A catfisher stole all my mom’s money and framed her for federal fraud. This morning he emailed me.

How the ever-living fuck do people fall for this shit? If I had one brain cell left I wouldn’t be hoodwinked by this sort of absurd racket. Yeah, sure, Margot Robbie has gone broke and she needs all my money pronto. Also, she loves me forever.

SOUNDS LIKELY

I’m not good with locations, so when my partner and I went to Target the other day this approximate dialog occurred:

Me: Is this the party Target?

Her: Just because a bunch of police cars were here last time doesn’t mean it was a party. I think the way you grew up is showing.

Me: Where I’m from it’s not a party until the police show up.

Whoever thought closing the last tab of a browser window should close the entire browser should be beaten about the head and neck with a rutabaga.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

When you realize how literate and for lack of a better word, cultured, most scientists were in the recent past compared to how STEM people “should” be and are now, it’s pretty damn striking.

As hinted at in the movie Oppenheimer, Robert Oppenheimer was very much into art, and “lent work to a Van Gogh Exhibition in 1949, and collected European furniture, French Post-impressionist and Fauvist paintings.” And of course, Einstein was into philosophy and engaged in some philosophy himself.

STEM has gone down a moronic path with its disdain of philosophy, art, and most of the humanities. Not only is this senseless from a human perspective, studies show that scientists with a wider range of interests actually do better science.

Einstein said, “The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this intuition.”

That is apostasy to current STEM clowns.

Long COVID: What the latest research says about symptoms after two years.

I’ve been trying to make sense of the actual risk of Long Covid vs. the propaganda promulgated by those who are still panicked about Covid. I’ve read a lot studies, including those cited breathlessly by the still Covid-terrified. And from what I can tell, the above gets it about right. Your risk of Long Covid is incredibly small if you are not already sick in some way, or very old — especially if you have been vaccinated.

But these numbers do still give some context as to the rates of these issues in people infected with COVID-19. At a population level, long COVID represents an elevated risk that could be meaningful: An extra two cases of diabetes per 10,000 people over 60 would be quite a few people nationally. At an individual level, however, they are much less alarming. The chance that you will be one of—maybe—five people out of many thousands who have long-term fatigue two years after COVID-19 is quite low. It certainly isn’t as worrying as the health issues posed by heart disease or cancer.

I’m not worried about Covid at all and Long Covid even less than that (heh). It just is not a thing anymore.

The Battle Between Diners and Restaurants.

I am not on the side of restaurants here, mostly. Often these days you get atrocious service, food that is bad, and extremely high prices. Almost nothing at a restaurant anymore is better than I can make at home. Then again, I am a pretty good cook. Before the pandemic, though, I could often get meals superior to what I could do in my own kitchen. Now that almost never occurs.

And defending fucking QR codes? Totally lost me there. I hate those with a burning passion and have turned around and walked out of restaurants that use those. (When I’m dining with someone I usually do not do this as it embarrasses people. But I am incapable of being embarrassed so when I am alone, hell yeah I will and tell the hostess why as I do it.)

Going to a restaurant used to be a pleasant experience. Now you can pay $100 for crap food, bogus service charges, poor service and an incorrect order to boot. No thanks to all that.