Five parrots separated at UK zoo after encouraging each other to swear at guests
Dollar Stores Make Up Nearly Half of All New Store Openings This Year
We study the mental maps of spectators during a large naturally occurring extreme ritual
Spanish engineers extract drinking water from thin air
It’s estimated we ingest enough microplastics each week to equal the weight of a credit card
Psychopaths make up 4.5% of the general population
Multiple Walt Disney Employees Among 17 Suspects Arrested in Undercover Child Predator Operation
Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds -- Infants between the ages of 9 and 15 months expend a stunning 50% more energy in 1 day than adults do, adjusted for body size.
The study, of 6,400 people, from eight days old up to age 95, in 29 countries, suggests the metabolism remains "rock solid" throughout mid-life. It peaks at the age of one, is stable from 20 to 60 and then inexorably declines. [...] it "cannot be a coincidence" diseases of old age kicked in as the metabolism fell
“No six-foot social distancing rule unless you have a 6-foot dick.”
Hundreds of AI predictive tools have been built to catch covid. None of them helped. -- and some were potentially harmful.
Trial begins for B.C. man accused of breaking quarantine to go to Flat Earth conference
Delta has changed the game [...] the “zero COVID” dream of fully stamping out the virus is a fantasy. Instead, the pandemic ends when almost everyone has immunity, preferably because they were vaccinated or alternatively because they were infected and survived. When that happens, the cycle of surges will stop and the pandemic will peter out. The new coronavirus will become endemic—a recurring part of our lives like its four cousins that cause common colds. It will be less of a problem, not because it has changed but because it is no longer novel and people are no longer immunologically vulnerable. [...] If SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay, then most people will encounter it at some point in their life.
Don’t let “delta plus” confuse you. The strain hasn’t learned any new tricks.
New study says wildfire smoke linked to increased covid cases, deaths
How one restaurant’s experiment may help diners breathe safely The Big Sur restaurant now featured some new pandemic touches: 18 tabletop mini-purifiers, 10 precisely distributed HEPA air purifiers, an upgraded heating and air conditioning system, and four sensors measuring the air quality in real time.
Joseph Allen runs a major public health research project at Harvard University, probing how indoor air quality affects human health and cognition. [...] Many sources of indoor air pollution can affect human health and cognition. These include particles and gases emitted by furniture and building materials, as well as carbon dioxide (CO2) exhaled by a building’s occupants. Choosing better materials and improving ventilation, filtration, and air processing can help make buildings healthier.
Chinese hackers disguised themselves as Iran to target Israel. But they left a few clues that gave them away.
Miami Launches MiamiCoin to "eliminate homelessness" and "increase the police force."
Websites and apps featuring pirated movies and TV shows make about $1.3 billion from advertising each year, including from major companies like Amazon.com Inc., according to a study. The piracy operations are also a key source of malware, and some ads placed on the sites contain links that hackers use to steal personal information or conduct ransomware attacks.
Amazon Installs Lockers On A Chicago Park’s Sidewalk
How Google quietly funds Europe’s leading tech policy institutes
Beginning with iOS 15, Apple will be deploying a CSAM scanner that will run on your device. While I understand the reason for Apple's proposed CSAM solution, there are some serious problems with their implementation.
it’d be funny if someone paid the government a lot of money for this one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang album and then Wu-Tang just put it on Spotify. You’d still have the certificate of authenticity, though; no one else has that. Obviously the thing that Martin Shkreli bought from the Wu-Tang Clan was a non-fungible token?
Elon Musk’s wealth doesn’t come from him hoarding Tesla’s extractive profits, like a robber baron of old. For most of its existence, Tesla had no profits at all. It became profitable only last year. But even in 2020, Tesla’s profits of $721 million on $31.5 billion in revenue were small—only slightly more than 2% of sales, a bit less than those of the average grocery chain, the least profitable major industry segment in America. Musk won the lottery, or more precisely, the stock market beauty contest
Elon Musk is going to launch a satellite that displays ads in space, reports @BusinessInsider. He is one of several billionaires investing vast sums on the space race. SpaceX will launch the satellite with a display screen in 2022. Ad space will be bought using cryptocurrency. [AJPlus | More: Daily Mail]
According to Pr. Shi Bo, in "Trente-six Stratagèmes Chinois", monkeys were used in the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, in a battle between rebels of the Yanzhou (Yasuo) province and the Chinese Imperial Army, led by Zhao Yu. The monkeys were used as live incendiary devices.
Miquela Sousa, 19-year-old Robot living in LA
Homeless man with no arms charged in stabbing
Startup is creating 'real' dairy, without cows California-based Perfect Day uses fungi to make dairy protein that is "molecularly identical" to the protein in cow's milk.
Zillow and other tech firms are in an ‘arms race’ to buy up American homes. [...] increasingly competitive high-tech house-flipping market, otherwise known as the fast-growing “iBuyer” industry. [...] “It’s less about making money off that inventory, at least initially, and more about who can get the most inventory the fastest.” [...] After going public last year, Opendoor has now expanded into more than 40 markets and purchased 8,500 homes in the second quarter, more than any other quarter by almost 50%. The company, which is reportedly searching out a new $2 billion revolving credit facility, also announced this week that it is now willing to purchase the majority of homes in every one of its current markets. Zillow announced similarly ambitious plans during its recent earnings call. While it bought only 3,800 homes in the second quarter, Zillow is gearing up to scale massively through the rest of 2021, saying that it expects its Homes division to bring in around $1.4-1.5 billion in revenue next quarter, roughly double what the division made this quarter. [...] “this business model can generate immense profits even if the profit per home isn’t eye-popping to the casual investor or analyst. [...] Buying and selling 5,000 homes a month? It gets interesting.” The spokesperson added that the company has an additional “dream” that people will one day sell one home on Zillow and then buy another on the website too. [Vice]
It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription
English spelling is ridiculous. Sew and new don’t rhyme. Kernel and colonel do. When you see an ough, you might need to read it out as ‘aw’ (thought), ‘ow’ (drought), ‘uff’ (tough), ‘off’ (cough), ‘oo’ (through), or ‘oh’ (though). The ea vowel is usually pronounced ‘ee’ (weak, please, seal, beam) but can also be ‘eh’ (bread, head, wealth, feather). Those two options cover most of it – except for a handful of cases, where it’s ‘ay’ (break, steak, great). Oh wait, one more… there’s earth.
ATM piece -- Wearing only Timberland boots and a skirt made of dollar bills, Pope.L chained himself with a string of sausages to the entrance of a bank in 1997.
17 years ago Dave Matthews Band dumped 800 pounds of poo onto a tour boat on the Chicago River [thread]