Chimp jailbreak goes poorly
Four chimpanzees, one of which is wounded, were on the loose inside a building in a Swedish zoo on Thursday, a day after they escaped from their enclosure. Three others have been shot dead.
Swedish officials and media said the wounded animal had not received veterinary attention because no one could safely get inside the building at Furuvik zoo.
The chimps were inside the monkey house but staff had not been able to get the three uninjured ones back into their enclosure, the animal park said in a statement. The wounded animal returned to its enclosure on its own. [...]
The animals escaped on Wednesday, prompting the zoo to alert the authorities. Three chimps were shot dead by staff and the fourth was wounded. The zoo told Swedish media that the animals had to be killed because there was not enough tranquilliser for all of them.
The animals were well known in Sweden, and their deaths have provoked anger:
Researcher Mathias Osvath, who knew them for several years, insisted they posed no real danger. "If I'd met them in the park my pulse would have risen but I wouldn't have been afraid for my life. It's a tragedy," he told the BBC. [...]
The zoo is currently closed for the season so members of the public were not present, but zoo officials said the escaped animals still posed a threat and staff were evacuated or ordered to stay indoors. [...]
A former caretaker, who worked with the animals for 30 years, accused the zoo of acting unprofessionally. "I think they panicked," Ing-Marie Persson told public broadcaster SVT.
On Friday, the zoo confirmed the identities of two of the dead chimpanzees, Linda and Torsten. A third was also confirmed dead and another feared dead - they were named as Santino and Manda.
After years spent researching the chimpanzees, cognitive zoologists from the University of Lund have now suspended their co-operation with the zoo.
"I knew them personally, I would say. I've hugged Manda, I've kissed Linda and I've had tugs of war with Santino," said Mathias Osvath, who pointed out the chimpanzees had broken out of their enclosure many years ago, when there were visitors inside the zoo.
Santino was well known beyond Sweden for his artistic skills and was reported to be a favourite of Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Fish jailbreak goes poorly
The AquaDom, which stood inside the Radisson hotel, was described as the largest freestanding cylindrical aquarium in the world. It was home to more than 1,500 tropical fish. An elevator ride through the 82-foot-tall tropical tank was a popular attraction, and took 10 minutes to complete. [...]
The cause of the watery explosion remains unknown, with some speculation that freezing overnight temperatures in Berlin -- hitting 14 degrees Fahrenheit -- might have caused cracks in the acrylic tank, which burst under the weight of the water.
Posting my "assassination coordinates"... in realtime
Posting my "assassination coordinates"... in realtime
Public Health Disservice Awards
Hosted by Neoliberal John Snow:
How did so many in the United States end up desensitized to mass death and disability, angrily opposed to almost all means of mitigating an occasionally fatal airborne virus, and willing to accept so little from the powerful? How did the wealthiest nation in the world -- and, on paper, the nation seen as best prepared to meet a pandemic -- fail, and continue failing, so epically? The Public Health Disservice Awards ("The Snowzzies") tries to answer these imponderables. [...]
Our awardees are the intellectual authors of a noxious form of pandemic-era groupthink; the Snowzzie awards recognize their outsized efforts to normalize a disaster and manufacture public consent. Occupying positions in academia, medicine, journalism, and government, they have worked to inculcate the belief that life is back to normal. If things seem otherwise, that is a "you" problem. Everyone else, we are told, has moved on.
Particularly good are the ties for the category "Achievement in Public Health Disservice by a Group of Organization" from UCSF, thanks to Prasad, Wachter and Gandhi, and from Stanford, thanks to Ioannidis, Bhattacharya and Atlas:
What happens when you take a prestigious institute of higher education, plant a right-wing think tank on its campus, and grant tenure to a flock of iconoclastic libertarians who I can only imagine dream of bathing in the blood of the poor?
No, this isn't a thought experiment. It's Stanford University.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
"DNA Lounge may or may not be notable".
Meanwhile, inside the Mastodon privacy red flag factory...
Seeing a Mastodon admin first hear the word "subpoena" is like watching an infant totter toward a porcupine.
Mastodon didn't answer CyberScoop's questions about this, which is a red flag, because they've been around long enough and have the resources to formulate a response. This is also a red flag: "CyberScoop spoke with several Mastodon instance administrators whose member numbers ranged from the dozens to the tens of thousands about how they would handle a law enforcement request. Most ran their instance as a hobby and none had a legal background." [...]
Bell would "seek assistance from a lawyer" [...] Let's be absolutely clear that Bell has never dealt with this before and is not prepared at all, and is clearly thinking he'll be dealing with US requests. [...]
Dr. Mark doesn't understand what social media law enforcement requests even are (let alone what they might include). [...] he only seems to think he'll get content requests for posts. Law enforcement requests can also include non-content, such as IP addresses, connection history, communications, and more. Just look at Microsoft's recent law enforcement requests report to see why the Mastodon issue is making me scream into a pillow.
Locks
Dear Lazyweb,
Please don't make me regret asking a question that is such a hax0r poseur hot-button, but what's a practical, economical in-door lock that is not easily pickable or susceptible to pick-guns, bump keys and portable drills?
Ideally this would be like 20 locks on a 6 element key system, with dozens of keys, so let's not break the bank, ok?
And after that, what door-hardening techniques are worthwhile, e.g., thicker steel doorframes? What's the next thing they're gonna hit with an angle grinder?
I understand the principle that you don't have to run faster than the bear, you just have to run faster than your friend, but since last time there have been more burglaries of nightclubs by a group of people who own a bunch of tools and are blessed with the absolute certainty that SFPD will do nothing about it.
Keep in mind that I know little about fancy keys and never learned to pick locks because... oh right, because I just don't give a shit. However I would like to not get robbed again, that would be nice.
"You shut the fuck up," Chappelle said as the crowd booed the billionaire.
"The footage appears to have been deleted from Twitter for some reason."
It's difficult to tell from the videos precisely what percentage of the crowd was booing during the cringeworthy episode, but some on social media estimated it was the vast majority of people in the 18,000-capacity stadium.
Is there such a thing as accidental praxis? Because as much as I hate oligarchs, in a million years I could not have figured out a way to trick one to walk on stage and get booed for ten minutes straight by the proletariat.
Speaking as a former comedian, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Because ... have you ever had 10,000 people hate you TO YOUR FACE before? Because I have. And humans aren't wired for that.
I'd note that the 10,000 people hating me to my face were actually just stonily silent while I ate it on stage while opening for a musical act. And while I laughed it off after .. it was rough. And I'd been working for years at that point. But BOOING?!
And for a narcissist? Just saying -- expect some serious whiplash crazy coming over the next week.
