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This is a really interesting period, when what we think of as modern ideas about governance and human rights were coffee-house conversation and the seeds of revolution across Europe were being sown. Although I think appropriating the title from the original is a bit much, I think this sounds like an interesting history and one formed from a more diverse crowd of contributors. One can only read so much Pepys.

Yeah, stuff like this was the most interesting use case for me but a company like Amazon doesn't want to market its new, supposedly cool device as a speaking clock for the elderly, or a weather app for blind folks, even though it's super useful for both. I have never wanted one but have been cheered by the division's (apparent) success because I knew lots of people who are left behind by tech a lot found these things very useful.

FYI, this is a long excerpt (prologue and first chapter) from a nonfiction book y the author of "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Lost City of Z," David Grann.

Fascinating. Built on a firsthand account by Lord Byron's grandfather? Everyone writing nautical and adventure fiction in the era would have been aware of this, though I had no idea. Kind of an early post-truth type situation as well. Just goes to show there's nothing new under the sun, as usual.

Wow, I learned a lot. I'd be curious to try out the Chinese equivalent of Final Fantasy VI - when storytelling, gameplay, and art achieved a sort of local triple maximum. No doubt opinions are divided but I wonder if there are a handful of candidates that an interested but ignorant gamer like myself might look at.

What's the great instant you drank? Clearly you love and appreciate good fresh coffee so I wonder what it might be that met that bar when others didn't. I don't mind some instant coffee now and then but it has a certain quality to it that makes it identifiable as such, if not simply "worse" than fresh (which can be quite bad).

(My standard coffee setup, since we may as well: Technivorm KBG-V, 40 grams of medium grind for 6 cups (approximately two regular size mugs))

Woah! I didn't realize MJT had a thing on him. I really need to go back there.

Don't be an asshole.

Such an interesting person. I know that there are numerous biographies and histories of him in Russian but none that I know of have been translated to English. I would gladly read one; the scattered stories and essays I've read by and about him make him out to be a mind at the century level.

The telegraph was an enormous change, especially laying the trans-Atlantic line.

In one sense this is correct and why I personally stopped caring - what are they going to do with 5 years worth of my choice of cream cheese and apple varieties?

But for other people it may be more revealing, of medical conditions, life changes, etc, especially when combined with other datasets. You moved from a one bedroom to a studio, started buying half as much milk and twice as many frozen pizzas, and take cars to restaurants less? Sorry about the breakup, here are some dating app ads.

GRIFFIN takes the cake for me: "General compliant aerial Robotic manipulation system Integrating Fixed and Flapping wings to INcrease range and safety"

https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/20/this-autonomous-ornithopte...

Cool project though.

This is nasty but these wasps and the fig trees that are their home are the subject of one of the best nature documentaries I've ever seen, The Queen of Trees:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy86ak2fQJM

If you can locate a good HD copy it's worth waiting and watching that. Ian Holm narrates the stories of a bunch of different animals, from fig wasps to other bugs and larger creatures like bats, monkeys and even humans that rely on the tree. It has some of the most horrifying but also incredible imagery I've seen in a nature show and some real groaner lines from Holm to boot. My friends and I watch it every year or two and it never fails to amaze me.

>Assuming a spherical isotropically radiating human

...in a vacuum, of course!

This is the latest classic home version of that, I have one:

https://us.moccamaster.com/products/kbgv-select

Good coffee, compact, looks good, easily fixable if a piece breaks since the movable parts are all individually purchasable (e.g. carafe top). Definitely expensive though. The 8-cup OXO is another good option.

AFAIK only Lynk has demonstrated this capability so far. They're basically aiming for emergency two-way messaging and light downlink data like weather, emergency info, etc.

The others are talking about high speed data but haven't tested or demonstrated it from space that I know of. From what I understand it is not easy! I would be surprised if any of their data services launch commercially next year.

Halloween Harry! Yes. The canister grenades and flamethrower were the best.

Looks a lot like Abuse. I would have played it! The original Duke Nukem sidescrollers were fun. Them and Commander Keen, Dangerous Dave, Jazz Jackrabbit... what else?

Love the Well-Tempered Clavier! I recommend listening to the harpsichord versions, which emphasize the individual notes and tempo, since (IMO) these were not really meant as expressive, emotional pieces to be interpreted liberally on pianoforte. That doesn't mean they can't be played or enjoyed that way, but I think the harpsichord (which Bach would have composed and played for) is the better way to hear it first.

So find a harpsichord version that works for you - there are still many styles to choose from, but the works are short so you can feel out an artist even with a 30-second preview. The very first track, BWV 846, is an excellent litmus test.

I've listened to the whole thing in sequence many times and the pieces are paired (as the article notes) for actual reasons, but now I like to put it on random and see if I can remember how pieces go without being primed by their position. Wonderful collection of music.

My guess is every three letter agency, the White House, members of Congress, everybody. Just like the current admin and previous admin. They would all be in conversation with all the major social platforms, for lots of reasons.

It's not a backchannel... every social media company has a dedicated response team that handles requests from law enforcement, partners, big media companies, etc. Do you think Disney just hits the report button on YouTube? This is an official method of reporting content. Literally every major company does this and the reasons why have been explained for years.

They didn't - as I said before, this kind of communication is commonplace between large tech properties and governments, other large companies, NGOs, etc. It wasn't anything like a direct order. Local law enforcement, city councils, lobbyists, PR people, anyone with information or access will often have a more direct line to Twitter, Youtube, etc than the 'report' button.

There do exist direct orders to reveal or conceal information that do require a judge to sign, things like National Security Letters. It's remarkable that NSLs and other compelling documents don't get more play in these conversations. They actually are what people think these friendly emails are.

>Imagine if you had the Trump admin suggesting whose accounts to review?

They did, for 4 years. I'd certainly be curious to see those emails, but they don't really fit the narrative of these "twitter files" threads.

Extremely common

Neither. Social media companies are in regular contact with all major governments about lots of issues. A weekly "hey all here are some accounts we noticed, have a great week" email to a designated Twitter contact for review requests is completely ordinary. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, everyone hears from the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Australia, Japan.... and decides what to do with the information.

Ceramics.org vs Metals.co, how surreal.

Not that I have a better solution, but won't this suck up and kill seabottom creatures and denude their habitat?

Just a note, if it's The Block, he allegedly paid off the CEO, not the journalists who write there. It's a meaningful distinction. The CEO is a business officer, the EIC would be the one directing content.

Exactly my question. It doesn't go cleanly into any of the common widths from the time. Common powers and multiples are way off. My guess is it was an arbitrarily chosen size on free hosting like Geocities, that fit into their default layouts and frames.

Edit: Oh, someone answered in another thread - appears to be as another person remembered here: https://neonaut.neocities.org/cyber/88x31.html

I feel your clear and general disdain for the press is coloring your interpretation of events here and the reality of editing and sourcing.

There was an editorial failure, certainly, but in a rapidly changing situation due to a misunderstanding of the evidence given by a vetted source (such sources are seldom named even internally). Don't forget five or six nations were "squabbling" over the origin and nature of these missiles for days afterwards. Russian missiles did hit Poland, but they were Russian-made, not Russian-launched. It's not hard to imagine how easily this message could be muddled somewhere between Lviv and New York.

The person saying US intel was unlikely to be wrong was not evincing a blind trust in government but expressing that a vetted source was unlikely to volunteer information of this nature, in this situation, that was inaccurate, given that Poland had essentially confirmed there was a crisis event unfolding.

It was not a third hand story (US intel official claimed direct knowledge), reporters are not second hand (they interpret, contextualize, and synthesize) and editors are not third party (they are an integral part of the news process).

News organizations are under immense pressure from every quarter. It is very easy to pick apart the process in retrospect and suggest they should have distrusted a trusted source or questioned the somewhat ambiguous wording of the message from the reporter. News, and reporting about war especially, is complex and messy - remember this all took place within 9 minutes.

That does not make these people "doomsday reporters," "hacks," or that they need to be fired and attend remedial journalism school. It was an honest mistake not unique to virtual newsrooms but exacerbated by them. They retracted the story when it was clear that the intel their source provided was mistaken, fired the reporter for, I would guess, failing to communicate and handle the news properly, and likely chastised the editors for erring too far on the side of shipping the news.

Sorry for this long comment, I just completely disagree with your assessment.

My dad tells the story of how he went to a shop to pick up some wine when they were being economical, and was in the "value" section. A wino of the classic type approached and pointed out the (I believe it was) Franzia.

"That's the good stuff," he said, then added confidentially: "...doesn't give you the shakes."

My dad bought the box and many more over the years. Never got the shakes. Quality is relative!