…at the end of the day it’s all been kind of a shitshow lately, eh?
…or to put it another way
…but then if I’m honest a lot of stuff boggles my mind…so either my mind is easily boggled…or that’s just the tip of the iceberg…& it isn’t even the only iceberg
…I mean we call it bullshit so my analogy’s fucked for a start since icebergs calve…but fuck it…there’s mountains of the stuff whether you think of them being at sea or covering the land…so that kind of fucked is like nothing these days
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/the-mystery-of-the-trump-chaos-trades-iranmar-a-lago-edition
…that’s kind of a post script to a couple of previous articles drawing attention to a pattern that might be described as a phenomenon
…although interestingly enough Bloomberg was among the list of those who jumped to with the “nothing to see here” routine the second time Vanity Fair remarked on it (back in October) so…well…make of that what you will I guess?
…I think we can agree on a few things, though…like there are for sure some people looking to make money in places they shouldn’t oughta
https://www.opensecrets.org/trump/trump-properties
…& while the Barr remains wedged into the scales of justice it’s (man-)baby steps all the way
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/william-barr-trump-doj-dirty-work
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/13/21134569/barr-roger-stone-trump
…but at the end of the day it seems like they have good reasons for not thinking anyone cares about the way things look…or even who might be doing the looking
…because how big of a deal can it be in the face of the eternal shart of the deal?
https://www.theatlantic.com/unthinkable/
…because here’s the thing…this isn’t a thing we’re comfortable with
…but the truth is a lot of this stuff we don’t think some folks should be helping themselves to for certain purposes is…well…kinda just laying about in the nearly-public domain
…we all know nobody has time to read all the T&Cs the online world insists you agree to before you can use these platforms for their ostensible purpose…but at the end of the day that hardly matters
…because that doesn’t mean what it sounds like either
…it’s hard not to think that between the swathes of variously personal information of one sort or another out there in the domains of Big Data & the old saw about there being lies, damn lies & statistics…well…we might have some supposedly “intelligent systems” out there that aren’t half as smart as we think they are
…and some learning algorithms vying to outdo one another for the title of prime example of the “Garbage In:Garbage Out” principle
…& that’s basically all just about the way people look…which is comparatively straightforward compared to trying to second-guess how we’ll second-guess everyone else’s second-guesses about our first & second preferences or electoral redlines
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/05/cambridge-analytica-scl-group-new-companies-names
…which, by the by, hasn’t let up for a moment
…& depending on how you look at it the way we go about even the less fucked up version of the whole thing may even be counter-productive…in ways we aren’t already altogether aware of, even
…so…whether it’s the elections…or the markets…or the coronavirus…it helps to put things into context when you need a little perspective?
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-microbescope-infectious-diseases-in-context/
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/
…but let’s face it…it’s mostly the political context we’re all trying to wrap our heads around?
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-right-us/
…which looks a little different itself in a bigger context?
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-right-world/
…so thank fuck it’s the weekend…at least we can all agree on that…right?
There are times when I hear the stupidest shit. One fellow at work heard (from where?) that China is going to claim to the UN that CoVID-19 is a US bioweapon.
It almost makes sense, but why? Disrupting the supply chain of Walmart isn’t going to help anyone.
I just shook my head and walked out. Fortunately, judging by the reactions, no one believed him.
Alternatively, I dismissed a load of chuckleheads over at Gizmodo who think China infected themselves with a plague to get revenge on us for tearing out Huawei gear.
I feel like I said it a thousand times, and Five Thirty Eight even did their own write up on it; electability is a self fulfilling prophecy. Vote for who you want to win in the primary.
…true dat & all that sort of thing…did think the paper the twitter thread was referring to was interesting, though?
Oh yeah, completely. I would love to read the whole paper.
Trump’s freakout about shower heads reminds me of LBJ’s demands for the White House shower:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/03/ldb-white-house-shower
Of course, LBJ only cared about having insane amounts of water pressure for himself, and didn’t care about rewriting standards for the entire country.
I think the economist is right and wrong. He’s right that a quick rate cut is dumb when the Fed already has low rates. But I think he is overrating the strength of the global economy and doesn’t get that Coronavirus is only triggering the selloff that would have happened anyway, People were figuring Apple was going to drop anyway in the next year, and now they’re just rushing to get to the place they were already headed.
I also don’t think he is accounting for the uncertainty caused by Trumo’s response, or lack of a response. The fact that he is only looking at economic factors suggests he is shielding himself from broader issues,
About Ellie’s ‘Chocolate Olive Oil Crisps’
The recipe says to bake them for 9-12 minutes. 9 for soft, 12 for crisp. But it’s “Depending on how fast your oven bakes”. Mine is a little slow, I think! Well, I have them in for 20 minutes and they are still soft. Should I bake them until they’re crisp, or will the cookies harden after you take them out of the oven?
I took them out. They were soft when I took them out. I think they’re getting crispier! Hooray!
I think I should have taken them out earlier. they hardened more than they should! but that’s fine. they’re da bomb. they won’t last long! next time I’ll leave them in only 12 minuses!
…there’s definitely alchemy involved in good cookies…or baking in general…at least in my experience…but – although in my case it’s been a while since I found the time – I’m pretty certain practice is generally held to be the key?
yes. a tiny bit more experienced cook would know cookies harden after you take them out of the oven. I didn’t! next time… fortunately they’re still fine!
…I think it can also depend on the sub-species of cookie, too?
…on one end of the spectrum (at least in my head) are those little bite-sized italian ones that I think they make with amoretto & they’re basically all crunch…& at the other you have cookies that you can bend pretty much up until the point when they’re stale?
my attempts generally seem to fall somewhere in the middle but I aspire to being able to produce the latter variety…
oh, you probably mean the crunchy to chewy spectrum. my tastes are on the crunchy end. that doesn’t I won’t eat chewy stuff of course!
…I like to mix it up a little…maybe not in a single sitting…but it depends on the day
…whereas I’d pick dark chocolate over milk (given the option) every day & twice on sundays…so I will admit that recipe is tempting but I wondered about adding some broken up bits of that in a chocolate chip kind of a way?
People talk about baking being a science, but for the typical person that’s BS. There are too many variables as far as the baking sheet, the oven rack, the humidity, etc. and you just have to practice and develop a sixth sense for when things are done.
And also develop a tolerance for things coming out a bit different from time to time. That’s what makes things homemade. Grandma would agree.