September 15
Jane Fonda, Still Fighting for the Earth at 87
Jane Fonda on Jimmy Kimmel, Sept 11, 2024 After a short exchange about Kamala Harris and the Orange Man (her words), she makes a compelling and immediate case for really waking up to the climate crisis. [more inside]
A Run to Remember
I’m 43 years young: that’s La Prairie Skin Caviar for you.
Billionare lifestyle parody Gstaad Guy's (Constance, and sometimes Colton) ongoing (TikTok, Instagram) series on behaviors from men who should immediately be dumped à la poubelle (all videos on TikTok). “Although they are fake people, they are very authentic to their values and characters. It’s either excellent or it’s à la poubelle . . . ”
Native title claim spanning 95,000 square kilometres recognised
Native title claim spanning 95,000 square kilometres (23,475,011 acres) recognised by Federal Court in Western New South Wales. In an open-air courtroom set up in a nature reserve at Cobar, families from the Ngemba, Ngiyampaa, Wangaaypuwan and Wayilwan peoples secure one of the largest native title claims in the region's history.
The data on extreme human ageing is rotten from the inside out
The data on extreme human ageing is rotten from the inside out. Ig Nobel prize winner Saul Justin Newman on his paper Supercentenarians and the oldest-old are concentrated into regions with no birth certificates and short lifespans. [more inside]
Every river flow is different
Watch the Greenough river in Western Australia come to life as you read the stories of the people who celebrate the return of the water flow. Odyssey Story Format (mix of images, text and video) on the ABC.
Voice impressionist Greg Morton does a lot
Greg Morton can do all the voices. I always wonder how people can do this kind of imitation. Not just one, but so many!
You might have seen this coming
It seems unlikely that a system relying on hallucinated base rates and numerical simulations goes all the way to outperforming (half-decent) human forecasters in any meaningful way. from Contra papers claiming superhuman AI forecasting [Lesswrong]
September 14
Without Changing a Thing
Starting in 2017, NW Natural promoted the potential of “renewable natural gas” to counter the movement to ban new fossil gas hookups and electrify residential heating and cooking. A trove of more than 100 insider documents shows that NW Natural has done a lot less than promised in their Less We Can campaign. [more inside]
Nausea-inducing cane toad baits help freshwater crocodiles
Nausea-inducing cane toad baits help freshwater crocodiles avoid poisonous pest. New research shows taste-aversion therapy helps hundreds of freshwater crocodiles avoid poisoning by cane toads spreading across the Kimberley.
Autistic Relationship Begins With More Complex Negotiations Than Brexit
Produced by Sara Gibbs and Elsa Williams, The Daily Tism is an Onion-like parody news site produced by autistic people, poking fun at themselves, for themselves and people who want to laugh with them. Some headlines: "Autistic Woman Who Always Guesses Plot Twist Carefully Selects Which Movie To Ruin," "Pasta Dish Murdered By Sauce and Cheese Being Mixed In," and "Autistic Man Concentrating So Hard On Listening He Can't Hear A Single Fucking Word You're Saying." [more inside]
You win by finding an 8-letter word before the time runs out
Do you like the New York Times' Spelling Bee? Try Eightile for a [timed] variant, in Spanish or English.
The tsunami that vibrated through the entire planet and no one saw
The Conversation: Earthquake scientists detected an unusual signal on monitoring stations used to detect seismic activity during September 2023. We saw it on sensors everywhere, from the Arctic to Antarctica.
We were baffled – the signal was unlike any previously recorded. Instead of the frequency-rich rumble typical of earthquakes, this was a monotonous hum, containing only a single vibration frequency. Even more puzzling was that the signal kept going for nine days. [more inside]
"That's a wonderful approach"
Senay Boztas (The Art Newspaper, 09/03/2024), "Rijksmuseum acquires controversial early botanic book on Suriname" (ungated): "Maria Sibylla Merian's 1705 Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium [Latin, Dutch, Dutch counterproof] is considered a 'high point' of early printing ... More recently, the contemporary artist Patricia Kaersenhout superimposed images of prominent Carribbean-born people onto images from the book, and made a series responding to the 'erasure' of local people's names from the botanist's work." Intros to Merian: The British Museum, The Natural History Museum, The Royal Society, and the NYT (ungated). Overview of her books. Other works online. Intros to Kaersenhout: Kunstverein Braunschweig, AWARE, The Bonnefanten, and metropolis m. Other works and video online.
‘I can never go back to who I was before.’
How a former content moderator thinks about the job. (SLWaPo gift) Content warning for animal abuse.
Just how much 2024 GOP platform is based on lies?
@HidingInPrivate's video "How the GOP Lies to Us: The Trump Economy" fact checks GOP claims in the 2024 platform, and found it with holes big enough you can probably drive a Star Destroyer through... Some examples to follow: [more inside]
“Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.”
We can’t live without air. We can’t live without water. And now we can’t live without our phones. Yet our digital information systems are failing us. Promises of unlimited connectivity and access have led to a fractionalization of reality and levels of noise that undermine our social cohesion. Without a common understanding and language about what we are facing, we put at risk our democratic elections, the resolution of conflicts, our health and the health of the planet. In order to move beyond just reacting to the next catastrophe, we can learn something from water. from Stop Drinking from the Toilet! [Coda] [more inside]
September 13
Teenage girls are our linguistic trailblazers
The way teenage girls speak is often derided, but they are in fact our linguistic trailblazers. Teenage girls are the main accelerators of how language changes and evolves. It's a reminder that the most influential people in our society aren't always the most obvious.
Things started smoothly enough
Bradbury and Huston met at Romanoff’s restaurant on Rodeo Drive, a posh midcentury Beverly Hills establishment frequented by Hollywood’s elite. There, Bradbury, never afraid to wear his fannish affections on his sleeve, professed his admiration for Huston and his oeuvre. Indeed, he went even further, boldly proclaiming to Huston that he believed they were destined to work together. He had carted copies of his books along that night—Dark Carnival and The Martian Chronicles, as well as a prepublication copy of his latest collection, The Illustrated Man. Sliding them across the table, he told Huston: “If you love my books half as much as I love you, give me a call.” from I … Am Herman Melville! by Sam Weller [LARB]
Stone Fruit
My fake plastic love
The 2024 Ig Nobel Prizes have been announced! This year's theme: Murphy's Law.
Death by pigeon! Life imitating artificial life! Hair swirls! Improving placebos! Dead fish swimming! Reverse farting? Coin flip odds! Drunk earthworms! Old people and bad record keeping! Cows spewing milk! [more inside]
Why a ruling against the Internet Archive hurts libraries
It locks them into an e-book ecosystem designed to extract as much money as possible while harvesting (and reselling) reader data en masse. "This decision harms libraries. It locks them into an e-book ecosystem designed to extract as much money as possible while harvesting (and reselling) reader data en masse. " [more inside]
It's not just Lies about Immigrants... But Historical Nazi Lies...
Science communicator Rebecca Watson pointed out that what J D Vance and Donald Trump repeated and amplified about supposed Haitain Immigrants eating people's pets are not just lies... but historical Nazi "blood libel"... started by ACTUAL current Neo-Nazis in Springfield (at Anti-Haitian Rallies)... they've dragged grieving parents into the hate campaign as well.
You can find the transcript of that Youtube episode here, but I'll summarize the points below... [more inside]
no, it's the jared diamonds who are wrong
"An international team of geneticists has found evidence that this famous cautionary tale never actually happened. The true story of Rapa Nui (named Easter Island by colonial Europeans) is not one of self-inflicted population collapse, the new findings suggest, but of cultural resilience. In the 1600s, it seems that the ancient people of Rapa Nui were not utterly isolated on their island, and it is clear that they did not overexploit their resources to the point of 'ecocide'." Genetic Evidence Overrules Ecocide Theory of Easter Island Once And For All.
Hey, there's a fundraiser going on!
Help Fund Metafilter! In its typical low-key style, this middle-aged online community launched its annual fundraiser last month. You can contribute to a cookbook, set up a recurring contribution, or donate via GoFundMe. [more inside]
Affirmative Action Was Banned. What Happened Next Was Confusing.
Here is what we know about the effects of the Supreme Court’s decision curtailing race-based admissions at selective universities. And why many experts and administrators are baffled. By Anemona Hartocollis and Stephanie Saul (Gift link).
wind up tree
If the Wind Tree is deemed tall and large to occupy an allotted space, Wind Palm may be an ideal alternative. It is made up of three to five steel trunks & branches with 18 to 30 rotating leaves[ ]with the option of adding the solar panels at the bottom of the leaves for extra energy generation [designboom] [more inside]
SCROLLBARS
SCROLLBARS – A guide on overriding native scroll behavior to provide your own objectively better experience. [more inside]
These low-grade blueberries are being turned into wine
Once destined for the tip, these low-grade blueberries are being turned into wine. A food recycling charity has taken blueberries destined for the tip to create a zero-alcohol wine alternative, which is now being served in restaurants and ultimately helping feed more people.
Our energy system is stuck in the past
Fire has been our primary source of energy for over a million years, providing the essential heat needed to survive. This reliance on fire made sense when our principal energy needs were purely for heat. However, today’s energy demands have evolved far beyond this primal necessity. Unlike in past millennia, we now require more work than heat: we desire mobility, motors, electrical appliances, and data processing in greater quantities than we do warmth. Despite this transformation over the past century from heat demand to work demand, our fundamental energy supply methods have not changed much, and are still mostly heat generation. This has led to incredible inefficiency.... We need energy sources fit for an era of work demand, not heat demand. Fortunately, thanks to the rapid growth and cost decline of solar, wind, and electrification, “firepower” faces inexorable decline. from Energy after Fire [Rocky Mountain Institute]
September 12
mahna mahna? Memnon (mnemonic)
“To hear Helen speak for herself is wild,” says Andrea Patterson, who plays Helen [getty] [more inside]
Fracking ban takes effect in Queensland's Channel Country
Fracking ban takes effect in Queensland's Channel Country, protecting one of the most unique river systems in the world.
It took 10 years, but Channel Country communities say they're relieved and overwhelmed as a promised ban to prevent future fracking projects in the precious river system becomes official.
less effective on superficial misinformed beliefs
Meet DebunkBot: an AI chat bot that provides factual explanations and counter-evidence for these conspiratorial events. It's strength appears to be that the LLM is inexhaustible
and will argue indefinitely. They found that the targeted dialogues resulted in a relatively durable 20% decrease in the misinformed beliefs, which is better than similar dialogues with humans. Science has published the paper, Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI as well as a perspective on this research. [more inside]
"What about the train moving?" "Yeah. We'll see."
Bike Flip on a Moving Train (SLYT)
Don’t worry about the sharks
A gambling career with a gardening hobby
Wrecked rain gauges. Whistleblowers. Million-dollar payouts and manhunts. Then a Colorado crop fraud got really crazy. The sordid story of two ranchers who conspired to falsify drought numbers by tampering with rain gauges on the plains of Colorado and Kansas, resulting in millions in false insurance claims. By Michael Booth for the Colorado Sun.
The World We're Designing
One day, James Williams —the former Google strategist I met—addressed an audience of hundreds of leading tech designers and asked them a simple question: “How many of you want to live in the world you are designing?” There was a silence in the room. People looked around them. Nobody put up their hand.
US and the Middle East
The Washington Post challenges Biden's claim that Turkish-American activist Aysenur Eygi's death was due to an accidental ricochet with new video and eyewitnesses. (archive.is) The Biden administration has released $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt, overriding human rights concerns, citing Egypt's assistance with Gaza talks. Brown University held the first of two forums on the issue of divestment and the advisory committee is expected to issue a recommendation within the next three weeks, to be voted on in October. Various colleges and universities have issued new restrictions on protest and free expression on their campuses, including limiting the use of masks, ban on encampments, and more. (archive.is) UC Berkeley is launching a new Palestinian and Arab studies program this fall due to demand.
*squeeks* And One More Thing
Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars
Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars's dead core? No? Well. It's fine. I'm sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let's discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.
“word in one hand and a Danish axe in the other”
Calling the mound 'howe' would make perfect sense, as 'haug' (pronounced howg) is Old Norse for a mound [Orkneyology] [more inside]
"You're kidding!" ... "I must be, the Bahamas are islands."
At that point, Groves was just walking a well-trodden path of exploitation and chicanery first blazed by Christopher Columbus, whose initial steps in the New World were taken on the island now known as Grand Bahama. Within two decades, Spanish explorers had killed or carried off the island’s native inhabitants, and for centuries afterward, Caribbean historians note, pirates made the Bahamas their base and became the de facto rulers. From then on, being a law-free zone intermittently boosted the economy of the Bahamas. from
The American Con Man Who Pioneered Offshore Finance by Brooke Harrington [The Atlantic; ungated]
Calls to protect northern Australia's ancient stone wall fish traps
Calls to protect northern Australia's ancient stone wall fish traps from tourists, climate change. Traditional owners say World Heritage listing would help preserve Australia's largest archaeological site, an elaborate network of stone walls designed to trap fish at low tide in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Rolamite!
Whatever happened to Rolamite? Invented in 1966 by Donald F. Wilkes, it looks like a simple gadget made with two rollers and a steel band, but it's much more. As basic as the wheel, the lever, or the hinge, it is the only simple machine discovered this century. Its use will be widespread --- in everything from switches, thermostats, and valves to pumps and clutches, and as almost frictionless bearings. More details. In 1969 the "First Symposium on Rolamite" was held (186 pages). How to build one. Two videos. Maybe rolamites' promise didn't live up the hype, but here's a scale, and from 2023: How To Clean a Mass Flow Controller Rolamite Valve.
September 11
filterfilter
initial attempts with the silk nanofibrils alone didn’t work. The team decided to try adding another material: cellulose, which is abundantly available [mit] [more inside]
Some innovative, many spit-balled, and most quickly abandoned
In recent years, the Arctic has become a magnet for climate change anxiety, with scientists nervously monitoring the Greenland ice sheet for signs of melting and fretting over rampant environmental degradation. It wasn’t always that way. At the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, as the fear of nuclear Armageddon hung over American and Soviet citizens, idealistic scientists and engineers saw the vast Arctic region as a place of unlimited potential for creating a bold new future. Greenland emerged as the most tantalizing proving ground for their research. from The Golden Age of Offbeat Arctic Research [Undark]
Logging ceases in NSW state forest after rare emu chicks hatch
Logging ceases in New South Wales state forest after rare emu chicks hatch. Forestry Corporation of NSW has ceased logging operations near Grafton after the hatching of endangered coastal emu eggs.
Exploration of an abandoned Texas Mall
VFX artist KanePixels, creator of the breakout video series set in The Backrooms, has finished their latest project: The Oldest View (Youtube playlist). [more inside]
September 11, 2001 shown through multiple video cameras in real time...
102 Minutes That Changed America [YouTube] is an American television special documentary film that was produced by the History Channel and premiered commercial-free on Thursday, September 11, 2008, marking the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The film serves as a compilation of amateur footage taken by numerous people filming the attacks, edited together to present the film in real time. ***[NSFW] [Content Warning: contains graphic footage]***
She's gonna keep on dancing at the Pink Pony Club
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