Obsidian Wings archive

by JanieM Hard to know where to start, so I won't.  Open thread. ***** The picture was taken in Belfast, Maine, in May of 2021. The gulls know whose territory it is. Bigger version here.  

by liberal japonicus Another ever so slightly focussed open thread, this time on standards, prompted by this article from Nature.The opening paragraph In a strip published in 2011, cartoonist Randall Munroe pokes fun at people’s inability to develop a universal standard for, say, electrical outlets, printer-paper dimensions or TV remote-control signals. From 14 competing standards … Read more

by liberal japonicus From the Guardian The ousting of McCarthy represented the first time in US history that a speaker of the House has been removed from office, marking an ignominious end to a short and fraught tenure for the California Republican. It comes as Americans’ approval ratings of Congress and the federal government remain … Read more

by wj (Went to make an Open Thread type post and noticed how long since we had one.  So here is some new place to babble/burble.)  I have been reading the stories about the Nobel Prize for Medicine.  Specifically about how Penn deemed Katalin Karikó's work of such low quality that it kicked her off … Read more

by liberal japonicus I tend to think that the transactional nature of politics, particularly in the US House and Senate, makes it a certainty that the people who end up there never seem like the person they were when they started. Reading the Guardian's obit of Feinstein underlines that. Whether it reveals their true nature … Read more

by liberal japonicus With Janie faithfully putting up open threads (greatly appreciated), I'll try to alternate with some more focussed posts and for this one, I'll let all of you give your predictions about the Supreme Court, using this vox article to prime the pump. Predictions and links appreciated!

by JanieM This little guy has been contemplating the universe, and sometimes fishing, at the Mount Vernon town beach for as long as I’ve been going there to take pictures. He moves around a bit now and then, perhaps wanting a slightly different view of the water in different seasons or weathers, or to stay … Read more

by JanieM The picture is of a section Water Street, the main street of Hallowell, Maine, on the Kennebec River just south of Augusta. (Bigger version here.) Signs of modern life: a brew pub next to a cannabis store. My topic is a different feature of modern life, perhaps the most characteristic of all: the … Read more

by liberal japonicus I think that since most of us here are not fanatical followers of sports in general or football/soccer in particular, an interesting discussion might be had about everything related to the unsolicited kiss from Rubiales, head of the Spanish Soccer Federation. If you aren't aware of any of this, basically, the Spanish … Read more

by liberal japonicus ProPublica has had a number of great deep dive exposes lately. They seem to do particularly well with problems in the Navy and their most recent piece about the Navy's failed Littoral Combat Ship program is the latest. One point that caught my eye (and accounts for the title) was this General … Read more

by JanieM In my love of springtime, I tend to forget how lovely late summer and early fall can be. July is the only month that consistently brings us stretches of sweltering weather here in central Maine; August is almost always moderate and pleasant. September is similar, if a little cooler, but because the kids … Read more

An open thread. Georgia is a brand of canned coffee sold in Asia, originally a Coca-Cola and Nescafe collaboration, but then, Coca-Cola took over the brand. Anyway, it seemed apropos. Another thing, we had a bizarre spike in visits two weeks ago. Here is the jump and two days on either side. 2023-08-09 314 2023-08-10 … Read more

by liberal japonicus I'm not sure about this, but I seem to recall a couple of years ago a spate of articles about dealing with climate change through geoengineering, but with the current weather problems around the world, I'm not seeing them. I can adduce several possible reasons, listed in order of likelihood: I'm not … Read more

by JanieM Taking off from lj’s thread, I confess to some bemusement at the worry people express these days over children’s screen time. It’s not like screen time is new; we watched TV all the time when I was a kid. I could sit here all day listing the sitcoms and cartoons and TV dramas … Read more

by liberal japonicus What's a old fart to do? Facebook slides into irrelevance, Instagram is a bridge too far, and Tik-tok might as well be from another Galaxy (not to mention X/Twitter), I end up going to Youtube. I use it to show things to students and it is possible to curate lists of videos, … Read more

by JanieM I could note the reality of details like the utility pole, the shed, and the float thingie that's sitting under a tree in the middle distance, but the feeling that the picture gives me is quite different from that reality. In my imagination, every time I look at it I think of a … Read more

by JanieM Rockland is my favorite of the string of lovely little towns known as “midcoast Maine.” It’s an easy drive for me, a little over an hour on mostly quiet roads. It’s the home of the Farnsworth Art Museum and hello hello books, which is owned by one of my family’s long ago babysitters. … Read more

by liberal japonicus Being on the left of the political spectrum, I wish the members of SAG-AFTRA the best of luck. If you read the reportage, they do seem up against the cartoon villains of the Judge Doom sort in Roger Rabbit. Here is the Guardian's take. However, just following some of the discussions, I … Read more

by JanieM Was it ever really February? On a muggy day in July it’s hard to be sure. Given that the weather is a universal topic of conversation, I often find myself complaining about it, however kiddingly. In the winter the footing is bad, more dangerously so the older I get. In the summer the … Read more

by JanieM How about another open thread? And some pictures. This is “the school road” near my house. The middle and high schools that serve four towns are behind me, the main road and the lake are ahead, out of sight. The building hiding behind the white pines on the right is the school superintendent’s … Read more

by liberal japonicus While our UKian contingent is not as large as one might hope, I always appreciate their insight to things British. So what to make of this? Rupert Murdoch was throwing a midsummer party at Spencer House, the palatial residence in St James’s, London, owned by Earl Spencer. Seated on a sofa in … Read more

by JanieM I hope the discussion on the SCOTUS decisions keeps going, but I thought we could use an open thread in case anyone has anything else to talk about. Lighthearted topics are especially encouraged. In central Maine we had a couple of very hot days in May that made me think we were in … Read more

by liberal japonicus Janie mentioned that she wanted to maybe talk about the wedding website decision so I'm putting this up. Here is the SCOTUSblog summary. What baffles me is that apparently, the request was faked This week, I decided to call Stewart and ask him about his inquiry. […] It took just a few … Read more

by liberal japonicus A continuation of discussion in the previous post. Nous suggested that And between this and Roe, I think the GOP is going to be in serious trouble with educated suburban women. While I believe nous is talking about larger problems of college affordability and college debt, in case anyone thinks that the … Read more

by liberal japonicus Open thread-y post. Been reading a lot about the revolt in Russia and a common hook is to plug it into some historical event. The obvious one is 1991 KGB takeover and Yeltsin and Czar Nicolas II is another fave. But there is also Yemelyan Pugachev (Catherine the Great), one of the … Read more

by liberal japonicus Fodder for discussion with a rather ironic title.https://www.fastcompany.com/40406673/the-man-who-wants-to-send-us-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean discuss  

by liberal japonicus Via this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, I was steered to this blog post on a fascinating site, Data Colada I'll let you click on the links, but here's a taste Two summers ago, we published a post (Colada 98: .htm) about a study reported within a famous article on … Read more

by liberal japonicus Rich people don’t wear coats, we were told. Their shoes only ever touch carpet, as they move seamlessly from their cars to their jets to their buildings. Also, crucially, they don’t duck (when getting out of helicopters). In the first season, I wrote an episode set around Thanksgiving. The rich consultant really … Read more

Pictures of the Philly skyline from hairshirthedonist, who writes, the smoky photo was taken in the early afternoon and the clear one mid morning, so the sun at different angles. Thanks, hairshirt. I drove east today and smelled smoke faintly when I got within 10-15 miles of the coast. Then I smelled it again when … Read more

by liberal japonicus In the enshitification thread, the notion popped up (and it's popped up several times at the blog) about the idea of moving to some red state en masse to change the politics. I've kind of lost track of who said what, but this guardian article points to the issues with that. Under … Read more

by liberal japonicus I found this interesting Federov said: “A lot of officials in different countries forget that human behaviour nowadays is about clicking a few clicks. It is not about circles of hell, wasting people’s time. “We acted more like a start-up, not like a public sector company,” Federov told MEPs, encouraging an “an … Read more

by wj For this weekend’s Open Thread, we step away from the chaos in the US and return to a familiar subject: Ukraine.  (Bearing in mind that I’m nothing like an expert on the subject.) Everyone has been talking for months about the coming Spring Offensive by Ukraine.  So far, nothing has happened.  Why not?  … Read more

by liberal japonicus This New Yorker piece by Ted Chiang is really worth your time. As it is currently deployed, A.I. often amounts to an effort to analyze a task that human beings perform and figure out a way to replace the human being. Coincidentally, this is exactly the type of problem that management wants … Read more

by liberal japonicus I hear Crow and think Raven, so I wonder what Harlan is going to be thinking about Ron Wyden's tapping at his door. It would be high-larious if this sunk him. A thread for your graft related observations.