Notices by Mark Pesce (mpesce@arvr.social)

For those who may not know: Hawai'i was illegally annexed by the United States.

Cast your mind back to the pivotal scene in "The Wrath of Khan" when Spock goes into the reactor to save the Enterprise (fatally, as it turns out)...

Well, that's Jimmy Carter. Because yes, he did this for reals - and somehow not only did _not_ die but managed to make it another 72 years...

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1hpfp40/til_in_1952_jimmy_carter_led_a_team_of_nuclear/

@cstross You're incredibly prolific by anyone's measure, sir

Didn't @gregeganSF write an SF novel which had a subplot of a bunch of billionaires trying to use 'Mirror Life' to make themselves... immune to the petty concerns of mere mortals?

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads9158

NEW Next Billion Seconds episode 'v2food, v2.0' - Six years on from founding v2Food, it's getting difficult to find their product on supermarket shelves - and there's been a broader roll-back from plant-based alternatives. What's happened? Former CEO Nick Hazell gives his read of this unexpected outcome.

https://nextbillionseconds.com/2024/12/04/series-2024-episode-7-the-war-over-plant-based-foods-with-nick-hazell/

When I post links on Mastodon to my Next Billion Seconds blog, this is what happens to my server

Something about the distributed nature of the fediverse basically instigates a DDoS attack on my server. At least, that's what I think is happening.

Any thoughts about what to do about this?

The distinction with Reddit Answers is that it sources things directly from Reddit, which means it could be a way to skip Google and get information directly from the source.

http://windowscopilot.news/2024/12/11/reddits-new-ai-search-tool-helps-you-find-reddit-answers-without-google/

Spotted in Belmore

(Credit - Cyanide and Happiness, https://explosm.net/comics/rob-gamesatwork h/t @futuresprog)

"Hey Siri, what is regulatory capture...?"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/27/plastic-lobbyists-biggest-group-un-treaty-talks-busan-korea

So what's the provision in the law to prevent all of Australia's under-16s loading up the TOR Browser and going for it?

When I attended MIT - this was back before that pesky asteroid had wiped out the dinosaurs - tuition was $10,000 a year. Nearly the most expensive school in the US at the time.

Today...

https://news.mit.edu/2024/mit-tuition-undergraduates-family-income-1120

Democracy is consultative, and therefore slow.

That's not a side-effect. That's the actual essence of the thing itself.

Speed is intrinsically anti-democratic.

You can be fast, or you can be free. But you can't be both.

"Australia is not as far down that road of income or wealth inequality, but we are on it, where the bank of mum and dad and the lottery of inheritance become the overwhelming determinants of financial security...The choice between disruptive radical change and incremental reform depends largely on how soon the latter starts, if it gets off the ground at all."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-19/boomers-keep-on-booming-young-borrowers-renters-pay-price/104614666

"Using smartphone measurements, we resolve features such as plasma bubbles over India and South America, solar-storm-enhanced density over North America and a mid-latitude ionospheric trough over Europe. We also show that the resulting ionosphere maps can improve location accuracy, which is our primary aim. This work demonstrates the potential of using a large distributed network of smartphones as a powerful scientific instrument for monitoring Earth."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08072-x

@gnoll110 @cstross good lord yes i meant the balkans my bad please accept as ammended charlie

@cstross I was thinking he’d start with the Balkans?

Good evening, fine peeps.

Did I miss anything?

‘Clutter isn’t really an East versus West thing,’ continues Tsuzuki. ‘It’s a rich versus poor thing. Wherever you go, anywhere in the world, the wealthy have the luxury of living in clean, minimal spaces, while the poor have to make do with small, cramped ones, without any way to hide their belongings.’

https://aeon.co/essays/the-life-changing-magic-of-japanese-clutter

These were just shared with me from The Bad Site

Given how bad things are in western NC, this is could possibly have a global impact, as it becomes difficult to manufacture semiconductors and PV panels...

Folks, never _ever_ forget that mandating employees be in the office 5 days a week is an employer's favourite way to implement a stealth organisation-wide layoff.