Hello there!
Welcome to our daily scheduled post, the Daily Slow Chat.
If you want to just chat about your day, if you have questions for the moderators (please mark these [Mod] so we can find them), or if you just want talk about oatmeal then this is the thread for you!
Enjoying the small talk? We have a Discord server too! We'd love to have more of you over there. Do both of us a favour and use this link to join the fun.
The mod-team wishes you a nice day!
5 comments
I thought this [video](https://youtu.be/9VI5tZoBZ0s?si=a5yfmMQmNmlNenXb) overlaying ICE raid footage with the first Pokemon anime English intro was from some random dude, but apparently, it was shared on an official government social media account. 4chan has truly leaked out into real life.
Also, I heard recently that the Mars rover Perseverance discovered weird “leopard spots” in rock that may or may not be signs of past life on Mars. A sample return mission may yield more clues, but that won’t happen for a while.
One of the things I enjoy most about coming home after a long trip is sleeping on my own bed again! With a comfortable mattress and pillows.. not something you can take for granted when you are traveling around from place to place.I slept extremely well last night!
What do you like most about coming home?
Yesterday one of my students asked me, with genuine concern, what we’ll do if Trump shuts down the NCBI website.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information is THE archive for all things bioinformatics-related. There are different databases out there, but no biologist on earth can function without NCBI. Luckily I didn’t have to go all “it’s okay, my son, uncle Trump would never do that” (my students are adults, after all) but it is a bit shocking how dependent we have become of the US without never even thinking about it (though when the government was closed during Obama’s time, the website was also a bit slow for a while, but never, like, gone).
Well, no need to worry. Uncle Trump would never do that anyway.
Speaking of gone websites, I’ve often wondered how it is to be a YouTuber. There are some whose entire income is from YouTube. It must be not a very safe feeling to have all your livelihood depend on a website that can just close any time (like many others did), and there’s nothing you can do about it. I wonder if they’re making fallback plans and so on.
I’ve listened to Raye’s Where Is My Husband which was released as a single not long ago for like a million times, it’s such a banger. I mean, [this part](https://youtu.be/rK5TyISxZ_M?si=CzIzXHbyVJoZHWUu&t=137) that’s all over TikTok and shit is so good. I bet this song will be a staple at weddings for years to come. The vocal part is quite difficult though, only the best wedding bands will be able to pull it off.
It’s interesting that the British music industry keeps birthing these great Motown-ish R&B and soul acts. I think the current trend was largely awakened by Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson, but of course Adele has carried a lot of water for it too. Amy Winehouse is the mother of it, though.
It’s just weird to me that this kind of 60s and 70s American tradition lives in its purest form in the UK, while the American equivalent has largely developed into something quite different.