On LinkedIn, I saw a recruitment advert for a Technical Writer position. It included the following:
Modeling experience? That’s a new one on me.
Category Archives: Seen
Windows Baddies
From an article at the Register about Tim Cook and Apple‘s interactions with the media, comes this fascinating tidbit:
Apple’s control isn’t merely felt on its own TV platform, but also how it handles product placement. Kit provided to studios always comes with strings attached, according to Rian Johnson, who directed Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Knives Out.
Fictional bad guys, can’t, for example, use iPhones and MacBooks. During the run of espionage thriller 24, it became immediately apparent who was the antagonist, based on their computer of choice. If they used Windows, they were suspect.
Now you know. If they’re using Windows, they are likely to be baddies!
Youi can read the whole article here.
Dear Haaretz
Do you think you might be able to find a native English speaker somewhere in your establishment? If so, I suggest you go and get them right now and ask them to sort out this rubbish (taken from your landing page).
Analyses? Really?
After all, there is a school of thought which says if you cannot be bothered about accuracy in general, why should anyone trust your news reporting? And there’s another school of thought which says your subscribers, and yes that includes me, deserve better.
Rocket Man
This morning’s targeted killing of Islamic Jihad‘s loose cannon, Baha Abu al-Ata, generated not only the inevitable rocket barrage response, but a flurry of social media funnies.
One wit shared a mock announcement from Tel Aviv Council that the public bomb shelters would be open, with a 20 shekel charge for the first hour, then 7 shekels for every further 15 minutes…
Another asked that since schools and businesses were already closed, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have the next election today?
And then the Times of Israel delivered this journalistic jape:
Sometimes, you just have to laugh!
Welcome to Tel Aviv
Judging by the caption to this picture, either the Independent or the Press Association are somewhat bad at Israeli geography.
Not University Challenge. Your starter for ten…
Could it be intentional? Surely nobody’s that daft.
You have to laugh
Laughter is the best medicine.
I suppose if you have been brought up to believe that it is fair, reasonable, and right that people’s life and liberty should be sacrificed solely in the interests of demonizing the Jewish State, it’s no great leap to sacrifice the chance to visit your grandmother to keep the fires of hate burning. What a great example of citizenship that is!
Oh, and in case you missed it, the Obama administration banned an Israeli MK from entering the USA in 2012 for his extremist views. Sauce for the goose… Pretty rich of those USA parliamentarians to cry wolf now.
Who ran from Iran?
The cartoon in today’s Haaretz made me smile:
The Hebrew says “Who is the commander?”
Quite.
It didn’t take much to work out that Iranian activity in the Straits of Hormuz would be directed towards British interests. It’s unclear if the Royal Navy has the capacity to protect all such interest, but my guess is that it’s not possible. Smaller, faster attack boats and helicopters can run rings round frigates and the like. So, Britain is stuck. Banning its own ships won’t go down well. (Though insurers may effectively bring about that result.) A military response is unlikely. Either Britain caves – a diplomatic disaster – or it weighs in with its own sanctions and gets ready for the long haul.
Or a war breaks out between Iran and the US. And maybe with the Europeans. I hope not.
On a related point, I do remember Obama or Kerry hectoring Israel about what would happen if Iran broke its pledges under the nuclear deal. Why, the sanctions would snap back. Israel had nothing to worry about.
Well, Iran broke its pledges and the sanctions by the Europeans are unsnapped. So, if Israel were relying on the Europeans to keep them safe, they would be wasting their time. In this regard, Bibi is right.
About that war on drugs…
From the Times (behind a paywall):
“At nearly 22 [drug-related] deaths per 100,000 people, Scotland’s death toll has overtaken the United States and is now three times the UK average.”
According to the article:
“A deadly cocktail of opioids and “street valium” is driving drug deaths in Scotland, which now has the highest mortality rate in the developed world.”
Scotland, you have a problem.
Parking Masterclass Returns
As part of the celebration of Ten Years After, I saw this and had to post it. Think of it as a variant of parking masterclass. This is somebody practicing their (bad) parking, showing you how to do it by mounting the pavement, even when it’s not necessary. Way to go!
I see no parking space…This pavement mounting is so much better…
Cannabis
This falls under the ‘You learn something new everyday‘ category.
From ‘Can Cannabis Fix the Opiod Crisis?‘ in the July 2019 issue of Scientific American:
“…These polarized views can, in part, be explained by the drug’s complexity: cannabis is not a single substance, but rather a mixture of more than 500 individual chemicals whose proportions vary from one plant strain to another.”
That complexity (and the fact that most cannabis is prepared for the illegal market) is also one reason why it has proven difficult to draw clear research conclusions about whether cannabis is good for you or bad for you.
Fascinating.