Mildly Interesting

The Capillary Cup is a zero-gravity cup designed by NASA astronaut Donald Pettit on the International Space Station. The product is an open drinking cup designed to be used in a microgravity environment, developed from Pettit’s desire to drink water without a bag and straw in outer space.

Happens every leap year on Groundhog Day, I suppose. Kinda neat.

At great looking infographic that provides interesting facts about silencers - Devices that suppress the blast created when a gun is discharged.

Which, apparently, include Icelandic fantasy shows.

An infographic design which shows the country flags from around the world that have been in continuous use for the longest amount of time along with the year they started being used to represent their nation.

The term Generation X has been used at various times to describe alienated youth. In the early 1950s, Hungarian photographer Robert Capa first used Generation X as the title for a photo-essay about young men and women growing up immediately following World War II. The term first appeared in print in a December 1952 issue of Holiday magazine announcing their upcoming publication of Capa's photo-essay.[7] From 1976 to 1981, English musician Billy Idol used the moniker as the name for his punk rock band.[8] Idol had attributed the name of his band to the book Generation X, a 1964 book on British popular youth culture written by journalists Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett[9][10]—a copy of which had been owned by Idol's mother.[11] These uses of the term appear to have no connection to Robert Capa's photo-essay.[7]

The term acquired a modern application after the release of Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, a 1991 novel written by Canadian author Douglas Coupland; however, the definition used there is "born in the late 1950s and 1960s", which is about ten years earlier than definitions that came later.[12][13][9][14] In 1987, Coupland had written a piece in Vancouver Magazine titled "Generation X" which was "the seed of what went on to become the book".[15][16] Coupland referenced Billy Idol's band Generation X in the 1987 article and again in 1989 in Vista magazine.[17] In the book proposal for his novel, Coupland writes that Generation X is "taken from the name of Billy Idol’s long-defunct punk band of the late 1970s".[18] However, in 1995 Coupland denied the term's connection to the band, stating that:

The book's title came not from Billy Idol's band, as many supposed, but from the final chapter of a funny sociological book on American class structure titled Class, by Paul Fussell. In his final chapter, Fussell named an 'X' category of people who wanted to hop off the merry-go-round of status, money, and social climbing that so often frames modern existence.[19][15]

Author William Strauss noted that around the time Coupland's 1991 novel was published the symbol "X" was prominent in popular culture, as the film Malcolm X was released in 1992, and that the name "Generation X" ended up sticking. The "X" refers to an unknown variable or to a desire not to be defined.[20][21][14] Strauss's coauthor Neil Howe noted the delay in naming this demographic cohort saying, "Over 30 years after their birthday, they didn't have a name. I think that's germane." Previously, the cohort had been referred to as Post-Boomers, Baby Busters (which refers to the drop in birth rates following the baby boom in the western world, particularly in the U.S.[where?]),[22] New Lost Generation, latchkey kids, MTV Generation, and the 13th Generation (the 13th generation since American independence).[8][20][17][23][24]

All pictures in the listing seem to be from before the ship's "Margaritaville" makeover, but it's definitely the same boat. The rest of that class has been retired and sent to the breakers.

In 2023, it was featured in YouTuber Bright Sun Travels cruise video "North America's Worst Cruise Ship." The ship, named the "Margaritaville At Sea Paradise" (at the time of that review), had been purchased second hand and operated by a company called Margaritaville At Sea Cruises (formerly Celebration Cruiseline). All of the Margaritaville and Jimmy Buffett branding was a licensing deal the company made with Buffett's food service and vacations empire.

The ship was originally launched in 1991 as the Costa Classica for the Costa Cruises company of Italy (the same one of the Costa Concordia disaster infamy).

So, who wants to buy a cruise ship? Not gonna lie to you all... she's got some problems, not least of which is the Jimmy Buffett theming.

https://incendar.com/baby_boomer_deathclock.php

A kumquat with the text "#1" stamped on it: found this way in the bag.

rsync.net Warrant Canary

Existing and proposed laws, especially as relate to the US Patriot Act, etc., provide for secret warrants, searches and seizures of data, such as library records.

Some such laws provide for criminal penalties for revealing the warrant, search or seizure, disallowing the disclosure of events that would materially affect the users of a service such as rsync.net.

rsync.net and its principals and employees will in fact comply with such warrants and their provisions for secrecy.

rsync.net will also make available, weekly, a "warrant canary" in the form of a cryptographically signed message containing the following:

• a declaration that, up to that point, no warrants have been served, nor have any searches or seizures taken place

• a cut and paste headline from a major news source, establishing date

Special note should be taken if these messages ever cease being updated, or are removed from this page.

The current message is here:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256

2024-01-08

No warrants have ever been served to rsync.net, or rsync.net principals or employees. No searches or seizures of any kind have ever been performed on rsync.net assets, including:

ALL San Diego locations ALL Denver locations ALL Zurich locations ALL Hong Kong locations ALL Fremont locations

( from http://www.reuters.com )

Biden administration to unveil contractor rule set to upend gig economy

Moon lander problem threatens mission after Vulcan rocket makes successful debut

Beckenbauer revolutionised game and became icon of German sporting success)

Spurs 115, Cavaliers 117 Hawks 110, Magic 117

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.18 (FreeBSD)

iEYEAREIAAYFAmWceF8ACgkQBzwoLX1vgGyjAgCffCEAilX5M6WY4SnxLJOF5J5f rSYAn14WCiZKbj+fKaqEpj4ThDWEOysB =256H -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

https://www.rsync.net/resources/pubkey.txt

Notes:

This scheme is not infallible. Although signing the declaration makes it impossible for a third party to produce arbitrary declarations, it does not prevent them from using force to coerce rsync.net to produce false declarations. The news clip in the signed message serves to demonstrate that that update could not have been created prior to that date. It shows that a series of these updates were not created in advance and posted on this page.