On fuck ups and flexibility.

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Best laid plans and all that. The large section of background I’m currently working on, I had planned doing in light cocoa, and ultra light mocha. In a stroke of brilliant idiocy, I somehow managed to completely forget about the light cocoa thread when I stocked up on the colours needed for this bit of the tree quilt. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, I’d just get to Joann’s and get more, but I am dire broke, and will be that way for two weeks. Yes, I could work on another bit for two weeks, but I am motivated, right now, to get this section done. I have to go with these motivated moments, because if I stop working this section, it will just turn into a massive chore of tedium, and I’ll find reasons to put it off.

So, a change of plan. I had just enough light cocoa to tie it into the bottom section of light cocoa. As I have 7 skeins of medium cocoa, medium it is. It always pays to be flexible in the face of fuck-ups.

NYC: ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Bill.

CREDIT: eddtoro/Shutterstock

CREDIT: eddtoro/Shutterstock

New York has become the latest state to introduce a Blue Lives Matter bill, which would classify assaulting an officer as a hate crime. The bill was introduced today by New York Assemblyman Ron Castorina (R), with support from Council Member Joseph C. Borelli (R) and NYPD Sergeant Joe Imperatrice, the president and founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC.

Hate crime legislation currently only applies to attacks based on race, sexual orientation, national origin, and religious affiliation. But this new legislation would classify cops as a protected class, aligning them with ethnic and religious minorities and the LGBT community.

In an interview with the New York Observer, Castorina noted the recent attacks on cops in Baton Rouge and Dallas this past month as a driving force for the bill. He also blamed Black Lives Matter protests for provoking violence against law enforcement.

“It’s based on this climate in this country right now where police officers are being abused and they’re being disrespected, and we’re seeing they have a target on their back, in Louisiana and in Dallas,” Castorina said. “You can envision this happening at a protest, where somebody might throw a rock or a bottle or a punch.”

Talk about a bad, knee-jerk reaction. This is completely unnecessary, as punishments for assaulting a cop are much higher than assaulting a non-cop, and everyone knows that cops will already do whatever they need to in order to tack on a resisting arrest charge, so now they’ll be busy finding ways to tack on an assault charge, too. Oh, this won’t lead anywhere bad, no, of course not. :Insert spine popping eyeroll here: Honesty would be welcome. Why not just call this what it is, a brutal enforcement of bowing down to authority? Being a cop is nowhere near as dangerous as a number of other jobs, and the majority of cops are killed in traffic accidents. The stats are quite clear as to there being many more civilians shot and killed by cops, then cops being shot by civilians.

Civilians get killed by police far more often. Law enforcement officers shot and killed some 990 people in 2015 and another 491 in the first half of this year, according to the Washington Post’s award-winning tracking of police shootings.

That’s almost 1,500 police killings in 18 months, compared to 305 law enforcement officers attacked and killed in the line of duty in the six-year span of numbers in the new report. Police officers have shot and killed about 82 people each month nationwide since the start of last year, and have been killed by attackers roughly 4 times per month going back to the start of 2010.

So of course, cops must be made into a protected class, oh my yes! As these bills pass, and they will, we can all look forward to many more people dying unjustly at the hands of cops, and those who don’t die may well end up with extended prison sentences because of cops who will claim assault. Just what our already over-burdened, fucked up penal system needs. Fuck stormtroopers.

Via ThinkProgress.

Echo Hunter: Fossil Whale Species.

Echovenator produces sound that bounces off prey, creating echoes. The whale's inner ear receives the sound waves. Credit: A Gennari 2016.

Echovenator produces sound that bounces off prey, creating echoes. The whale’s inner ear receives the sound waves. Credit: A Gennari 2016.

A newly-named fossil whale species had superior high-frequency hearing ability, helped in part by the unique shape of inner ear features that have given scientists new clues about the evolution of this specialized sense.

In a study published August 4 in Current Biology, researchers from New York Institute of Technology and colleagues from the National Museum of Natural History in France describe a new species of whale, Echovenator sandersi (“Echo Hunter”), an ancient relative of the modern dolphin, and its ability to hear frequencies well above the range of hearing in humans.

The research pushes the origin of high frequency hearing in whales farther back in time—about 10-million years than previous studies have indicated.

“Previous studies have looked at hearing in whales but our study incorporates data from an animal with a very complete skull,” says Morgan Churchill, a postdoctoral fellow at NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine and the paper’s lead author. “The data we gathered enabled us to conclude that it could hear at very high frequencies, and we can also say with a great degree of certainty where it fits in the tree of life for whales.”

“This was a small, toothed whale that probably used its remarkable sense of hearing to find and pursue fish with echoes only,” says Associate Professor Jonathan Geisler, a study co-author. “This would allow it to hunt at night, but more importantly, it could hunt at great depths in darkness, or in very sediment-choked environments.”

[…]

To learn more about Echovenator, Churchill and colleagues studied a 27-million-year-old skull discovered in South Carolina 2001. By analyzing the bony support structures of the inner ear membranes, along with other measurements of the inner ear, the researchers concluded that the whale had ultrasonic hearing capabilities, and could hear frequencies above the range of human hearing.

About 60 million years ago, the semiaquatic ancestor of whales had a limited ability to hear high frequencies. However, Geisler says statistical analyses of fossils in the study allowed researchers to conclude that some degree of high frequency hearing evolved before echolocation and then became even more specialized in modern toothed whales. Baleen whales, which do not echolocate and are specialized to hear low frequency sound, lost some of these initial specializations for hearing high frequency sound.

“Knowing when and how echolocation evolved is a critical step in our project, and we are studying how the evolution of echolocation influenced the evolution of skull shapes in cetaceans,” says Geisler.

As more biological research uses computer models, Geisler says the current study may help scientists distinguish what inner ear features are needed to hear sounds of a given frequency.

Phys.org has the full story.

Ornitographies: Xavi Bou.

4_Xavier_ALFONSO_ornitgrafies_43

Using the 150 year old technique of chronophotography, Spanish photographer Xavi Bou has figured out a way to take pictures of migrating birds while retaining the fluid sense of motion that gives them all their mystery, poetry, and grace.

You can see much more at The Project: Xavi Bou, (horizontal scroll) and read about Ornitographies here. Via Colossal.

A Neuroscientist Tackles Loyalty to Trump.

Audience member Robin Roy (C) reacts as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets her at a campaign rally in Lowell, Massachusetts January 4, 2016. (BRIAN SNYDER / Reuters)

Audience member Robin Roy (C) reacts as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets her at a campaign rally in Lowell, Massachusetts January 4, 2016. (BRIAN SNYDER / Reuters)

A neuroscientist takes on the remarkable loyalty and obliviousness of those who support and follow Trump. It’s a fairly comprehensive article, starting with the well known Dunning-Kruger effect, and ending with the unfortunate affliction of being entertainment addicted. Just a bit from the end of the article here, click over for the full read.

  1. High Attentional Engagement

According to a recent study that monitored brain activity while participants watched 40 minutes of political ads and debate clips from the presidential candidates, Donald Trump is unique in his ability to keep the brain engaged. While Hillary Clinton could only hold attention for so long, Trump kept both attention and emotional arousal high throughout the viewing session. This pattern of activity was seen even when Trump made remarks that individuals didn’t necessarily agree with. His showmanship and simple messages clearly resonate at a visceral level.

Essentially, the loyalty of Trump supporters may in part be explained by America’s addiction with entertainment and reality TV. To some, it doesn’t matter what Trump actually says because he’s so amusing to watch. With Donald, you are always left wondering what outrageous thing he is going to say or do next. He keeps us on the edge of our seat, and for that reason, some Trump supporters will forgive anything he says. They are happy as long as they are kept entertained.

Of course these explanations do not apply to all Trump supporters. In fact, some are likely intelligent people who know better, but are supporting Trump to be rebellious or to introduce chaos into the system. They may have such distaste for the establishment and Hillary Clinton that their vote for Trump is a symbolic middle finger directed at Washington.

Full article here. I found the Hypersensitivity to Threat and Terror Management Theory sections very interesting. Going by that, it’s much easier to see why so many people have flocked to Trump, and manage to defend every horrible, evil thing he says.

Forget political incorrectness, this is simply despicable demagoguery.

donald-trump-claims-accommodating-transgender-people-is-too-expensivex750_0Well, one thing you can say for Trump is that he’s driving a record number of faithful republicans away from the GOP.

A Georgia Republican activist and member of the electoral college said on Wednesday that he will withhold his electoral vote if Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wins the state.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jim Galloway spoke with Baoky Vu, a tech executive and one of 16 electoral college members who will cast their votes should Trump win Georgia in November.

Vu — a longtime GOP activist and organizer — said this morning that he is seriously considering holding back his electoral vote from the real estate mogul and former reality TV star.

“I have the right to vote for a write-in candidate in the electoral college,” he said in a statement. Georgia is one of 21 states that allow its electors to vote independently of the popular vote.

[…]

Baoky Vu’s statement in full:

I’ve been active in the Republican Party for many years precisely because it has championed the aspirational ideals of Lincoln, Reagan and Kemp. Our recent standard-bearers have proudly and honorably defended those ideas on the political battlefield. From Bush 41 to Romney to Jeb and many of the other 2016 primary contestants, there was never a wavering doubt as to their character, integrity and temperament.

Until now.

This is the Republican Party of Lincoln and Reagan and Romney and Ryan, not the Party of Donald Trump. As a 2016 Presidential Elector, I am forever grateful to our state Party and our Chairman for bestowing this once-in-a-lifetime honor on me. I take my role seriously and in the face of the difficult choice before us, I will always put America First over party and labels.

Thus, I will not be voting for Donald Trump in the general election. My conscience is clear but my soul is being tested. Born in Saigon, my family knows what it is like to lose a country and my family is forever indebted to America and our allies. I have never questioned the soul, character and goodness of the Nation by who we have chosen as our leader throughout history.

Until now.

Rather than earning the American people’s respect and trust through the duration of the past year, Donald Trump’s antics and asinine behavior has cemented my belief that he lacks the judgment, temperament and gravitas to lead this Nation. Throughout the process, he has hurled insults at our heroes and their families, denigrated the disabled and praised dictators. Forget political incorrectness, this is simply despicable demagoguery.

“In this time of global challenges, we will succeed only if we come together. We’ve done it before, from the courthouse steps of Appomattox to the days after Pearl Harbor. And to my Republican brothers and sisters in arms, politics should be a honorable sport. Rather than fighting to defend the indefensible, let’s live to fight another day.

Via Raw Story.