RFK Jr. ends COVID shot recommendation for healthy children, pregnant women
Killing children is going to be RFK Jr’s signature achievement. Having one fuckwit override scientific consensus is just horrifying.
Finished: The New Year, by Pearl S. Buck 📚. A change of pace from her sweeping historical novels, this one is more of a modern romance. It tracks an ambitious politician, his smart (and beautiful) wife, and his previously-hidden son who was born in Korea as the result of a wartime hookup. There’s an overwhelming sense of good people being good, which is much more heroic than you get in most current novels.
“Fern Forest”
Olympus E-M10 IV with 14-42 kit lens @ 14mm, f/7.1, 1/40s, ISO 5000. Along a utility easement near Camp Yale.
The Privacy-Friendly Tech to Replace Your US-Based Email, Browser, and Search
It’s good to have alternatives.
“Pearls”
Olympus TG-6 @ 18mm, f/6.3, 1/400s, ISO 250. At the top of MacDuff Mountain.
America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State
Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real
Two chewy essays that provide, I think, important framing for understanding the current dismal moment in American governance.
This functional Macintosh replica is just 2.4-inches tall.
I am seriously impressed. I’ve been trying to cut down on the amount of spare “stuff” in my life but a part of me wants to order one right now.
“Ex-Bridge”
Olympus E-M10 IV with 14-42 kit lens @ 14mm, f/11, 1/100s, ISO 1250. Along the East Fork Trail. There’s supposed to be a bridge here (you can see one big timber on the far bank). Luckily it was only mid-thigh deep to wade.
“There’s a Trail in There Somewhere”
Olympus E-M10 IV with 14-42 kit lens @ 14mm, f/11, 1/100s, ISO 250. Along the East Fork Trail.
There is a trail from where I’m standing straight to the slightly larger gap in the trees just left of center. It hasn’t had much maintenance (or traffic) lately.
Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry
If only it were that simple.
“You Can’t Keep a Good Fern Down”
Olympus E-M10 IV with 14-42 kit lens @ 15mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 800. Along the East Fork Trail.
At Amazon, Some Coders Say Their Jobs Have Begun to Resemble Warehouse Work
No one should be really surprised that the face-eating leopards have come for the programmers.
(NYT link; here’s the archive.today version)
“Spring Trail”
Olympus E-M10 IV with 14-42 kit lens @ 14mm, f/9, 14005s, ISO 320. Olallie Trail with a foot or so of snow on the east side of O’Leary Mountain.
“Morel Season”
Olympus E-M10 IV with M. Zuiko 40-150mm f/5.6-6.3 lens @ 42mm, f/5.6, 1/400s, ISO 200. On the O’Leary Trail south of Mclennan Mountain.
Finished: The Peshawar Lancers, by S.M. Stirling 📚. A rip-roaring adventure tale set in an alternative-history sort-of-steampunk 2025 India, featuring soldiers of the British Raj, Imperial Russian secret agents, Sikhs, Pathans, Jewish merchants and a host of others. A quite enjoyable book in the Heinlein “good guys win by being noble and competent and get the girls” mold.
Trump threatens ‘straight 50% tariff’ on EU.
Trump threatens Apple with 25 percent tariffs.
Apparently the man baby in chief woke up this morning and realized he hadn’t blathered enough about his economic ignorance lately. You’d have to be completely insane to make major capital investments now.
“Sawtooth Ridge”
Olympus E-M10 IV with M. Zuiko 40-150mm f/5.6-6.3 lens @ 53mm, f/8, 1/200s, ISO 160. Seen from the O’Leary Trail west of MacDuff Mountain.
Scam GPT: GenAI and the Automation of Fraud.
If you think the guardrails and safety measures from the big AI companies protect society from fraud, you might want to read this. Bad actors, of course, have their own jailbroken models to use.
Why Some Experts Call Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ Missile Shield a Dangerous Fantasy.
Because it won’t work. Oh, and it’s destabilizing. Too bad more people don’t remember the last time we tried this in the 1980s.
Vaccine Integrity Project says new FDA rules on COVID-19 vaccines show lack of consensus, clarity
To put it mildly. But note that if you are a believer in vaccine science:
Healthy people could claim that they are physically inactive, because one of the underlying medical conditions the CDC recognizes as putting someone at risk for severe COVID is inactivity.
So just get your doc to agree you need more exercise, and you’re eligible for this fall’s booster.