What To Do If You Don’t Have a Mannequin.

Reminds me of when I was in the army and was really fit. My girlfriend and I were staying in a hotel, and she had left her sundress on the bed to take a shower. As a joke, since we were about the same size, I put it on and waited for her to get out of the bathroom.

When she saw me, she said, “Oh no!”

I said, “Oh no? I thought you’d laugh.”

She said, “I would’ve, but you look better in it than I do!” Now, that wasn’t really true — she had more curves than legally allowed in many countries, but I did look really solid and muscular at the time and it did look pretty damn good on me.

Have to admit, sundresses are quite comfortable, especially compared to what most men wear.

I said this on May 12, 2020. I love love love having receipts.

The second wave will be larger than the first and crest about December-January. Nothing else seems likely or possible, given how we’ve flubbed it all and show no sings of correcting anything. And the second wave will be worse numerically and economically than the first, hitting as it will in fall and winter.

So much for those credentialed experts. They have been wrong, mostly, and I have been right.

What’s the leading theory for why covid cases and hospitalizations are in free fall in the US right now?

— Tom Gara (@tomgara) February 6, 2021

Some contribution of herd immunity, holiday travel being behind us, and better masks/masking observance in many places. Probably around 30% of the US has had Covid now, and that certainly contributes. Add that to people who have gotten one shot of the vaccine, and that’s somewhere around 40% who have some degree of immunity.

When we hit around 50% vaccination rate, cases will fall dramatically and everyone will be shocked. But you shouldn’t be because I am writing it now. And I will be right again.

The mistake people make when asking questions like, “Why did Verizon buy Tumblr?” or why did Facebook do this, Google do that, is believing it has something to do with money.

It does not.

It has to do with power. Once you understand that most of what happens at that level concern power and its manifestations, much becomes clearer. So, why did Verizon buy Tumblr, knowing it would never make money? That’s because Tumblr had the highest proportion of anti-establishment types, including Net Neutrality supporters, of any large online service, and it did not restrict sexual expression.

Killing Tumblr was a way of destroying a powerful force that was amplified by allowing sexuality as a valid part of life. It was a life insurance policy on preservation of the status quo. Verizon knew the best and quickest way to sap all that energy was to ban all adult content, and so that’s exactly what they did. It was calculated, exact, and it worked.

From the last day of 2020. I got the usual push-back for calling the new variant a "ticking time bomb". Alarm isn't alarmism if it's warranted. Now it's more than a month later, and I'll repeat. We. Will. Get. Hit. With. This—moderated by our vaccination rates and our measures. https://t.co/8C0Z3eC7he

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) February 7, 2021

I think most people are just fundamentally incapable of understanding risk in the context of exponentials. There is no amount of education that can fix this. It just does not work in a way that most human minds can comprehend.

Our priorities now should be vaccinating as much as possible and resisting lockdowns. I know most experts won’t agree with the latter, but freedom also matters, and preserving it after all this is over.

Amanda Gorman’s poetry is effective because it is beautifully universal and lyrical- it is not intended for “poetry snobs,” but for the people who need to hear the messages she shares. #SuperBowl

— Milena Rodban (@MilenaRodban) February 7, 2021

Agreed. I see why it appeals to people, but it’s not for me. It reminds me too much of Maya Angelou’s poetry, which I also do not care for. It hits the same notes, is intended to do the same thing.

I am a poetry snob, though, so it only makes sense that I would not like it.

Given recent events, probably a good assessment. https://t.co/CVynvALpXQ

— scientism (@mr_scientism) February 7, 2021

Indeed. We might not tell the Chinese, even if we were competent enough to detect it in time at all (doubtful).

And no, we don’t yet have the tech to deflect any asteroids. But we could move people out of the impact zone before it arrived unless it were a planet-killer, in which case it would not matter.

a year ago I was hanging out with @rrrrrrrix solving all the world’s problems over fancy cocktails and god damn do I miss travel and being indoors with people and the before times

— ✨Yael Grauer ✨ (@yaelwrites) February 7, 2021

I am glad that now when people say things like the above, there are very few clowns coming out of the woodwork shrieking about how the person who misses social contact wants to kill gramma.

Even those doofuses have been humbled by reality, I think. Hell, I am the least social fucker around and even I miss that light socializing a bit. Back in July or August, there would’ve been a scrum of scrooges in her replies screeching about gramma-killing, but they seem to have scrammed now.

Good fucking riddance.

Why corps are pushing encrypted DNS so hard:

Because then I could not block those 54% of queries I currently block, most of which is Microsoft attempting to exfiltrate data from my network.