Gorth

C0cktail bars all over the world rejoice!

Sort of brought back memories of both Talking Heads and B52's, can't quite decide which one it's most reminiscent of (style)

Made my way through those who hunt elves... it was fun, but as mentioned previously, not binge worthy and I don't think I'm going to bother with the second season. Found something else instead, which looked interesting. A lot more serious than ripping the clothes off elf girls for sure... a show called 'Death Parade'. Wikiplot: "Whenever someone dies, they are sent to one of many mysterious bars run by bartenders serving as arbiters inside a tower in the afterlife. There, they must compete in Death Games with their souls on the line, the results of which reveal what secrets led them to their situation and what their fate will be afterwards, with the arbiters judging if their souls will either be sent for reincarnation or banished into the void. The series follows Decim, the lone bartender of the bar where people who died at the same time are sent to, known as the Quindecim bar, and his assistant. "

It's been 30 years since I had a car (back in Denmark), but iirc, the rear window had electrical heater (looked like alufoil strips connected to electric wires) and warm air from the engine for the front windows... Motorcycles are relatively simple by comparison. Take your helmet inside for 5 minutes

Tl;dr; there is no true randomness, just things that are too complex to predict.

Which means, three-quarter of Australians reported feeling NO regret for becoming intoxicated Edit: With a government like ours and shark infested water all around us, there are few escape methods.

it's been quite humid here in Brisbane this week.... actually the last several weeks. Bloody La Ninja makes it hard to plan for BBQ cooking On the bright side, the bush fire risk should be minimal

I still don't know what the heck to call it (my brain would probably explode if I really tried to work it out), but who cares? I've been binge watching Eivor a bit on youtube.

From the Faeroe Islands... (no idea how to "classify" this)

I wonder what their HR department is doing... personal development plans and internal conflict resolution doesn't seem to be on their task list

Sort of a toss up between putting it here or in the science thread... https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59418123 Scientists believe they have found "the trigger" that leads to extremely rare blood clots after the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. The team - in Cardiff and the US - have shown in exquisite detail how a protein in the blood is attracted to a key component of the vaccine. They think this kicks off a chain reaction, involving the immune system, that can culminate in dangerous clots. ... Some package that code up inside spheres of fat, while the AstraZeneca one used an adenovirus (specifically a common cold virus from chimpanzees) as its microscopic postman. The researchers thought the adenovirus might be linked to the rare clots occurring in some people. So they used a technique called cryo-electron microscopy to take images of the adenovirus in molecular-level detail. Their study, published in the journal Science Advances, reveals the outer surface of the adenovirus attracts the platelet factor four protein to it like a magnet. Prof Alan Parker, one of the researchers at Cardiff University, told BBC News: "The adenovirus has an extremely negative surface, and platelet factor four is extremely positive and the two things fit together quite well." He added: "We've been able to prove the link between the key smoking guns of adenoviruses and platelet factor four. So, I suppose now they just need to work out how to make it not do that?

Taking a break from ripping the clothes off elves, as Mieruko-chan episode 9 got out. A bit of a meh feeling, mostly because it felt like the overall situation didn't change much. Too much is made of Hana's insatiable hunger I think, to the point where it's not just meme worthy, but cringe worthy. This episode feels like filler material i guess the term is? It had some nice touches though. Miko (the all seeing protagonist), Hana (her always hungry friend) and Yulia (the diminutive wannabe worlds greatest spiritualist, who can only see the tiny, harmless ghost) doing some bonding exercises and visiting the local house of horror at some fair. Mostly getting badgered into it by Hana, because there is a 20 free donut reward for going through the house and get a stamp at the end. It does give Miko a rare (and missed) opportunity to finally let lose, scream and yell at ghosts and tell them she can see them. Probably has some kind of therapeutic value

Sort of echoing my own thoughts on the subject. Don't expect the neighbour to open his door for you if you can't keep your own house in order so to speak. Similar to how I feel about "anti-vaxxers" in general. Freedom is not the freedom to do whatever you please at other peoples expense. Where your freedom impinges on other peoples lives and livelihood, you need to either adapt and compromise with your own freedom or get lost. Bye bye Djokovic... I'm sure the Australian Open won't be the same without you (it will be a lot safer for the other people attending it)

That again sounds like a sequel to entangled photon pairs...

It’s strange how differently people reacts to vaccine… my first injection could just as well have been a saline solution for how much I felt it afterwards (ie no side effects whatsoever). After my second shot I felt bone weary tiredness for 24 hours and that was it. Still got 4 months before a booster shot is due. Just saw some of the antivaxxer demonstrators got covid during the demonstrations and now need hospital bed. A frigging outrage, they should not be allowed to take up valuable bed space in case someone more deserving need those hospital beds.

I did a bit of Christmas shopping too. Bought a few presents for myself A set of leather sofas/lounges (3+2+1 seater for total of six seats, most of them with built in recliners), a buffet table/cupboard thing and a 3d printer (resin) + a combined washing/uv curing station for treating the resin models after printing. Edit: It was one of those big sale weekends down here.

Watched the first few episodes of those who hunt elves. It's silly, it's stupid, it's absolutely hilarious and I'm having a blast laughing at it. Not the kind of stuff you want to binge watch though. A group of people gets teleported to a fantasy realm and the spell to send them back to Japan gets botched during it's casting. Somewhere in the world, 5 elves now runs around with a fragment of the spell imprinted on their skin and the protagonists have to constantly find elves and rip their clothes off to see if they can find the missing spell fragments. No explicit nudity btw, all implied. Just so over the top Yes, I'm easily amused sometimes.

And another one from the mid 90's... yes, I actually kept some of the old jokes that circulated around in computer science circles on the internet from 1992-1997 These are two generic jokes: (1) A person belonging to an ethnic group whose members are commonly considered to have certain stereotypical mannerisms met another person belonging to a different ethnic group with a different set of imputed stereotypical mannerisms. The first person acted in a manner consistent with the stereotypes associated with his ethnic group, and proceeded to make a remark which might be considered to establish conclusively his membership in that group, whereupon his companion proceeded to make a remark with a double meaning, the first meaning of which could be interpreted to indicate his agreement with his companion, but the other meaning of which serves to corroborate his membership in his particular ethnic group. The first person took offense at his remark, and reacted in a stereotypical way! (2) Q: How many people belonging to a certain ethnic group does it take to perform a particular menial activity? A: A finite positive integer. One to perform the activity, and the rest to behave in a manner stereotypical of their ethnic group!

For the geek of mind... An engineer, a physicist and a mathematicians have to build a fence arounda flock of sheep, using as little material as possible. The engineer forms the flock into a circular shape and constructs a fence around it. The physicist builds a fence with an infinite diameter and pulls it together until it fits around the flock. The mathematicians thinks for a while, then builds a fence around himself and defines himself as being outside.

Not going to sit around holding my breath for Mieruko-chan 9 to get released (I did get episode 8 btw). Summary so far... One day, Miko can suddenly see ghosts. A few at first, then more and more and by now, they're seemingly everywhere in her life. Including under her blanket in bed and in the bathroom when taking a bath. No explanation has been given so far why it suddenly started happening. A clue or a red herring could be a seemingly unimportant talisman, that she had acquired at the start of episode 1 (entirely as a decorative thing). She accidentally loses it when heading home from school and decides to go back to school after hours to look for it. Finds it under a cupboard, retrieves it and heads home. On the way home, scary things starts entering her life. She has a best friend Hana, the proverbial side kick, who loves food and everything she eats seems to just expand her boob size (the subject of the odd joke, Miko wishes hers would do the same). Very naive, but also frustratingly kind and good natured. She is the kind of girl that will venture into a dark, foreboding alley to save a lost puppy for a random stranger. At some point, Miko is able to see "auras" (for lack of a better description) and Hana's is a golden glow, which not just makes the sinister ghosts look like the get repelled from her, yet also makes her an object of attraction to them. Miko tries to find help, first she gets from prayer beads (which explodes on her wrists when the really big and nasty ghosts show up), then solicits the help of a fortune teller, "The Godmother", who first dismisses Miko (kids have no money), then witnesses the destruction of her prayer beads first hand. Getting her most powerful bands (looks like genuine, powerful and magical artifacts), giving them to Miko free of charge, she sees them destroyed with ease too. The day after, The Godmother is nowhere to be found, having left the city. Next stop in trying to get help, is a shrine. Miko prays for help and actually gets it. A very powerful, glowing being and some kind of shrine guardians appear and tears apart the biggest nasty, which had been dogging their steps for a while. Uttering a very menacing "Three Times" without elaborating. Enter stage left, the third protagonist, Yulia. She has been able to see the smallest and most harmless of the ghosts since early childhood. The little manlings as she calls them. Her special ability makes her consider herself a great spiritualist. Yulia realizes Miko can see ghosts too and suddenly feels her position threatened. The ambushes Miko in a warehouse, tricks her into an old underground tunnel and through a comedy of errors, the large and presumably dangerous ghosts, which Miko can see and Yulia can't, destroys the little ghosts, making Yulia believe Miko is a very powerful spiritualist. At the end of episode 7, she probably thinks Miko is some dark lord with world domination as her ambition... Despite being scary, not all of the ghosts seems to be "out to get her". One particular heartwarming episode has Miko help a little old lady home, because she was lost. Along the way, a ghost starts following. The old lady seems senile and can't remember anything. At her home, they get greeted by the old ladys daughter and invited in. The old lady has a number of memorability from her marriage to her dead husband in a safe, but can't open it. All the while, the male ghost has repeated four digits over and over. Miko types the four digits on the old ladys smart phone and tells her to "try this". The code works and opens up the safe. The old lady is shocked out of memory loss and returns to what I guess passes for normal for little old ladies. The ghost thanks Miko, but true to form by now, she ignores it and hurries home. The last episode (8), has Miko bond with her brother, looking for a gift for her mothers birthday. Of course, nothing is easy. She does end up with a gift though, a pair of mugs for couples. Her mother uses one and the other gets places at her fathers memorial shrine. Which also explains why Miko never talked to her father when he and her mother were around. He's been dead for a while. That's of course skipping a LOT of details and small story arcs, but I'm too lazy and reviews/summaries were never really my forte. Now I'm off to start on something completely not serious, unapologetic fun by the looks of it. Well, I hope so. I just want to park my brain at the entrance while watching Those who hunt elves...

Eww… they could’ve been more creative and called it the omega variant, the one to end them all

...and the situation is escalating rapidly https://www.bbc.com/news/world-59427770 The UK, Singapore and Japan are among those rushing in stricter quarantine measures and banning flights from South Africa and neighbouring countries. The EU is proposing to ban flights from the region across the whole bloc. Scientists still have much to learn about the variant, but there are concerns it may be the worst yet. It is still so new to scientists, they are yet to give it a more memorable name, like Delta or Beta. Right now, it is known as B.1.1.529, but the World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to name it on Friday. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59428927 Stock markets across the world have fallen sharply after the discovery of a new Covid variant raised fears over the economic recovery. In London, the FTSE 100 share index dropped by 2.6%, while markets in Germany and France also declined following overnight falls in Asia. Shares in airlines and travel firms were among the hardest hit. The UK and other nations have introduced a ban on flights from six southern African countries. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59418127 The latest is the most heavily mutated version discovered so far - and it has such a long list of mutations that it was described by one scientist as "horrific", while another told me it was the worst variant they'd seen. It is early days and the confirmed cases are still mostly concentrated in one province in South Africa, but there are hints it may have spread further. ... In a media briefing Prof de Oliveira said there were 50 mutations overall and more than 30 on the spike protein, which is the target of most vaccines and the key the virus uses to unlock the doorway into our body's cells. Zooming in even further to the receptor binding domain (that's the part of the virus that makes first contact with our body's cells), it has 10 mutations compared to just two for the Delta variant that swept the world. Boldface highlight by me...

Watch this space if they cast Yvonne Strahovski (sp?) as Miranda

Apropos hate crimes... I mentioned previously neo nazi and alt right groups being behind the violent riots, protesting anti covid measures (being anti vax, anti lockdown etc.) https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/11/24/neo-nazi-terror-groups-crackdown/ Looks like, albeit somewhat late, even members of the governing liberal party is a bit fed up with them. A violent neo-Nazi paramilitary group that advocates terror attacks to provoke a civil war has been outlawed in Australia, amid a wider national crackdown on extremist groups. Federal Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews expressed concern about The Base, an American hate group that has planned violent racist assassinations and poison water supplies, as it forges links with local right-wing extremist groups. It’s just the second right-wing extremist organisation designated by the federal government as a terror entity. ... It comes as Australian counter-terror and intelligence bodies warn of an increasing level of far-right activity domestically. Director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, said right-wing extremism made up 40 per cent of the spy agency’s workload. ... But... ‘Not a timely response’ The ABC reported in 2020 The Base was trying to recruit Australians to its cause. “The Base do have a presence in Australia, so the question is why hasn’t this listing been done before?” Dr Kristy Campion, a lecturer in terrorism studies at Charles Sturt University, told TND. “It’s obviously very welcome but this is a group that’s been around since 2018 … it’s not a timely response, but it’s welcome.” ... Jihadist threats are still there too of course “The jihadist threat hasn’t disappeared, but authorities are doing their best to manage a fast-changing threat scape. These groups tend to fragment, fall apart, get back together with a new name and clubhouse. They’re a moving target, so it’s affirming to see action.” Mr West said right-wing terror was now the “dominant” threat in the US, and welcomed Australian authorities taking further action.

For those confused about what rjshae is talking about, I moved a number of posts from the funny thread to the politics thread, including this observation which i agreed with....