"I thought I knew everything there was to know about kosher cold cuts. And then I encountered rolled beef."
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/293294/on-the-rolled-beef-trail

The catalog ban included several classic books related to African American history like, “The Souls of Black Folk,” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” https://www.charlestonchronicle.net/2019/11/06/illinois-prison-bans-black-history-books/

Back in my day I could go to the store with one dollar and come back with a soda and two bags of chips.

But nowadays they have cameras.
#jokes

In1866, Secretary of State William Henry Seward inaugurated the first sustainable transatlantic telegraph line by sending a diplomatic cable. Seward’s message was a tidy 780 words, but he sent it using a Monroe cipher, which converted the text into groups of numbers. And the telegraph company stipulated that a coded message that used number groups had to spell out the numbers — so 387 was sent as THREE EIGHT SEVEN. Consequently Seward’s message expanded to 3,772 words.
https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/cryptologic-quarterly/Sewards_Other_Folly.pdf

Dolly Parton.

Geez, what a brain fart.

Though a mashup of Dorothy Parker and Dolly Parton would be wonderful.

Best thing on the internet today https://twitter.com/NigelDPresents/status/1191837352538312704

Blade Runner: How well did the film predict 2019's tech? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50247479

Today's #cosomusic to write by: Dar Williams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRLSH5WuVqg

Dorothy Parton's Imagination Library now mails more than one million books per month across the U.S., Australia, Britain, Canada and Ireland https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/10/dolly-parton-is-an-actual-angel.html

A Michigan woman faces up to 93 days in jail for… overdue library books. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-michigan-woman-charged-failing-return-books-library-20191104-q5loyk7qszdi5cddsq267ch5va-story.html

"The dogs featured on Fargo Brewing’s cans are adoptable through Fargo’s 4 Luv Of Dog shelter and include what are presumably very good boys and girls."
https://thetakeout.com/fargo-brewing-company-adoptable-dogs-beer-cans-label-1839639578

The surprisingly long history of working out how to talk to aliens https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/nov/06/cosmic-cats-nuclear-interstellar-messages-extraterrestrial-intelligence

>> Many Americans shared the resentment voiced in a book published in 1902: “. . . but now there came multitudes of men of the lowest class from the south of Italy and men of the meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland, men out of the ranks where there was neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence....”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/11/when-america-tried-to-deport-its-radicals

Can tattoos make you healthier? https://www.sapiens.org/body/tattoo-immune-response/

The story of an alleged Easter Egg war in Commodore BASIC. In a nutshell, certain seed values for the RNG in some versions of Commodore BASIC produce some rather interesting text strings, some of them referring to Bill Gates in quite rude language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8HHpmyFfw4

Selling sewing machines in the 19th century
https://www.ikfoundation.org/itextilis/selling-of-sewing-machines.html

My Amazon review of _Mottele_ by Gertrude Samuels

4 stars

Haunting true story of a kid during the Holocaust #cosobookclub https://amzn.to/2PQkYDc

"Winter is still coming" – George RR Martin says he'll finish his latest book before he even thinks about the new "Game of Thrones" prequel. #cosobookclub https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/31/george-rr-martin-wont-write-spinoffs-game-of-thrones-book-finished-house-of-the-dragon-winds-of-winter

"Perhaps trying to define plants’ behavior according to our own narrow conceptions risks obscuring what is unique about their intelligence." http://nautil.us/issue/77/underworlds/never-underestimate-the-intelligence-of-trees

The history of the women's restroom lounge is a strange blend of plumbing technologies, Victorian moralism, class and racial divides, and Hollywood glamour. https://www.citylab.com/design/2018/12/history-womens-bathroom-design-lounge/576742/