TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee")

Pucker up

2026-07-15T16:36:02.153-05:00

The image is of a giant clam in the Red Sea (credit Tahsin Ceylan / Anadolu / Getty). It is interesting to me that they have evolved that sinuous orifice rather than the linear "lips" of a typical clam; probably some survival advantage to being structured in this way.

The price of in-flight snacks

2026-07-15T16:28:43.056-05:00

"A passenger was removed from a Breeze Airways flight that traveled from New York to Florida after allegedly taking snacks from the beverage cart without paying, airline officials said...

Breeze sells a variety of snacks on board, including $5 options such as gummies, potato chips and popcorn, as well as $10 premium items including ramen noodles and cheese trays.

Magic trick props

2026-07-15T16:10:16.110-05:00

Chinese guy explains how every magic trick works
by u/Adorable-Cattle-5128 in interestingasfuck

Apparently some people hate (or love) semicolons

2026-07-15T16:08:08.702-05:00

TYWKIWDBI loves semicolons, so I was surprised and intrigued by the content of an article at Literary Hub:

"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. . . All they do is show you’ve been to college. "(Kurt Vonnegut)

"I suppose this is a trivial matter but I do want to object to the maddening fuss-fidget punctuation which one of your editors is attempting to impose on my story. I said it before but I’ll say it again, that unless necessary for clarity of meaning I would prefer a minimum of goddamn commas, hyphens, apostrophes, quotation marks and fucking (most obscene of all punctuation marks) semi-colons. I’ve had to waste hours erasing that storm of flyshit on the typescript" (Edward Abbey) [In reference to The Monkey Wrench Gang and preserved in Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast]

"With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I have a great respect for the semi-colon; it’s a useful little chap." (Abraham Lincoln)

"I don’t have a gun and I don’t have even one wife and my sentences tend to go on and on and on, with all this syntax in them. Ernest Hemingway would have died rather than have syntax. Or semicolons. I use a whole lot of half-assed semicolons; there was one of them just now; that was a semicolon after “semicolons,” and another one after “now.”" (Ursula LeGuin) [from The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination]

U.S. to screen soldiers for testosterone deficiency

2026-07-15T15:58:07.314-05:00

"Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the Department of Defense will offer testosterone deficiency screening for soldiers 30 and older.

The US defense secretary unveiled plans for a new screening program for testosterone deficiency among troops that will work to ensure service members have the “right testosterone levels” to perform at their optimal conditions in a video posted to X...

“Warfighters” aged 30 and above will undergo annual tests as part of their health assessments, while those under 30 can choose to opt in, Hegseth said. Treatment, including testosterone replacement therapy, is voluntary and aimed at “restoring and optimizing” natural capabilities...

Hegseth is not the first member of the Trump administration to address the so-called “crisis” of low testosterone, or “low T”. Robert F Kennedy Jr, the 72-year-old health secretary, has spoken about injecting testosterone as part of his personal “anti-ageing regimen”. In October, he warned, without evidence, that today’s American teenagers have “50% of the testosterone of a 65-year-old man”.

Testosterone, and concerns about a shortage thereof, has become a political fixation on the right. Alternative media commentators such as Tucker Carlson have decried a crisis of masculinity in films such as The End of Men, while influencers promote “T-maxxing” and direct-to-consumer testosterone injections...

According to research published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, young men are being aggressively targeted online by influencers and wellness companies promoting hormone tests and treatments as essential to being a “real man”, despite screening for low testosterone being medically unwarranted in most people in this age group.

I do hope there is one sane person in the armed forces administration who will understand that half the men in the world have testosterone levels below average.

"When she turns eight, they will take her"

2026-07-15T15:46:09.408-05:00

Sima* is 18, but has already given birth four times. Her youngest is a newborn, the eldest is four. Sitting with her children in their mud-brick room in Badghis province, Sima says: “After the Taliban entered the country, I had just finished the sixth grade and was supposed to start the seventh. But two months later, my father pressured me immensely to marry my cousin. After being beaten by my father several times, I was forced to accept.”...

Interviews with workers at one public hospital in northern Afghanistan revealed that 42 underage girls gave birth in the first five months of this year. Six were in their second pregnancy. Five had ectopic pregnancies – a leading cause of maternal deaths – and 18 had caesarean sections. Two died, though their babies survived...

They are victims of a growing trend toward child marriage, driven by Taliban policies legalising the practice and forcing girls out of school, combined with a deepening humanitarian crisis in which families are forced to sell their daughters to pay debts or buy food...

Some families falsely believe the younger the mother, the healthier and smarter the child. Mothers who are still children themselves often haven’t completed their physical or psychological growth and face higher risk of severe bleeding, anaemia, miscarriage, obstructed labour and premature birth, along with a greater likelihood of a low-weight or unhealthy infant...

Shabnam says families often resist caesarean section, believing they limit future pregnancies. Two young mothers in her care recently died in childbirth because their husbands refused to permit one...

The other three families interviewed for this report, all in western Afghanistan, say their daughters had been used to settle debts – money paid in advance, the daughters to be handed over later. Three of the girls are still under 10, unaware of the future that has been planned for them...

“When she turns eight, they will take her from us,” says Golnar. “They gave 100,000 afghani upfront, and they will give another 100,000 after they take the girl from me. We gave it directly to the creditors for the debts.” She worries about her granddaughter’s future, remembering girls sold years ago in her neighbourhood: “They have no future. Whether they leave us to burn in a fire or face anything else, we will not know.”

The grim story continues at The Guardian.

Not worthy

2026-07-15T15:33:49.510-05:00

More gleanings from Facebook

2026-07-12T20:06:49.917-05:00

Math puzzle

2026-07-12T19:44:14.556-05:00

I found this on Facebook without an answer posted there. I've put my answer in the comments but am not sure about it. Would appreciate insight from readers.

Nudibranch and feather grass

2026-07-12T12:12:13.759-05:00

Posted for the beauty of the images.

Trichromacy vs. dichromacy

2026-07-12T12:08:29.050-05:00

Not sure I trust the image, but the principle appears to be valid.

Until the 1960s, popular belief held that most mammals outside of primates were monochromats. In the last half-century, however, a focus on behavioral and genetic testing of mammals has accumulated extensive evidence of dichromatic color vision in a number of mammalian orders. Mammals are now usually assumed to be dichromats (possessing S- and L-cones), with monochromats viewed as the exceptions.

The common vertebrate ancestor, extant during the Cambrian, was tetrachromatic, possessing 4 distinct opsins classes. Early mammalian evolution would see the loss of two of these four opsins, due to the nocturnal bottleneck, as dichromacy may improve an animal's ability to distinguish colors in dim light. Placental mammals are therefore – as a rule – dichromatic.

The exceptions to this rule of dichromatic vision in placental mammals are old world monkeys and apes, which re-evolved trichromacy, and marine mammals (both pinnipeds and cetaceans) which are cone monochromats. New World Monkeys are a partial exception: in most species, males are dichromats, and about 60% of females are trichromats, but the owl monkeys are cone monochromats, and both sexes of howler monkeys are trichromats.

Trichromacy has been retained or re-evolved in marsupials, where trichromatic vision is widespread. Recent genetic and behavioral evidence suggests the South American marsupial Didelphis albiventris is dichromatic, with only two classes of cone opsins having been found within the genus Didelphis.

Excerpt from the dichromacy entry of Wikipedia (see also trichromacy). I didn't realize this. You learn something every day.

Homogeneity, exclusion, and inequity in the Civil Rights Division

2026-07-12T12:01:03.686-05:00

The Al Naslaa rock in Saudi Arabia

2026-07-09T16:57:56.082-05:00

Image cropped for size from the original posted at Live Science, where you can read about the controversies about the formation of the gap. See also Geology Science, which offers this image:

Personally I don't believe this formed as a result of a natural fault or joint. The rock itself is sandstone, so I would bet that humans created the gap using rope with perhaps added abrasives, perhaps just as a whimsy.

A subtle and wry comment on current events

2026-07-09T16:44:17.053-05:00

Image of Haley Joel Osment from his Oscar-nominated performance in the movie The Sixth Sense. Updated with a cultural reference to current U.S. politics. The scene occurs at about the 4-minute mark of this excerpt - but beware that this is a major spoiler for those who have not seen the movie.

I bet I could win bar bets with this factoid

2026-07-09T16:33:43.460-05:00

World Cup final eight teams

2026-07-08T19:05:57.471-05:00

This explains everything. And it's accurate (tilt your head to the left...)

Addendum: rotated...

(found in the discussion thread at the source)

Boston Fourth of July aerial celebration, 2026

2026-07-07T15:40:38.039-05:00

My old friends back in the Boston area have told me that this year's show combining drones and fireworks was truly spectacular.

A new fashion statement: the "divorce ring"

2026-07-07T13:29:56.948-05:00

"Shimmering on Deb Marino's finger are diamonds set in an eye-catching gold ring. "Of course it's a middle finger ring, because, why not?" the Florida-based blogger says on her Tiktok feed.

Getting rid of her engagement ring would have suggested a regret the 34-year-old doesn't feel - after all, her marriage brought her daughter. Even just not wearing it would have felt like a waste. "I didn't want it locked away in a box," she says. "Diamonds are precious."..

Deb is part of a rising trend promoted by jewellers around the world of women marking a new chapter in their life with a new statement piece: the divorce ring.

Deb had the diamond from her engagement ring set at one end of an open circle and added a new sapphire to represent her daughter to the other end. It cost $3,000 (£2,245). It's a sizeable sum to part with when divorces can be expensive. Ring resale values tend to be only around 30% of the original price so for many the trend of giving their old jewellery a new life feels a better investment."

More details (and examples) at the BBC, whence the (cropped) embedded image.

Fiber-optic materials in Ukrainian birds' nests

2026-07-04T15:41:35.249-05:00

Yana Hrynko, senior researcher of The National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, shows bird’s nests made partially with fragments of fiber-optic lines that were found by a Ukrainian serviceman on the front line and then passed to the museum, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 23, 2026. Both Ukrainian and Russian troops use drones controlled via long lines of optic fiber to bypass electronic warfare jamming, leaving miles of ultra-thin lines tangled in trees and scattered across the land in Ukraine’s frontline regions. (Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters)

One of the Photos of the Week in The Atlantic.

Here's the video from Reuters on this topic - with a tip of the blogging cap to an unidentified reader.

An interesting NOVA program on "desert kites"

2026-07-04T15:36:38.642-05:00

This one is many months old, because I save them to a DVR and watch whenever. I believe what I've embedded above is full-length rather than a teaser trailer.

I didn't watch it when it came out because I thought the "desert kites" were quite obviously the terrestrial equivalent of fish weirs in coastal environments. The interesting reveal to me was that the ancient people constructing these were able to create "death pits" using walls of just the right height so that an antelope's vision wouldn't see the presence of the pit, which was lined with smooth stones to prevent escape. Basically like creating a "head-smashed-in buffalo jump" where there were no natural cliffs. And these were very early people from the Neolithic era.

The video also takes advantage of modern computer image generation and drone photography in rather effective ways. NOVA programs have always been of the highest quality.

Ethnicity map of the United States

2026-07-02T12:07:47.433-05:00

To celebrate the nation's 250th birthday, the New York Times has created an impressive interactive map depicting the self-reported ethnicity of U.S. citizens as they recorded such in 2019-2024 U.S. Census. Responses rhat included a race but not a specific origin group are not included.

In the interactive map, you can zoom in to drill down to specific subregions, apparently defined by census data rather than county borders:

And there is a map from the time of colonization:

Chipmunks

2026-06-30T15:10:20.125-05:00

I first noticed the rodent activity last week (image above) at the place where the driveway meets the garage, so I replaced the gravel in the burrow and made a mental note to do something about it, but by yesterday (below) the process was obviously in an accelerated phase.

The quickest response would be to push all the dirt and gravel back down and then seal the top with an expanding foam, but I was reluctant to possibly convert the burrow into a live burial, so instead I got out our smallest Havahart trap, baited it with a piece of chicken teriyaki, and waited. Within a couple hours the malefactor was in the trap, and I drove him/her to a new homesite near fields and prairie about a mile away.

Then I reset the trap, not sure if this was one guy or possibly two. I captured a second one before evening and drove it over to where the first was released. Then I realized that I don't know that the ones I trapped are a mated pair and the occupants of the hole or just wandering neighborhood residents, so I decided to look up some info on their ecology and when they have their litters. Found this nice infographic -

That was new information for me. I did not realize that common chipmunks would create multiple entrances to their hidey-holes. Now I'm thinking that the risk of sealing a chipmunk family into a live burial horrorshow is unlikely, and that I can just go ahead with the cleanup and closure.

But one advantage of having a blog full of well-read and diversely-experienced readers is that sometimes I can call for help. So I'd appreciate advice from others with backgrounds in rodentology, mammalogy, pest control, or house maintenance.

Before leaving, I'll insert several tidbits from the Wikipedia entry:

The common name originally may have been spelled "chitmunk", from the native Odawa (Ottawa) word jidmoonh, meaning "red squirrel" (cf. Ojibwe ajidamoo). The earliest form cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is "chipmonk", from 1842. Other early forms include "chipmuck" and "chipminck", and in the 1830s they were also referred to as "chip squirrels", probably in reference to the sound they make. In the mid-19th century, John James Audubon and his sons included a lithograph of the chipmunk in their Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, calling it the "chipping squirrel [or] hackee". Chipmunks have also been referred to as ground squirrels, (although the name "ground squirrel" may refer to other squirrels, such as those of the genus Spermophilus).

Eastern chipmunks, the largest of the chipmunks, mate in early spring and again in early summer, producing litters of four or five young twice each year... Chipmunks construct extensive burrows which can be more than 3.5 m (11 ft) in length with several well-concealed entrances. The burrows are complex and include plugged entryways, nseparate compartments for nesting, multiple food chambers, side pockets and escape routes. The sleeping quarters are kept clear of shells, and feces are stored in refuse tunnels.

11 stars on this eagle

2026-06-30T14:18:46.073-05:00

"President Donald Trump has posted what appears to be a doctored image of a large, golden eagle attached to the White House's Truman Balcony on social media—the latest in a series of altered or AI-generated images the president has shared in recent months...

According to CNN, the image has details in its metadata that indicate it was created with Google AI.

The outlet also noted that the image did not appear to be real because of differences between the railings in the picture and the real-life Truman Balcony.

The shield in the image also has 11 stars, whereas the traditional version has 13 to reflect the 13 states at the time the United States was founded."

The original digital artist may have used 11 stars to represent the 11 states in the Confederacy.

"The Life of Chuck"

2026-06-29T20:15:55.939-05:00

Using the Siskel/Ebert grading system, this movie gets two "thumbs up" from me. I've embedded the official trailer above, but it is so spare that it doesn't offer much of the sense of the movie, which is perhaps better conveyed by this excerpt, in which Chiwetel Ejiofor's character explains Carl Sagan's "cosmic calendar" to his ex-wife:

But for a full appreciation of the movie, I would recommend this 14-minute longwatch analysis and commentary:

Some will consider that commentary to be full of "spoilers" but in this case I think the reveals are appropriate in order to understand what is happening in the opening sequence when the "world" is coming to an end.

What impressed me was author Stephen King's choice of a glioblastoma multiforme as the cause of Chuck's death. Had he died in a vehicular accident or from other sudden trauma, the "universe" in his head would have just winked out. The glioblastoma, by contrast, slowly snakes its way through Chuck's head, and as it destroys or replaces his memories of California for example, the California of the universe slides into the ocean. The characters in his head can "see" their impending death and have time to react in their personal lives.

When the key monologue in the movie is delivered by Chuck's 6th grade teacher, I was surprised and delighted to see that the actress in that role - Kate Siegel - was the same actress who delivered the most important monologue in the miniseries Midnight Madness ("what happens when you die"), which was also directed by Mike Flanagan.

When the movie was released in 2025 it received mixed reviews from critics, but notably won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival - a distinction that normally leads to a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture - but that did not happen in this case, and I think the movie has been sadly overlooked.

2026-06-28T00:22:09.041-05:00

Found the above on Facebook but lost the source. Below is a thematically related screencap from the movie Interstellar in which Michael Caine's character is asked whether he is afraid of death. He replies no, then adds this...

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