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What are you reading this week? [7/02/23]
  • American Prometheus, the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

    I wanted to check it out before the movie comes out, and I highly recommend it for a very in depth view of his life.

    I also recently finished On the Origin of Time, by Thomas Hertog, which I also recommend. It's about Stephen Hawking's final ideas and theories, told by one of his closest proteges. There are some incredible ideas in this book that I had never heard of before, and I'm a cosmology nerd.

  • Human remains thought to be found in Titan sub debris
  • It has since been reported that Suleman Dawood was actually very excited about going on the sub, and had been previously disappointed when he couldn't go the first time the dive was scheduled because he was only 17, so his mother was going to go instead. That dive was cancelled, he turned 18, and you know the rest.

  • What are some events in recorded history that are extremely hard to believe, but without a doubt actually happened?
  • There's always the remarkable story of Rasputin's death. He was an advisor to Nicholas II of Russia, and refused to die after being poisoned, shot, and beat.

    "The would-be killers first gave the monk food and wine laced with cyanide, however, when Rasputin seemingly failed to respond to the poison, they shot him at close range and left him for dead. In spite of these murderous measures, Rasputin revived shortly thereafter and made an attempt to flee the palace grounds, only to be intercepted by his assailants who shot him again and viciously beat him. They then bound Rasputin, who was remarkably still alive, and threw him into the freezing Neva River. His battered body was found several days later and it was reported that there was water in his lungs, indicating that he finally died by drowning."

    https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2020/10/the-murder-of-rasputin/#:~:text=On%20the%20night%20of%20December,and%20left%20him%20for%20dead.

    I will also add, it's pretty neat that Ernest Shackleton's famed lost ship, the Endurance, was found 100 years to the day that Ernest was buried.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12236603/amp/The-wreck-Sir-Ernest-Shackletons-ship-Endurance-discovered-100-years-day.html

  • OceanGate CEO Bragged About Using Expired Carbon Fiber to Build Doomed Sub
  • Even worse, in the only third party testing that was performed, by the University of Washington, they rated the original iteration of the Titan only up to 9800 ft. As far as I can tell, Oceangate never redesigned the sub after that, and still decided to take people to 13,000 ft.

    Also, given that Rush would brag about how cheap the original hull was, I doubt they fully replaced it when they noticed cyclic fatigue in the sub later. To me it looks like they did some kind of shoddy repair. And that's the Titan everyone ended up with.

  • OceanGate CEO Bragged About Using Expired Carbon Fiber to Build Doomed Sub
  • Initially, I thought Stockton Rush couldn't be a total moron because he had a degree in aerospace engineering from Princeton, but having followed the college admissions scandal, we know what those degrees are actually worth. Crap.

  • MEGATHREAD: whatever the hell is going on in Russia right now
  • "CNN has tracked Wagner mercenaries in the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya, Mozambique, Ukraine and Syria. Over the years they have developed a particularly gruesome reputation and have been linked to various human rights abuses."

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/06/23/europe/wagner-prigozhin-criminal-case-explainer-intl/index.html

    It sounds like Prigohzin could be a big headache for Putin.

  • Is this the beginning of the next tech bubble bursting?
  • They could make much more money if they only improved their current ad algorithm. I know a lot of people don't, but I actually click on ads and enjoy ads that are targeted to me, especially for clothing. I purchase things from ads on every social media site that I use, except for Reddit, because reddit does not show me ads for things that I like, and this despite me using Reddit more than any other site. For instance, Reddit show me ads for internet packages, instead of the latest book or or dress that I would like to buy.

    I'm not sure why this is, Reddit should know my interests better than many of these other sites. If their ads are failing, and they aren't making money, it's their own fault.

  • Which bizarre historical mystery do you most want to uncover the truth behind?
  • The Noss family treasure, featured in the documentary "Gold, Lies, & Videotape."

    More than any other case, and I'm very much into mysteries, I would like to see resolution for this in my lifetime. This family deserves answers.

  • insideevs.com DeSantis Blocks Direct-To-Consumer Car Sales For Most Brands, But Not Tesla [UPDATE]

    Florida has passed a law prohibiting most automakers from selling directly to consumers, but companies without prior dealership agreements are excluded.

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    apnews.com Takeaways from the scathing report on Minneapolis police after George Floyd's killing

    The Justice Department has issued a scathing assessment of Minneapolis police, alleging that racial discrimination and excessive force went unchecked before George Floyd’s killing because of inadequate oversight and an unwieldy process for investigating complaints. The investigation found numerous e...

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    What's your sleep schedule like?
  • This is actually really helpful. I have frequent nighttime awakenings, and it's getting so bad that I want to sleep a lot during the day. Maybe I'll give exercise a go, I haven't tried it as a solution for insomnia yet.

  • US mother gets call from ‘kidnapped daughter’ – but it’s really an AI scam
  • A similar thing happened to me and my husband. We were out of state on vacation, and got a call and visit from the police at 3 am saying that my husband had been kidnapped for ransom. Of course he was laying right next to me, but for half a second I was terrified. It was a complete scam. They think they found my husband's information in a data hack at his school.

  • Which is your favourite scifi TV show?
  • Does Lost count here? That's my favorite, otherwise Farscape or Star Trek in general. I started watching the Expanse, it's really amazing, and I see why people like it, but I like the quirkiness of some of the other shows. Farscape is an extremely fun show to watch.

  • InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)IL
    IllegallyBlonde @kbin.social
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