Thought the schools had Yom Kippur off

[conuly]

Turns out they don't. Well, boo.

***************

Fish recorded singing dawn chorus on reefs just like birds (There is a recording!)

Japanese Rice Paddy Art

How Constance and Oscar Wilde Helped Get Women Into Trousers

Blackboards in Porn: What do they write and is it correct? (Surprisingly safe for work!)

Meticulously researched history of the phrase “Baby needs a new pair of shoes!” (Warning, some painful eye dialect.)

I’m A Nurse And I Use Syringes To Paint In My Free Time

The Art of James Castle, Created With Spit, Scraps, and Soot

Pigeons better at multitasking than humans

Beak Evolution Gives New Insight Into the Beginning of Birds

20 Cross Stitches For The 21st Century

What Planned Parenthood Taught WWII Veterans About Birth Control

How the 1918 Flu Pandemic Revolutionized Public Health

Saudi king decrees women be allowed to drive

The Unconventional Life of Mary Walker, the Only Woman to Have Received the U.S. Medal of Honor

The Submissions Men Don't See

The greatest threats to free speech in America come from the state, not from activists on college campuses. (Interesting topic, given that The Atlantic has engaged in well more than its fair share of handwringing about college students not wanting white supremacists to speak at their schools.)

An Unprecedented Number Of Species Have Crossed The Pacific On Tsunami-Liberated Plastic Debris

Muslims and anti-sharia activists meet, armed, at a Dairy Queen to talk fears about America’s future

Bad news: Bed bugs like the smell of your dirty laundry

Visit Beautiful Friendship Park

Border crossers, and the desert that claims them (This is part of a series, and there are many more links at the bottom you will want to read if this interests you.)

The Republican Attack on Feeding the Hungry

The Jones Act: The Law Strangling Puerto Rico

Schools Brace For An Influx Of Students From Puerto Rico

The Rescue Networks That Save Cats and Dogs From Hurricanes

Nearly Half of Americans Don’t Know Puerto Ricans Are Fellow Citizens

Love to Live in The Capitalist Dystopia Hell World

Half of Filipinos don't believe police accounts of drugs war deaths: poll

The Coming Software Apocalypse

Summer could be one long heatwave if temperatures rise by just 2C

A massive review of the evidence shows letting people out of prison doesn’t increase crime (That has a big caveat, which is spelled out at the end of the article)

When ‘Not Guilty’ Is a Life Sentence

Comments

[sallymn]

Love the pigeon story...

[8hyenas]

"Muslims and anti-sharia activists meet, armed, at a Dairy Queen to talk fears about America’s future"

I can't read the article, but this...

[conuly]

The WaPo paywall is a joke. Even if you don't want the hassle of deleting their cookies, you can counteract the paywall by simply stopping the page from loading all the way. As soon as the text appears, hit esc.

[conuly]

I'unno, I liked feeling Super Special, and it's a little disconcerting when we find out birds can do something better than we can. (Other than flying, of course.)

Then again, I've always had a fondness for pigeons, so....

[8hyenas]

Thanks for the tip!

[wpadmirer]

In today's atmosphere, if it ain't white and Christian, it ain't happening.

[jesse_the_k]

The Atlantic's programming article was amazing,

Serious, not snarky question: do you read all these first, during, or after posting?

How can NY schools not have Yom Kippur off?!?!

[siderea]

The Atlantic's programming article is self-contradictory and ignorant to an amazing degree. Please do not take anything it said to heart, except the fundamental thesis that programming complexity is as big a problem as they say. Discount everything it says about solutions.

ETA: One of the questions I'm pondering is just who that article is propaganda for, and one obvious answer is the embedded software industry. Somehow the solution to embedded software killing people is always more software, and never more government regulation.

I mean, if formal methods can prove that software is safe (BWAHAHAHAHA, no, but for the sake of argument), why not pass legislation requiring car manufacturers (and other embedded systems manufacturers) to use such methods and submit them to an FDA-like regulatory body to apply for permission to sell their product? We could make it illegal to sell a motor vehicle with a program in it that hadn't been proven, if we thought it such a good idea.

ETA2: Somehow the answer is always to let software development companies – here including vehicle and medical device manufacturers – figure out technical solutions, and never, "and that's why we need to have strong laws about this stuff".

There is something intensely deceitful in making a story about the dangers of software complexity in software developed by large organizations (Toyota, Microsoft) about the tools and behavior of individual programmers. For some reason it's considered reasonable that S3 engineers at Amazon have to be convinced to use TLA+, out of the goodness of their hearts, and not told "using TLA+ is now part of your job".

Something which, btw, is the sort of high-handed treatment of programmers Amazon is famous for. It would be entirely in character for Bezos to do that.

[jesse_the_k]

Huh.

With no experience of enterprise-level software development, my takeaway from the article was, "mission critical software used in aviation is regulated, why aren't other industries doing it?"

[murumatsu]

because it starts tonight and goes through tomorrow,it's not during the school day today

[conuly]

Because it starts this evening. I'd gotten the idea that it started yesterday evening.

[conuly]

Oh, no. NYC public schools always get off for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Passover. (Yes, Passover. If Easter and Passover don't coincide then they get Good Friday off and Passover is the spring break.) Also Eid and Lunar New Year.

But it turns out that I was wrong about the date of Yom Kippur - it's tomorrow!

[wpadmirer]

Good.

I've been really sick of the lack of attention to diversity that I see happening so much lately.

[grammarwoman]

I work in software development for an application that's deemed to be a medical device, and we just finished an audit by the FDA. Our client databases are also protected by HIPAA (not that that means as much as it should, *sigh*). Or is that not what you meant by oversight?

[conuly]

To be fair, it doesn't make sense to take the Jewish holidays off if your Jewish population is nil or close to, so long as you don't schedule tests, trips, conferences, or picture day on those days.

But NYC does not have a "nil" Jewish population! Each of our schools may be quite segregated, but the population as a whole is diverse.

[conuly]

I read most of them all the way through. Some of the longer ones, I'll be honest, I either skim or just take the first few paragraphs. Most of those I read later, when I have the time.

[wpadmirer]

The population in Florida is diverse, but you don't see that reflected in the way things are done. (sigh)

I'm grateful for your Curation

[jesse_the_k]

I've clicked so many and they're always intriguing! Thank you for deploying your reading skills in our community.

Re: I'm grateful for your Curation

[conuly]

Aw, thank you! I do my best.

[conuly]

Thanks. I'll admit it - this was one of the ones I skimmed. (You have a knack for picking apart the ones I skimmed. I suppose it's a relief you never pick apart the ones I read all the way, but it makes it sound like I skim the lot of them! Next time, pick apart one I read all the way through very very carefully!)

[peristaltor]

Okay, I've got a beef with the Jones Act article. The Act says that foreign vessels carrying cargo between American ports have to pay the fees; Puerto Rico is considered such a port. Fair enough.

The article then posits a fictional foreign-flagged vessel carrying goods from American ports that "can reroute to Jacksonville, Fla., where all the goods will be transferred to an American vessel, then shipped to Puerto Rico…." Huh? Nobody would load cargo onto the foreign-flagged ship to begin with if it had to be transferred later! There are US-flagged ships that handle such freight.

This entire article smells of an attempt to de-regulate yet another industry, in this case ship building. There is a ton of money to be saved shipping US goods on foreign-built boats not to PR, but to Hawaii and Alaska. If that happens, the US ship building industry will be well and truly killed dead, dead, dead.

That is the aim of this hit piece. Puerto Rico is just a convenient frame around which to obfuscate the real aim.

(NB: I spent 15 years as a professional mariner here in Seattle.)

[conuly]

Well, I will defer to your greater knowledge and experience here, thank you :)

Rescuing animals from floods

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I caught a very useful clip last week, on a show called SOS: How To Survive (http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/sos-how-to-survive/episode-6-season-1/storm-surge/1093477/): To safely carry a cat or other small pet through flood waters, put the beastie in a 5-gallon bucket with a tight-fitting lid, and tie the handle to a cord around your waist, so you can't lose it, and can use your hands to swim. The bucket(s) will serve as flotation devices, and there's enough oxygen inside to last till you get across the water.

Re: Rescuing animals from floods

[conuly]

GOOD IDEA.

Note to self: Must obtain several buckets with lids.