Time plods when you're waiting for weird stuff. I finally have enough weird stuff to fill the platter.
- Took a little trip today to a suburb, to the library and a grocery story. Out in the parking lot, some MAGAts (in uniform — white skin, red hats, election buttons, and dubious shaving jobs) were leafletting against a tax measure with a set-aside for low-income housing. The surprise came as I went into the grocery store, to the expected "oldies station" background music, and the moment I picked up the basket this piece began playing. I got a lot of weird looks from customers because I was snickering for the next four and a half minutes…
- That was amusing, but not as amusing as "smart toothbrushes" getting compromised and used in a DDOS attack. Really? WTF? The "convenience" of a toothbrush that will order (full-retail-price-from-the-manufacturer) toothbrush heads well before they're actually worn out? Or, more to the point, a "smart" pencil sharpener for those few who still use pencils? Or even a "smart" TV with voice recognition compromised into an all-hearing listening device… wait a minute…
- Sometimes the weird stuff, though, has real-world consequences — like the increasing prevalence of scientific papers withdrawn due to scientific fraud. <SARCASM> It's a good thing this doesn't apply to judicial opinions; how many precalculus-level errors can you find in establishing policy based on "B > PL," or reliance on the centuries-old views of a notoriously misogynistic judge who believed in witches to determine the scope and weight of women's rights today? (I get to ask these questions because the few readers of this blawg are unusually perceptive — and I won't be arguing anything before those two courts in the forseeable future.) </SARCASM>
- Speaking of real-world consequences, though, the mind boggles at the concept of turf wars at the International Criminal Court — not between the ICC and another court or a nation that doesn't want to comply, but at the court itself. And those consequence may let war criminals skate. So this is a rather pissed-off invocation of weirdness…