November 24, 2024

A video about Youtube sponsors being (in general) kinda evil that is available on Youtube. Which, of course, checks out and at the same does not prevent my hypocritical self from linking to Google’s money-printing machine.

Apparently the CIA has explored advanced meditation techniques to achieve altered consciousness and thus to help one better manifest one’s will on the universe. And if that sounds like some risible, Leonard-Nimoy-In-Search-Of BS then you can stop right here. But otherwise, here is the Monroe Institute for your investigation, edification and/or media-purchasing pleasure.

Buckminster Fuller’s World Map manages to project the continents onto an icosahedron (eg 20-sided die) so that the size distortion is minimized and, as a handy side effect, has the land masses arranged in an almost continuous fashion such that you can more easily keep in mind your connection to humankind (land dwelling creatures) all over the world. (sorry about the tiny image – this what Mr Fuller’s Estate provides)

I just put in my CC # for a free trial of this newsletter from The Verge. They want $7.00 a month or one hypothetical expensive beverage from Starbucks. Color me cautious.
A longish article about how AI is used in protein engineering and what problems remain to be solved (TBH at least 50% of the article is beyond my ken).
Just a reminder that AI image generation (for civllian-use anyway) is not quite perfect yet. The prompt in Image Playground (Apple’s new AI iphone app) was, “A happy, smiling crocodile riding a 10-speed bicycle”. The result is better than I imagined it would be, but getting AI to generate any image requiring true creativity or simply understanding of anatomy or topology, just ain’t there yet. Or, says MIT, maybe its coming.

I discovered that Bluesky allows me to verify myself to this domain (website), which seems like a pretty elegant way to avoid the fake celebrity accounts problem. To the point where I don’t understand why twitter/X didn’t, from the get-go, verify accounts this way. (but imma civilian I shouldn’t second-guess.)
And a nice explainer, b/c Bluesky seems too good to be true so far, as to how they intend to make money while not being evil. (long story short, they don’t know how to make money right now but they are working on it.)

A possible lawsuit against potato-processors (Lamb-Weston, Simplot et.al.) for price-fixing. (you ever wonder why french fries ain’t cheaper?)

A Step-saving Kitchen brought to you in 1949 by the US Government and then put on youtube and eventually on Tiktok by Jess at JuicedKitchens. I wish my kitchen was “step-saving.” Anyway, filed under cooking/nostalgia. Thanks Jess.