Tag: tools

Feds beef up security for Coronavirus Doctor after death threats from Trump fanboys!

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top medical expert on the coronavirus pandemic and a member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, is facing threats to his personal safety and now requires personal security from law enforcement at all times, including at his home…

A law enforcement official told CNN that the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General, the agency’s law enforcement arm, asked the US Marshals Service for assistance following threats to Fauci. The Marshals then deputized HHS officers to act as personal security for the doctor.

A source also confirmed to CNN last week the presence of several members of the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department stationed at all times around Fauci’s home in the district. The source added the stepped up visible police presence was a response to growing threats to Fauci’s safety, though the source of the threats was not identified…

…As Fauci’s profile in the pandemic crisis has grown, so has the concern for his welfare. Fauci’s guidance to Trump for the country to remain as locked down as possible to help control the virus spread has not earned fans among some fervent right-wing voices.

Criticize our shit-for-brains president and what sort of reaction would you expect from his True Believers? They have no respect for constitutional law and order. They have little or no belief in science…or deliberative research governed by scientific methods. Keeping their bubba looking like he should be in power is all that counts.

White evangelicals believe Trump is their savior

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Jim Watson/AFP — Trump puts on his pious face

Before the end of 2016 there was little in Donald Trump’s life, or frequently offensive political campaign, to suggest that as president he would be hailed as God’s appointee on Earth, be beloved by born-again Christians, or compared to a biblical king.

Yet that is exactly what has happened in the three years since Trump took office, as he has surrounded himself with a God-fearing cabinet and struck up an unlikely but extremely beneficial relationship with white evangelical supporters.

It’s a relationship that, for the president, has ensured unwavering support from a key voter base and for his religious supporters, seen a conservative takeover of the courts and an assault on reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights.

“It’s incredibly troubling,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to the separation of church and state.

“Trump is conferring unparalleled privilege on one narrow slice of religion,” Laser said. “He confers privilege in exchange for constant loyalty at the ballot box, no matter what he does.”

If you share your bed with garbage, the stink wears off on you. While that can be a two-way problem, the worst end of the brush is painting these religious folk to be as corrupt as Trump, his allies, his whole platform of bigotry and theft.

Cat arrested while sneaking cellphone and saw into Brazil prison

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A cat carrying a saw and a mobile phone was “detained” as it entered a prison gate in northeast Brazil, Brazilian media reported on Saturday.

Prison guards were surprised when they saw a white cat crossing the main gate of the prison, its body wrapped with tape. A closer look showed the feline also carried drills, an earphone, a memory card, batteries and a phone charger.

All 263 detainees in the prison of Arapiraca, a city of 215,000 people in the state of Alagoas, are considered suspect in the plot, which is being investigated by local police…

The cat was taken to an animal disease center to receive medical care.

Phew! Was he a cat burglar in his spare time?

Scanadu unveils the first of their medical home diagnostic tools

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Using online medical resources to diagnose our various aches and pains is just as likely to send someone rushing to the doctor in the belief they have some incurable, life-threatening disease as it is to put any fears to rest. Medical startup Scanadu, which is based at the NASA-Ames Research Center, is set to provide a set of home diagnostic tools that are designed to let users monitor their health over time and provide a better indication of whether a trip to the doc is actually necessary.

While Scanadu continues working on a tricorder-like device capable of capturing key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases in an attempt to claim the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, it has just revealed its first three consumer health products that are designed to put a doctor in your pocket…

The first device in the company’s initial product lineup is the Scanadu SCOUT, a palm-sized device designed by Yves Behar that Scanadu says will accurately read a variety of vital signs when held to the temple for a period of under 10 seconds. Data collected by the device is transmitted via Bluetooth to a smartphone, where the Scanadu app will display pulse transit time, pulse rate, electrical heart activity, temperature, heart rate variability and blood oxygenation. The data can also be transmitted to the user’s doctor. The SCOUT is expected to retail for under $150.

Scanadu’s other two products, which also work in conjunction with Scandu’s smartphone app, are designed as low-cost, disposable diagnostic tools.

Turning a smartphone into a urine analysis reader is the ScanaFlo, which is a disposable cartridge that is designed to be sold over the counter. It will test for complications during pregnancy, preeclampisa, gestational diabetes, kidney failure and urinary tract infections. Scanadu also claims it will be the first consumer device to provide a personal “healthfeed” for the duration of a pregnancy.

Also designed as a disposable cartridge, the third and final entry in Scandu’s initial product line is the ScanaFlu. As its name suggests, the ScanFlu is designed to quickly assess cold-like symptoms, with the ability to test saliva for the early detection of Strep A, Influenza A, Influenza B, Adenovirus and RSV.

All three of these devices should be in production and on the way to consumers before the end of 2013. For someone like me – capable of being a world-class hypochondriac – they should be a delight, useful or otherwise. 🙂

Drunk partygoer finds his car – two years later

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A man in southern Germany has been reunited with his car two years after forgetting where he parked…

After a night of drinking in December 2010 and an unsuccessful search the next day, the vehicle’s owner reported his car as missing to the Munich police.

Authorities discovered it by chance last month after a traffic warden noticed that its inspection stickers had expired – 4 km from the spot where the now 33-year-old craftsman originally thought he had parked.

“The weird thing is that it turned up so far away, although the owner was pretty sure of where he had left it,” said police spokesman Alexander Lorenz.

In the trunk were 40,000 euros worth of tools including power drills and electric screwdrivers, Lorenz said.

Cripes. If I carried that much in tools around with me, I’d be sure my wheels had a Lo-Jack or some other GPS locator.

Wells Fargo sends contractor to trash wrong home – twice!

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Better Days

A retired bricklayer, Alvin Tjosaas, 77, was the caretaker of his late parents’ two-bedroom home in Twentynine Palms, about 200 miles east of his home in Woodland Hills, north of Los Angeles. He is a part owner of the home with his sisters.

Alvin Tjosaas visited the home every four to five months, he said, for maintenance and to work on hobbies in the garage…

But on June 1, a neighbor in Twentynine Palms called the Tjosaas family, asking if they had authorized people to clear out their home.

“We assumed it was a break-in and, really, it was a break-in,” Tjosaas said. “They weren’t legally supposed to be there.”

Tom Goyda, vice president of corporate communications for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, told ABC News the company had foreclosed appropriately on another property near the Tjosaas house and the error was made when a contractor mistakenly went to the Tjosaas house instead of the correct house.

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The last refuge of Neanderthals may have been found

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A Neanderthal-style toolkit found in the frigid far north of Russia’s Ural Mountains dates to 33,000 years ago and may mark the last refuge of Neanderthals before they went extinct, according to a new Science study…

“We consider it overwhelmingly probable that the Mousterian technology we describe was performed by Neanderthals, and thus that they indeed survived longer, that is until 33,000 years ago, than most other scientists believe,” co-author Jan Mangerud…told Discovery News.

Most anthropologists believe modern humans began to replace Neanderthals starting around 75,000 to 50,000 years ago. Project leader Ludovic Slimak said the study suggests “that Neanderthals did not disappear due to climate shifts or cultural inferiority. It is clear that, showing such adaptability, the Mousterian cultures can no longer be considered as archaic.”

Slimak, a University of Toulouse le Mirail anthropologist, Mangerud, and their colleagues made the determinations after analyzing hundreds of stone artifacts and remains of woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, musk ox, brown bear, wolf and polar fox unearthed at a site called Byzovaya in the western foothills of the Polar Urals. Dates were obtained for sand at the site as well as for some of the bones, many of which “have cut marks that indicate processing by humans,” according to the researchers…

Even though Neanderthals may have disappeared from other locations throughout Europe and Asia, Slimak argues they likely persisted in this remote area near the Arctic Circle. Since conditions in the region were harsh even then, Slimak believes only strong individuals existing in a well-ordered, savvy group could have survived there.

Paleontology is still one of the most exciting sciences and studies. Events like this provoke much discussion and rediscovery as they replace and enlighten prior analyses, the previous extent of our knowledge.

As northern ice patches melt ancient artifacts revealed

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Caribou on a shrinking ice patch

High in the Mackenzie Mountains, scientists are finding a treasure trove of ancient hunting tools being revealed as warming temperatures melt patches of ice that have been in place for thousands of years.

Tom Andrews, an archaeologist with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife and lead researcher on the International Polar Year Ice Patch Study, is amazed at the implements being discovered by researchers.

“We’re just like children opening Christmas presents. I kind of pinch myself,” says Andrews…

The results have been extraordinary. Andrews and his team have found 2400-year-old spear throwing tools, a 1000-year-old ground squirrel snare, and bows and arrows dating back 850 years. Biologists involved in the project are examining dung for plant remains, insect parts, pollen and caribou parasites. Others are studying DNA evidence to track the lineage and migration patterns of caribou. Andrews also works closely with the Shutaot’ine or Mountain Dene, drawing on their guiding experience and traditional knowledge.

“The implements are truly amazing. There are wooden arrows and dart shafts so fine you can’t believe someone sat down with a stone and made them…”

“We realize that the ice patches are continuing to melt and we have an ethical obligation to collect these artifacts as they are exposed,” says Andrews. If left on the ground, exposed artifacts would be trampled by caribou or dissolved by the acidic soils. “In a year or two the artifacts would be gone.”

A study worth staying in touch with. Certainly exciting to those fortunate enough to be working against time to record and analyze what they find.

100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About

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#57 is a Typewriter. This is an aluminum/steel Lettera 22 portable. I own one.

There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore’s Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks.

That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias …

A fun Post. Especially for a cranky old geek like me who’s been online since 1983.

Thanks, Jägermeister