Cavalcade of Mammals

How far a train will take you in 5 hrs in Europe
Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin. Documentary

Impact of Lifting School Masking Requirements on Incidence of COVID-19 among Staff and Students in Greater-Boston Area School Districts: A Difference-in-Differences Analysis. “We estimate that lifting of school masking requirements was associated with an additional 44.9 (95% CI: 32.6, 57.1) COVID-19 cases per 1,000 students and staff over the 15 weeks since the lifting of the statewide school masking requirement, representing nearly 30% of all cases observed in schools during that time. “

You’re All Just Jealous of my Jetpack, cartoons by Tom Gauld

Kiln camera
Endless rake
Kiln design
EDM controller test
Piezo motor design / tests
Spot welder controller
Kiln ESP32 v2 (current sensing, direct ramp control, 2nd temp probe, bug fix)
ESP32 security camera, wall powered
CNC glass cutting w/ heat gun

Chicago River. “Bubbly Creek: An Environmental Quagmire for Federal Agencies and Local Activists“
An Environmental Disaster Brought to You by Meat: Chicago’s Bubbly Creek

The Republican Attack on Citizenship: From Rhetoric to Reality by John Ganz

The Bactra Review: book reviews by Cosma Shalizi of What Is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect by James R. Flynn

The Bactra Review: book reviews by Cosma Shalizi of What Is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect by James R. Flynn

100 Prisoners Riddle
Pioneer Panzer Brigade, the East German Boy Scout Tank Unit

WebbCompare Deep_Field
2022 Audubon photography award

Compounded: the Peer Reviewed Edition! is a game about scientists grappling for recognition on the edge of known chemistry, and getting credit for their discoveries, all while competing for limited resources and striking deals with the competition to ensure their work gets done.

IU’s silence regarding Dr. Caitlin Bernard hasn’t gone unnoticed by Jeffrey C. Isaac. IU leadership silent on attacks on OB/GYN professor.

Tirzepatide gives 20% weight loss! Once Weekly for the Treatment of Obesity

Laser spot size tradeoffs, link

Amateur ruling engine for making diffraction gratings made by Brian Manning TJIIRRS: Number 13,
Diffraction gratings, buy

Handy Techniques and Devices for making stuff by Jon Singer

More Guns, More Unintended Consequences: The Effects of Right-to-Carry on Criminal Behavior and Policing in US Cities. John J. Donohue, Samuel V. Cai, Matthew V. Bondy & Philip J. Cook.

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Pavers for water barrel
garden hose nozzle

Finish boards

Currently, gun regulation is politically impossible. The Republican party has worked with the gun manufacturer’s lobby (the NRA) to make gun ownership a totem, an obsession among conservatives. Republicans won’t vote for even minor gun regulation of the sort large majorities of Americans favor.

To pass federal gun regulation, the Democrats need to control the Presidency, the House, and have 54+ votes in the Senate, enough to overcome the members of the party who vote with Republicans on close bills. And even that would not be enough. The Supreme Court has been packed with Republican extremists. In 2008, the Court invented a personal write to own military weapons, and the Court now has more Republican extremists–any significant law passed by Democrats faces a likely veto by the Court. With the Court vetoing all the state gun control measures, they certainly would throw out a Democratic federal gun regulation bill.

So what *can* be done? I would look to the last time Republican favored gun regulation. In 1967, when Reagan was governor of California, he signed a ban on carrying loaded guns without a permit. Why? Because the Black Panthers were encouraging blacks to carry guns.

Is the US still racist enough for this to work? Certainly. So if group, say Arm African Americans (AAA), were to very publicly encourage blacks and other minorities to walk around strapped, that would quickly change the politics of gun regulation. Encourage 18-year old gang members to carry guns at all times–a lot of these kids don’t have criminal records, so they can. This will get cops behind gun regulation.

Start minority gun clubs. Hold gun parades and gun events in public spaces. Encourage people at marches to publicly carry guns, and minorities to carry guns in public. The Republican press may applaud this at first, but they will soon start fear-mongering like they do. Urban areas will be even more ‘dangerous’ to conservatives, and they will encounter armed minorities in public all over. I can’t see the Democratic party pushing for this, but other democratic-minded groups could start this. Is this a little crazy? Yes, but there is no sensible path to gun regulation in the US.

Within a few years, Republicans will start voting for gun control and the Supreme Court will *discover* new legal theories making the laws enforceable.

Favorites book list

The Abortion Backup Plan No One Is Talking About: Even in states with the strictest abortion laws, pregnant people have a safe, inexpensive option to terminate their pregnancies. But few know about it. by Olga Khazan

New ClusteredNR database: faster searches and more informative BLAST results

Every Republican Political Ad by Corey Forrester

Mechanical Watch site by Bartosz Ciechanowski
Origami folding simulator

Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies: Burn It With Fire(Nicholas Weaver)

Donna and Walt audio: A Series of Unlikely Events

Americans are split on buying a house where the prior owners were murdered
Nearly two in five Americans say they believe that ghosts (36%), demons (37%), and psychics (37%) exist. Less than half of Americans say each one doesn’t exist. Far fewer believe in the existence of vampires (7%) and werewolves (7%); more than 80% of Americans say vampires and werewolves do not exist.

Panic! On the Editorial Page: Breaking down a “cancel culture” scare story by Michael Hobbes

I’m a Longtime Professor. The Real Campus “Free Speech Crisis” Is Not What You Think. I’ve never seen classrooms like mine in the pages of the Times. by Lucas Mann

“Long-term cardiovascular outcomes of COVID-19”, Nature, Feb 7 2022

The Other Speed Trap: America’s traffic laws hurt the poor, and don’t really deter anyone. But what if traffic fines scaled with income? by Brett Simpson

How To Keep Enforcers Like Police, Military And Spies Under Control By Ian Welsh

The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence, pre-print

A Deepness in the Sky (1999) by Vernor Vinge. The Emergent mindrot virus, a tech of neurotoxins and a device that induces obsession with a single idea or specialty, called Focus, turning people into brilliant appliances.

“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967) is a post-apocalyptic science fiction short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. The AI “AM” tortures the last surviving humans.

The Jesus Incident (1979) by Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom. Sequel to is Destination: Void. Ship develops super intelligence, the ability to manipulate space and time, and demands WorShip.

Stand on Zanzibar (1968) and The Sheep Look Up (1972) by John Brunner. Overpopulation and resource depletion have degraded life. Explores all the little ways the breakdown affects the characters and compounds.

Venus of Dreams (1986) and sequels by Pamela Sargent. The world government, a bureaucracy that sees social order as its prime goal, is a bleak but depressingly plausible future. The government suppresses individuality, initiative, and change. Strong resonance with the historic Chinese empire and current Chinese efforts to use technology to control and channel society.

The Space Merchants (1952) by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. Also The Merchants’ War (1984). Hyper-consumerism and advertising have destroyed society. Businesses run everything, run the political system as a product line. Through advertising, the public is deluded into thinking that the quality of life is improved by all the products placed on the market. Some products are highly addictive. The most basic elements of life are incredibly scarce, including water and fuel.

Broken Earth series: The Fifth Season (2015), The Obelisk Gate (2016), The Stone Sky (2017) by N.K. Jemisin. The system used to control the orogenes is brutal.

Xenogenesis / Lilith’s Brood series: Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988), Imago (1989) by Octavia E. Butler. Dystopic series starts with Lilith is held captive by strange aliens and interbreed with an alien of the ‘third sex’.

Classic stories

Make Room! Make Room! (1966) by Harry Harrison.