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Peru airport officials discover 3,000 tarantulas smuggled inside dirty socks
Three suitcases’ worth of the spiders were on their way to Germany, where they could fetch an estimated €1.5m
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/nov/06/3000-tarantulas-smuggled-inside-dirty-socks-peru
wtg said:
the cold-sensitive impatiens are blooming like crazy
I think that ends tonight. We didn't get out of the upper 40s today; we're going to be at or below 32.
But it will be back in the 60s by Sunday!
The agentic web is here
With the rise of personal AI assistants, the internet isn't just for humans anymore.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/11/02/1147846/the-agentic-web-is-here/
President Donald Trump announced Friday that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles will step down this week, with Stephen Miller replacing her.
“I am pleased to announce that Mr. Stephen Miller, the current Deputy Chief of Staff of the Trump Administration, and one of my most trusted advisors, will become the Chief of Staff starting Monday, November 9, 2026,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Trump said Wiles has “done an outstanding job” and “will be moving over to the Trump Political Operation. I want to thank her for her service as Chief of Staff — She has done a great job!”
Moments later, Wiles wrote in a post on X that Friday would be her last day as chief of staff.
“Serving President Trump in the White House has been the honor of a lifetime. I’m so proud to have been a part of what we’ve accomplished together from securing our border and cutting taxes to strengthening our economy and putting America First,” she wrote. “While my role may be changing, my commitment to the President and the mission never will.”
@CHAS It's the large appliances (washers, dryers, refrigerators, stoves) that we're avoiding.
OTOH, we've had good luck with Samsung TVs and phones. Our large TV is quite old and when I've looked at the TVs on display at Costco (where we buy this kind of stuff), I do like the picture on the LGs. When any of our TVs dies, I'll definitely consider an LG as a replacement.
It will be interesting to see how the Oxford Street initiative works out. Any number of cities, including Chicago, have tried various flavors of shutting down a major thoroughfare to vehicle traffic. They've met with varying degrees of success.
https://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/03/11/why-was-the-state-street-pedestrian-mall-a-failure
From Linux to Wikipedia: How Volunteers Build the Internet
Peer production is responsible for some of the most valuable online resources, challenging the authority of firms, markets, and government bureaucracies.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/from-linux-to-wikipedia-how-volunteers-build-the-internet/
no doubt the street will eventually be levelled with the pavement, and filled with seats, shrubs & trees.
That's what they did in the town where @kluurs lives; I grew up in a nearby town. Of course that happened back in the Stone Age when I was but a teenager. They closed off the street and re-landscaped to include trees, benches, etc., in an effort to make it welcoming. And to create barriers so people who had been accustomed to turning onto Lake Street from Harlem Avenue (super busy intersection) didn't do that once vehicle traffic was prohibited.
Some years later, they took it all out and opened it back up to traffic.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/1988/11/20/oak-park-ends-mall-days/
Probably cheaper to go to Salvation Army and buy some there.
The White House Office of Public Liaison informed roughly 3,000 conservative groups it was monitoring their public statements following severe Republican midterm election defeats.
A White House spokesperson insisted the memo was meant to galvanise supporters rather than serve as a threat, though past messages did not include such monitoring language.
The communication arrived after several prominent conservative figures and Republicans blamed President Donald Trump, tariffs, and the Iran war for the election losses.
@AndyD Same thing here on 4th of July. Some of our dogs were completely oblivious to the noise, but one in particular, our golden retriever Maggie, was freaked out by bottle rockets. The high pitched whistle that a bottle rocket makes before it explodes must have hurt her sensitive ears. She also hated thunderstorms, getting nervous well ahead of any actual thunder or rain.
She was the one that went crazy one day, frantically pawing open the sliding door on the front hall closet so she could hide. We heard on the news shortly after that there had been a minor earthquake in central Illinois, several hundred miles south of us. Almost no one around here felt it, but Maggie sure as heck knew something was happening.
For those who celebrate Guy Fawkes Day...
As Bonfire Night approaches and firework displays light up the UK, in a file on a shelf in the labyrinthine National Archives can be found a flat vellum page, inscribed in exquisite calligraphy, and the origin of this week’s explosive celebrations.
The 1605 Thanksgiving Act was passed by James I after Guy Fawkes’s failure to assassinate the king, the Lords and the Commons, at the opening of parliament that year.
Celebrating the “miraculous and gracious deliverance” of the Protestant church from the “malignant and devilish papists”, it directed that church services be held every 5 November to commemorate the failure of the “Gunpowder Plot”.
It is one of several documents relating to Britain’s most famous treason plot which are among 4m records transferred from the archives of parliament to the National Archives at Kew, south-west London, a project now complete five years after it first began.
Don't buy Samsung. Horrible customer service for repairs. A lot of shops won't do warranty work on Samsung because the company is a total pain to work with.
@jon-nyc You'll need to find someone else to argue with. I am not your new Horace.
I'm done in this thread.
I get your Islamophobia, @jon-nyc . Far be it from me to stand in your way. Carry on. But I think this sort of stuff goes over much better next door than here.
It's November 5, we haven't had a killing frost. My poblano peppers are blooming and forming new peppers and the cold-sensitive impatiens are blooming like crazy. Even the hostas are mostly green, with very few leaves turning yellow.
There are all kinds of bollards and other barriers that were installed as part of the project to make Oxford Street car-free.
Lord Khan’s pedestrianisation of Oxford Street “discriminates” against wheelchair users and the visually impaired, disability campaigners have said.
The scheme was described as “shockingly bad” and discriminatory because it restricts access to the street.
Campaigners criticised inconveniently placed benches and bollards, and ramps that were “painful” to mount. They added that shops were also more difficult to access now that there was no direct public transport.
https://www.aol.com/articles/khan-oxford-street-makeover-discriminates-172332000.html
This isn't a "Christmas market" thing. The plan to close off Oxford Street has been in the works for a long time. They did rush to get it in before Christmas to maximize foot traffic to businesses during the holiday shopping season.
Are they just for a Christmas market? I thought they just closed Oxford street to vehicle traffic ("pedestrianisation") and those barriers are to keep any traffic out.
I was going to post the Guardian article and see if @andyd had any opinions on the closure...
I want to know how he crossed the Darien gap.
Some info here on his website. Excerpts from his book, I think.
Drifting
