustrate the value of capitalism that I now build upon it a challenge to socialists: please describe in detail how The Profit style enterprise reform would happen under socialism.

Of course, Hanson misuses the term ‘capitalism’ in the same way that almost everybody does, as if it were a synonym for ‘how we do business when we aren’t under socialism’, but aside from that, it’s a good read.

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And why not? If there’s money lying on the table, pick it up.

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A federal jury in Charlotte awarded a former top executive with Novant Health Inc. $10 million on Tuesday after he claimed in a lawsuit that he was fired from his job because he is a white male, court records show.

David Duvall, who lives in Michigan, said in his 2019 lawsuit that he lost his job as senior vice president of marketing and communication in July 2018 at Novant Health because of the company’s efforts to diversify many of its top leadership positions.

The jury said that Duvall proved that his race and gender were motivating factors in Novant Health’s decision to terminate him, according to the jury’s verdict form. The jury also indicated that Novant Health failed to prove that it would have dismissed Duvall regardless of his race.

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I am not making this up.

Indiana Jones, call your office….

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The Arcflash Labs GR-1 “Anvil” is an 8-stage semi-automatic high voltage Gauss Rifle. It is the most powerful coilgun ever sold to the public, and also (very likely) the most powerful handheld coilgun ever built.

The GR-1 is capable of accelerating any ferromagnetic projectile (under 1/2? in diameter) to 200+ fps, and can deliver up to 75 ft-lbs of muzzle energy.

Not a firearm, and so presumably outside the reach of current firearms laws and regulations.

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Quite appropriately, the first MTV video was “Video Killed the Radio Star”.

I had the hots for Martha Quinn,  back in the day.

Good times.

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Our soundproof office phone booths, pods and private spaces solve noise and privacy issues in open offices, making employees happier and more productive in dozens of the world’s leading companies, including Microsoft, Puma and Tesla. In fact, 40% of all Forbes 100 companies use Framery.

For those who miss cubicle life — bring it home!

Babylon Bee.

Deeply needed.

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With over 60 unique, high-quality wooden mechanical model kits, UGEARS has been connecting generations of family members with each other since 2014. With a 3D puzzle or model kit, we give kids and adults of all ages a hands-on experience of creating and assembling mechanisms that actually work without batteries or other external power sources.

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Paging John Yoo….

(Babylon Bee)

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Diners and truck stops tend to attract countryfolk who appreciate the affordability of the food and its unfussy style, and old-fashioned conservative principles are what you’ll hear bandied about. But that doesn’t mean progressives won’t find a place at the table. Mostly, these restaurants serve as a communal therapy session, where people (even strangers) talk about real, regular issues that ignore politics: so-and-so’s health scare, the big football game, who’s re-siding their house, and so forth.

I love ’em.

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NBC News anchor Chuck Todd lost control of the second and final Virginia gubernatorial debate between Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin after a third-party candidate disrupted the political showdown from the audience.

Princess Blanding, a progressive candidate running in the Liberation Party, began shouting towards the stage roughly 15 minutes into the debate.

I’m sure they’re going to tag her as a right-wing (excuse mer, ULTRA right-wing) white supremacist at some point.

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Decades hence, historians laboring to make sense of the Covid years will undoubtedly ask why it took 18 months to deploy our most powerful weapon against the virus — the open celebrity letter. How many lives would have been saved if, in the early weeks of the pandemic, authorities had tapped the intellect of Anne Hathaway or the insights of Peter Dinklage?

Bryan Caplan, a Real Economist.

Six years ago, I began homeschooling my elder sons, Aidan and Tristan. They attended Fairfax County Public Schools for K-6, becoming more disgruntled with every passing year. Even though they went to an alleged “honors” school for grades 4-6, they were bored out of their minds. The academic material was too easy and moved far too slowly. The non-academic material was humiliatingly infantile. And non-academics – music, dance, chorus, art, poster projects – consumed a majority of their day. As elementary school graduation approached, my sons were hungry for a change.

Severian speaks truth.

I guess the best I can come up with for the Beach Boys is “they’re a California band.” If you want to know why Southern California circa 1963 was the closest thing any human civilization will ever get to paradise, take a good long drink of All Summer Long, with a Pet Sounds chaser. The culture that made songs like “I Get Around” and “God Only Knows” is the best culture that was or ever could be, this side of the Reformation. I know, I know, that seems awful heavy for guys whose songs contain lots of “sha nah nah” and “de doo ron ron,” but just listen to “God Only Knows” a few times, then tell me I’m wrong. But I can’t say of Men at Work that “they’re an Australian band,” because I’ve never been there. Nonetheless, if the Aussie national anthem isn’t actually “Down Under,” then it damn well should be…

Yeah. Just … yeah.

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The Tunnel to Towers Foundation plans to gift a mortgage-free home to the family of one of the 13 service members killed in the terrorist suicide bombing at Kabul airport.

Chairman and CEO of the foundation, Frank Siller, told “Breitbart News Saturday” that his company was building mortgage-free homes for Gold Star Families, “and that includes any of the 13 that left behind a young family. And we do know one of them — his wife is pregnant and will be giving birth shortly. We are going to build her a mortgage-free house. And rest assured, we are going to take care of any Gold Star Family that fits that criteria.”

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Rabbi Raziel Cohen doesn’t want you to have to draw a gun in synagogue. But if you must, he doesn’t want you to waste precious time unbuttoning your kapota, a type of jacket worn by men in the Chabad Hasidic community on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.

So Cohen, a firearms instructor who goes by the moniker “The Tactical Rabbi,” worked with Shaul Snovsky, who sells kapotas in South Florida, to create the Tactical Kapota. The jacket, which looks like any other kapota, closes with snaps instead of buttons for easy opening. Its cost: $550.

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After Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum died last week in Kabul, Afghanistan, two fundraisers were set up for his widow and unborn child.

McCollum, 20, was among 13 U.S. service members killed in a terrorist bombing Thursday at Hamid Karzai International Airport.

A GoFundMe page, ”Rylee McCollum’s Child Education Fund,” set up by the Into the Breach Supply Co., reads that ”this is a fund specifically dedicated to the education and upbringing of Marine Rylee McCollum’s child who is expected for September. His sacrifice at HKIA to protect the lives of those who cannot themselves will not be forgotten.”

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Kudos to ABC News for reporting true news that hurts their party. A group of volunteers, retired and active duty special operators and intelligence field officers, has apparently launched a successful covert mission that rescued 500 Afghans who had helped the American special operations community over the past 20 years. Men and their wives and children were quietly moved through the streets and then entered the Kabul airport perimeter through sewer culverts. These American heroes were not in uniform and apparently were not carrying weapons as they bluffed their way past Taliban checkpoints with their protectees. The mission name: “Pineapple Express.”

Severian is delightfully dyspeptic today.

Lord knows I have my issues with the guy, but The Smartest Genius in the History of the World (and the “Game” guys in general) have done yeoman’s work on what they call the “gamma,” aka the Secret King. This is the humble farmboy who is of course the rightful heir to the kingdom, who has powers far beyond mortal ken — the standard-issue protagonist of what I-forget-who called GEFP, Generic Extruded Fantasy Product. Luke Skywalker, basically, but even more secret, even more powerful, and much, much whinier.