Weird. Random. Interesting.

[Amentep]

If it is weird, random, interesting and doesn't fit other places, it goes here.

 

Last post from previous thread:

 

 

 

http://time.com/5425477/nyc-no-shootings-weekend-nypd/
 
New York City goes an entire weekend without any shootings.
 
"“A city of 8.6 million people, not a single shooting for three days,” he (Bill de Blasio) said. He called it an “extraordinary” achievement and credited the NYPD for the streak."
 
It's a bit amusing what qualifies as news in various places of the world. In my country it's all over the news if a shooting takes place. In NYC it's news if it doesn't happen for a couple of days. I get that NYC is densely populated, but still!

[Maedhros]

https://www.eater.com/2018/10/11/17963784/master-sommelier-examination-scandal-explained

 

Only 274 people worldwide have passed the Master Sommelier exam since 1969. This year 23 people managed to pass the exams. Or?

 

(On a sidenote, the Somm documentaries on Netflix are worth watching).

[Raithe]

This one flew by me..

 

Technician accidentally fires Vulcan cannon, obliterates parked F-16 opposite on the runway

[smjjames]

You'd think there would be some kind of safety on it, or at least remove the bullets or something while it's under maintainence.

[Amentep]

This one flew by me..

 

Technician accidentally fires Vulcan cannon, obliterates parked F-16 opposite on the runway

"The General Dynamics F16 Fighting Falcon is not a toy. Please keep your booger hooks off the Bang Buttons until you are actually ready to shoot something."

 

[Malcador]

Good thing they don't have rockets on those planes

[injurai]

This one flew by me..

 

Technician accidentally fires Vulcan cannon, obliterates parked F-16 opposite on the runway

 

One one hand, you're fired. On the other hand, you've shot a Vulcan cannon at an F-16.

[Gfted1]

Good thing they don't have rockets on those planes

 

Hold my beer.

[Malcador]

Huh, been ages since I read about that, recalled wrongly that it was an accidental detonation of a bomb.

 

More proof that this mentality is never a wise one :

 

[Gfted1]

Jam-Resistant US Military Communications Satellite Lifts Off in Midnight-Hour Launch.

[smjjames]

I'm a bit surprised that the fact that it's jam resistant was mentioned, seems like such a detail would be classified.

[Gfted1]

I was also interested in the comment "nuclear hardened", which I assume really means EMP resistant?

[smjjames]

The ban against using/testing nukes in space though.... Then again, I'd expect most military stuff to be hardened against EMP in some way.

[Malcador]

I assume they meant - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening but nuclear sounds cooler.

[Raithe]

 

 

 

 

If you want to know why Prince Harry has it, here it is. You can't teach this, and it doesn't come with title or rank or wealth. You either have it or you don't..., and he does, in absolute spades.

 

In 2015, while visiting Sydney, he spotted an old lady in the crowd. More to the point, he spotted the Victoria Cross she was wearing. So he went over, crouched down by her wheelchair and asked her about it.

 

Her name was Daphne Dunne, she said, and she was 95 years old. The Victoria Cross had been awarded posthumously to her first husband, Lt. Albert Chowne. He was only 25, and they’d been married just a year, when he was killed in an heroic attack on a Japanese machinegun post in Papua New Guinea. The news had reached her at the same time as the red roses he’d arranged to be sent for her birthday.

 

“We [Harry and I] were chatting for a little while,’ Daphne said later, ‘and then they kept saying to him, ‘We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go.’ He didn’t worry about that. He just continued on with what he was doing which was talking to me and then when he started to go, he gave me a kiss on the cheek.’

 

Two years later, when Harry came to announce that Sydney would host the 2018 Invictus Games, Daphne was there again. ‘He does a lot for everyone but he seems to dote on soldiers that have been wounded, and they’ve had some part of them amputated, that’s the reason, it doesn’t matter about me, he helps make them feel a bit better.’ She waited in a downpour, a coolbox of beer on the ground by her wheelchair – very important to come prepared to events like these – and when a soaked Harry spotted her he embraced her as though she were his granny. He made her, almost literally, feel like a queen.

 

And now he’s back in Sydney for those Invictus Games, which begin on Saturday, and yesterday he found Daphne for the third time. As he and Meghan did the meet and greet of fans outside the Opera House, he spotted Daphne and ran over to her. ‘I was looking for you earlier and hoped you’d be here. It’s so good to see you again.’ They chatted for a few minutes. ‘I’ve seen your shoes, they’re very cool,' he said. 'Have you dyed your hair a shade of pink?’

 

Sure, these are small things in the grander scheme. But look at the pictures. Look at the joy and tenderness on their faces. Dislike his title and privilege if you must, but at least credit him with what he has – a great emotional intelligence and a sprinkling of genuine stardust.

[Malcador]

https://www.curbed.com/2018/10/18/17992128/panasonic-human-blinders-wear-space

 

Why do away with open office concepts when you can wear these.

[Raithe]

[Raithe]

New Statesman - How Academic hoaxes can prove helpful: Over ten months, three writers submitted 20 deliberately ridiculous papers to peer-reviewed academic journals specialising in critical theory.
 
 

Over ten months, James Lindsay a mathematician, together with writer Helen Pluckrose and philosopher Peter Boghossian, submitted 20 deliberately ridiculous papers to peer-reviewed academic journals specialising in critical theory. They cut their project short because of the growing media attention, but by the time their hoax was made public in early October, seven of their papers had been accepted for publication and four had been published, including one that rewrote sections of Mein Kampf with “feminist buzzwords” and another titled “Going In Through the Back Door” that purported to show how masturbating with **** made men more feminist.

In an article for the New Statesman website, the authors said the hoax was intended to expose “ideologically-biased agendas” in academic fields such as gender, identity and cultural studies. Writing in Areo magazine, they argued that “scholarship based less on the truth and more upon attending to social grievances has become firmly established”. They said they hoped to give people, “especially those who believe in liberalism, progress, modernity, open inquiry, and social justice… a clear reason to look at the identitarian madness coming out of the academic and activist left and say, ‘No, I will not go along with that.’”

 

Predictably, the hoax was seized upon by many on the right eager for an excuse to deride feminism and modern identity politics. In an article in the right-wing online magazine the Federalist, one op-ed writer suggested that the hoax exposed the left’s broader “war on reason”, as evidenced by the mainstream media’s reporting of the sexual abuse allegations levelled against the Republican Supreme Court appointee Brett Kavanaugh.

 

The hoaxers themselves make clear that they share the same social justice commitments and values as many on the left, which is why they believe that critically important subjects such as gender, race, sexuality and culture warrant rigorous, academically sound study – and why they want to expose the “sophistry” that is “corrupting” parts of academia.

 

It is particularly troubling that peer reviewers for at least seven publications could not distinguish between genuine scholarship and the virtue-signalling nonsense submitted by three pranksters. One article, which reviewers at Hypatia journal rejected pending revision, suggested that privileged students should be ignored, spoken over or forced to sit on the floor in chains as a form of “existential reparations”. That such a cruel and dangerous suggestion – one that invites teachers to rank and penalise their students on the basis of their identity – was not dismissed outright will do little to assuage mounting concern over the partisan and intolerant atmosphere developing on some campuses, the subject of an influential new book, The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.

Edited October 19, 2018 by Raithe

[LittleArmadillo0]

I heard about this. One of the other false studies that became published was how dog parks supported rape culture.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fake-news-comes-to-academia-1538520950

[smjjames]

 

*notices one of the songs is called 'heartbreaker'*

 

lol...

[Raithe]

KQED Mindshift - Leveraging the lore of Dungeons and Dragons to motivate students to read and write

[Malcador]

Vancouver cops made a police dog calendar - https://www.surreynowleader.com/trending-now/vancouver-cops-four-legged-pals-pose-for-police-dog-calendar/

 

Not a bad sample photo

 

[ShadySands]

This is why South Korea isn't best Korea

 

Smoking Marijuana Is Legal in Canada, Unless You’re South Korean

 

Prosecutors frequently indict returning citizens who experiment with cannabis, as well as those who frequent casinos while overseas. Gambling, like pot smoking, is illegal in South Korea.

[Guard Dog]

"Borg? Sounds Swedish."

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6306569/Thousands-Swedes-getting-microchip-IDs-inserted-hands.html

[Malcador]