Random Thought

Well, It's a desert which has been scanned from orbit RADAR/Imagery numerous times for the past 50 years and archeology has been using drones/balloon/gliders/RC aircraft for the past 30 years. Also a large specifically satellite searching project was initiated some years ago, too. Disregarding magneto scanning, pretty much any ground formation should have been found by now. From the little information it appears to be a ruin at least on the surface with some walls left. I guess the underground is somewhat intact. That's probably where they are working on.

Huh, why "Babylon Bee"? Why bee? Did they thought of spelling bee or is it due to the sting?

Melenchon, surprisingly, overtook all candidates in France. He's a leftist whose policies is the same as the right... What the? Doesn't anyone see something wrong here? As the EU doesn't want the GB to leave without paying their dues he say he won't let that happen to France. This probably means he and co. will block such a precedent or ruling. This is probably the biggest problem the EU faces.

I've worked hard and deleted nearly 10000 mails in my inbox that's about my annual traffic. And these are all academic/engineering, hobbies, clubs, other R&D stuff only. Filters are working well so I haven't seen more than a dozen a year.
Being kind of lonely at my current location I've found myself streaming more japanese variety shows: AKBingo among others. It's always fun watching but unable to recognize any of the new girls is certainly impacting the experience. European shows still have that theater feeling to them. Eastern ones are better (in their own way)(shot more similar to US/Japan etc.) but have some weird cultural elements.

Edit: For some reason I got a bit of connection trouble.

Have you seen WWE with John Cena proposing? Totally out of the blue here.

Who knows why they came up with the name? Probably Babylon because it's Biblical sounding.
Never heard of Melenchon,then again not much following the French elections right now.

So the Dems got nuked by their own Reid Rule and Gorsuch is now confirmed as Supreme Court
Justice. Had to have seen that coming.

I think they need a refresher course in Civics or something.

Anyways we finally got our car started today! It hasn't been used since around December so the battery needed a recharge.

Welp gotta go sounds like thunder.

Politician are used to behind the scene dealings. So they think they can turn the odds. If not then there's still their singular opinion. Who says first wins even if it's not factual.
How should it be called? "occupational illusion"?


"How old are you?"
"I don't know." LOL

Some netizens going wild about Trump starting a war. But you know nothing's his fault!
Doesn't look like a lot of collateral damage so things should be fine.

https://www.japantoday.com/category/crime/view/mummified-corpse-of-baby-found-in-tokyo-apartment
Having a corpse for 30 years in the house and don't know about it? Unbelievable. The stench of death is very persistent and psychologically very uncomfortable. Even the neighbors should have quite more than just a whiff.

The hunt is on in sweden! If they can't get him soon they won't ever.

And Norway has greenlit a project to build a tunnel for ships.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/norway-to-build-world-s-first-ship-tunnel-at-sea/3654786.html
It's 1.7 m long 36 m wide total but the waterway is only 26.5 m; 12 m deep and max. 37 m surface freedom. So it's one way and for medium ships. Not like large transporters would come up here anyway. The route is longer but safer. And it cost only 300 millions.

Apropos marine project:
Floating city
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2011/01/12/this_ark_is_green_floats_and_could_house_10000_people.html
https://idesignforyoublog.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/ark-hotel-by-remistudio/
Supposed to serve as an apocalyptic survival "ark" by russian architect, Alexander Remizov.
I'm 100% it's useless. If the world is more floaded, hence, larger water bodies meaning stronger winds & waves. This one is not gonna survive more than state 5 seas. Not to mention the entrance is wide open... I don't see how this thing's outside can be maintained safely especially for divers. Where to get a drydock when the world is floaded? A drydock ship of course. And the drydock for the drydock ship?

Seriously?! That thing looks like a slinky on water.

30 years is a bit too long for someone not to have noticed something. Even 30 days it should have been noticeable. Then again modern times and people don't see what's in front of their faces a majority of the time. Too much spent on tech not enough noticing what's going on.

We got our Spring Snow today..

Raining today. Glad I did the raking yesterday as today doesn't look like it'll be a good day to work outside.

We should stop wondering why these terrorist attacks keep happening when there is ultimate Evil in the world. These people who do these things are Evil incarnate and do not believe in God or any
Gods whatsoever.

If they believed in God no matter what their religion they would follow what St. James says in
his epistle ( James 1:27). What this means is a truly religious person will be one who is committed to doing good to all people regardless of who they are.

I think the problem is that people no longer believe in Good and Evil and so are surprised when
Evil jumps up and shows its ugly face in public.

Looks like I will be busier than I had anticipated.

------------
Yep, or let me say it in different ways.
Like with any other beings an evil god or person deserves no worship or respect. If he relies on underlings to do his bidding then he's no god. Evil begets evil there can be no peace less paradise. Believing that wiping out other (thinking) people will bring peace is as much wrong.
The unforgivable sin starts when you know it's wrong and yet committing it. "It" as in anything not just murder.

I think people here are too used to our artificial "peaceful" environment and don't know or are ignorant of how the rest of the world is doing. Then again I don't believe people are so naive as to think there's no evil. Our everyday social life is full of conflict between people of some kind. Whether it's a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker or even within your own family. Everywhere in the world it's the same. The scales and level of bodily harm are just different. It's rather a psychological ignorance : as long as it doesn't involve you the world's alright. Sad but this might be the real truth.
-----------

The OECD has released new data on "tax on wages" of industrialized countries.
http://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/taxing-wages-20725124.htm
Note this is an average and does not account anything else. What you are left after all tax expenditures e.g. housing, groceries etc. I already pointed out long before how for example Japanese spend ~52-54% after all tax. Here their wage tax is 32.4%.
Belgium leads with 54% German 2nd and slipped down with 49.4%. Austria slipped a lot down to 47.1%. Average is 36%. USA is 32.7%.

https://www.japantoday.com/category/world/view/50-largest-u-s-companies-stashing-1-6-trillion-in-overseas-tax-havens-oxfam

Well I got another jury summons starting the 26 of this month. It's for two months, so basically
May-June. Filled out the form and sent it in right away so I don't have to worry about that part.
I have to call in after 6 p.m. on the 25th and then after that I think it's once a week to see if I have to actually come in.
Hopefully not. The one thing is since I don't drive I would need a ride to and from, though
only for a day or two since the trials here tend not to last too long.
The one I was on lasted two days.
But like I said it's mostly calling up once a week to see if there are any trials scheduled but usually
there aren't so that will take up most of May-June.

I see where CBS had another story along the Heritage vs. Hate when it comes to saving
Confederate/Southern monuments and memorials. I suppose that they had the usual suspects on
since I didn't bother watching.

I always think it's funny the way that the people who condemn the South for slavery are willing to
suddenly say that Northern slavery was ok because it was "benevolent" and "rare".

*SIGH*

Checked out a rather easy reading Q and A style book about Jesus called:Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About God (but were afraid to ask) The Jesus Edition.

Looks like Erdogan wants to do a Hitler and become dictator of Turkey now.

I think if it weren't for the threat of ISIS and other terrorists groups he wouldn't have stood a chance.

So Harden and the Rockets beat his former team. The irony of a former Thunder beating up on the Thunder is just delicious for Sonics fans to ponder!

Once I get done with jury duty I think I will go on a comic book/manga binge.

Apropos, Simcha Jacobovici has come up again claiming the nails found 4-5 years ago could have Jesus' blood & DNA. I really doubt that. The interesting realization I have from this is that the romans don't defile a dead person's body after they are done with that person. Otherwise they wouldn't leave those nails behind. Nails were an expensive tool. At least, in this regard their claim towards european barbarians seems accurate.

No surprise here. It's a decade too late to do anything about it. And frankly the USofA was the driving force in protecting him. The reason being russia, iran and other minor yet historic reasons. ISIS & terrorists did not matter imho. If anything it was how the predessors run down the economy; didn't take care enough for the sake of the population; and of course corruption that's no less than any of the other unreliable allies.
I knew Erdogan was a Hitler-esque long before he even said so years ago. The things he did and other similarities were too obvious. He's not an exception, and frankly many many democracies are moving in that direction. Then again I saw this coming based on how radical nationalism has been rising sharply in the past 10-20 years. Hitler's ideas and example will haunt mankind forever. There will be war sooner or later.

I've never been as much involved with reading, writing (tons), and translating korean hangul as in recent days. It's not my job even but the pressure has become high, people & corporations are concerned. I'm not that concerned, though, for more reasons than before.
Japan has long issued (5-6 months ago) an advisory about what to do in case of an attack. Their UN contingency happens to return, too.

I think it's also interesting to note that the Romans who crucified Christ weren't just amateurs either.
They were part of a detail whose job it was to attend to the execution of criminals on a daily basis.
It's what they did. So for them it was just another day at work. Also they would be responsible for
the gathering of all the equipment and tools after everything was finished to make sure they were
cleaned,etc. and ready for use for the next time.

Yeah, of course if it weren't for terrorism it would be something else that people like Erdogan would use for an excuse.

The funny thing about Hitler is we often forget he wasn't even a German but an Austrian.
It would be like if a Canadian were elected President of the U.S.

Living on the West Coast there are several military bases that the North Koreans could target
if they ever developed long range capabilities. For example Fairchild AFB in Spokane. So the possibility of such a strike isn't just theoretical.

And the latest news about Hitler is the house owner he was more or less freeloading in Munich turned out to be a jew. For some reason it's only been discovered now and first published by spiegel and republished (all require payment) except:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4394674/Historian-Nazi-leader-Hitler-Jewish-landlord.html

Nah, I'm not that worried about NKorea. They can't afford to build many missiles and even if I doubt they are that accurate. Midway, Hawaii will detect them and the defense missiles there will engage first. And also it will take several more developments before he can hit from Washington state down (see range map below). Alaska is a well defended line. There's NORAD and the floating Radar in California for detection and all the upgraded Arleigh Burke class destroyers.
http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/NORTHKOREA-MISSILES/010031V7472/index.html
And I'm not worried about Trump starting a war because Ivanka won't let him. Hence, he's less likely than Obama to start a war with NKorea/China. The small guys on the other hand better run. He likes to bully after all.

Japan said they will send troops to SKorea for citizen rescue mission (with or without permission). Also woman will be allowed in combat units, too.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/princeton-scholars-figure-out-why-your-ai-is-racist/
So there is proof to what I have said for years about language and human behavior...after finding out how AI gets racist and sexist after having socialized with humans.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6334/183.full

Just when I thought it's getting warming heavy snow came down. Temperature went down ten degrees Celsius. It's early in the day and I already feel ripe for another winter nap...

https://japantoday.com/category/politics/anger-confusion-as-japan-revives-militaristic-edict-1
There are still too many hardcore royalists and they still haven't passed the abdication law yet which they specified for this one time only...
On a side note
https://japantoday.com/category/politics/ethics-textbook-change-causes-widespread-constroversy
Food(trademark) is more important! than rewritten history.

Space Debris Conference has been going on for days but I don't expect nor do I see much coming out of it. The obvious political and economic problem is who's gonna pay for the clean up?
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering_Technology/Clean_Space/e.Deorbit

I hear Skorea wants to introduce a cash card for small change to get rid of actual coins. I guess there's some fee to pay for each use, too. Reminds me of Gits SAC where the rebel collected round errors to fund his cause. Not too long ago a bank (system) employee who did the same got arrested.
Wonder if he got that idea from Gits...

E-powered aircraft development is now in full swing. Virtually all major corporations vies for making news on that front. https://lilium.com/press-releases/lilium-celebrates-successful-flights-tests.pdf
The same goes for ship, and AI or drone ships. Well, drones will come first since that's been in development for a long time. We won't see large passenger aircraft anytime soon until current ones run out of lifetime. It's all for prestige and advertisement.

Well no surprise here but Russia is banning the Jehovah's Witnesses. That's one way of getting them
from knocking on your door. Though seriously this isn't unexpected, I mean the way that the Russian Orthodox Church and the Putin Government have been hand in hand. The JWs have 20 or 30 days to
appeal, which they will probably do.

I don't think it's surprising that Hitler's landlord was a Jew. That was probably back in the days when
nobody knew anything about him. There are still people who believe that he had Jewish ancestry.
So..

Was that during the first or second season? Been awhile since I watched the entire series.
(GITS:SAC)

Looks like it's going to be nice outside right now. But who knows how long it'll last.

Yeah, Putin's been busy getting rid of election rivals and voters, even sending commandos to assassinate former associates in public etc. He's bend on getting re-elected.

France is voting this weekend, a major event for the EU's future... I think it's either Macron or Le Pen.

I'm certain it's GITS:SAC2. The funding scheme is revealed when she meets the rebels in the underground harbor. And she starts to realize it's her first love (?).

THE WHO releases statistics on hepatitis B&C.
http://www.who.int/hepatitis/en/
A rise of yet another terrible disease.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-03-hepatitis-deaths.html

Yeah, that was season 2.

Fillon was such a poor candidate it makes one wonder how he could have stayed in the race for so long. The corruption charges against his wife for having a fake political job didn't help matters.

Ancestry has been advertising a limited time special on their DNA testing for $79, except you know with tax and shipping and handling it's going to be a bit higher.

Tomorrow I start my jury duty by calling up after 6 p.m. That's because they need to change the phone tapes. Usually people settle out of court so it's usually: "There is no case scheduled for this week please call again next week." or something like.
Beats having to sit around all day in a jury room waiting to be called.

So on yesterday night's The Flash the final scenes show Killer Frost meeting with Savitar and by the way she reacts when she sees who he really is I'm going to guess when the Big Reveal (tm) comes
in next week's episode it's going to be: Zoom!
It all goes back to how Caitlyn had a thing for Zoom when Team Flash thought he was Jay Garrick.
It also makes sense after Future Killer Frost taunts Present Day Barry in the future by telling him when
they find out Savitar's identity that they'll be surprised.
Also since the Time Wrath killed Reverse Flash on DC's Legends of Tomorrow the only other
person it could be would be Zoom,since he has a personal grudge against Barry for leaving him in the
Speed Force.

Soooo NBA Futility thy name is Thunder!
Once again they were denied, this time by the Rockets and irony of ironies one of their former
team mates James Harden. I think they would love at this point to trade in all the MVP Awards and
records that Durant and Westbrook earned and made for just one title. So far their record in the playoffs is pretty pathetic. The only time so far they made it to the finals they got swept by
Miami.

It's been snowing for the past 2-3 days. I know it had been snowing in June in the past. I'm starting to wonder when it's gonna get warm here.

It seems people are quite convince Macron is gonna win. I'm not so sure, though. Le Pen gets a lot of support and not just from Putin but from all european and world rights group. If Macron hadn't been there I was certain she would have won with no difficulty.

It's funny how Abe declares to tackle the Norean kidnapping cases which have been around for 40 years. I doubt the majority of people are interested right now with what's going on.

Anyway, there's heated debate/fights about internet protocols going on now specifically about "middle boxes". These are used to act as "middle man" to decrypt encrypted transfer and "help" route things. Obviously it's makes all P2P encryption useless. Not really surprising, you can't hide addressing or keys.

These days Cassini is making its last flight around Saturn so here's where the latest close-up pictures can be found:
https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images/
I'm really curious about Saturn this close-up.

On other news BBC went to the site where the MOAB landed
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39705128
The reporters ridicule its power since the plants are alright. The MOAB is a (most powerful) penetrator blast weapon figure it out people.

Russian spy ship sunk
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39734998
Where are their eyes? lol

So THAAD will be fully ready/installed by 2018 in SKorea. No war boys. But Japans is likely to get on the band wagon. However, it has to be in the next fiscal round so sometime after 2018 at the earliest (unless its war). No war boys. It's so boring this time.

The media is talking about how the new chinese carrier is so important. Well, it certainly will serve some years but it's just a test or learning built. The next one is where it gets serious it'll be a Nimitz-esque rival. But still just a step toward their true carrier. And I bet it will be larger (catamaran?) since they will "own" the larger 2nd Panama channel by then. Therefore, they won't have problem sending it across. There's mo need for them to care about the Suez channel.

Anyway, a caterpillar able to digest plastic has been discovered by chance in Spain.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/could-caterpillar-help-solve-world-s-plastic-bag-problem
Now this is perhaps a discovery of the century considering the importance. It obviously can only digest softer type e.g. a bag rather than hard type e.g. a hairdryer. So it won't solve everything but perhaps it can be genetically modified to do so? Well, in any case at least future trash can be taken better care of.

It sounds like an interesting adoption to it's environment.

Well the thing about Jury Duty here has changed since the last time I had it. Last time you phoned in
to make sure you had to go or not, this time apparently they phone you. But you still have to call them
day before to make sure there's still a trial.
Most of these things called solved out of court here,very few actually go to trial and most take only
a day or two at most.
Be glad when June is over and my time is done!

My sister is visiting from Alaska starting today so probably won't be spending much time on the internets for awhile.

Sounds like a measure to make sure elderly people don't happen to forget. I don't think this procedure will be around much longer with Trump's budget cutting.

Well, I hope you guys have a good time then.

Anyway, missile defense will be upped soon with how things are going.
https://www.defensetech.org/2017/04/27/hawaii-may-get-missile-interceptor-site-defend-north-korea/
If you include SKorea and Japan there are 5 umbrella layers plus at least one more if a fleet happens to be in position.
Besides until NKorea has sufficient numbers to overwhelm defenses it will be at least 10-15 years after they got the missile figured out. Only SKorea and Japan should be worried imho. By that time "Prompt Global Strike" should be available. Imho PGS is the future weapon ruling the world. It will make naval fleets, bombers nearly obsolete. A few are still needed, though. So yeah, Trump is making the wrong investment with the 1000 ship fleet. And it's the reason this
http://gizmodo.com/military-officials-say-we-need-to-prepare-for-space-war-1793774231
comes up again. China happens to be right on the heels. So it comes at no surprise everything about this is blacked out. The media is well kept out of this if you haven't noticed yet.
https://japantoday.com/category/national/japan-to-expedite-study-of-land-based-aegis-missile-defense
Ho, they figured it out the standard is the cheaper alternative. I wonder when they will turn toward israel's
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/01/18/israel-expands-missile-defense-system-with-new-interceptor.html

just found this
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/11833043/Dreadnought-2050-Heres-what-the-Navy-of-the-future-could-be-sailing.html
The description is kind of amusing. The design is just another littoral ship but the description is like taken from several other types. I doubt anythings gonna turn up. They started things a decade before the Zumwalt with nearly exactly the same design or should I say we took over. The MOD has always been cutting things down with some more due to politics. Now with Brexit a reality now such projects won't have much of chance.

For some reason I've started thinking about my xmas travel plans. I know it's too early by 5 months but... there aren't many direct flights avail able and I don't wanna get stuck at some airport again. All those cheap and connected flights are too much of a hassle and are economically not really cheaper. Oh well. I also made a few calculations about cooking vs. buying processed food. Well, both costs are economically the same and the significant point of difference is the time "wasted" on cooking. It only makes a real difference for extreme lifestyles.

Well we see both of my sister at least once a year. One is in Alaska and the other is in Arizona.
So getting together isn't that easy.

Welp it looks like something the BBC might have done for Dr. Who.

Yeah it does sound early but then again you can never tell what will happen with travel and all.

On the news over the weekend they were showing what has to be the worst possible situation for any car owner: a car parked in the parking lot of one of the malls in Spokane burst into fire.
It was pretty much all engulfed.
Talk about your bad days!

Yeah, well, try having car trouble on sunday in Italy. That definitely will ruin your day (any number of times).

These days most news everywhere is just about Korea, Japan, rest of asia, Brexit and Trump. Can't be helped I guess. So people in Japan just shrug about it but are worried about the change to the constitution, the recent escorting of a supply ship by the helicopter carrier, the disagreement over the emperor's abdication law and empress succession vs. Abe's government.
While the SKorean fear Kim would send his troops down. Well, I think US bases in Japan are his prime target to show the world he is not only serious but can do as he pleases. If he's cornered I have no doubt he would do like hitler and destroy as much as possible. Meaning sending troops to Seoul. I don't think his army can fight for long (days to a week) but the masses will do more than enough damage in the short term.

Japan's fame abroad:
Emperors, anime icons and porn stars show up in six-nation survey of most famous Japanese people
https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/survey
Diverse but localized. (Why do they have to make the flags so large on the page?)

While Einstein's principles is reconfirmed
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/key-einstein-principle-survives-quantum-test
Geographics is airing Genius:Einstein...

And yeah,...
https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/05/intel-patches-remote-code-execution-bug-that-lurked-in-cpus-for-10-years/
again, nothing new, but check your comp.

Meanwhile, my cell downloads nearly a gig of OS updates; hopefully MS won't nag again, accusing of spamming.

Also china is creating a wikipedia clone in it's image to be online next year. China is very much closed already. Taiwan somewhat, too. (I'm guessing China investment in taiwanese internet companies made that happen) Western researcher had to live there is they want to do net-social research (as a certain someone did recently and published it after returning).

I am still laughing at the fact that Naruto got #2 on the French list. If it had to be an anime character why not Haruhi?
And where was this poll taken in the U.S. that Ichiro only got #3?

And isn't Shinzo Abe the current PM so wouldn't that be a bit redundant?

Sooo...it turns out I was wrong about who Savitar was on The Flash, winds up being some sort of evil Barry from the future type of thing.And it also looks like HR is going to get himself a girlfriend now.

Happy Free Comic Book Saturday everyone! Enjoy!

Speaking of which Archie celebrates 75 years! 75 years of Betty and Veronica fighting over our favorite red head.
Personally I can't stand the way that the more recent writers and artists have tended toward making
it darker and grittier and then there's Riverdale...no thanks!
I perfer my Archie the traditional way with a lot of teenage humor and comedy as per
the '90s Sabrina The Teenage Witch.
Besides who doesn't love a black cat who wants to take over the world?
*Salem Saberhagen I'm looking at you!*

Any way just want to hope everyone has a fun day on Free Comic Book Day.

Black cat and white mice.

So Macron barely won with a simple majority. But 1/3 of voters didn't turn up. If they did and voted for Le Pen (I was kind of sure here) she would have won with 5-to-4. Oh well, they avoided disaster second time around so congrats. Now all eyes are on germany.

https://japantoday.com/category/business/japan-to-promote-private-sector-involvement-in-space-development
I predict failure but I see lots of corruption benefiting from this. Btw. did I mention their space energy satellite test failed? So yeah we won't see that again anytime soon.
Apropos, Japanese geologist have filed to name part of Plesitocene Chibarian. The time of the last magnetic pol change. If I remember right this is 2nd or 3rd time? Anyway, seems to have cause some stir among common folk and the news was removed... I've seen this happen a lot lately, (critical/controversal) news getting removed soon after publications. Yet, I got flash message about the Queen for some unknown reason last friday.

Another secret drone of prompt global strike returned ❚ years long mission. Looks like a U2-esque case among others.