Johnny Vector

@johnnyvector.bsky.social

1033 Followers 404 Following

Engineer raised by a family of scientists. Amateur renewable energy nerd. Professional engineer (but not Professional Engineer). Occasional designer of sound, lights, and video. Clown-adjacent.

Head: James Talarico Attacks Ken Paxton Over Handling of Child Sex Abuse Case Dek: The case, which resulted in a short jail sentence despite years of alleged abuse, has drawn outcry in Texas. _So have the attempts to politicize it_.
Poster for “UFO”, from 1970, created by Gerry & Sylvia Anderson and Reg Hill. It only ran for one season.
A six-pack of Tröegs Mad Elf (sorry, “The” Mad Elf) beer, with the alcohol content of 11% circled. It’s delicious and dark, so we ignore the redundant umlaut in Tröegs AND the unnecessary definite article in the name of the beer, and wait until next November when it is released again.
Graph from CarbonBrief.org, showing cumulative cost vs. time for a Statesman (standard) and Logik (heat pump) clothes dryer. The y axis runs from zero to over £1400, and the x axis from 0 to 15 years. The Logik line starts higher at zero years, because a heat pump tumble dryer can cost slightly more to buy, but the Statesman line has a higher slope, because lower running costs can make them cheaper to own after a year. The lines cross at one year. The gap between the lines is hilited in gray, demonstrating the savings of using the Logik (heat pump) model. After 15 years, the cumulative cost of the standard model is just over £1500, and the heat pump model is just over £800. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of the cheapest standard and heat-pump dryers available on currys.co.uk. Running costs standardised based on 10kg of drying per week and current price cap.
Washington's Dinner Dilemma: Journalists across Washington are trying to determine how to respond if Donald Trump derides the press at Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner, Status has learned. "There are lots of discussions about it," one high-profile Washington journalist told me Thursday. "If he starts attacking us, I think it is a fair question as to what the appropriate response is. Obviously some people will want to walk out, but the question about such a thing is: does that not give him exactly what he wants, making us the opposition, not the Fourth Estate? Making us the story instead of the journalists covering the story? And, suggesting that we can dish it out but we can't take it? And so I don't think there is any easy answer."
A tiny Stonehenge descends behind Nigel Tufnel as David St. Hubbins watches in awe and horror while remembering to keep playing.
A parking lot, which looks to fit just about 80 cars, with a lightweight metal frame over it, supporting an array of bifacial solar panels under a blue sky. The panels are tilted about 10° from horizontal, allowing narrow stripes of sunlight to reach the ground.
An Old Navy store at night, probably somewhere in Istanbul, with all the letters but A and V lit up, so it says “OLD N Y”.
Two orange tabbies sleeping in a yin-yang formation as a longhair tortie sits nearby.
Daniel Lawson @DanielLaw1998) posts: Disabled parking should only be valid during business hours 9 to 5 Monday to Friday. I cannot see any reason why people with genuine disabilities would be out beyond these times. Jennifer Lee Rossman (@JenLRossman) responds: We're disabled, Daniel, we're not werewolves.
Photo of a well-worn cover of Wazmo Nariz’s 1979 album “Things Aren’t Right”. Wazmo is holding a candle to his right, although the left side of his face is illuminated. He is wearing a coat, shirt, and two ties.
Nemik’s manifesto from Season 1 of Andor: The imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance, will have flooded the banks of the empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. Karis Nemik, 5 BBY
A large flat wooden stick with a gauge in inches, plunged into the snow showing the level at 5”. The stick also shows statistical information and some historic snowfalls, such as: ≥ 6” about 3 in 5 years ≥ 8” about 3 in 10 years ≥ 10" about 1 in 5 years ≥ 12” about 1 in 8 years The largest historical event is Jan 27-29, 1922, 28.0”.
What resurrected him, more than anything else, was that Democrats insisted on mounting a ferocious cultural revolution of their own. Having won the presidency on a promise of returning to some kind of normalcy, Joe Biden stood by as leftist activists and academics set about smashing the pillars of 20th-century liberalism - deriding free speech as a tool of oppressors, obsessing on personalized pronouns and silly language edicts, going on about defunding police, carving the country into a series of identity-based grievances.
Content filters Enable adult content: Enabled Explicit sexual images: Warn Sexually Suggestive Does not include nudity: Show Graphic Media Explicit or potentially disturbing media: Warn Non-sexual Nudity E.g. artistic nudes: Show
Woody Guthrie with his guitar, which has a sticker saying “This machine kills fascists”
T-shirt design with a runic thorn character surrounded by a runic alphabet and the words “hardcore thorn” in a Fraktur style font.
Post from Blue Ribbon PAC @blueribbonpac.bsky.social McCain wasn't born in the U.S. Doubt Washington, Adams, Jefferson, etc. were, either
Me: what complexity happened in MA? Chris Weedon: Fuck off
A sampling of headlines, deks, and ledes from the last day: Vox Clean energy could become a huge political winner. Tuesdays election results suggest energy costs may be moving the political needle - an opportunity for Democrats. E&E News by POLITICO Elections set up national battleground over electricity. Democratic sweeps in Virginia and New Jersey and the dramatic fallout from smothering everyday costs for many Americans has set the stage... NPR New Jersey and Virginia's races will be powered by the soaring cost of electricity. New Jersey and Virginia have seen double-digit electricity rate hikes in the last year as voters in those states prepare to choose new... Bloomberg High Power Bills Are Now Swaying Elections in the US. Electricity costs have become a national hot-button issue as data centers and new factories drive up demand. Politico Democrats show early signs of winning energy messaging war. Democrats won gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, where candidates made affordability concerns and skyrocketing electricity...
The Washington Monument stands in the center of the frame, illuminated in yellow-orange and reflected in the nearly-still water of the Reflecting Pool. The trees on the sides of the pool are in silhouette. The Capital dome is visible beyond the monument. The sky is half blue and half painted with pink stratus clouds. Venus can bee seen shining through the clouds to the right of the monument.
He quoted Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" in asserting that the world needs free and objective information. He cited her warning that "the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."
"Want to know what happens when Trump, Republicans, and DHS leadership give ICE unlimited money, freedom from oversight, and a pass on transparency and accountability? You get chemical irritants released on a commercial corridor, mid-day, only a short distance from an Elementary School. You get schools in lockdown out of fear of ICE circling the building. You get injured neighbors taken from hospital emergency rooms. And you get duly. elected public servants - my Alderperson - arrested for asking questions of ICE. stand with Alderperson Fuentes and with all those who have the courage to stand up to authoritarianism and their terror force, ICE. ICE is out of control. ICE is operating with impunity outside the confines of the law. ICE is trampling our rights. ICE is terrorizing our communities. I have repeatedly warned that ICE's aggressive tactics and disregard for due process were a violent escalation. Trump, Noem, and ICE are the primary instigators of violence in our communities through their unconstitutional war on Chicago. Congress must pass the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, which I co-lead, to ensure that ICE stays out of our houses of worship, schools, daycare centers, parks, and hospitals. We must defund ICE. We must hold Trump, Noem and ICE accountable."
Footnote 114: The origin of the word "pixel" is interesting. The following is derived from parts of a chapter I wrote called "Seeking Color Out of Darkness" in a book based on a minimalist art exhibition at the Pace Gallery, New York, "Ad Reinhardt: Color Out of Darkness curated by James Turrell" (New York: Pace Publishing; 2023). The word "pixel," a portmanteau of "picture" (or "pix") and "element," first appeared in print in 1965 in a technical paper presented at the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. (F. C. Billingsley, "Digital Video Processing at JPL," Proceedings of the SPIE: 0003, Electronic Imaging Techniques, 26 September 1965; doi: 10.1117/12.970964). At the time, video, the technique of recording television signals, had existed for over a decade, but it was purely analog. The paper described converting video recordings of NASA's Ranger lunar reconnaissance missions into higher-fidelity digital formats for processing by computers to support the impending manned trips to the moon. This innovation essentially divided the television screen into a grid of tiny squares, pixels, each assigned a brightness based on the analog signal on the video tape. The word "pixel" only entered common parlance in the late 1970s, with one of the first uses in the February 28, 1977, issue of the New Yorker. The "Talk of the Town" section (no byline, pp. 27-28) describes a new animated advertising panel installed in Times Square, the Spectacolor: "The panel is divided into two thousand and forty-eight 'pixels,' or picture elements of red, green, blue, and white bulbs, and ordinarily only one or two of the bulbs on a pixel are flashed at a given time." This sign transformed Times Square, advertising and eventually all aspects of imaging and image replication.
Obituary from an uncited source, which reads: Charles James Kirk, 31, died on Wednesday from a gunshot to the neck at a Utah Valley University campus event just as he was trying to deflect a question about mass shootings by suggesting they were largely a function of gang violence. He died with a net worth of $12 million, which he made by espousing horrific and bigoted views in the name of advancing Christian nationalism. The foundation of his empire was the group he cofounded and led, Turning Point USA, which is a key youth-recruitment arm of the MAGA movement. Kirk was able to launch Turning Point at the age of 18 because he received money from Tea Party member Bill Montgomery, right-wing donor Foster Feiss, and his own father, also a prolific right-wing donor. He was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist who often wrapped his bigotry in Bible verses because there was no other way to pretend that it was morally correct. He had children, as do many vile people.
Screenshot of the Accessibility pane of Bluesky Settings with the “Require alt text before posting” selector circled.
"I would not be honest with you if I told you that I was always an anti Nazi, and felt like an anti Nazi. (..) I fooled myself. I had to. Everybody has to. If the good had been twice as good and the bad only half as bad, I still ought to have seen it (...). But I didn't want to see it, because I would have had to think about the consequences of seeing it, what followed from seeing it, what I must do to be decent. I wanted my home and family, my job, my career, a place in the community. I wanted to be able to sleep nights-" From an interview with an ex Nazi party member, THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE: THE GERMANS 1933-1945, Milton Mayer
Post from goodgodabove, with text that reads: You can't say criminals don't deserve due process — due process is the thing that decides if they're criminals. Otherwise you're just kidnapping people you don't like.
A poster with Uncle Sam saying, in all upper case, COME ON PEOPLE NOW SMILE ON YOUR BROTHER EVERYBODY GET TOGETHER AND IMPEACH THIS WAKKAFLOCKA RIGHT NOW
Closeup of the back of a Tesla, showing the Tesla logo and a sticker with the outline of Woodie Guthrie’s guitar and a clear sticker with handwritten text that says “My other machine kills fascists”.
I worked with IDRS for over twenty years. There is NOTHING in that system that would help doge in their stated mission of efficiency. What there is in IDRS is decades of financial information for every American citizen, business, exempt organization, and any foreign individuals or businesses that have filed any American tax documents. Every filed tax form (1040, 1120, etc) and every record of payment (W-2, 1099) is recorded in IDRS. Employees go through strenuous training about data security, and EVERY action made by an employee is logged for future review to prevent fraud and abuse. Only employees with actual job need are allowed to access records in IDRS, and even then they only have access to the parts that pertain to their specific job role. It has been implied that Musk and his minions would not be held to the same standards or liability, and that puts every American citizen, American business, and every foreign business or citizen who has ever filed American tax documents at extraordinary unnecessary risk.
A page from Wikipedia: Career Robertson was a Law Enforcement Officer before entering politics, and after over thirty years in law enforcement retired from the Muscogee County Sheriff's Office in 2015. In a 2000 internal investigation by the Muscogee County Sheriff's Office, then Lieutenant Robertson was found to have conducted himself in a way that was "unbecoming of an officer" and "immoral." The investigation stemmed from an extramarital affair with his sister in-law that found Robertson engaged in sexual activity. The investigation further found that Robertson was not on duty at the time the activities took place and nothing occurred within a department vehicle. Despite the internal affairs report, Robertson maintains that in his thirty years with the Muscogee County Sheriff's Office he has never been reprimanded as he was cleared of all accusations.’ Political career In March 2024, Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson of Cataula blocked a bill sponsored by State Rep. Scott Holcomb, that would open the door to compensation for wrongfully convicted individuals. Holcomb's measure would have created a panel of appointees, all experts in wrongful convictions or criminal justice, to vet compensation claims while laying out clear guidelines for who qualifies. It also would have required that those who have been exonerated are compensated at a figure between $60,000 and $120,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment. 2] Robertson, a former sheriff's deputy who led the effort to stop all compensation legislation in Georgia, said he thinks the system has been "hijacked" by organizations such as the Georgia Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence and research to clear people's names. 3] Robertson was elected to the Georgia State Senate in 2018 after the seat was vacated by Josh McKoon. In 2020, Robertson qualified for re-election and was not challenged in either the Primary or General election. [citation needed]
Production still of Kyle MacLachlan from “Agents of SHIELD”, let from the side to highlight the contours of his face. His eyes are hazel and he has a day’s worth of stubble.
Headline from The Guardian: Trump nominates Jared Kushner's father for ambassador to France, Businessman pleaded guilty to illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering in 2005.
Four-panel cartoon by Matt Bors, from August 8, 2018. First panel: A woman looking at her phone, saying “My GAWD these Trump people are racist”, and a man with a MAGA hat leaning in saying “That attitude is what’s pushing me to be racist!” Panel 2: Woman: “Say what?” MAGA: “Might as well! You say I’m a Nazi, so fine, I’ll be a Nazi if that makes you happy. Panel 3: Woman: “It… doesn’t.” MAGA: “I bought this Waffen SS uniform for Halloween. You’ll cry ‘offensive’ so maybe I’ll just wear it every day.” Panel 4: MAGA (getting a swastika tattooed on his left arm while shaving his head): "I just hate to do this."
I guess it's just, you know, it's wonderful that we have a commemoration for the Fitzgerald, but there's so many other storms that have major commemorations that are coming up with the November Gales. We lost 12 ships in 1913. We lost 4 ships in 1940. We lost the Daniel J Morrell and the Bradley and all of those never got a song from Gordon Lightfoot! So it'd be much better to make sure that we remember that these lakes are dangerous, that every fall, these men and women that are out there today are taking a risk, but of course with the new technology that we have, we probably won't see a major wreck like this. And I hope that we never do. But it's important to remember that there are risks on the lakes and there's people who regularly bring that cargo through.
A green cabin sits in the Maine woods with an 18” diameter tree trunk having landed on the roof. Half the roof is crushed and the other has a series of pine branches sticking out of it. Pieces of broken Belgrade siding lie on the ground beside the cabin.
Six mountain gorillas sitting amongst a batch of ferns, with a small juvenile knuckle walking toward the camera. They are part of the Amahoro group in Rwanda, and are mostly ignoring this day’s collection of mostly-white, all hairless apes coming to hang with them for an hour.
Hey, people who post pictures of lots and lots of text: You can add just one more step and go to www.imagetotext.info, and it will OCR your text. You do NOT have to retype it all to have good alt text. Please help our visually-impaired friends take part in the conversation.
One of Maryland’s “I voted” digital stickers. A circular emblem, the outer annulus of which contains the words “I VOTED” on top and “YO VOTÉ” on the bottom. The center has a colorful drawing by elementary school student Amelia Avila, with a central sunflower surrounded by a Baltimore oriole (the actual bird), a crab, and a racehorse, all over a background of the Maryland flag, which you’re going to have to look up but it’s a huge mishmash of yellow, red, and black heraldry from the colonial days.
Cover art for John Scalzi’s book “Starter Villain”, showing a bust of a tabby cat with white nose wearing a conservative if somewhat ill-fitting suit and tie. The tagline above reads “Meet the new boss."
The cover of the Mothers of Invention album “Weasels Ripped My Flesh,” which is a painting of a well dressed man smiling and shaving. His plug-in electric shaver is a weasel, which is leaving bloody scratches on his face with its teeth and claws.
Screen shot of UOCAVA instructions for Montana: As a uniformed or overseas citizen (UOCAVA) voter, you have requested to receive your ballot electronically. This email is to notify you that your absentee ballot is available and ready for you to access. To access your absentee ballot you will need the following information: Your Name as it appears here: ALEXANDER HAMILTON Your Voter ID Number is: 5555608 Your PIN Number is: 78222393 To access your ballot, log onto the Military and Overseas Citizens Web Portal. MT UOCAVA Web Portal [u2814938.ct.sendgrid.net] Once you enter your Name, Voter ID Number and PIN Number, you will be taken to the ballot access page. From this page you can view and print your Official Ballot, as well your ballot instructions and mailing label. Please make sure that you have the ability to print documents before you logon to the portal. Once this portal is accessed, you will be allowed 48 hours to print your ballot… (continues, out of space in ALT text)
Screen capture of a post by David Roberts on July 30, 2024: I'll admit, I was surprised by the party's ability to pull off this transition so smoothly, with such good vibes. The political media was surprised too. It's on its back foot, unsure of how to penetrate it & start fomenting infighting. But they'll figure something out.
Affirmation style poster showing the school coach from The Simpsons ready to throw a red ball, with the text “Bombardment: A game as old as pain itself"
Photo of a badly beaten-up copy of Bored of the Rings, by The Harvard Lampoon
Knitted octopus dangling over my head
Tweet from Chris Rufo, dated 3/25/24. Text of tweet: “It's getting insane. We have a problem on the Right. The economics of online discourse are increasingly at odds with forming and mobilizing a successful political movement.”
Washington Post headline: "When Joe Biden lost his purpose". Subhead: "Between his son Beau’s death and his presidential run, Biden cast about for meaning." By Matt Viser