Sunspots 773

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Relevant tells us about St. Patrick.

Relevant also tells us some things to remember when we get anxious.


Computing: Gizmodo compares several streaming services.

Finance: FiveThirtyEight tells us that the restaurant business is hurting badly, and gives state-by-state data. Restaurant employees, or suddenly laid off workers, are hurting even worse.

Health: Lifehacker tells us why we shouldn't name diseases after locations.

The virus is everywhere! Grammarphobia tells us what "deadly" means.

Politics: (and Health and Finance) Gizmodo reports on some Senators who may have had advance warning of a stock market collapse, and who sold stock before the panic set in.


(and Health and Education) Relevant reports that a Liberty University professor has openly criticized Jerry Falwell, head of the University, for his bizarre theories on the origin of COVID-19, and for requiring employees to work on campus. Here's more on that same story, from later, also from Relevant, which may explain Falwell's actions, at least to some extent.


Science: The Scientist reports that some beetle larvae are able to live and grow on polystyrene, a plastic. This may mean that there is hope for getting out from under the load of plastic we are adding to the environment.

The Scientist also reports on the skull of a very tiny dinosaur, preserved in amber.

Gizmodo reports on NASA's detailed photographs of an asteroid that is scheduled to be landed on, sampled, and have the samples returned to earth.

FiveThirtyEight describes how COVID-19 tests actually work.

Sports: March Madness, sort of. FiveThirtyEight describes the women's NCAA basketball tournament that wasn't.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 595

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:


Christianity: First Things reports on a study of beliefs among evangelicals, and finds that all too many such believe that their own interpretation of the Bible is the final authority, as opposed to the interpretation of the church at large.


Computing: Gizmo's Freeware reminds us that it's a good idea to run the free Malicious Software Removal Tool regularly on Windows computers, and tells us how to do it. I just did, and it took less than 5 minutes and didn't find anything, thank God!

Newsweek claims that neither of the major candidates for President knows as much about computers and the Internet as he or she should, considering the importance of this topic.

Finance:  FiveThirtyEight asks what is wrong (if anything) with insider trading?

Health: Scientific American has a brief report on the likelihood that the types of microbes in breast tissue may increase, or decrease, the likelihood of breast cancer.


Humor: (or something) Listverse tells us about 10 things you can legally do, if you are in the right country. (Sample -- marry a dog.)

(actually, 10 bizarre accidents that have recently killed people.
the reverse of humor.) Listverse reports on
 
Politics: (and computing) Newsweek reports that the Bush Administration "lost" 22 million e-mails during President Bush's tenure in office, including during the time of the decision to go to war, under some under highly suspicious circumstances, used a private server (belonging to the Republican National Committee!) and stonewalled Congress on what was in those e-mails, and what happened to them. This by no means excuses Mrs. Clinton's mistake (or whatever you want to call it), but what the Bush White House did may have been just as bad, or much worse.

Leonard Pitts muses about the death (by a gunshot) of a 6-year-old boy, who lived less than an hour from me, and points out that we get all worked up over deaths caused by foreign terrorists (there have been "only" 71, since 9/1/2001) and hardly even notice over 30,000 deaths a year, all too many of them innocent children, killed by guns wielded by citizens.

Christianity Today blasts both Presidential candidates, but also blasts all too many evangelicals who have supported Mr. Trump. "What Trump is, everyone has known and has been able to see for decades, let alone the last few months."

Science: National Public Radio tells us that video chats are good for small children's development.






Image source (public domain)