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I love the way stuff like this online just sort of gravitates to me. In this case it was a mere two clicks off of a current Drudge Report headline.

The day they levitated the pentagon.

the authorities finally agreed to allow the Pentagon to be elevated three feet in the air, down from the 300 feet that organizers had initially requested — but three feet is not nothing when you’re talking about the largest office building in the world!

[B]y chanting ancient Aramaic exorcism rites while standing in a circle around the building, they could get it to rise into the air, turn orange and vibrate until all evil emissions had fled. The war would end forthwith.

The cool thing is this is the time of year my family usually breaks out the Peter, Paul, and Mary music, and Peter Paul and Mary were there, although it doesn't say if they participated in the levitation attempt.

Bonus link to a great PPM song I hope my kids learn.

Reuters reports:

Top gold consumer China launched a yuan-denominated gold benchmark on Tuesday, in an ambitious move to exert more control over pricing of the metal and influence in the global bullion market.

The benchmark is a culmination of efforts by China over the last few years to reform its domestic gold market, attempting to gain a bigger say in the bullion industry, long dominated by London where the global spot benchmark price is set.

As the world's top producer, importer and consumer of gold, China has baulked at depending on a dollar price in international transactions, and believes its market weight should entitle it to set the price of gold.

ZeroHedge continues:

The mechanics of the Shanghai fix are comparable to those of London: the benchmark price will be set twice a day based on a few minutes of trading in each session. The London benchmark, quoted in dollars per ounce, is set via a twice-daily auction on an electronic platform with 12 participants.

The 18 trading members in the yuan price-setting process includes China's big four state-owned banks, foreign banks Standard Chartered and ANZ, the world's top jewelry retailer Chow Tai Fook and two of China's top gold miners.

More than a few times now with a reputable agency, I've been brought in for face-to-face quick interviews, only to hear that I didn't get the job. Okay. But I'm told by the recruiter that no one else has gotten it either, and then a day or two later the hiring company ends up posting the job on LinkedIn or elsewhere. But since I've been introduced by the agency the company can't hire me for some time without paying them, so I'm out of the running. Why aren't these companies submitting online first instead of going the agency route?

When surrounded by a majority of people that act irrational, lack imagination and are content with sitting in a mental pool of mud. One can have the viewpoint that It's up to everyone what they want to be, but when these people are in numbers and in various positions to mess up things repeatedly, mostly because their own incapability, there's consequences. So what is an efficient way to handle this quite universal phenomena? So they are marginalized in ones own life but still available in other aspects. These people will however always be in majority because that is how probability distribution works.

Ignorance is a bliss but when the mental sharpness will see through the monkey business consistently, one has to figure out something else.

The first copy of Random Scribblings came about a week ago, and I was happy that there only needed to be some very minor changes to some of the graphics, and the cover needed to be completely redone. They shipped the corrected copy Monday, so I'll probably get it next Monday.
        I'm releasing it on June nineteenth, and having a book release party at George Ranks from noon to two. I'll have copies of books for sale, including the new one that won't be in bookstores until late July at the earliest.
        I'm also raffling off a hardcover copy of Yesterday's Tomorrows. No purchase is necessary but food and drink will be available. I may raffle off a copy of the new book as well.
        So if you're in Springfield Sunday the nineteenth, drop by and say "hi". You may get a free book out of it!

Could we consider increasing the frequency of the polls? The April Fools' Day one is pretty dated now. Once a week would be pretty groovy.

I've got a Who is Going to Buy Yahoo!? story in the queue, but it will be pretty worthless in a few days, as the current bidding deadline is Monday the 18th. The timing is a detail I should have included in the story, so hopefully someday we'll get an edit-submission option for logged in users (as requested on the Rehash page).

As reported by CBS Local:

“What I also know, because I handle a lot of classified information, is that there are — there’s classified, and then there’s classified,” Obama told Fox News. “There’s stuff that is really top-secret, top-secret, and there’s stuff that is being presented to the president or the secretary of state, that you might not want on the transom, or going out over the wire, but is basically stuff that you could get in open-source.”

As written on a Reuters blog by Peter Van Buren last year:

Employees at the highest levels of access are expected to apply the highest levels of judgment, based on the standards in Executive Order 13526. The government’s basic nondisclosure agreement makes clear the rule is “marked or unmarked classified information.”

In addition, the use of retroactive classification has been tested and approved by the courts, and employees are regularly held accountable for releasing information that was unclassified when they released it, but classified retroactively.

Back on the Fox via CBS story:

“There isn’t a president who’s taken more terrorists off the field than me, over the last seven-and-a-half years,” Obama explained to Fox News. “I’m the guy who calls the families, or meets with them, or hugs them, or tries to comfort a mom, or a dad, or a husband, or a kid, after a terrorist attack. So let’s be very clear about how much I prioritize this: this is my number one job.”

I glanced at yet another smartphone article. The specs table lists support for up to 200 GB of expandable storage for the Samsung Galaxy S7, and 2 TB for the HTC 10 and LG G5. 2 TB SD cards don't exist yet.

2 TB (actually 2 TiB) has been the theoretical maximum capacity for the SD standard for some years now. Although there was an update to the standard recently, it only specified larger block sizes and faster speeds, not capacities greater than 2 TiB. Newer SD cards could hit the limit soon... think 3D QLC (4 bits per cell) NAND, or just the 3D TLC which will become ubiquitous in SSDs soon. Currently, the largest SD card is 512 GB, and the largest MicroSD card is 200 GB. A Falcon 9 Heavy full of 512 GB SD cards would make for some fast data transmission.

All three of the smartphones I mentioned come with a 2560x1440 screen and 4 GB of RAM. Samsung could be the first manufacturer to bump that to 6 GB as soon as next year. With unnecessary specs like these, it's inevitable that they will market smartphones as VR inserts or desktop replacements.

There’s a loud corner of Reddit where millennials look to get rich or die tryin’

“Y-O-F**KING-LO,” the teen wrote, flashing his trading statement. “900 to 55K in 12 days!”

On Reddit, he’s known as “World Chaos,” a Florida high schooler who earlier this year multiplied his money by betting against the S&P 500. His real name is Jeffrey Rozanski, and the 18-year-old’s appetite for risk would make many seasoned market players facepalm.

In one corner of the Internet, though, praise rained down. “You magnificent bastard,” read one reply. “Sailing away on your yacht while the rest of us f**kers who went long are looking for the nearest window.”

That was peak “WallStreetBets,” the Reddit forum where “YOLO” is the war cry, Martin Shkreli is a role model, and irreverent traders trawl for tickets to quick wealth. It has become what one member calls “the beating heart of millennial day traders.”

“It’s tasteless, hilarious and subversive,” said Erik Johnson, a 28-year-old manufacturing worker and forum regular from Boston. “And you definitely need to have a thick skin to partake.”

Why Facebook is a religion. It integrates with your society in many ways, like a power web you can't really shake off (ingrained). There's requirement for believers to logon and confess and be shamed for any imperfection so they can feel bad (confession and shame). Any non-believers will be seen as odd or shunned (obligatory). Money is demanded in various way of which spam is one (offertory). Priests make arbitrary decisions and keep books on you (herd masters and registration). You have to be a repeat customer to be in the loop (presence enforcement). Etc..

Modern population control enforced by social circles and HR.