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Herpetology's #MeToo Moment
Congrats France& Russia!🇫🇷🇷🇺
Congratulations to France, who played extraordinary soccer, on winning the 2018 World Cup. Additionally, congratulations to President Putin and Russia for putting on a truly great World Cup Tournament -- one of the best ever! breitbart.com/sports/2018/07/15/party-begins-as-delirious-french-revel-in-world-cup-victory
Looking forward to meeting with President Putin in Helsinki tomorrow! Unfortunately, no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow -- always so much fun -- as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough -- that I should have gotten Saint Petersburg in addition! Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people and all the Dems know how to do is RESIST & OBSTRUCT! This is why there is such HATRED & DISSENSION in our Country -- but at some point, I will heal it! 💉😷💉
Joint Press Conference from Helsinki, Finland: pscp.tv/w/bhy5sDFvTlFs…
New Grow Light in Cannada
New Grow Light Technology Being Tested in Canada
A new, broad-spectrum light that mimics sunlight more closely than others is being tested in Canada, the Edmonton Journal reports. The light is manufactured by Edmonton-based G2V Optics and was originally designed to test solar cells at the University of Alberta.
Michael Taschuk, the developer of the light, previously managed a team of researchers at the University of Alberta. The lights have been in use at Endless Sky Canna Corp in British Columbia, Canada.
Endless Sky’s CEO Travis George reports that the lights are twice as effective as other grow lights the company has used.
Beginning to wonder about Ebay
The potential for scamming is reasonably high with any online market. I've liked Ebay for years now, because it usually enables me to beat competitors prices with a nice margin.
Recently, my OBD2 scanner has gone AWOL. The thing is pretty old, and pretty basic, it just gets the codes, and leaves you to figure out what they mean. So, it's AWOL. I asked my brainy son about a good replacement. Among his recommendations was the Autel MaxiLink ML629. It's not a super brainy device, but it does a little more than just read the codes. ABS brake alarms, airbag alarms, and transmission codes, as well as some kind of database to let you know what the codes mean.
I priced the thing as high as $160, Amazon had it for $129, and Ebay gave me about five hits for $109, with several other priced higher.
I didn't buy immediately. I just sat on the information for a few days. Went back to Ebay yesterday, and found that the particular sale that I "watched" had ended. So, do a search for the same item, and I'm faced with a wall of $114 sales.
Now, that price is obviously not "bad", but it seems suspicious that less than a week ago, there were five hits for $109, but now, the lowest "buy it now" price is $114.
Is Ebay running some kind of algorithm (like Amazon is purported to do) that establishes what I might be willing to pay, then gives me that price? It just seems odd, and oddities tend to catch my attention.
Possibly, they are trying to pressure me to buy now, rather than wait a few more days? "Oh, geez, it's gone up 5 dollar in four days, what will it be in five or ten more days?"
All of that, plus, I have an email in my inbox. "Your Ebay rock star report". WTF? Common dumbass television advertising tactics? Maybe that email is punishment for blocking advertising and trackers.
Is anyone else having weird and/or creepy experiences with Ebay? Are they beginning to go downhill?
An additional bit of weirdness:
In a different browser, using a different proxy, I did another search for the same item. There is a similar wall of offers for $114, but I'm also seeing others priced as high as $210, $199, $151, and $147. I'm definitely NOT seeing precisely the same results when using different browsers, or, more accurately, when I'm more anonymous.
I feel like I'm being gamed. Maybe not as badly as Amazon does, but the feeling is still there.
NASA Training 17-Year-Old Girl to DIE ON MARS
HOME / INSPIRING
NASA Is Training This 17-Year-Old Girl to Become One of the First Humans on Mars
Better than dying on the Space Shuttle, I suppose.
Did not know that! Sock city exists!
A guy i know makes socks geared towards bicyclers (geared! get it?). His business is Sneaky Socks.
He was telling us about making socks (more interesting than you'd think) and he says it's hard to produce socks like China at their price because they have ENTIRE CITIES based on making things for your body:
Sock city: an entire city based on the production (and support) of socks.
They also have entire cities doing sweaters, shirts, pants, etc.
Imagine trying to compete with that.
He also says that they use cheap wool and nylon and the fibers are run between ropes drenched with kerosene in order to keep the 'fuzzing' down: better socks are made with better fibers and this is not needed.
It was, really, more interesting than i thought.
Two quick searches led me to these:
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/business/worldbusiness/in-roaring-china-sweaters-are-west-of-socks-city.html/
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/sep/09/sock-city-decline-china-economy
Ask Soylent: any reason NOT to ditch NATO?
This is a story. And I made it into a Sub. But I'm putting it in my journal too. Due to the very sad situation with OBSTRUCTIONIST Editors blocking my Subs. Enjoy!!!
"In an early morning tweet Tuesday, President Trump wrote: 'Getting ready to leave for Europe. First meeting - NATO. The U.S. is spending many times more than any other country in order to protect them. Not fair to the U.S. taxpayer. On top of that we lose $151 Billion on Trade with the European Union. Charge us big Tariffs (& Barriers)!'
And in another tweet President Trump wrote: 'NATO countries must pay MORE, the United States must pay LESS. Very Unfair!'
................
NATO was formed to defend against the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. But the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact died in 1991 – and NATO’s original mission died then as well. Soviet tanks are no longer primed to head into Europe to conquer our NATO partners. NATO is now a world-class military alliance looking for a mission." foxnews.com/opinion/2018/07/10/trump-is-right-nato-is-obsolete-and-hes-delivering-that-message-loud-and-clear.html
"In a new assessment of the NATO spending and burden-sharing issues, the Center for Strategic and International Studies called Trump's language 'uniquely divisive' and said NATO members' contributions should be measured by more than simple budget numbers. The think tank was referring to the pledge at NATO's 2014 summit meeting that members would 'aim to move toward' spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense by 2024. By its count, only four of NATO's 29 member countries met the 2 percent goal in 2017. They were the U.S., Greece, Britain and Estonia." foxnews.com/us/2018/07/10/trumps-attacks-on-nato-raise-questions-about-its-future.html
Thank you, Estonia! We love Estonia. But unfortunately, very small Country. By the way here's the link to the Report. Graph 3 has the percentage of GDP. USA has the biggest percentage BY FAR. And the biggest GDP. So unfair! nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2018_07/20180709_180710-pr2018-91-en.pdf
Puerto rico no go
With the USgov seemingly unwilling to aid Puerto Rico, wouldn't it be something for Putin to step in and say Russia will send aid.
I'd bet you'd see a US 180° turn.
And Putin might then win the Nobel peace prize? :) Yeah, right.
Is SoylentNews dieing?
Great story about Judge Brett, I made a tweet to it, no problem. 2nd tweet, big problems. Because the Website told me "404 File Not Found." I didn't say, find me the 404 File. I was trying to tweet. And it kept telling me that. Then my tweet went through -- but it went through twice! Making me look very foolish. And now I'm trying to write in my journal. And it looks so different, it looks very special. Like Arik's tweets.
