The new US Space Force uniforms, designed to be camouflaged in space 🚀

*


It's kind of like the navy uniform, designed to be camouflaged if you fall overboard

* Humor only, not the actual US Space Force uniform

The Bernie blackout exposed

Once again the Democrats are suppressing Bernie Sanders. They're aligning with corporate media outlets to portray Sanders as an unelectable outlier, despite clear polling evidence to the contrary. Progressives are being ignored. Left-leaning media including CNN, MSNBC, and even news for snobby know-it-all dickheads such as The New York Times and Washington Post are deliberately altering headlines and graphics to remove Bernie or make him appear lower in the polls than he really is.

"Mmmyeh but my precious media would never try to mislead me". If you think that then you're most definitely wrong.

Last time Bernie was suppressed the result was the big bad orange man. Let's not make this same mistake again.

Read the article exposing media bias against Bernie here:
https://truthout.org/articles/the-bernie-blackout-is-real-and-these-screenshots-prove-it/



NBC/WSJ poll of democratic voters Jan 26-29, margin of error 4.74%
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6747015-200053-NBCWSJ-January-Poll-Democratic-Primary.html

So glad I came back to Fakebook

I'm so glad I came back to Facebook after taking a break from it. For a long time there I was building 3D printers, trying to figure out how to get them to work properly, making 3D prints, building my own quadcopters, fiddling with radio-controlled cars, building robots and electronic widgets, growing rare plants, designing my own 3D printed parts, and so on. Now whenever I get bored I can just look at Facebook and see the humdrum lives of people I don't really know at all, and cat videos, and memes, and endless whining about the big bad orange man, and animated GIFs of pointless crap. 

So worth it.

Disproportionate media coverage of Coronavirus

With the current levels of coronavirus coverage in the news, it's interesting to put things into perspective.

The centers for disease control (CDC) estimates there have been at least 15 million cases and 8200 deaths from influenza this flu season in the USA alone (flu season started Oct 1st). Mortality rate ~ 0.05%

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm


Total confirmed worldwide coronavirus infections so far: 6152.
Deaths: 132
Mortality rate: 2.15%

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/


I wasn't able to find the frequency of media mentions of coronavirus vs influenza and flu. However, looking at Google searches might give us some clues as to how people are being influenced by the media.

Relative frequency of Google searches in the week from Jan 19 to Jan 25,
Coronavirus: 38
Influenza and flu combined: 15

Projected relative frequency of searches for the week ending Feb 1st,
Coronavirus: 100
Influenza and flu combined: 17

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=Coronavirus%2CInfluenza%2CFlu



Clearly the media is a useful tool for the mass management of public opinion.

My question then is: why such heavy coverage of Coronavirus? Is it simply a disproportionate attempt to inform and educate the public, or is it because it's something fearful that motivates people and therefore gets more viewers so the media can sell more advertising, or is it something else?

-Dave Bad Person

Some other articles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel_coronavirus_(2019-nCoV)

The Wuhan coronavirus was first reported to the World Health Organization on Dec 31st, 2019.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/1/23/21079069/what-is-coronavirus-wuhan

China spent the crucial first days of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak arresting people who posted about it online and threatening journalists

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-information-crackdown-on-wuhan-coronavirus-2020-1

Coronavirus: from one food market to global panic
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-from-food-market-to-global-panic-response-mistakes

Coronavirus Is Spreading — And So Are the Hoaxes and Conspiracy Theories Around It
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/coronavirus-china-bat-patent-conspiracy-theory-942416/

These Lies And Conspiracies About The Wuhan Coronavirus Are Totally False
https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-all-the-nonsense-people-are-spreading-about-the-wuhan-coronavirus

Report: Outbreak of idiocy spreading 10,000 times faster than coronavirus
https://thebeaverton.com/2020/01/report-outbreak-of-idiocy-spreading-10000-times-faster-than-coronavirus/

Model rockets

Another one of my many and varied interests is model rocketry.  I can't say I'm really into it, and I don't do high power rocketry, but I have made some interesting rockets over the years.


Three years ago I was making these three rockets, from left to right:  Crash & Burn Jesus, Cock Rocket, and Martini Shaker Rocket.

Fun times.

My graduation

It's interesting to remember my graduation day, how the Vice Chancellor of the university stared down his nose at me when I walked up on stage to receive my degree from him, because he didn't like that I was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt, jeans, and hiking boots under my graduation robe. He died of a heart attack a few years later, which I thought was karmic justice for his snobby attitude.

In this pic you can see me holding my bachelor degree. I still keep it in that same cylinder because it hasn't earned its place on my wall in all these years. It's about time I threw it in the trash where it belongs... or maybe I should have some fun with it on my YouTube channel, like pissing on it and setting it on fire?

The Australian National University, the grrreatest university in the world! Hahaahaaa!!


-Dave Bad Person

And the Oscar goes to....

Harvey Weinstein nominated for best actor in his role as crippled old pervert.

https://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2020/01/14/harvey-weinstein-nominated-for-best-actor-in-his-role-as-crippled-old-pervert/

In his first public interview since more than 80 women accused him of sexual assault, Weinstein whines that he's the victim because his pioneering film work has been forgotten

https://pagesix.com/2019/12/15/harvey-weinstein-i-deserve-pat-on-back-when-it-comes-to-women/



-Dave Bad Person

The coronavirus pandemic

OMG, there have been 3000 cases of Coronavirus so far, including 80 deaths! This is as bad as the SARS outbreak of the early 2000s! If this pandemic continues there will only be 97.3% of us left to carry on the human race!

It's the apocalypse, grab your guns, start hoarding toilet paper!

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As a person who's been largely disconnected from the media for the last 22 years, now with a little wisdom from age, and a good memory for past events, it's funny coming back and watching the media again. They know people are motivated by emotions, and particularly fear. The media is even blaming the current downward blip in the stock market on Coronavirus 😂

I should get a job as a propagandist. It's something I could really understand and enjoy, manipulating the minds of the herd through one-sided media articles and understanding of average human nature.
Does anyone know where I could get a professional qualification in propaganda? 😂


-Dave Bad Person

Your global warming sympathy animal for this month was the Koala

Your global warming sympathy animal for this month was the koala. Burned kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas, wombats, possums, platypuses, snakes, spiders, goannas, lizards, dingos, emus, parrots, and other birds just aren't cute enough to be good sympathy animals for emotional agitation campaigns.

Once the Australian fires are over however, we will be returning you to your regularly scheduled starving polar bears. Thank you for your understanding.

* Starvation is the leading natural cause of death for all polar bears and is usually related to old age, sickness, or injury. I know this because a website called polarbearscience.com told me so. The name kind of warns me that it could be some sort of right wing propaganda site. 😂

https://polarbearscience.com/2019/09/12/these-starving-polar-bears-falsely-blamed-on-climate-change-have-scared-kids-to-death/

Now get ready for the March Sadness bracket tournament of cute animals impacted by climate change. For round 1, in the Paws and Claws category, we have Koala vs. Polar Bear, Lemur vs. Tasmanian Devil, and Pangolin vs. Sea Otter. For the Flippers and Fins category we have Vaquita vs Walrus, Sea Turtle vs. Penguin, and Whale vs. Manatee.

https://thinkprogress.org/the-march-sadness-cute-animal-faceoff-koala-vs-lemur-2840c1aed9b/

https://thinkprogress.org/the-tournament-of-cute-animals-threatened-by-climate-change-7971d113054a/

-Dave Bad Person

A message from the President of the Australian Academy of Science

Dear fellow researchers,

You may have seen my recent statement regarding the Australian bushfires at the website of the Australian Academy of Science.
https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/statement-regarding-australian-bushfires

As you can recognize from my statement, the cause of the recent bushfires is attributed to global warming. This is despite the sun currently being at the very bottom of it's roughly 10.5 year cycle. We have long known that these large fire events occur in synchrony with the dry side of Australia's cyclic climate of droughts and floods, which has a periodicity of approximately 21 years, or two sun cycles.

However, it is best if the Australian scientific community keeps this "under wraps", so to speak. If we do not use global warming to shift the blame for the fires, the Australian public will realize our land management practices and policies have been a failure for decades, and that we are just bungling clowns with no idea what we're doing, rather than thinking of us as very important and wise people.

Please help us to shift the blame by keeping the lie alive: The bushfires were caused by global warming.

Yours sincerely, a know-it-all medical researcher with no authority whatsoever to speak on land management issues,

Professor John Shine, AH, DH, FW.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check out my other blog post with my perspective on the Australian fires here:
https://www.badperson.net/2020/01/a-perspective-on-recent-massive-fires.html

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Someone recently responded to me about this parody message with the following:

"Dave, I think you are mischaracterizing his statement. To me it reads like a marketing pitch urging people to reach out to scientists. "With much misinformation in the public domain about the cause and impacts of the bushfires, we urge Australians to continue to consult reputable sources of evidence-based information such as the Australian Academy of Science, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology." I think he stops short of blaming the bushfires on climate change, but he does touch on the common expectation that extreme weather events will become more common as part of his marketing pitch. Does Dave the scientist agree with Dave Bad Person that climate change is playing no role in the apparent increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires, droughts, floods, freezes, etc.? I don't deny that poor management is probably making a bad situation worse in Australia, but I also believe that available management tools and resources may not be up to the task."


This was my response:

---

Well, as someone whose childhood home burned down in the last dry phase of Australia's climate cycle 17 years ago, and as a former medical researcher and current electronics industry worker who also has no authority to speak on land management issues....

Yes climate change has an effect on severe weather events.
No you cannot manage the forests of Australia, they are far too vast to be managed.

Australia's cyclic climate of droughts and floods, which has a period of roughly 2 sun cycles or ~21 years, has been known about for well over a century, long before anthropogenic climate change really kicked in. Even Captain Cook wrote of massive fires as he discovered the east coast of Australia in 1770. A young 19 year old Dorothae Mackellar wrote in her 1908 poem "My Country" about "droughts and flooding rains", and "fire and flood and famine". The sun is currently at the bottom of it's cycle, so if they thought this was a really hot summer in Australia, and it was, then just wait another 5 or 6 years when the sun is at the top of its cycle. However by then Australia's climate cycle will probably be back to heavy rains and flooding again.

The plants of Australia are particularly well evolved and adapted to fire, so this has been going on for millions of years. The Aboriginal people regularly burned the landscape in the 40,000 years they've been there. With the Aborigines largely gone from the land and the advent of misguided green ideologies, the forests have been allowed to go unchecked and fuel levels have reached a crisis point, which has led to increasingly devastating mega-fires occurring during the last several dry phases of the Australian climate cycle, going back to before I was even born.

One of the major areas of these current fires is the south coast of NSW, where I spent many childhood vacations, and where a number of my relatives currently live, who are providing me with some info on what's going on. The entire region is mostly forests all the way from the mountains to the dunes behind the beach. Fortunately my relatives have been lucky so far, with the fires missing their houses by as little as 100 feet, but they have friends who've lost everything. I've watched this region grow as people have expanded the sleepy fishing villages and beach towns further into the forests. They chose to build in the forest, and now they're feeling the bite.

But yeah, this fucking clown in his ivory tower has a statement to make and that statement is "We didn't have a plan the last few times this kind of thing happened, and we don't have a plan now, but feel free to look to us for answers as we shift the blame for our lack of foresight". He's nothing but a hoity-toity over-inflated ego-maniacal sack of shit.
-----

So that was that. Do you get the feeling I don't respect Professor Shine's point of view? What makes you think that? Lol!

As population pressures, prior land uses, personal preferences, and economics drive people to build in the urban-wildland interface, some quick ideas off the top of my head that might help reduce wildfire losses are:

• Reconsider construction methods, building design, and fire-safe landscaping. Using less flammable materials, reducing overhangs, etc. is one approach to minimizing damage to homes and infrastructure. 
• Associated changes in requirements for building codes, buffer zones, and fire suppression.
• Back burning of areas near people and property that needs to be protected.
• Look at the benefits of underground construction:  great temperature control, fire-safe, plus you can still use the ground above for habitat, cultivation, etc. The only downside to underground building is the views, but many Australian animals have figured out to go underground, such as the wombat for example.
• I'm sure I could keep going if I thought about this for more than 1 minute, unlike Professor Shine who has big talk and no real solutions.

-----

Here's an aerial view of the Australian Academy of Science in all its glory. It consists of two buildings: a circular domed building with three internal floors that house a 156 seat lecture hall, two meeting rooms, a few offices, a small library, and an archive storage area. The other is a two story H-shaped building that was built in the early 20th century and once served as a hotel for new public servants who were transferred to the city of Canberra. That's it, the Australian Academy of Science, just as small and inconsequential as the statement from its current president.

-----


Do you get the feeling that I don't respect most of the people in academia? It might be something to do with the 17 year career I had in academia.

17 years is a big chunk of someone's life and I don't appreciate that academics took advantage of my youth and naivety so they could further their careers in frivolous dream chasing. I was a poor schmuck from a poor working class family who just wanted employment and income out of my university education. Unfortunately most of the idiots I worked with were from fairly wealthy families for whom employment and income were never major concerns in their life, and therefore they assumed that employment and income weren't major concerns in my life as well. 

There are good scientists out there, but they're few and far between. I've often seen academics use various mental and verbal systems of defense and denial to lie to themselves and others about the goals and utility of their careers. For example, if challenged, they will often name great scientists of the mid 20th century and compare themselves to them, as if all scientists are of the same caliber. I find it easy to see through that kind of bullshit. Now days I'm all about putting science to work for society, rather than pointless frivolous dream chasing, or empty statements and inaction from an entitled gasbag to appease people who are desperately looking for answers for why they just lost everything.

That's all for now.
-Dave Bad Person



More reading on this topic

Here's another one of my blog posts about why a non-professional college degree is useless.
https://www.badperson.net/2019/10/why-non-professional-college-degree-is.html

Here's my blog post about how academics have become detached from the reality of what society needs from them.
https://www.badperson.net/2020/02/academics-have-become-detached-from-reality.html

Here's another one of my blog posts about how scientists lie about the goals and utility of their research so they can make themselves and their work seem more important.
https://www.badperson.net/2020/02/how-scientists-lie-about-the-goals-and-utility-of-their-research.html

If you want to read another thread about my shitty university experiences, check this out:
https://boredofstudies.org/threads/the-australian-national-university-anu-is-a-terrible-university-and-will-ruin-your-future.387681/
https://www.badperson.net/2019/11/the-australian-national-university-anu.html



References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Academy_of_Science

https://www.science.org.au/about-us/academy/buildings/ian-potter-house

A perspective on the recent massive fires in Australia

Regarding the recent massive fires in Australia, it seems that everyone you hear from lately is blaming global warming.  While global warming has certainly exacerbated fire conditions with higher temperatures and drier vegetation, changes in land use and land management practices and policies have also been major contributors.  To blame global warming alone is simply refusing to admit responsibility for people building their homes in or near the forest, and for doing nowhere near enough to mitigate the fire risk for decades. Now it's "the world's fault" that people were surprised and unprepared when it all went up in flames.

Even worse, the sun is currently at the bottom of its 10.5 year cycle, so if they thought this was a record hot summer in Australia, and it was, just wait another 5 or 6 years until the sun is at the top of its cycle. Actually, by then Australia will probably be having heavy rains and flooding, as typically occurs with its cyclic climate. The cyclic nature of Australia's climate is so well known that it was written into a famous poem called "My Country" by Dorothea Mackellar in 1908 that speaks "of droughts and flooding rains", and "flood and fire and famine". Of course when these floods come, people will no doubt blame society and the world for them being unprepared again, and the politicians and university clowns will take it as an opportunity to sound important and knowledgeable, and tell people that we need to do something about it. Then another 20 years will pass and it'll happen again, and everyone will be surprised and unprepared again. We have long known that these large fire events occur in synchrony with the dry side of Australia's cyclic climate of droughts and floods, which has a periodicity of approximately 21 years, or two sun cycles. Yet people are surprised and unprepared every time it happens.

Even Captain Cook wrote of massive fires as he became the first European to sail up the east coast of Australia. The plants of Australia have evolved and adapted to cope with fire, so it's been going on for millions of years. The Aboriginal people regularly burned the landscape in the 40,000 years they've been there. With the Aborigines largely gone from the land and the advent of misguided green ideologies, the forests have been allowed to go unchecked and fuel levels have reached a crisis point, which has led to increasingly devastating mega-fires occurring during the last several dry phases of the Australian climate cycle, going back to before I was even born. Big fires like this have happened before in Australia, with massive mega-fire events like this recent one happening every couple of decades or so. For the average person these fires only affect their particular area once in a lifetime, leaving them surprised and unprepared when it happens. So these periodic mega-fires are certainly not a new thing. How do you manage forests so vast that they're unmanageable? How do you manage them when they burn unmanageably?

To put things into a historical context, how was the Australian forest managed for most of the 50 million years of its existence?  How was it managed for the 40,000 years before Europeans arrived in Australia? The Australian Aborigine's own land management practices, while not scientific, would never have allowed this to happen.

As I mentioned before, the infrequency of these mega-fires tends to catch people by surprise. If you can't backburn the forest to reduce fuel loads because of environmental policies or as a necessity to protect delicate species and forest ecosystems, then you have to expect these mega-fires to happen periodically. What's going on now is similar to the Canberra fires of 2003, same as the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983, same as the Black Saturday fires of 2009, same as the Tasmanian fires of 1967, the Victorian fires of 1969, the Dandenong fires of 1962, the Blue Mountains and Illawarra fires of 1968, the Sydney national parks fires of 1994, the deadly heat waves of 2000, 1993, 1981, 1973, 1959, 1939, 1927, 1921, 1912, 1908, 1896.
Yet people wonder why is this happening, why are we surprised and unprepared? It must be all global warming's fault.

Next these people who won't take responsibility for their own disaster will probably start telling each other to "Turn off the light, we need to save the planet". Meanwhile, in the overcrowded industrially developing countries where the western world exported most of its industries and their associated pollution, greenhouses gases are being released in vast quantities and remain largely unregulated by western governments. These are places such as China, Southeast Asia, India, Mexico, Eastern Europe, and parts of Africa.

To put my own personal bushfire experience into perspective, my childhood home in Australia burned down in a huge bushfire in January 2003. The entire countryside had been covered in smoke for months before that, an almost identical situation to what just happened. I remember flying over the Snowy Mountains on my way to and from Tasmania, and they looked like a giant steaming cauldron from the smoke and fire. The fire that burned down our house was a once in a lifetime event that left us surprised and unprepared. We didn't blame society or the world for our misfortune. Yet here we are nearly 20 years later and nothing has changed, except now it's "the world's fault", because people don't want to face up to the fact that decades of misguided land use and land management practices are the cause.

Even the President of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor John Shine, recently released a statement regarding the fires, which you can read here:

https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/statement-regarding-australian-bushfires

I don't know what qualifies a medical researcher such as Prof. Shine to speak with authority on the topic of bushfires, other than an entitlement from an academy that appears to contribute very little to society. Probably the "publish or perish" mentality of academia is one reason he feels the need to make a statement, just say something, anything!  Once again, he seems more interested in the link between global warming and the recent bushfires, rather than the urbanization of forests and the failure to mitigate the fire risk over the last few decades.

The failure of politicians and academics to understand and act on the problem is clear. To dismiss it as a result of global warming, that somehow "society" or "the world" are to blame, is merely an attempt to shift the blame from these people's failed policies and decades of inaction.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check out my parody message from the president of the Australian Academy of Science regarding the fires here. It also has some good information:
https://www.badperson.net/2020/01/a-message-from-president-of-australian.html
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Climate models have always predicted that global warming will make the dry places drier, that most of the warming will be in the higher latitudes, and extreme weather events will become more frequent. Possibly also the cyclic climate of Australia will have larger swings between the drought and flood parts of the cycle. One result of that will be more and bigger fires. I can't imagine how the world will look in a few hundred years when the accumulated greenhouse gas effects really start to kick in. I have a geologist friend who says it's not going to be as dramatic as the Permian-Triassic extinction, that was a massive event, but more like the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) of about 55 million years ago, with a 5-8°C temperature rise that lasts for about 100,000 years. In comparison, the PETM was caused by about a quarter of a gigaton of carbon being released into the atmosphere each year over a period of 50,000 years. Humans currently emit about 10 gigatons of carbon per year, so we can get there in only 1200 years. So what we're seeing now is really just the very smallest and earliest effects, just a taste of things to come. Global temperature has only risen a degree or so since 1900. We still potentially have another 4-7°C and another 1200 years to be something like the PETM.

Coal mining is still increasing, it currently produces 40% of the world's electricity and will soon pass 50% to be become the world's leading source of electricity. China is currently building a ridiculous number of new coal fired power plants and is also the world's biggest coal producer. There are fun times ahead, but not for another few hundred years at least.

This is just the beginning. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.


-Dave Bad Person, PhD wanker


References

https://www.weather.gov/news/190504-sun-activity-in-solar-cycle

https://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Country

https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/statement-regarding-australian-bushfires

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum



Here is my shortened version that I sent as a letter to the editor of the newspaper of Australia's national capital, The Canberra Times.
--------

Regarding recent fires, it seems everyone is blaming global warming, which exacerbates fire conditions, but mostly they’re saying it because they can’t admit responsibility for the urbanization of our forests, and for decades of inaction to mitigate fire risks. Now it's "the world's fault" they were unprepared when it all went up in flames.

Even Captain Cook wrote of massive fires as he sailed up the east coast. The plants of Australia have evolved and adapted to cope with fire, so it's been going on for millions of years. These big fires happen so infrequently that they catch people by surprise, but they're certainly not new.

Now people will say "Turn off the light, we need to save the planet". Meanwhile, in industrially developing countries where the western world exported most of its industries and their associated pollution, greenhouses gases are released in vast quantities and remain largely unregulated by western governments.

My childhood home in Duffy burned down in the 2003 fires. The entire southeast had been blanketed in smoke for weeks before that. We didn't blame the world for our misfortune. Yet here we are nearly 20 years later and nothing has changed. Rinse and repeat on a roughly 20-year cycle.

The failure of politicians and academics to understand and act on the problem is clear. To dismiss it as a result of global warming, that somehow "society" is to blame, is merely an attempt to shift the blame from these people's failed policies and decades of inaction.

My letter to Professor John Shine in response to his Statement Regarding the Australian Bushfires at the website of the Australian Academy of Science.

The President of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor John Shine, recently released a statement at the adacemy's website regarding the recent massive bushfires in Australia.  You can read it here.
https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/statement-regarding-australian-bushfires


I decided to write to Prof Shine in response to the statement.  Here's what I wrote.

---------------------

Prof. Shine,

I saw your recent press release at the Australian Academy of Science website about the recent bushfires in Australia.  

https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/statement-regarding-australian-bushfires 

When I read it, all I saw were carefully considered words from a pure academician who clearly has no idea or plan for how to mitigate such gigantic bushfire events.  You didn't have a plan before the fires happened and you don't have a plan now.  How do you manage forests so vast that they're unmanageable?  How do you manage them when they burn unmanageably?  What qualifies a medical researcher to speak on such matters, other than a fancy title from an academy that appears to contribute very little to society?

Even Captain Cook wrote of massive fires as he sailed up the East Coast of Australia.  The plants of Australia have evolved and adapted to cope with fire, it's been going on for millions of years.  Yet people are so surprised when they build their homes near the forest, and then once in their short lifetime it all burns down. Meanwhile, academics who are convinced of their expertise in land management are now sending their favorite superhero to the rescue:  Captain Hindsight.  The Aborigines would never have allowed this to happen.

As for mitigating the effects of global warming, while you perhaps plan to instate a carbon tax or turn off some light bulbs to save the planet, meanwhile in the massively over-populated industrial regions where the western world exported its industries decades ago, such as China, Southeast Asia, India, Mexico, Eastern Europe, and parts of Africa.....

Well, at least your press release might get some funding from the government so that some bumbling boffins can study the problem, model it, and publish papers about it in obscure journals that hardly anyone reads.  When Australia burns again in another massive inferno 20 years from now, there will no doubt be another President of the Academy making a public statement about how scientists are making a difference in the world, and they will be creating a plan to mitigate the problem.

Yours,

Dave, who has a very important PhD from a very important university that makes the world go around (I actually left Australia many years ago, so I could avoid a life of underemployment as a scientist and enter the burgeoning electronics R&D industry of California, where they have real research with real results, not just talk). 

A couple of small white winter flowers

A couple of small white winter flowers on my balcony today,

Fouquieria purpusii and Pelargonium klinghardtense

Americans find British accents more believable but not vice versa

Well they certainly don't trust American accents in Australia. Americans tend to be full of marketing hype and are known for doing what's profitable rather than what's right. There was a place in my home town that opened up long ago called Dave Nelson's Barbecue Spare Ribs.  Dave Nelson was a yank, or "seppo" as we call them, short for "septic tank", which is something that rhymes with "yank" and is full of shit. Dave Nelson made the mistake of being in his own TV ads, telling us to come to his restaurant.  For a start, Australians don't want to be told anything by a American. Also, back then ribs were a part of the animal that you threw in the trash, much like chicken wings, so all we thought was "a yank profiting from trash". His restaurant didn't do well, so he had to drop the TV ads and change the name of his restaurant to "Aussie Ribs". He's still around but now runs a Mexican restaurant called Cisco's. They still serve barbecued spare ribs.

Full sleeve tattoos are now the mark of fake dirtbags

Full sleeve tattoos on Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran? A pair of homos who sing teen heartthrob crap, with full sleeve tattoos along the whole length of their arms? Seriously?

I'm pretty open-minded and I've tried to listen to Bieber and Sheeran but their music is not my thing, it's teeny-bopper crap.  Maybe if they were like James Hetfield from Metallica with his full sleeve tattoos I'd say OK, he's a badass, or at least his music is.  But these two child-pop clowns?

It used to be that tattoos were only for the most crazy and bad ass people, and full sleeves were only for the most absolutely crazy and bad ass people like prison trash and psychopathic outlaw bikers. Now full sleeves is just a way to show you're a fake pretend dirtbag douchenozzle conformist sheep who's confused about his image and is desperately experimenting with styling like a fashionista. 

My neighbor has a PhD in biochemistry and has full sleeves, what a fucking idiot. And of course like any biochemist he has the personality of a doorknob. My high octane piss would burn him to death.

And Bieber with the dropped pants revealing Calvin Klein underwear?  What a pathetic wanker!

I guess when these people grow up, if they ever do, they're just going to look like idiots who thought they were cool back when they were young douchebags and just wanted to impress the chicks by pretending to look badass and cool while singing their girlie faggy crap songs.

Stupid fucking wankers.  I can't wait until their careers are over and they're relegated to the dustbin of history, and then they'll look in the mirror and see how stupid they look.

-Dave Bad Person

References

https://pagesix.com/2019/10/03/ed-sheerans-tattoo-artist-admits-the-pop-stars-ink-is-s-t/

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/3007214/ed-sheeran-reveals-the-secrets-behind-his-sixty-colourful-tattoos-after-going-shirtless-for-new-music-video-shape-of-you/

https://www.tmz.com/2019/12/30/justin-bieber-full-body-tattoo-tour/

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/justin-bieber-neck-tattoo

Santa Barbara Trip, 28-30 December, 2019

View from Knapp's castle on the way from Santa Barbara to Santa Ynez

This is the trip we did to Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez over the Xmas-NYE break, 2019.  We stopped at a brewery in Oxnard and saw raspberry fields. Then we stopped at Tar Pits Park in Carpenteria.  We stayed at the Hyatt at East Beach in Santa Barbara. Later we visited Santa Ynez valley.  On the way to Santa Ynez we checked out the Chumash painted cave and Knapp's Castle, which is really just a ruin of someone's mansion, currently being rebuilt.  
We also met our friend Donna in Los Olivos and went to several very good winery tasting rooms.


https://flic.kr/s/aHsmKFhcFx

Pleiospilos

A particularly large specimen of Pleiospilos bolusii grown by me

Pleiospilos are the giants of the mimicry succulents. They readily germinate from seed, and many species are winter growers that are perfectly suited to growing outdoors, exposed to the sun and rain of Southern California all year round. They are resistant to pests, fairly tolerant of over watering, and some can grow quite large if well watered. They produce yellow or pink coconut-scented flowers that can be hand-pollinated to produce a bounty of seeds. If left alone, the seeds will often sow themselves. P. nelii seems to only live a few years for me, probably because they're not winter growers and get too much rain at the wrong time of year when grown outdoors here.

Seen here are P. bolusii (?), P. simulans, P. nelii, and recently germinated seeds of P. compactus.

Pleiospilos simulans in my collection

Pleiospilos nelii, my own collection

Pleiospilos compactus with seed capsule and spontaneously germinated seedlings

Recently germinated seeds of Pleiospilos compactus

References
https://altmanplants.com/mimicry-succulent-plants/
https://www.llifle.com/Encyclopedia/SUCCULENTS/Family/Aizoaceae/Pleiospilos/

Facebook addiction

Here's my blog repost of that "famous" Facebook post from a few years ago about my ketamine rage in hospital after my burn incident.

Oddly enough that post has been deleted from Facebook, and it wasn't deleted by me. I'm guessing Facebook deleted it because it contains drug use, even though it was legal, medically supervised drug use in a hospital. That's what Facebook does, it censors you, it suppresses or amplifies your posts in other people's newsfeeds as it sees fit, and will even delete your past posts if they don't conform to its own nebulous standards. It uses algorithms to give you newsfeed articles that you're more likely to react to, and is designed to be habit forming in a similar way to gambling. I'm sure many of you have already formed a tight mental association between boredom and looking at Facebook on your phone. Facebook also restricts you to a limited range of human experiences, makes you conform, and keeps you hidden behind its blue "iron curtain" so it can monetize you for advertising without competition from the rest of the internet.

So I'm glad I had the foresight to save this piece of creative writing somewhere other than Fakebook, and I'm glad I've moved to blogging. There'll be a blog post about these things soon, but for now there's this.

https://www.badperson.net/2019/12/ketamine-and-clonidine.html

Hooks: An Intro on How to Manufacture Desire
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/hooks-an-intro-on-how-to-manufacture-desire



References

https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/home/topics/mood-disorders/depressive-disorder/facebook-addiction-associated-with-social-insecurity/

https://www.livescience.com/49585-facebook-addiction-viewed-brain.html

https://www.livescience.com/34649-why-internet-is-addictive.html

https://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2017/02/17/facebook-addiction/

https://www.shoutmeloud.com/signs-facebook-addiction.html

https://medium.com/@dhh/facebooks-addiction-wasn-t-free-63c3213e90fd

http://www.techaddiction.ca/facebook-addiction-test-symptoms.html

https://theoatmeal.com/quiz/facebook_addict

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3036930/facebook-introduces-tools-to-encourage-users-to-go-outside

https://talgur.org/curefacebookaddiction/

http://shebytes.com/am-i-addicted-to-facebook/

https://clearrecoverycenter.com/are-you-addicted-to-facebook/

http://yourdost.com/blog/2016/03/9-signs-that-shows-you-are-addicted-to-facebook.html?q=/blog/2016/03/9-signs-that-shows-you-are-addicted-to-facebook.html&

https://louisem.com/6610/facebook-addiction-infographic

https://www.mobile-spy.com/blog/screen-addiction-rising-among-children/

https://allindiaroundup.com/social-networking/is-facebook-addictive-four-reasons-revealed-why-you-cant-quit-facebook/

https://www.imblogger.in/facebook-addiction-signs/

http://nuallure.com/facebook-addiction/

https://www.campaignlive.com/article/pictures-ten-signs-facebook-addiction/1208545

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/09/28/infographic-your-facebook-addiction-numbers

https://ww.9to5mac.com/2019/01/02/facebook-addiction/

https://www.wikihow.com/Defeat-a-Facebook-Addiction

https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/02/facebook-addiction-google-searches/

https://www.tracedynamics.com/signs-facebook-addiction-symptoms/

https://www.postplanner.com/facebook-addiction-reaches-tipping-point/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/five-serious-symptoms-of-facebook-addiction/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/five-serious-symptoms-of-facebook-addiction/

https://addictiveaddiction.com/facebook/

https://www.lifewire.com/tips-to-break-facebook-addiction-3485789

https://brandongaille.com/42-remarkable-facebook-addiction-statistics/

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2016/6/5/blue-magic-the-first-arab-clinic-treating-facebook-addiction

https://www.councilonrecovery.org/millennials-social-media-and-depression/

https://www.techgyd.com/10-ways-beat-facebook-addiction/22229/

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-deal-with-your-facebook-addiction-1797235746

https://intotomorrow.com/we-discuss-facebook-addiction-with-dr-john-huber/

http://steve-lovelace.com/breaking-facebook-addiction/

https://richnigerianpharmacists.com/how-to-use-your-facebook-addiction-to-achieve-your-goals-in-life/

https://www.futuristgerd.com/2018/01/facebook-is-no-longer-social-anything-its-an-ai-platform-that-needs-to-be-regulated/