This is my news printer. Each morning I turn it on, and it prints a paper tape with the Reuters news summaries.

This is 1926 technology. The machine talks to a standard serial port at 45 baud, 5 bits, no parity, 1.5 stop bits.

This is fascinating. It's not the classic "people don't have social lives in the real world because they are on line too much" argument. The authors argue that following people who are "different" from you is bad for you. They write:

"Compared to face-to-face interactions, online networks allow users to silently observe the opinions and behaviors of an immensely wider share of their fellow citizens. The psychological literature has shown that most people tend to overestimate the extent to which their beliefs or opinions are typical of those of others. There is a tendency for people to assume that their own opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are âoenormalâ and that others also think the same way that they do. This cognitive bias leads to the perception of a consensus that does not exist, or a 'false consensus' (Gamba, 2013)."

"The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt afterwards; the more they used Facebook over two weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time. The effects found by the authors were not moderated by the size of people's Facebook networks, their perceived supportiveness, motivation for using Facebook, gender, loneliness, self-esteem, or depression, thus suggesting the existence of a direct link between SNSs' use and subjective well-being."

This is a new result, and needs confirmation. Are homogeneous societies happier ones? Should that be replicated on line? Should efforts be made in Facebook to keep people from having "different" friends?

And some people just want to have some sort of "right" to be an annoying SoB, and don't want to turn vegan just for that.

Now, now, now... that last example is at best black magic.

Global warming denial meets conspiracy theory.

I feel like in some weird, cheesy DC-Marvel crossover comic...

In all fairness, 200 years ago Americans were smart enough to not settle in the middle of the bloody desert.

There is exactly one surefire way to create rain, it works flawlessly every time:

Wash your car.

I sure hope it's not. Else it's trivial for a company to put another one under. Like, say, a company producing a mainboard with a well known fault. Buy a container of them, run them to failure then DEMAND them to be repaired instead of replaced.

You might want to notice that a damn lot has happened since WW2. Politicians ain't allowed to run countries anymore, they are too prone to wars.

A national credit limit of around 40% of GDP should be plenty to cover short to medium term shortfalls and entrepreneur activity. That would include all household, business and government debts. Why have we allowed the banking sector to convince us they are essential for the functioning of every part of the economy? They have a perverse incentive to encourage us to borrow, and over the last 50 years we've bought into their propaganda. Take away all of the interest payments we're currently making and our economy has a chance to thrive.

Germany sure is better off today than it was in the 1930.

I can only envy them for losing the war...

Erh... I prefer politicians that are at least nominally accountable and I can get rid of without killing them.

It's more proof that human is first concerned with saving his sorry little ass, ideology be damned.

Erh... nope. Maybe the most terrifying moment in American history.

Europe != Ukraine.

As heartless as it may sound, but nobody gives a shit about the Ukraine. If they're gone, so be it. It's a completely different ballgame with Europe where not only a LOT of corporations have their HQs but also need the population as consumers.