SeniorJunior

... And Likewise, Looking for Russian Troll Farmers in All the Wrong Places Yuuge Russian companies exist solely to troll the USA Everyone is onto the Rooskies for their dirty tricks, fake news, conspiracy theories and hate ads on Facebook and Twitter. Heck, even Congress seems to know about that! BUT. .. ...The Russians have a big secret.  ** What is it? They are flooding "Comments" sections on dozens of sites with lies, fake news, exaggerations, and hateful comments, turning Americans against one another. Short, nasty comments like "Did you get stupid in college, or were you born that way?" and "Another Libtard wants his mommy..." mostly come from BOTS. (Tips on spotting bots here .) Longer comments are from trolls, actual people like in the picture above, drawing from language they stole from real right wing nasties, mostly just after Trump won. Lots of "You lost, we won, get over it." They also quote Rush Limbaugh, Sea

... While the U.S. watches our President Ignore our sky watcher Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical  radio Telescope  nicknamed Tianyan Chinese!  Brand new and up and running. Twice as big as our Arecibo radio telescope and already making discoveries, this monster rig in China will be making astronomical history AND be vital to Chinese deep space activities. Like their plans to go to Mars. Meanwhile, back in Puerto Rico... .. and the prognosis ain't good . “I fear that if there is significant damage, that will provide the decision point to decommission the observatory,” says space scientist John Mathews of Pennsylvania State University in State College. (There is SIGNIFICANT damage) He hasn't even got our hands around rescuing the whole island, so fat chance President Trump is going to save one of our great scientific instruments. I stay worried about China passing us in one leadership role after another. It doesn't help when our leaders seem

“Mental Health,” the Excuse for Never Having Gun Regulation by a Clinical Psychologist [The gun issue is frequently discussed among my friends. This blog post was written by one pal, with credentials out the juazoo.] "The List," Folks Too  Crazy  to Buy a Gun The emphasis on mental health makes me crazy...no pun intended.  A list of people too dangerous to have guns because of their mental health? That assumes such diagnosis is possible. It’s not. We better put him on the list! The most difficult thing to predict is if someone is actually going to "act" on his/her mental condition. It’s functionally almost impossible.  When a clinician is seriously concerned that a patient is at some risk for suicidal or homicidal behavior, it is NOT the first thing you do to  report him to the Feds. You contact family and make sure there are no firearms in the home.  But are you going to put every depressed person on a watch list? Which disorders bey

By Gosh, I Think I've Got It! Bernie caught some gaff for having a narrow focus campaign. Here's how he's going to broaden it out. IMHO. And that doesn't mean he's running for anything,  just being Bernie. * Teddy as the model for... ...The New Bernie campaign? * I was zapping through the pile of political pitches I get everyday on my old fashioned e-mail (wduffer@aol.com), zap, zap, zap... Congressmen from Colorado, Florida, Ohio... on and on, Democrats I never heard of, but I'm on "The List." I don't get irritated, I just get rid of the ads; I mean after all, they're Democrats. After I finished my zapping, I had a snack and set to recording another audiobook chapter. Then it hit me, based on one of the ads I zapped.  Here 'tis: It was when I dragged it up again that I noticed it was a Bernie ad, and I said, "That's it!" Do you how many great quotes flowed from Teddy R? About half of them ar

Think You Are Good at Using Search Engines? Find this fact for me and you will be LIONIZED on good old SeniorJunior! * The UNFINDABLE (to me so far) Fact: Total expenditure in the U.S. on health insurance premiums to for-profit health insurance companies ????? If you search exactly that (just above^) question, you get a fine US News & World Report article, but it's still impossible to know the answer to this question. Statistica also has some answers, but EVERYBODY COMBINES HEALTH AND LIFE INSURANCE premiums for analysis. (Why do they do that?)  Much of the data is "per-capita," but omits the uninsured, etc.  I searched for this very  basic piece of information for a good hour. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd believe the for-profit health insurance companies have made a huge (and successful) effort to hide this number.  ** It's definitely huge . Combine all the employer-provided health insurance, all the privately-purch

If you have opinions, and you have "proof," better check your sources! TWITTER IS THE BOT SWAMP Here is a detailed method of spotting bot tweets; twelve techniques: The trick in some cases is finding the non-human  number of tweets. @BlackManTrump, a hyperactive account, posted 89,944 tweets between August 28, 2016 and December 19, 2016 (see archive   here ), an average of 789 posts per day. The account  @sunneversets100 , an amplifier of pro-Kremlin messaging, was created on November 14, 2016. On August 28, 2017, it was 288 days old. In that period, it posted 203,197 tweets (again, the exact figure can be found by hovering the mouse over the “Tweets” entry). Watch for " Amplification " When a fake news story gets re-tweeted a bunch, you might think "Gee, it must be true. I see it everywhere." You are the victim of classic BIG LIE propaganda technique in the social media world. Remember, the Russians are the world leaders in weaponiz

Now That's a Big Fan GE9X, which is destined to power Boeing’s next-generation 777X This summer, the largest jet engine ever built was being put through its paces in Peebles, Ohio. Big plane... the new 777X, will use the new engine Whether your are an aircraft buff or not, this is fascinating stuff, especially since just last week a superjumbo A-380 experienced what it's like when one of these monster fans comes apart in midair. Big fan failure  A380 Sept 30 over Atlantic Perhaps the "inevitability" of an A380 crash is made a little less likely by this case of the plane landing successfully after a catastrophic failure of one of its engines. I pray so.