The scrutiny of DEI has begun:
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Really want the rain cloud icon!
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Where’s William Proxmire when you need him:
https://twitter.com/JetPhotos/status/1737423095013781662
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Due to my own scatological sense of humor, I would prefer a steaming pile of bovine excrement icon. It would have near-universal utility online nowadays. The difference compared to the nimbus cloud transcends aesthetics. Think of the near-future technical possibilities: close encounters of the olfactory kind. Just imagine some future time where a chip in one’s computer, laptop, tablet or phone can suffuse its surroundings with the essence of a “cow chip” (we can’t know what a female is anymore, so some poetical license is surely permissible for purposes here) deposited in the paddock by a bull…
As, for the moment, the notion remains vaporware, I’m wondering whether it might (ironically) be implemented in hardware, software, or, indeed, an entirely new medium. Perhaps f-AI? (‘fartificial’ intelligence)?
[Sorry for the flight of ideas. The Colorado supreme court (sic) has punctuated with a cluster of exclamation points the sentence observing the incontrovertible fact that “The (dis)united States is a banana republic”!!! Given this, some escape in the form of humor/deflection is, I find, a safer alternative than the violence which may well be the intent of this un-American, purely political, lawless and inflammatory ruling. To dismiss it as a joke is to vastly understate its corrosive evil.]
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I don’t find the two icons either/or, or mutually exclusive. The raincloud is for ‘sad, depressing, demoralising’. Steaming bovid muck is for ‘stinks on ice!’
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From the comments section:
Might have been her car… so she “stole” it back!
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The Economist Double Issue
British Edition
U.S. Edition
More at VDARE.com, “War On Christmas In THE ECONOMIST: Once Again, The ‘Christmas Double Issue’ Is A ‘Holiday Double Issue’ In The US”.
Happy “Holiday”.
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British “science fiction author” Charles Stross takes to the pages of “science magazine” Scientific American to denounce “tech billionaires” to want to “make science fiction … real”.
Billionaires who grew up reading science-fiction classics published 30 to 50 years ago are affecting our life today in almost too many ways to list: Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Jeff Bezos prefers 1970s plans for giant orbital habitats. Peter Thiel is funding research into artificial intelligence, life extension and “seasteading.” Mark Zuckerberg has blown $10 billion trying to create the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash. And Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has published a “techno-optimist manifesto” promoting a bizarre accelerationist philosophy that calls for an unregulated, solely capitalist future of pure technological chaos.
These men collectively have more than half a trillion dollars to spend on their quest to realize inventions culled from the science fiction and fantasy stories that they read in their teens. But this is tremendously bad news because the past century’s science fiction and fantasy works widely come loaded with dangerous assumptions.
SF is a profoundly ideological genre—it’s about much more than new gadgets or inventions. Canadian science-fiction novelist and futurist Karl Schroeder has told me that “every technology comes with an implied political agenda.” And the tech plutocracy seems intent on imposing its agenda on our planet’s eight billion inhabitants.
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Science fiction, therefore, does not develop in accordance with the scientific method. It develops by popular entertainers trying to attract a bigger audience by pandering to them. The audience today includes billionaires who read science fiction in their childhood and who appear unaware of the ideological underpinnings of their youthful entertainment: elitism, “scientific” racism, eugenics, fascism and a blithe belief today in technology as the solution to societal problems.
Scientific American (which has been owned by German publishers since 1986) has declared itself firmly in the decelerationist camp. I posted earlier here on 2023-10-17 about Marc Andreessen’s “techno-optimist manifesto” which Stross sees as “promoting a bizarre accelerationist philosophy”. Andreessen wrote “Our enemy is anti-merit, anti-ambition, anti-striving, anti-achievement, anti-greatness. … Our enemy is bureaucracy, vetocracy, gerontocracy, blind deference to tradition.” Our enemy is Charles Stross and Scientific American.
Update: (2023-12-25 13:30 UTC)
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But the angel atop the tree is Donald Trump!
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Mentour Pilot says same.
The contract anticipates the winner will buy used 4-engine airliners. The mere fact that the actual winner will have to buy 747s means Boeing will enjoy some no risk profit.
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This is convoluted enough that I wouldn’t be shocked if it turns out to eventually be “Made in China” (Y-20) or “Made in Ukraine” (AN-225), or -gasp- “Made in Russia” (IL-96)! As well, there must be a number of “lightly-used” A-380’s around. I wonder what requirement for future replacement parts are included in these contracts.
When a commercial aircraft line is shut down, the manufacturer must have some obligations when it comes to existing users for replacement parts for aircraft with foreseeable life spans of up to, say, 30 years. A fair amount of maintenance of such aircraft demands replacement of certain parts which have exceeded their design lifespan.
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Deccelerando!
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