let's order strange things from NIST! first up is this jar of reference peanut butter. it's only $881 per jar!

but it's no ordinary peanut butter. it's got a MSDS! and a datasheet!

ok technically it is only $881 per *three* jars.

but why would you want this peanut butter? it comes with certified amounts of particular substances in it, so it's good for calibrating equipment used in the food industry to measure regular ol' grocery store peanut butter.

but NIST has a lot more than just peanut butter. oh my. you won't believe the goodies i've seen!

1. Yes, @FareedZakaria's new book, Ten lessons From a Post-Pandemic World argues we don't need a big or small gov- we need a GOOD one.

We don't have that now & that is bc for decades now, the GOP has intentionally hallowed it out. Stripping it of funding under the auspice that

2. the only goal should be small. And as it turns out- that was stupid. And now we have a dysfunctional, as @maddow says, "big, bad" gov. Something that has been "wasted, and rotted and ruined." And its been intentional. Its been murdered, with no thought for how people would

3. suffer for it. COVID just put that suffering in a streamlined spotlight. But as @FareedZakaria points out- its the cherry on top of a 40 year plan that Bannon termed the final "deconstruction of the administrative state." As with the decimation of the economic tools that had

4. allowed the world's 1st middle class to emerge & flourish before The Great Lie ushered in the greatest wealth transfer in history. Not only were Americans bamboozled into voting away their wage increases, their pensions, & their health care (at least till 2010)- they were also

5. tricked into pissing away their country's superiority- its claim to fame, its ability to puff its chest out & say "look over here, we have the best _____. " I had no idea when I was a kid that we were not, in fact, the greatest country on Earth- at least not if you care about

With all this talk about Khalistan, one thing again is being buried in the narrative.

This is how a peaceful, law abiding state was made into a hellhole and the genie of Khalistan unleashed purely by Indira Gandhi and her minion Sanjay Gandhi.

Thread on how she did this

1/n note, this piece only talks about how the Frankenstein named Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (JSB) was created by Sanjay Gandhi and Giani Zail Singhi. It does not touch on the whole Khalistani movement which would require a seperate write up on it's own.

2/n The primary party in Punjab was the Congress, but over time opposition arose in the form of the Akali Dal. The Akali Dal was primarily a Sikh party which took a hardline stance when it came to Punjab.

3/n The people of Punjab, sick and tired of the corruption and inefficiency of the Congress found in the AD a solid electoral alternative.

Things came to a head in 1977 when the AD+JP alliance swept into power and ordered investigations into corruption by

4/n the previous (and soon to be President) Giani Zial Singh who is in a way, the true villain of the story.

Sanjay Gandhi and Giani (mostly Giani) decided they needed a hardline front to combat AD and split the anti Congress votes and hence Bhindranwale was born.

ORT. Final chapter. Atto XXII
It's going to be quite difficult for me to describe my personal experiences regarding the consciousness shift phenomenon. I will continue then by delving into the corpus of my research. Let me introduce you to Robert Lanza and his theory: Biocentrism

Lanza is an expert in regenerative medicine and a scientific director at Advanced Cell Technology Company. He is known for his extensive research on stem cells, he was also famous for several successful experiments on cloning endangered animal species.

He then turned his attention to physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. It is from this metaphysical milieu that his controversial theory was created. Biocentrism implies that death simply does not exist. It is an illusion fabricated by the dogmatic pathways in our minds.

It exists because people identify themselves with their bodies and with their Ego. Now a brief interlude. What is our innermost essence? What is our life force? Is the idea of who we are a product of the mind, social conditioning, and the thoughts we have? Or are we spiritual

beings, both material and divine? In psychology and theories arising from the West, the ego plays a crucial role in the psyche( Greek, psukhē, which translates to breath, life, soul) It forms our self-concept and is an essential part of human cognitive function.

Many online sites offer online activities for children where they can participate, and most children jump to the opportunity to do so. They love the ability to stay fresh, be engaged and simply enjoy the time on the computer.

This is an excellent way to prepare children for school as well. Online activities for children can be a complete mind training, which means that their children participate in online activities as a learning process.

I don’t want to put anyone on blast, but I’ve seen a few people saying, erroneously, that superhero comics sell more by the numbers, that they have the biggest sales overall and (most wrong of all) that they are the best selling comics globally. And, uh...Shounen Jump called. 📞

I’m not saying this to detract the historical and global importance of B2 comics... they were once huge. They are also old, so as far as historically, yeah they have decently big numbers. They are not doing those numbers now, or anytime in the past decade.

The best selling series, ever, by a Big 2 is Spider-man, selling 650 million since 1963. You can tally up all their series together but that’s a bit unfair so let’s stick to individuals. 650 is VERY respectable.

One Piece, Japans top selling collected manga, has sold 470 million....since 1997.

But that’s collected volumes...manga magazines are really a more equitable competitor to floppies, although not exact because, in fairness, they contain several series. That said, shounen jump has sold 7.6 billion. There are several other shounen magazines in that range.

Lest people think I've become too far lost in the Talking Head weeds this past #reinvent week, it's now time for me to livetweet my use of a new AWS service that was announced this week.

You probably get my re:Quinnvent newsletter. Here's the system I built that generates it.

Now that CodeGuru supports Python, let's turn it loose on the "build" subservice. This is a @goserverless stack. The subcomponent features 8 Lambdas function fronted by 11 APIs Gateway.

Yes, let's get started with it!

It starts with the correct option selected. Good for it, bad for CodeCommit's veneer of legitimacy.

I don’t have the emotional energy right now to get into this with the detail & nuance I would like to, but I see so many lies & misconceptions being spread about myself & other outspoken survivors daily. I am speaking solely for myself here, but I wanted to clear up some things.

I am not anti porn, anti sex work or anti sex worker. Anyone who actually knows me (not just thinks they do because I’m visible online) knows this. But I feel it needs to be said. I do not see sex workers & survivors as two opposing groups, but more often than not one in the same

I have legitimate criticisms of the industry that I was forced into as a child. Many trafficking victims & consenting sex workers & those who are both are also vocal about their issues with the industry as a whole or in parts. That’s our right.

I’ve been openly grateful of EVERYONE, both individuals & groups, who has supported me because almost no one supported my family & I at all for over a decade. I’ve been helped by & also felt used by both pro sex work groups & abolitionists alike. It’s extremely nuanced.

There are so many people who see any survivor, including active sex workers, being critical about the industry or sharing our own experiences & see it as open season to call us swerfs & paint us as bigots to justify their abuse of us.

Does anyone find comfort that Donald Trump’s father had a middle name of Christ his mothers name was Mary and his uncle’s name was John. Oh and by the way the winter solstice is at 8:30 AM on 21 December RTR Reminded me today that the star of Bethlehem appeared on the 21st and

Terrible things happen in Nigeria. We've lost the present and we want to lose the future.
I just left Transcorp Hotel Abuja, after my news analysis at Arise News TV. As I stepped to the lobby of the hotel, I saw a bevy of pretty young girls in their early 20s crowded in a corner.

There were all skimpily dressed as if there were commercial sex workers. The time was 10.30pm.
One of them rushed to greet me. “Good evening sir”. She was one of my students. I recognized her clearly because she had a slight disability and I paid attention to make sure she...

followed the coursework. I was shocked. I recognized three of those hotly dressed pretty young girls as fresh graduates of my department.
What are they all coming to do at this kind of Hotel at this hour and dressed in this manner? Of course, I think I know what it is.

A Nigerian politician or man of means may have arranged them for his pleasure, and those of his friends and acquaintances. Everyday, our girls are disoriented by these politicians who have neither shame nor conscience, because they have access to power and money.

We pride ourselves that we have a large youth population and that is a huge asset. But the truth is that we have a large hardware. The software is highly corrupted. Why do we intend to organize these adolescents into the life of immorality?

1/13

Successful enterprises do not relish in the faults of competitors.

They relish in competition.

They relish in a market with multiple use cases.

Rising tides lift all ships.

I am ashamed of the ETH community today.

2/13

We fault the close mindedness of Bitcoin maxis, but then mock any project that takes a new approach and hits a snag?

If you want to mock rip off grifter scams like Tron, that’s one thing.

3/13

If you take pride in “dunking on” legitimate projects who have differently philosophies and approaches to our industry then you are now better than the foaming-at-the-mouth BTC maxis you denounce.

4/13

Worse still you forget the faults we had along this journey. The times ETH went down, the times we had forks.

We sit high and mighty on some judgmental ivory tower, when most of you have never worked on consensus problems or chains.

5/13

I do not own any SOL, but I recognize that there is room in this industry for a range of products with different use cases and different trade-offs.

This blind cultish commitment to one implementation is childish and short-sighted.

The Arhtiyas (Middlemen) of Punjab

The Arhtiyas of Punjab are political connected.

In July 2017, in a public function the Arhyiyas felicitated Amarinder Singh with the title of ‘Fakhr-e-Quam’(Pride of the Community).

Post that function, the CM had said it would be difficult to waive off the debt owed by farmers to the arhtiyas.

As many as 86% of farmer & 80% of agricultural labours are mired in debt, says a study on Indebtedness among Farmers & Agricultural Labourers in Rural Punjab.

Its authors, researchers at Punjabi University, Patiala, say over a fifth of that debt was owed to commission agents and moneylenders.

No less than 8,294 farmers took their own lives between 2000 & 2015, says a study presented last year before the Vidhan Sabha’s Committee.

6,373 agricultural labourers also killed themselves in the same period. And that was in just six of the state’s 22 districts.

The study, commissioned by the state government’s revenue department, found that 83 per cent of all these suicides were largely debt-driven.

An estimate in the year 2012-13 indicated that every Arhitya/ Middle men/ Commission agent earned on a average of 6.7 Lakh on interest payments.

Their average other income excluding commissions & MSP cuts per year is 12 Lakh/ Annum. They receive 1370 Cr in interest every year

DEMOLISHING THE FARCE OF REBEL CARDINALS

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo ➡️📌
THREAD

In 2013, the College of Cardinals gravely betrayed His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

Their excuse for their betrayal is simple. They simply think that THEY rule the Church and that the Pope is the figurehead of their club.

The ignore the divine constitution of the Church.

A pope must serve Christ, not rule over him. To hold otherwise leads to the most outrageous daily blasphemies and heresies.

1) The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “Be silent for the most part.”

What did he mean? Allow me to explain.

Thread. 👇

2) On August 29, 1952, the piano virtuoso David Tudor walked onto the stage of the barn-like Maverick Concert Hall on the outskirts of Woodstock in New York.

He sat at the piano, propped up six pages of blank sheet music, closed the keyboard lid, and clicked a stopwatch.

3) Thirty seconds passed.

The audience, a broad cross-section of the city’s classical musical community, waited for something to happen.

4) Tudor turned one of the blank pages but made no sound. For four and a half minutes, he went about doing nothing. He never played a note.

He then stood up, bowed, and walked off stage. That was all.

5) The piece was called “4’33” and it was composed by John Cage.

Its purpose wasn’t about listening to nothing. It was about listening to everything.

I’m going to tell you a story. And hold tight, because this is an emotional one.

In 2013, Canongate republished three novels that had fallen out of print: William McIlvanney’s Glasgow-set Laidlaw trilogy, first published between 1977 and 1991.

It’s hard to overstate the influence these books had had on crime writing, but he was responsible for many of the tropes we now take for granted in that genre. @Beathhigh, @valmcdermid, @cbrookmyre, @MarkBillingham, @DameDeniseMina and others all cite him as a major inspiration.

In fact, @Beathhigh tells a lovely story about coming to one of Willie’s events in the 80s, and telling him he planned to write detective fiction like Laidlaw, but set in Edinburgh. He still has his book, inscribed “Good luck with the Edinburgh Laidlaw” and signed by Willie.

McIlvanney wasn’t just revered for his writing; he was also known for his humour, his graciousness, and his charm. I was lucky enough to work with him, and attest to the fact he was a proper old-school gentleman. I mean, just look at this photo. How could you not love him?