Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, January 26, 2022

  • I thought this was a good point regarding the Sean Payton to Dallas rumors –If McCarthy gets ripped by some for winning just one Super Bowl with Aaron Rodgers, why doesn’t Payton get knocked for winning just one Super Bowl with Drew Brees?

    McCarthy went to the playoffs nine times with the Green Bay Packers, including four NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl. Payton went to the playoffs nine times, including three NFC Championship Games and one Super Bowl.)

  • Brian Williams turns down CBS News’ attempt to recruit him for the ‘Evening News’ – I’m a sucker for the evening news, who sits behind the anchor desk, and what each station decides is the nation’s top news story. So, this story caught my attention. I not much of a fan of Norah O’Donnell, though I really enjoyed Scott Pelley and Bob Schieffer’s time behind the anchor desk. I’m surprised this man was able to remake his image. I doubt Laurer can do the same.
  • The first college dorm I lived in is about to be torn down, to my surprise. I thought that thing would be there forever. It was the least liked of the two male dorms on campus because of community bathrooms, but it was one of those things in which because we lived in the “lesser” of the two dorms, we developed a certain pride in living there.
  • Apple’s AirTag uncovers a secret German intelligence agency
  • Michigan woman checks spam folder and learns she won the lottery –
    Laura Spears, 55, has now added the lottery to her safe senders list in case of future jackpots – A woman in Michigan checked her spam email folder – and found out she had won a $3m lottery prize.
  • YouTube – I Ran EVERY DAY For Two Years | 731 days of running, what happened?
  • 30 Brilliant Ways The Internet Roasted ‘Self-Made’ Millionaires – But people are getting fed up with being told lies. They claim that self-made billionaires are nothing more than another case of nepotism, a common practice of power that favors relatives by giving them exclusive opportunities. We collected some of the most eye-opening arguments about it

  • I ran across this AI brand making tool called Brandmark.io. All you have to do is enter in your brand name, and few descriptors, and select a theme. In two clicks you have a plethora of logos to choose from. I toyed around with it to see what kind of logos it would make for this blog. Some of them have potential. I also took the liberty to see what kind of logo’s it would make for LiberallyLean.com.
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Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, January 25, 2022

 

  • I wonder when this knot in my stomach will go away and I’ll crave a big meal again. That knot has been there since November 2020 and has caused all my weight loss.
  • I totally relate to this. When I was a full-time husband and father, all I did was look for ways to make my family happy because it brought me joy. Filling that void has been tough. – Trying to make other people happy makes us happier than trying to make ourselves happy
  • A few weeks ago I bought some small potato stocks which specialize in mining cobalt in Utah. – Idaho Is Sitting On One Of The Most Important Elements On Earth – The clean-energy revolution is unleashing a rush on cobalt, reviving old mines—and old questions—in a remote forest.
  • The Winter Olympics are coming. So is the China-funded sponcon – As the 2022 Winter Olympics spin up in and around Beijing, The Guardian reports that the Chinese government has, via a consulting firm, hired scores of social media influencers in an attempt to burnish its tarnished reputation. The UK firm in question is reportedly tasked with promoting the content specifically in the United States. The content in question will allegedly both highlight Beijing’s history and culture, as well as emphasize positive aspects of the relationship between China and the U.S.
  • Two-thirds of anti-vax propaganda online created by just 12 influencers, research finds
  • I haven’t even thought about it, but he just might be the next GOP nominee for president – Mike Pompeo shells out for media makeover 
    • Mike Pompeo’s political action committee spent $30,000 on media training from last March to June — the most on any service beyond payroll during the first six months of 2021.Why it matters: The former secretary of State hasn’t just been losing weight but working to hone his media skills amid speculation about a possible presidential run, records show.
  • New Texas teachers leaving the job most after their first year, study says
    • A recent study found new teachers in Texas are leaving the job after their first year at an alarming rate. It’s an issue education leaders say is adding to staff shortages districts are already facing from the pandemic. “Unfortunately, we’re seeing a lot of burnout in teachers in their first year of teaching,” said Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers.
  • San Angelo Regains Title as Top True Western City – For four years in a row, True West magazine has selected San Angelo to the Top 10 list of Top True Western Towns in the U.S. In 2019, the city was named #2; in 2020, we topped the list at #1, and in 2021, we were #2.
  • Nothing Sacred: These Apps Reserve The Right To Sell Your Prayers – Prominent venture capitalists are flocking to invest in Christian worship apps. The apps say users’ prayers are a business asset.
    • For example: Pray.com collects data about its users in multiple ways. According to its privacy policy, the company records detailed information about users, including their physical location, the links they click on, and the text of the posts they make. Then, it supplements that information with data from “third-parties such as data analytics providers and data brokers,” which can include “your gender, age, religious affiliation, ethnicity, marital status, household size and income, political party affiliation and interests… geographic location, and Personal Information.” The policy also says Pray.com shares users’ personal information, including identifiers that link their activity to specific devices, with “third parties” for “commercial purposes.”
  • This is the highest-paid job in every state, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics – Here’s the data for Texas.
  • I think this will be a fun watch, and I like the idea of a different guest star for each episode (bad language warning) – In the trailer for Netflix’s Murderville, Senior Detective Terry Seattle (Will Arnett) gets to work solving homicides, each time with a different celebrity partner — who has no script and no context.

  • Dorothy “Dot” Counts-Scoggins (born March 25, 1942) is an American civil rights pioneer, and one of the first black students admitted to the Harry Harding High School. After four days of harassment that threatened her safety, her parents withdrew her from the school, but the images of Dorothy being verbally assaulted by her white classmates were seen around the world.
    • In 2006, Counts-Scoggins received an email from a man named Woody Cooper. He had admitted to being one of the boys in the famous picture and wanted to apologize. They met up for lunch where Cooper asked her to forgive him and she responded by saying, “I forgave you a long time ago, this is opportunity to do something for our children and grandchildren.”

      They agreed to share their story and from there, did many interviews and speaking engagements together. In 2008, Dorothy Counts-Scoggins along with seven other people were honored for helping integrate North Carolina’s public schools. Each honoree received the Old North State Award from Governor Mike Easley. In 2010, Harding High School renamed its library in honor of Counts-Scoggins, an honor rarely bestowed upon living persons.


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Bag of Randomness for Monday, January 24, 2022

  • BoyGeeding plays a lot of Roblox games and recently expressed interest in creating his own, but needed some help with coding. So, I turned this opportunity into a bonding experience and we created our own on Saturday. I’m not much of a coder, I know just a bit, but enough for us to have some fun and for him to think I’m an expert.
  • Another great bonding experience for us was watching all the NFL playoff games. Every single one of those were classics going down to the last second or overtime. Three of the four visiting teams beat the home team. We’ll take the NFL over the college game any day of the week. Playoffs are so much better than meaningless bowl games, of which there are too many anyway. There were 44 bowl games last season, which means there were 88 teams. There are 125 Division 1 FCS football teams and 129 FBS football teams. So roughly 70% of teams get to play in a bowl game. The scheduling in the college game is way off as well. For instance, Alabama will play both Utah State and Austin Peay. Texas will play the University of Louisiana Monroe. Who really wants to see those games? And now with the new transfer and salary/endorsement rules, the purity is long gone, and has been for some time. Something else I like about the pro game is that an entire city is welcome into the fandom as opposed to a single campus and alumni. There’s more of a community and inclusive aspect for pro fans vs college fans.
  • It seems like Meatloaf was getting a lot more love than Louie Anderson, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
  • I saw the new season of Ozark dropped on Netflix. I loved watching it with my (ex)wife, feels so different watching it without her, all part of the new normal which is so damn hard to get use to.
  • One of the longest-delayed movies ever is finally playing in theaters – How long? Well, lavish fantasy The King’s Daughter wrapped principal photography way, way, way back in May of 2014. That’s right; the ‘brand new’ literary adaptation finished shooting almost eight whole years ago, and has only just made it onto the big screen after Gravitas Ventures stepped in to acquire the rights in late October.
  • Billionaire Mark Cuban Opens Online Pharmacy To Provide Affordable Generic Drugs – He said he decided to put his name on the company to “show capitalism can be compassionate and to send the message I am all in.” It’s not clear how much he had invested in the company. 
    • The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company (MCCPDC) is a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler and purchases drugs directly from manufacturers, bypassing middlemen to lower the price of more than 100 medications, it said in a statement.
    • For example, the leukemia drug imatinib is priced at $47 a month on MCCPDC compared to the $9,657 retail price.
    • The online pharmacy’s prices for generics factor in a 15% margin on top of actual manufacturer prices and a $3 pharmacist fee, the statement said.
    • The markup on generics average “at least” 100%, the MCCPDC said, while the Wall Street Journal reports in some cases it exceeds 1,000%.
  • Georgia school asks 4th graders to write letter to Andrew Jackson on how removal of Cherokee helped U.S. grow and prosper
  • Cruise Has Surprise Ending After Judge Orders Ship Seized Over Debts – The Crystal Symphony was set to arrive in Miami on Saturday, but it was diverted to the Bahamas after a U.S. judge ordered the ship seized over $4.6 million in unpaid fuel bills.
  • Worth reading: Life After 7’6″: Shawn Bradley, Paralyzed in a Bike Crash, Knows ‘It’ll Never Be the Same’ – The retired NBA center is finding that his 90-inch frame—which brought him fame and fortune and 2,000-plus blocks—is now a challenge without medical precedent.

  • In case you were curious about the history of the fire pole, Mental Floss has you covered.
    • The pole was originally the brainchild of a Chicago firefighter named David Kenyon, who in 1878 noticed that a co-worker in the building’s loft had used a hay transport binding pole when the fire alarm rang, sliding down in a flash from the third floor to the first instead of having to navigate a spiral staircase.

      Firehouses of this era typically had horses on the first floor, sleeping quarters on the second, and hay on the third. Spiral staircases connected the first and second floors, so that the horses wouldn’t wander upstairs. While the stairs kept the horses at bay, they also slowed down responding firefighters.

      Inspired by his co-worker, Kenyon installed a wooden pole 3 inches in diameter connecting the first and second floors of the firehouse and used a coat of varnish to reduce friction. By 1880, the Boston Fire Department had a pole made of brass. From that point on, fire stations across the country were skipping the stairs altogether and using the pole to make a fast exit.

  • I was surprised to see Britney Spears on one of their lists.

https://twitter.com/NextFuckingLeve/status/1485198527211126789

  • Meaningless presidential trivia which interests me.

  • The Texas governor spoke at our children’s school and signed the Parental Bill of Rights. However,

 

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Bag of Randomness for Friday, January 21, 2022

  • Governor Abbot spoke at the kids’ school yesterday evening. Here he is signing the Parental Bill of Rights into law. It looked a bit gimmicky signing a poster-sized version.
    • Before he talked about the incident that put him in a wheelchair, he stated he doesn’t tell this story often.
    • The school choir sang for him. He literally said they sounded like angels and it was the best version of that song he ever heard. He said it so sincerely it sounded like he meant it, but I’m sure he’s said the same thing to many other choirs.
    • He bragged heavily on his banning of mask mandates and critical race theory.
    • Bill Bennett was a big part of the event, speaking via Zoom. He heavily praised the governor, especially his role in protecting the border.
  • 35 Scientists Share That “One Science Fact” They Wish The Whole World Would Know
  • The woman dressing as a household item every day in January
  • Why Big Tech Companies Have Been Quiet on Texas’ Abortion Law – Between January 2018 and June 2021, at least 113 California companies relocated to Texas
  • This 22-Year-Old Builds Chips in His Parents’ Garage – Sam Zeloof combines 1970s-era machines with homemade designs. His creations show what’s possible for small-scale silicon tinkerers.
    • With a collection of salvaged and homemade equipment, Zeloof produced a chip with 1,200 transistors. He had sliced up wafers of silicon, patterned them with microscopic designs using ultraviolet light, and dunked them in acid by hand, documenting the process on YouTube and his blog. “Maybe it’s overconfidence, but I have a mentality that another human figured it out, so I can too, even if maybe it takes me longer,” he says. Zeloof’s chip was his second. He made the first, much smaller one as a high school senior in 2018; he started making individual transistors a year before that.
  • Why Airlines Are Fighting the 5G Rollout
    • AT&T’s and Verizon’s C-Band frequencies primarily range from 3.7 to 3.98 GHz; airlines are concerned these mid-band waves may impact the radio altimeters that pilots use to know how far planes are from the ground. A recent statement from United Airlines says that, “when deployed next to runways, the 5G signals could interfere with the key safety equipment that pilots rely on to take off and land in inclement weather.”
  • Mitch McConnell says African Americans voting just as much as ‘Americans’ in viral video
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