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So, I'm driving along, and none of the stations are coming in well. I'm scanning the FM spectrum, looking for SOMETHING that isn't retarded. Finally, something came in clear - some asshole spouting his opinion about something. That something was COVID19. I listen a few seconds. Hmmmm - interesting.

The per capita COVID fatality rate is lower in all of those states that kept their economies going, than in any of those states that simply shut down for COVID.

Hmmm - wonder if that's true? And, who is that asshole? Listen awhile longer - hell, it's Limbaugh.

So, I'm still wondering if it's true. So, right now, after beginning my journal entry, I'll try to find numbers . . .

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/

Hmmmm - something's not right. There are supposed to be eight states that did not shut down. There are 15 states with lower fatality rates than Arkansas, which did not shut down. Soooooo - the statement that every state that did NOT shut down has a lower death rate than any state that did shut down cannot be true.

Which states did NOT shut down again?

April 3 - not quite what we're looking for here. https://www.travelbinger.com/13-u-s-states-have-not-ordered-a-lockdown-yet-take-a-look/

April 17, but it seems to reference much the same as Limbaugh was pontificating over.
https://www.lendio.com/blog/coronavirus/states-lockdown/

However, 8 states (Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Utah, and Wyoming) still do not have any lockdowns or stay-at-home orders.

Compare that list of 8 to the table found in the first link - and Rush is full of shit. Oh well. There's a reason I never liked listening to him . . . Only on those rather rare occassions when the AM/FM couldn't find anything except Rush Limbaugh, did I ever listen to the old fool.

The chart does seem to indicate that all of those 8 states have had low mortality rates, compared with New England and Great Lakes states. Then, there's Louisiana, ranking right below the District of Columbia.

Well, all I can say is, "Fuck you, Rush!" The fool had me hoping that something all scientifical-like was going to prove all the fuss to be wasted.

https://soylentnews.org/politics/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=38126&page=1&cid=1011274#commentwrap

Joint Statement from U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp, Jr. Regarding the Noose Found in NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace’s Garage at Talladega Superspeedway

“On Monday, fifteen FBI special agents conducted numerous interviews regarding the situation at Talladega Superspeedway. After a thorough review of the facts and evidence surrounding this event, we have concluded that no federal crime was committed.

The FBI learned that garage number 4, where the noose was found, was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week. The investigation also revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the noose found in garage number 4 was in that garage as early as October 2019. Although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned to garage number 4 last week.

The decision not to pursue federal charges is proper after reviewing all available facts and all applicable federal laws. We offer our thanks to NASCAR, Mr. Wallace, and everyone who cooperated with this investigation.”

FBI: Noose found in Bubba Wallace's garage had been there since at least October 2019

The "noose" was a pull rope for the garage door, seen in video footage from long before Bubba Wallace was assigned the garage stall.

Bubba Wallace did not see a noose, but was working with what he was told, probably by NASCAR's President.

NASCAR vows to continue investigation into noose at Bubba Wallace's Talladega garage

Presumably, NASCAR will conclude that while the noose knot is an optimum shape for pulling open garage doors, it is not the right climate for noose knots and we need to tie better.

Bubba Wallace responds to FBI findings: 'Whether tied in 2019, or whatever, it was a noose'

Article shows an image of the offending knot. Bubba vows to stay outraged.

I think the only way this story stays alive is if it can be proven that the noose knot to garage door ratio was low and that Bubba was not randomly assigned to garage #4.

Previously: Fake Noose

I wanted a small, quiet, fanless machine to act as a router (firewall) between my two LANs in my house, something that I could leave on all the time, and something that could also act as a printer server and run my VPN client.

I saw some very cool things, including a quad-core Jetway system with 10 Gbit LAN ports! However, that was a little out of my price range just now, and I couldn't think of what to do with all the LAN ports.

I bought a Mini PC from a company called InsideTech, It's got an intel Celeron N3160 (1.6GHz) quad core CPU, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 2 HDMI ports, 2 LAN ports (intel), 6 USB ports and WiFi (intel). It cost a shade under £250 with a spare HDMI cable and postage. The case is aluminium with some small fins on the top. It came with Ubuntu on it, which I promptly replaced with slackware64-current downloaded yesterday, kernel 5.4.47. I've got Arno's IP tables on it and the multilib patches. For now, I've got my WAP plugged into it and it's routing. My old Phenom II X6 is now retired from routing duties.

Since I got the printer stuff working, I thought I'd install it on this new machine and see if I can let CUPS through the firewall so that all the machines in the house (including the Windows ones) can print over WiFi. That's for another day.

BLM and Defund the Police have been growing in popularity lately. Calls to abolish or defund police abound. You might think saying "Black Lives Matter" is a good thing. It's not. First, let's talk about what BLM wants: Your money. Black lives matter is about obtaining reparations for black people, i.e. free handouts to black people. Black lives matter is a racist movement. Instead, we should deal with police brutality. But defunding police isn't the answer. Simply remove qualified and sovereign immunity so that police and state governments can be held accountable for their actions.

Or, just watch the world burn. Maybe now is a good time to buy precious metals.

EDIT: I am not going to post here anymore. This site has turned into a shithole.

Nvidia Engineer's Vulkan Driver For Raspberry Pi Runs Quake III Over 100 FPS at 720p

Earlier this year, the Raspberry Pi Foundation hooked up with Igalia to start development on an open-sourced Vulkan graphics driver for the Raspberry Pi. However, Martin Thomas, an engineer at Nvidia, beat them to the punch.

Thomas announced yesterday via his personal Twitter that his RPi-VK-Driver is ready for primetime. The talented engineer had been working on the Vulkan driver in his spare time for more than two years.

Technically, Thomas' iteration isn't a Vulkan driver per se because it doesn't comply with the official standards established by The Khronos Group. Nonetheless, the resourceful developer produced a driver that adheres to the Vulkan parameters as much as possible, and as close as the hardware would permit it. There's just one limitation with the RPi-VK-Driver though. Unlike the official Vulkan driver that's still in the works, Thomas' version is only compatible with the Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU that's found inside the Raspberry Pi 1, 2, 3 and Zero devices.

Maybe 3B+ will briefly have better performance than 4B in some games and benchmarks.

Also at Phoronix.

ODROID-H2+ An x86 Board to Challenge Raspberry Pi? (cache)

• Intel Celeron J4115 Gemini Lake quad core CPU 1.8 GHz, turbo to 2.3 GHz.
• Intel UHD Graphics 600 up to 700 MHz
• Dual-channel SO-DIMM Memory DDR4-PC19200 (2400MT/s) supporting up to 32GB RAM
• M.2 PCIe 2.0 x4 slot for one NVMe storage, 2x SATA 3.0 ports, eMMC flash support
• HDMI 2.0 up to 4K (4096×2160) @ 60 Hz
• DisplayPort 1.2 up to 4K (4096×2160) @ 60 Hz
• Dual 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45) via RTL8125B chipset
• 24-pin header with I2C, UART (3.3V), USB2.0 and HDMI CEC signals
• 14V to 20V DC power input

ODROID-H2+ $119
ODROID-H2 $111

The change that stands out is the upgrade from 2x 1GbE to 2x 2.5GbE.

I've found that there's a certain genre of games that I have seen very little of and that is funny games. By that, I mean, games that are imminently playable and just fun to play, but also are really funny. Whether that's the storyline or just the game play in general.

To whit, I post what I believe is the most playable while also being the most funny game I've played.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard's_Tale_(2004_video_game)
Third-person RPG game, standard hack and slash kinds of things, but with a number of funny cut-scenes and good story. Also, apparently Carry Elwes "served as screenwriter, improviser, and voice actor of the main character The Bard". "The Princess Bride" was one of my favorite movies and he's done some really good work beyond that.

Anyone else have some gems, they remember?

Atlanta Police Chief Resigns, Officer Fired After Police Shoot And Kill Black Man

A charred Wendy's, an officer fired and a police chief steps down in the aftermath of Rayshard Brooks' death

In Atlanta, protesters started gathering after Brooks was shot but tensions escalated Saturday night, when larger crowds congregated in the area surrounding the Wendy's where the shooting occurred. Some shattered the store's glass, CNN's Natasha Chen reported.

By nightfall, the fast-food eatery was engulfed in flames. It took firefighters more than an hour to approach the building as it was surrounded by protesters, CNN affiliate WSB reported.

Taser safety issues - "Non-lethal" designation

While they are not technically considered lethal, some authorities and non-governmental organizations question both the degree of safety presented by the weapon and the ethical implications of using a weapon that some, such as sections of Amnesty International, allege is inhumane. As a consequence, Amnesty International Canada and other civil liberties organizations have argued that a moratorium should be placed on Taser use until research can determine a way for them to be safely used. Amnesty International has documented over 500 deaths that occurred after the use of Tasers. Police sources question whether the Taser was the actual cause of death in those cases, as many of the deaths occurred in people with serious medical conditions and/or severe drug intoxication, often to the point of excited delirium.

The solution to police killings in America? Cops in space marine/Robocop suits with advanced integrated tasers.

Kimχ Micro: A powerful alternative to the Raspberry Pi that supports PCIe cards

The Kimχ Micro is a small but mighty single-board computer (SBC). At a footprint of just 65 x 32 mm, the Kimχ Micro is just slightly larger than the Raspberry Pi Zero. However, the Kimχ Micro offers greater possibilities and power reserves than its micro SBC counterpart.

Specifically, the Kimχ Micro includes an NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor, which features up to four ARM Cortex-A53 cores. These cores can clock up to 1.8 GHz and are complemented by an ARM Cortex-M4F real-time core, along with a Vivante GC NanoUltra 3D GPU. The latter will allow the Kimχ Micro to encode and decode 1080p content at 60 FPS.

Additionally, the micro SBC includes 1 GB of LPDDR4 RAM, 8 GB of eMMC flash storage and a micro SD card reader. There is a serial EEPROM too. The Kimχ Micro also features a built-in mPCIe connection for adding PCIe cards like a Wi-Fi card. The board should support LTE or LoRA cards, incidentally.

Kimx Micro Offers Open Source Hardware Raspberry Pi Alternative

This open-source hardware board is still under development but it is great to see the progress of the board being made publicly available. When the board is ready for purchase it will be offered via GroupGets.

Raspberry Pi Zero Sized Kimχ Micro SBC is Equipped with a Quad-Core Processor, an mPCIe Slot

Power supply options are quite interesting too, as I think it’s the first board of this type (tiny Linux board) to offer USB PD power/charging, and it also supports LiPo battery power. Another advantage is that it is open-source hardware, and that’s how I managed to derive somewhat detailed specifications since documentation is WiP: reading the BoM and KiCad schematics & PCB layout which you’ll find on Github. Everything is licensed under CERN-OHL-S V.2. Linux will be supported via a layer for the Yocto Project.

Kimχ = kimchi

I suppose everyone knows that every politician, and every executive officer in the world feels the need to "do something" about Covid19.

We've been doing that social distancing thing since early in the game. Everyone has. Face masks, not so much.

Suddenly, our executive branch has decided that face masks are mandatory to even enter the plant. I went to the doctor's office immediately to get an excuse not to wear the mask. Doctor and I had an interesting discussion, in which she reiterated what I already know: masks are bad for healthy people.

Meanwhile, I talked to my co-workers, and told them all that if they didn't want to wear the masks, they needed to get a medical exemption. Everyone says, "I'm getting mine tomorrow morning!" Then it became, "I'm waiting to see what they do about you before I give them mine!" Bunch of no-balls assholes, this is why collective bargaining never works in the south.

So, I take my medical note to HR. Stupid broad lets me work without a mask - for one night. But she's talking on the phone to some bitch somewhere far away, and the second night, I'm barred from entering the plant. Talk, talk, talk, all around the country with people who all think that they're important.

Finally, it's decided that I need to wear a mask to get through the turnstile, and walk through the plant, to my shop. More, I'm being offered a half dozen different options for masks, as opposed to that silly gauze hanging off my ears. I'll test them all out, and see how they work.

BUT - most importantly, I don't have to wear the damned mask for eight, or ten, or twelve hours. Only when I'm face-to-face with someone. Otherwise, the stupid mask can be stuffed into my belt, or pocket, or whatever.

And, I got a near-admission that the masks are pretty meaningless. They do not stop the transmission of the common cold, flu, or Covid19. It's just a feel-good stopgap that shows everyone cares. And, it helps to mitigate any potential liability the company may face for keeping the plant in operation.

Funny thing about the masks I've already seen. There are no brand name tags, or instructions, or anything on them. The best thing I've seen yet, is just a tube, you pull over your head, and down around your neck. Single layer of some artificial fabric, stretchy, and very easy to breathe through. No hot air blowing back in your eyes, or whatever. Did EVERYONE in the boardrooms forget that it's summer now? It's far too damned hot to be breathing into some stupid bag of gauzey cotton or paper.

I got my point across pretty effectively though. If those assholes in the offices want me to wear a mask that interferes with breathing, they need to bring their fat asses into the factory, follow me around, and breathe through the same damned masks they want me to breathe through.

The message would have been far more effective, if all of my co-workers had followed through on their promises to bring doctor's excuses in on Monday, like I did. Assholes all need to grow a pair. They can talk a good story, but they have no real fight in them.

I promise that whatever mask I decide to carry around with me, it will almost never be over my face.

Tonight, we see what we see. Maybe they'll just get pissed off, and lay me off. I can lay around the house and collect unemployment for awhile!!

BTW - as an aside - I mentioned 8, or 10, or 12 hours above. Which explains why I've not been so active here on Soylent. Too many days and too many hours for me to spend much time on the internets. Nice paydays though!

I'll try to post back, and let you all know which mask works best for me.

And, yes, claustrophobia is a legitimate excuse not to wear some stupid rag over your face. There are others, but claustrophobia is about the easiest to "prove" to anyone's satisfaction.