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I knew there were serious problems with at least one of the statistics as soon as I skimmed the newspaper article. Paragraph 2 of Magruder (2024) states:But since 2000, church attendance has dropped in the U.S., from 42% of Americans worshipping every week or so back then, to 30% today, according to a 2024 Gallup poll. Only 11% of Americans report being in the pews monthly, and 56% seldom or …

If you are a Laurel and Hardy devotee it’s probably old news that the second volume of beautifully restored shorts has been released on Blu-ray and DVD by Flicker Alley. Covering the year 1928, the second year of their official partnership, this two-disc set features such silent-comedy classics as THE FINISHING TOUCH, SHOULD MARRIED MEN GO HOME? and TWO TARS. The bonus features are worth the price of admission, especially …

I grew up on Iliff Street, right in the middle of the ashes that up until a few nights ago, was a sunkissed neighborhood known as Pacific Palisades. It was 1978, and I remember my dad climbing up on our roof with a garden hose. Every couple of hours, he would wet the house down, top-to-bottom, and everything surrounding it. I don’t remember everybody doing this, but my Dad is …

BlueSCSI Wi-Fi Desk Accessory 1.3 has been released: wifi_da-1.3.sit (StuffIt 3 archive) SHA256: 40b49ef83b6512bde571171aa42e90419a8577efa895cfaeb19bf18a0c82d4deSHA1: b8fa941eb104c0f925436cc8fbc3018a3ded5b96 This update brings internationalization support for Macs running non-English installations, and a number of bug fixes. Changes in this version: Fix a handful of bugs Add a log window that can be toggled by clicking on the signal icon Add localization for strings shown in the UI for Macs running non-English installations, which was initiated …

I’m overloaded with work and deadlines, and unable to complete anything new. So please enjoy this classic Tet Zoo article from the archives, originally published at ver 2 back in 2008 (an archived version is here)… Caption: Dynamosaurus imperiosus wasn’t named for great material, namely an incomplete mandible with teeth, some cervical and dorsal vertebrae, and parts of the pelvis and hindlimb. This was originally accessioned at the AMNH in …

‘Many in Europe avoid describing Russia’s sabotage campaign outside Ukraine as war because they’d rather not have to do anything in response….’ ( Phillips Payson O’Brien via The Atlantic )

The march towards deep-sea mining is a slow and stately trudge through a complex international negotiation. The real progress isn’t made in flashy headlines or overhyped announcements, but in painstaking deliberations and incremental progress in the mining code and the environmental and financial regimes. In as much as 2024 was a fairly standard year in ... Read More "Deep-sea Mining: What went down in 2024?" »

I have Bob Dylan on the brain, because my socials are saturated with ads for the Timothee Chalamet movie, and because MusicRadar used the movie as the news hook for a column about Bob. I rewatched Don’t Look Back for the first time in forever. It’s a sign of my advancing age that Bob came across as unnecessarily obnoxious, especially to the poor Time Magazine reporter. But the music still …

Recently, Owen Madden started a book club, and he wants you to join. A professional cabinetmaker from upstate New York, Madden works as shop foreman at Rowan Woodwork. “At our shop, we have a monthly meetup, and I get to meet some of the most talented woodworkers and artists,” Madden says. “Most of the conversations anchor around something learned from a book, at which point I write down that book …

January 13, 2024 Tip of the Week Why Lobbing is Good For You, Why Lobbing is Bad For You. Weekend Coaching I coached in four group sessions over the weekend, totaling 6.5 hours. I spent about half of them feeding multiball, half as a practice partner/coach. I think I blocked about 10,000 shots over the weekend! If I block like this in tournaments, I’ll never lose. I also had some …

YouTube fragrance reviewers drive me up the wall. They're the reason I’ll never start my own channel. Why bother joining the parade of mediocrity? With rare exceptions—Derek’s Varanis Ridari comes to mind—they’re lazy shills who couldn’t crack a walnut if you handed them a sledgehammer. They just parrot each other for clicks.Take their reviews of Amber Oud Carbon Edition. Across the board,

I picked up the entire series of the Universal Monsters Toony Terrors and I'm making my way through them, following up the Wolf Man with Frankenstein. Or Frankenstein's monster. Or just the Monster or the Creature. I received two of the Toony Terrors as Christmas gifts from my parents, Frankenstein and the Mummy, so it was a very Karloff Christmas at my house. Ready for an animated take on the …

“I don’t make a film because I’m against something. For that matter, I don’t make a film because I’m for something — don’t make propaganda. If anything, all the films[...] The post <em>Cruising</em>: The Boys in (Black and) Blue appeared first on Bright Lights Film Journal.

There’s a scene in the Terra Ignota series where one character is talking about the 26th century equivalent of the Oscars and says “Oh, I love watching the Oscars,” then reveals that he/she cannot tolerate watching actual movies at all, and watches the Oscars as the closest possible alternative. The cause? Another character told him/her a fact that made watching movies … any movie … too painful (and told him/her …

A pattern variation. After writing the articles Collecting and handling result values and Short-circuiting an asynchronous traversal, I realized that it might be valuable to describe a more disciplined variation of the Impureim Sandwich pattern. The book Design Patterns describes each pattern over a number of sections. There's a description of the overall motivation, the structure of the pattern, UML diagrams, examples code, and more. One section discusses various implementation …