Cavalcade of Mammals

Reverse Engineering the source code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine by Bert Hubert
Trump’s Alleged Involvement with the KKK. Newspaper clips obtained by VICE suggest the Republican frontrunner’s father may have worn the robe and hood of a Klansman in 1927. by Mike Pearl
Dover Pictorial Archive and related, at the Internet Archive
U.S. Capitol Clean-up: Hear from a few employees about the incredible effort they and their teams put forward in the aftermath of the Capitol breach on January 6, 2021. by aoc staff
Excess mortality from COVID-19 in the US so far: 400,000 people, or 1:650, data
It All Began With Russia: Donald Trump’s 4 Great Betrayals of the Nation: The scandal set the stage for the horrors that followed. by David Corn
Large bitcoin payments to right-wing activists a month before Capitol riot linked to foreign account. by Jenna McLaughlin
Trump officials actively lobbied to deny states money for vaccine rollout last fall. by Nicholas Florko

Make a dish based on Voronoi diagrams. Made an Inkscape extension (jim_voronoi.py) that does recursive Voronoi diagrams with optional Lloyd’s relaxation. Seed point layouts can be random or normally distributed from the edge, center, or two or more foci arranged about half way between the center and edge.

Plan is to make a nonogram outline, and do two levels of Voronoi regions. The first level is normally distributed at the edge, the second level is randomly distributed and has one round of Lloyd’s relaxation. Try several layouts, pick one that looks appealing.

Make the main color opaque blue. Cut with a tile saw, clean up on the grinder. Print out the design on two pages, tape together, and match pieces to the design to check while grinding.

Cut a base glass of 3mm transparent, place over the design, glue the tiles in place. Place paper over the glass leaving the main lines uncovered, use Bullseye True Blue Transparent power. Add Glastac glue to fix in place, remove excess, clean up. Mix Glastic Gel glue with powder, add to edge to give a border. Let dry overnight. Clean up some more, use vacuum to remove excess powder.

Mask main lines with blue tape, add Bullseye Aquamarine Blue Transparent powder to fill in secondary lines. Add Glastac glue to fix in place, clean up excess, and let dry. In places, the powder compressed when the glue was added–add more powder of both colors to fill remaining gaps, let dry, clean up. For detail clean up, hold the vacuum close by and scrap off excess powder / glue.

Fuse on ceramic paper:
400F, 1 hr
1000F, 2 hr
1250F, 1 hr
1250F, 30 min
1465F, 1 hr
1465F, 30 min
960F, 1 hr
960F, 30 min
700F, 75 min
let cool.

Facial recognition to tag photos:
Shotwell, digiKam imgSeek Galapix
face_recognition

Aging Is Reversible—at Least in Human Cells and Live Mice: Changes to gene activity that occur with age can be turned back, a new study shows by Karen Weintraub
“In living mice they activated the four genes (known as “Yamanaka factors,” for researcher Shinya Yamanaka, the Nobelist who discovered their combined potential in 2006). This approach rejuvenated damaged muscles and the pancreas in a middle-aged mouse, and extended by 30 percent the life span of a mouse with a genetic mutation responsible for Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome.”

“A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C. Today, C may be a lingua franca among programmers. This is its (abridged) history. by Richard Jensen

Bodycam Video Shows ‘Mob Mentality’ Of Boston Police Who Responded To George Floyd Protests, Lawyer Says by Eoin Higgins

What happened to the Colorado Republican Party? Out of power in a changing state, the GOP is in soul-searching mode. by Conrad Swanson

I found an online vendor selling cracked firmware that ignores the page counter chip and resets the internal page count to zero. The package came with a firmware image (V4.00.01.41) matched to the version installed, and download_0.bat, upgrade.prn, and usbprns2.exe

I ran into trouble–the firmware update wouldn’t take, it stalled when installing the image. So I downloaded the Samsung firmware updater, planning to replace the official image with my image (by changing the filename and putting it where the updater expected it. But the updater first updated the firmware on me (to V4.00.01.49), and then it wouldn’t use my cracked firmware because the cracked firmware was now an earlier version.

I finally got the firmware replaced.

Turn the printer on. Don’t hold down the orange “X” when turning it on, but press the orange “X” button immediately after starting it. The display jumps right away to “Wait Image”.

Now run download_0.bat and drop the firmware on usbprns2.exe. Now the firmware updated, then the printer reset. Worked!

Also note from the service manual:
‘Entering Tech Mode • Press “Menu > Back > Left > Right > OK > Stop” on the control panel continuously.
The Tech Mode menu has an ‘F/W Upgrade’ option, but using it I couldn’t upgrade the firmware.

This weird fruit is native to North America and an ‘ecological anachronism’ by Tracy Hadden Loh
Maclura pomifera / Osage orange / hedge apple
5 Common Edible Summertime Berries in the Chesapeake
Soul-Warming Fruit: Hard to find and tricky to eat, the persimmon is deeply connected to rustic holiday food traditions. Head for fields and woodlands—and look up! by Tracey Crehan Gerlach

Squiggles and Squares Kids activity sheets–follow the overlapping lines
Harbor Freight parody at Cool Tools

The 8th wonder of the world by Josh Dzieza
Big Business and its Bottomless Bootlickers by Nathan J. Robinson and Rob Larson.
Review of Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero by Tyler Cowen. TL;DR, he’s a gormless hack.

Liberals Are Losing the Journalism Wars: As major media outlets erect paywalls, conservative publishers are flooding the country with free right-wing propaganda paid for by Republicans. by Alex Pareene

Rallies Are the Core of Trump’s Campaign, and a Font of Lies and Misinformation: A recent rally in Wisconsin was typical. In 90 minutes, President Trump made 131 false or inaccurate statements. by Linda Qiu and Michael D. Shear

Microcosmic Tales: 100 Wondrous Science Fiction Short-Short Stories by Isaac Asimov (Editor), Martin Harry Greenberg (Editor), Joseph D. Olander (Editor)
Riddle by Ogbewe Amadin
Silly Asses by Isaac Asimov

The Effluent Engine by N.K. Jemisin
“Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu

The Alt-Right Playbook: The Death of a Euphemism

Raspberry Pi MPEG-2 license key
Patch for MPEG-2, VC-1 license

Eee PC 1008HA (Seashell) drivers

How to cheat a coin flip

Reason and Persuasion: Three Dialogues By Plato: Euthyphro, Meno, Republic Book, 4th edition by John Holbo (Author), Plato (Author), Belle Waring (Translator).
Three complete Plato dialogues – Euthyphro, Meno, Republic Book I – in a fresh English translation, with extensive commentary and original illustrations. “Reason and Persuasion” is suitable as an introductory textbook or for more advanced students of Plato and philosophy.

How to Unlock Android Phone If Forgot Password, Pattern Lock, or Broken Screen

Prohibition worked better than you think

‘At Least During the Internment …’ Are Words I Thought I’d Never Utter: I was sent to a camp at just 5 years old — but even then, they didn’t separate children from families. by George Takei

Don’t Believe What They Tell You About The Left. Try reading our books and talking to us instead of listening to what YouTube loudmouths say we think… by Nathan J. Robinson

Punchcutting at the Atelier Press & Letterfoundry

It’s Coming From Inside the House by David Austin Walsh

Conservatives are desperate to absolve the 1 percent. by Ryan Cooper

The Last of Its Kind: The biologist David Sischo has a tragic assignment: keeping vigil over a species’ sole survivor, then marking its extinction in real time. by Ed Yong

I’m an American who’s lived in Europe for 10 years — and I don’t miss these 5 aspects of American culture at all. by Jessica Stillman

Have we all underrated the humble pencil? by Tim Harford
Thoreau’s family made its money by manufacturing high-quality pencils.

The boy was dying. Zebrafish helped save his life. by Sharon Begley
Precision medicine–ARAF tested in zebrafish to confim function.

Pro DSLRs Compared

“Who Rises to the Top? Early Indicators”, pdf
“A follow-up of subjects scoring above 180 IQ in Terman’s genetic studies of genius“
“Although there are numerous studies of gifted students, there have been no studies following up the very high IQ students into adulthood. Using the Terman files, 26 subjects with scores above 180 IQ were compared with 26 randomly selected subjects from Terman’s sample. Findings were generally that the extra IQ points made little difference and that extremely high IQ does not seem to indicate “genius” in the commonly understood sense of the word.”

Books You Should Read: Exact Constraint: Machine Design Using Kinematic Principles
“Exact Constraint: Machine Design Using Kinematic Principles” by Douglass L. Blandin

Dan Gelbart shop video series: High precision air bearing CNC lathe and grinder (vid)

Forty-three new women came forward to describe assault and harassment by Trump. Newspapers ignored them.

Quantum computing for the very curious. by Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen

Andre Norton Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction

Mens Messenger Bag 15.6 Inch Waterproof Vintage Genuine Leather Waxed Canvas, $50

Everything you wanted to know about money-laundering but were afraid to ask
Foundations of the #MoneyLaundry – A Twitter Seminar thread by CZEdwards
A case study in a vertically integrated #MoneyLaundry by CZEdwards
REITs: Who has cash? Money Laundries.
by CZEdwards

Gunnerkrigg Court webcomic

A Complete List of Important Natural Language Processing Frameworks you should Know (NLP Infographic)

How To Pretend That You Are Smart: There is a difference between assertion and argument, but a lot of highly credentialed people do not notice when they’re just stating their prejudices rather than proving anything. by Nathan J. Robinson

Tiny MS DOS program called “Memories”. This program has a size of 256 bytes and won the “PC 256 byte” competition of the demoscene event “Revision” in 2020

NASA is offering Space Program ‘Artifacts’ and ‘Special Items’ for use or display in your science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) themed program. Free / nominal cost for schools.

The Corn of the Future Is Hundreds of Years Old and Makes Its Own Mucus.
Nitrogen fixing, endophytes.

How a Portuguese-to-English Phrasebook Became a Cult Comedy Sensation: Meet 1883’s most absurd language guide. by Tucker Leighty-Phillips
About English as She Is Spoke by Pedro Carolino

Spurious Correlations

The men behind QAnon: Experts and researchers said the key to “Q” is hiding in plain sight. by Chris Francescani
They figured out the guys behind Qanon, a couple of white supremacists: James Arthur Watkins, his son, Ronald Watkins.

Sediments settle much faster in an angled container
Boycott Effect, discovered by Arthur Edwin Boycott in 1920.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

Lies, damned lies, and GWAS by Nathaniel Comfort
Review of Blueprint by Robert Plomin

Kentucky Council Against Health Fraud

Our Cube Pro Total Conversion: A step-by-step guide on how we converted this printer into a more open and functional machine
What if Satanists Want to Pray in Public Schools? 7 Questions for Joseph P. Laycock

MAKE magazine project, 2018: Rainbow Lightbox
ESPxx tutorials
Pololu: A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier

A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier

facebookresearch / fastText. A library for efficient learning of word representations and sentence classification

Nobel for Immuno-Oncology: James Allison (for CTLA4) and Tasuku Honjo (PD-1)

Nakamura penguin design
video: Penguin Bomb Designed by Haruki Nakamura
video: Amazing Paper Craft by Japanese Artist Haruki Nakamura
video: Amazing Japanese Paper Toys With A Surprise
Kirigami paper toy by designer Haruki Nakamura
Papercraft Penguin Bomb!
Paper Craft
The Amazing Pop-Up Penguin Bomb And How To Make It

Dead Right by John Holbo. Holbo’s thoughts after reading David Frum’s Dead Right (1994)

Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos / Dragaera fanttasy series. Compares to Zelany’s Chronicles of Amber. First novel, Jhereg.

Tilt Five: Holographic Tabletop Gaming AR glasses show content on a retroreflective surface

Compliments of Chicagohoodz: Chicago Street Gang Art by James “Jinx” O’Connor (Author), Damen “Mr. C” Corrad

Snapmaker 2.0, Modular 3-in-1 3D Printers

Dichroic prism. A dichroic prism is a prism that splits light into two beams of differing wavelength. A trichroic prism assembly combines two dichroic prisms to split an image into 3 colours, typically as red, green and blue of the RGB colour model.

Mellow Chicago Bike Map, link

Here’s the difference between what I saw with my own two eyes and what I see online and on TV. by Jacob Grier

How to Organize Your Friends and Family on Thanksgiving. by Jane McAlevey

Stercobilin
How to Remove and Replace a Drill Press Spindle
Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Every Trump Administration Official Accused of Using Personal Email for Work

Bad Thinkers: Why do some people believe conspiracy theories? It’s not just who or what they know. It’s a matter of intellectual character. by Quassim Cassam

Python 3 Module of the Week

Is Consciousness an Illusion? Philosopher Daniel Dennett holds a distinctive and openly paradoxical position on the question of consciousness. by Thomas Nagel
Review of From Bacteria to Bach and Back by Daniel Dennett

Did they even hang bears? by Tom Shippey
Review of The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings 
by Neil Price.

CCD in a Roche 454 GS FLX+ DNA sequencer: Spectral Instruments 800 Series 16Mpixel Cooled CCD camera Part 2

Bi-directional diagnostic code reader, Innova 5610 or Launch Tech X431 V
PLX Kiwi 3 or 4 dongle ($50-$130) and OBDFusion ($4.99 + vehicle add-on)
ScanTool + vehicle specific package $200

A Collusion Reading Diary: What Did the Senate Intelligence Committee Find? by Todd Carney, Samantha Fry, Quinta Jurecic, Jacob Schulz, Tia Sewell, Margaret Taylor, Benjamin Wittes
Summary of the fifth and final volume of the Select Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Police Are Pretty Sure They’re Going to Get Away With It:
In Portsmouth, Virginia, cops have been systematically using their state power to tyrannize political enemies. by Alex Pareene

1912 Harrods catalog, scanned and OCRed

Nontransitive dice

Cellphone Data Shows How Las Vegas Is “Gambling With Lives” Across the Country
Vegas casinos are spreading COVID-19 across the country. Sturgis Rally had the same effect.

Howard Rheingold, quotes, wiki.

Bill Higgins blog