Notices by Col (kibcol1049@mstdn.social)

I start the day trying to be a good person, but then someone pulls out in front of me, doing 10 mph below the speed limit. So I'll try again tomorrow.

Ireland just closed its final coal power plant, making it the 15th coal-free country in Europe. Industry observers say the country’s increased renewable energy generation in recent years, particularly in wind, has contributed to this milestone.

Donald Trump has raised the possibility of regime change in Iran unless its current leadership can “Make Iran Great Again”. The US president also doubled down on his claim that America had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend amid speculation over the true extent of the damage. Tehran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for global trade. 

I wonder what my dog has named me.

Honda successfully tested a reusable rocket prototype on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido this week. This was their 1st space-related update since 2021, when Honda said it was exploring space tech. They said it launched its 20ft tall device to an altitude of nearly 1,000 ft with the rocket flying for nearly 1 minute before landing within 14 inches of its target. The experiment moves Japan’s second-largest carmaker closer to its goal of achieving suborbital spaceflight by 2029.

Eleven Palestinians were killed early on Wednesday morning after Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd waiting for food trucks in central Gaza, civil defence officials said. The deaths bring the toll at food distribution sites in recent days to more than a hundred.

I visited my friend at his new house. He told me to make myself at home. So I threw him out. I hate having visitors.

Emmanuel Macron has criticised Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland as he became the first foreign head of state to visit the vast, mineral-rich Arctic territory since the US president began making explicit threats to annex it.

 Children are growing up “sedentary, scrolling and alone” because of a dramatic decline in play in their lives, say a panel of experts who have spent a year investigating play and childhood in England.

The city of Los Angeles is instituting a curfew in downtown on Tuesday night as tensions between the Trump administration and California escalate over immigration raids, as governor Gavin Newsom warns democracy “under assault”.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has sued the Trump administration to block further troop deployments in Los Angeles, after around 700 US Marines were sent into the city on the fourth day of protests. Roughly 2,000 National Guardsmen have already been mobilised, and the president has authorised a further 2,000.

The activists sending an aid ship into Gaza carrying climate activist Greta Thunberg accused Israel of forcibly intercepting the vessel and confiscating its cargo. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said the passengers would be shown video of the 7 October attacks.

A cure for HIV may be closer after researchers discovered a new way to force the virus out of hiding in human cells. This “overwhelming” breakthrough could help overcome one of the biggest obstacles to a cure: the virus’s ability to lie dormant in certain white blood cells.

@havvyhh2
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jun/05/breakthrough-in-search-for-hiv-cure-leaves-researchers-overwhelmed?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

"If I'm not back in five minutes, just wait longer."
Ace Ventura (Jim Carrey), Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

A German court convicted four former VW officials of fraud yesterday in the “Dieselgate” scandal. Two executives received sentences of several years in prison; the others received suspended sentences. In 2015, it was revealed that VW had installed 'defeat devices' in models dating as far back as 2009. The software enabled vehicles to illegally pass diesel-efficiency standards in controlled environments while producing up to 40 times as much pollution in real-life driving conditions.

The SpaceX company plans to test launch Starship for the ninth time this evening, hoping to get the megarocket ready for an uncrewed trip to Mars in 2026. The first two Starship missions this year have ended in untimely explosions, which is perhaps one of the reasons why CEO Elon Musk said this weekend he’d go “back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms” at his companies.

The punctuation mark that makes you feel pretentious even when you somehow manage to use it correctly is rapidly becoming passé. The semicolon’s usage in English books has plunged by almost half in the last two decades, from 1 in every 205 words in 2000 to 1 in 390 today, the Guardian reported. First appearing in 1494 in the work of an Italian scholar, the semicolon is supposed to link two distinct but related clauses. These days, it’s found more often in computer programming and tattoos.

I wrote a song about getting my front door lock replaced. There’s a lovely key change at the end.

Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation: “Any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror.” (alternatively: “if you make a post correcting someone on their grammar or spelling, you will make a spelling or grammar mistake in your correction.”)