Even more oddities spotted in the news

[robkelk]

MIT: eggs are less likely to crack when they land on their side than on their end

It is evident now that the flaw in the common argument is with the definition of a 'strong' egg. The preponderance of STEM communicators understand that an egg is stiffer in one direction, but they equate this with 'strength' in all other senses. However, eggs need to be tough, not stiff, in order to survive a fall.

[robkelk]

Bachman-Turner Overpass?

[robkelk]

Canada now has a minister of artificial intelligence. What will he do?

The platform, released a little over a week before the April 28 election, suggests [Evan] Solomon will have a massive job touching nearly every aspect of the economy and with national security considerations.

Well... Evan Solomon was a journalist before running for office, so here's hoping he'll care about copyright and derivative works.

[robkelk]

I hope a certain somebody got a lot of residuals for this.

Meow Mix Meow-a-Thon

The Meow Mix jingle has been a staple in cat-loving households for over 50 years. Now, Meow Mix is cranking up the nostalgia, inviting you to show your devotion by listening to that catchy tune for half a day—and you could earn free Meow Mix products. It’s called the "Meow-a-Thon”.

It’s a Cat-mitment

Too late to listen to it now - it ran for four weeks last October.

[Bob Schroeck]

I hope a certain somebody got a lot of residuals for this.

I'll have to check with her.

[robkelk]

Blind Idiot Translations from English to American:

• Vincent Truck Gogh
  
• Adam and Eve lived in the "Yard of Eden"
  
• Easter hoods
  

From this article

[robkelk]

Canada's smallest town is becoming a ghost town

Population 4 as of the posting date. Population 0 some time soon.

[Norgarth]

Blind Idiot Translations from English to American:

• Vincent Truck Gogh
  
• Adam and Eve lived in the "Yard of Eden"
  
• Easter hoods
  

From this article

in the same vein...

[robkelk]

Chicago Sun-Times prints summer reading list full of fake books

Yep, AI hallucinations have made it into print media. The first ten on the list don't exist; the last five do. No idea whether the last five descriptions have any relation to real life.

The publication error comes two months after the Chicago Sun-Times lost 20 percent of its staff through a buyout program.

[classicdrogn]

Huh. Trying to find a report with more of it in TTS-freindly format rather than that image, I ran across three (out of the top five on Duck Duck Go) that just redirected to 404 pages or a landing page. I didn't think much of it the first couple of times since I'm often looking for old stuff that has fallen to link rot, but this is current news... The only one that showed up after I was paying attention to it was a CBC article (not-here) so if there's something hinky going on and not just a weird coincidence it seems improbably widely spread.

[Kilroy]

Check this MetaFilter post:

https://www.metafilter.com/208859/The-Ch...op-Special


Kilroy

[classicdrogn]

Alas, it still just links to a picture of the article, not the text itself.

[robkelk]

Denzel Washington Surprised With Honorary Palme d'Or

Everybody knew that Robert De Niro was getting an Honorary Palme d'Or this year. Denzel Washington's award was completely unexpected.

[Bob Schroeck]

HBO's new Harry Potter series casts its Golden Trio.

[Labster]

Wow. Was Florida Man on a road trip or something?

Yes. Florida man gored by bison in Yosemite National Park

[robkelk]

Apparently he didn't see this coming.

U.S. fugitive psychic says it was 'a mistake' to flee to Toronto for 21 years

Decades after skipping a Florida court hearing on manslaughter charges, U.S. fugitive Patrick Lutts Jr. faced the family of one of his alleged victims in a Toronto court.

[classicdrogn]

Well, you never know. He could have forseen that the sentence would be about as bad either way, but he'd have twenty more years first under the maple leaf.

[robkelk]

I ended On Thin Ice (a KanriKyara story that's waiting for other stories to catch up to it) with the line "Sysadmins with screwdrivers. Be afraid."

This is why. This sort of story is not particularly rare, but the consequences of this one are worse than usual.

Admin brought his drill to work, destroyed disks and crashed a datacenter

[Bob Schroeck]

Reality imitates fanfiction (in particular Undocumented Features)... Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor regenerates into... Billie Piper.

Edit:

[classicdrogn]

"Joy to the world" alright, the most despised Doctor is out. Hopefully the new gal will be more Doctor-y and win some fans back over.

[robkelk]

..., the most despised Doctor ...

The folks over on r/doctorwho appear to disagree with that. (Even if they are worried about "gravitas", which was also a common complaint back when Baker took over from Pertwee... and which of those Doctors are remembered more fondly today?)

It looks like Gatwa had the same problem as Whittaker before him (and that Kate Mulgrew had on Voyager, and Wil Wheaton on NextGen) -- writers who wouldn't give him a decent script and directors who didn't know how to direct him.

Surely he wouldn't be getting flack for being non-cis or non-white... Oh. Dear. <sigh>

[Dartz]

Thoughts, but no prayers

An oddity because of the location. A shopping centre in Carlow.

This particular gentleman had somehow managed to acquire a H&K G3 and a Remington 1911. The Gardai took them from him, and left him with his legally held shotgun, while he was waiting on bail on charges for possessing the rifle and pistol without a license.

A year later he takes the shotgun to a shopping centre, blasts it in the air and then promptly shoots himself when confronted with armed gardai.

And while it's very hard to prove a negative - and difficult to presume what might have happened had things gone differently. What might've happened had he not been discovered with his illicit weapons? We won't know and - for that we're most fortunate.

It was presumed a year ago that he was just a gun otaku who got a little bit too obsessed and crossed the legal line - but that he was otherwise harmless. They are not slow to yank a firearm certificate if you give them a reason to - in one case a lad lost it because he had shotgun shells stored loose in his car. Which begs the question - was he actually harmless then? Or what made him not be harmless in the meantime. There is a lot of consideration to be had - as it's basically impossible to get more restrive on firearms legislation than we are now - and despair deaths are rising.

The underlying sense of despair everywhere is real. Unless you're over 50. They're probably in early dementia at that point.

[classicdrogn]

The folks over on r/doctorwho appear to disagree with that.

And yet the veiwer numbers are the woirst in the history of the franchise, breaking that record again and again over the course of his run.

I'm 0probably not the best judge, though, being as how my own favorite (the Seventh) is probably number two or three on that list, even if I like that run more because of Ace than in his own right.

[robkelk]

The folks over on r/doctorwho appear to disagree with that.

And yet the veiwer numbers are the woirst in the history of the franchise, breaking that record again and again over the course of his run.

I'm 0probably not the best judge, though, being as how my own favorite (the Seventh) is probably number two or three on that list, even if I like that run more because of Ace than in his own right.

As I said earlier, "writers who wouldn't give him a decent script and directors who didn't know how to direct him". Even the most professional actor can only do so much with bad material (ref Plummer in Starcrash, Morse in Space: 1999, etc.). If the numbers drop off again next season, we'll know it isn't the cast's fault considering who's in the cast now.

Anyway. This is (supposed to be) a news thread, not a discussion thread, so...

Following a weekend northern lights display, there's still a chance to see them tonight

[robkelk]

Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" Joins Spotify's Billions Club

That's a lot of rickrolling.