“Jelly roll, jelly roll, sitting on the fence. If you don’t get it you ain’t got no sense. I’m wild about my jelly, my sweet jelly roll…”
“What’s that?”
“A little Hot Tuna.”
“Seems more like a song. About time you showed up.”
“Sorry, been busy.”
“Do tell.”
“Nope, I must leave you in suspense.”
Winner
This week.
This poll is no longer accepting votes
(I’ll Come Up With a “Rose” Parks Joke, Later)
Louisiana Finally Fixes America’s Dumbest Licensing Requirement
Reason | May 30, 2024 | Eric BoehmAmerica’s most insane occupational licensing law is about to get a whole lot better.
Louisiana is the only state in the country that requires florists to be licensed by the government. A bill that is now on the way to Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk sadly won’t change that fact, but it will eliminate the mandatory test that prospective florists in Louisiana must pass before being allowed to earn a living by placing different types of flowers together in an arrangement. Going forward, obtaining a florist license will require only the payment of a fee to the state.
The bill cleared its final legislative hurdle with a unanimous vote in the state House on Wednesday. Landry, a Republican who has supported other licensing reforms, is expected to sign it.
Requiring any sort of government permission slip before someone can work as a florist is obviously ridiculous, and Louisiana’s florist-testing regime was a uniquely perverse and protectionist scheme. This week’s passage of state Rep. Mike Bayham’s (R–Chalmette) reform bill is the culmination of a two-decade battle to eliminate it.
That effort began in the early 2000s, when the Institute for Justice filed a lawsuit challenging the florist licensing law. One of the plaintiffs in that case, a woman named Sandy Meadows, had been fired from her job at a Baton Rogue grocery store when state inspectors discovered she had been arranging flowers without the proper license. She tragically died, unemployed and in poverty, before the case could be heard.
SMOD long overdue.
Voyager 1 (and Half Its Instruments) Are Back Online
Sky and Telescope | May 31, 2024 | David DickinsonVoyager 1 is once again returning data from two of four science instruments onboard.
Things are looking better for one of NASA’s longest running deep space missions. After a several-month period of problems, engineers have announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is not only back online but also transmitting useful data from two of four science instruments. Work is now underway to bring the remaining two instruments up to operational status.
Problems began last November, when Voyager 1 suddenly began sending a repeating gibberish signal instead of the science and engineering data it typically sends.
Troubleshooting on the 46-year-old spacecraft revealed the culprit: a memory chip in one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers was corrupted, perhaps due to a strike from a speedy charged particle known as a galactic cosmic ray. The corrupted chip in turn prevented communication with one of the probe’s subsystems, known as the telemetry modulation unit.
The Space Flight Operations Facility in Pasadena, California, which processes the signals sent from Voyager 1 as well as other spacecraft throughout the solar system, has changed a lot between 1964 and 2021. (Voyager 1 launched in 1977.)
81-year-old man arrested in Azusa ‘serial slingshot’ shootings has died
NBC Los Angeles | 05/30/2024 | Jonathan Lloyd
So, I guess we’ll call any projectile launched by a slingshot a “shooting”
A man arrested this month in connection with what authorities described as “serial slingshot” shootings in Azusa has died.
OK, then. “Shootings.”
Prince King,
Nice name. But what did he call his son?
81, died Wednesday at a home,
… any particular home?
according to the LA County Medical Examiner. The cause of death was arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to the medical examiner’s office.
This is news? No one else died that day in the U.S. of arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease?
King was released from custody Tuesday morning on his own recognizance and made his first court appearance this week in connection with the vandalism that neighbors said had gone on for about 10 years in the San Gabriel Valley neighborhood. Dozens of people in the neighborhood reported windows, car windshields and other property damaged by ball bearings that were found in their yards.
10 years?
Released on his own recognizance? Did he change? (Well, I guess he has now.)
Hair-Raising Human Head Transplant Machine Concept Unveiled By Startup – But Is It Realistic?
IFL Science | May 21, 2024 | Laura SimmonsAre head transplants really part of the medicine of the future – and do we want them to be?
On May 21, startup BrainBridge unveiled its concept for a world-first head transplant system, promising to combine artificial intelligence with the latest in robotics to literally remove a human head and put it on a new body. If everything works as intended, once the head is in place, the person will apparently be able to get up and go about the rest of their life with a brand-new set of healthy limbs and organs. Sounds fantastical? Right now, science says it probably still is.
BrainBridge project lead Hasham Al-Ghaili, who revealed the plans for the transplant machine in a series of posts on Instagram, told Longevity.Technology, “The goal of our technology is to push the boundaries of what is possible in medical science and provide innovative solutions for those battling life-threatening conditions. Our technology promises to open doors to lifesaving treatments that were unimaginable just a few years ago.”
In its introductory video, the company claims that BrainBridge’s use of robotics will help speed the transplant process up – you can’t leave a head without a body for too long and expect it to survive. Two robots will simultaneously operate on the donor and the recipient, in an environment where the conditions can be tweaked precisely, without having to worry about making it comfortable for human medical staff.
Donor bodies would come from young, otherwise healthy people who have experienced brain death; heads from people with diseases like cancer or neurodegenerative conditions, or injuries that have led to paralysis, could then be swapped onto the younger, healthy donor body for a new lease on life.
(a) First-world problems.
(b) = Excess Democrat voters
(c) I want out of this human race.
