Oscar Mayer has unveiled a hot dog-infused ice cream sandwich. https://mashable.com/article/oscar-mayer-hot-dog-mustard-ice-cream/

New York has seen a mini-resurgence of hop growing in recent years, but its farmers face stiff competition from west coast growers when it comes to hop varieties. https://modernfarmer.com/2019/07/new-york-farmers-hope-to-discover-new-hops/

Palaeontologists in New Zealand have now uncovered the remains of Heracles inexpectatus, an extinct giant parrot that would have stood hip-high to most people and packed a beak powerful enough to crack open pretty much whatever it wanted to. https://newatlas.com/heracles-giant-extinct-parrot/60917/

This should be an entertaining way to "doodle" during meetings. http://weavesilk.com/

Remember Spectre and Meltdown? They were pretty bad, but their targets are patched. At #BlackHat2019 Bitdefender revealed a related vulnerability they call SwapGS, and those patches don't help one bit.

#cososec https://www.pcmag.com/news/369990/spectre-meltdown-patches-wont-fix-new-swapgs-intel-flaw

"In the past six years, he said, researchers had found that cravings for junk food increases 45 per cent for the underslept." https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/the-business-of-sleep

A boutique hotel in Seattle is offering a "modern engagement package" that includes a robot carrying the ring and proposing through its display. https://www.geekwire.com/2019/service-robot-hotel-near-seattle-brings-ring-asks-will-marry-say-yes/

Letters of the Damned: Exorcising the Curse of the Petrified Forest https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/curse-of-the-petrified-forest/

Rules around password policies are changing. Here's what you need to know now. #cososec https://www.hpe.com/us/en/insights/articles/password-policy-recommendations-heres-what-you-need-to-know-1908.html

'I thought losing my virginity would be rape': inside Christian purity guides https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2019/jul/30/inside-christian-purity-guides-joshua-harris-mike-pence-rule

Congratulations to the winners of the 2019 Anita Borg Systers Pass It On Awards! Here's a summary of the projects underway. (It'll make you feel better about the world.) https://anitab.org/news/announcements/2019-pass-it-on-winners/

Some (small) comfort for broke novelists: despite being a best-selling author, Jane Austen didn’t make a lot of money from her writing either. https://jezebel.com/despite-being-a-best-selling-author-jane-austen-was-pa-1836954218

"One of the joys of the modern era is that, thanks to the internet, people we admire from afar are tantalizingly within reach — just a tweet or an email away." https://hbr.org/2019/07/how-to-reach-out-to-someone-whose-career-you-admire

The Birth of the Semicolon
In humanist times, just as in our own, hand-wringing sages forecast a literary apocalypse precipitated by too-casual attitudes about punctuation. “It is not concealed from you how great a shortage there is of intelligent scribes in these times,” wrote one French humanist to another.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/08/01/the-birth-of-the-semicolon/

"Impeachable" Once again, Noel Paul Stookey expresses my feelings oh-so-well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJKOzwNzPek

Starting a new job can make us feel like the new kid on the first day of school: nervous, yet eager to fit in and make a good first impression. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/smarter-living/how-to-answer-tricky-personal-questions-at-a-new-job.html

“People kept saying things like ‘unprecedented,’ ‘on steroids,’ ‘off the friggin’ charts,’ and ‘the largest launch of a single produce item in American history.’”

It's an apple.

https://story.californiasunday.com/cosmic-crisp-apple-launch

Songs by Joni Mitchell re-imagined as pulp fiction book covers & vintage movie posters http://www.openculture.com/2019/07/songs-by-joni-mitchell-re-imagined-as-pulp-fiction-book-covers-vintage-movie-posters.html

During the 1770s there emerged a new type of fashionable fellow: the Macaroni, whose style was frequently and easily lampooned by cartoonists and the media. https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/meet-macaronis