NOTE TO VISITORS
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Today I set up a Google AdSense account. Once it’s all set up and configured, you’ll start seeing targeted advertising in the sidebars on these pages.
I will try to keep the advertising as non-intrusive and non-objectional as possible. Please be aware that I’m not able to fully control targeted advertising as I’m only able to define where AdSense is permitted to insert ads.
Your history with Google, as well as the content of these pages, will dictate what gets placed when you visit these pages.
BirdJanitor.com is a non-commercial site that I created and maintain as a hobby.
By installing AdSense on these pages, I’m hoping to generate enough revenue to help pay my web hosting costs.
Feel free to contact me through my email form if you have any concerns, questions or suggestions.
On to today’s shenanigans…
Jef
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Why can’t I ever find cool stuff like this in thrift shops?
Why can’t I ever find cool stuff like this in thrift shops?
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: AUGUST 10TH- SAXONS VS. VIKINGS
This Day In History: August 10, 991
On August 10, 991, one of the best known battles between the Saxons and the Vikings took place in Essex, England near the small town of Maldon by the River Blackwater. It heralded the era of the Danegeld – the practice of paying off the Vikings to avoid future attacks. Aside from government-sanctioned extortion, the Battle of Maldon also inspired one of the greatest Old English poems of all time called, strangely enough, “The Battle of Maldon.”
England had been enduring attacks by Vikings from Norway, Denmark and Sweden since the 700s. Eastern coastal towns were particularly vulnerable. Depending on their ability to defend themselves, English towns and villages either fought back or offered the Vikings bribes of money or land. Unfortunately, engaging in battle just bought temporary peace at best and bribes only encouraged the enemy to return looking for more. …
The Republicans’ big gerrymander could backfire in a major way
Some Republican leaders have expressed anxiety about a failed Trump campaign hurting GOP candidates all the way down the ballot. Media reports have focused on Trump’s negative impact on Republican Senate candidates, but the GOP majority in the House also merits attention.
A few incumbent House Republicans have spoken out against Trump, sided with the Libertarian presidential candidate, or even endorsed Clinton. Time may be running out for others to do the same. Trump’s historically high negatives have worsened since the Democratic convention and could lead to a landslide defeat, with even Arizona and Georgia falling to Clinton.
Even so, the 61-seat GOP advantage in the House is substantial, and handicappers like the Cook Political Report and the Iowa Electronic Markets predict that Republicans will hold onto their majority.
This unusual election year, however, raises another possibility: the very strategy that Republicans used to secure Congress could backfire. Their “great gerrymander” could become another “great dummymander.” …
Donald Trump hints at assassination of Hillary Clinton by gun rights supporters
Republican presidential nominee says ‘second amendment people’ could stop Democrat choosing undesirable supreme court justices if she is elected
Donald Trump has been accused of a making an “assassination threat” against rival Hillary Clinton, plunging his presidential campaign into a fresh crisis.
The volatile Republican nominee was speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, about the next president’s power to appoint supreme court justices. “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the second amendment,” said Trump, eliciting boos from the crowd.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
The second amendment to the constitution protects the right of Americans to bear arms. Trump has accused his Democratic rival of wanting to abolish it, a charge that she denies.
His extraordinary remark on Tuesday was swiftly condemned by Democrats. Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said: “This is simple – what Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to be the president of the United States should not suggest violence in any way.” …
10 Obscure And Strange Cold War Tales
The Cold War was a period of great tension, and with all the posturing, stockpiling, and military maneuvering by the US and the Soviet Union, there came a rich history of obscure stories and eyebrow-raising tales. While the standoff between the superpowers was very much conventional, some of their top secret projects and undercover missions were incredibly bizarre.
10. The Military Liaison Missions
After the end of World War II and the division of Germany into four occupation zones, the Western Allies and the Soviets signed a series of agreements, allowing a small number of military personnel from each side (usually less than two dozen) to deploy in each other’s occupation zones. These soldiers would monitor the other side and ostensibly facilitate better relations between the superpowers.
However, these so-called “Military Liaison Missions” ended up being used by both sides to spy on the other. Instead of engaging in traditional espionage activities like assassination or the passing of information, two-man teams would move around the occupation zones, armed with binoculars, cameras, and night vision goggles. Using this equipment, the teams would observe enemy troop dispositions and movements. …
1967 solar storm nearly took U.S. to brink of war, CU Boulder study finds
This is a joint release of the American Geophysical Union and the University of Colorado Boulder.
A view of the Sun on May 23, 1967, in a narrow visible wavelength of light called Hydrogen-alpha. The bright region in the top center region of brightness shows the area where the large flare occurred.
A solar storm that jammed radar and radio communications at the height of the Cold War could have led to a disastrous military conflict if not for the U.S. Air Force’s budding efforts to monitor the sun’s activity, a new CU Boulder study finds.
On May 23, 1967, the Air Force prepared aircraft for war, thinking the nation’s surveillance radars in polar regions were being jammed by the Soviet Union. Just in time, military space weather forecasters conveyed information about the solar storm’s potential to disrupt radar and radio communications. The planes remained on the ground and the U.S. avoided a potential nuclear weapon exchange with the Soviet Union, according to the new research.
Retired U.S. Air Force officers involved in forecasting and analyzing the storm collectively describe the event publicly for the first time in a new paper accepted for publication in Space Weather, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. …
The lake that left town: why is this California community drying up?
Eagle Lake is one of the largest in the state, but receding waters have caused the town around it, and its industries, to dwindle. Is climate change to blame?
Val Aubrey parked her boat trailer on the shore of Eagle Lake, in north-eastern California. She walked to an overlook where a sign warned against swimming and diving. “This” – she opened her arms wide – “used to be the marina.”
Down below, docks sat among nettles and thistles growing on what used to be the lake bed. The boat ramp led to sunbaked dirt, and squirrels skittered across the concrete.
“They put a tombstone right in the middle of it,” said Aubrey, pointing into the undergrowth. Sure enough, a small Halloween decoration had been erected in the former harbor.
One of the largest natural lakes in the state, Eagle Lake is a shock of blue amid a tawny, isolated upland. But it has fallen around 15ft since 1999, a decline thought to have been exacerbated by climate change.
The main lakeside community of Spalding, a 30-minute drive north of the marina, is dotted with “for sale” signs, and its tidy streets are empty. The waterfront is now a meadow, and the lake has receded to a thin strip in the distance, like an alluring mirage.
There are no longer any restaurants, and the general store is shuttered. Adding to the air of misfortune, dozens of the wells that supply residents with water have gone dry, necessitating deeper ones. …
10 Incredible Robots That Mimic Animals
In the world of robotics, much can be and has been learned from the world of nature. Not only is there a wealth of practical applications for robots based on biological organisms, but much can also be learned about evolution and the natural forces that produce such highly advanced designs. This line of research is leading to a fascinating melding of science and nature—sometimes in the most literal of ways.
10. Robotic Sea Snake
The Eelume underwater robot serves an extremely practical purpose—performing inspections and maintenance on deep sea rigs, a costly and dangerous endeavor. The current generation of underwater autonomous vehicles that perform these duties are bulky, slow, and difficult to maneuver, but not the Eelume. It looks and moves just like a sea snake and can quickly and safely reach places no vehicle can.
While the machine is currently cabled, manufacturer Kongsberg Maritime—which recently achieved a bit of fame by finding a decades-old submerged monster prop in Loch Ness—is working toward making the machine’s power source internal, eliminating the need for a cable and thus any restraint on its range. …
Google tests a more personalized version of its virtual assistant, Google Now
Google Now, the intelligent personal assistant bundled into Android and Google’s search application, is already adept at bringing you the information you need at the right time, whether that’s traffic alerts, event reminders, sports scores, stock updates, weather, flight info, and much more. But one area where Google Now falls a little short is in customizing the assistant more precisely to your needs.
Today, this is done via a series of on/off toggle switches in the app’s settings, which is a bit hidden, as well as by tapping on individual items where you can tell the app you’re “not interested” in that card, or that news source.
However, a new feature in the works called “Explore Interests” appears it will give users more control over what sort of information Google will track on your behalf, and will make it easier to tell Google exactly what sort of information you want to hear more about. …
Considering a Big Change? Go for It, Says Evidence From 20,000 Coin Flips
Steven Levitt, an economist and the co-author of Freakonomics, studied what happened when people made major life decisions based on random chance.
Steven Levitt, the University of Chicago economist who co-authored the book Freakonomics: The Hidden Side of Everything, says he’s long been fascinated by the social pressure against quitting, whether that means quitting a project, a job, or a marriage. “Behavioral biases tend to push the idea of not quitting, because you get the pain up front but the benefits down the road,” Levitt says.
So he was excited, he says, to do a “very different kind” of research project, one that infiltrates people’s everyday lives and examines what is most important to them. Most academic research is based on a government’s or a company’s data, or is carried out in a controlled lab environment. More recently, field experiments have started exploring decision-making in real life, though they tend to focus on low-stakes choices, such as whether or not to buy a certain product or donate money to a certain charity. But Levitt wanted to know about life’s bigger dilemmas, like debating whether or not to have a child, which is something people don’t generally ponder in a controlled setting.
To set up such an experiment, the results of which were recently published in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Levitt enlisted the help of his Freakonomics fans (the book has been spun out into a website and a podcast), asking them to visit a website created for the project, without telling anyone exactly what he was studying. He also found participants via Reddit. The most Levitt told subjects was that his project involved research about how people make decisions about important events. He asked people who were on the fence about something to flip a virtual coin on the website. If someone got heads, the site instructed them to go ahead and make a change. If they got tails, it meant keep the status quo. …
HOW DO THEY DECIDE THE AGE WHEN YOU BECOME AN ADULT?
People continue to mature and grow as individuals throughout our lifetimes (at least ideally). So the 45 year old you would probably not only be better equipped to make decisions than the 25 year old version, but also in all likelihood be a very different person, both literally (in the replacing of your body’s physical makeup in that gap) and mentally. Nevertheless, the 45 year old version of you and the much less mature and less accomplished 25 year old version are, in most societies, living under the exact same set of rules and restrictions. So why is some arbitrary number like 18 or 21 considered the cutoff point when society says everyone should be operating on a level playing field, legally speaking? What is it that makes a person an “adult” anyway? Is it the ability to drive a car without supervision? Consent to intimate relations? Ability to cast a vote? Serve in the military? Buy a beer? And at what age is a person really ready to handle these responsibilities? These are all difficult questions that don’t lend themselves to easy answers.
For example, at just 16 years old, Alexander the Great was busy conquering Maedi, when they dared revolt against Macedonia; also at 16, a peasant girl by the name of Jeanne d’Arc was taking her first steps into historical prominence by having the gall to approach a garrison commander to tell him how to do his job. At 15, one Charles Algernon Parsons was busy inventing the precursor to the modern automobile. At 16, Julius Caesar was heading his family after his father’s death. History is littered with individuals accomplishing remarkable “adult” things all below the age most countries would today say that they were sufficiently mature enough to be considered an adult. Unsurprisingly, for parts of history, the issue of when someone was ready to take over various adult activities largely fell to their family to decide. …
Laziness is a sign of high intelligence, suggests new study
Not doing much exercise could mean you are a pretty deep thinker
Couch potatoes rejoice – a new study has found that laziness correlates with high intelligence.
The study, by scientists from Florida Gulf Coast University, found people with a high IQ rarely get bored, leading them to spend more time lost in thought.
It suggested less intelligent people are more prone to boredom, leading them to do more physical activity as a result.
The researchers, led by Todd McElroy, used a psychology test to identify students who expressed a strong desire to think a lot, and those who were more keen to avoid things which were mentally taxing.
All of the participants in the study were then fitted with fitness trackers, which monitored how much they exercised over seven days. …
Horny, hairy and horrifying: the scariest monsters in art
From Da Vinci’s live animal mashups to a macabre giant skeleton, a horrifying history of monsters gives our writer nightmares
Want to make a monster? Well, grab a big bag, head out to the countryside, and find the strangest creatures you can: bats, dragonflies, lizards, birds, snakes. Then lock yourself in your room, kill the animals and chop them up, keeping the most interesting bits: a bat’s wings, a serpent’s tail, an owl’s eyes. Stick these together to make a terrifying, marvellous, magical new being – and invite people round to see your new “pet” before it starts to stink.
This was how a young boy called Leonardo da Vinci made a monster in his bedroom, according to his 16th-century biographer Giorgio Vasari. Monsters: A Bestiary of the Bizarre – a new picture book of imaginary creatures in handy pocket format – shows Da Vinci was not alone. Artists have been creating monsters for centuries, using exactly the same splicing technique. …
Check Out This Weird Theory About Trump’s Twitter We Found
There’s a theory floating that Trump himself tweets from an Android, while his staff are all tweeting from iPhones. And it seems to hold up, since there’s a clear tonal difference between tweets sent by those two platforms: Most of Trump’s whining and conspiracy theories come from Android devices:
While the tweets from iPhones are all the scheduling, thanking people, explaining his positions, linking to news articles that support his views — you know, actual campaigning.
iPhone-Trump and Android-Trump also have different perspectives on why Trump is a better candidate for president:
The staff…
… and Trump himself.
The guy who developed this theory (he’s a special-effects artist! Follow him on Twitter!) also pointed out that the phrase “thank you” appears only in tweets sent from an iPhone:
Which points to another key difference between iPhone and Android tweets…
Microsoft somehow made a chat bot worse than ‘Tay’
Remember Tay? She was the teen chat bot that went from girl next door, to aspiring klansman in all of 24 hours. Microsoft’s new bot, Murphy Bot, is somehow worse.
For all Tay’s flaws, she started off rather realistic sounding and semi-capable of holding a real conversation. Murphy Bot, on the other hand, took a different direction. Instead of trying to maintain a conversation, Murphy wants to show you images. He’s the bot equivalent of your friend that just can’t stop showing you baby photos. Murphy, however, only shows photos of situations based on a “what if” question. …
5 tips for building a chatbot that’s actually useful
Since the launch of the Facebook Messenger API, developers have flocked to chatbot development. Developers are now offering chatbot development services and creating chatbot builders. At Botsify, I have been working on chatbot development for more than six months. Here are a few issues, based on my observations, that all developers should look out for.
1. NLP is good, but not there yet
I have used several platforms, including Wit.ai and API.ai, but developers are looking for better options when it comes to natural language processing. Conversations — understanding their context and the related language semantics — are hard. One can ask the same thing in different ways by changing the wording, but the A.I. engines are not fully addressing that. So my first tip is to settle on a call-to-action for the user experience wherever possible. Then, use NLP when the engines improve. …
10 Medieval Remedies That Aren’t As Bizarre As They Seem
Medieval medicine involved beliefs and remedies that seem bizarre to us today. Understanding the beliefs behind the cures makes them seem less so.
Medieval physicians believed the human body to be a microcosmic version of the macrocosm, or the universe. This belief was central to philosophical traditions dating back to ancient Rome and Greece. It was the foundation of medieval medicine, and it was developed from the works of Pythagoras and Galen, among others.
In Galenic theory, good health depended on the proper balance of dry, moist, cold, and warm. These qualities were present in the four humors: Air was associated with the blood. Choler was fire and found in the red or yellow bile. Phlegm was cold and moist and was thought of as a watery, mucous substance. Black bile was cold and dry and was the unhealthiest humor.
Medieval remedies were based on the principle that this wholeness of existence infused everything—words, minerals, the seasons, locations, and plants and animals. An affliction was due to some cosmological imbalance in the patient; the remedy must correct this imbalance. Remedies could involve preparing “simples” (remedies of one ingredient taken from nature), bloodletting, cupping, and other procedures that seem bizarre to the modern mind.
10. SWallows’ Gizzards For Epilepsy
This prescription from the famous 14-century English physician John of Gaddesden is a “simple”:
The little red stones found in the gizzards of swallows, which are forever helpful if they are hung on the patient’s neck. After catching the swallows on the nest and cutting their gizzards, remove the stones in the middle of the day: they are useful, for they cure epileptic, insane, and lunatic patients.
The timing of the stones’ removal of the stones would have been important to the medieval doctor because the Sun is warm, and the Moon is cold. The stones are “hot,” as is the Sun; the efficacy of this cure would be related the fact that the epileptic’s seizures were the result of too much fire or heat in the brain. As 12th-century Benedictine abbess St. Hildegard von Bingen and others believed, “Like cures like.” …
A Tech Website That Makes It Easy to Travel Back in Time
Techmeme lets readers enter any date since 2006 to see what it looked like that day.
A truly digital online archive is a special kind of rabbit hole, strange to climb into for two reasons. First of all, the history is so recent—few web archives can take you back to the 1990s, even—and yet so much about the look and feel of the internet has changed dramatically. Secondly, most of the best web archives are still deeply broken. They offer only a deteriorating echo of what once existed and link rot is everywhere.
And yet snapshot views of the web can be a fascinating way to capture the flavor of the internet as it once was. This is how the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine organizes its screen captures—you can search various sites by how they looked on certain days—and it’s how Techmeme’s ingenious new timestamp works.
At the top of Techmeme’s page, if you click on the date and time, you’re given the ability to enter some other date, back to the year 2006. (Sadly, you can’t travel forward into the future of Techmeme coverage. I tried.) …
Derailed train car hits bar named ‘DeRailed’ in Iowa
Police say a freight train car that derailed in northern Iowa rolled into and damaged a trackside tavern called DeRailed.
Police Chief Hugh Anderson says the accident occurred around 4 a.m. Tuesday as crews moved rail cars and changed connections in Charles City.
He says it appears that the track separated and the grain car tipped about 45 degrees into the back of the bar.
Anderson says a patrol officer called him to say a train car had derailed into Derailed, adding that “it’s not every day you get to say that.” …
DID FIDEL CASTRO REALLY ALMOST PITCH IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES?
There’s a long history of rulers bragging about their athletic talents. Ancient Egyptian kings sometimes used sporting prowess to show off masculinity and inspire fear. The Roman Emperor Commodus liked to step into the gladiator ring, often asking for already wounded or weakened opponents so he could look superior. (Yes, he was the partial inspiration for the movie Gladiator. Also like in the movie, his sister attempted to have him overthrown after he went off his rocker a bit.) In the 16th century, King Henry VIII jousted to show off to a woman; it also nearly killed him. Even in modern times, Kim Jong-il (real name Yuri Irsenovich Kim) insisted that he had 11 hole-in-ones in a single round of golf and Vladimir Putin intimidates with a judo black belt (not to mention the whole-shirtless-on-horseback thing).
Cuba’s Fidel Castro is no different. For years, there’s been a legend that this long time ruler (who’s still consulted on major decisions) had such a blazing fastball and wicked curve that Major League teams were all drooling over him. The reason he never accepted lucrative offers from these teams, at least according to the legends, was because he believed he had better things to do – you know, like start a revolution. So, was there any truth to these claims? Was Castro actually a Cuban Koufax? …
Video Goodnesses
(and not-so-goodnesses)
(and not-so-goodnesses)