Daring Fireball: Twitter’s Confusing New, but Hopefully Now Abandoned, ‘Home/Latest’ Timeline:

The new feature defaulted to only showing you the “Home” timeline, but gave you an option to put a tab controller atop your feed with two options: “Home” and “Latest Tweets”. You could either tap or swipe to switch between them. But by default, the Home/Latest Tweets header wasn’t shown, and you only saw the algorithmic Home feed, with no indication that there was an option to switch. You had to go into the cryptically-iconned “✨” menu (the “sparkle menu”?), and tap “Pin your Latest timeline”, which was described thus: “The latest Tweets from people you follow will be one swipe away from Home.”

First, I had no idea what the hell the “✨” button did before this. I didn’t even know it was a button. What a bizarre icon for the options to control the essential nature of how you view Twitter. Not to be too cynical, but it feels like this icon choice was driven by a desire to hide this option while maintaining plausible deniability that the option had been hidden. “It’s not hidden or buried in settings — it’s right there in the sparkle!” The whole thing felt like using a Twitter app in a bad dream where you can’t figure out how anything works.

I don’t even install Twitter’s own app on my devices, it’s a sin against UX and sanity on the best of days… But if I had to use their interface and this was permanant, I’d have dropped it like I did Facebook. As is, if they ever stop supporting 3rd party APIs I’m probably out.

DSHR’s Blog: Elon Musk, Threat or Menace Part 2:

Musk doesn't care about the truth of his statements, or the impact of his companies' policies, because his wealth insulates him from consequences. If regulators or victims come after him he can tie them up in courts until their resources are exhausted or his fan-bois can make them irrelevant. Since Autonowashing I've been collecting illustrations of this attitude, and the time has come to lay out a sample of them below the fold. There are a lot of examples, so I've organized them as follows: His irresponsible behavior affecting the Stock Market. Tesla's irresponsible behavior around its autonomy technology SpaceX's irresposible behavior around its Starlink satellites, development of its Boca Chica base, and the idea of a Mars colony. The Boring Company's irresponsible marketing of tunnels that simple math shows cannot deliver their claimed benefits.

The Slackware Linux Project: Slackware Release Announcement:

Well folks, in spite of the dire predictions of YouTube pundits, this morning the Slackhog emerged from its development den, did *not* see its shadow, and Slackware 15.0 has been officially released - another six weeks (or years) of the development treadmill averted.

My favorite Linux distro has updated, and remains

systemd

free thank goodness.

The Oblongs: a hidden gem in adult animation | Boing Boing:

The race to capitalize on the popularity of The Simpsons became a gold rush in the early 90s. In many ways, that gold rush still exists today. Rick and Morty might be a different show from a structural standpoint, but the greasy fingerprints of Homer Simpson can be found on almost every scene of Adult Swim's monster hit. The only difference in contemporary adult animation is that today's creators benefit from hindsight and can gracefully avoid the pitfalls of other Simpsons clones. In addition, audiences don't view adult animation as a fad anymore. Modern adult animation is a bonafide genre that can tackle any concept beyond the traditional dysfunctional/wacky family.

A toxicologist explains how eyedrops can be used to slowly kill someone, and other curious facts about poisons | Boing Boing:

Anne Chappelle is a board certified toxicologist with two decades of experience studying the chemicals that can kill people. In this video, Dr. Chappelle explains how eyedrops have been used to kill someone, why it's not true that pencils can give you lead poisoning, and other curious facts about poisons.

The 10 tactics of fascism | Boing Boing:

Hey Kids, do you know how to spot fascism? Here's a handy reference. Be alert and look for these 10 signs that your beloved country may be on the brink of right-wing authoritarianism.

10 Tactics of Facism

When asked about war in Ukraine, Trump launches into a bizarre anti-windmill rant | Boing Boing:

Even when he appears on an ass-kissing podcast and gets asked about the war in Ukraine, he launches into another anti-windmill rant instead of answering the question.

Lord Dampnut is stuck on this - His boss in Moscow doesn’t want people calling his invasion a war, but he can’t call it a special operation with Putin’s reasoning of defeating “nazis” in Ukraine without alienating his most stable base of US nazis.

Write plain text files | Derek Sivers:

I write almost everything important in my life: thoughts, plans, notes, diaries, correspondence, code, articles, and entire books.

They are my extended memory — my noted self — my organized thoughts. I refer to them often. I search them, update them, and learn from them. I convert them into HTML to make websites, or LaTeX to make books.

My written words are my most precious asset. They are also a history of my life. That’s why I only use plain text files. They are the most reliable, flexible, and long-lasting option. Here’s why.

Tencent is the world’s biggest video game company - Polygon:

When it comes to the games part of that, Tencent’s dominance is prodigious yet stealthy. By revenue, it’s the world’s largest video game publisher, with approximately $6.7 billion in game revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020. Online games make up a major portion of its profits at 32%, and many of those products target mobile players in the domestic Chinese market. These include Peacekeeper Elite, which is the Chinese version of PUBG Mobile, and the wildly popular Honor of Kings, which is the dominant MOBA game in China. Then there is Riot Games’ League of Legends, a game that is now Tencent’s flagship PC game in China, and whose studio was also completely bought out by Tencent, with the firm finalizing its purchase of Riot Games in 2015. The company’s streak of game industry investments has continued at a rapid pace; research firm Niko Partners estimated that, on average, for most of the first half of 2021, Tencent closed one games deal every 2.5 days.

Ethereal Ice Stars Gracefully Crystallize on Film to a Mesmerizing Instrumental Soundtrack:

SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure in UK Biobank | Nature:

We identified significant longitudinal effects when comparing the two groups, including: (i) greater reduction in grey matter thickness and tissue-contrast in the orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus, (ii) greater changes in markers of tissue damage in regions functionally-connected to the primary olfactory cortex, and (iii) greater reduction in global brain size. The infected participants also showed on average larger cognitive decline between the two timepoints. Importantly, these imaging and cognitive longitudinal effects were still seen after excluding the 15 cases who had been hospitalised.

jwz: Playing old PS3 games:

About once a year I think, "Hey, maybe I'll play that old video game that I used to enjoy." It never ends well.

With more recent consoles, PS3 and Wii U onwards, it can be a nightmare to keep access to old games working… A tide of Bit Rot is wiping away a ton of art in the form of games from this era.

The Beautifully Vivid Hues of a Colorful Cuttlefish:

The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago shared wonderful footage of two vividly-hued colorful cuttlefish engaging with one another underwater. The pair of cephalopods also exhibited their incredible ability to change color depending on their mood.

Daring Fireball: From the Department of Grading on a Curve:

So it runs very hot and very loud and the battery doesn’t last 4 hours in typical use. The Verge’s score: 8.5/10. The Aristocrats!

jwz: COVID risk assessment:

My goal is to not catch COVID at all. CDC tells me that my goal should instead be just "don't fill the hospitals past 100%", but I'm a little more ambitious than that.

Back in July, when Delta hit, the CDC maps started looking like something from the pre-credits scene of a Milla Jovovitch movie:

I’m in the same camp - I’m not interested in playing chicken with Murphy’s law about whether a recovered case of covid is going to turn into another chronic condition for me to worry about.

Catwoman vs. the White House:

n 1968, singer, actress, and activist Eartha Kitt was invited to a “Women Doers” luncheon at the White House by Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady. Kitt’s focus on actual problems and solutions didn’t jibe well with the self-congratulatory platitudes of a DC working luncheon. First she pointedly questioned a caught-off-guard President Johnson about childcare for working parents after he stopped by to gladhand a little bit. Then, after remarks from several other women in the room, Kitt rose and spoke out against the war in Vietnam:

The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don’t have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons — and I know what it’s like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson — we raise children and send them to war.

After the luncheon, Kitt’s career in the United States took a turn for the worse.

4 evolutionary scenarios for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 - STAT:

In the ongoing struggle of SARS-CoV-2’s genes versus our wits, the virus that causes Covid-19 relentlessly probes human defenses with new genetic gambits. New variants of this coronavirus with increasing transmissibility have sprung up every few months, a scenario that is likely to continue.

Some experts believe that the pandemic appears to be on an evolutionary slide toward becoming endemic, a “new normal” in which humans and the virus co-exist, as we currently do with influenza. But coronaviruses are clever. While an endemic resolution may be in sight, SARS-CoV-2 could still shock the human species with a devastating evolutionary leap.

Here are four possible scenarios, each taken directly from the known evolutionary playbook of coronaviruses.

jwz: CDC recolors maps to declare victory:

So if you had been thinking, "I'm going to avoid crowds until my county isn't SCORCHING RED", congratulations! CDC has solved that problem for you, without any of the underlying numbers having substantially changed!

And of course CDC is uninterested in talking about Long COVID at all.

As far as I can tell, the motivation here is:

“Federal, State and Local government functionaries, along with people in rural diners and lunatic Qanons, have decided that masking is over, and so we must make our guidance reflect the ‘Personal Freedoms’ that these idiots are going to do anyway."

jwz: From craft beer to Molotov cocktails:

At his brewery in an old industrial quarter on the outskirts of Lviv, where start-up firms operate from old shipping containers, Pravda's staff were churning out hundreds of Molotovs on Sunday in the corner of a yard.

(1) DIS on Twitter: “RT @deesnider: People are asking me why I endorsed the use of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” for the Ukrainian people and did not for the anti-m…” / Twitter:

People are asking me why I endorsed the use of "We're Not Gonna Take It" for the Ukrainian people and did not for the anti-maskers. Well, one use is for a righteous battle against oppression; the other is a infantile feet stomping against an inconvenience.

Infinity (noun) - The Oatmeal:

Review: Level Bolt is a stealthy smart lock contending with an imperfect world – Six Colors:

The Bolt is unlike most other smart locks in that it doesn’t replace your existing deadbolt. Instead, it fits inside your door, basically sandwiched in between the exterior keyway and the interior thumb turn. Inside sits a small motor with a Bluetooth chip, which can turn to shoot the bolt itself.

The engineering and design of this device is extremely clever. From the outside, the Bolt is completely invisible. The only place you can even see the device is the bolt itself, where Level’s logo is embossed on the end. (In another particularly ingenious piece of engineering, the bolt also contains a replaceable CR2 battery that powers the whole assembly. Swapping it out just requires unscrewing the end cap.) Another plus: the existing key and thumb turn for the deadbolt work exactly as before, and don’t interfere with the smart lock, or vice versa.

Great review of the one smart-lock I’ve tried myself… The design is fantastic, and if anything simpler than the original hinge mechanism that came with my deadbolt, and fairly reliable for my bluetooth usage.

Mask mandates lifted in Minneapolis, St. Paul | MPR News:

In a statement, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the move comes as COVID rates have been dropping rapidly in the city. He said public health officials will continue to closely monitor the situation and that masks will still be strongly recommended indoors in public.

St. Paul also pointed to a drop in case rates, positivity rates and hospitalizations in Ramsey County for ending the requirement.

It’s raining - you use your umbrella… When you no longer are getting wet, so you put it away… Are you confused when you get drenched? Maybe wait until the storm is over before you put away your protection.

Meet Minnesota gamers and game developers of color working to see themselves on screen | MPR News:

Some scoff at diversity in video games. But for Horn, who identifies as lesbian and Black, seeing herself in characters or stories is powerful — and further inspires others to dream big, which is why representation matters to her.

The only people I’ve actively heard/seen scoff at diversity are white dudes who are so over-represented in games that they don’t ever need to reach to find themselves… but if you take even a single character from them, their ire over “woke gaming” gets awfully loud.

Putin is a killer and that’s okay with Trump, as seen in this roundup video | Boing Boing:

Star of the GOP, Марионетка

All Vladimir Putin has to do is butter Trump up with false praise — like calling him "brilliant" or a "genius" — and Trump is putty in the murderous dictator's hands.

When reminded by MSNBC hosts that Putin kills journalists and political opponents, Trump says, “At least he’s a leader.”

When told by Bill O’Reilly that “Putin’s a killer,” Trump says, “There’s a lot of killers…”

When asked if he was offended that Putin said nice things about Trump, he said, “No!”

Of course it must be more than just warm fuzzies that keep Trump tucked into Vladimir’s bed, but what that might be is still locked behind closed doors. In the meantime, here is a truncated roundup of the many times Trump has licked Putin’s boot in public. Who knows what goes on in private.