Interesting posts around the blogosphere

 

Several recent blog posts by friends and fellow bloggers made their way onto my "Blog Fodder" list over the past couple of weeks.  I thought I'd toss them out there for you to enjoy.  They're all useful.

Eaton Rapids Joe brings us a very useful tip on how to put on socks if bending is a problem for you.  It sure is for me, with the "hinge point" of my spine fused, and nerve damage in my left hip and leg.  I tried this trick, and it worked reasonably well.  Thanks, Joe!

Borepatch has two interesting articles.  The first points out that global warming is a politically correct invention, involving falsifying past data to make it conform with the preferred narrative.  The second discusses computer security and online privacy, and provides two recent examples where it was breached.  Money quote:  "OPSEC [operations security] is a stone cold bitch of a problem.  You have to be right 100% of the time, and dropping that to 99.99% means that you lose."

Divemedic points out that "The government is out there trying to 'nudge' people into breaking the law. IOW- entrapping them."  He's not wrong.  Go watch the linked video clip, and realize that this puts us all at risk.

Alma Boykin provides us with a history of spring-cleaning, and why it was very important from both a practical and a cultural perspective.  I didn't know a lot of what she mentions.  Interesting stuff, and it'll feed future novels (I hope).

Finally, SNAFU links to a video clip of a slingshot made with simple PVC pipe, the kind of thing you can buy at almost any hardware or home improvement store.  It shoots arrows.  He provides illustrations of some of the very nasty-looking (and presumably very lethal) arrow heads one can buy over the counter today.  I'd surely hate to be targeted by someone using something like that at night, while I walked or checked my garden.  I'd never know what hit me.  As he points out, "With so many new immigrants coming to our shores we're about to see some different weapons come to the front ... The gangs of thieves from S. America will either stay up north or get rounded up when they head south.  Not so much a worry. Its some of the others that pause me up. New arrivals equal new dangers but the public ain't talking about it yet."  Having seen bows and arrows used in combat in Africa, he's not wrong.  They remain very deadly weapons in skilled hands.  (The full version of the video to which he links, showing how the slingshot is made, may be found here.  There are many other similar videos out there.  Remember, such instruments may also be useful to us as defensive tools;  they're not just threats in the hands of criminals.)

Thanks to all the bloggers mentioned above for their useful information.

Peter