When you can't live without bananas

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Monday, May 27, 2024

Links - 27th May 2024 (1)

Meme - "Liu Bang was a provincial constable (basically a sheriff) in Classical China who one day was transporting some prisoners who escaped. The penalty for allowing prisoners to escape was death, so my man looked at his prospects and said "welp, in for a penny, in for a pound" and decided to go join up with the dudes who'd been his prisoners 5 minutes ago. This kicked off a chain of events that led to him becoming a bandit chief and eventually a rebel general and ended with him overthrowing the Qin dynasty and becoming Emperor Gaozu of Han. And you think you had a weird day at work"
"You ever mess up your job so bad that the only way to recover is to overthrow the government?"

Meme - "Don't feed or molest. Gators CANNOT be tamed and feeding them can result in their mistaking a hand for a handout! Florida law prohibits the feeding or molesting of alligators!! Support Wildlife Alert! If you see someone feeding or molesting an alligator, call the nearest office of the Florida Fish and WIldlife Conservation Commission... There may be a REWARD!!"
"Or Maybe they shouldn't be so slutty *Joe Biden kissing alligator*"

Meme - "Decisions... decisions...
Poop with Friends *unlocked door and smiley face*
Poop alone *locked door and frown*"

Meme - ">using linux in front of class mates
>teacher says "Ok students, now open photoshop"
>start furiously typing away at terminal to install Wine
>Errors out the ass
>Everyone else has already started their classwork
>I start to sweat
>Install GIMP
>"Umm...what the fuck is THAT anon?" a girl next to me asks
>I tell her its GIMP and can do everything that photoshop does and IT'S FREE!
>"Ok class, now draw use the shape tool to draw a circle!" the teacher says
>I fucking break down and cry and run out of the class
>I get beat up in the parking lot after school"

Meme - "Have you tried throwing rocks at her?"
"TALIBAN MARRIAGE COUNSELLING"

Meme - "Whoever made these bar stools is a pure genius. I had to look twice *nuns on barstools with sexy legs*"

Meme - "When he tells you to sit on his face
You will get very wet on this ride!"

Justin Trudeau's Ego on X - "The images of the #BaltimoreBridge collapse are shocking, and my Government is taking steps to keep Canadians safe. That's why we're implementing a new "Bridge Tax". Anyone going over or under a bridge will pay $100, which we'll use to fight systemic racism and climate change."

Meme - *Ash from Pokemon*
*Ash eats PIkachu*
*Dragonball Super Saiyan hair*

Meme - Brendan @BrendanMciInnis: "I don't hate anyone, but this one made me laugh
Kate Hikes and Nate Higgers going backpacking"

Meme - *Skips Sitting Next To Graves*
*day*
"Hey, this Halloween you wanna all dress up as gravestones?"
"Yeah!"
"Let's do it!"
"For sure!"
*night*
"Hey man, where's your costume?"
"Sorry I forgot. God I feel stupid"

Meme - "The longer I look at this "Doctor kit" the more confused I get. *Spectacles, toothbrush, toothpaste, rubber ducks, balls, ice cream scoop, bowling pins, tooth, pistol, glue gun [?]*"

Why were chainsaws invented? - "The creators of the chainsaw were two Scottish surgeons named John Aitken and James Jeffray. And they developed their gnarly and dangerous device to help them do their jobs—cutting human bone and flesh.   Even under the best possible circumstances, giving birth is not what most would call a pleasant experience. But in the 18th century, prior to the development of anesthesia and other modern surgical tools, delivery could turn incredibly dangerous with little warning. When babies came out feet-first or their bodies were otherwise trapped in the birth canal, doctors would have to widen the pelvic area by cutting into the cartilage and bone. Aitken and Jeffray found that a sharp knife just didn’t do the trick in a timely fashion, so, somewhat shockingly, they created a chainsaw as a more precise and humane option."

Some animals pause their own pregnancies, but how they do it is still a mystery - "More than 130 species of mammal can pause their pregnancies. The pause can last anywhere between a couple of days and 11 months. In most species (except some bats, who do it a little later) this happens when the embryo is a tiny ball of about 80 cells, before it attaches to the uterus.  It’s not just a single group of mammals, either. Various species seem to have developed the ability as needed to reproduce more successfully. Most carnivores can pause their pregnancies, including all bears and most seals, but so can many rodents, deer, armadillos, and anteaters. More than a third of the species that take a breather during gestation are from Australia, including some possums and all but three species of kangaroo and wallaby.  The record-holder for pregnancy pause time is the tammar wallaby, which has been studied extensively for its ability to put embryos on hold for up to 11 months. The main advantage to pausing pregnancy is that it separates mating and birth"

Divers Use Clues From Homer's Iliad to Find Ancient Shipwrecks
This article doesn't give any details. And most of the shipwrecks were after his time. Pfft

Why the Music in Les Misérables (2012) is Worse than you Thought - YouTube
At ~19:00 and ~29:50 he nails why I don't like speaking bits that're meant to be sung (Sprechstimme)

Miles Davis - Wikipedia - "Davis had an operation to remove polyps from his larynx in October 1955. The doctors told him to remain silent after the operation, but he got into an argument that permanently damaged his vocal cords and gave him a raspy voice for the rest of his life"

Operation Cottage - Wikipedia - "Operation Cottage was a tactical maneuver which completed the Aleutian Islands campaign. On August 15, 1943, Allied military forces landed on Kiska Island, which had been occupied by Japanese forces since June 1942. However, the Japanese had secretly abandoned the island two weeks earlier, and so the Allied landings were unopposed. Allied forces suffered over 500 casualties in total during the operation from Japanese landmines and booby traps, friendly fire incidents, and vehicle accidents"

The Joy of Cooking Naked - The New York Times - "“Embracing the nudist lifestyle has given me permission to feel my feelings,” she said one morning as she sautéed bell peppers while wearing nothing but a glittery manicure in her home kitchen at the Lake Como Family Nudist Resort in Lutz, about 20 miles north of Tampa. She lives here with her husband, Jayson McMullen. “But if you want to know the truth,” she added with a resigned sigh, “I buy precooked bacon, and I microwave it on a paper towel.”... But many nudists balk at any suggestion that cooking — or vacationing, or living in general — is more fraught for them than for the clothed. In fact, when it comes to cooking and dining, many nudists are unequivocal: It’s better naked. They feel less inhibited, more creative... “I was a very shy and nervous and introverted person,” said Mr. Clark, 63. “I’d stay isolated. I didn’t have a lot of friends. The second I was nude, that disappeared in two seconds. My whole life changed.”... “I feel freer and more imaginative when I am nude while cooking,” said Mr. Clark, standing over his stove, tossing clams into garlic broth and boiling angel-hair pasta. A sign above his head read, “It’s naked o’clock somewhere.”... Nudists “are more friendly and more understanding than people who are not nude,” said the restaurant’s manager, Stephan Krienes, 78, who is not a nudist. “They are not uptight.” He said it took him “about 10 minutes” to adjust to being around naked people."

Empty half the Earth of its humans. It's the only way to save the planet
The world is ending. The world has always been ending. The world will always be ending
Forcing people into cities means pushing a left wing agenda is easier, of course

Associations of Fish Oil Supplement Use With Testicular Function in Young Men - "healthy men may benefit from intake of fish oil supplements, but a well-designed randomized clinical trial among unselected men is warranted."

Meme - Armand Domalewski @ArmandDoma: "quitting my job to open a high frequency restaurant reservation trading hedge fund"
Tanay Jaipuria @tanayj: "People are making $70-80K per year selling restaurant reservations in NYC on the secondary market"

Meme - "They must've thought it said "Mo Onions"
McDouble. ADD Roma Tomato-2. NO Onions. ADD Shredded Lettu
*burger with lots of onions*"

Meme - "Tapes had side A and side B so it's only logical that their successor is the CD"

Meme - "I welded two city buses together and buried them on my farm. I built the insides of them to look like an alien space ship used alot of ky jelly and fiberglass etc. Every so often i go into town and drug someone up at the bar if i can get them to leave alone before they pass out I take them to my spaceship where I strap them down and dress up as an alien and do all sorts of weird shit, then i drug them up again and leave them in a field outside of town. im also female"

Meme - Richard Hanania @RichardHanania: "Someone asked me how I could gravitate to far right ideas in my youth when they seem so dumb.  I said it was a different time, as this meme shows."
"The Red Pill
2013
In my analysis of the racial gap between white and black Americans, I have discovered that IQ subtests that are found to be more heritable also correlate more highly with the general intelligence factor, g, than do the those tests that are less heritable. I have also found that subtests that are more heritable tend to produce larger differences between whites and blacks than tests which are less heritable. This is the opposite of \what one might predict if they believed racial differences in scores were due to environmental differences rather than genetic ones.
2020
TAKE YOUR FUCKING CUCKMUZZLE OFF GRANDMA THE VIRUS IS A HOAX
Look at this electoral map from this guy on Twitter, Trump actually won California!
It's happening! Yesterday Q said the Kraken would be coming soon, and today R said the military was being mobilized, and now Trump is wearing a green tie which confirms the prophecy W made last year!
Let's inspect more of Hunter's dick pics! Hmm, Hunter's cock looks really juicy in that pic. WOAH! Zoom in on his cock, that vein wasn't there last year!"

Meme - "Robert A. Heinlein
Care of Mr Lurton Blassingame
60 East 42nd Street, Suite 1131
New York, N.Y. 10017
Dear Sir/Madam/Ms./Miss
An ever-increasing flood of mail forced me to choose between writing letters and writing fiction. But I read each letter sent to me and check its answer.
Thanks for your kind words. You have made my day brighter.
You say that you have enjoyed my stories for years. Why did you wait until you disliked one story before writing to me?
Renshaw: Saturday Evening Post, You're Not As Smart As You Could Be, April 17th, 24th, and May 1st, 1948
Essay Mental Telegraphy, Mark Twain's Works, Harper & Brothers
Don't send books to be autographed:, many have failed to reach me. Registering or insuring is no answer; the post office is a 30-mile round trip.
Story ideas come from everywhere and anything & writers are self-taught. The book WRITER'S MARKET tells how to prepare manuscripts & lists markets
My agent handles all business; your letter has been sent to his.
I don't discuss my colleagues' works or my own. A novelist writes from many viewpoints: opinions expressed even by a first-person character are not necessarily those of the author. Fiction is sold as entertainment, not as fact.
The item you want is herewith/not available/: Ask your reference librarian.
I don't sell books. All my books are in print & can be bought or ordered at any bookstore or directly from publishers. Bookstores have "in-print" lists
It is not just for a student's grade to depend on the willingness or capacity of a stranger to help him with his homework. I am ready to discuss this with your teacher, principal, or school board
Science fiction: stores that would cease to exist if elements involving science or technology were omitted. For full discussion see my lecture in THE SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, Advent:Publishers, Chicago
Who's Who in America; Encyclopedia Britannica 1974, IN SEARCH OF WONDER, chapter 7, Demon Knight, Advent:Publishers; SEEKERS OF TOMORROW, chapter 11, Sam Moskowitz, World Publishing Company; Current Biography magazine; reference books about authors. I don't discuss private life, politics, religion, philosophy
Your question: Yes/No/No comment/My publishers announce new works
Please do not write to me again.
Thanks for the stamped & addressed envelope-a rare courtesy today.
Pressure of work causes me to avoid interviews, questionnaires, radio & television appearances, public speaking.
For legal reasons I do not read unpublished manuscripts.
Don't plan to call at our home: we work very long hours every day of the year.
Your letter was most welcome!-loaded with friendliness and with no requests or demands. You suggested that no answer was expected but I must tell you how much it pleased me. I wish you calm seas, following winds, and a happy voyage through life.
Sincerely yours,
Robert A. Heinlein, by ___"

MLB Survey Asks Fans if They're Republicans or Democrats

How cities will fossilise - "Shanghai Tower has five subsurface levels, including shops and restaurants and parking space for 1,800 vehicles. Entombed in thick mud, these spaces will be preserved against erosion and begin to fossilise – "the Pompeii effect, if you like," says Zalasiewicz."

The new few - "Biden tried to present his election campaign as a fight between ‘Scranton’ (his Pennsylvania hometown) and ‘Park Avenue’. But this neglects the way the Democratic Party has come to represent the new few. At the elite level, the party divide can roughly be seen as a fight between the interests of the knowledge economy and the interests of the industrial economy. Certainly, the Trump administration has enriched many of the wealthiest Americans through tax cuts and a huge pandemic stimulus package. And the worlds of oil and gas, agriculture, the automotive industries and construction still lean Republican.  But these are yesterday’s men. The Democrats, on the other hand, are aligned to the interests of what is now the dominant wing of the capitalist class. As Joel Kotkin, author of The Coming Neo-Feudalism, points out: ‘The tech giants now account for nearly 40 per cent of the value of the Standard and Poor index, a level of concentration unprecedented in modern history.’ The big five ‘FAANG’ tech firms (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) account for 15 per cent of the market. Apple alone counts for seven per cent of the S&P – its market capitalisation is worth more than the annual GDP of most countries. Silicon Valley used to be Republican. For instance, David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, was Richard Nixon’s secretary of defence. Margaret O’Mara, historian of Silicon Valley, says that party allegiances started to change in the 1990s as Democrats courted the tech firms. Nowadays most tech bosses and their employees are liberal. In fact, many in Silicon Valley are fanatically woke.   Woke politics has the benefit of sounding progressive, inclusive and egalitarian while obscuring the class interests of those pushing it. Many in the San Francisco set will support Black Lives Matter and declare their pronouns while pouring money into campaigns to deprive gig workers of workers’ rights. The tech giants pursue their interests just as ruthlessly as all other capitalists, but woke politics allows them to present themselves as kindly capitalists, caring capitalists, moral capitalists... It’s not just Silicon Valley that has turned to the Democrats. Wall Street also backed Biden. Wealthier Americans more generally are becoming more Democratic"

Meme - Man on phone: "... PRONOUNS IN BIO. PRONOUNS IN Bio... ARE THERE ANY REAL WOMEN LEFT? FINALLY! A REAL WOMAN"
*holding hands with woman and sunset*
*woman has 6 fingers and 1 thumb [AI]*

Meme - r/askgaybros: "My dog won't listen to me anymore after he saw me bottoming
 I’d rather not go too into specifics but I had a guy over a couple weeks ago for a hookup and forgot to close the door so my Akita I’ve had for 2 years wandered in while we were going at it. The guy was being pretty rough and I was getting into it moaning being slutty you know bottom things until the top pointed out the dog was watching us. I got him out of the room and closed the door but since then my dog doesn’t seem to want to listen to me, respect my authority, or even spend much time with me. I try to pet or hug him and he growls or moves away, that wasn’t the case before…  I know “homophobic dog” sounds ridiculous but is it possible that since he saw me in submissive position he doesn’t want to listen to me anymore ?"

Meme - "Before you send a nude, remember
Is it hot? Does it look good? Are you proud to serve it?"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Colombia's countryside not yet at peace - "'Democracy is fine for Europeans she said, but we're Arabs. We want a strong leader to take charge and tell us what to do'

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Somalia's searing drought - "'[On 2016] Putin had not yet quite taken his country to the Orwellian depths of doublethink that Russians have to endure today where you can go to jail for calling a war a war but you can also go to jail for being insufficiently supportive of the soldiers fighting said war'

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Queen Elizabeth II and the World - "‘It takes a huge effort of the imagination to project ourselves back into the world of 1948, the year that Queen Elizabeth, then still Princess Elizabeth, made her first official visit to France. Fortunately, the newsreels are there to help. The war has ended only three years before. The future Queen is just 22 and newly married. No one knows it, but she's also pregnant. It is spring and peacetime and Paris lays on a feast. She and the Duke of Edinburgh look stunning as they dine at the Elysee with President Vincent Auriol and visit the Opera and the Palace of Versailles. They go to a nightclub where they meet Edith Piaf. The Queen to be also expresses an interest to go and see a play by the radical philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre but the embassy advises against it and she submits. Too political, they say everywhere she goes. The young Elizabeth stuns the French with her decorum and her radiance as well as her obvious affection for the country and its language. That visit was the beginning of a long friendship between the queen and France which president macron was so right to evoke in his tribute this week. Queen Elizabeth inherited her love of France from her mother. It was Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother who arranged for a Belgian Countess to tutor her two daughters in French from the late 1930s, with the result that the Queen's Mastery of the language was excellent. At the numerous State Banquets she attended over the years with 10 French presidents, she needed no translator and her speeches were flawless. It has been observed, she said, on one occasion in French, that the Latin and the Anglo-Saxon worlds are like oil and vinegar. Very different, but you need them both to make a proper dressing. And there you have another great quality, that tact and lightness of touch that made the Queen such a sterling asset for British diplomats and governments and lord knows in Paris they've needed help over the years. In 1957 on her first state visit as Queen she helped heal the bitterness caused by the Suez Fiasco of the year before. In 1972 with Georges Pompidou she reassured the suspicious French about the admission of the UK into Europe. Other rows have come and gone but her wisdom and her longevity helped both countries keep these disputes in perspective. For her, the fundamentals of the Franco-British entente were unchanged. A mutual admiration, a shared memory of sacrifice in war and a rivalry always tempered by good humor. Incidentally of all the French presidents that she met it’s said here in France that she found Valéry Giscard d'Estaing rather too haughty and more recently, Francois Holland rather too informal,  that she enjoyed the glamor of Nikola Sarkozy and his singer wife Carla Bruni but the president she liked the most was the Socialist François Mitterrand. Of course the Queen would never have said any of this so how the French know it to be the case, I have no idea. The Queen loved France said President Macron and the French loved her back. That too is entirely true. They even forgave her that one of her titles was the Duke, yes Duke, not Duchess of Normandy and the fact that up until George III a little over 200 years ago all kings and queens of England were also - in name - kings and queens of France. The ancient claim had never been dropped. Though today's French are all firm Republicans, of course, but scratch them a little and you'll find a nation that's never entirely got over the loss of its own monarchy. It's not that they want Kings or Queens back, but they miss royalty's better aspects. They envy the pomp and the ceremony, the sense of continuity and stability. They can see the precious thing it is to have a head of state who is not a politician. But I think when the French looked at the Queen as a person, they saw something else too which they deeply admired. To be a king or queen is of course the ultimate privilege. To have a crown is what children dream of, even in Republics. What the French saw in the Queen was a woman who accepted her privilege but knew that it was only one side of a bargain. The other side being a lifetime of duty and service. They watched the queen act out this duty from her first visit to Paris right to the very last days of her life this week in Balmoral. The French really thought the world of her'"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, A turning point for Ukraine? - "'Why did a nation that love humiliating the English on the field of sport continue to curtsy and bow to a British head of state? In the 50 years since Australia has become even more multicultural. The founding presence of First Nations peoples, the descendants of the oldest continuous civilization in the world, has been more widely acknowledged'
Civilization - Wikipedia - "A civilization or civilisation is any complex society characterized by the development of the state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system)"

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