Well, the bookmarks are overflowing again. I really did intend to read them. I guess. Whatever. I’ve been reading Huckleberry Finn in Spanish, and it’s giving me an aneurysm, so I’ve fallen behind, or lost interest, or something. Pike County accents don’t seem to translate well into castellano, never mind what Jim adds to the mix. I feel like I’m tilting at windmills. Oops, that’s the other book I’m reading. I read it fifty years ago, but I can’t recite it anymore, so I thought I’d brush up. Funny, the Don doesn’t seem the least bit unhinged this time around. Maybe it’s me. On to the bookmarks!
Researchers recently sequenced the genomes of two naturally mummified women found in Libya
Their analyses revealed the green Sahara individuals likely branched off from the ancestors of sub-Saharan Africans roughly 50,000 years ago. Then, somehow, they remained genetically isolated for tens of thousands of years—a revelation that still perplexes researchers.
I thought it was in very bad taste for the article to lead off with a picture of Nancy Pelosi.
Meta antitrust trial kicks off in federal court
“Acquiring these competitive threats has enabled Facebook to sustain its dominance—to the detriment of competition and users—not by competing on the merits, but by avoiding competition,” the FTC wrote in a filing.
Duh. I can solve this problem easily. It is hereby illegal for one corporation to buy another corporation. See? Now you can close the antitrust division, and save some dough.
Intel sells 51% of Altera to Silver Lake; CEO Rivera replaced
Specifically, Intel is selling 51% of Altera for roughly $4.46 billion in a deal that values the full company at around $8.75 billion, a far cry from the $16.7 billion Intel paid for Altera 10 years ago in what remains the largest acquisition in the history of the company. Also, Altera is replacing Sandra Rivera, who had guided the company as CEO through its lengthy process of transforming from Intel’s Programmable Solutions Group into a newly-independent company.
It seems to me that the word “guided” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that last sentence. Maybe she can go start a business with Ginni Rometty and Marissa Mayer.
N. Korean smartphones add screenshot function with notable exceptions
Previously, North Korean smartphones lacked screenshot capabilities. Authorities likely blocked this function to prevent information from being shared with or leaked to the outside world. However, as smartphone usage has grown in North Korea, screenshot functionality appears to have been added to improve user experience.
We’re reading a news item about North Korean smartphones. These are truly the End Times.
What Is the Song of Solomon About?
Many readers believe Solomon wrote the book, though it seems more likely that it is a compilation of poems that a woman and her man had written for each other. The female voice contributes most of the content, and the male voice responds. He does not seem to be Solomon, though the book mentions his name seven times. The book depicts an exclusive relationship where the lovers only have eyes for one another, and Solomon, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, is not a likely contender (1 Kings 11:1-3). Some scholars have suggested that the Song of Songs should be understood as a book in the wisdom tradition of Solomon, rather than authored by him.
I imagine Solomon stopped at 700 wives, because more than that might be considered bigamy.
Meet Boston Corbett, the self-castrated hatmaker who was John Wilkes Booth’s Jack Ruby.
His rash tendencies exhibited themselves in strange ways. One day while he was ministering in the summer of 1858, Corbett was ogled by a pair of prostitutes, and the lower half of his body responded invitingly. He went home, took a pair of scissors, snipped an incision under his scrotum, and removed his testicles, then headed out to a prayer meeting.
Mercury is a helluva drug.
Man Hospitalized After Sniffing Dirty Socks Made Fungus Grow in His Lungs
During questioning, the man—identified in local media reports under the pseudonym Li Qi—casually revealed that he had a habit of sniffing his used socks after taking them off at the end of the day. And it wasn’t just a one-off. This was apparently part of his everyday routine. Years of sock-sniffing.
A Mexican man enters a department store in the US, looking for socks. He walks up to the woman at the counter and says, “Quiero calcetines.” The woman can’t understand him, but won’t admit it, and she starts showing him everything in the store. The man keeps saying, “No. Quiero calcetines!” After going through the whole store, the man starts to leave, but he sees some socks as he passes the underwear counter. He looks at the woman and says, “Eso si que es.” The woman says, “Why didn’t you spell it in the first place?”
CT scans could cause 5% of cancers, study finds; experts note uncertainty
Based on data from 93 million CT scans performed on 62 million people in 2023, the researchers estimated that the CT scans would lead to 103,000 future cancers. To put that in context, those 103,000 cancers would account for about 5 percent of cancers diagnosed each year, based on the current cancer rates and the current usage of CT scans. And the estimate puts CT scans on par with alcohol consumption and obesity in terms of risk factors for developing cancer.
According to my mother, the other 95% would be caused by sitting too close to the television.
Nearly a quarter of seventeen-year-old boys in America have an ADHD diagnosis. That’s crazy. But worse than the diagnosis is that the majority of them end up on amphetamines, like Adderall or Ritalin. These drugs allow especially teenage boys (diagnosed at 2-3x the rate of girls) to do what their mind would otherwise resist: Study subjects they find boring for long stretches of time. Hurray?
School is for girls now, and that’s that.
China accuses US of launching ‘advanced’ cyberattacks, names alleged NSA agents
Police in the northeastern city of Harbin said three alleged NSA agents to a wanted list and also accused the University of California and Virginia Tech of being involved in the attacks after carrying out investigations, according to a report by state news agency Xinhua on Tuesday. The NSA agents were identified by Xinhua as Katheryn A. Wilson, Robert J. Snelling and Stephen W. Johnson. The three were also found to have “repeatedly carried out cyber attacks on China’s critical information infrastructure and participated in cyber attacks on Huawei and other enterprises.”
That’s silly. The NSA is not about to take time away from spying on US citizens to bother with Chinese people.
2 Responses
I enjoyed your language misunderstanding sock joke. Back in the 80s, I went with my brother to a garage in Miami that we chose to fix the brakes on his car. After they took the car inside, a Hispanic mechanic came out and explained to us what work he would do on the car. His English was very bad, but it was a magnitude better than my Spanish. After he explained everything, I nodded my head and said okie dokie. I swear I’m not making this up . About 10 minutes later, we heard a lot of yelling and people throwing things inside, but I’ve heard that before at my dentist’s office. So I wasn’t too concerned. Then a few more minutes passed, and the manager came out and very awkwardly and sheepishly asked me in a hesitating manner, “Did you call the mechanic a donkey? “
Hi Robert- My wife says your story is better than mine.