My Mother in Law is in hospital with what I hope is a minor infection, and I have been running around all night as a result.
Year: 2019
Headline of the Day
Maybe Rich Liberals Don’t Hate Sanders Because They Fear He Can’t Win, But Because They’re Rich
Takes on the assumption that the New York Times makes in their article, you know, the, “From canapé-filled fund-raisers on the coasts,” one, that rich donors are acting for the good of the party, as opposed to their own personal interests:
Why does the New York Times take rich liberals at their word that their concern with Bernie Sanders is that he would lose to Trump, rather than the obvious, glaring fact that his election would run counter to their interests?
………
That a network of multi-millionaire and billionaire donors would dislike a candidate who not only rejects their funding, but is actively trying to tax them at rates not seen since 1960, would surely be enough reason to explain why these wealthy elites would want to “stop” his nomination. But not to the credulous New York Times, which takes at face value rich donors’ claim to oppose Sanders because they believe he simply can’t defeat Trump:
………
Because it would be unseemly to suggest a group of super-rich hedge fund managers, Hollywood producers and CEOs would dislike a candidate who has made a career out of promising to expropriate the bulk of their wealth, we get a faux pragmatism argument. But polls show Sanders defeating Trump with numbers comparable to any other declared candidate—a fact the New York Times never bothers to mention, letting the idea go unchallenged that “socialist” (!!) Sanders is an electoral liability. The simpler, less altruistic motive is simply never entertained.It’s a variation on the Inexplicable Republican Best Friend trope FAIR previously documented (2/26/19): Instead of assuming that lifelong conservatives may just prefer more conservative politicians, progressive-bashing GOP pundits are propped up as neutral observers simply looking out for the Democratic Party. Just the same, super-wealthy Democratic donors can’t oppose Sanders because they simply prefer more centrist, pro-Wall Street candidates; they must have a sincere, pragmatic concern he would lose the general election.
They are voting with their bloated wallets.
Sometimes a Single Phrase Clarifies Everything
In a New York Times has an article about how the wealthy donor class of the Democratic Party is colluding with the party leaders to take down Bernie Sanders.
This isn’t exactly secret, but this quote pretty much explains the whole scene in a remarkably vivid way:
From canapé-filled fund-raisers on the coasts to the cloakrooms of Washington, mainstream Democrats are increasingly worried that their effort to defeat President Trump in 2020 could be complicated by Mr. Sanders, in a political scenario all too reminiscent of how Mr. Trump himself seized the Republican nomination in 2016.
The whole “Ancien Régime” vibe is vivid, and it is appaling.
Bernie in the Lions’ Den
Bernie Sanders kicked serious ass at the Fox News town hall.
He was on point, answered the questions, and was a forceful advocate of his policies.
The hostile hosts were owned.
Favorite bit: Fox drone host asks audience who has insurance through their employer. (Lots of hands go up)
Drone host then asks who among them wants Medicare for all. (ALL the hands stay up, and they begin to cheer)
It’s probably the best thing that has been on Fox News in years.
Tweet of the Day
The article is horrifying but I saw this pic of zuck and wondered why he looked so good, so alive. Figured it was an old photo. Turns out that is the wax effigy of him in Madame Tussaud’s. He is the only person whose wax figure looks less creepy & uncanny than the original person https://t.co/Q4bxPbYjK1— Mar Hicks (@histoftech) April 11, 2019
It really is remarkable that Madame Tussaud’s is the only organization on the face of the earth that can imbue Mark Zuckerberg with a sense of humanity.
Oh No, Not Again
Everyone’s favorite pedophile, Roy Moore, is currently leading in the polls for the Alabama Senate race in 2020:
Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore leads the field of potential Republicans vying for the chance to challenge Sen. Doug Jones (D), a year and a half after Moore lost what was supposed to be an easy election in a deep-red state.
A new poll shows Moore leading a still-evolving field of Alabama Republicans competing for the nomination. He is the top choice of 27 percent of Alabama Republican voters, according to the Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy Inc. survey.
Someone needs to check the water supply in Alabama, because someone has dosed it with something strong.
Stochastic Terrorism and the Cowardice of the Democratic Leadership
Make no mistake about it: Donald Trump’s attacks on Ilhan Omar are an attempt to induce one of his more unbalanced supporters to kill her.
This is not a surprise.
This has been the modus operandus of the right wing since before they assassinated Alan Berg.
What is also not a surprise is the complete cravenness of the Democratic establishment, including Nancy Pelosi’s absolute refusal to offer a meaningful pushback against Trump.
She’s refusing to even say Omar’s name, saying simply that his statements was, “Beneath the dignity of the Oval Office.
The response to the rank and file has been exactly the opposite, where Omar’s fundraising numbers have blown past Pelosi’s numbers, without the benefit of the Speaker’s fat cat donors and bundlers.
Seriously, if the whole of the Democratic Party establishment were replaced with bobblehead dolls, not only would they be braver, they would be less self-destructive.
World’s Largest White Elephant Takes to the Sky
I am referring, of course to the late Paul Allen’s abortive Stratolaunch program:
On Saturday morning, exactly 45 minutes after the sun began to rise over the Mojave Desert, the largest airplane ever created—and its record-breaking 385-foot wingspan—took off for the very first time. The aircraft, from the company Stratolaunch, has been eight years in the making. By 2022, the company hopes to use the twin-fuselage, six-engined, catamaran-style aircraft to launch satellite-bearing rockets into space.
“All of you have been very patient and very tolerant over the years waiting for us to get this big bird off the ground, and we finally did it,” Stratolaunch CEO Jean Floyd told reporters on a press call. The company reported the airplane hit speeds of 189mph and heights of 17,000 feet during its 150-minute test flight, before landing safely at the Mojave Air and Space Port.
“The systems on the airplane ran like a watch,” test pilot Evan Thomas told reporters. But the day’s events were bittersweet. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, a longtime space enthusiast who founded and funded the Stratolaunch project, passed away last October at age 65 from complications related to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. “Even though he wasn’t there today, as the plane lifted gracefully from the runway, I did whisper a ‘thank you’ to Paul for allowing me to be a part of this remarkable achievement,” Floyd said.
One day soon, Stratolaunch hopes to carry 250-ton rocket ships loaded with satellites to a height of 35,000 feet—into the stratosphere. Once at cruising altitude, a rocket’s engines would ignite, carrying it and its satellite cargo the rest of the way into space. Only a select few facilities, like the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, can handle rocket launches, which means tight competition for scheduling and long wait times. Airplanes can take off from many more runways, which Stratolaunch hopes will give its aircraft a competitive edge for those wishing to launch satellites into orbit.
The aircraft is a white elephant because, as I noted a few months back, Stratolaunch was designed as an airborne launcher for rockets, but Stratolaunch has abandoned its development for launchers, so there is nothing for it to launch.
There are, and never will be, “250-ton rocket ships loaded with satellites,” for it to carry.
There is talk of Stratolaunch being used to carry the Pegasus XL, but that is 25 tons, and has already been launched from an almost certainly cheaper to operate Lockheed L-1011 carrier, so I do not see how it would make any sense from an economic or a business perspective, even with Stratolaunch having the ability to launch 3 Pegasus XLs simultaneously.
This is Heartbreaking
The spire falls at about 15s
There has been a at a massive fire at the Notre Dame de Paris :
A fire that devastated Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris was brought under control by firefighters in the early hours of Tuesday morning, though officials warned there were still residual fires to put out.
Thousands of Parisians watched in horror from behind police cordons as a ferocious blaze devastated Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday night, destroying its spire and a large part of the roof.
An investigation has been opened by the prosecutor’s office, but police said it began accidentally and may be linked to building work at the cathedral. The 850-year-old gothic masterpiece had been undergoing restoration work.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, attended the scene and later gave a speech in which he vowed that the cathedral would be rebuilt, as fire crews said the landmark’s rectangular bell towers and structure of the building had been saved.
I’m not sure how much has been lost, but given that the structure, the part that isn’t wood, is limestone and old mortar, which is very susceptible to fire damage.
I’m not sure what has been lost, but I’m pretty sure that when a final inventory is made there will be some very sad architects, artists, and historians.
In bizarrely related news, there has been a (relatively minor) fire at the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Unlike the Notre Dame fire, the source of this one is currently suspicious, having occurred during a 15 minute change-over of local security:
A fire broke out in al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the third-holiest site in Islam, on Monday. The blaze didn’t cause significant damage, but it did endanger a part of the worship site that’s over 2,000 years old.
The fire broke out in the guard room outside the al-Marwani Prayer Room Monday evening, according to a statement by the mosque’s Islamic Waqf (Endowments) Department. According to The New Arab, a guard reported a short gap in guard rotations between 7:15 and 7:30 p.m. local time.
Weird.
People Are Stunned that Sanders States the Obvious
It appears that it is news that Bernie Sanders has called out the Center for American Progress’s jihad against progressives, and the delicate flowers in the commentariat are having the vapors over this:
Senator Bernie Sanders, in a rare and forceful rebuke by a presidential candidate of an influential party ally, has accused a liberal think tank of undermining Democrats’ chances of taking back the White House in 2020 by “using its resources to smear” him and other contenders pushing progressive policies.
Mr. Sanders’s criticism of the Center for American Progress, delivered on Saturday in a letter obtained by The New York Times, reflects a simmering ideological battle within the Democratic Party and threatens to reopen wounds from the 2016 primary between him and Hillary Clinton’s allies. The letter airs criticisms shared among his supporters: that the think tank, which has close ties to Mrs. Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment, is beholden to corporate donors and has worked to quash a leftward shift in the party led partly by Mr. Sanders.
“This counterproductive negative campaigning needs to stop,” Mr. Sanders wrote to the boards of the Center for American Progress and its sister group, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “The Democratic primary must be a campaign of ideas, not of bad-faith smears. Please help play a constructive role in the effort to defeat Donald Trump.”
Mr. Sanders sent the letter days after a website run by the action fund, ThinkProgress, suggested that his attacks on income inequality were hypocritical in light of his growing personal wealth. The letter is tantamount to a warning shot to the Democratic establishment that Mr. Sanders — who continues to criticize party insiders on the campaign trail — will not countenance a repeat of the 2016 primary, when he and his supporters believe party leaders and allies worked to deny him the Democratic nomination.
CAP, and its president, Neera Tanden, have been a cancer of American politics since its founding by uber-lobbyist (and poster child for poor IT security) John Podesta.
It’s goal has always been the promotion of neoliberal DLC type politics and the sabotage of progressives.
They are funded by the owners of Walmart and various Persian Gulf potentiates.
They are claiming that Sanders’ letter, “threatens to undo a delicate rapprochement, and could presage another bitter primary battle.”
That is complete bullsh%$. CAP has been targeting progressive Democrats since its founding.
CAP is not, as the headline asserts, a “Liberal Think Tank,” it’s a full-employment scan for former Clinton, and now Obama, administration toadies.
As to Tanden, she’s just a horror show:
Since Mr. Trump’s victory, Ms. Tanden has recast herself and her organization as leaders of the anti-Trump “resistance,” and has sought to harness the energy of liberal activists who backed Mr. Sanders in 2016, even as she has continued complaining about his supporters.
Ms. Tanden, in an email Sunday morning, deferred comment to the editor in chief of ThinkProgress, which she said is “editorially independent” of CAP and its action fund.
Neera Tanden is lying about ThinkProgress being editorially independent.
We actually have evidence (from Wikileaks) of CAP, and Neera Tanden meddling in ThinkProgress.
Also, this is not just about Bernie. They are going after anyone who they have deemed “unworthy” in the most scorched-earth manner possible:
Mr. Sanders also accused ThinkProgress of “personal attacks” on two other Democratic presidential candidates who have espoused progressive policies, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. He cited a February post on the website accusing Mr. Booker of undermining a bill he wrote with Mr. Sanders that would allow the importation of medications from Canada and other countries. Mr. Sanders further accused ThinkProgress of playing into President Trump’s hands by publishing op-eds criticizing Ms. Warren for claiming Native American heritage.
So, this appears to be a a “Liberal Think Tank” thet embraced Trump’s “Pocahontas” comments about Warren.
CAP, and ThinkProgress, are a cancer on American Politics, and they need to be called out
Do You Want Some Cheese with Your Whine?
Caio Mussolini, Benito’s grandson and a Fascist in his own right, is upset because Facebook took down his account for being a Fascist. (It has since been restored)
You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas, dude.
The Best Argument for Forfeiture Reform is an Argument for Forfeiture
Case in point, retired police chief Robert Stevenson who argues that reforms to asset forfeiture will make it too hard for the police to steal your money:
One of the worst defenses of civil asset forfeiture has been penned by retired police chief Robert Stevenson for the Michigan news site, the Bridge. It’s written in response to two things: pending forfeiture reform bills in the state legislature and the Supreme Court’s Timbs decision, which indicated forfeiture may fall on the wrong side of the 8th and 14th Amendments.
………
First, Stevenson argues that cops should be able to take money they feel deeply in their hearts is derived from drug dealing even if it can’t find any evidence linking the person carrying it to a crime.………
That part comes in his second argument for forfeiture — one that says even if cops have all the evidence they need to push for a conviction, they still should just be able to take the cash instead.
I have always thought that the first step in reforming a larcenous asset allocation system is to ensure that the proceeds do not remit back to the courts and the cops who make the decision. (I would suggest scholarships to state schools)
There are probably other reforms after that, but once law enforcement stops making money from the process, the incentives to abuse the process are much reduced.
Once Again, May Chooses the Stupid Option
Given the clusterf%$# that is Brexit, it’s not surprising that there was someone toiling away in a back office trying to plan for a no-deal scenario.
Well, now that May has been given 6 more months to get nothing done, she has shuttered the office planning for a no-deal.
May is being short sighted and stupid, but I am repeating myself:
Emergency planning for No Deal was called off today after the Brexit delay was written into law.
Civil servants were reportedly told to stand down from urgent meetings meant to ensure the UK is ready to leave the EU without a deal.
The move comes after the Brexit date was moved from April 12 to October 31 following a late-night Brussels summit.
The decision comes as citizens and businesses – including L’Oreal, Tesco and BMW – were continuing to stockpile for No Deal.
………
Officials had been working around the clock to make sure Britain would not suffer if we crashed out of the EU without a withdrawal agreement.
Government sources today said the work has been put on the back burner now the cliff edge deadline has been pushed back.
A Cabinet source told The Sun: “We’re easing off on the No Deal preparations because it’s not the priority at the moment.
Six more months of incompetence and inaction does not justify abandoning preparation for the worst case.
Not planning for the worst case scenario on something as potentially disruptive as Brexit is governmental malpractice.
Linkage
- Why there’s a recovery ‘speed limit’ after mass extinction (Futurity) Basically, animals need to evolve into new species to occupy the vacated niches.
- The Final Battle in Big Tech’s War to Dominate Your World (The New Republic) Trying to make your life impossible without them.
Microsoft confirms you really, really don’t need to ‘safely remove’ USB flash drives anymore (The Verge) Good to know.- BT Tower broadcasts error message to the nation as Windows displays admin’s shame (The Register) The joys of digital billboards.
- Missing Novell server discovered after four years (The Register) From 2001, but the story of a server that got sealed behind a wall STILL RUNNING after 4 years, Cask of Amontillado style is too good not to note.
- Tolkien’s guide to contemporary politics (UnHerd) The EU (and Zuckerberg) as Sauron.
Eggs Woodhouse from Archer:
I Know That the French Are Nuts on Copyright, but This Is Ridiculous
The French internet cops have issued a notice to the Internet Archive that project Gutenberg, Grateful Dead concerts, the Prelinger archive of public domain videos, and some CSPAN videos be taken down for fomenting terrorism:
French internet cops have demanded that the Internet Archive remove more than 550 instances of “terrorist propaganda” from its site.
There’s only one problem: the illegal and offensive content they have identified includes live recordings of the Grateful Dead, archives of TV news shows and pages from Project Gutenberg – which archives plain text versions of books as horrifying as The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland.
The organization is not amused. “It would be bad enough if the mistaken URLs in these examples were for a set of relatively obscure items on our site,” it said in a blog post, “but the French IRU’s lists include some of the most visited pages on archive.org and materials that obviously have high scholarly and research value.”
It then provides some of the links that it points out it would be obliged to remove within one hour if new legislation passing through the European Parliament is approved. It is painfully obvious that the requests are overly broad and misguided.
“The European Parliament is set to vote on legislation that would require websites that host user-generated content to take down material reported as terrorist content within one hour,” the Internet Archive notes. “We have some examples of current notices sent to the Internet Archive that we think illustrate very well why this requirement would be harmful to the free sharing of information and freedom of speech that the European Union pledges to safeguard.”
………
There is another chilling component too, highlighted by the Internet Archive: a separate takedown notice sent by the French L’Office Central de Lutte contre la Criminalité liée aux Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (OCLCTIC).
In this case, it demanded that the organization take down a video that discussed whether the Islamic holy text, the Quran, included “provocation of acts of terrorism or apology for such acts”.
If you place this authority in the hands of law enforcement officials, it will be abused, and it will be used stupidly.
It is the very nature of law enforcement.
Bad Day at the Office
The Brereshet space probe crashed into the moon.
There was some sort of failure, and the engine shut down on descent:
On April 11, an Israeli lander named after the Hebrew word for “Genesis” attempted to mark a new beginning for space exploration by becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to touch down on the moon. Built by the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL, the Beresheet lander tried to softly land within Mare Serenitatis, a vast volcanic basin on the moon’s northern near side—but as it made its descent, the spacecraft’s main engine failed. Engineers reset the spacecraft but lost communications, and the 330-pound lander ultimately crashed.
On April 12, SpaceIL released preliminary data from the last few moments of the mission, which show that despite resetting Beresheet, the spacecraft was descending at more than 300 miles an hour while it was less than 500 feet from touchdown, leading to “the inevitable collision with the lunar surface.”
This really sucks wet farts from dead pigeons.
Live in Obediant, Fear, Citizen
Amazon is routinely listening to your Alexa without your knowledge:
Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening.
Sometimes, someone is.
Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers. The team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa’s understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands.
The Alexa voice review process, described by seven people who have worked on the program, highlights the often-overlooked human role in training software algorithms. In marketing materials Amazon says Alexa “lives in the cloud and is always getting smarter.” But like many software tools built to learn from experience, humans are doing some of the teaching.
The team comprises a mix of contractors and full-time Amazon employees who work in outposts from Boston to Costa Rica, India and Romania, according to the people, who signed nondisclosure agreements barring them from speaking publicly about the program. They work nine hours a day, with each reviewer parsing as many as 1,000 audio clips per shift, according to two workers based at Amazon’s Bucharest office, which takes up the top three floors of the Globalworth building in the Romanian capital’s up-and-coming Pipera district. The modern facility stands out amid the crumbling infrastructure and bears no exterior sign advertising Amazon’s presence.
Well, that’s reassuring, isn’t it, Romanian hackers and Indian robocallers listening in on your home.
The work is mostly mundane. One worker in Boston said he mined accumulated voice data for specific utterances such as “Taylor Swift” and annotated them to indicate the searcher meant the musical artist. Occasionally the listeners pick up things Echo owners likely would rather stay private: a woman singing badly off key in the shower, say, or a child screaming for help. The teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need help parsing a muddled word—or come across an amusing recording.
And then, you become a running gag at the next Christmas party.
If they want people in a petri dish so that they can tweak their algorithms, all they need to do is get their informed consent, pay them, and tell them when it is on or off, but that is inconvenient and expensive, so once again Eric Arthur Blair is spinning in his grave.
You May Not Be Allowed to Know the Law
The International Code Council is trying to enforce copyright over law2s, which means that people cannot freely read or shore, or(more importantly) understand the law:
UpCodes wants to fix one of the building industry’s biggest headaches by streamlining code compliance. But the Y Combinator-backed startup now faces a copyright lawsuit filed against it by the International Code Council, the nonprofit organization that develops the code used or adopted in building regulations by all 50 states.
The case may have ramifications beyond the building industry, including for compliance technology in other sectors and even individuals who want to reproduce the law. At its core are several important questions: Is it possible to copyright the law or text that carries the weight of law? Because laws and codes are often written by private individuals or groups instead of legislators, what rights do they continue to have over their work? Several relevant cases, including ones involving building codes, have been decided by different circuits in the United States Court of Appeals, which means the UpCodes lawsuit may potentially be heard by the Supreme Court.
………
UpCodes’ first product, an online database, gives free access to codes, code updates and local amendments from 32 states, as well as New York City. For building professionals and others who want more advanced search tools and collaboration features, UpCodes sells individual and team subscriptions. In 2018, UpCodes released its second product, called UpCodes AI. Described as a “spellcheck for buildings,” the plug-in scans 3D models created with building information modeling (BIM) data and highlights potential errors in real time.
………
It argues that its use of building codes is covered by fair use. The ICC, on the other hand, claims that products like UpCodes’ database harm its ability to make revenue and continue developing code. The ICC wants UpCodes to take down the building code on which it claims copyright, and has also sued for damages.
The law should be freely sharable, period.
If the ICC does not like that, then it should sue the code authorities making copies of its code, which they won’t because then code authorities would find some way to develop common code without out the ICC looting them.
As an aside, this is a potential application for AI, so for example the section of code from the ICC (Chapter 10, Section 1003.2), which reads “The means of egress shall have a ceiling height of not less than 7 feet 6 inches (2286mm),” could be automatically rewritten to read, “A ceiling height of at least 7 feet 6 inches (2286mm) is required.”
The information (2286mm) is not subject to copyright, just the exact expression is. (It’s why, for example, the exact text of a recipe is copyrighted, but instructions that are functionally identical are not.)
I either case, I would like to see Congress change copyright law to explicitly make all regulatory code public domain.
Assange Expelled from Embassy and Arrested
The British charges are for jumping bail, which is not in dispute, he spent 7 years in the Ecuadoran embassy avoiding an extradition hearing.
However, the US government also has an extradition request, claiming conspiracy to hack (but not actual hacking of) government servers.
According to the indictment filed by the Department of Justice this consisted of: (See also this tweet storm)
- Receiving leaked documents from Manning.
- Using encrypted communications.
- Deleting logs to protect Manning’s identity.
- Encouraging Manning to dig up more documents.
It looks increasingly like the jailing of Chelsea Manning is an attempt to get her to testify (lie) that Assange engaged in a specific conspiracy with her to hack government computers.
Assange is a complete asshole.
He is also a biased* journalist, thought it is understandable: while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton called for his apprehension and/or murder.
But he is still a journalist, and what he is being prosecuted for is classic journalism.
Here are links from from Craig Murray, Matt Taibbi, Just Security, and The Intercept.
Murray is a SitRep on Assange, and the other 3 are on the potential 1st amendment issues, which are legion.
My guess is that the Poodles in the UK will extradite Assange, and he will be convicted at a trial where he won’t have meaningful access to the evidence against him, and the judge will disallow any arguments that his actions were journalistic in nature.
Also, he will be tortured through prolonged solitary confinement while in custody.
*Kind of understandable though, since many avatars of conventional political and foreign policy wisdom were calling for his assassination.
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
Scientists have reconstructed an antediluvian creature from fossil, and it looks a lot like something from the mind of HP Lovecraft:
A creature with more than a passing resemblance to HP Lovecraft’s terrifying Chthulu once actually existed, palaeontologists have revealed – although at just three centimetres wide, it was hardly a danger to shipping or buildings.
Not, of course, that there were any human-made structures around when Sollasina cthulhu prowled across the ocean floor some 430 million years ago.
The creature, a very distant ancestor of sea cucumbers and sea slugs, is revealed in a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
It was found in fossilised form in the UK county of Hereford. A team of researchers led by Imran Rahman from the University of Oxford then spent months painstakingly grinding it away, taking photographs at every stage, resulting in an accurate 3D computer reconstruction.
It has a face only a mother could love:
