LearnedHand
LearnedHand's JournalLibraries offering out-of-state cards
I do all my reading digitally and I rarely purchase books anymore. Instead I’m an avid user of my local public library for audiobooks and ebooks. Although I’m fairly patient with long hold times, I do get annoyed when the library doesn’t have and won’t purchase particular digital books. So I looked into membership at other libraries, and what do you know? A number of public libraries offer non-resident cards. Some are quite expensive but most are reasonable. I’ve already gotten books at one that weren’t available at my library.
Here are a couple of resources:
https://bookriot.com/out-of-state-library-cards/
https://www.9thstreetbooks.com/how-to-get-a-library-card-online/#3-libraries-offering-library-cards-online-for-non-residents
Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down
Excellent, if somewhat hair-raising, article on what we are not thinking about in AI. As in: We could all die if we don't stop now and plan better.
https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/
Actor Jeremy Renner critically injured in a snow plowing accident
Source: CNN
Actor Jeremy Renner is in “critical but stable condition” after being injured in a weather-related snow plowing incident in Nevada, CNN affiliate KABC reported, citing a spokesperson for Renner.
Officers responded to a “traumatic injury” in the area of Mount Rose Highway in Reno, according to a news release from the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, which has previously said the Academy Award-nominated actor lived in the community.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/entertainment/jeremy-renner-snow-plow-hospital/index.html
"The Devil's Hour" on Amazon Prime
Just started this show yesterday and binged 4 or the 6 episodes. It's a superb psychological thriller with some horror elements. It stars Peter Capaldi as the terrifying bad guy. Highly recommended!
COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a "Complex and Grave Situation" Inside a Wuhan Lab
Source: ProPublica
“A Secret Language of Chinese Officialdom”
Toy Reid has always had a gift for languages — one that would carry him far from what he calls his “very blue-collar” roots in Greenville, South Carolina. In high school, Spanish came easily. At nearby Furman University, where he became the first person in his family to attend college, he studied Japanese. Then, “clueless but curious,” as he puts it, he channeled his fascination with the Dalai Lama into a master’s degree in East Asian philosophy and religion at Harvard. Along the way, he picked up Khmer, the national language of Cambodia, and achieved fluency in Chinese.
But it was his career as a China specialist for the Rand Corporation and as a political officer in East Asia for the U.S. State Department that taught him how to interpret a notoriously opaque language: the “party speak” practiced by Chinese Communist officials.
Party speak is “its own lexicon,” explains Reid, now 44 years old. Even a native Mandarin speaker “can’t really follow it,” he says. “It’s not meant to be easily understood. It’s almost like a secret language of Chinese officialdom. When they’re talking about anything potentially embarrassing, they speak of it in innuendo and hushed tones, and there’s a certain acceptable way to allude to something.”
For 15 months, Reid loaned this unusual skill to a nine-person team dedicated to investigating the mystery of COVID-19’s origins. Commissioned by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the team examined voluminous evidence, most of it open source but some classified, and weighed the major credible theories for how the novel coronavirus first made the leap to humans. An interim report, released on Thursday by the minority oversight staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP), concludes that the COVID-19 pandemic was “more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.”
Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/senate-report-covid-19-origin-wuhan-lab
A long and very interesting investigation by a superb and trusted source.
How to "unroll" a Twitter thread and post a link to it
Paste the link from the Twitter thread in the Thread Reader App, then copy the unrolled thread URL and paste it in a DU thread. You’re welcome.
https://threadreaderapp.com/
Maybe we should start calling it "American Sharia Law"
And draw hard, bright lines to what the Taliban are doing. I think people are becoming deeply immune to being called fascists. Or even thrilled by it.
Sure wish voting rights had as big a voice as Delta Airlines CEO
This has been bothering me ever since the CDC announcement: How is it the CEO of Delta proposes a shortening of quarantine time and CDC falls all over itself to make the science match the what he wants? Meanwhile, voting rights advocates are begging the federal government/Congress to do something and just CRICKETS! I sure wish the little persons had as big a voice. Oh wait: I forgot money makes it he CEOs more equal.
Edit: Corrected typo.
Sheriff's office: Alec Baldwin's 'prop firearm' kills one, injures another
Source: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/
Actor Alec Baldwin discharged a "prop firearm" that killed a cinematographer and injured the director of the movie Rust, being filmed on a set south of Santa Fe, a county sheriff's office spokesman said late Thursday.
Halyna Hutchins, 42 and the director of photography for the movie, died at University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. The film's director, Joel Souza, was hospitalized in Santa Fe, Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office spokesman Juan Ríos said.
Read more: Santa Fe New Mexican
Recent Ebola outbreak emerged from someone infected 5 years earlier
From Ars Technica:
At present, we have little idea how and where the virus persists in the human body. But there are now tens of thousands of people who have survived previous infections, so it's an area where more research is urgently needed.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/recent-ebola-outbreak-emerged-from-someone-infected-five-years-earlier/
Because why the hell not!
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