Recommended Reading
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Bruce took the day off.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Bruce took the day off.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Saw a cartoon earlier today (can't find it now!) by a right-wing editorial cartoonist that showed Corey Booker whining about where was his bomb. Not so freaking funny now, asswipe! Disgraceful take on the situation MAGA Maggot!
This is a prop from the pilot for Donnie's new tee vee show. It's called Trump My Ride.
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
ON THE RIGHT TRACK!
FUN AND GAMES WITH THE AMERICAN ELECTIONS.
"…WE KNOW WHAT WILL."
THE MAGA-BOMBER!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Celebrated the kid's birthday.
'Liar Is Not Enough Of A Word'
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand is done with Donald Trump's (R-Get A Haircut) lies.
The famed singer and actress called out the president's untruths in an interview with British newspaper The Guardian published Friday.
"Facts matter," said Streisand, 76, whose latest song "Don't Lie To Me" is a not-so-subtle evisceration of Trump - as are many of the tracks from her new album "Walls."
"Words have meaning. This man defies that," Streisand added. "He says climate change is a hoax. Let's release more coal and carbon into the air and have more mega-fires and hurricanes. I mean he's so stupid! He's so ill-informed. Liar is not enough of a word. There must be a bigger word for someone who lies about everything."
Streisand called Trump a "conman" with "no manners" who didn't "see his own flaws."
Barbra Streisand
Record-High TV Representation
LGBTQ Characters
LGBTQ characters have hit record-high representation numbers for the 2018-19 television season, GLAAD's annual "Where We are on TV" report for 2018 finds.
LGBTQ series regulars on broadcast have hit 8.8% (75 characters), with 50% of those characters being LGBTQ people of color. Another 38 LGBTQ characters fell into the recurring category. Additionally, LGTBQ characters on broadcast television are made up of equal percentages of male and female characters, improving upon last year, when it was split 55/45 in favor of men.
On cable, LGBTQ people of color make up 46% of the regular and recurring LGTBQ characters (120 series regular, 88 recurring), and on streaming they make up 48% (75 series regular and 37 recurring).
Shows that GLAAD specifically called out for moving the needle culturally and reaping ratings rewards for its inclusive storytelling include "Will & Grace," "Supergirl," "Empire" and "How to Get Away with Murder."
Netflix, which churns out one of the higher volumes of programming in general, features the highest number of LGBTQ characters across streaming services, the report found, while FX had the highest numbers out of the cable networks studied.
LGBTQ Characters
NBC Cancels
'Megyn Kelly Today'
NBC said Friday that it had cancelled "Megyn Kelly Today," ending a fizzling experiment that matched an anchor with an outsized presence to a format best known for lighter fare, and indicated it would move its 9 a.m. hour back to a more traditional "Today" format.
Meanwhile, an attorney for Megyn Kelly indicated the anchor and the network remained in negotiations about her future. Kelly "remains an employee of NBC News,"said Bryan Freedman, the lawyer, "and discussions about next steps are continuing."
Other "Today" co-anchors are expected to host the 9 a.m. hour next week, NBC said. The show's lead two hours are co-anchored by Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, with Craig Melvin recently getting a larger presence on the weekday program. Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford co-anchor the fourth hour of the program. Willie Geist anchors the Sunday broadcast of "Today" and Sheinelle Jones anchors the Saturday broadcast. A new anchor is expected to join her this weekend.
The decision represents an acknowledgment that the Peacock's big bet on the star anchor to draw new audiences to its news programming was unlikely to bring new rewards. The average audience for "Megyn Kelly Today" stood at around 2.4 million, compared to about 2.8 million who tuned in to watch the hour of "Today" that it succeeded.
'Megyn Kelly Today'
Announces Conversion To Islam
Sinead O'Connor
Irish singer Sinead O'Connor has announced she has converted to Islam and said she has changed her name to Shuhada' Davitt. The 51-year-old has been posting selfies of herself wearing hijabs on Twitter in recent days, as well as a video in which she sang the Azan, or call to prayer.
She tweeted on Oct. 19: "This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian's journey. All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant."
The singer ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II during a Saturday Night Live appearance in 1992 as a protest against the Catholic Church.
O'Connor's struggles with mental illness have been very public.
Sinead O'Connor
Sold For $432,500
AI-Generated Portrait
If there was ever a question of whether the art world was ready to embrace work created by artificial intelligence, there is no longer. In the first-ever auction of its kind, a painting created by AI has sold for nearly half a million dollars.
Christie's sold the piece titled the "Portrait of Edmond de Belamy" on Thursday to an anonymous buyer for $432,500. The auction house had initially estimated it would sell between $7,000 and $10,000.
The Paris-based art collective, Obvious Art, created the "Portrait of Edmond de Belamy" using a computer and algorithm that analyzed a data set of 15,000 human-made paintings from between the 14th and 20th centuries.
After that analysis, the computer started spitting out its own versions of portraits to run through what's called a discriminator, which tries to determine whether it was created by a computer or not. The cycle finishes when the computer can no longer tell the difference between the computer-generated version and the human-generated version.
AI-Generated Portrait
Solo Movie Dropped
Boba Fett
Disney and Star Wars are putting the long-awaited Boba Fett solo movie back into carbonite.
Deadline is backing up reporting from journalist Erick Weber, who tweeted on Thursday (October 25) that he'd been told first-hand by Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy that the project is "100% dead".
Kennedy mentioned that Disney and Star Wars studio Lucasfilm is putting its focus at the moment behind developing the live-action show The Mandalorian, which is based around Boba Fett's warrior race.
Talk of a Boba Fett movie has been around for more than five years, but gained new steam this past spring when Logan director James Mangold. Unfortunately, the studio reportedly soured on the project when Solo: A Star Wars Story underperformed at the box office.
The Mandalorian is being developed for Disney's upcoming streaming service by Iron Man's Jon Favreau. The series is centered around a "lone gunfighter" on adventures "after the stories of Jango and Boba Fett".
Boba Fett
Salisbury Cathedral
Magna Carta
British police said Friday they have arrested a man suspected of trying to steal a Magna Carta from its display case at Salisbury Cathedral.
Wiltshire Police said cathedral alarms sounded Thursday afternoon when a person tried to smash the glass box surrounding the Magna Carta.
The Magna Carta granted by King John in 1215 has become an enduring symbol of the rule of law. The document on display at the cathedral is one of four surviving original Magna Cartas.
The 45-year-old suspect was arrested on suspicion of attempted theft, possession of a weapon and criminal damage. He has not been identified or charged.
Salisbury Cathedral has been in the news recently because two Russians accused of carrying out the nerve agent attack on ex-spy Sergei and Yulia Skripal claimed during a TV interview in September that they had traveled to Salisbury to see its "famous cathedral," not to poison anyone.
Magna Carta
World's Smallest
Optical Gyroscope
Gyroscopes are devices that help vehicles, drones, and wearable and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in three-dimensional space. They are commonplace in just about every bit of technology we rely on every day. Originally, gyroscopes were sets of nested wheels, each spinning on a different axis. But open up a cell phone today, and you will find a microelectromechanical sensor (MEMS), the modern-day equivalent, which measures changes in the forces acting on two identical masses that are oscillating and moving in opposite directions. These MEMS gyroscopes are limited in their sensitivity, so optical gyroscopes have been developed to perform the same function but with no moving parts and a greater degree of accuracy using a phenomenon called the Sagnac effect.
The Sagnac effect, named after French physicist Georges Sagnac, is an optical phenomenon rooted in Einstein's theory of general relativity. To create it, a beam of light is split into two, and the twin beams travel in opposite directions along a circular pathway, then meet at the same light detector. Light travels at a constant speed, so rotating the device -- and with it the pathway that the light travels -- causes one of the two beams to arrive at the detector before the other. With a loop on each axis of orientation, this phase shift, known as the Sagnac effect, can be used to calculate orientation.
The smallest high-performance optical gyroscopes available today are bigger than a golf ball and are not suitable for many portable applications. As optical gyroscopes are built smaller and smaller, so too is the signal that captures the Sagnac effect, which makes it more and more difficult for the gyroscope to detect movement. Up to now, this has prevented the miniaturization of optical gyroscopes.
Caltech engineers led by Ali Hajimiri, Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, developed a new optical gyroscope that is 500 times smaller than the current state-of-the-art device, yet they can detect phase shifts that are 30 times smaller than those systems. The new device is described in a paper published in the November issue of Nature Photonics.
Optical Gyroscope
Top 20
Global Concert Tours
The Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows Worldwide. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers. Week of October 24, 2018:
1. Taylor Swift; $9,747,235; $116.73.
2. Ed Sheeran; $8,016,172; $91.68.
3. Jay-Z / Beyoncé; $6,643,206; $117.53.
4. U2; $4,855,981; $136.00.
5. Celine Dion; $4,782,217; $221.19.
6. Billy Joel; $4,378,586; $123.60.
7. Helene Fischer; $3,671,517; $81.71.
8. Kenny Chesney; $2,925,526; $87.17.
9. Dead & Company; $2,176,153; $72.50.
10. Justin Timberlake; $2,157,345; $104.84.
11. Roger Waters; $2,055,306; $103.12.
12. "Springsteen On Broadway"; $1,998,097; $508.87.
13. Def Leppard / Journey; $1,808,196; $98.78.
14. Iron Maiden; $1,670,516; $80.27.
15. André Rieu; $1,624,043; $89.56.
16. Britney Spears; $1,552,978; $129.29.
17. Shakira; $1,509,601; $92.97.
18. Luke Bryan; $1,491,571; $68.34.
19. Paul Simon; $1,458,991; $110.42.
20. Harry Styles; $1,420,469; $78.50.
Global Concert Tours
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