315 laughingstock, meme stock, and gamestop


File under: I'm not an expert

Yesterday I wore an N95 to the grocery store for the first time since March or April. 

And I did it for that reason. There are new strains of the virus around that transmit more easily. (Apparently the one from South Africa is the most troubling.) There's more of the virus around in general. 

In general, personally,  I think wearing masks outdoors when we've got plenty of space is "hygiene theater." But indoors, when there are people around? Yeah, I'm a believer.

Deb asked what former dear leader has been up to, so I'll share what I've seen. He rode a presidential motorcade into his club with minutes to spare, then opened an "office of the former president" (a new thing) and is talking up a new political party, the Patriot Party. 

This party could be where all the Q-heads/Trumpers/Breakers from the GOP wind up, leaving the traditional/Rino/Gamers to fend for themselves at the pork barrel. 

This same sort of fracture has already been happening on both the left and right for a while. (On the left its Berners/Antifa/Squad Breakers and Centrist/Neo-liberal Gamers.)

That said, hopefully the B46 is absorbing another lesson from T45 besides the power of the executive order: the power of an engaged public. It was awful when the soap opera in the White House was called "Orange is the New Black" but now that we're into reruns of "Veep" let's go for ratings, baby!

Also, in the interest of equal airtime: one of the biggest things we could push for right now is getting rid of the T45 tax cuts for the rich and big companies. I'd much rather be reading headlines about that than impeachment.

File under: no fucking way

This, colorized, is the inside of a cell, as seen by several types of  microscope montaged together.

Danced to Boz Scaggs, but more importantly, finally found a good place for this song in Mark Twain's Barbary Coast Revue.

Also, I guess we found where Don Jr. got his lifestyle inspiration.

What's a "meme stock?" On Monday, the world found out.

A few years ago, I overheard a conversation that pretty well explained how ideas flow on the internet (in the US, at least), at the time, and it's generally still true.

"Things start on 4chan, then move to Reddit, then Twitter, and then, a couple weeks later, Facebook."

As far as creating something that looks like a painting, pixel-based seems to be winning. This from #ClipStudioPaint.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

547 a giving planet

Image
Where to start? With a drip. Due to a recent large bill for two pieces of plastic pipe and a valve, I have become interested in learning more about pex plumbing. Like many things in the US, this more efficient way of doing things is having a slow takeoff.  Why? Because existing building codes, laws created by localities, have been slow to change, sticking with the tried and true rather than adapting to new technology. This is true on many fronts. After recently riding the train cross country, I arrived in the town I grew up in. Above is a bit of information from the town zoning laws, stating businesses are not allowed to have exterior displays of their products.  This runs counter to everything modern "new urban" planners have found: to create a vibrant retail presence, stores want to invite shoppers inside by displaying their goods outside. But really, it seems like everything is upside down. Above is a classic piec...
Read more

610 totally unrelated

Image
At top, a bicycle built for golf. Mid-drive, even. Kinda spendy at $7k, but this is golf. Apparently they're selling.  We're talking about Bikes and Batteries today. This is a, um, what was this?  Right, a swappable battery.  Sounds a lot like a dorado battery with a new design. Having uniform parts between different manufacturers will help us consumers. (Imagine if your car only worked with one brand of gasoline.) So this thinking is in the right direction-ish. Throw a golf bag holder on the front and they could charge more. ;) There's gold in them thar batteries. (Or at least some rare earth minerals.) The question is, how do we get them out, and then back in?  At least we can haul them about in this.  It's funny how some designs look bad while others look good. In my eye, that's a pretty good looking box for moving other boxes.  ...
Read more

469 who spiked the corona?

Image
Omicron is here. In less than a month, it has gone from zero cases in the US, to 73% of cases as of this past weekend. At top is San Francisco, below is New York State. The good news is, if you're vaccinated, you might not get too sick. The bad news is, there's a pretty good chance we're all going to get sick in this one. Here's NYC, where you can see omicron is making the curve from March 2020 look small. Or else, lockdown. I'm not a doctor, or an expert. Here's what I've picked up about omicron: 1. It is more transmissible . At least twice as easily spread as the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. They say it's on the level of measles, the most easily spread virus we know. 2. It seems to have borrowed some tricks from the common cold. Literally, according to at least one report I've read, most of the spike protein mutations in Omicron match directly to the common cold, an...
Read more