LEGO Set I Need, Barbarians, Ivy Fail, etc.

Margaret Hamilton has died. 

No, no, NOT our beloved Wicked Witch. She moved on to Oz absolute eons ago — in 1985 at the age of 82.

I’m talking about Margaret Hamilton, the amazing computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program. She’s now gone at 90-years-old.

You’ve just gotta read this tribute to her at MIT News (not paywalled). It’s simply fascinating. If nothing else, you’ve just GOT to read the story about the “the Lauren error” on the Apollo 8 mission which led to “defensive” programming, the practice of building software that could anticipate or fix errors on its own. 

Over two decades at MIT, Hamilton forged new paths in computer science and engineering. Her groundbreaking work included leading the team that programmed the first computers that took humans to the moon. (source) 

In 2016 President Obama awarded her the Medal of Freedom saying, in part:

“Her software architecture led to giant leaps for humankind, writing the code that helped America set foot on the moon.”

Remember when that award meant something and went to people who totally deserved it? You know, pre-Pedo.

Hamilton has her own official LEGO figure in the Women of NASA LEGO set. I WANT this set!
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How to pronounce of Hurricane Isaias: 
 ee-sah-EE-ahs (or ees-ah-EE-ahs), with the main stress on the third syllable (ee-sah-EE-ahs).

Apparently Governor Ron DeSantis is very proud of his unwillingness to learn how to pronounce the hurricane’s name. Okay buddy, sure. I didn’t go to Yale and Harvard like young Ronnie and I don’t have hearing like him either (which would make knowing how to pronounce unfamiliar words MUCH easier... ya know?) BUT I was able to do a quick search on my whizbang computer machine and found a phonetic transcription. 

You’d *think* with his big important Ivy League degrees he’d know how to do that too. I guess Ronzo is trying to play the down home, folksie, racist, guy-you’d-have-beer-with card like his fellow Deep South politico, Senator Foghorn Leghorn of Louisiana (magna cum  laude from Vanderbilt, JD from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor of Civil Law with first-class honors from the University of Oxford). That schtick must really work on the rubes in Florida and Louisiana. How embarrassing for them. DeSantis isn’t even good at it. He and VP JDouche obvs went to the same strip mall Dale Carnegie Training knockoff. JDouche clearly flunked out of the course.

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Cassowary? How the fuck are they not classed as dinosaurs? I believe I met one or three of these when I was hanging at gay discos back in the '70s. They were FABULOUS!

Vampire squid — not a true squid, not an octopus. They’re the sole surviving member of the ancient order Vampyromorphida. Somehow related to squid and octopuses —cousins maybe? How about vampires though? Do vampire squid drink blood, turn into bats, have an aversion to sunlight? Nope. the name MAY be due to their appearance — their dark, reddish-black coloration and cloak-like webbing — very Dracula-ish.
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Just in case you missed the memo — public executions aren’t punishments for crimes, they’re propaganda. They’re a warning. This could be you, if you fall out of line. 

Pat Bagley

The last public execution was of was the hanging of Rainey Bethea — a Black man convicted of raping a white woman — in 1936.

Roughly 20,000 people gathered in the western Kentucky city of Owensboro, where workers had built a gallows near the riverfront, according to NPR station WKMS. People celebrated with "necktie" parties the night before and sipped soft drinks at the scene in what attendees and historians describe as a festive atmosphere.

"They sold sandwiches and they sold Coca-Colas, and you'd have thought it was a big picnic or something," attendee Bill Shelton recalled in a 2013 oral history interview with the Daviess County Public Library. (source) 

Public executions are carnivals for twisted, racist savages, mutants, thugs, and smooth brained, failed wildebeest impersonators. 

They’re a way to rouse the basest, most primal instincts of the worst amongst us. The MAGAts will be thrilled to itty-bitty bits by this. When Nidal Hasan’s head and heart explode, millions of white men (and I use the term “men” loosely), who can’t remember the last time they could raise the flag without serious pharmaceutical support, will all simultaneously shoot fireworks of jizz across their bedroom/TV room ceilings. This includes the dickless wonder Secretary of War Crimes, who seems to always be trying to prove he’s a big, manly man and not a complete drunken, limp dicked failure.

Republicans — now bringing America live-streaming executions into our homes! This, don’t forget, is the party that proudly proclaims itself pro-life.

How soon will the GOP be broadcasting lynchings, witch burnings, child sacrifices?

The United States — we are nothing more than a completely barbaric hole of greed and depravity.

VOTE, goddammit, VOTE!