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Monday links

  • Limited time only: Get your entire genome sequenced for $200. Today and tomorrow — and only for the first 1,000 to apply. This is not the same as a 23andMe screening. This is the whole enchilada. Billions and billions …
  • In that wonderful, sensible land of the UK, dogs have been accused of hate crimes — along with opened envelopes, disputed tennis calls, and a man supporting Brexit. (H/T MtK)
  • “Greater financial discipline” is needed, says deputy secretary of defense after the Pentagon fails its first-ever audit. From $600 toilet seats to $1,300 coffee cups and you’re just figuring that out? Let’s all shout a joint “I told you so!” as nothing improves.
  • The gold standard didn’t disappear in 1971. It just went underground.
  • Resistance is building in Toronto to the unsurprisingly un-transparant plan to have Google build a whole neighborhood “from the Internet up.” I fear these polite Canadians will merely settle for false reassurances: “Oh, noooooo. We’re Google. You know we wouldn’t do any eeeeevil.”
  • Another charming glimpse into the future, where “intelligent” toilets diagnose medical conditions by reading your pee and poo. (You know, if this tech was under your individual control it would be great and useful. But do you dare imagine you’d be the only person (pardon the pun) privvy to the information?) (H/T MJR)
  • Not worried about such a future? Okay. But you can worry right now about what doctors think of your gun rights. (ditto)
  • A California congressthing wants our kindly and benevolent federal government to nuke any gun owners who resist his desired mandatory confiscation. Bear Bussjaeger asks current military and veterans if the military really would fire upon (not necessarily nuke) fellow Americans who resisted. To me the bigger question, aside from “Is that Swalwell guy nutz?” is how Mr. Congressthing — who wants to be president, BTW –would nuke gun owners without nuking everybody else.
  • One more thing “Science Guy” Bill Nye doesn’t know cr*p about: the prospects of humans living on Mars.
  • Don’t ever say “men aren’t women” on Twitter. It’s It’s hateful conduct.
  • I wish I had a cute dog video right about now. Or some incredibly heartwarming news story. But nope. As a closer, we’ll have to settle for the world’s worst alphabet book. (Which you can buy here, should you be needing a gift for a precocious and perhaps somewhat strange child.)

5 Comments

  1. Mike
    Mike November 19, 2018 9:35 am

    Toronto… The resistance to the Google neighborhood has been building for a while. The main problem has been the response to the questions about what data is being collected, who is it being shared with and why. Their answers have been variations of don’t worry, we know better. As a guy who visits the city on a regular basis, I’ll be avoiding this area. I liked the book 1984 but have no interest in living it.

    About the twitter war over the Doctors comment. Given that malpractice in the United States kills several hundred thousand a year maybe the good Doctor should look inward and start working to clean up her own house before criticizing others.

  2. ExpatNJ
    ExpatNJ November 19, 2018 12:04 pm

    To monkey-wrench those Police-State DNA-testing services, place an order, and substitute dog’s saliva for your own. ’23 is offering a special holiday discount two-fer. You can include your “spouse” (ie. cat), too …

    Expensive? Sure. But worth EVERY penny. (What if the results come back “human”?)

  3. Claire
    Claire November 19, 2018 3:24 pm

    Definitely a great one, M. Thank you for brightening the blog today.

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