Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and LeBron James meet in a bar

Elon Musk: I'm going to use my wealth to fund ... space travel!

Jeff Bezos: I'm going to use my wealth to fund ... space travel!

LeBron James: I'm going to use my wealth to ... build a public school that helps students and their parents!

Feminazgûl (@jkyles10), 31 July 2019, (with 134k likes). LeBron James, an American basketball star, donated funds to open the I Promise school for at-risk students in the Akron, Ohio public school system. See Students at LeBron James' I Promise School generating 'extraordinary' results, by Jeff Zillgitt, USA Today, 12 April 2019. Also see NY Times LeBron James Opened a School That Was Considered an Experiment. It’s Showing Promise.

Forged by fantasy

[French football manager Arsène Wenger's] assertion several years ago that [Lionel] Messi was a "PlayStation footballer” was meant more as an explanation than an insult: Messi does things that seem to belong on a pixelated screen because that is, in part, how he has learned to see the game […] His conception of what is possible and what is not was forged by fantasy.”

How Video Games Are Changing the Way Soccer Is Played, by Rory Smith, New York Times, 13 October 2016.

“After the wheel, the PlayStation is the best invention of all time.”

— Soccer (fútbol) player Andrea Pirlo, as quoted in How Video Games Are Changing the Way Soccer Is Played, by Rory Smith, New York Times, 13 October 2016. The original quote is lifted from an excerpt of Pirolo's autobiography in The Guardian.

“I know you are trying but just not hard enough. Sorry.”

—

Greta Thunberg to [US] Congress: ‘You’re not trying hard enough. Sorry’, by Lauren Gambino, The Guardian, 17 September 2019

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has galvanized young people across the world to strike for more action to combat the impact of global warming, politely reminded them that she was a student, not a scientist – or a senator.

“Please save your praise. We don’t want it,” she said. “Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything.

“If you want advice for what you should do, invite scientists, ask scientists for their expertise. We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard.”

In remarks meant for Congress as a whole, she said: “I know you are trying but just not hard enough. Sorry.”.

Greta Thunberg, #FridaysForFuture, Washington, DC. 13 September 2019. CC-BY

Explain Bitcoin to grandpa

@am_anatiala: i still don't get bitcoin

@Theophite: imagine if keeping your car idling 24/7 produced solved Sudokus you could trade for heroin

@SwiftOnSecurity: Wow

@Theophite: where is the lie?

@SwiftOnSecurity: no where [sic]

Thread, rev. howard arson (@Theophite) et al, 17 August 2019, via This Week in Tech 727, 'explain Bitcoin to grandpa' [at 1:43:27]

There's Waldo

Screen grab from There’s Waldo is a robot that finds Waldo, redpepper, 8 August 2018

Built by creative agency redpepper, There’s Waldo zeroes in and finds Waldo with a sniper-like accuracy. The metal robotic arm is a Raspberry Pi-controlled uArm Swift Pro which is equipped with a Vision Camera Kit that allows for facial recognition. The camera takes a photo of the page, which then uses OpenCV to find the possible Waldo faces in the photo. The faces are then sent to be analyzed by Google’s AutoML Vision service, which has been trained on photos of Waldo. If the robot determines a match with 95 percent confidence or higher, it’ll point to all the Waldos it can find on the page.

This robot uses AI to find Waldo, thereby ruining Where’s Waldo, by Dami Lee, The Verge, 8 Aug 2018

“During the last two decades of British agonizing and prevaricating over Heathrow, China has built 100 new airports.”

— Iran Birrell (@ianbirrell), 5 June 2018, citing @c4news

Interviewer: Tell me about your qualifications.

Candidate: I’m very quick at math.

Interviewer: What’s the square root of 700?

Candidate: 4.

Interviewer: That’s not even close.

Candidate: Yeah, but it was quick.

Via Jeremiah Lowin (@jlowin), May 2018

Or suffer the consequences

It’s working… But the question is, is it working fast enough? Paraphrasing the great abolitionist leader Theodore Parker, Martin Luther King Jr. used to regularly end his speeches with the phrase “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” The line was a favorite of Obama’s too, and for all three men it meant the same thing: “This may take a while, but we’re going to win.” For most political fights, it is the simultaneously frustrating and inspiring truth. But not for climate change. The arc of the physical universe appears to be short, and it bends toward heat. Win soon or suffer the consequences. 

Winning Slowly Is the Same as Losing: The technology exists to combat climate change – what will it take to get our leaders to act?, by Bill McKibben, Rolling Stone, 1 December 2017

Day/Night Terminator, September 5, Atlantic Coast

Via Hurricane Dorian at 31.6°N - 79.5°W - NOAA / NESDIS / STAR. Video here

Impossible fantasies

“Dungeons & Dragons allows you to live out impossible fantasies, like that of medical professionals who listen to you when you want healing.

In a scene right now where my disabled wizard talks to @elibyronbaldrsn’s dwarf cleric and honestly it’s the most affirming and validating doctor conversation I’ve ever had.”

Tweet (since deleted, or I can't find it except for a screen grab) from Ana Mardoll (@AnaMardoll), August 5, 2018

The Garden of Eden is no more

“‘I am quite literally from another age,’ Attenborough told an audience of business leaders, politicians and other delegates. ‘I was born during the Holocene – the 12,000 [year] period of climatic stability that allowed humans to settle, farm, and create civilisations.’ […]

‘The Holocene has ended. The Garden of Eden is no more.’”

Sir David Attenborough has warned that “the Garden of Eden is no more”, by Graeme Wearden, reporting from Davos; The Guardian, 21 January 2019.

Turn on the C by GE light bulb

Screen grab from How to: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs

[NARRATOR]

Welcome to C by GE’s smart tips.

We’re going to show you how to reset your C by GE bulbs, which will un-pair your bulb from other devices and apps that it’s connected to.

There are 2 factory reset processes which depend on the generation of bulbs and the firmware you’re running on.

Here’s the first process designed for bulbs with this package or for firmware version 2.8 or later.

Start with your bulb off for at least 5 seconds.

Then turn on the bulb for 8 seconds.

Turn off for 2 second.

Turn on for 8 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds.

Turn on for 8 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds.

Turn on for 8 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds.

Turn on for 8 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds.

And then turn it on one last time.

The bulb will flash on and off 3 times to show that the reset was successful. If it doesn’t, your bulb may be running on an older version of firmware and we’ll need to try the second factory reset process, which is designed for C by GE bulbs with this package or for firmware version 2.7 or or earlier.

Ready?

OK.

Start with your bulb off for at least 5 seconds.

Then, turn on the bulb for 8 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds.

Turn on for 2 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds.

Turn on for 2 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds.

Turn on for 2 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds.

Turn on for 8 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds.

Turn on for 8 seconds.

Turn off for 2 seconds, and then turn it on one last time.

The bulb will flash on and off 3 times if it has been successfully reset.

For more smart tips about our smart products, go to CbyGE.com.

How to: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs by GE Lighting, 3 January 2019

Make the pie

Dear Carolyn,

My husband's family is really academic, most are in school until their late 20s at least. My husband has a bachelor's degree and I have some college but never finished. His family has always been welcoming and they aren't snobby or anything -- with the exception of Thanksgiving. My in-laws host and make a great meal. My husband's siblings are never asked to contribute because they are in finals and "don't have the time or money" to bring anything. We are always asked to bring a dessert or something.

My husband thinks I'm overreacting and doesn't care, but for some reason this really bugs me. How do I let it go? Or is it worth it to bring it up?

[READER COMMENT] Make the pie. Make it with a loving heart, freely and voluntarily. For all you know, the academics in the family can't cook.

[CAROLYN HAX] This answer is the answer to so many things: Make the pie.

Letter to advice columnist Carolyn Hax, with responses, The Oregonian, 9 November 2018

“The notion that the future of politics might, with the internet, become less rational and more dogmatic was scarcely explored.”

— 25 years of Wired predictions: Why the future never arrives, by Avid Karpf, Wired, 18 September 2018

Less time than voting

“In a few cases, the Voting Village's collection of hacker/researchers discovered that hacking the voting machines took less time than voting.”

Defcon Voting Village report: Bug in one system could “flip Electoral College” by Sean Gallagher, Ars Technica, 27 September 2018

The article continues,

One voting machine could be hacked in two minutes. And another hack, exploiting a flaw in an electronic card used to activate voting terminals, made it possible to reprogram the card wirelessly with a mobile device—allowing the voter to potentially cast as many votes as they like.

Perhaps the most frustrating of the problems documented by the researchers is that flaws, even when reported, don't get fixed. One example is another vulnerability in the ES&S M650 that had been reported more than 10 years ago to the manufacturer—but was still present on systems used for the 2016 election.

The total erosion of meaning itself

The central disappointment of these spaces is not that they are so narcissistic, but rather that they seem to have such a low view of the people who visit them. Observing a work of art or climbing a mountain actually invites us to create meaning in our lives. But in these spaces, the idea of “interacting” with the world is made so slickly transactional that our role is hugely diminished. Stalking through the colorful hallways of New York’s “experiences,” I felt like a shell of a person. It was as if I was witnessing the total erosion of meaning itself. And when I posted a selfie from the Rosé Mansion saying as much, all of my friends liked it.

Critics Notebook: The Existential Void of the Pop-Up ‘Experience’ by Amanda Hess, New York Times, 26 September 2018. The piece is subtitled “I went to as many Instagramable ‘museums’, ‘factories’ and ‘mansions’ as I could. They nearly broke me.”

Mr. Toad in Hell

…“Experience” has emerged as among the defining fads of my generation. […] By classifying these places as experiences, their creators seem to imply that something happens there. But what? Most human experiences don’t have to announce themselves as such. They just do what they do. A film tells a story. A museum facilitates meaning between the viewer and a work of art. Even a basic carnival ride produces pleasing physical sensations. […]

I’m no Disney evangelist, but come on. Disneyland has a ride where you get to experience life as Mr. Toad as he is being sentenced to Hell. To Hell!

Critics Notebook: The Existential Void of the Pop-Up ‘Experience’ by Amanda Hess, New York Times, 26 September 2018. The piece is subtitled “I went to as many Instagramable ‘museums’, ‘factories’ and ‘mansions’ as I could. They nearly broke me.”

Privacy is hard

“Privacy is Hard, Volume 18283833.

Knowing of 5 downloaded, non-vendor specific apps installed on a device is enough to uniquely identify over 90% of individuals in a sample of a million+ people.”

Privacy researcher and Director of Open Privacy Sarah Jamie Lewis (@SarahJamieLewis), 17 September 2018. Jamie Lewis cites Temporal Limits of Privacy in Human Behavior by Sekara et al, 2018

Jamie Lewis continues, “This result is not surprising but it’s a nice illustration of the how even seemingly ‘useless’/‘unimportant’ information like ‘what apps do you have installed’ can impact total privacy.”