I've been reading comics, mostly. Beastars volume 2 It's rare that a manga manages to keep my attention, but I've kinda fallen in love with this one. I'm pretty sure the writer got inspired by Zootopia, but because of the different format, she has much more room to really explore and develop the concept. Volume 2 focuses on the high school drama club, and we learn more about its members, especially the charismatic lead actor Louis. But it's not really about highschool drama, it's more about the relationship between predators and prey in anthropomorphic society. I'm planning to watch the anime at some point, it's also supposed to be very good too, but I want to read far enough first that the anime won't spoil anything. Billionaire Island Meant as a biting satire of our late stage capitalistic society, but while there are some good ideas here, the writing and art both feel kinda lazy. Also, I have a feeling I'd enjoy this more if I was better at recognising faces. I recognise a few; Kid Rock (president of the USA in the comic), C. K. Lewis, and Harvey Weinstein, but I think there are many more characters inspired by real-life villains, and I think the jokes would land better if I knew who. And the satire is very heavy-handed, so if you enjoy subtlety, stay away. Bone volume 5 A small publisher has made a new Norwegian translation. It's a classic, which I've read before, but that was in English, and in black and white. The colours are nice, and the translation is pretty good. No extras, just the comics, which is fine with me, straight to the point. I wish the format was a bit bigger; this edition is somewhere between pocket book and trade paperback in size. Chew volume 2 The world has been hit hard by a bird flu pandemic, resulting in a world-wide ban of chicken. The comic follows a psychic FDA agent solving food-related crimes, usually by eating parts of murder victims to get visions of what happened to them. For me, that's just the right amount of bonkers. Volume 2 seems like a side-story in the bigger picture, but a minor character from volume 1 shows up in a bigger role, and is played up to be the big villain of volume 3, so who knows. Y The Last Man volume 1 Every male on Earth suddenly dies, both human and animal, except the protagonist and his pet monkey. The comic follows his attempt to travel from the east coast of the USA to meet up with his girlfriend in the Australian Outback. Spoiler: He doesn't get very far. I think this comic does a better job of social commentary than Billionaire Island (though this too a bit heavy-handed at times), plus it's more exciting and fun. Volume 1 is 240 pages, but it felt like a breeze to read. I'm also reading a book-book, which I'm hoping to finish this summer: The Dresden Files - Fool Moon The second book about wizard/private investigator Harry Dresden. This time, he's up against a band of werewolves. Or maybe several? In any case, it turns out Chicago has a surprising amount of werewolves. This book has some pretty brutal fight scenes compared to the first in the series, but the same pulpy noir style, and I love it. Not exactly high-brow literature, I guess.
I think we should stick with aquatic animals, this being a ship and all. But yeah, I don't imagine anyone here has ever tried lifting a blue whale. Neither other big aquatic animals like hippos or crocodiles. How about trouts? By my maths (and Wikipedia's numbers), there's about 10,000 trout to a blue whale, which means the fully loaded Ever Given is as heavy as 20,000,000 trouts. Or maybe we should stick to floating animals, that makes more sense for a ship comparison than underwater animals. If my maths are correct, the fully loaded Ever Given weighs as much as roughly 250,000,000 ducks. Maybe more relatable, but those numbers are so big the human brain can't really make sense of them.Who can come up with a relatable animal simile form me for 2,000 blue whales? Or at least better than my pathetic 66,000 elephants.
Name: B Location: Norway Age: 30-something. People always seem surprised when I can't remember my exact age. I know what year I'm born, and I usually know what year I'm in, so I can calculate my age whenever I need it. Current preoccupation: I run a D&D group on Tuesdays, and play probably too much video games. Subtly evangelising about things I care about (like off-handedly mentioning Hubski in Reddit comments). Sometimes I pick up litter I find by the road.
We don't have subcommunities here the same way they have on Reddit. Instead, we add tags to our posts, so if you're in the mood to discuss a particular topic, you'll have to filter by that tag. So, for example, you can see all posts about music, or space, or the environment. You can search for tags using the looking glass icon on the top right.
Huh... I mean, that's probably a coincidence, right?
I missed out on the 10-year anniversary meet-up, but I'll try to make it this time!
So the actual news here is that someone did the math for Breakthrough Starshot? Oof... Good old Fermi Paradox. On the other hand, if other civilizations sent light-sail probes to our solar system, would we even be able to detect them? And then of course there are some who believe that ʻOumuamua was a light-sail probe. Maybe they pass through here all the time. Another thing to consider though: Why would they send probes here? I imagine sending probes to investigate neighbouring star systems would be exciting the first dozen or so times, but then there's ever-increasing costs and time-frames, while the public interest wanes and scientists see diminishing returns. At some point, funding for the project stops, and so do the probes. Water is pretty abundant in our solar system, but if a planet is close enough to the sun for it to evaporate, it needs enough gravity for the water vapour not to be blown away by the solar wind. The Rare Earth Hypothesis. We have found exoplanets with liquid water, but so far they've all been tidal locked, which may make it harder for life to emerge, and harder for it to migrate from oceans to land. I don't think we're alone in the universe, but I do think we're pretty rare. And I think FTL travel is impossible, which explains why no alien civilizations have been able to explore our solar system.Scientists estimate roughly 100 million individual lasers will be needed to generate the required optical power of about 100GW.
Where are the LightSail-Probe send to us by Aliens?
This bring me to one question: Why there is so much water on Earth and so few on the moon.
Empirically, from the habitable zone with Mars, moon, Earth , we are at 1 in 3 chance to have mass water formation. And the odd, of an exoplanet colliding with one planet in habitable zone must be far less. I guess we're alone!
The Arecibo Telescope was the inspiration for one of the maps in Battlefield 4. The most hyped new feature in that game was "levolution", which meant that the maps could be changed during combat by player actions. In this case players could destroy the supporting wires and cause the telescope to collapse. It's interesting to see the comparison between it collapsing in the game and in real life:
Pardon the image quality. Let's see then, left to right, top to bottom: My most played board games, plus a couple games I've recently acquired and don't know yet if they belong among my most played board games. Fantasy, sci-fi, and crime novels. Dungeons & Dragons supplies. More crime novels, plus a few misc books. Electronics. Office supplies. Financial papers and such belonging to the residents' association. Comics, comics. Comics, comics, comics, aaaand comics.
:-D
As a European this essay is an amazing read. I'm not at all surprised by the content, I've long suspected these people exist. I am however surprised that this person chose to publish this, because it's going to be enormously counter-productive, in that Trump is now aware that some of his closest are working against him. I have so many questions, and without a chance to get them answered, I have speculation. My first reaction was that this seemed like a huge mistake by whoever wrote it, but after giving it some thought, maybe not. Let's have a look at who would benefit by publishing this: 1. Mike Pence As has been pointed out, the writing sounds suspiciously like the vice president. If the president was to be removed, for example by invoking the 25th amendment, Pence would become president, and thus would have a lot to gain from it. The essay even mentions this possibility: Just by mentioning it, especially in an essay this person knows will be the most talked about piece of writing this week, they get more people talking about this possibility. In combination with Trump being guaranteed to act even more crazy over the next weeks, this essay might actually be what sets in motion the invocation of the 25th amendment, making Pence the new president. 2. Someone who hates Mike Pence As has been pointed out, the writing sounds suspiciously like the vice president. Surely the he would know to hide his tracks better? Someone is going to point out to Trump that this sounds like Pence, and the president is going to be furious. Whoever really wrote this, Pence is going to feel the consequences. 3. Republicans Recent polls show the Democrats up by double digits, with midterm elections just two months away. In all likelihood the midterms will be a disaster for Republicans. (Never take anything for granted though. Remember to vote!) By posting this, they're telling the people out there that it's safe to vote for the reds despite Trump, because the republicans are perfectly able to control Trump's foul impulses. They don't need a Democrat-controlled house to do that. The author may still have been Pence, just with "nobler" ideals behind it. Or it may still have been written by someone pretending to be Pence, because he's the only one Trump can't fire. 4. Trump Since this essay was posted anonymously, it's impossible to verify, and therefore provides excellent fodder for Trump's campaign against the free press. If the New York Times actually was to post fabricated news to harm the president, this is exactly how they'd do it. That's the way this will be presented to Trump's cultists, and they're going to eat it up, galvanising them against the free press. That's going to be useful when the Mueller investigation steadily gets closer to him. 5. Anyone in the administration (other than Trump) hoping for a political career after 2020. Someone has pointed out that this essay may be a sign of the imminent collapse of the Trump administration. If that was to happen, one way to avoid the fallout would be to publish such an essay beforehand, then publish proof of authorship after the collapse. That way this person can claim that they were not to blame for any of the disastrous things done by the Trump administration. On the contrary, they're a hero for preventing something much worse! #AnonymousEssayWriter2020 Let me hear, which option is your money on?Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.
If you enjoy Chew, you may also like Outer Darkness. The reason I'm reading Chew is that I loved Outer Darkness so much, I wanted to check out what else Layman had written. It's kind of what Star Trek would be if everyone was an asshole, and there's some very cool world building. Like, how do you make a starship go faster than light? You trap a god and channel its reality-bending powers into the engine. What do you do when a crew member dies? You chase down their soul, capture it, and force it into a cloned body. Good stuff.
I didn't read the whole thing, because it's very long, and I'd already read an article about this in a Norwegian newspaper. Are anyone surprised though? From the moment he first refused to release his tax returns, we knew something shady was up. Even his cultists must have realised it, they just didn't care any more about his financial crimes than they cared about his sex crimes. Let's just hope he gets some sort of comeuppance. From what I understand it's too late for criminal charges, but it would be amazing if a sitting president were ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in civil fines. The article I read says the Times spent a year and a half on this investigation, which I find interesting. First of all I'm surprised they didn't start sooner, why not already during the Republican primaries, or at the very least immediately after the election? They (like all of us) knew he had been up to shady things, and they knew if they could prove it this would make for a series of explosive articles. Secondly a year and a half is an awful long time for newspaper research, even for such a big case as this one. I don't think it's accidental; I think the Times are honouring the US tradition of the October Surprise in national elections. Save the most explosive stuff for the month before the election, when everyone's eyes are on the people they're covering. Someone on Tildes predicted that Trump would do something moronic and/or evil to create headlines to distract from his tax fraud. Right on cue the president went on stage and publicly mocked professor Ford. Sometimes I wonder if he's a PR idiot savant, or just a very lucky idiot.
This weekend was what we Eurovision-nerds refer to as Super Saturday, where 5 national entries were selected (with two more following on Sunday). Finland is sending none other than Darude, whom you may remember from his 1999 smash hit (which is now possibly stuck in your head just from reading his name). Alas this song is no Sandstorm, being more muted and much less catchy. Georgia is one of my favourite Eurovision nations, which rarely fails to entertain. This year they are less fun than usual, but I still quite like it. Iceland's pick is not very typical for Eurovision. It will certainly stand out. It's brutal. I almost like it. Moldova had my favourite song last year. This year they're just ok in my opinion. My native Norway is sending a catchy dance tune with a solid dose of joik. I'm biased, of course, but I like it. Portugal this year seems quirky just for the sake of being quirky. And finally Serbia went with this ballad. This is probably the best crop so far this year. And in general I'm happy with how many countries are choosing to sing in other languages than English this year. :-)
For years now I've had an idea for a product. It's a globe that is actually a spherical LCD display that shows the Earth. On the stand there's a slider for year, so you can choose to see what the Earth looked like at any point in human history. Buttons control what you want to see: National borders, cities, terrain, population density, etc. There's also a toggle for which planet you want to see, with every known planet and moon in the solar system available. Optionally the globe can be connected to the Internet for automatic updates to keep all the information up to date. I have no idea if the product would even be possible to make. If anyone want to try, you can have the idea for free.
When I was in high school I bought my first cell phone, and it came with a truly amazing feature: Text messaging. I remember how amazing it was to be able to communicate with anyone without actually talking to them! Things got even better when I got access to the world wide web on my spare time. I found a chat room with some friendly people, bound together by a common interest in video games and pop culture, which I still hang out in every day, almost a decade later. Without that room and those dozen+ people I count among my friends, spread across time zones, I might have been a very lonely person. The first time I learned about this was reading an article on, of all places, Cracked. I'm not allowed to share links yet, so if you have the time, visit Cracked and search for "monkeysphere". It's seriously one of the most eye-opening articles I've ever read.Ms. Flora did note the advantages of digital media for introverts and people susceptible to loneliness, namely that it is less risky and enervating to make contact through a text or post than through a phone call or an invitation to meet.
These findings jibe with the research of Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford. He has theorized that “group size” of both humans and nonhuman primates — the number of people (or, say, chimpanzees) one can maintain social cohesion with — correlates to “relative neocortical volume,” or the ratio of the neocortex to the rest of the brain.
Somehow I don't think I've heard that myth before. It's surprisingly (or maybe not that surprisingly) similar to a local legend describing the formation of several mountains in northern Norway: The Seven Sisters The Horseman The Leka Maiden The Torgar Hat
That doesn't sound right, but I tried ducking "how much does watching an episode on Netflix pollute" and got exactly zero relevant hits. It does however remind me of something I read years ago about Google searches, found this article about it. Is watching one episode on Netflix roughly equivalent to ten months worth of Google searches? Does "Google services" include YouTube and Gmail and all their other services, or just search? And can we at all rely on a number provided by a company spokesperson? There are indeed some of us who try to reduce our electricity consumption for environmental reasons, but I bet most haven't considered much the electricity consumed by their cloud services. Now I'm wondering if some internet giants are greener than others.I was recently told that an hour of watching Netflix causes about as much pollution as driving a car ten miles. I tried looking it up, but I can't find where to get that information, but I did find quite a few articles that data servers are quite the energy hogs.
CO2GLE uses 2015 internet traffic data, Moll says, and is based on the assumption that Google.com “processes an approximate average of 47,000 requests every second, which represents an estimated amount of 500 kg of CO2 emissions per second.” That would be about 0.01 kg per request. She says these numbers are approximations, though when Quartz shared CO2GLE with Google, the company didn’t contest the math. In fact, in a 2009 estimate, Google said each query causes 0.2 grams of CO2 emissions.
A spokesperson also tells Quartz that providing one user with one month of Google services generates about the same amount of the greenhouse gas emissions as driving a car for one mile. (An average gasoline-powered car typically emits 8.91 kg of CO2 per gallon. In the US, cars average 24.7 miles per gallon, which would mean a car emits 360.7 grams of CO2 per mile.)
I've been using put.re for a while now. IMGZ looks promising. These Imgur alternatives tend to be short lived, so it's nice to have a reserve one. Rest in peace eho.st.
Were any of those actually attempts at Modern Monetary Theory? From what I understand of it, an important aspect of the theory is that inflation should be controlled by removing currency from circulation through taxation. Even the two examples cited from France don't sound like MMT to me. They didn't create money out of nothing, instead they sold something the state already owned to its people to collect money from the public without resorting to excessive taxation. (I do agree with the writers that Modern Monetary Theory is kind of a dumb name. Wikipedia suggests a different name: Neo-chartalism.)previous examples of MMT—Venezuela, Zimbabwe, the Weimar Republic, Revolutionary France
Welcome! I recently came here from Reddit myself. It's less lively, but I find the quality of both posts and comments to be significantly higher.
Godt nyttår! :-) Happy new year everyone!
There's a less advanced version available named Ticket to Ride: First Journey. Might want to start there.
You know what, you're right! I've used this place for a while now, I really like it, time to give back. I get an error when I try to donate though...Your account cannot currently make live charges. If you are the site owner, please activate your account at https://dashboard.stripe.com/account/details to remove this limitation. If you are a customer trying to make a purchase, please contact the owner of this site. Your transaction has not been processed.
Great pictures. :-) I've been to Svalbard twice myself, to visit my grandfather who lived most of his life in Longyearbyen. Once in summer, and once in late winter (after the sun had returned). It's really a beautiful place, and a fascinating community. It will be interesting to see how they'll fare now that the last coal mines are closing.
Microsoft is also a cloud computing company these days. If carbon emissions from electricity consumed by all their servers is included in the pledge, it becomes more meaningful.
Maybe they're also worried about the dominance of Google's browser engine. By the way, do you have any stats to share of what browsers Hubski users use?Too bad they don’t include Brave.
Lawful evil. Trump is chaotic evil. Part of me is surprised they didn't replace him with Pence in his first year; honestly I think that would have been the best thing for the Republican Party to do. Might be too late for them now that Pence is also implicated.the ethical makeup of your average Republican Senator
I suspect this was planned all along. By cancelling (or suspending) a meeting North Korea shows that the process is fragile, and that any provocation could put the whole thing in jeopardy.
That was a very interesting read. Thanks for sharing! I've occasionally seen The Epoch Times mentioned, but I had no idea it was the advertisement arm of a Chinese cult. Oh yes; truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance are definitely words I use to describe Trump. I guess the enemy of my enemy and all that. And I didn't know Shen Yun is connected to Falun Gong. I guess whenever anything gets that heavily advertised there's something shady going on in the background. edit: Almost forgot; the most recent episode of Some More News covers what the Qanon "movement" has been up to lately.Falun Gong (UK: /ˌfɑːlʊn ˈɡɒŋ, ˌfæl-, - ˈɡʊŋ/, US: /- ˈɡɔːŋ/)[1] or Falun Dafa (/ˈdɑːfə/; Standard Mandarin Chinese: [fàlwə̌n tâfà]; literally, "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a Chinese religious spiritual practice that combines meditation and qigong exercises with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance (Chinese: 真、善、忍).