October 5
Southern right whales return to South Australian coast
Southern right whales return to South Australian coast with rare white calves in tow.
It's been an exceptional whale season off the coast of South Australia, where the return of southern rights after a mysterious absence last year is being celebrated by enthusiasts.
This Tape Will Self-Destruct in 12,120 Seconds
Say you want to watch the movie Coyote Ugly twice (look, just go with me here) without the hassle of returning the videotape to a rental store. Enter 2View, an ingenious but very shortlived VHS format released only in the Netherlands that erased a prerecorded tape after its second viewing. 2View failed for two main reasons (at least)—the self-erasing mechanism could be defeated with a paperclip, and 2001 may not have been the best time to innovate in the VHS space. [more inside]
Continuing on the theme of stunning medical advances
Drinking Problem
The thing on her face was a bottle cap. As of July, caps in Europe no longer fully come off water and soda bottles due to a European Union law aimed at getting more of the caps recycled rather than littered. When the caps are screwed off, they stay there, dangling from the top of bottles and bumping into drinkers’ lips, noses and cheeks. It has become a new source of culture shock for those crossing the Atlantic, like encountering a bidet or driving on the left side of the road. On TikTok, some posted videos with patriotic music when they arrive home, saying they’re happy to be back in America, where at least they know their bottle caps are free. from The Plastic Bottle Cap Gets a Makeover: ‘You Have to Basically Relearn How to Drink’ [Wall Street Journal; ungated] [more inside]
New general therapy for Autoimmune diseases
Nature reports: World-first therapy using donor cells sends autoimmune diseases into remission A new application of CAR-T therapy that doesn't require extraction and modification of the patient's own cells. Using donated cells a "one size fits all" therapy is a possibility. [more inside]
How New South Wales farmers are making money from improving biodiversity
How New South Wales farmers are making money from improving biodiversity. Farmers are protecting corridors of land to improve biodiversity for annual payments and to attract premium prices.
One Year of War, Violence, and Genocide - and Expansion
The past year in pictures of Israel and Gaza by Reuters. Casting a pall over Israeli life. CNN's defining images from the past year. Al Jazeera released a documentary on war crimes in Gaza. Zeteo released a documentary on Israel's Reel Extremism. Israel has now escalated the violence to include bombing hospitals, suburbs and refugee camps in Lebanon, a Russian airbase in Syria, the West Bank, and is preparing to attack Iran as the Oct 7 anniversary looms. Lebanon's Foreign Minister revealed Abdallah Bou Habib that the Hezbollah leader Hasran Nasrallah had agreed to a 21 day ceasefire before being assassinated by Israel. Iran has expressed supported for a ceasefire contingent upon a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel rejected global calls for a ceasefire on Thursday. [more inside]
Like really? Five years? Why not just thug it out the full decade?
From rap getting brasher and noisier, to online scenes blossoming during quarantine, to entire subcultures of music being shot to the moon and stripped for parts by TikTok, music as we know it fundamentally shifted this half-decade. from The 100 Best Songs of the 2020s So Far [Pitchfork] [more inside]
RUP Rawbone Malon
Robin Malan, Rebel Angel has passed.
"Robin Malan – [South African] educator, collator, editor, actor, director, writer, publisher – with decades of service behind him, bowed out on 18 September after a short spell in hospital, aged 84." [more inside]
October 4
Untapped Potential: the Australian Literary Heritage Project
Not only has Untapped Potential set up an independent publishing imprint and rescued 161 previously lost Australian books in the last four years bringing them to libraries across Australia, the research team also used the data generated throughout the process to help answer important research questions that couldn’t be answered otherwise. Their findings (PDF) have just been released. [more inside]
If Oprah Winfrey can’t win when it comes to weight loss, nobody can
“We know this because of Oprah, because of the Kardashians, because of all these people who are continuing to pursue Westernized beauty, that there is no top where you get to safety” “There will always be something else. If it’s not your weight, it is going to be aging. There’s always something.” [more inside]
According to whom...?
The Media Bias Chart (interactive, static, and app versions), from Ad Fontes Media, graphs the political bias vs reliability of media articles. [more inside]
Hopes painful pest could soon be eradicated on Kangaroo Island
Hopes painful pest costing sheep farmers millions could soon be eradicated on Kangaroo Island. Millions of sterile male blowflies will be bred at a world-first facility and released to mate with females in a trial aiming to end flystrike on the island.
The Fuck Around And Find Out Queen
Former Colorado county clerk, conspiracy monger, and election denier Tina Peters has been sentenced to 9 years incarceration for providing pillow and conspiracy peddler Mike Lindell access to Dominion voting machines in the wake of the 2020 election along with using her position to push baseless claims. [more inside]
The Disciples
The Disciples, by James Mollison. A series of 56 photo montages of music fans outside concerts. It's all about the clothes and the community and the music. This is the web page for an in-person exhibition I wish I'd seen. There's a 5 1/2 minute video (with relevant music) as part of the experience.
In a Beautiful World, We Are Melting
Fresh off their 2022 debut album A Light for Attracting Attention and recorded in the same sessions as this February's sophomore record Wall of Eyes, prolific Radiohead side project (and increasingly main project) The Smile has published their third album, Cutouts, for free on YouTube. Accompanied by a number of deliriously trippy glitchwave videos, the band's intricate, evocative blend of lush Vangelis-like soundscapes, knotty retro-electronica and languid orchestral beauty continue to impress: "Cutouts feels a little like the cheeky younger sister of Wall of Eyes. The arrangements on that second album skewed traditional; more sombre and vulnerable in tone. Here, there’s a newfound vibrancy perhaps taking cues from [drummer Tom] Skinner’s jazz background. It’s extraordinary really, that two albums were born out of the same sessions. [...] When The Smile are as good as this, there’s no real reason to gripe about a Radiohead return." [more inside]
Submission from the floodwaters
On Friday, 4th October Ōtepoti/Dunedin in Aotearoa experienced its wettest day in a century, leading to widespread flooding. On the same day, Ben Nevell made a video submission from Ōtepoti/Dunedin to Parliament regarding a bill that would reverse the current oil and gas exploration ban put in place by the previous Labour Government. His submission (YouTube 7' 09"), was, shall we say, on point about the reality of climate change and why lifting the ban is a bad idea for the environment.
Gonna buy me a condo
In what is expected to be a growing trend, owners in a Toronto condo are looking at a massive assessment to address the building's structural issues. There have been concerns about the quality of new condo construction, leading to predictions that they will become untenable in 20-30 years.
“If you’re a dreamer, you go out and do it.”
The Gold Pyramid House, built by Jim Onan in Lake County, IL, was badly damaged in a 2017 fire, but has since been rebuilt, and is available for event bookings.
“What’s the Lord doing? Why is he sending us all of these young men?”
The Remarkable Religious Disaffiliation of Young American Women and What it Means for the Future from Chrissy Stroop. More on the whiteness and increasing maleness of US churches. Title from the NYT article being critiqued in the linked essays, in which a young churchgoing man is quoted saying, “Young men are attracted to harder truths.” As Stroop notes, what's so hard (for a man) about the "truth" that God wants you to be in charge and wants women to submit? [more inside]
renew ☀️ renewables
“You have these big pension funds looking at this from a spreadsheet,” looking for ways to better maximize their investment. The end result is that all of these otherwise fine panels are junked. [engadget]
Unintentionally feeding a croc becomes an offence in Queensland
Unintentionally feeding a croc becomes an offence in Queensland. Under the new rules, which come with a $6452 fine [$4381 US], it will be illegal to feed a crocodile by discarding food in a way that attracts them to a public place. Context: salt water crocodiles can grow up to to a weight of 1000–1500 kg (2200–3300 lb) and a length of 6 m (20 ft), rarely exceeding 6.3 m (21 ft), and can and do kill people. Leaving food lying around at jetties and fishing spots attracts them, making the next people fishing less safe.
Do any of these people really remember what happened?
A bone-chilling gust of incompetent collusion swirls around this extremely outer-Boston saga, like a Dennis Lehane novel adapted by the Coen brothers. The bumbling attempts to close ranks, the incestuous conflicts of interest, the Wahlbergian “R”s and vowels, the incantation of technical terms such as “butt-dial”—all of it can almost make you forget about the man freezing to death at the foot of the lawn. from The Irresolvable Tragedy of the Karen Read Case [The New Yorker; ungated]
October 3
Electric vehicles have fed the national power grid during an outage
In a world-first, Australian electric vehicles have fed the national power grid during an outage. A new report reveals power from a small number of electric vehicle batteries in Canberra was used to respond to a blackout in Victoria, and experts believe this could be done on a much larger scale.
Faith-mongers get fact-checked on social media
Dan McClellan is a scholar of the Bible and religion and makes videos in response to related misinformation. His goal is to increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion. "Absolutely none of the Bible was written for us today" and as ancient literature it should not be viewed as either univocal or inspired or inerrant, because we are the authority, according to Dan. He has discredited politicized doctrines on abortion, homosexuality, and the rapture, in addition to addressing faith-affirming rumors and fallacies spread by influencers. He has mentioned restrictions placed on scholars employed by religious institutions which prevent them from doing what he does. Wikipedia. A brief interview with Texas Public Radio.
A Spooky Season List of Lists, plus a List
At GoodReads, Cybil lists The 78 Most Popular Horror Novels of the Past Five Years. At LitHub, Drew Broussard suggests a spooky season starter kit for the genre-curious. At CrimeReads, Kelley Armstrong describes 7 Great Haunted House Novels Written by Women. On her blog Jump Scares, Emily Hughes tracks 2024's New Horror Books (and several previous years too). Meanwhile on r/horrorlit, recent threads ask "What are we all reading this spooky season?"; "What's a horror book you like that not many know of?"; and what are some "Horror novellas you could knock out in one sitting?" For film suggestions, see also "It is less than 100 days until Halloween ..." and especially DirtyOldTown's "Pre-Halloween Guide to Streaming 2024." Incidentally, Women in Translation Month is long over, but ... [more inside]
Net-zero commitments can’t be taken at face value
Banks still provide far too little green financing compared to fossil fuel financing. Banks have made headlines in recent years for committing to reach “net-zero emissions” by 2050 and pledging to mobilize trillions of dollars in the fight against climate change. But are banks on track to fulfill their promises? World Resources Institute's Financial Institutions Net Zero Tracker focuses on Transparency & Ambition; Implementation; Credibility; and Nature & Equity. Data from publicly available reports as of November 2023 (About & Technical Note).
How Deep-Sea Comb Jellies Hold Their Shape Under Crushing Pressure
How Deep-Sea Comb Jellies Hold Their Shape Under Crushing Pressure. The delicate sea creatures fall apart when brought to the surface but can survive miles deep in the ocean due to special cell wall structures, according to a new study.
The Snitch State
Across the nation, Republican-controlled state legislatures and conservative activists have passed bills and embraced legal strategies that encourage Americans to monitor one another’s behavior and report their friends, family members, and neighbors to the authorities. [...] Republican legislators in Texas have proposed numerous additional restrictions since Roe v. Wade was overturned, including bills that would punish employers who help their workers get abortions, outlaw abortion funds that help women seek the procedure in another state, and circumvent local district attorneys who refuse to criminally prosecute abortion providers. Some proposed measures would restrict access to contraception. One would criminalize speech by making it illegal to provide “information on how to obtain an abortion-inducing drug” and forcing internet providers in Texas to censor such information. [...] As of this writing, no one has yet been successfully sued under Texas’s bounty law, and other measures that seek to turn citizens into informants have faced challenges in court. (If reelected, former President Donald Trump is likely to appoint more federal judges who would look favorably upon such measures.) But these policies have chilling effects whether or not they are strictly enforced. The mere threat of having one’s privacy invaded and one’s life potentially destroyed is sufficient to shape people’s speech and behavior. American history shows us where this could lead."The Right-Wing Plan to Make Everyone an Informant" by Adam Serwer for The Atlantic [ungated, archive] [more inside]
Citations from a plague
"Footnotes" is a very short science fiction story by C.C. Finlay, originally published in 2001.
1. Report of the Joint Investigating Committee (Washington DC, 2027) pp. 2-3....
4. Werks to Beverly Dohnt (and 79 others), 11:21 a.m. PST, 8 Jan 2019, Subj: Fw: one more thing.
Found
October 2
What Puts the “Tribo” in Triboelectricity?
SciTechDaily:
Groundbreaking Study Finally Reveals How Rubbing Generates Static Electricity. ACS letter: An enduring question in science has been why sliding plays a major role in the triboelectric generation of static electricity–the “tribo” in triboelectricity. We provide here a general explanation which is rooted in established science
. ARXIV: A Quantitative Model of Triboelectric Charge Transfer. Bonus Quanta: The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology
Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators, collect pollen and more.
Here’s how microgrids are empowering regional and remote communities
Here’s how microgrids are empowering regional and remote communities across Australia. Small renewable energy systems are replacing dirty diesel generators in remote communities. This study of 20 Australian microgrid feasibility projects reveals widespread benefits.
Only one will be crowned Fat Bear Week champion
Fat Bear Week 2024 The first day of voting for Fat Bear Week closed today with Gully (903) deftly defeating 909, and 909 Jr pulling ahead of 519. Nice going, (not so) little guy! [more inside]
Your (2nd) weekly dose of female fronted metalcore:
Children Of The Magenta
"There are various factors that contributed to the crash of flight 447. Some people point to the fact that the airbus control sticks do not move in unison, so the pilot in the left seat would not have felt the pilot in the right seat pull back on his stick, the maneuver that ultimately pitched the plane into a dangerous angle. But even if you concede this potential design flaw, it still begs the question, how could the pilots have a computer yelling 'stall' at them, and not realize they were in a stall?" [more inside]
Pronouns reported to trigger brain cells
Science reports that "We recorded from individual neurons in the human hippocampus during a reading task. Cells that were selective to a particular noun were later reactivated by pronouns that refer to the cells’ preferred noun." [more inside]
A singing taco
Taco wants revenge: an outstanding musical number (IMO) from one of the latest episodes of Inanimate Insanity, which is the 2nd most popular Object Show, second only to Battle For Dream Island, created in 2010 by Cary and Michael Huang (previously)
the self-improvement mythos of our age
Dopamine Dispatch deep dives from writer Jesse Meadows. One motivational influencer promoting dopamine detoxing says “We’re not scientists here. I don’t give a f--- what the dopamine molecule is.” See also the critique of the pop-sci book Dopamine Nation: "What morals are being communicated to us through this particular science story?" If you prefer video, here's the series on Meadows' TikTok slug.town [more inside]
Impossible World
Impossible World ... I became interested in such artworks and figures that look usual at a first sight, but there is something wrong with them if you look at them more attentively. For me, the most interesting such figures are "impossible figures" which make an impression that they cannot exist in a real world ... I decided to create a unique website about impossible figures where as much as possible information about impossible figures and impossible art will be published. [more inside]
Mountains of trash
For many people, their trash is "out of sight, out of mind" as soon as it hits the bin. For others, it creates a giant eyesore that nonetheless brings in cash to their municipality. How do landfills work? Dive in to The Hidden Engineering of Landfills (SLYT) to find out. It's a highly engaging video tour with a bit of the history, future, and inner workings of landfills in the USA.
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
The story of tabby is not easily told within the dominant structures of the U.S. historic preservation system, which is organized around individual sites. The temporal and geographic blur between Black and Indigenous and White populations — from North Africa, to Spain, to the Caribbean, to the American coast — involves legacies of colonialism and capitalism united by the expanse of an ocean. Inscribed here is a marginalized history of exchange and labor that reverberates through architectural practice. from Tapia, Tabbi, Tabique, Tabby [Places Journal]
Effortless Gliding and Turning
Dan Gesmer was a professional freestyle skateboarder in the 80s. It is often said that skating has no rules; nevertheless, Dan undoubtedly broke them with his unconventional artistic style, inspired by figure skating, and based on pumping throughout his routines. Excerpts from 87 Dreams of a Lifetime [YT] were presented in Powell Peralta's 1988 Puiblic Domain video without comment, largely being received as a joke or with utter derision by mainstream skateboard culture at the time. Undaunted, Gesmer continued to develop his unique style, releasing Four Wheels Down [YT] in 2002. Take five minutes out of your day to watch a very different and incredibly skilled take on skateboarding, focusing on many of the skills that would later be taken up by longboard dancers. [more inside]
Urban Wildlife in Botany Bay in Sydney
In one of the most industrialised parts of Australia wildlife still flourishes. A team of Indigenous rangers are working with scientists to understand just how much wildlife still exists at Gamay, also known as Sydney's Botany Bay.
October 1
How the US Lost the Solar Power Race to China
Bloomberg Columnist David Fickling examines the story of how Chinese companies became the largest and most efficient producers of polysilicon, the bottleneck in production of photovoltaic (PV) cells, tackling some myths behind their success and with lessons on what not to do if we don't want a repeat in the future.
US VP Debate 2024: Battle of the Dads - join the watch party on FanFare
phunniemee has kindly started a thread for the Vice President debate over on Fanfare. Join us! (Or, pop in tomorrow, if, like me, you can't bear to watch tonight.)
The Newest Triple Crown Winner on Two Wheels
On Sunday, September 29, Giro d'Itaia and Tour de France winner, Tadej Pogačar won the World Championship race in Zurich, becoming the third male cyclist to win the sport's triple crown since the last winner in 1987. [more inside]
Smart bitch writes about trashy books...
"A previously unknown piece of music"
Jugendsinfonieorchester Leipzig, "W.A. Mozart - Serenate ex C - Ganz kleine Nachtmusik KV648." AFP: "Unknown Mozart string trio discovered in Germany": "The piece dates to the mid- to late-1760s and consists of seven miniature movements for a string trio lasting around 12 minutes ... 'the inspiration ... apparently came from Mozart's sister.'" International Mozarteum Foundation's media kit and press release for The New Köchel. Stadt Leipzig Newsletter. Wikipedia. International Music Score Library Project. See also the fictionalized film Mozart's Sister, available on Kanopy, Hoopla, and Tubi.
An American Banquet
CNN has put out a list of twenty great American dishes - a list that shows the surprising breadth of the food we eat that have become iconic in American cuisine. (SLCNN) [more inside]