Tuesday on Tuesday for a Change

My wife announced that it’s Tuesday.

This sort of information is always news to me. I don’t know what day it is, generally, or care what time it is, for the most part. I can occasionally be relied upon to identify the current month, if you put three or four months into a police lineup and let me choose. Other than that, I’m blissfully unaware of much of anything. My stomach is my sundial, and the cat can always be relied on to tell me it’s AM-ish with a swat on my nose. What else can a man need?

But you fine folks deserve a trash day roundup on trash day for a change. Here’s one now:

Making a mechanical watch

Greetings from Canada, self taught watchmaker here. Just finished making my first watch and wanted to share. An original design, made from scratch, by one person. The jewels, sapphire crystals, hairspring, mainspring and the strap were all that were purchased. Everything else was hand made.

I used to consider myself a fairly handy person. I’ve made lots of stuff. Holey moley I’ve never made anything like that.

MIT study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style

“We thought it was plausible that what happens is you start with an initial draft that’s simple, and then later you think of all these other conditions that you want to include. And the idea is that once you’ve started, it’s much easier to center-embed that into the existing provision,” says Martinez, who is now a fellow and instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. However, the findings ended up pointing toward a different hypothesis, the so-called “magic spell hypothesis.” Just as magic spells are written with a distinctive style that sets them apart from everyday language, the convoluted style of legal language appears to signal a special kind of authority, the researchers say.

Lawyers write laws that require lawyers to interpret them for you. It’s a pothole industry. If you’ve ever seen four guys leaning on shovels while a fifth slowly dumps crumbly asphalt into a hole in the road, you’ll understand how it works. “Don’t kill the job.”

LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)

I can’t afford what is likely tens of thousand to go through all the legal and technical hoops over a prolonged period of time, the site itself barely gets a few hundred in donations each month and costs a little more to run… this is not a venture that can afford compliance costs… and if we did, what remains is a disproportionately high personal liability for me, and one that could easily be weaponised by disgruntled people (trolls) who are banned for their egregious behaviour (in the years running fora I’ve been signed up to porn sites, stalked IRL and online, subject to death threats, had fake copyright takedown notices, an attempt to delete the domain name with ICANN… all from those whom I’ve moderated to protect community members)… I do not see an alternative to shuttering it.

It’s a bulletin board site. The fellow that runs it is in No-Longer-Merry-Olde, so he’s understandably wary about the potential liability that would be heaped on his shoulders if he continued. You might wonder if LFGSS is some sort of sketchy site that allows people to upload bomb recipes or directions to CEO’s shoulder blades and so forth, and so make sense of the law’s effect on guys like this. I looked up the acronym LFGSS: London Fixed Gear and Single Speed. People post pictures of their fixie bicycles. Paging Eric Blair. Eric Blair to the white phone!

World’s oldest mammalian ancestor discovered in Mallorca

They were warm-blooded animals like modern mammals, but, unlike most of them, they laid eggs. They were carnivorous and were the first animals to develop the characteristic saber teeth. They were often the superpredators of the ecosystems in which they lived, and their appearance would be similar to a dog, but without ears or fur.

When I read the headline ancient mammals, and saw Mallorca mentioned, I must admit I expected to find a terrifying picture of Cher in a bathing suit when I clicked through.

Argentina exited recession as Milei eyes growth before midterms

Signs of recovery are underway heading into 2025. Beyond the third-quarter growth, wages have surpassed inflation since April, job growth is slowly picking up and private estimates indicated poverty is gradually declining after spiking once Milei took office. Argentines also deposited over US$20 billion in the financial system this year as part of Milei’s tax amnesty programme, a robust sign of confidence in the libertarian president.

Another successful politician with hair that looks like it was rescued from the shower drain.

Factory Farming is Better Than Organic Farming

Another narrative that is based entirely on propaganda meant to favor one industry and demonize its competition is the notion that organic farming is better for health and better for the environment. Actually, there is no evidence of any nutritional or health advantage from consuming organic produce. Further – and most people I talk to find this claim shocking – organic farming is worse for the environment than conventional or even “factory” farming.

A category error in the headline. All farms are factory farms. Some are just smaller than others. Otherwise, you’re just gardening, and trying to give away twenty pounds of zucchini in October.

Why Dumb TVs Deserve a Comeback

One major area for improvement is display quality. If you’re shopping for a dumb TV, you may have noticed that many dumb TVs are limited to older resolutions like 720p, which can’t compete with the 4K and even 8K displays offered by smart TVs. For a comeback to succeed, dumb TVs need crisp, vibrant visuals that cater to today’s high-definition content standards.

Um, you’re describing monitors, which cost way more, but are plenty dumb. The real problem is that you “want to watch tv.” I’ve heard tales of people with large hard drives that hold thousands of movies and tv shows that can be watched on a monitor, or even a smart tv that’s never hooked up to the internet. I’ve heard these tales, because I tell them, and my ear is right next door to my mouth.

The Famous Bering Land Bridge Was More Like a Swamp, Geologists Say

Geologists suggest that between 36,000 and 11,000 years ago, the Bering Land Bridge may have been less an arid steppe grassland and more a boggy ecosystem crisscrossed by rivers. This complicates scientists’ understanding of the iconic landmass and how its landscape would have facilitated or impeded the spread of different species. The scientists presented their work at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting last week.

Well, some of my ancestors used to burn mud for heat. I won’t cast aspersions on the real estate value of the Bering land bridge.

The Unsure of Trash Day Trash Day Roundup

I’m not stateless. I’m sorta homeless, though. On the loose. We are sleeping indoors, however, which is nice, because it was 15 this morning when I woke up. I don’t miss my old house all that much, but I’m starting to miss trash day.

The town we lived in had something you could call a dump. They didn’t call it that, of course, because calling anything or anybody something straightforward instead of a euphemism is verboten these days. Man, we put that dump through its paces before we moved. They picked up the trash on the curb once a week, so you didn’t need to visit their mother ship if you didn’t want to. You could put as many bags of trash out as you cared to, and cardboard and other stuff. Once a year, you could even plop a big pile of most anything out there, and they come around with a dump truck and a loader and take that, too.

The dump itself was open six days a week, for long hours, too. You could dump wood, or metal, or plastic, or electronics, or whatever into designated spots, or anything random into a big pit with a rail car in the bottom of it. It was glorious, but it’s over. I can’t nail Tuesday morning on the calendar anymore, to measure the passage of time in trash-weeks any longer. My trash sun sets in the east or north or south or wherever now. I’m still a raccoon at heart, but the world has strapped bungie cords over the lid of my galvanized life.

So let’s clean out the bookmarks sidebar, and pour one out for trash day.

How the 1955 Le Mans disaster changed motorsport forever

Levegh’s Mercedes collided with the sloping rear of the Austin-Healey at 150 mph and launched into the air. Macklin remembered feeling the “searing heat” of its exhaust on his face as it sailed over him, and seeing Levegh hunched over the wheel as his Mercedes flew off the track. It landed on an earth embankment, crashed into a concrete stairwell, and exploded like a grenade, sending shards of hot metal hurtling into an open public enclosure next to the grandstand.

The internet used to be full of interesting, good writing like this. Antisocial media killed it dead, dead, dead.

18th-century dentist Thomas Berdmore revealed the agonies his patients endured before, during and after treatment.

He fixed his instrument, and with a sudden exertion of all his strength, he brought away the affected Tooth, together with a piece of the jaw-bone, as big as a walnut, and three neighbouring Molares.

A dentist is a prestidigitator who puts metal in your mouth and pulls coins from your pocket.

Nearly half of US teens are online ‘constantly,’ Pew report finds

There was a slight downward trend in several popular apps teens used. For instance, 63% of teens said they used TikTok, down from 67% and Snapchat slipped to 55% from 59%. This small decline could be due to pandemic-era restrictions easing up and kids having more time to see friends in person, but it’s not enough to be truly meaningful.

Half were online constantly, the other half were too busy texting to answer the question.

Are Social Media Platforms the Next Dying Malls?

My home town is just one example of many. And there are also many “dying malls”—defined as enclosed shopping centers with less than 40% occupancy.

Not long ago, we hoped that these artificial gathering places could be robust, vital replacements for the neighborhoods we tore down. But what I’ve learned is that you pay a heavy price for replacing a real community with a fake one.

And that brings me to the subject of social media platforms—which increasingly resemble these old, decrepit malls.

They are the ultimate fake community centers. This makes them vulnerable, despite all the current visitors and lurkers and noise.

Sure. I guess no one goes there anymore because they’re too crowded.

Why conversations are better with four people

“You very rarely get more than four people in a conversation. In the normal run of things, when a fifth person joins a group, it’ll become two conversations within about 20 seconds.” Alternatively, a “lecture” situation develops in which one person holds court and the others act as an audience.

I’ll make small talk with three people, I guess, but I dispute only with God. I require a worthy adversary.

Mysterious tablet with unknown language unearthed in Georgia

The symbols, created using a conical drill and smoothed with rounded tools, reflect a high degree of craftsmanship. Archaeologists have speculated that the writing may have recorded military spoils, construction projects, or offerings to deities, though definitive interpretations remain elusive. “Generally, the Bashplemi inscription does not repeat any script known to us; however, most of the symbols used therein resemble ones found in the scripts of the Middle East, as well as those of geographically remote countries such as India, Egypt, and West Iberia,” noted researchers in the Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology.

I imagine thousands of researchers will spend ages analyzing them and eventually find out it’s a lost dry cleaning ticket.

A room temperature rechargeable Li2O-based lithium-air battery enabled by a solid electrolyte

A lithium-air battery based on lithium oxide (Li2O) formation can theoretically deliver an energy density that is comparable to that of gasoline. Lithium oxide formation involves a four-electron reaction that is more difficult to achieve than the one- and two-electron reaction processes that result in lithium superoxide (LiO2) and lithium peroxide (Li2O2), respectively. By using a composite polymer electrolyte based on Li10GeP2S12 nanoparticles embedded in a modified polyethylene oxide polymer matrix, we found that Li2O is the main product in a room temperature solid-state lithium-air battery. The battery is rechargeable for 1000 cycles with a low polarization gap and can operate at high rates.

When big batteries morph into big capacitors with slow discharge rates, electric cars will make a lot of sense.

Sionic Energy Unveils 100-Percent Silicon Anode Battery

Group14 plans to open a factory in Moses Lake, Wash. in the first quarter of 2025 with annual capacity for 4,000 tons of its nanostructured silicon-carbon material, called SCC55. That black powder could supply 20 gigawatt hours of cells, enough to power 100,000 to 200,000 EVs, or millions of consumer devices like phones. The two companies say silicon anodes can boost energy density by up to 50 percent versus today’s best nickel-rich batteries, and reduce EV charging times to 10 minutes or less.

Baby steps, I guess. But I don’t know why people think electric cars aren’t reliable. I heard that 95 percent of all the electric cars sold in America are still on the road. The other 5 percent made it home.

Well, that cleared up the bookmarks a bit. Enjoy. And if you see a forlorn man wandering the streets aimlessly, toting a half-full Hefty bag, make sure you wave. I promise I’ll wave back.