Measles Makes Your Immune System Forget Its Protections Against Past Illness:

Historically, contracting the measles has been linked to subsequent illness (and possibly death) from other causes. In the past few years, scientists have discovered why this is: measles causes “immune amnesia”.

Louisiana candidate for Senator burns up a confederate flag in this new kickass ad | Boing Boing:

And after explaining how Jim Crow never left Louisiana and the South, he ends the ad saying, "Our system isn't broken — it's designed to do exactly what it's doing, which is producing measurable inequity. … I do believe the South will rise again, but this time it will be on our terms."

jwz: Apartheid Emerald Mine Space Karen has a new gig: Monkey Vivisectionist:

The PCRM filed a complaint with the the US Department of Agriculture on Thursday, accusing UC Davis and Neuralink of nine violations of the Animal Welfare Act. "Many, if not all, of the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments, which were performed in pursuit of developing what Neuralink and Elon Musk have publicly described as a 'brain-machine interface,'" the group wrote in the complaint. [...]

Musk said in December that Neuralink hoped to start human testing this year.

Dude is a Bond villian in training.

Let’s Talk About Our Favorite Monsters (As Romantic Partners) | Tor.com:

Monsters. They lay bare our darkest desires and deepest fears. There’s no hiding the worst with a monster—it’s right there, on the surface. And aside from the fact that claws and big teeth just look awesome, monsters are way more fun than moral, upstanding characters, aren’t they? That darkness is alluring. Sometimes, it’s like gazing into a mirror.

Regardless, our love for monsters remains evergreen. Which means the discussion of which ones we’d like to hook up with rises time and time again. But what would some of these monsters actually look like as romantic partners? Would they be good spouses? Or would they be the type to not even text back?

Five Ways Denis Villeneuve’s Rendezvous With Rama Could Be Truly Great | Tor.com:

Give Women the Spotlight

…sigh. My biggest gripe with Arthur C. Clarke books remains the same with every tome I read. In books already devoid of relatable, meaningful characters, Clarke shunts women into the dark recesses of his stories. Rendezvous With Rama has one incriminating passage that always irks me. Essentially, a crew member of the Rama exploration crew shares an internal monologue about how distracting low gravity can be when a woman is on board. He mentions how the lack of gravitational force makes for excessive jiggling of the breasts. The character goes so far as to question whether women should be astronauts in the first place. I remember reading the passage (which is by far the most egregious, though there are others) with jaw agape.

Beyond the outright sexism, there are precious few women characters in the book at all. It would be an easy (and necessary) win in terms of representation for Villeneuve to gender-swap a few characters and allow women to showcase their scientific talents in the movie. The story only stands to improve by broadening this particular horizon: In a story about humanity’s place in the universe, everyone should be included.

Here’s the DFEH lawsuit against Tesla, and it’s way more serious than the company made it sound - Electrek:

Because the factory was racially segregated, Defendants’ workers referred to the areas where many Black and/or African Americans worked as the “porch monkey station.” Defendants’ workers with tattoos of the Confederate flag made their racially incendiary tattoos visible to intimidate Black and/or African American workers. Racial slurs were also dispensed in Spanish and included “mayate” and “negrita.” Additionally, Defendants’ workers referred to the Tesla factory as the “slaveship” or “the plantation,” where Defendants’ production leads “crack[ed] the whip.” Many Black and/or African American workers understood these terms to be references to how Defendants treated its Black and/or African American workers. One Black worker heard these racial slurs as often as 50-100 times a day.

Joe Rogan delights his fans by mocking Asians and making fun of Angelina Jolie’s Bell’s Palsy | Boing Boing:

As long as Joe Rogan remains profitable for his publisher Spotify he'll have a platform to spread racism, make fun of people's medical conditions, and promote quack Covid-19 nostrums.

If you continue to use Spotify while they’re supporting Rogan, you’re contributing to this. If enough people scrap their accounts and mention Rogan in their exit questionnaire, he’ll be deplatformed there.

My Seatbelt Rule for Judgment:

One of my formative childhood lessons came when I was playing in the garage one day. I went into my mom’s car and put the seatbelt on (probably to pretend I was flying a plane). I realized at one point that I could still lean pretty far forward. Far enough that my head could touch the dashboard. How ridiculous! What’s the point of the seatbelt if it doesn’t actually stop me from going too far? I reveled in my discovery that seatbelts were useless.

The Best Optical Illusions of the Year:

The winners of the Best Illusion of the Year Contest for 2021 have been announced

A Helpful Tutorial Explaining the Basics of Jellyfish:

Aquarist Makenzie Bubel of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California offered a very helpful tutorial about her favorite animal the jellyfish. Bubel notes that jellyfish are not actually fish but a species that are closer to coral. She also explains the proper nomenclature of these marine animals, their physiology, the role they play in the underwater ecosystem, and why they sometimes wash up on shore.

Ghibli Park, a new anime theme park in Japan, to open in November | CNN Travel:

Until last week, news of the mythical Ghibli Park trickled instead of flowed, teased out in small, speculative doses in Japanese publications. It was unclear what impact the pandemic was having on the start date and what visitors would find when it opens.

Reminder of things to think about in the After Times….

Five Stories That Helped Me Understand My Anxiety | Tor.com:

Assembling a list of stories that openly discuss mental health inevitably proves difficult because of the wide-ranging spectrum of conditions and types of neurodiversity—any such list is bound to be subjective, to some degree. Everyone’s experience differs, and it’s important to understand how one individual’s truth can be valid even when it doesn’t align perfectly with yours.

In other words, everyone’s mental health journey is their own. Nobody walks the same path. Two people with anxiety can manifest it in completely different ways. Stories, however, can act as a unifying force among those of us with anxiety, depression, and the many types of neurodivergence. Across a number of narrative formats, creators are tackling the challenges presented by mental health and teaching us to better understand ourselves. These stories tell us we’re not alone.

New Research Across 200 iOS Apps Hints that Surveillance Marketing is Still Going Strong | URLgenius Blog:

If you work in advertising or marketing, you’re probably aware of Apple’s privacy efforts over the last year. Apple now requires apps ask customers if they want to 'opt-in' to allow behavioral data tracking. If you’re an Apple customer, you may also think you have control over which apps are tracking you around the internet.

Or do you? We did some research to find out if perceptions match reality.

The release of iOS 15.2 introduced a new Record App Activity feature that lets you see which apps communicate to various networks. Sometimes these contacts are to the app’s own domain, but more often these contacts are to third-party domains, and it’s not clear what data is being shared.

We used this new privacy feature to take a snapshot of network connections across 200 apps and 20 different app categories. Our goal was to glean some insight into where the industry is at this moment when it comes to tracking consumers around the internet while also trying to move to a non-PII framework.

Watch: Texas GOP candidate stumbles after admitting she thinks it’s wrong that kids can’t laugh at “the transgenders” | Boing Boing:

The new GOP - Saying the quiet part out loud since 2016.

Frey talks no-knock warrants, public trust, Amir Locke with MPR News | MPR News:

To paraphrase: “I don’t know why this keeps happening, we’ve literally tried Nothing”

It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart - The Atlantic:

But truth be told, I’d already been mulling this subject for quite some time. When you’re in middle age, which I am (mid-middle age, to be precise—I’m now 52), you start to realize how very much you need your friends. They’re the flora and fauna in a life that hasn’t had much diversity, because you’ve been so busy—so relentlessly, stupidly busy—with middle-age things: kids, house, spouse, or some modern-day version of Zorba’s full catastrophe. Then one day you look up and discover that the ambition monkey has fallen off your back; the children into whom you’ve pumped thousands of kilowatt-hours are no longer partial to your company; your partner may or may not still be by your side. And what, then, remains?

via - kottke.org

One Foot Tsunami: Bitcoin Give and Take:

Instead, I was told that I was being limited by the portfolio’s “savePro™” functionality.2 That “feature” meant the minimum withdrawal amount was 19.007 BTC.

At this point, you can hopefully see where this is going. The system was indicating that if I deposited 0.0071 BTC (worth about $315), it would then allow the full 19.007 BTC to be withdrawn back out. Of course, in actuality it would definitely disappear with that 0.0071 BTC entirely. Cryptocurrency is the Wild West, and there are no sheriffs.

“NFTs are a scam,” says indie game store Itch.io | Rock Paper Shotgun:

The store's Twitter tweeted over the weekend:

A few have asked about our stance on NFTs:

NFTs are a scam. If you think they are legitimately useful for anything other than the exploitation of creators, financial scams, and the destruction of the planet the we ask that please reevaluate your life choices.

Peace ✌️

— itch.io (@itchio) February 6, 2022

Legitimate Political Discourse: The TV show | Boing Boing:

Dolls Houses, 1983. – Present&Correct:

In 1983 Architecutral Design Magazine launched a competition to for architects to design a doll house. This book features 135 of them, we have scanned our favourites. Click each image for a link to the designer.

So cool.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang says Joe Rogan can’t be racist because he has black colleagues | Boing Boing:

Yang went to a fancy law school, got lucky, and here he is.

The thing about “he can’t be racist, he has black friends” and its variants is that it betrays an assumption that racism is logically coherent, a faculty of the human mind rather than a poisoning of its spirit.

Elon Musk accuses AP reporter of being a lobbyist, sets fans against him on Twitter over Tesla recall article - Electrek:

Elon Musk is accusing an Associated Press reporter of being a lobbyist over an article about NHTSA’s recall of Tesla vehicles in the Full Self-Driving Beta program. Now his fans are attacking the journalist on Twitter.

He’s almost as bad as Agent Orange, lord dampnut.

Trump escalates racist rhetoric, plays on white grievance at recent rallies | MPR News:

Tempered GOP criticism isn't something that has cowed Trump, and neither has the violence that's taken place in his name.

Instead, Trump is pouring gasoline on a fire of white grievance.

One in four Americans say violence against the government is sometimes OK | MPR News:

Let me fix that headline: Trump/Conservative Voters say violence against the government is sometimes OK

That’s the people who are most invested in breaking Democracy in favor of minotry rule forever.

Math that roughly… 3/5 of Americans actually vote of have their votes counted properly. 2/5 of those voters are die-hard GOP or Trumpers… But due to gerrymandering, their counts get amplified already to allow for the repeated popular-vote losing presidencies of GOP candidates.

That being said, they are dead afraid of demographics taking those tried-and-true cheating methods away from them, and afraid of being treated the way they’ve treated those out-of-power.

Spotify removes Neil Young after he calls for Joe Rogan to go - BBC News: Seems like they have made their stance clear. Lies > Music. Make your choices people.