Cavalcade of Mammals

• MAGA
• Proud Boys
• Armed Militias
• And a guy dressed as Hitler

Back when only 1/3 of Americans were taken in by propaganda, and that 1/3 were split among different types of crazy. Fox news is the one ring that united them all.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1834690947350630

Clear ice with directional freezing
Making Flow – Interview with director Gints Zilbalodis

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” -Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” -Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism

Measles outbreak in low tax, low government capacity Texas, link

Facilitate Insight by Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation
“insight problem solving task while receiving transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the anterior temporal lobes (ATL). Only 20% of participants solved an insight problem with sham stimulation (control), whereas 3 times as many participants did so (p = 0.011) with cathodal stimulation (decreased excitability) of the left ATL together with anodal stimulation (increased excitability) of the right ATL.”

Layoff announcement tracker

Beck Weathers (Mt Everest 1996 disaster) general session speech at 2015 NADA Convention

Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness and Betrayal Trauma Theory by Jennifer J. Freyd
“DARVO—deny, attack, reverse victim and offender”

Ubuntu 24.04 was going to sleep by default. Turning it off, link.

101 American Fossil Sites You’ve Gotta See by Albert B Dickas

From the FOX propaganda channel: Misleading Rumor Claims Trump Admin Found 75K-80K ‘Missing’ Migrant Children

Sterilizing seeds
“My recommendation is 10% Calcium hypochloride or 5% Sodium hypochloride for 30 minutes, and for complex surfaces of bigger seeds, it is essential to add 2% Tween 20 as detergent (a small drop for 1mL bleach in an Eppendorf tube with seeds).”
“Sodium hypochlorite (1-5%) or 10% Calcium hypochlorite are most common. Mercuric chloride 1% is also probably the best, but use of 3 compounds: Sodium hypochlorite, KMnO4 and H2O2 with washing by water after each one gave best results for nuts and beans.”
“Glass container, clean. Place seeds into it and pour hydrogen peroxide 3%. Soak for five minutes. Drain, pour distilled water and soak for five minutes.”
Growing Seed Sprouts at Home, link.

Rictors Seeds

Map of obscure islands

Musk’s Junta Establishes Him as Head of Government. Imagining how we’d cover overseas what’s happening to the U.S. right now. by Garrett Graff

So many unmarried men. For Mary Midgley, the Western philosophical tradition is shaped by the fact that its greatest practitioners were bachelors. by Ellie Robson

Book to read: The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn by Richard Hamming. Known for Hamming codes (checksums).

Since males had dominated these professions for centuries, you would think they would leave slowly, hesitantly or maybe linger at 40%, 35%, 30%, but that’s not what happens. Once the tipping point reaches majority female- the men flee. And boy do they flee!
It’s a slippery slope. When the number of women hits 60% the men who are there make a swift exit and other men stop joining.

Why aren’t we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? by Celeste Davis

Book to read: Much Ado About Numbers: Shakespeare’s Mathematical Life and Times by Rob Eastaway

Book to read: ‘Secrets of Automata – Ingenious designs for mechanical life’ by Michael Start of The House of Automata.

Making A Mechanical Watch From Scratch Is Fine Work
Tom’s Watchmaking Blog
Hobby CNC machining and resin casting
Part 01 of 03 – An Introduction to the Series 2 Movement

3D printed lens grinding machine by Von Fraens, link.
3D printed sphere machine by Von Fraens, link.

Shodan – search engine for Internet-connected devices.

Trump was a bad President, 1st term.

Glossary for The Sun Also Rises, wikipedia book link.

AI achieves silver-medal standard solving International Mathematical Olympiad problems

Indiana May Make Abortion Reports Public Records

Who Goes MAGA?

Chihuly Garden and Glass

Peabody museum at Harvard: Blaschka flowers / sea creatures

Peabody Essex Museum in Salem

Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio

Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Barry Museum of Art and Glass Light Hotel, Norfolk, Virginia

International

Veste Coburg/Rosenau for modern glass art (https://glasmuseum.kunstsammlungen-coburg.de/en/home/)

Museum für Glaskunst Lauscha: lampwork / prosthetic glass eyes (https://www.glasmuseum-lauscha.de/willkommen.html)

Glass museum Riihimäki: Finnish midcentury (https://www.suomenlasimuseo.fi/?ved=2ahUKEwiuld7Zq-OJAxUJ9rsIHchRI8YQgU96BAg1EAQ)

Galleries

Habatat, Michigan

Heller gallery, NYC

Habitat Gallery, Florida

Hawk gallery, Columbus, Ohio

How responsible is the CEO of health insurance company for the death and suffering caused by the company? Use this handy formula to find out:

deaths x fraction for which the CEO is responsible

Being a corporation, responsibility is best assessed by money. Let’s split responsibility for a company between the management and major shareholders. So here the the formula”

“excess deaths caused by company” x (“CEO salary” / “sum of C-suite salaries” + (“shares owned by CEO” / (“shares owned by major shareholders”) / 2

Build a Simple 3D Printed CNC Plotter Machine by MertArduino

Try these Filament Combinations for Multi-Material and Supports

Little Red State Fundy sez…

Science Is a Word Game by Jamie Zvirzdin

Piping tip size charts (cake, decorating), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Free/open-source sites for the preparation of scientific illustrations: bioicons.com, scidraw.io, bioart.niaid.nih.gov, inkscape.org, biogdp.com, reactome.org/icon-lib

History for GRANITE. Exploring the pyramids of Ancient Egypt

Jan 6 Capital attack video, link.

Process your own JWST images at home

In Five Years, Chicago Has Barely Made Progress on Its Court-Ordered Police Reforms. Here’s Why. by Heather Cherone, WTTW News, and Vernal Coleman, ProPublica.

Fake Jobs and Fake Facts. By Misrepresenting Constitutional Law, Muskawamy Prove Brandolini’s Law. by Don Moynihan

Federal Pell Grants

How an Interracial Marriage Sparked One of the Most Scandalous Trials of the Roaring Twenties

Malcolm Gladwell. “Malcolm Gladwell began as a college right-wing Reagan supporter, was trained by the tobacco-funded far-right National Journalism Center, and throughout his career has inserted pro-tobacco, pro-banking industry and pro-PHARMA messages into his books and articles.”

Kveik. A family of strains of brewing yeast that has been used in Norwegian farmhouse brewing for generations.

STORM. Wikipedia-like report on your topic with AI

Project 2025 Annotation: A Summary

Bezos, Trump, and the Failure of Democracy. We are witnessing a watershed moment. Democracy is failing because the rule of law has been broken. And everyone is about to realize it. All at once.