James H McLaren @JamesHMcLaren@qoto.org
College professor, part time nerd and sci-fi enthusiast. Not actually a duck, but what’s Humphrey Bogart got that I ain’t got?
Joined Nov 2022
I just saw a guy in a public washroom leave a toilet stall and go to a urinal. Huh. Does he not realize the dual purpose nature of the aforementioned appliance?
James H McLaren
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Via Politico:
Economic advisers close to Donald #Trump are debating ways to devalue the U.S. dollar if he’s elected to a second term — a dramatic move that could boost U.S. exports but also reignite inflation and threaten the dollar’s position as the world’s dominant currency.
James H McLaren
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"New Highway 416 interchange in Barrhaven will be a 'game-changer'": Sutcliffe
I'd like to know what's going to change. We'll spend hundreds of millions for 10,000 people to think that they are getting home 30 seconds earlier.
Why couldn't this money be doesn't solving an actual problem? Maybe house some homeless. Maybe feed some starving people. Taking care of people in a bad situation - now that's a game changer.
Catering to people with 2 vehicles each of which is worth $80k along with a house worth $800k isn't changing the game. It's playing the game the exact same way.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/new-highway-416-interchange-in-barrhaven-will-be-a-game-changer-sutcliffe
James H McLaren
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POLL: How do you get your coffee?
James H McLaren
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James H McLaren
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"How does a MAGA Legislature extract itself from the box it built?
If Republicans repeal the 1864 law now about to take effect, they make a mockery of their own belief that life begins at conception and all abortion is murder."
~ Laurie Roberts
This, I think, is the problem. The Conservatives (and to a lesser extent the Liberals) depend on suburban voters to win elections. Those voters (mostly) see their homes as a nest egg for retirement. Making a real dent in the housing problem will inevitably lower, or at least reduce the increase in, the value of existing homes. So the right wing parties want to be SEEN to be doing something about housing, but they don’t want to actually accomplish anything. https://www.tvo.org/article/the-ford-governments-scattershot-housing-bill-does-not-enough-of-too-much
James H McLaren
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A train! A train! #ottawa
North-South O-Train testing for Line 2 at Carleton station, exciting.
I like Rene Amilcar. She’ll open the north south line when it’s ready to open. That’s a nice change from the previous Ottawa LRT debacle. https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/oc-transpo-boss-will-not-commit-to-trillium-line-opening-date-1.6842852
James H McLaren
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Aww, rats. Peter Higgs dies at 94. I used to live just around the corner from him in Edinburgh. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/09/peter-higgs-physicist-who-discovered-higgs-boson-dies-aged-94
James H McLaren
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The fediverse is bigger than Truth Social and most of it isn't even a company... just a bunch of nerds running their own social network on pocket change (as it should be) and the content here is *chefs kiss* so much nicer.
Maybe we should "go public" too LMAO.
James H McLaren
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Good Morning #Canada
If you're a dinosaur fan, or even if you're not, you've likely heard of Dinosaur National Park in Alberta. But did you know that Canada has a 2nd important fossil site on the east coast? Joggins Fossil Cliffs is a palaeontological site in northern Nova Scotia. It is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its outstanding fossil record from the Carboniferous Age (354 to 290 million years ago).
#CanadaIsAwesome #Dinosaurs #Paleontology
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/joggins-fossil-cliffs
James H McLaren
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Q: "What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic
existentialist?"
A: "Is there a dog?"
James H McLaren
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Republicans have done the unthinkable. They’ve remade Liberals into the conservatives in the room; the ones who want to preserve the best parts of our culture, not promote and exploit the very worst of it.
James H McLaren
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"Most of its expenses are tied to interest on debt, although TMTG also had around a $16 million operating loss for 2023."
Since the total operating losses were $58 million that's $42 million just for interest on debt! *Interest.* How big is the debt? How was it incurred? This is a social media company using tweaked open source software. They didn't make a new technology, there is no need for a huge investment to get a website running.
Where did they money go?
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/01/trump-truth-social-revenue-2023
James H McLaren
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James H McLaren
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Putin will be ruthless after the Moscow attack, but Russians don’t trust him to keep them safe
James H McLaren
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Watchdog assessing McDonalds and Greggs IT failures - Payments Systems Regulator is examining spate of outages, which also affected Sainsbury's... - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68628348
James H McLaren
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If dark matter is a particle, it's possible that it could self-annihilate, becoming normal matter and releasing gamma radiation. Dwarf galaxies are the best objects to search for this radiation because they're small, rich in dark matter, and don't have other phenomena that could contaminate the view. A new survey examined 50 dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way and saw a faint hint of gamma radiation that could be coming from dark matter annihilation.
https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.063024
College professor, part time nerd and sci-fi enthusiast. Not actually a duck, but what’s Humphrey Bogart got that I ain’t got?
Joined Nov 2022
