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The 2018 Winter Olympics are upon us, but alas, I am yet again trapped and subject to the Olympic Experience that NBC is compelled to provide me. Unless they make a fundamental change this year, I am not allowed to access their "free" and wonderful coverage of all of the events via their streaming service because I am a cord cutter and I do not have a cable account id to use to login (ESPN is notorious for providing "free" access this way as well). I keep toying with the idea, but I never get over the activation energy to do it, but I would love to VPN into another country (Canada, England, etc.) to get my Olympics fix, but I don't know who provides reliable endpoints.

Does anyone have any recommendations for companies they've used, or better yet, specifically done this to get Olympics coverage? I don't see this as a long-term thing and is something I would only set up for certain events (Olympics, Rugby World Cup) as needed.

Found this comment while I was searching for NASA GOLD stuff.

Zuma!

Men Only: Inside the charity fundraiser where hostesses are put on show

Female journalist goes undercover at posh ‘men only’ London fundraiser, reports widespread groping

WPP Cuts Ties With London Charity Dinner After Groping Report

Presidents Club: Women Groped at Exclusive Charity Event Filled With Politicians, Businessmen and Media Elite

Grab 'em in the ass, grab 'em in the wherever.

---

Congressman Accused Of Harassment Defends Himself, Says He Saw Aide As A 'Soul Mate'

You know what's fun? Making regressive looter shitheads lose their entire mind by asking them to rationally and logically explain their position without trying to claim "muh feelz" as a valid argument. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them won't be able to do it and will lose their shit on the spot. The one left over will be able to but more than half the time they'll have some foundational assumption that cannot be chalked up to anything but feelz.

Intel Has a Big Problem. It Needs to Act Like It

During the six months Intel was quietly working to try to fix the vulnerabilities, Krzanich sold $24 million in company shares. Intel says the stock sale was part of a plan that had been in place before anyone there knew about Meltdown or Spectre, but the day after Krzanich’s CES speech, two U.S. senators sent letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice demanding investigations. Consumer and shareholder lawyers have filed a dozen class actions against Intel, and there are few signs the pressure will let up on Krzanich anytime soon. In a research note, an analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. called the stock sale “indefensible.”

Back in the days when phones still had cords, they had twelve buttons; ten numbers, *-star, and #-pound. Owen Benjamin was kind enough to point this out in relation to pronouncing the #MeToo hashtag. You lot being the fine connoisseurs of comedy that you are, I felt the need to share it along to you.

Wow, this Christmas season was crazy. They always are for me, but this one was particularly stressful.

My parents are divorced, so any event (Christmas, birthdays, Easter, etc) has to be done twice. Typically, for Christmas, that means having Christmas Eve at my Mom's, then Christmas day at my Dad's. This year my brother couldn't make it into town until boxing day so everything was delayed a couple days. It becomes a challenge to choose days that work for everyone and that causes me stress. Anyways, we got things mostly sorted out.

One of the days I headed over to my Dad's for our Christmas dinner, mashed potatoes in hand. Just as we are arriving, my dad is leaving. He tells us that he just got a call from 'The Home' and that they said that Gramps was on his last legs. It was time for the family to say our final goodbyes. We all head down to The Home and say goodbye. He was in a coma or something. Not conscious, but seemed to be quite peaceful. I said my goodbye, conscious of the rest of the family watching me.

I'm not really good with death. The rest of my family was pretty upset (Gramps was the patriarch of the family), but I never really feel anything. It's kind of uncomfortable because I feel like I should feel sad or something, but I felt nothing. Gramps was an old man. He was almost 100 years old and lived a good life. So, I'm there with the rest of my family who are crying and hugging and all that, feeling like I should be feeling something.

Gramps died the next day. That turned an already stressful time into an extra stressful time for me. Now, in addition to multiple Christmas dinners, I had a family pub night, prayer ceremony, funeral, reception, burial, and family skating party. Oh, and also my daughter's first birthday. Being that busy really stresses me out, as do changes to plans.

The day after Gramps dies, my wife and daughter got a stomach bug and were puking. The first night, my daughter puked in the bed 5 times. I was mentally exhausted, and now physically exhausted too. My poor wife felt horrid, so I did what I could. Mostly changing sheets and getting drinks. Just as they start feeling better, it was my turn to get the bug. It's been a while since I have puked and I had forgotten how unpleasant it was.

We had planned to have a party for my daughter's first birthday. The poor girl was sick on the day we had planned, so we rescheduled it. The day we rescheduled it to was the day I was sick, so we just ended up cancelling her birthday. (We did get her a cupcake from Crave and put a sparker in it for a mini family ceremony).

After that we did the funeral circuit, then back to work. My wife is also back at work part time now. We have each Grandma take our little girl for one day per week and I have her alone on Sundays. So far it's been going pretty well.

We've also made a change to the sleeping arrangement. My daughter has been waking up like 5 times per night to nurse. As mentioned previously, we all sleep together in one bed. We think that a big reason why she wakes up is because my wife's boob is right there. We decided to have my wife sleep in the other bedroom for a while and I sleep in the bed alone with my daughter. That way someone will be there to comfort her when she wakes, but there is no boob for her to actually feed on. Eventually, she will realize there is no reason to wake up, and we'll all have a wonderful sleep. That's the plan anyways.

I've done 3 nights alone so far. The first 2 went really well. She would wake up as normal (about 5 times), but I could just rub her back or squeeze her foot and she would go back to sleep in a couple minutes. Last night also went pretty well, but around 6:00am she wouldn't stop crying and my wife came in from the other room to take over and nurse.

I'm feeling a little tired from the night duty, but it's not too bad. It seems like a pretty good plan to me, so I hope it works out for us. Between the night duty and daddy-daughter Sundays, I can definitely feel a stronger bond between my daughter and I. It feels really good.

On the dating front, I mentioned in my last entry that I had placed that on hold for a bit. It is still on hold. I just don't have the energy for it right now. I don't think I have the time for it either, although maybe I could make things work. I need to get used to our new schedule now that my wife is back at work and reassess. My wife and I are both pretty tired from the day-to-day and because of that, our sex life is not that great. It's not quite dead bedroom levels, but it would be within spitting distance. It's not my wife's fault. I'm tired too. Most nights I just don't have the energy and I would prefer to spend an hour just sitting on the couch.

Because of the missing intimacy, I really want to start dating again. I would love to have someone that I can spend a few hours with here and there and just be an adult. No baby talk. No baby monitor. No toys strewn all over the floor. I crave the excitement that comes with someone new. That being said, I think I need to improve things between my wife and I first. She's still my best friend, and we are very much in love but since the birth of the baby, the romance part of the relationship has taken a big hit. It feels like my daughter takes everything out of me and at the end of the day, there is nothing left for my wife. I think my wife feels the same. We are just tired. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep the romance in a relationship with a baby?

All in all, the Snow family is doing pretty good. I'm really happy that Christmas is over and we are back on a normal schedule. My daughter is growing up and I'm finally feeling a strong connection with her, and aside from the sex/romance life, my wife and I are great.

-- Snow

NASA, Partners Discuss Power for Future Space Exploration

NASA and its partners will host a news conference at noon EST (9 a.m. PST) Thursday, Jan. 18, at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, to discuss a recent experiment involving a new power source that could provide the safe, efficient and plentiful energy needed for future robotic and human space exploration missions.

Audio of the news conference and presentation slides will stream live on NASA’s website.

Representatives from NASA, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Los Alamos National Laboratory and Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) will discuss and take questions on the Kilopower project, which aims to demonstrate space fission power systems technology that has the potential to enable future crewed surface missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Testing began in November 2017 and is expected to continue through March.

Previously: NASA's Kilopower Project Testing a Nuclear Stirling Engine

In rural China, calling someone a 'witch' has serious social consequences

Population structured by witchcraft beliefs (DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0271-6) (DX)

Anthropologists have long argued that fear of victimization through witchcraft accusations promotes cooperation in small-scale societies. Others have argued that witchcraft beliefs undermine trust and therefore reduce social cohesion. However, there are very few, if any, quantified empirical examples demonstrating how witchcraft labels can structure cooperation in real human communities. Here we show a case from a farming community in China where people labelled zhu were thought capable of supernatural activity, particularly poisoning food. The label was usually applied to adult women heads of household and often inherited down the female line. We found that those in zhu households were less likely to give or receive gifts or farm help to or from non-zhu households; nor did they have sexual partnerships or children with those in non-zhu households. However, those in zhu households did preferentially help and reproduce with each other. Although the tag is common knowledge to other villagers and used in cooperative and reproductive partner choice, we found no evidence that this assortment was based on cooperativeness or quality. We favour the explanation that stigmatization originally arose as a mechanism to harm female competitors. Once established, fear that the trait is transmissible may help explain the persistence of this deep-rooted cultural belief.

How 'wi-fi' connects human brains and explains why people have 'gut feelings'

vs.

What Is A Coffee Enema? Goop Is Facing Backlash For Linking To This Potentially Dangerous Cleanse