Educational Videos …. Where?!?

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So here’s an unusual story from 404 Media about a woman posting explainer videos about calculus, neural networks, and the like. And the twist is, she’s posting these educational videos, on Pornhub of all places.

Why on Earth is she publishing educational videos on a porn site? Her rationale makes perfect sense – Pornhub pays better than YouTube (though she posts there too).

There’s also a mention that when she shared a link to her videos on her Linkedin profile, that service responded with a ban and won’t explain why. My guess is they found the link inappropriate (I mean, it is a porn site), but refusing to explain the ban takes inappropriate to a whole other level.

(Read the article)

Wooden Bitcoin

Just like their digital counterpart, wooden bitcoin are not backed by any real world assets and their value is therefore largely speculative.

However, unlike their digital counterpart, in the event of a worldwide economic collapse, wooden bitcoin will still maintain some real world value as kindling for a cookfire.

A small pile of wooden disks on a silver background. An outer circle on each disk reads "Wooden Bitcoin. Just as Good, Really." Text on an inner circle reads "To Redeem: Insert into any Internet Coin Slot." The Bitcoin logo appears at the center of each disk.

Boot To The Head

I use different browsers for varying reasons. By default, the Brave browser shows full page ads on the home screen. Even though they pretty much universally don’o’t interest me, I don’t begrudge Brave the ads since they help pay for the company’s ongoing operating costs. And, according to Brave, they don’t trade in my personal data so I see little reason to turn them off.

Plus, some of the ads are downright entertaining. For example, a few months ago, this was the background image from an ad for Karate.com.

Two men in martial arts uniforms, standing on a mat in what appears to be an arena or gymnasium. * **Two Men** * The man on the left is bald and has a beard. * He is wearing a black martial arts uniform with white accents. * His hands are clasped together in front of him. * The man on the right has short brown hair. * He is wearing a white martial arts uniform with black accents. * His left leg is raised, and his arms are bent at the elbows. The image suggests that the two men are engaged in some kind of martial arts training or competition.

I have no idea what this is supposed to be about, but in my mind, the smirking bald guy on the left is clearly thinking “Daniel-san, you’ve watched ‘The Karate Kid’ waaaay too many times.”

And then a few moments later, the guy in the white gi is curled up on the floor, having just had his butt kicked.

Winona Sighting

We’ve had a female pileated visiting our yard the past several years. She’s not formally introduced herself, so we’ve taken to calling her Winona. There’s a male we call Woodrow, but we’ve not seen him lately.

Female pileated woodpecker sitting in a tree.
Zoomed in photo of a female pileated woodpecker in a tree. The nictitating membrane over its eye is half-closed.
Female pileated woodpecker with its beak inserted in a knot in a branch.

Mehran’s Steakhouse

This is an amazing story about an even more amazing prank. To be honest, I’m not quite sure how I stumbled across it. One of those “search for topic A and get sidetracked onto topic B” kind of deals.

So, the super short version is, Mehran’s Steak House is this super-amazing restaurant on New York’s Upper East Side. Except it isn’t. But then, for one night, it was.

Rather than me mangling it, go read the full story on SubStack.

Howard the Avenger

I’d run across mention that Howard the Duck makes an appearance in the “Avengers Assemble” scene in Endgame. Tonight, I finally tracked it down to see for myself.

He’s visible for just a second, right after The Wasp makes her appearance and immediately before the camera cuts to Thor. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1bSmAsswg0&t=92s

And then, since I was already headed down the rabbit hole, I went and watched the movie. Lea Thompson was as cute as I remember, but … yeah, this wasn’t one of Marvel’s best movies.