“If it’s Boeing I ain’t going”?

Considering they’ve made probably more than half the commercial aircraft flying today, what’s coming out in the news about Boeing’s transformation since their acquisition of Mcdonnell-Douglas is frightening. Some people are even referring to the merger as a testament to the genius of MD management, because “they bought Boeing with Boeing’s money”. The Seattle giant went from being an engineering-first aircraft company to an accountant-first corporation that happened to make aircraft, and that’s when things started going wrong. Even the headquarter move to Chicago was, in hindsight, a big tell that at the corporate level engineering was no longer job . But it gets worse.

Suicide Mission (The American Prospect)

See also: The Strange Death of a Boeing Whistleblower (The American Prospect)

With the spotlight on him Elon Musk doesn’t look like much of a genius anymore

A highlight: “Musk is a right wing demagogue and a pathetic, narrow-minded racist, one that endorses causes that suppress the marginalized and champion white supremacy.”

The Descent of Elon Musk by Ed Zitron

Climate change leveled up last year and it’s bad

There’s really no other way to interpret these charts showing the daily average sea surface temperature. About a year ago there was a noticeable increase in average sea temperatures, a serious bump up, and as you will be able to see from this year’s sampling this appears to be an irreversible change.

The article’s author is much more knowledgeable about the details of it so I’ll recommend you read his article: The Climate Charts Are Not Okay.

New roommate has arrived!

His name is Taz! He is an English bulldog, almost 8 years old, roughly 70 pounds, and is recovering from knee surgery. He was entrusted to me this weekend by the Mission Mayday dog rescue. He seems to like it here so far! Here are a few early photos.

Taz, an english bulldog
Taz the Bulldog
Taz, an english bulldog
“Hey, we going for that walk yet?”
Taz, an english bulldog
Doing dog things
Taz, an english bulldog
The handsome boy can’t resist looking at himself in the mirror often!
Taz, an english bulldog
Just look at that sweet face!

News from the 2024 Australian Grand Prix

Confusion is said to reign in the paddock at Melbourne  as Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll beat his teammate Fernando Alonso, leading to a bunch of people wondering around saying “is it like opposite day or something?”

Also Yuki Tsunoda made it to Q3 while his teammate Daniel Ricciardo bowed out in Q1 and Lewis Hamilton fails to get to the final stage of qualis. So, except for guessing the winner of the race (too easy) it should be a very exciting race.

Fixing airflow valve leaks on (some) e-juice tanks

If you are a regular vaper you may well have come across this problem. Many top-loading tanks, such as the SMOK TVF9 and the Aspire Naultilus 3, have issues with e-juice leaking from the tank out the airflow valve at the bottom of the tank and onto your hand, and that isn’t just dirty and unpleasant, but it’s downright dangerous as nicotine can be absorbed through your skin.

Fortunately there is a fix for this — you have to follow this little procedure every time you fill your tank. It takes a little longer but it’s well worth it.

Refilling your top-loading tank

  1. Close the airflow valve of your tank.
  2. Open the tank filling hole in the normal way (usually a twist or slide).
  3. Fill the tank with liquid, making sure to not overfill it.
  4. Close the fuel hole cover.
  5. Flip the tank upside-down.
  6. Open the airflow valve and set it to your preferred setting.
  7. Return the tank to its normal orientation and enjoy a non-leaky tank.

Apparently doing this lets a little bit of a vacuum form in an internal structure of the tank. Or something like that. I don’t really understand how it works but in my experience it does.

What drives a man to “suicide”?

On March 9th a man named John Mitchell Barnett was found dead in a Charleston NC hotel parking lot, victim of an apparent suicide. But this wasn’t just any ordinary schmoe, Barnett was the main whistleblower for assembly and quality issues in the Charleston Boeing plant that produced the 737 MAX.

Funny how that happened. The man dedicated the last few years of his life to exposing problems that put the entire flying public at risk, and just when the issues he warned about are making headlines, suddenly, he “commits suicide”. Come on people. Sure, he died of a gunshot wound, but I would stake a large amount of money to say that he was not the one to pull the trigger.

The Charleston County coroner ruled the wound was self-inflicted, but when you think about the amount of pull that a huge employer like Boeing have on a place the size of Charleston you realize how the wheels of justice are sometimes greased just enough by major economic players into “being team players”.

Here is a video on the man and the major safety issues he tried to warn the public about.

YouTube player

Really Donald? You want to go there?

Today’s moment of zen is Donald Trump posting this on “Truth” Social, showing the world that he hasn’t gained an ounce of self-awareness — or indeed world awareness — in the past 4 years. Four years ago hospitals had to hire freezer trucks to store the body of the COVID dead because they were literally running out of space in the morgues.

Donald Trump asks if you're better off now than 4 years ago, not thinking for a second about what was going on 4 years ago

It’s time to admit I overestimated humanity

Does the internet make people stupid? I mean, it seems like a silly idea. After all the internet gives you instant access to the entire knowledge of the world (along with a whole lot of BS) so surely that can’t be a bad thing… well, after seeing this screenshot I am not so sure.

A person on the internet asking if ramadan is a new tiktok challenge

They tend to live up to their collective name.

In a Canadian version of this cartoon, which think tanks would be featured?

Think tanks - a tank labelled Cato Institute destroys a building labelled education, a tank labelled Heritage Foundation destroys a forest labelled "the environment", and a tank labelled american enterprise institute destroys a building labelled "social security"