Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, lost since 1915, is found off Antarctica
An expedition that set out in search of the lost ship of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton has found it — 106 years after the vessel sank off Antarctica. The wooden ship Endurance has been located remarkably intact about 10,000 feet underwater in the Weddell Sea. The find is “a milestone in polar history,” said Mensun Bound, a…
The hidden billion-dollar cost of repeated police misconduct
The story notes that when police departments mention they are paying a cash settlement to a plaintiff who has made accusations of police misconduct, the departments typically don’t mention the name of officers involved. On the one hand, this makes sense, since the settlements are often made with no admission of misconduct, so the officers…
What Was the TED Talk?
The title borders on clickbait, but the self-aware irony of the catch-phrase “Thank you for attending my TED talk” does suggest the concept has long ago escaped the lab. “We live in an era where the best way to make a dent on the world… may be simply to stand up and say something.” And yet,…
Sub Rosa (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 14) Dr. Beverly’s Space Ghost Romance
Rewatching ST:TNG Dr. Crusher eulogizes a grandmother she’s never once mentioned, on a colony terraformed to resemble Scottland (scotta-formed?). A man who looks like he swaggered off the cover of a romance novel throws a flower into the grave. A grumpy old caretaker warns Beverly not to light the candle which is her family heirloom. …
Seeing a different cast. Break all the legs!
Homeward (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 13) Worf’s foster brother interferes with a primitive, dying culture
Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-D answers a distress call from Worf’s foster brother, a civilian observing a primitive civilization on a planet with an atmosphere that’s spontaneously dissipating because reasons. The dissipation is also creating a plot contrivance field that periodically jams key systems so that we can watch characters react to dramatic in-person discoveries of…
Entire staff of Russian TV channel resigned during a live stream with last words: “no war” and then played “swan lake” ballet video
The Entire staff of the Russian TV channel “the rain” resigned during a live stream with last words: “no war” and then played “swan lake” ballet video (just like they did on all USSR tv channels when it suddenly collapsed)
Selected Negative Teaching Evaluations of Jesus Christ
“Not what I expected. They say his area of specialty is carpentry, but we never built anything.” “Kind of absent-minded. My name’s Simon, and he’s called me ‘Peter’ for the entire semester.” “I wanted to like this class, but on the first day, he submerged us in a river instead of going over the syllabus,…
This makes a lot of sense.
Parallels (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 11) Worf gets technobabbled into a timeline where he married Troi
Rewatching ST:TNG After returning victorious from a bat’leth tournament, Worf is ambushed by a surprise birthday party, where a chocolate cake turns yellow, his big pointy first place trophy turns into a ninth place blob, and things continue diverging from the recent past he remembers. A great comic scene features a terrified Worf reacting when…
How to spot video and photo fakes as Russia invades Ukraine – Poynter
In the first hours of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, internet watchdogs pored over images shared on Russian media that claimed Ukraine struck first and Russia merely responded. The Biden administration has been warning for weeks that, in the days and hours leading up to the invasion of Ukraine that arrived before dawn on Thursday,…
Settling in for a jukebox show (not my favorite genre but the Go-Gos are fun).
Enjoying a soul food dinner in honor of #blackhistorymonth
War via TikTok: Russia’s new tool for propaganda machine
“This is the way they go to war; it’s a central part of Russian doctrine,” said Jim Ludes, a former U.S. defense analyst who now directs the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University. Ludes said Russian disinformation campaigns are intended to galvanize Russian support while confusing and dividing the…
Inheritance (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 10) Data’s mom talks a lot, young Soong says she’s a bot, that’s a life-lie
Rewatching ST:TNG Within minutes of hearing about a problem with a planet’s molten core, LaForge comes up with a solution that Data and the visiting scientists from Atrea are convinced will work. One of the visitors, Dr. Juliana Tainer, introduces herself to Data as a colleague of his creator Dr. Soong. In fact, because she…
The Protagonist’s Best Friend Would Like to Stop Having to Shoehorn So Much Exposition into Their Dialogue
Look, it’s just—now that you’re the protagonist of this movie, I’ve been feeling a lot of pressure to dispense clunky exposition in my conversations with you, and I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s not that I don’t love talking to you, dude. Of course I do—you’re my best friend! And you’ve been my…
Force of Nature (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 9) A Space Thing leads to an environmental mystery that implicates warp drive technology
Rewatching ST:TNG In which a comic teaser features LaForge’s misadventures with Data’s cat; we join the search for a missing medical transport; and we meet environmentalists with dire warnings about a ubiquitous Federation technology. LaForge is tinkering with the engines, trying to beat the performance stats of an academy frenemy. He and his nerd buddy…
Jerry Lewis’s Costars Speak Out: “He Grabbed Me. He Began to Fondle Me. I Was Dumbstruck”
As a kid I watched Jerry Lewis movies when they turned up on the local independent TV channels, and typically when I was home from school on Labor Day, I would watch at least part of his muscular dystrophy telethons. I’m saddened to read allegations about yet another established male professional using his position of…
Brain activity of a dying man suggests we do recall memories at death
The 87-year-old man developed epilepsy and was admitted to Vancouver General Hospital in British Columbia, Canada, before dying of a cardiac arrest. […] “As a neurosurgeon, I deal with loss at times. It is indescribably difficult to deliver the news of death to distraught family members,” [Dr. Amal Zemmar] said. “Something we may learn from…