That Innsmouth Look:

One used mass media to promote his barely-disguised virulent racism and horrific visions of humanity subjugated by incomprehensible, formless entities. The other was H. P. Lovecraft.

I wonder what Zuckerberg named his cat, though?

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

The most brilliant bookshops in the world | Financial Times:

FT writers nominate awe-inspiring places to get your literary fix, from Mumbai to Buenos Aires

This story sits at the intersection of Bookstores and Architecture, every single location breathtaking.

Thousands of workers across the U.S. would rather lose their jobs than be vaccinated | MPR News:

Across the country, employers are firing workers for refusing to comply with vaccine mandates. Some people are opting to quit their jobs rather than take the shot.

Good. If I show up to any job and refuse to use the safety equipment, they’re in their rights to show me to the door, and this is no different.

Southlake school leader tells teachers to balance Holocaust books with ‘opposing’ views:

SOUTHLAKE, Texas — A top administrator with the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake advised teachers last week that if they have a book about the Holocaust in their classroom, they should also offer students access to a book from an “opposing” perspective, according to an audio recording obtained by NBC News.

Gina Peddy, the Carroll school district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, made the comment Friday afternoon during a training session on which books teachers can have in classroom libraries. The training came four days after the Carroll school board, responding to a parent’s complaint, voted to reprimand a fourth grade teacher who had kept an anti-racism book in her classroom.

Actual nazi behavior.

Vaping: FDA approves e-cigarette in US for first time - BBC News:

Explaining the FDA's reasoning, Mitch Zeller, its director for tobacco products said: "The manufacturer's data demonstrates its tobacco-flavoured products could benefit addicted adult smokers who switch to these products - either completely or with a significant reduction in cigarette consumption - by reducing their exposure to harmful chemicals."

This is a surprisingly sane ruling so far. I would rather vape than smoke, and I know I have felt better heath-wise since switching.

Why saying “I don’t see race at all” just makes racism worse |:

In a way, color blindness makes the civil rights movement a victim of its own success: Legal segregation is over, so now it must be up to people of color to finish the work themselves. As Bonilla-Silva puts it, if racism is no longer actively limiting the lives of people of color, then their failure to achieve parity with whites in wealth, education, employment, and other areas must mean there is something wrong with them, not with the social systems that somehow always benefit white people the most.

Social scientists look to this question — whether you believe that racism is to blame for disparities or that Black people just need to work harder — to help them determine what they call racial resentment. And racial resentment, in turn, is a predictor of opposition to policies that would improve the economic security of millions.

BLURRED LINES + RAPE ME MASHUP - AMANDA PALMER & REB FOUNTAIN - YouTube:

BLURRED LINES + RAPE ME MASHUP

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch

The Habit of Adequacy – Accidentally in Code:

I was practicing the habit, whilst thinking about habits, and it was an aha moment for me. I was thinking about what it means to honor the word habit, and I realized: I honor the word habit not on the days when it’s easy, when I feel energetic, or inspired, or whatever. I honor the word habit on the days that it is hard, but I show up anyway. The habit serves me on the days when I doubt that I can, but I show up and give myself the opportunity to surprise myself. To have it be great even though my expectations are low.

The Forgotten Craft & Community of Ice Harvesting:

Ice Ball is a short documentary that follows legendary polar explorer Will Steger and the community that he’s built up around harvesting ice from frozen winter lakes near Ely in northern Minnesota.

The American Style of Quotation Mark Punctuation Makes No Sense:

When faced with this contrast, the proper reaction is to recoil in horror at the first approach, and to look approvingly on the second. In the sentence beginning with It is only …, the quotation is a part of the sentence, and the sentence contains the quoted word.

This is what gaslighting sounds like. – WIL WHEATON dot NET:

I am here to tell you that you are enough. That WE are enough. It’s not us. It was never us. It was always them.

Being the DRI of Your Career – Accidentally in Code:

What does it mean to be the DRI of your career? To me, 5 things:

Expect less from your job and more from your career. Learn from feedback. Own your professional development. Distinguish what your employer rents versus what they buy. Build your support system.

Opinion | The Limits of My Empathy for Covid Deniers - The New York Times:

Like many people, I am finding it hard to muster the empathy these stories try to elicit because other images are so fresh in my mind. The maskless rallies, the red-faced anti-maskers screaming at grocery store workers, the protesters hurling invectives at the schoolteachers who are begging for masks so that schoolchildren can return to school — those images fill me and crowd out my empathy.

The Remarkable Biology of the Dragonfly That Makes Them Uniquely Effective Predators:

Stephanie Sammann of Real Science (previously) takes a look at the remarkable biology of the dragonfly that makes them incredibly agile in pursuing prey and evading predators.

Facebook is the AOL of 2021 | ZDNet:

Then one day, someone smart built a new technology that didn't require people to sign away their information. Now, people could meet anyone they wanted and talk about whatever they wanted, not just what Facebook or its competitors said was okay. People felt more relaxed, too, because even though there were ads, people could meet up in Cyberspace without every single action they took being used to fuel an advertising machine.

This thought terrifies Facebook, but they already have the backup plan where they’re the Cyberspace that noone can escape… Where they’re the app store, the advertising, the provider of everything… They’re building it through their Oculus Quest products and there’s really little on the horizon that is attempting to compete there… And the “platforms” that are closest to competing are Fortnite and Roblox, both horrendous in their own rights.

7 hurt after 2 people exchange gunfire in Minneapolis:

I think I have figured out what all shootings have in common: guns.

And places that have fewer guns have fewer shootings (without a proportional increase in non-gun killings).

Seven people were injured, including one critically, after two people began shooting at each other outside a business in Minneapolis’ Uptown neighborhood early Thursday, police said.

Police said the shootout happened at about 12:30 a.m. Thursday on the 3000 block of Lyndale Avenue South, a prominent thoroughfare in the city.

Police arrived to find what they called “a very chaotic scene." Three people at the scene had gunshot wounds. Officers were told that three others had been taken to an area hospital before police arrived, and a fourth person showed up at another hospital with gunshot wounds. All seven are expected to survive.

Investigators are working to determine if the injured people were suspects, intended targets or innocent bystanders. Police did not say what might have motivated the shooting.

New Jeopardy host Mike Richards quits after podcast with sexist and antisemitic jokes surfaces | Boing Boing:

I bet LeVar Burton is still available to help too…

What I Learned While Eavesdropping on the Taliban - The Atlantic:

Because when it was too cold to jihad, that IED still got planted. When they had 30-year-old AK-47s and we had $100 million war planes, they kept fighting. When we left a village, they took it back. No matter what we did, where we went, or how many of them we killed, they came back.

Require vaccines at family gatherings like Thanksgiving:

It’s time to start making those phone calls and texts telling your guests to get their official vaccine cards or verification apps ready because they’ll have to show proof at the door.

How Fermented Foods May Alter Your Microbiome and Improve Your Health - The New York Times:

1. Apologies if the source is paywalled, but in this case I'm not overly concerned because...
2. This isn't necessarily good science. 36 adults isn't enough to identify results well, and using 2 separate variables with no control group for either means and measuring for different outcomes makes this suspect.

For the study, the researchers recruited 36 healthy adults and randomly split them into groups. One group was assigned to increase their consumption of fiber-rich plant foods, while a second group was instructed to eat plenty of fermented foods, including yogurt, sauerkraut, kefir, kombucha and kimchi.

(Original Cell article summary)

I don’t mean to say that the outcomes aren’t useful per-se, but this isn’t enough data to make any kinds of decisions.

Getting into the Delta Variant Mindset:

Vaccines are still the best way to protect yourself and your community from Covid-19. The vaccines are still really good, better than we could have hoped for. But they’re not magic and with the rise of Delta (and potentially worse variants on the horizon if the virus is allowed to continue to spread unchecked and mutate), we need to keep doing the other things (masking, distancing, ventilation, etc.) in order to keep the virus in check and avoid lockdowns, school closings, outbreaks, and mass death. We’ve got the tools; we just need to summon the will and be in the right mindset.

Caffeine, the World’s Most Popular Psychoactive Drug:

The power of caffeine to keep us awake and alert, to stem the natural tide of exhaustion, freed us from the circadian rhythms of our biology and so, along with the advent of artificial light, opened the frontier of night to the possibilities of work.

Small takeaway on a part of Michal Pollen’s new book This is Your Mind on Plants which I’ll need to find a copy of at some point…

Delta is surging as students get ready to go back to school. Here are 5 things to know | MPR News:

As students pick out backpacks and teachers set up their classroom spaces, here are five things health experts want you to know about going back to in-person classes in a pandemic.

CNN Fires Three Employees for Going Into Office Without Vaccinations:

Ted Johnson, reporting for Deadline:

CNN head Jeff Zucker said that the network has fired three employees for going into the office without being vaccinated against Covid-19, and that parent WarnerMedia may ultimately require proof of the shots. […]

“In the past week, we have been made aware of three employees who were coming to the office unvaccinated,” Zucker wrote in an email to staff. “All three have been terminated. Let me be clear — we have a zero-tolerance policy on this. You need to be vaccinated to come to the office. And you need to be vaccinated to work in the field, with other employees, regardless of whether you enter an office or not. Period. We expect that in the weeks ahead, showing proof of vaccination may become a formal part of the WarnerMedia Passcard process. Regardless, our expectations remain in place.”

More like this, please.

 ★ 

The Fun Scale: Understanding Types of “Fun” | REI Co-op Journal:

Type 2 fun is miserable while it’s happening, but fun in retrospect. It usually begins with the best intentions, and then things get carried away. Riding your bicycle across the country. Doing an ultramarathon. Working out till you puke, and, usually, ice and alpine climbing. Also surely familiar to mothers, at least during childbirth and the dreaded teenage years.

Adventure = Clusterf**k + Nostalgia