Quote from Toni Morrison on Racism
“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
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I Voted
No stickers here, but I dropped the ballots off at the ballot box on my way into work. Got to love a well managed electoral process.
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Hyperion, the world's largest tree, is officially off limits
Honestly, I thought it already was. I had seen previous things about it and they had never disclosed its location (though you could guess it was in California somewhere.) Glad it's being actively protected as a natural wonder of the world.
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"US Navy deploys warships east of Taiwan ahead of Pelosi ‘trip’"
My RSS political feeds are awash in discussion around Pelosi's trip to Taiwan and the resulting saber rattling from China. Personally, I think it's very much the correct move for the US to make these moves to show China that it can't do to Taiwan what Russia is doing to Ukraine.
I will be surprised if it escalates. China is seeing what the economic sanctions are doing to Russia and while they are much much healthier economically than Russia, it will still be a massive impact even aside from the costs of an actual war.
We'll see.
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Me as a blacksmith last week
A coworker had brought his camera and snapped photos of folks during the teambuilding activity last week. He just shared the pics and I can say that I feel pretty confident this is among the coolest I've ever looked.
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Veritaseum is one of my favorite YouTube channels. The videos he produces are so well done and so informative. Well worth the watch.
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14 Alternative Wonders of the World
14 alternative wonders of the world:
— The Cultural Tutor (@culturaltutor) July 30, 2022
Starting with the Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet pic.twitter.com/oKy6wIzxGy
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A Tale of Two Chargers
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was bedtime. And as I was climbing into bed, I was going through my routine of charging my phones (yes, I have two - one for work and one personal.) I noticed that I didn't get the haptic buzz when I plugged my work phone in. It's old and I'm using an off-brand cable, so I assumed it had finally become a problem. I knew I had enough charge to get through the night, so I didn't think about it. I climbed into bed and called it a night.
Time jump to this morning and I noticed that my phone battery on my personal phone was shockingly low. I had been using it during the morning, listening to messages, reading, etc. But still, far lower than I would have guessed. I assumed an app had gone awry or something and I rebooted and resolved to charge it at the office.
Only today, around lunch, did I realize that the problem in both cases is that the 5-port USB hub I use for charging on my bedside table is most likely unplugged somehow and thus neither phone got charged last night.
Oops.
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"New Gmail Attack Bypasses Passwords And 2FA To Read All Email"
Bolding below is mine for emphasis.
According to cyber security firm Volexity, the threat research team has found the North Korean 'SharpTongue' group, which appears to be part of, or related to, the Kimsuky advanced persistent threat group, deploying malware called SHARPEXT that doesn't need your Gmail login credentials at all.
Instead, it "directly inspects and exfiltrates data" from a Gmail account as the victim browses it. This quickly evolving threat, Volexity says it is already on version 3.0 according to the malware's internal versioning, can steal email from both Gmail and AOL webmail accounts, and works across three browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and a South Korean client called Whale.
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"JWST has released a striking new image of the strange Cartwheel galaxy"
Simply stunning and fascinating to see.
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"A Journey To an Afghan Region Where the Taliban’s Grip Hasn’t Taken Hold"
With the US out of Afghanistan it's easy to forget about the region. I've really enjoyed the articles der Spiegel has been putting out, and this interesting look at a very rural part of Aghanistan and what life is like there was interesting to see and hear about.
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Historic rebuke of an out of touch Elite class
I've seen enough: in a huge victory for the pro-choice side, the Kansas constitutional amendment to remove protections of abortion rights fails.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) August 3, 2022
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"The Longest Route You Can Sail in a Straight Line Without Hitting Land"
Back in 2012, a Reddit user by the name of kepleronlyknows posted an interesting map of the world, showing a line from Pakistan to Russia across the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans. The poster claimed that this was the longest straight-line path anyone could take without touching land. The problem was that such a claim was extremely difficult to prove mathematically.
[...]
According to the researchers, the path from Pakistan to Russia is indeed the longest straight path possible without hitting land. It measures 19,939.6 miles, just about 5,000 miles short of the planet's circumference. The researchers also found the longest straight-line path across land, from Jinjiang in China to Sagres in Portugal, measuring 6,984.9 miles.
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