The Weird, Random, and Interesting things that Fit Nowhere Else Thread

[Leferd]

The Warriors. Indians. Falcons. Hillary. PSG.

[Raithe]

[Guard Dog]

It's no secret I don't hold law enforcement officers in particularly high regard. Here is yet another reason why: http://wncn.com/2017/03/09/nc-police-sergeant-tells-man-to-stop-recording-him-due-to-imaginary-state-law/

 

So either the cop knows there is no such law and he's lying, or he has no clue about the laws he's been hired to enforce. The former is bad enough but the latter is utterly inexcusable.

[Raithe]

For that random msn article... Since the Azure Window in Malta collapsed into the sea yesterday, I expect we'll have a batch of these types of articles going around for a few days: 

Natural Landmarks that have been destroyed over the years

Edited March 9, 2017 by Raithe

[Agiel]

 

 

How a Yellow Cab Ride Created A Classical Music Connection

by Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

 

The first thing I noticed as I slid into the passenger seat of the yellow cab with my kids crowding into the back was that the radio was switched to WQXR. I could hardly help it: I’m a New York Times classical music critic. With a sideway glance I took in my driver, a middle-aged black man, and the French-language newspaper he shoved aside to make room for me. When he moved to turn off the radio I stopped him. “Leave it on,” I said. “I like this station.”

 

“Who is your favorite composer?” he asked, right off the bat.

 

“No fair,” I said. “Only one?” I ventured Beethoven.

 

“Too easy,” he said. “Though it's a good one.”

 

He said he’d been drawn to "heavier" fare recently: Mahler; Bruckner.

 

“I have a hard time with Bruckner,” I confessed.

 

“He’s heavy,” he conceded, “but there’s a lot of music there.”

 

He brought up Sibelius and suddenly we were ping-ponging Nordic composers back and forth.

 

I tried out the name Nielsen.

 

“What I’ve noticed with less well-known composers like Nielsen,” he said, “is that they come and go on the radio. There was a time, a while ago, when they played a lot of Nielsen.”

 

Did I know Brüll?

 

I was stumped. He spelled it out for me, with the two dots over the u. “His piano music sounds like Beethoven," he said. "You should listen to it.” 

 

We were fast approaching my neighborhood. I found myself wishing for slightly heavier traffic. 

 

He asked about opera. I told him I’d grown up in Brussels, that my parents took me to the Théatre de la Monnaie there. That I liked Mozart and Verdi. We switched to French. He said his favorite operas were those of Wagner, especially the  “Ring,” especially in the Met recording with James Levine.

 

I asked him if he went to concerts. Not these days, he said. Not with a daughter in college and a son who only just graduated. To pay off tuition he was now working six days a week, sometimes 12-hour shifts. 

 

“It's nice I get to listen to this,” he said, gesturing to the radio. 

 

My apartment building came into view. I thought of the two large bags of CDs I had packed up to donate to a conservatory. Would he be interested in a stash of recent releases?

 

“I won't say no,” he said, beaming. As we pulled up to the curb he asked whether I kept up my French reading.

 

“Not really,” I said. He offered a trade: my CDs for his copy of Courrier International.

 

“I’ll be right down,” I said after I’d paid the fare.

 

“I’ll wait all day if necessary,” he said.

 

After we had exchanged gifts we shook hands. Back in my apartment, I headed for the computer and YouTubed a piano sonata by Ignaz Brüll. It’s beautiful. You should listen to it.

[Gfted1]

Trump puts more oil in Alaska:

 

Massive oil discovery in Alaska is biggest in 30 years.

[Malcador]

Hopefully that doesn't stop Alaska from trying to be less dependent on oil work.

[Gfted1]

What else is there to do for a living in Alaska, club baby seals? Ive been watching a TV series called Gold Rush where they detail a few crews digging for gold in the Yukon. That could be pretty sweet...a few months of hard labor for a giant payout and being off work for the winter? Yes please.

[Malcador]

Well beats me, but it can't hurt to think of something else. Nothing lasts forever, etc.

[Malcador]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/14/520123490/vibrator-maker-to-pay-millions-over-claims-it-secretly-tracked-use

 

The makers of the We-Vibe, a line of vibrators that can be paired with an app for remote-controlled use, have reached a $3.75 million class action settlement with users following allegations that the company was collecting data on when and how the sex toy was used.

 

Standard Innovations, the Canadian manufacturer of the We-Vibe, does not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement finalized Monday.

 

The We-Vibe product line includes a number of Bluetooth-enabled vibrators that, when linked to the "We-Connect" app, can be controlled from a smartphone. It allows a user to vary rhythms, patterns and settings — or give a partner, in the room or anywhere in the world, control of the device.

Come up with your own puns. But it does sort of tangentially highlight why the IoT isn't all that great a concept.

[Gfted1]

Scientists Are Turning Earth Into a Telescope to See a Black Hole.

[Darkpriest]

Scientists Are Turning Earth Into a Telescope to See a Black Hole.

This sounds like a fun job.

[Raithe]

[Raithe]

Male and Female co-workers experiment by changing to use each others e-mail signature and name
 
 

Men have often been inclined to dismiss claims of gender biases in the workplace — take the debate on the wage gap, for example — but one male worker recently experienced firsthand the challenges that women run into in his line of work. 
 
In a series of tweets, Martin Schneider, a writer and editor at an entertainment publication, detailed the pushback he faced when his email correspondence was accidentally signed with the name of a female colleague, Nicole Hallberg. When he corrected the error and told a difficult client that he had "taken over" the project for Hallberg, he was immediately met with a much more agreeable attitude from the client. 
 
Realizing that something might be amiss here, Hallberg and Schneider decided to switch places, signing emails with each other's names. "I was in hell," Schneider wrote of the experience. "Everything I asked or suggested was questioned. Clients I could do in my sleep were condescending. One asked if I was single."
 
He added: 

Nicole had the most productive week of her career. I realized the reason she took longer is bc she had to convince clients to respect her. By the time she could get clients to accept that she knew what she was doing, I could get halfway through another client.
 
Schneider's tweets quickly gained traction on social media, and many shared it to illustrate an example of the blatant sexism that working women face.
Shortly after, Hallberg posted her own account of the experience on Medium. She first touched on the experiment that she and Schneider conducted, but pivoted to the larger issue of sexism she encountered in the office. At one point, she said her boss — the one who didn't believe Hallberg or Schneider on the takeaway from their email experiment — tried to pay her a compliment
 

After a few weeks, I survived the rigorous training process and another male coworker, hired at the same time, did not. My boss complimented me and himself, saying that "I wasn't going to consider hiring any females, but I'm glad I did. You should be proud, I had thousands of applications but yours stuck out to me, and made me decide to give hiring a girl a try." Interesting. "Why weren't you considering hiring any women?" "Oh, you know. We've always had fun here, and I didn't want the atmosphere to change."

Hallberg also noted in her piece that Schneider was frequently complicit in casually sexist behavior, often talking over and ignoring her, but unlike their boss, he listened and actively tried to elevate hers and other women's voices in meetings. Hallberg wrote about her boss' refusal to acknowledge the sexism that Hallberg faced after she and Schneider brought their experiment results to him. 
 

He didn't believe us. He actually said "There are a thousand reasons why the clients could have reacted differently that way. It could be the work, the performance… you have no way of knowing." For the first time in two years, I *almost* lost my cool. I wanted to grab him by the arms and shake him, scream in his face until he heard me, stress cry and scream at the sky until the world made sense. But I did not cry. That would be breaking The Rules that had kept me alive in this company for this long. But I will always wonder. What did my boss have to gain by refusing to believe that sexism exists? Even when the evidence is screaming at him, even when his employee who makes him an awful lot of money is telling him, even when THE BOY on staff is telling him?? 

Hallberg ended up quitting her job, and is now a freelance copywriter and craft blogger. And with her newfound internet popularity, she seems to be using it for good. 
Now, she wrote in her Medium post, "In an office of one, I can finally put my walls down."

[Raithe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2zo1_FnNQA

[Gfted1]

Article 50 will be triggered on March 29.

 

If this was the US, you can bet your sweet bippy some activist federal judge would have blocked it by now.

[Raithe]

For the somewhat random "feel good humanity" piece in the midst of all the politics and such shenanigans...

 

BBC - George Clooney surprises 87 year old fan with birthday flowers

 

 

George Clooney has surprised an 87-year-old fan with a bouquet of flowers for her birthday.

The Hollywood A-lister turned up unexpectedly at Sunrise of Sonning, a care home in Berkshire, on Sunday to treat resident Pat Adams.

Staff had written to Clooney, who lives nearby, telling him a visit would make Pat's dreams comes true.

 

"This was a classy gesture from a wonderful man," a Sunrise UK spokesman said. "She was absolutely thrilled to meet her great icon, and it was such a lovely surprise to see George greet her with flowers and a card."

The spokesman said Clooney was holding the letter staff had sent to him when he rang the doorbell asking for Pat. He said staff regularly try to fulfil their residents' wishes as part of an ongoing programme, but added: "They didn't think they would be able to pull this one off."

 

The care home's concierge, Linda Jones, posted on Facebook that she was in "utter shock" when she saw the Oscar-winning star arrive. She said that Pat "loves George Clooney and mentions everyday how she would love him to meet him".

Clooney moved to Sonning, where he lives with his human rights lawyer wife Amal, in 2014. 

[Malcador]

Article 50 will be triggered on March 29.

 

If this was the US, you can bet your sweet bippy some activist federal judge would have blocked it by now.

British courts already were involved.

[Raithe]

[Gfted1]

 

Article 50 will be triggered on March 29.

 

If this was the US, you can bet your sweet bippy some activist federal judge would have blocked it by now.

British courts already were involved.

 

 

Hmm, then I can only surmise that they don't have the broad latitude to single handedly block things. We could learn a lot from the UK in this regard.

[Malcador]

 

 

Article 50 will be triggered on March 29.

 

If this was the US, you can bet your sweet bippy some activist federal judge would have blocked it by now.

British courts already were involved.

Hmm, then I can only surmise that they don't have the broad latitude to single handedly block things. We could learn a lot from the UK in this regard.

It was the British supreme court, so I would think they do have a fair amount of clout. All they had ruled was that the Parliament had to approve of it, so not that big a deal.

[Malcador]

Whoops double post

Edited March 21, 2017 by Malcador

[Gfted1]

It was the British supreme court, so I would think they do have a fair amount of clout. All they had ruled was that the Parliament had to approve of it, so not that big a deal.

I wonder what the UK version of a federal judge is called.

[Wrath of Dagon]

 

 

Article 50 will be triggered on March 29.

 

If this was the US, you can bet your sweet bippy some activist federal judge would have blocked it by now.

British courts already were involved.

 

 

Hmm, then I can only surmise that they don't have the broad latitude to single handedly block things. We could learn a lot from the UK in this regard.

 

In UK courts can not overrule the Parliament, but American courts can overrule Congress. Our system of separation of powers is completely different, which would be fine if it wasn't abused.

[rjshae]

US courts have a say in how treaties are applied internally, but I don't know that they have a say on whether the government can exit or not. For example, the US exited the ABM treaty in 2002 with nary a peep from the courts.