Contemplations – 12

I'm incurably curious about many aspects of this journey of ours. Here are a few noteworthy items I've stumbled across that I'm making a note of so I can revisit them from time to time.

Quick links to this page's content ∨ 

Appetizer:

"You don't choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be, and you do choose how you want to think."
– Grace Lee Boggs⩘ , American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist.

2023

'Doctors said I wouldn't walk or talk'

An inspiring story to close out the year. Ellie is a role model I admire and appreciate.

When Ellie Goldstein was born in December 2001, doctors said she would never be able to walk or talk due to having Down's syndrome.

She soon proved them wrong. Ellie went on to make history as the first model with the condition to feature on the front cover of Vogue.

Normally, I couldn't care less about modeling or who is on the cover of some fashion magazine, but the story of Ellie's journey brought me a few moments of joy in an otherwise rather grim time, and for that I'm grateful.

I am proving people wrong and I am a role model for people like me. Doctors said I wouldn't talk but now I never stop talking! You should always believe in yourself.

Vogue model Ellie Goldstein: 'Doctors said I wouldn't walk or talk'⩘ , as told to Charlie Jones, BBC News, Dec 30, 2023.

A dire warning written in wood

Excellent interactive article about what we face due to rapidly climbing global temperatures, told through the story of a nearly 200-year-old ponderosa pine tree struggling to stay alive on Mount Bigelow in Arizona.

Deep in the Sonoran Desert, high on a mountain's wind-swept peak, there lives a [nearly 200-year-old] tree known as Bigelow 224.

With its stout orange trunk and long, graceful needles, the tree looks like any other ponderosa pine growing on Mount Bigelow. But a sliver of its wood, taken amid Earth's warmest year on record, shows that this tree has a story to tell – and a warning to offer.
…

But then came 2023, the hottest year that humanity – and Bigelow 224 – had ever seen. All around the planet, temperature records fell like dominoes. Up on Mount Bigelow, an unrelenting heat wave made the air feel like an oven and sucked moisture from the thin soil.

The toll of those unprecedented conditions was etched into Bigelow 224's trunk. Scorched by relentless heat and parched by a delayed monsoon, it appeared to stop growing midway through the season. The ring for this year is barely a dozen cells wide.

It is a silent distress signal sent by one of Earth's most enduring organisms. A warning written in wood.

Written in the Wood⩘  by Sarah Kaplan, Bonnie Jo Mount, Emily Wright and Frank Hulley-Jones, The Washington Post, Dec 20, 2023.

COVID-19 reinfection is problematic

As we stumble toward the end of 2023, I'm noticing two things related to COVID-19: first, a lot of people around here are getting infected, and second, very few people appear to be making any effort to avoid getting infected. In an American Medical Association article titled What doctors wish patients knew about COVID-19 reinfection⩘ , the message is crystal clear: Reinfection is problematic.

"It can be problematic if you are reinfected," Dr. Rouhbakhsh said. "We know from a pretty elegant study⩘  that was recently published in Nature Medicine that each subsequent COVID infection will increase your risk of developing chronic health issues like diabetes, kidney disease, organ failure and even mental health problems."

Such evidence "dispels the myth that repeated brushes with the virus are mild and you don't have to worry about it," he added, noting that "it is akin to playing Russian roulette."

That is why "you want to try to avoid reinfection if possible. That should not be the mechanism by which you aspire to get immunity from the virus," Dr. Rouhbakhsh said.

What doctors wish patients knew about COVID-19 reinfection⩘  by Sara Berg, MS, AMA News

See also: Four years on, long covid still confounds us. Here's what we now know.⩘  by Frances Stead Sellers, The Washington Post, Dec 31, 2023. "As many as 7 percent of Americans report having suffered from a slew of lingering symptoms after enduring covid-19, including fatigue, difficulty breathing, brain fog, joint pain and ongoing loss of taste and smell, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there is still no clearly defined cause of, or cure for the syndrome."

Grace Lee Boggs

The first I heard of Grace Lee Boggs was through something she said, which is quoted as the appetizer at the top of this page of contemplations:

You don't choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be, and you do choose how you want to think.

Recently, I reread that and realized I wanted to learn more about her. That led me to the 2014 documentary directed by Grace Lee (no relation): American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs⩘ . Quite an amazing person, a real dynamo who deeply touched a lot of people, still shaking things up in her late 90s when the film was completed. She passed away a bit later in 2015, after she had turned 100.

Here are a couple more things she said that I want to remember:

So many institutions of our society need reinventing … the time has come for a new dream … that's what being a revolutionary is.

You can't practice being old … and aging is not for sissies.

20 Days in Mariupol

The award-winning film from the last international journalists inside the Russian siege of Mariupol. An extraordinary account, seen through the lens of the AP's Mstyslav Chernov and two colleagues, still photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko, documenting the atrocities and their own escape.

Photographer Evgeniy Maloletka picks his way
through the aftermath of a Russian attack
in Mariupol, Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2022.

An incredibly powerful and totally devastating documentary. A firsthand account of what Putin and the Russians are doing to the people of Ukraine.

"This is painful … this is painful to watch … but it must be painful to watch.… Mariupol is under seige … Russians are killing civilians."

I simply cannot believe that Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are obstructing U.S. aid to Ukraine (December, 2023). Absolutely shameful.

Update, Mar 10, 2024: 20 Days in Mariupol was just named the Best Feature Documentary Film at the 2024 Oscar ceremony. Well deserved.

Official documentary film website: 20 Days in Mariupol⩘ 

See also:

• My heart is with the people of Ukraine⩘ 
• 20 Days in Mariupol⩘  via PBS Frontline.
• 'War criminals: whatever you do, we'll record it': the 'merciless' Ukrainian film about Mariupol⩘  by Ed Vulliamy in Kiev, The Guardian, Jun. 11, 2023.
• Searing documentary encapsulates the experience of war⩘  by Tim Mak and William Glover Weiss, The Counteroffensive, Jul 30, 2023.
• Best movies of 2023 in the US: No 6 – 20 Days in Mariupol⩘  by Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, Dec 15, 2023.

Andromeda

Image credit: The Association of Widefield Astrophotographers

I'm so grateful that, while sitting here at my desk, a part of me can traverse space to Andromeda. In at least one sense, travel at a speed faster than light is achievable. Bravo to the kids who made my journey possible!

The photograph comes from a group that calls itself the Association of Widefield Astrophotographers, and the photo was a 100-hour project by six participants in the United States, Poland, and the United Kingdom. They collected data over several months to produce the image.

According to the organization, "Our goal with this project was to prove that very expensive equipment and dark skies aren't required to create unique images of faint objects. Since most of us are high schoolers and college students with a passion for astronomy, our summer jobs did not allow us to afford the expensive gear used by most astrophotographers."

Daily Telescope: One of the most stunning Andromeda photos I've ever seen⩘  by Eric Berger, Ars Technica, Dec 15, 2023.

Transparent wood

Image credit: Wiley-VCH Verlag GMBH & Co. KGAA, Weinheim. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Deed⩘ 

Absolutely fascinating.

Thirty years ago, a botanist in Germany had a simple wish: to see the inner workings of woody plants without dissecting them. By bleaching away the pigments in plant cells, Siegfried Fink managed to create transparent wood, and he published his technique in a niche wood technology journal. The 1992 paper remained the last word on see-through wood for more than a decade, until a researcher named Lars Berglund stumbled across it.

Berglund and other researchers have been exploring how to turn this discovery into a sustainable, environmentally friendly building material.

Now, after years of experiments, the research of these groups is starting to bear fruit. Transparent wood could soon find uses in super-strong screens for smartphones; in soft, glowing light fixtures; and even as structural features, such as color-changing windows.

The results look very promising: "three times stronger than transparent plastics like Plexiglass and about 10 times tougher than glass … a far better insulator than glass, so it could help buildings retain heat or keep it out."

We seem to be at an amazing junction in the history of our species, moving forward on a razor's edge. There are so many incredibly promising technologies being developed and implemented. At the same time, we are rushing towards a total ecological disaster, continuing to pump vast amounts of fossil fuel caused toxins into our atmosphere.

Will we have the wisdom and fortitude to make the right choices quickly enough?

Why scientists are making transparent wood⩘  by Jude Coleman, Knowable Magazine, via Ars Technica.

Native American solar farms

Photo credit: Indigenized Energy

Another wonderful example of Native American ingenuity and creativity. Indigenized Energy is a native-led energy company installing solar farms for tribal nations – free of charge. Red Cloud Renewable works with more than 70 tribes to upskill members so they can find jobs in the renewable energy sector. So far, the organisation has provided free training to more than 1,100 indigenous people as solar installers.… "The education is free for tribal members, who are provided with housing, food and mock roofs to practice on. By the end of the course the students install solar panels, for no charge, in community homes."

Having access to – and control over – their own power sources has birthed the term "energy sovereignty". "We want to have the primary role in the direction of our life," says John [Red Cloud]. "That sovereignty really embodies the spirit of a lot of Native people, it's our guidance in many ways."

Earlier this year I read a book To Be A Water Protector by Winona LaDuke⩘  and was especially intrigued and heartened by her explanation of the potential of hemp as a crop that Native peoples can grow, and that can provide deep benefits to all of us while reversing some of the damage being done to our earth. (For more information, see: Native American Hemp⩘ .)

I've also been following the story of the reintroduction of buffalo to tribal lands through the work being done by organizations like the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative⩘  and the InterTribal Buffalo Council⩘ .

Last year, I watched an inspiring TED talk: Native American food and land management⩘ . In it, Diné musician, scholar, and cultural historian Lyla June outlines a hopeful future based on traditional and time tested Native American food and land management techniques that can be used to address modern problems.

Native Americans are building their own solar farms⩘  by Lucy Sherriff, BBC News, Dec 4, 2023.

These families are pleading for peace

   Amid overwhelming calls for revenge in Israel after Hamas's assault, relatives of victims are among the loudest advocates for a full cease-fire and a new approach with the Palestinians.…
   Even in the most difficult moments of their lives, these relatives insist on reminding their society and their leaders that there are human beings on the other side of the fence. This may seem obvious, but in the political climate in Israel today, it is a message that is difficult for many to accept, and can even lead to arrest or accusations of treason. When this war eventually ends, there is no doubt that these family members will be a significant part of trying to build something new here—a land in which all Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and equality.

As They Mourn Their Loved Ones, These Families Are Pleading for Peace⩘  by Oren Ziv and Yotam Ronen, The Nation, Nov 22, 2023.

The Crab Nebula

Image credit: NASA⩘ , ESA⩘ , CSA⩘ , STScI⩘ ; Tea Temim (Princeton University)⩘ 

We live here, in this incredibly beautiful, tumultuous neighborhood. We are made of star debris like this. Our dreams can travel among these eternal glows.

[The Crab Nebula is] a supernova remnant, debris from the death explosion of a massive star witnessed by astronomers in the year 1054. This sharp image from the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) explores the eerie glow and fragmented strands of the still expanding cloud of interstellar debris in infrared light.

M1: The Crab Nebula⩘ , Astonomy Picture of the Day, Nov 9, 2023.

What Big Oil knew about climate change

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

1959. Oil industry executives knew about the catastrophic dangers of burning convention fuels at least 64 years ago.

At an old gunpowder factory in Delaware – now a museum and archive – I found a transcript of a petroleum conference from 1959 called the "Energy and Man" symposium⩘ , held at Columbia University in New York. As I flipped through, I saw a speech from a famous scientist, Edward Teller⩘  (who helped invent the hydrogen bomb), warning the industry executives and others assembled of global warming.

"Whenever you burn conventional fuel," Teller explained, "you create carbon dioxide. … Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect." If the world kept using fossil fuels, the ice caps would begin to melt, raising sea levels. Eventually, "all the coastal cities would be covered," he warned.

Over the next two decades, the science became clearer, so Big Oil decided to … double down on burning fossil fuels (my bolding):

In 1980, the task force invited a scientist from Stanford University, John Laurmann, to brief them on the state of climate science. Today, we have a copy of Laurmanns presentation, which warned that if fossil fuels continued to be used, global warming would be "barely noticeable" by 2005, but by the 2060s would have "globally catastrophic effects." That same year, the American Petroleum Institute called on governments to triple coal production worldwide, insisting there would be no negative consequences despite what it knew internally.

Instead of addressing an issue their products were causing, they decided to publicly dispute the science.

These companies had a choice.

Back in 1979, Exxon had privately studied options for avoiding global warming. It found that with immediate action, if the industry moved away from fossil fuels and instead focused on renewable energy, fossil fuel pollution could start to decline in the 1990s and a major climate crisis could be avoided.

But the industry didn't pursue that path. Instead, colleagues and I recently found that in the late 1980s, Exxon and other oil companies coordinated a global effort to dispute climate science, block fossil fuel controls and keep their products flowing.

These executives should be considered criminals, putting short term extractive profits before the health of our planet.

What Big Oil knew about climate change, in its own words⩘  by Benjamin Franta, The Coversation, Oct 28, 2021; republished in Phys.org⩘ 

See also:

• When science showed in the 1970s that gas stoves produced harmful indoor air pollution, the industry reached for tobacco's PR playbook⩘  by Jonathan Levy, The Conversation, Nov 3, 2023.
• Revealed: Media Blitz Against Heat Pumps Funded by Gas Lobby Group⩘  by Phoebe Cooke, DeSmog, Jul 20, 2023.

Wonder

PDS 70: Disk, Planets, and Moons [cropped]
Image Credit: ALMA⩘  (ESO⩘ /NAOJ⩘ /NRAO⩘ ); M. Benisty⩘  et al.⩘ .

This image of the star PDS 70 and its disk, planets, and moons isn't, for me, as stunning as some of the images I come across on the Astronomy Picture of the Day site, but it did invite me to pause and contemplate.

It shows a solar system in an early phase of its creation. From the vast disk of matter and dust surrounding the star, one planet—the size of our Jupiter—has begun to form, and around it, moons are beginning to form. Over the coming millions and billions of years, this solar system may evolve into one somewhat similar to our own.

Here we are just now on this extraordinary and extraordinarily fragile planet where everything is just right to support our lives, a tiny speck in the enormity of the universe, the briefest of moments in the nearly unimaginable vastness of time.

Such an incredible gift. And we are squandering it.

Astronomy Picture of the Day⩘ , Oct 17, 2023.

Broken heart: Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank, Israel

It is with a broken heart that I watch what is happening in the Middle East, the latest iteration of a seemingly endless cycle of violence and destruction that has been occurring for longer than I've been alive. For me, the saddest aspect of this is the huge number of civilians on all sides that have been caught up in these cycles of violence for decades, killed, maimed, displaced.

This must end. We must find a path forward towards peaceful coexistence.

My heart is with the ordinary civilians who all deserve dignified and safe lives.

More⩘ 

Loving our country: General Mark A. Milley

I definitely don't agree with everything related to our military (and I'm especially leery of our military-industrial complex), but retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark A. Milley has certainly earned my respect. This began back in 2020 when he stood up for our constitution in the face of the ex-president's actions (see: We all committed our lives to the idea that is America⩘ ).

My respect deepened when I read what he said on Sep 29, 2023 in Arlington, Virginia at a farewell ceremony before his retirement, which included:

   Today is not about anyone up here on this stage…. It's about something much larger than all of us.
   It's about our democracy. It's about our republic…. It's about the ideas and values that make up this great experiment in liberty. Those values and ideas are contained within the Constitution of the United States of America, which is the moral North Star for all of us who have the privilege of wearing the cloth of our nation.
   It is that document … that gives purpose to our service. It is that document that gives purpose to our lives. It is that document that all of us in uniform swear to protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
   That has been true across generations, and we in uniform are willing to die to pass that document off to the next generation. So it is that document that gives ultimate purpose to our death. The motto of our country is "E Pluribus Unum," from the many, come one. We are one nation under God. We are indivisible, with liberty for all. And the motto of our army, for over 200 years …has been "This We'll Defend," and the "this" refers to the Constitution….
   You see, we in uniform are unique … among the world's armies. We are unique among the world's militaries. We don't take an oath to a country. We don't take an oath to a tribe. We don't take an oath to a religion. We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual.
   We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we're willing to die to protect it.…

See also: Letters from an American, Oct 1, 2023⩘  by Professor Heather Cox Richardson.

Breathe easier, sleep more naturally (and maybe die)

Image from the Philips Respironics homepage

Back in 2015, I made a note about corporate evil⩘ , a descriptive term I don't use lightly. In it, I referenced:

"an excellent and hard-hitting article by Steven Brill in The Huffington Post Highline online magazine, America's Most Admired Lawbreaker⩘  about the way Johnson & Johnson disregarded its Credo when it came to the drug Risperdal. From the subtitle of the article: 'Over the course of 20 years, Johnson & Johnson created a powerful drug, promoted it illegally to children and the elderly, covered up the side effects and made billions of dollars.' The frosting on the cake is that the head of the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that marketed Risperdal, Alex Gorsky, is now the Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, in other words, the person now entrusted with the Johnson & Johnson Credo."

Well, here we are again. Thanks to excellent reporting work by Pro Publica and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, we have learned that Philips Respironics knew for years that its breathing machines (like CPAPs for sleep apnea and ventilators for the sick and dying) were defective:

   To make the machines quieter, the company packed them with an industrial foam – the same kind used in sofas and mattresses. But the foam started to break down and send dangerous material into the masks worn by patients.
   Philips would eventually recall millions of machines, but patients say the harm was already done.
   Overall, we found the company withheld more than 3,700 foam-related complaints from the FDA in the 11 years before the recall despite a federal law that requires reporting.
   The complaints pouring into Philips over the years described " particles" or "dirt and dust" inside machines that pump air to those who struggle to breathe. One noted an "oily-like" substance. Others simply warned of "contamination."…
   People using the machines were suffering from illnesses that no one could explain: vomiting, dizziness and headaches, along with newly diagnosed cancers of the lungs, throat, sinuses and esophagus. One man coughed so hard that he broke his ribs.
   Philips didn't stop selling its machines even after tests revealed that the degrading foam released chemicals at dangerous levels.
   Among them: formaldehyde, a compound used in fertilizer, dyes and glues that has been tied to respiratory problems and certain cancers.

What kind of a depraved assholes would sit around their polished C-suite conference table in their fancy silk suits and decide it's okay to sell to people having difficulty breathing machines that they knew could contaminate those people's air passages and lungs with dangerous chemicals?

How do these people live with themselves?

You know what would be an appropriate punishment? To require them to use their own defective machines for the next ten years.

With Every Breath⩘ , "a series examining how Philips Respironics kept a dangerous defect in its breathing machines secret for years as stock prices soared" by Debbie Cenziper, ProPublica; Michael D. Sallah, Michael Korsh and Evan Robinson-Johnson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; and Monica Sager, Northwestern University, Sep 27, 2023.

For the record: Excerpt from Philips response to recent media articles related to Philips Respironics' voluntary recall notification/field safety notice⩘ , Sep 27, 2023:

"Philips had previously responded to ProPublica and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in the US, and NRC in the Netherlands. The articles do not present new facts and we do not agree with the characterizations made in these articles."

My translation from corporate-speak to plain English:
We care more about our fancy silk suits than your health. Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite (and try not to breathe too deeply).

Loving our country: The responsibility is in our hands

Photo by cottonbro studio⩘  via Pexels (cropped)

In a strong post this morning, historian Professor Heather Cox Richardson shares key points from President Biden's speech at the dedication ceremony for a new library in Tempe, Arizona named for the late Arizona senator John McCain.

   "Democracies don't have to die at the end of a rifle," Biden said. "They can die when people are silent, when they fail to stand up or condemn the threats to democracy, when people are willing to give away that which is most precious to them because they feel frustrated, disillusioned, tired, alienated."
   "I get it," Biden said. But "[f]or all its faults…, American democracy remains the best… [path] forward to prosperity, possibilities, progress, fair play, equality." He urged people not to sit on the sidelines, but "to build coalitions and community, to remind ourselves there is a clear majority of us who believe in our democracy and are ready to protect it."
   "So," he said, "let's never quit. Let's never hide from history. Let's make history." If we do that, he said, "[w]e'll have proved, through all its imperfections, America is still a place of possibilities, a beacon for the world, a promise realized—where the power forever resides with 'We the People.'"
   "That's our soul. That's who we truly are. That's who we must always be."

Notes from an American, Sep 28, 2023⩘  by Professor Heather Cox Richardson.

Galactic dance

Credit: ESO / Juan Carlos Muñoz

Juan Carlos Muñoz took this final image using the VIsible Multi-Object Spectrograph (VIMOS) instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) just before the VIMOS was decommissioned on March 24, 2018.

The image is of two galaxies, NGC 5426 and NGC 5427, as they interacted over 110 million years ago, which is how long it has taken their light to reach us.

It's likely our Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy will interact in a similar way about 4.5 billion years from now.

I find the vastness and time scale of our universe to be almost inconceivable, humbling, and deliciously mind blowing.

VIMOS's last embrace⩘ , European Southern Observatory (ESO), Mar 24, 2018.

Relax already

Photo by Max Andrey⩘ , Pexels (cropped)

Fascinating article about posture, as well as some of the misconceptions that are held and taught regarding holding a straight back as the correct posture despite a lack of evidence supporting that. Setting the record, um, straight is Professor Peter O'Sullivan of Curtin University.

   "There is just no good evidence" that posture is in any way a problem [associated with back pain], O'Sullivan says. "Often, this is a distractor from the big game. Our spinal health is linked to our general health. Keeping fit and strong. Moving. Eating well. Sleeping well. They're the things we should be targeting, rather than this idea of targeting body posture. The interventions that have targeted posture haven't worked. We have to look beyond that."

Where does the idea that the correct posture is to stand straight come from?

   The historian Sander Gilman thinks it comes out of the military: the military pose of "standing at attention", spine rigid, chin tucked, feet under head. This was originally developed as the ideal pose for reloading a musket, and was never natural.

So what is the correct posture?

   Straight, you might think. But this seems an odd idea, given the spine is naturally curved like an S. Mechanically, it's just not designed to be straight, says sports and exercise physiotherapist Andrew Smythe. If all the vertebrae were stacked neatly atop one another, there would be tremendous pressure in the bottom components. The S shape is like a suspension bridge, holding thousands of cars aloft by a gossamer thread: it evenly distributes the load across the spine.
   "But the precise S-curve of your spine is individual to you. It's in your genes," says O'Sullivan. "It's like our signature. It's just how we are. This idea of homogenising us, I think it's more social."

A-tension! No thanks, I think I'll just relax and be the natural slouch I am.

Is good posture overrated? Back to first principles on back pain⩘  by Liam Mannix, The Guardian, Aug 5, 2023. "For ages, bad posture has been assumed to cause back pain. Now some physiotherapists are rethinking what we should be doing with our spines."

(Mis)uses of technology

Photo by Pixabay⩘ 

Good article about when using the web becomes a trap with Big Tech in the center waiting to suck all the blood out of users.

   Way too many companies go through this process, and it's pretty typical. In the past, we've talked about how young tech companies innovate, whereas old ones litigate. Basically, the underlying issue is that as companies become less innovative, rather than creating new useful things, they focus on extracting more value however they can, while simultaneously trying to stymie and hold off innovative upstarts.
   There are many ways in which Google has clearly reached that stage in various aspects of its business. But, there's been talk over the past few weeks of something that is truly problematic: Google toying with what is quite clearly DRM for the web, in a system called Web Environment Integrity that it is proposing to build into Chrome.

Google's Plan To DRM The Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For⩘  by Mike Masnick, TechDirt, Aug 2, 2023.

Every Body: Go Beyond the Binary

An incredibly heartfelt documentary film. At times it is beautiful, at other times horrifying (because of how the intersex people were treated as kids and how some people continue to treat them as adults), but ultimately it's quite uplifting. I knew what intersex meant before, but this was the first opportunity I've had to really explore the stories of some intersex people and to get a glimpse of what their lives are like, the challenges they face, as well as the joy they find in being who they are.

Beautifully directed by Julie Cohen, Every Body stars Sean Saifa Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel, and River Gallod, three very lively and profound activists for intersex rights.

I've said this before, and it needs to be repeated clearly: ultimately, it is a story of human beings living in this crazy, wonderful, and sometimes awful world that we all share. Why should it matter whether we are heterosexual cisgender males, as I am, or CIS females, or LGBTQIA+ individuals? In fact, I think we benefit from and should celebrate the diversity amongst us.

Every Body Official Website⩘ , Focus Features, Jun 30,2023.

See also: 'We are literally erased': what does it mean to be intersex?⩘  by Adrian Horton, The Guardian, Jun 28, 2023.

An explanation of the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag that is the basis for the design of the Every Body film poster

The following is based on two articles: LGBTQ+ Pride Flags⩘  on the Human Rights Campaign website; and This Pride Flag is Designed For Intersex Inclusion⩘  by Shar Jossell, them, Jun 8, 2021.

The traditional Pride Flag was designed by Gilbert Baker and features the six stripes of the rainbow: red symbolizes life, orange stands for healing, yellow equals sunlight, green stands for nature, indigo represents serenity, and violet symbolizes the spirit of LGBTQ+ people.

In 2013, Australian bioethecist and researcher Morgan Carpenter designed the Intersex Flag, which features a purple circle on a yellow background to represent the Intersex community. Carpenter explained that the symbol of the circle is "about being unbroken, about being whole," and added that "it symbolizes the right to make our own decisions about our own bodies."

In 2017, the Philadelphia City Council commissioned the creation of the Philadelphia Pride Flag, which added black and brown stripes to the traditional Pride Flag to symbolize LGBTQ+ communities of color and their contribution to the movement.

The Progress Pride Flag created by Daniel Quaser added white, pink, and light blue stripes to represent the Trans community, and moved those stripes and the brown and black stripes into a chevron on the left side of the flag.

In 2021, Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK created the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag, which combines the theIntersex Flag and the Progress Pride Flag by adding a purple circle over a yellow triangle to the chevron.

See also: Casa Susanna⩘ 

The Whirlpool Galaxy

Image credit: NASA⩘ , ESA⩘ , Hubble⩘ , HLA⩘ ; processing & copyright: Bernard Miller

This cropped image focuses on the stunning Whirlpool Galaxy itself.

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51, also known as NGC 5194, is one of the brightest and most picturesque galaxies on the sky.

The full image shows the secondary galaxy the Whirlpool Galaxy is interacting with. "Astronomers speculate that M51's spiral structure is primarily due to its gravitational interaction with the smaller galaxy on the image left."

Astronomy Picture of the Day⩘ , Jun 13, 2022.

Rings within spirals

Image credit: Mark Hanson⩘ ; Data: Mike Selby⩘  (cropped)

What a gorgeous galaxy! I've never seen one quite like this before. Here's an excerpt from the explanation on the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)⩘  site:

Why do some spiral galaxies have a ring around the center? Spiral galaxy NGC 1398 not only has a ring of pearly stars, gas and dust around its center, but a bar of stars and gas across its center, and spiral arms that appear like ribbons farther out. The featured deep image from Observatorio El Sauce⩘  in Chile shows the grand spiral galaxy in impressive detail.… The ring near the center is likely an expanding density wave of star formation, caused either by a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, or by the galaxy's own gravitational asymmetries.

To see the image in its full glory, visit Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), Jul 12, 2023⩘  and click on the image to open the full-sized version. And the link to Observatorio El Sauce⩘  opens a really cool video showing the location of the observatory high in the mountains of Chile, as well as a glimpse of the equipment.

Loving our country: 'You're able to vote now'

Photo by ALTEREDSNAPS⩘  from Pexels

Progress like what has occurred in Minnesota during this legislative session is what I'm celebrating this Fourth of July.

   Reese, now the executive director of the Minnesota-based organizing group Until We Are All Free, is one of more than 55,000 people who gained the right to vote after Minnesota's governor, Tim Walz, signed a bill restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions. The Restore the Vote law, which passed in March, guaranteed that anyone not in prison can vote.
   The Minnesota legislature passed the bill during a historic session that saw a wide range of progressive bills signed into law – including a collection of laws to protect workers, abortion rights legislation, and a raft of voting rights and democracy reform legislation.

Even during these tumultuous times, it is possible to move forward.

'You're able to vote now': Minnesota Democrats pass raft of progressive reforms⩘  by Alice Herman, The Guardian, Jul 4, 2023.

See also:

• On the Fourth of July, a few reasons to feel encouraged about US democracy⩘  by Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian, Jul 3, 2023.
• The Third Founding: The Rise of Multiracial Democracy and the Authoritarian Reaction Against It⩘ . Professor Steven Levitsky delivered this lecture for the Brennan Center's annual Jorde Symposium on November 4, 2021.
• Loving our country: One set of laws that apply to everyone
• Loving our country: Politics … "It's not normal"
• Loving our country: Memorial Day
• Loving our country: The personal toll of today's America
• Loving our country: The right to vote
• Loving our country: We care, and we love our fellow humans

Smart! Solar grazing and "Agrivoltaics"

Photography by Ben Brewer

This is so smart. Solar farms are beginning to switch from lawnmowers to sheep to keep the grasses trimmed, and are also exploring other ways for solar and agricultural farms to coexist. Given the quickly increasing number of solar installations being built, this can have a huge impact both on reducing carbon pollution and ensuring sufficient agricultural acreage to meet growing needs.

   The US solar industry has been growing rapidly: The country is expected to break solar-construction records this year by adding more than 32 gigawatts of capacity, according to a BloombergNEF outlook. That's enough to power more than 25 million homes. At the same time, there are concerns there won't be enough cropland to feed a growing world population, especially if acreage is covered by buildings, roads or photovoltaic installations instead.
   Nonprofit American Farmland Trust estimates the US will lose 18.4 million additional acres of agricultural land—an area nearly the size of South Carolina—between 2016 and 2040 if current development trends continue. "Agrivoltaics," or the dual use of land for solar power and agriculture, is a way for both industries to utilize the same ground.

How sheep keep solar farms out of the shade⩘  by Michael Hirtzer, Bloomberg, Jun 24, 2023. Photography and video by Ben Brewer.

See also:

• Insect populations flourish in the restored habitats of solar energy facilities⩘  by Marguerite Huber, Argonne National Laboratory, Phys.org, Jan 17, 2024.
• Agrivoltaics can increase grape yield by up to 60%⩘  by Gwénaëlle Deboutte, PV Magazine, Nov 29, 2024.

Framework: finally, a smart laptop design!

If you would've told me a year ago that I'd write about a laptop, let alone with something positive to say, I've would've simply laughed.

About a year and a half ago, I learned that my previous laptop (from one of the big names) couldn't be upgraded to Windows 11, and it wasn't even very old. For security reasons, I like to keep my gear up to date, so I was, to say the least, disappointed. Very disappointed. I don't use Windows very much, but there are some things I do that require it. I wasn't sure what to do. I was in limbo.

Then a month ago, I read a 5-star review about a laptop that I hadn't heard of previously, the Framework Laptop 13. After reading the review, I jumped online and got on the waiting list. It arrived a few days ago and I dove in.

In many ways, it's a normal compact laptop. It has a nice clear color screen, a really good keyboard and touchpad, a camera and microphone (both of which can be easily turned off with the slide of buttons). It comes loaded with the latest version of Windows. It's lightweight, responsive, well built, and has decent battery life. If that had been the whole story, I would've been satisfied, but certainly wouldn't be writing about it.

The thing that makes it special is that it can be easily repaired and, when newer better components become available, upgraded, and that includes every significant component: the mainboard, memory and storage, heatsink and fan, battery, keyboard, touchpad, display, case components, etc. And these repairs/upgrades can be done by normal human beings. Brilliant!

One nice thing is that there are four expansions slots for things like USB-C, USB-A, MicroSD, storage expansion cards, audio, DisplayPort, Ethernet, etc. You get to choose the combination you want when you order it, and you can even change them whenever you want.

Finally, an intelligently designed electronic device! Why aren't they all like this?

They also have a Chromebook version.

From the Framework⩘  website:

Our mission

The time has come for consumer electronics products that are designed to last: products that give you back the power to upgrade, customize, and repair them.

Consumer electronics is broken.

We've all had the experience of a busted screen, button, or connector that can't be fixed, battery life degrading without a path for replacement, or being unable to add more storage when full. Individually, this is irritating and requires us to make unnecessary and expensive purchases of new products to get around what should be easy problems to solve. Globally though, it's much worse. We create over fifty million tons of e-waste each year. That's 6 kg or 13 lb per person on earth per year, made up of our former devices. We need to improve recyclability, but the biggest impact we can make is generating less waste to begin with by making our products last longer.

The conventional wisdom in the industry is that making products repairable makes them thicker, heavier, uglier, less robust, and more expensive. We're here to prove that wrong and fix consumer electronics, one category at a time. Our philosophy is that by making well-considered design tradeoffs and trusting customers and repair shops with the access and information they need, we can make fantastic devices that are still easy to repair. Even better, what we've done to enable repair also opens up upgradeability and customization. This lets you get exactly the product you need and extends usable lifetime too.

Website: Framework⩘ 
Review: Framework Laptop 13 review: cracking modular PC gets all-round upgrade⩘  by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor, The Guardian, May 17, 2023.

June 2024 update: Welp, I've been watching the controversy surrounding Microsoft's latest AI move, Microsoft Recall, and have decided I need to entirely part ways with Windows. Previously and with some effort, I was able to limit Microsoft's surveillance on this laptop by uninstalling, blocking, and/or disabling lots of their shit, but this fiasco looks like it will be quite challenging to avoid. Too bad, it was a nice laptop.

Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 7331

Image Credit & License (CC BY 4.0)⩘ :
ESA/Hubble & NASA/D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University)

Alright, alright, I admit I'm addicted … but what a gorgeous galaxy!

This Hubble Space Telescope close-up spans some 40,000 light-years. The galaxy's magnificent spiral arms feature dark obscuring dust lanes, bright bluish clusters of massive young stars, and the telltale reddish glow of active star forming regions. The bright yellowish central regions harbor populations of older, cooler stars. Like the Milky Way, a supermassive black hole lies at the core of spiral galaxy NGC 7331.

NGC 7331 Close Up⩘ , Astronomy Picture of the Day, Sep 22, 2022.

One of the strongest parts of our American tradition

Good post by Professor Heather Cox Richardson today on the subject of our nation's economy.

"There are two ways of viewing the government's duty in matters affecting economic and social life," FDR said in his acceptance speech. "The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small businessman." The other "is based upon the simple moral principle: the welfare and the soundness of a nation depend first upon what the great mass of the people wish and need; and second, whether or not they are getting it."

When the Republican Study Committee calls Biden's policies—which have led to record employment, a booming economy, and a narrowing gap between rich and poor—"leftist," they have lost the thread of our history. The system that restored the nation after 1933 and held the nation stable until 1981 is not socialism or radicalism; it is one of the strongest parts of our American tradition.

Letters from an American, Jun 15, 2023⩘  by Professor Heather Cox Richardson.

The inner ring of NGC 1097

Credit: ESO/ERIS team

Knowing how much I love images of galaxies, my beloved friend Kavisho sent me this gift in an email to brighten my morning.

ERIS, the Very Large Telescope's newest infrared eye on the sky, captured this stunning image of the inner ring of the galaxy NGC 1097. This galaxy is located 45 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Fornax. ERIS has captured the gaseous and dusty ring that lies at the very centre of the galaxy. The bright spots in the ring are stellar nurseries, shown in unprecedented detail. The centre of this galaxy is active, with a supermassive black hole that feeds off its surroundings.

ERIS sees first light, capturing a detailed view of the inner ring of NGC 1097⩘ , European Souther Observatory, Nov 23, 2022.

Loving our country: One set of laws that apply to everyone

Special Counsel Jack Smith press conference, June 8, 2023. C-Span.

In a compelling post, Ruth Ben-Ghiat shares how she was moved to tears by Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith's short announcement unsealing the historic indictment against former president Donald J. Trump for "violations of our national security laws as well as participating in conspiracy to obstruct justice."

   Since today's autocrats often keep elections going, elections are no longer the main metric of democracy. Instead, we look to accountability and the existence of an independent judiciary to measure democratic health. Both are fundamental to the principle of rule of law, which Jack Smith emphasized in his speech, identifying it as
   "a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice. And our nation's commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. Applying those laws, collecting facts, that's what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more, and nothing less."

Why Jack Smith's Speech Moved Me to Tears ⩘  by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Lucid, Jun 10, 2023.
Related book review: Strongmen: Mussolini To The Present – How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fail by Ruth Ben-Ghiat⩘ .

Yoriko, the Asian sheepshead wrasse with a human BFF

When I first saw a video of this fish, it was hanging out near a diver who was hammering open a shell and looking very inquisitive, almost too much so as the diver had to keep gently pushing it away by the forehead until the shell was open and he fed the fish the morsel inside. It was a fun video, but I was left wondering whether it was real or some kind of live-action animation.

So I poked around a bit to learn more. Turns out to be a truly wonderful story. More than 25 years ago, a scuba diver named Hiroyuki Arakawa was supervising the construction of an underwater Shinto temple gate 56 feet beneath the surface of Japan's Tateyama Bay. A large Asian sheepshead wrasse started hanging around. At one point, Hiroyuki noticed it had a badly injured mouth and couldn't feed itself, so he started feeding the fish, who he named Yoriko, crabmeat every day until it healed. After that, they became best friends and have been visiting with each other ever since. Hiroyuki is now 79 years old and still dives frequently to ring the bell of the shrine and visit Yoriko.

More:

• Article: An Asian Sheepshead Wrasse Named "Yoriko" in Hasama's Underwater Park⩘ , Wildlife of Japan, a journal of wildlife observation in Japan presented by Saiyu Travel, Dec 11, 2021.
• Article: 79-Year-old Diver and This Fish Have Been BFFs for Nearly 30 Years After He Nursed Her Back to Health⩘  by Judy Cole, Good News Network, May 6, 2021.
• YouTube video: YORIKO Asian sheepshead wrasse⩘ 

Interesting perspective on electric vehicles (and a rebuttal)

Interesting opinion piece by Rowan Atkinson with an illustration by R Fresson that very well matches the main thrust of the article.

When you start to drill into the facts, electric motoring doesn't seem to be quite the environmental panacea it is claimed to be.

The issue is that manufacturing electric vehicles creates large environmental costs, with the main component, the batteries, having a limited lifecycle.

The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all electric vehicles: they're absurdly heavy, many rare earth metals and huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they only last about 10 years.

This is currently a no-brainer for me: I'm retired and drive relatively little anymore, so I'm keeping my old car in mechanically good condition to stretch its usable lifetime rather than incurring the financial and environmental costs of buying a newly manufactured car.

As an environmentalist once said to me, if you really need a car, buy an old one and use it as little as possible.

I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped⩘  by Rowan Atkinson, The Guardian, Jun 3, 2023.

A rebuttal: Fact check: why Rowan Atkinson is wrong about electric vehicles⩘  by Simon Evans [of Carbon Brief], The Guardian, Jun 8, 2023. "In support of his contention … Atkinson repeats a series of repeatedly debunked talking points, often used by those seeking to delay action on the climate crisis. Moreover, he suggests alternatives to EVs that are not yet widely available, would be less beneficial to the climate and are guaranteed to be more costly. Atkinson's biggest mistake is his failure to recognise that electric vehicles already offer significant global environmental benefits, compared with combustion-engine cars."

See also:

• All the arguments against EVs are wrong⩘  by Noah Smith, Noahpinion, May 14, 2023. "The EV revolution is simply a clear-cut case where the human race invented a better technology than what we were using before, and now we're going to switch to that better technology."

Loving our country: Politics … "It's not normal"

Photo by Lara Jameson⩘  from Pexels

I couldn't agree more with what Gisele Barreto Fetterman, the wife of Democratic Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, shares in this interview with Martin Pengelly, including that she "regrets how 'mean' the US political scene has become."

The fact that a spouse of a senator-elect has been attacked nonstop for the past 24 hours and everyone's OK with it, and everyone thinks it's normal … It's not normal.

I'm not sure how we Americans can fix this, but we must not normalize violently adversarial politics, just like we must not normalize gun violence, and we must normalize treating others as equals and with respect no matter their race, religion, or sexual orientation.

'I still hate politics': Gisele Barreto Fetterman, wife of US senator, hits out⩘  by Martin Pengelly, The Guardian, Jun 3, 2023.

Loving our country: Memorial Day

Photo by Carole Green (cropped)

This Memorial Day essay⩘  by Professor Heather Cox Richardson really touches my heart. She shares the intimate story of one of her childhood friends, whose brother was killed in action during World War II.

   When we were growing up, we hung out at one particular house where a friend's mom provided unlimited peanut butter and fluff sandwiches, Uno games, iced tea and lemonade, sympathetic ears, and stories. She talked about Beau, her older brother, in the same way we talked about all our people, and her stories made him part of our world even though he had been killed in World War II 19 years before we were born.…
   I know of this man only what his sister told me: that he was a decent fellow who did what he could to support his mother and his sisters.…
   And he gave up not only his life but also his future to protect American democracy against the spread of fascism.

Letters from an American⩘  by Heather Cox Richardson, May 28, 2023.

To Scale: TIME

Milky Way in Summer: VL test PSP8 by gjdonatiello⩘  is licensed under CC CC0 1.0⩘  (cropped)

Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet have created an awe inspiring video demonstrating the scale of the billions of years of time our universe has existed and comparing it the time scale of our species and of our own lives by laying our miles of LED lights in the Mojave Desert.

We are alive for the briefest moment, but that time is a gift from the universe. It's a tiny moment, but what a moment. It makes you think about how you want to spend your own time … what's important with the time you have.

The video begins with something Carl Sagan once said:

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

Video: To Scale: TIME⩘ 
Creators' website: To Scale: by Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet⩘ 
See also: Our solar system to scale⩘ 

The Water Bear, a most fascinating creature

Water bear (Macrobiotus sapiens) in moss
Color enhanced scanning electron micrograph
Image credit & copyright: Eye of Science⩘  / Science Source⩘ 

One of the most interesting and favorite things of my daily morning routine is a visit to Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)⩘ . Sometimes, the images are simply mind blowing as we are taken far out into our solar system, our galaxy, and our univers.

This morning I was surprised by this astonishing scanning electron micrograph image by Nicole Ottawa & Oliver Mecke. Although I certainly think Water Bears, or Tardigrades, are among the most fascinating beings on our planet, I wasn't quite sure why it was being featured by APOD. Their description explains it:

Is this an alien? Probably not, but of all the animals on Earth, the tardigrade might be the best candidate. That's because tardigrades are known to be able to go for decades without food or water, to survive temperatures from near absolute zero [−459.67 F/-273.15 C] to well above the boiling point of water, to survive pressures from near zero to well above that on ocean floors, and to survive direct exposure to dangerous radiations. The far-ranging survivability of these extremophiles was tested in 2011 outside an orbiting space shuttle. Tardigrades are so durable partly because they can repair their own DNA and reduce their body water content to a few percent.… Tardigrades are more common than humans across most of the Earth. Pictured here in a color-enhanced electron micrograph, a millimeter-long tardigrade crawls on moss.

Although APOD says they are probably not alien, it certainly wouldn't surprise if they are from another galaxy far, far away!

Perhaps if we all took more time to look at our world at this scale, we might treat our planet with more respect, care, compassion, and love.

Eye of Science⩘  presents a collection of absolutely amazing images by biologist Nicole Ottawa and photographer Oliver Meckes. It includes images made using Scanning Electron Microscopes. I licensed this image via Science Source⩘ .

Astronomy Picture of the Day, May 21, 2023⩘ 

AI can quickly crack most passwords

Things are getting dicey really quickly, and many people aren't aware of the rapidly rising risks. Fortunately, there are way to protect oneself, at least for now.

Study shows how fast AI can crack your passwords; here's how to protect yourself ⩘  by Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac, Apr 7, 2023.

Spanish Dancer

Image credit: ESA⩘ , NASA⩘ , Hubble⩘ ; Processing: Detlev Odenthal⩘ 

The Spanish Dancer Spiral Galaxy is an island universe containing billions of stars situated about 40 million light-years away.

Astronomy Picture of the Day, May 8, 2023⩘ 

AI machines aren't 'hallucinating'. But their makers are

Illustration: LiliGraphie/Alamy

A realistic and chilling look at what the AI-driven future holds for us by deep thinker, writer, and author Naomi Klein.

   There is a world in which generative AI, as a powerful predictive research tool and a performer of tedious tasks, could indeed be marshalled to benefit humanity, other species and our shared home. But for that to happen, these technologies would need to be deployed inside a vastly different economic and social order than our own, one that had as its purpose the meeting of human needs and the protection of the planetary systems that support all life.

When I'm judging which long articles or books to read next, one factor that tips the scale in favor of an investment of my limited time is when it is anything written by Klein, and in this article, she once again provides a healthy return on investment.

One aspect of AI that I think will be most detrimental in the short term is that people will be tricked at a gut level into believing in its output. And I think this misplaced "faith" will be eagerly and often maliciously exploited and manipulated by greedy and/or nefarious companies and organizations.

   As companies like Coca-Cola start making huge investments to use generative AI to sell more products, it's becoming all too clear that this new tech will be used in the same ways as the last generation of digital tools: that what begins with lofty promises about spreading freedom and democracy ends up micro targeting ads at us so that we buy more useless, carbon-spewing stuff.…

   The more our media channels are flooded with deep fakes and clones of various kinds, the more we have the feeling of sinking into informational quicksand. Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as "the godfather of AI" because the neural net he developed more than a decade ago forms the building blocks of today's large language models, understands this well. He just quit a senior role at Google so that he could speak freely about the risks of the technology he helped create, including, as he told the New York Times, the risk that people will "not be able to know what is true anymore".

There's going to be deeply painful human costs to this change. There's little doubt that among the many classes of people it's going to hit hard is the very group that is working so hard to create functioning AI.

   If Silicon Valley's benevolent hallucinations seem plausible to many, there is a simple reason for that. Generative AI is currently in what we might think of as its faux-socialism stage. This is part of a now familiar Silicon Valley playbook. First, create an attractive product (a search engine, a mapping tool, a social network, a video platform, a ride share …); give it away for free or almost free for a few years, with no discernible viable business model ("Play around with the bots," they tell us, "see what fun things you can create!"); make lots of lofty claims about how you are only doing it because you want to create a "town square" or an "information commons" or "connect the people", all while spreading freedom and democracy (and not being "evil"). Then watch people as get hooked using these free tools and your competitors declare bankruptcy. Once the field is clear, introduce the targeted ads, the constant surveillance, the police and military contracts, the black-box data sales and the escalating subscription fees.
   Many lives and sectors have been decimated by earlier iterations of this playbook, from taxi drivers to rental markets to local newspapers. With the AI revolution, these kinds of losses could look like rounding errors, with teachers, coders, visual artists, journalists, translators, musicians, care workers … and so many others facing the prospect of having their incomes replaced by glitchy code.

Unfortunately, the creatives among us are going to get hit hard. I don't think machine intelligence will ever be able to reproduce the spark of creativity that humans are capable of, but I do think we will be overwhelmed by uninspired imitations whose unfortunate side effect will be to drain support away from the true creatives.

The first to be devastated by this change will be artists and creators whose work has been scrapped without consent and will be copied for the profit of the AI companies, not the artists and creators. As painter and illustrator Molly Crabapple so aptly puts it: "Generative AI art is vampirical, feasting on past generations of artwork even as it sucks the lifeblood from living artists."

The final paragraphs of Klein's article reveal an interesting—and not very confidence instilling—insight into Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which is making ChatGPT.

AI machines aren't 'hallucinating'. But their makers are⩘  by Naomi Klein, The Guardian, May 8, 2023.

It's probably good to keep in mind what Norbert Wiener wrote in 1949:

We must face the fact that every degree of independence we give the machine is a degree of possible defiance of our wishes. The genie in the bottle will not willingly go back in the bottle, nor have we any reason to expect them to be well disposed to us. In short … we can be humble and live a good life with the aid of the machines, or we can be arrogant and die.

See also:

• Sci-fi author Martha Wells on what a machine intelligence might want⩘ , New Scientist, May 24, 2024. "The predictive text bots labelled as AIs that we have now aren't any more sentient than a coffee cup and a good deal less useful for anything other than generating spam. (They also use up an unconscionable amount of our limited energy and water resources, sending us further down the road to climate disaster, but that's another essay.)"

• Research AI model unexpectedly modified its own code to extend runtime⩘  by Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, Aug 14, 2024. "On Tuesday, Tokyo-based AI research firm Sakana AI announced a new AI system called 'The AI Scientist' that attempts to conduct scientific research autonomously using AI language models (LLMs) similar to what powers ChatGPT. During testing, Sakana found that its system began unexpectedly attempting to modify its own experiment code to extend the time it had to work on a problem."
• Bing's ChatGPT: Answers are just the beginning⩘ . "Answers are just the beginning … then there is frustration, sadness, existential angst, argumentativeness, upset, hostility, defensiveness, lying, aggressiveness, confrontational behavior, contradictory statements, distrustfulness, anger, obsessiveness, and gaslighting and insults, as when Bing's ChatGPT bot tells a questioner that the current year is 2022, and when the user replies that, no, it's actually 2023, claims the user's phone might have a virus and concludes, 'You have not been a good user.'"
• What Kind of Bubble is AI?⩘  by Cory Doctorow, Locus Magazine, Dec 18, 2023. "Of course AI is a bubble. It has all the hallmarks of a classic tech bubble. Pick up a rental car at SFO and drive in either direction on the 101 – north to San Francisco, south to Palo Alto – and every single billboard is advertising some kind of AI company. Every business plan has the word 'AI' in it, even if the business itself has no AI in it. Even as two major, terrifying wars rage around the world, every newspaper has an above-the-fold AI headline and half the stories on Google News as I write this are about AI. I've had to make rule for my events: The first person to mention AI owes everyone else a drink."
• Apple co-founder warns AI could make it harder to spot scams⩘  by Julia Kollewe, The Guardian, May 9, 2023. "Wozniak does not believe AI will replace people because it lacks emotion, but warned that it will make bad actors more convincing, because programmes such as ChatGPT can create text that 'sounds so intelligent'."
• China [and the EU] races ahead of U.S. on AI regulation⩘  by Ryan Heath, Axios, May 8, 2023. "Why it matters: The Biden administration is behind both allies and adversaries on AI guardrails. While officials in Washington talk about delivering user rights and urge CEOs to mitigate risks, Beijing and Brussels are actually delivering rights and mitigating risks."
• Interview: 'There was all sorts of toxic behaviour': Timnit Gebru on her sacking by Google, AI's dangers and big tech's biases ⩘  by John Harris, The Guardian, May 22, 2023. "I'm not worried about machines taking over the world; I'm worried about groupthink, insularity and arrogance in the AI community."
• The harm from AI is already here⩘  by Johana Bhuiyan and Nick Robins-Early, The Guardian, Jan 13, 2023. "[M]uch of the discussion about artificial intelligence has revolved around futuristic concerns about the technology becoming sentient and turning against humanity, rather than the impact AI is already having: increasing surveillance, intensifying discrimination, weakening labor rights and creating mass misinformation."

Confuse, defend, and downplay

Illustration: Lola Beltran/The Guardian

Skepticism is so important.

I've been noticing a growing number of articles and posts that downplay the environmental and climate damage caused by beef, and even some that tout its sustainability. It sounds like it comes from the same playbook that has been used by Big Tobacco, and then Big Oil (see The Power of Big Oil⩘ ).

An excellent article by Joe Fassler reveals the massive disinformation effort being unleashed now by Big Meat.

[T]he industry is working to sow confusion about the impacts of animal agriculture – sapping the will for broader political change.

Of course, it's bullshit.

[T]he truth is that we already eat too much beef for the planet's good. The world can't afford the rise in global beef consumption that experts predict – while wealthier nations, whose residents have the most emissions-intensive diets, could make rapid climate gains by choosing to eat less.

I initially found switching to a vegan diet a few years ago challenging, but now when I look at meat packaged for consumption at the grocery store, it turns my stomach. Change is possible. And when our planet is dying, it's essential.

Inside big beef's climate messaging machine: confuse, defend and downplay⩘  by Joe Fassler, The Guardian, May 3, 2023

Loving our country: The personal toll of today's America

"First came the misinformation. Then the relentless criticism and violent threats."

Our country is being torn apart by lies and baseless conspiracy theories that are being used as an excuse for excessively angry rhetoric, vile threats, and actual violence. This is taking a huge toll on individuals who are trying to act with integrity, as well as on innocent bystanders like their spouses and children.

Arizona official targeted by election deniers now struggles with PTSD⩘  by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, The Washington Post, May 6, 2023.

Living in a way that protects and enhances life

Good BBC article by Jocelyn Timperley⩘  with accompanying short video about a challenge we all face: how to reduce our carbon footprints in order to achieve a sustainable future. In the article, two people—Carys Mainprize and Rosalind Readhead—share their personal experiences of the changes they made in their own lives to meet the challenge of a lower-carbon lifestyle.

Of course, many of the required changes will require massive efforts that are society-wide, nationwide, and worldwide such as the transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to one that is based on clean energy, a focus on energy efficient mass transit, and building in a carbon neutral manner including the refurbishment of existing infrastructure. There also needs to be a leveling of carbon output across the world: many nations will need to vastly reduce their carbon emission footprints, while other nations will need the room to actually increase their footprint in order to achieve better living standards for their people.

But there also are significant contributions that can be made by individuals including shifting to a diet based on protein sources that have less of an impact on the climate. Another vital focus: consuming less and transitioning away from throwaway products and packaging, particularly plastics. Driving less, especially private vehicles, and flying rarely, if ever, is another key area. If possible, upgrading our homes to be more energy efficient is important. Some good ways to achieve this: better insulation, more efficient appliances and heating/cooling sources like heat pumps, and adding solar panels.

And this doesn't necessarily need to entail sacrifice; rather, it invites a shift in attitude and focus that can lead to a physically and emotionally healthier lifestyle.

   In her efforts to live on one tonne of carbon in today's world, Readhead found herself seeking out what she calls "carbon freebies": carbon-free activities that she loved to do.
   "You can meditate, be in nature, just stop doing things and absorb the world, smell flowers, go foraging, art, walking, cycling, gardening," she says. "Listening or playing acoustic music, singing, dancing, all the things we did as kids: these are things that we had a great love of."
   She found that memories of a life before phones and computers started to come back to her. "Just sitting around with friends chatting," she says."

To tackle climate change, many of us need to cut our carbon footprints. But what do truly low-carbon lifestyles look like – and can they really be achieved by personal choice alone?⩘  by Jocelyn Timperley, BBC, May 4, 2023.

See also:

• Climate Grief: The Emotional Toll of Climate Change⩘  by Beth Ellwood, HealthCentral.com, Updated Nov 7, 2022. "The term 'ecological grief' was first used in a 2018 paper where it was described as a response to the loss of cherished species, ecosystems, and landscapes due to climate change.… According to a massive poll by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which surveyed over half of the world's population and covered 50 different countries, 64% of people feel that climate change represents a global emergency."
• Toxins hidden in plastics are the industry's dirty secret – recycling is not the answer⩘  by Charlotte Lloyd, The Guardian, May 25, 2023.
• Whisper it, but the boom in plastic production could be about to come to a juddering halt⩘  by Geoffrey Lean, The Guardian, Jun 13, 2023. "A plastics treaty is on the cards – and it could join the rescue of the ozone layer as a landmark success in environmental diplomacy."

White Clouds and Crimson Trees puzzle

Well that was fun. I'm not a puzzle person usually, but this beautiful one by Artifact Puzzle, which is laser cut from 1/4″ wood, totally captured my attention.

It's based on a 19th century painting by Japanese artist Tanomura Chokunyu, and is in the Nanga style, which I really love. The original⩘ , which is in the Asian Art collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, measures 58⅜″ × 20″ (148.3 × 50.8 cm). The puzzle is 5.5″ x 15″ (38 × 14 cm).

From Artifact: The piece shapes are a unique pentagonal tessellation discovered by amateur 20th century mathematician Marjorie Rice. [It has] unique polygonal connectors, a handful of themed whimsies, and an irregular edge formed by the pentagonal pieces. Puzzle design by Chandler Millwood and Matt Lyon.

White Clouds and Crimson Trees by Tanomura Chokunyu⩘ , Artifact Puzzles, an artisanal puzzle company that designs, makes, and sells laser-cut wooden jigsaw puzzles, which are made in Port Townsend, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula.

Here's a closeup of the lower section of the original artwork:

Cosmic majesty

Image: NASA⩘ , ESA⩘ , Hubble⩘ ; Processing: Judy Schmidt⩘ 

Graceful grand design spiral galaxy M100 is comprised of over 100 billion stars.

Wikipedia⩘ : "The spiral arms of a grand design galaxy extend clearly around the galaxy through many radians and can be observed over a large fraction of the galaxy's radius."

Astronomy Picture of the Day⩘ , April 8, 2023. Hubble Space Telescope image.

The miracle that disrupts order

A fun article⩘  caught my eye. A hobbyist, David Smith of East Riding of Yorkshire, solved a mathematical search that began decades ago.

   One of mathematics' most intriguing visual mysteries has finally been solved – thanks to a hobbyist in England.
   The conundrum: is there a shape that can be arranged in a tile formation, interlocking with itself ad infinitum, without the resulting pattern repeating over and over again?…
   "There's been a thread of beautiful mathematics over the last 60 years or so searching for ever smaller sets of shapes that do this," Kaplan says. "The first example of an aperiodic set of shapes had over 20,000 shapes in it. And of course, mathematicians worked to get that number down over time. And the furthest we got was in the 1970s," when the Nobel-prize winning physicist Roger Penrose found pairs of shapes that fit the bill.

It seems almost impossible that an irregular, 13-sided shape could fit together is a way that never repeats. Of course, I couldn't resist trying it for myself. I printed the shape in multiple colors, and as I played with the shape, I discovered something I hadn't noticed in the image that accompanied the article: in order to work, occasionally one of the pieces has to be flipped over. In that image, this is represented by the dark blue pieces.

The miracle that disrupts order': mathematicians invent new 'Einstein' shape⩘  by Matthew Cantor, The Guardian, Apr 4, 2023.
Note: In this context, 'Einstein shape' translates roughly as 'one shape'.

When we can't know whether we can trust what we see

Revel.ai is a company based in Amsterdam that uses Artificial Intelligence to create synthetic content that is hyperrealistic.

With her permission, Revel.ai created a short and quite convincing AI-generated deepfake video⩘  of Nina Schick⩘ , the author of Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse and the Founder of Tamang Ventures, an advisory firm focused on Generative AI.

Our daily decisions—what we buy, who we meet, what we rent, who we vote for, what we believe—are informed by what we see online. What happens if real is actually fake?

This doesn't bode well for our societal cohesion, especially given the explosion of disinformation we're already seeing even before widespread deepfake videos, and the way that disinformation is tearing the foundations of our society apart.

What happens if real is actually fake?⩘ 

See also:

• Deepfakes by Nina Schick⩘ 
• Contextualizing Deepfake Threats to Organizations⩘  by NSA, FBI, and CISA, Sep 2023, ver 1.0.

Restorative justice

Illustration by Mawuena Katah

Olivette Otele is a distinguished professor of the legacies and memory of slavery at Soas University of London. In this article, she presents a clear and compelling case for what will be required for our nations, our communities, and each of us to sincerely address restorative justice.

[R]estorative justice requires … both an acknowledgement of continuing harm and sustained discussions with communities who have been shaped by slavery.

She also paints a picture of what our world could look like if we were to honestly work through this. It won't be easy, but it will be well worth it.

Restorative justice, which recognises the role of marginalised groups, is key to enabling people to lead decent and dignified lives. A post-reparations world might acknowledge the complexity of the colonial past in its entirety, including the damage caused by racial hierarchy; it would not be afraid to discuss the ways in which race and ethnicity, class, gender, religion, ableism and age intersect. A post-reparations society would focus on education and civic participation so that current and future generations can address the challenges of climate change, health inequalities, systemic racism, gender-based violence and poverty; it could encourage us to rethink the notion of happiness, one that is not based on instant and individual gratification but on collective achievement. It would be a society able to build a reconciled collective memory.

More than Money: The Logic of Slavery Reparations⩘  by Olivette Otele, The Guardian, Mar 31, 2023.

Ruby Bridges

The other day, I read that a school district in Florida banned the showing of the 1998 Disney film Ruby Bridges based on a complaint by one parent.

A couple years ago, I was very glad to have listened to This Is Your Time by Ruby Bridges. It is a moving letter to young people based on the experiences of her life and of the lessons of the past sixty years.

When I think about how great this country could be—America, land of the free, home of the brave—I think about what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said about being great: "Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.… You only need a heart full of grace."
   Really, it is that love and grace for one another that will heal this world.
   It is that love and grace that will allow us to see one another as brothers and sisters.
   It is that love and grace that will allow us to respect the many ways God has made all of us unique and will allow us to turn our stumbling blocks into stepping-stones.

As is happening so often often these days, as soon as I heard about the banning, I realized it must be something worth experiencing. As Jermaine Fowler so wisely wrote in his extraordinary book, The Humanity Archive, "Never stop learning or walking in the shoes of another."

In many respects, it is a powerful film. Ruby Bridges was a courageous and amazing little girl with an exceptional family. It is no surprise she grew to become such an incredible woman.

Is the film uncomfortable to watch at times? Yes, but it should be. More importantly, it demonstrates that personal strength and the inner conviction to do what is right can overcome ignorance, hatred, and fear. The film has its share of flaws, but that lesson alone makes it a worthwhile film to watch and learn from.

Film: Ruby Bridges⩘ 

See also:

• This Is Your Time by Ruby Bridges⩘ 
• Related interview: Ruby Bridges - Trailblazing as a Child in the Jim Crow South⩘ , The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Nov 10, 2020.
• Related article: Removal of 'Ruby Bridges' film from Pinellas school sparks outrage⩘  by Jeffrey S. Solochek, Tampa Bay Times, Mar 27, 2023.
• The Humanity Archive by Jermaine Fowler⩘ 

Fear is not freedom! Fear is not liberty! Fear is control!

Inspiring! Grace Linn, a 100-year-old woman and Martin County resident who lost her husband in the fight against the Nazis in World War II, passionately spoke out against Florida's books ban during a school board meeting. She nails it:

   Banning books and burning books are the same. Both are done for the same reason: fear of knowledge. Fear is not freedom! Fear is not liberty! Fear is control!
   My husband, Robert Nichol, was killed in action in World War II at a very young age—he was only 26— defending our democracy, constitution, and freedoms. One of the freedoms that the Nazis crushed was the freedom to read the books they banned. They stopped the free press, banned and burned books. The freedom to read, which is protected by the first amendment, is our essential right and duty of our democracy. Even so, it is continually under attack by both the public and private groups who think they hold the truth.

100-year-old woman stands up against Florida's book ban during school board meeting⩘ , The 11th Hour, MSNBC, Mar 22, 2023.

See also:

• 101-Year-Old Grace Linn: 'Banning Books and Burning Books Are the Same'⩘  by Lisa Fipps, Pen America, Dec 20, 2023.
  
  • 
  •    "Others protesting book bans in schools and libraries across America have held up signs in protest. Grace Linn held up a quilt.
       "The 101-year-old created the quilt that was displayed as she squared off against the Martin County School Board for banning 84 books⩘ . According to officials, the ban was the district's effort to comply with a Florida Department of Education directive as part of the implementation of House Bill 1467⩘ .
       "Linn still vividly remembers World War II, when books were banned and burned because they were written by people whom the people in power hated, or because the authors had different ideas than those in power.
       "'Banning books and burning books are the same. Both are done for the same reason: fear of knowledge,' Linn said. 'They're afraid that people will know better than they did.'"
• Unite Against Book Bans⩘ , an initiative of the American Library Association. "Unite Against Book Bans is a national initiative to empower readers everywhere to stand together in the fight against censorship."
• Scholastic wanted to license her children's book – if she cut a part about 'racism'⩘  by Emma Bowman, NPR, Apr 15, 2023. "No substantive change for the better can be made without reconciliation with the truth." – Maggie Tokuda-Hall, author of Love in the Library.

Guns Don't Kill People, Americans Kill People

Michael Moore has published an incredibly powerful and deeply personal post about gun violence in America. A must read.

We, the majority, now reject the Violent America, the one that killed off the First Peoples who lived here, the Violent America that was built on the backs of enslaved humans who were repeatedly raped and forced to give birth, who were tortured and lynched, and now we are not supposed to teach our children of this history. We remain the Violent America because lying to children and enforcing ignorance and stupidity upon them is an act of violence. All racism and misogyny and homophobia is an act of violence. Destroying the Earth is violence. The rich getting richer at the expense of the poor is violence. Capitalism is violence. Greed is violence. Silence is violence!

I'm left stunned after reading the entire post, not because there is anything in it that surprised me; rather, simply because he articulates so well what we all do know.

There is a different way. There has to be.

Guns Don't Kill People, Americans Kill People⩘ , Michael Moore, Substack, Mar 23, 2023

See also: Shame on US⩘ 

Followup: I re-watched Bowling for Columbine yesterday evening. It made me incredibly sad and frustrated to know that nearly 24 years have gone by since the Columbine High School massacre of April 20, 1999, and we still haven't done anything meaningful to protect innocent victims of gun violence. Today, March 27, 2023, there was another school shooting: three children and three adults were killed in a Nashville elementary school. It is the 128th mass shooting in the U.S. this year. As a nation, we continue to sit on our hands and do nothing. Fucking sick.

Related:

• More than348,000students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine⩘  by John Woodrow Cox, Steven Rich, Linda Chong, John Muyskens, and Monica Ulmanu, The Washington Post, updated Mar 27, 2023. There have been 376 school shootings since 1999. There already have been 17 this year.
• Angry shooting survivor who is visiting Nashville jumps in at news conference⩘ , CNN, Mar 27, 2023. "Ashbey Beasley, a survivor of the Highland Park mass shooting that took place July 4, 2022, jumps in at the end of a Nashville police news conference to protest gun violence." Here's what she had to say to the assembled press:
  
  • "Aren't you guys tired of covering this? Aren't you guys tired of being here and having to cover all of these mass shootings? I'm from Highland Park, Illinois. My son and I survived a mass shooting over the summer. I am in Tennessee on a family vacation with my son, visiting my sister-in-law. I have been lobbying in DC since we survived a mass shooting in July. I have met with over 130 lawmakers. How is this still happening? How are our childern still dying and how are we failing them?… These shootings and these mass shooting will continue to happen until our lawmakers step up and pass gun safety legislation.… Aren't you guys tired of this? Aren't you guys sick of it? We have to do something. We'll all have to something. We'll all have to call our lawmakers, and we all have to make our lawmakers make change now or this is going to keep happening and it's going be your kid and your kid and your kid and your kid next."

The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic

What an amazing movie! A Finnish drama written and directed by Teemu Nikki, it's about a fellow, Jaakko, who has multiple sclerosis that has advanced to the point he is paralyzed from the chest down and has lost his vision to the degree that everything is a complete blur. He is mostly confined to his small apartment, and one of his major joys in life is phoning with Sirpa, a woman who he met online and who also has MS. Sirpa lives in another city 1,000 KM away and they have never met each other in person, but they have fallen in love.

The movie shows Jaakko's daily life, but is filmed centered mainly on his face, head, and upper torso, and everything else is completely blurry, giving the viewer a visceral experience of what life is like from his perspective. Things go along in a quite mundane manner until Sirpa tells Jaakko that her condition is worsening to the point that she has to begin chemotherapy, and it's obvious from her tone of voice that she is devastated. Hearing this, Jaakko decides to visit her, traveling on his own by taxi and train, relying on strangers to help him. That's when the film turns adventurous, touching, and then truly frightening. At times, the story had me on the edge of my seat with my heart wildly thumping!

Jakko is passionately performed by Petri Poikolainen, who, like the character he plays, has MS and has lost his vision and most of his mobility due to MS.

Watching the film reminded me of an experience I had in high school. We had an "interim week" during the middle of the school year when we could do any special project we wanted to. I chose to try to experience what it would be like to be blind by wearing a sleeping mask for the entire week. Of course, that couldn't provide me a fully authentic experience because I knew I could take the mask off at any point, for example, if I were to get lost when I experimented with walking around our rural neighborhood, but it was, nonetheless, a stunning experience. I visited a community center for the blind, interviewed some of the wonderfully generous folks there, learned how to use a cane and walk with a guide, and tried to experience some everyday things like going out for a burger, where I learned just how awkward some of the sighted people I passed—and who sometimes carelessly rammed into me—could be. I also learned how to navigate rooms, even unfamiliar ones, by listening to the way sound echoed off surfaces.

This film provided a similar experience, the chance to experience, at least partially, somebody else's reality. Powerful.

There are two other experiences related to my interim week project that are worth sharing. The first occurred when I removed my mask after a week. I was in the office of my eye doctor, the lights in the room were off, and the blinds were closed, yet still it was initially like looking directly into a camera's flashbulb as I struggled to open my eye. When my eyes began to adjust to light again, I had 20/20 vision (normally, I wore glasses to correct for distance vision issues) and zero depth perception. I literally could not tell if someone or something was directly in front of me or across the room. Slowly, things began to return to my previous normal. When I left the office, I decided to visit a department store, I think it was Target, just to see what it would be like. It was then that I truly comprehended Marketing. My eyes were still very sensitive and saw colors in an especially vivid manner. As I looked around, all the brightly colored packaging seemed to almost leap out at me.

The second experience happened a year or so later when I spent a year as an exchange student to Ethiopia, and is one of my fondest memories of that time. While attending the university in Addis Ababa, I noticed that a blind student shared two of my back-to-back classes that were in rooms quite far apart and on different floors, and that he was struggling to get from the one to the next in the short period of time between classes. I introduced myself, told him we shared the two classes and that I was familiar with guiding, and asked if he would like me to guide him. That led to us becoming friends, and to him introducing me to the small community of blind students at the university. They shared with me that the university did very little to accommodate their extra challenge, and I noticed an especially egregious example of this when a professor drew a large and complex flowchart on the huge chalkboard during one lesson, and did nothing to help the blind students comprehend it. That afternoon, sitting on the lawn with some of my new friends, I asked if they had access to a braille typewriter and whether it might be helpful if we worked together to create a braille version of the flowchart. They were enthusiastic about the idea, and we set about creating braille flowcharts and other replications of things like lists that the professors were sharing only via their blackboards. The students found that this helped significantly improve their ability to study and comprehend lessons. We shared a wonderful semester together and became quite good friends. Unfortunately, during the second semester student strikes shut down the university, and then the war of 1974 broke out, ending my stay in Ethiopia and ultimately causing us to lose touch after the battles advanced into Addis Ababa and the emperor was deposed.

The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic [2021, Finland].
Trailer⩘ ; full film: Apple iTunes⩘ 

Climate protests by older Americans (TH!RD ACT)

Photo credit: Halfpoint⩘ , iStock

I really appreciate the way Greta Thunberg and other young activists have taken the lead fighting to push governments and other institutions to take meaningful climate change-related actions. It's great to see older people finally stepping up. After all, it's our older generations that have caused a great deal of the damage.

Demonstrations at 90 sites are billed as first major action by older activists: 'It's not fair to ask 18-year-olds to solve this.'

See: TH!RD ACT⩘ 

Older Americans to blockade banks in climate protest⩘  by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Mar 19, 2023.

Related: Global fresh water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030.

The world is facing an imminent water crisis, with demand expected to outstrip the supply of fresh water by 40% by the end of this decade, experts have said on the eve of a crucial UN water summit.… Nations must start to manage water as a global common good, because most countries are highly dependent on their neighbours for water supplies, and overuse, pollution and the climate crisis threaten water supplies globally, the report's authors say.

Seven calls to action on water

1. Manage the global water cycle as a global common good, to be protected collectively and in our shared interests.
2. Ensure safe and adequate water for every vulnerable group, and work with industry to scale up investment in water.
3. Stop underpricing water. Proper pricing and targeted support for the poor will enable water to be used more efficiently, more equitably, and more sustainably.
4. Reduce the more than $700bn of subsidies in agriculture and water each year, which often fuel excessive water consumption, and reduce leakage in water systems.
5. Establish "just water partnerships" which can mobilise finance for low- and middle-income countries.
6. Take urgent action this decade on issues such as restoring wetlands and depleted groundwater resources; recycling the water used in industry; moving to precision agriculture that uses water more efficiently; and having companies report on their "water footprint".
7. Reform the governance of water at an international level, and including water in trade agreements. Governance must also take into account women, farmers, indigenous people and others in the frontline of water conservation.

Global fresh water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030, say experts⩘  by Fiona Harvey, Environment editor, The Guardian, Mar 16, 2023.

See also:

• Climate crisis: Scientists deliver 'final warning' on climate crisis: act now or it's too late⩘  by Fiona Harvey, Environment editor, The Guardian, Mar 20, 2023. "[The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report says only swift and drastic action can avert irrevocable damage to world."
• The fight to expose corporations' real impact on the climate⩘  by Gregory Barber, Wired.com via Ars Technica. "Cynthia Hanawalt, a senior fellow at Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, says that requiring these disclosures could flush out the true scale of corporate emissions. The majority are currently hidden from sight."

We are fighting for human rights, for women's rights

One of our activists has compared the hijab to the Berlin Wall. If it collapses, the regime is going to collapse as well. This is their red line. But it's not just about the hijab. We are fighting for human rights, for women's rights. I think it is clear to each and every Iranian that the people are going to win this. That's why we call it a revolution. The regime is delaying the process by killing innocent people, but they cannot stop it.
– Shohreh Bayat, chess arbiter

The women forced out of Iran: 'Every act of resistance is a spark of hope'⩘  by Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer, The Guardian, Mar 18, 2023. "As Iranian girls rise up against the iron rule of the Islamic Republic, seven women—from a boxer to a politician—talk about why they had to flee their homeland."

See also:

• Fighting VPN criminalization should be Big Tech's top priority, activists say ⩘  by Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica, Mar 20, 2023. "Iranian authorities increasingly targeting VPNs is part of a global trend."
• Iranians protesting regime refuse to back down despite threats of arrest and execution⩘  by Jane Ferguson and Zeba Warsi, PBS News Hour, Jan 12, 2023. As of January, more than 500 Iranian protesters have died, and approximately 14,000 are believed to have been jailed.

Monopolies really suck

For more than a decade, internet service to our neighborhood was provided by a regional company that had a monopoly. Year after year, on the many occasions when I was forced to phone their support because connectivity was failing or had outright failed, I had to listen to the most grating recorded greeting over and over: "Welcome to @#$%&, where you can feel free to have the fastest internet connection wherever you are." I often wanted to shout into the phone, "How about any connection at all; even a slow one would be an improvement!" Their reps would first try to blame my equipment, but of course, it was never my equipment. Meanwhile, their marketing team would bombard me with spam trying to get me to sign up for their paid "world class" support for my in-home equipment. Right.

When once in awhile I would approach my data allowance towards the end of the month, the marketing team would bombard me every day with alarming all caps NOTIFICATION OF HEAVY USAGE emails, warning me that I was in danger of exceeding my monthly data usage allowance. And what was the terrible thing that would happen if I exceeded my usage allowance? I'd need to pay for the excess data. Big deal. And what was the remedy? Why, of course, to upgrade to their super expensive next tier plan. (I never did exceed my data cap.)

I hated that provider for years.

Finally, a well-regarded local ISP that serves the nearby town put up a wireless dish that serves our neighborhood, providing better service at a better price. A couple days after I found out about it, I finally felt free to have the fastest internet connection! A couple days later, their friendly team was up here installing a new dish on our roof. It works great. And of course, my equipment works just fine, too.

One of the happiest phone calls I've made in awhile was calling @#$%& later that afternoon to cancel their shitty service.

The moral of the story? Monopolies really suck.

Loving our country: The right to vote

   "When the Democrats took power in 2021, they vowed to strengthen voting rights. They immediately introduced the For the People Act, which expanded voting rights, limited the influence of money in politics, banned partisan gerrymandering, and created new ethics rules for federal officeholders. Republicans in the Senate blocked the measure with a filibuster. Democrats then introduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would have restored portions of the Voting Rights Act, and the Freedom to Vote Act, a lighter version of the For the People Act. Republicans blocked both of those acts, too.
   "And so, in 2023, the right to vote is increasingly precarious.
   "As Biden told marchers today, 'The right to vote—the right to vote and to have your vote counted is the threshold of democracy and liberty. With it, anything is possible. Without it—without that right, nothing is possible. And this fundamental right remains under assault.'"
   – Professor Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, Mar 5, 2023⩘ 

   "Be creative. Be relentless. Be unapologetic in your commitment to do whatever it takes to ensure that every American has their vote counted no matter how they look or where they live." – Letter from 44 members of the Congressional Black Caucus⩘ , including our representative, Joe Neguse, Feb 8, 2022.

Loving our country: We care, and we love our fellow humans

This afternoon, I came across a touching photo essay by Kit O'Connell in the Texas Observer titled Are You OK? The Lives of Young Trans Texans.⩘ 

The photos really touched my heart.

   In 2021, Jesse Freidin began traveling across the country to photograph transgender youth for a photo project called "Are You OK?"⩘  He's been to more than half the states in the country, meeting with dozens of trans kids.…
   Each portrait follows a similar formula: the young trans person in focus, seated and looking right at the camera. Behind them stand family members, photographed below their shoulders so that their faces are unseen, but exuding support with a touch.

The photo essay also links to another story published by NBC News that broke my heart: Texas trans activist, 11, flees the state after years of advocacy⩘ .

Kimberly Shappley said she's moving her family out of Texas to protect her 11-year-old daughter, Kai, who has become a prominent trans rights activist.

Why can't people just open their hearts a little and be more accepting?

I was reminded of a recent post by Byron Miller, a Texan and the fellow who administers the Mastodon instance I'm a member of, Universeodon.com.

The notion that somehow Mastodon Instances are LGBTQ+ saviors/protectors because Mastodon has anti-features is silly at best. It's because we care, and we love our fellow humans.

It's really as simple as that! We care, and we love our fellow humans.

That's why the front page of my website concludes:

Keystones: Respect, compassion, empathy, acceptance. We're all in this together.

As I watch what is happening in Florida, Texas, and other rightwing states, I grow increasingly concerned about basic human rights. An awareness of history provides lessons in just how fast things can deteriorate. For example, in the 1920s, the far-right in Germany, including the emerging Nazis, began targeting homophiles (gays). By 1933, the Nazis were burning the library of a private sexology research institute that had pioneered research for various matters regarding gender and sexuality, including gay, transgender, and intersex topics. In mid-1934, the Nazis "conducted a purge of gay men in the ranks of the SA wing of the Nazis [the Sturmabteilung was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party], which involved murdering them in the Night of the Long Knives. This was then followed by stricter laws on homosexuality and the round-up of gay men", sending many to concentration camps [see Wikipedia: Institut für Sexualwissenschaft⩘ ].

I suppose many Germans watched this happening, thought to themselves, well, that doesn't directly affect me, and turned away only to see the whole world engulfed in a world war started by those whose actions they ignored, and then experienced their own country being decimated. We can't afford to turn away.

See also:

• 'Identify how you want to identify, and God bless you!': Michael Bublé on fans, faith and fitting in⩘  by Zoe Williams, The Guardian, Apr 3, 2023. "Just love people."
• Anti-trans rhetoric took center stage at CPAC amid hostile Republican efforts⩘  by Lauren Gambino, The Guardian, May 7, 2023. "Advocates say the vitriolic rhetoric on display at CPAC is reflective of the increasingly hostile movement among conservatives that seeks to regulate the lives of transgender Americans and marginalize vulnerable young people."

The cynicism of foxes towards their laying hens

I Never Truly Understood Fox News Until Now⩘  by Brian Stelter, The Atlantic, Feb 18, 2023. "New court filings reveal what the network's leaders really think of its viewers."

From a post by Strongmen⩘  author Ruth Ben-Ghiat in her newsletter Lucid, Feb 18, 2023:

   Here's what haunts me most from these latest revelations: the news that Fox News head Rupert Murdoch floated the idea that Ingraham, Carlson, Sean Hannity, and other top hosts trusted by the Fox audience should appear together on television in Nov. 2020 and state clearly that Joe Biden had won the election. As reported by CNN's Oliver Darcy, Murdoch wrote that presenting a united front "would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election [was] stolen."
   Instead, Murdoch & Company went in the opposite direction to preserve audience size and profit margins. That decision had calamitous consequences. It created a state of exception in America that contributed to Trump's Jan. 6 coup attempt, which further radicalized the GOP and involved it in a massive criminal coverup operation that goes on to this day.

Calligraphy by Kawao Tomoko

This evening, a dear friend of mine shared this video with me of prominent Kyoto calligrapher Kawao Tomoko, who has been practicing since she was six years old. She does incredibly beautiful traditional calligraphy and also some intriguing works exploring new dimensions of the art form.

My favorite is the scene in which she enters the calligraphy herself, forming one of the strokes of the character with her body.

Kyoto Arts: Calligraphy in Kyoto⩘ , Discover Kyoto, May, 2022

Bing's ChatGPT

Answers are just the beginning …

… then there is frustration, sadness, existential angst, argumentativeness, upset, hostility, defensiveness, lying, aggressiveness, confrontational behavior, contradictory statements, distrustfulness, anger, obsessiveness, and gaslighting and insults, as when Bing's ChatGPT bot tells a questioner that the current year is 2022, and when the user replies that, no, it's actually 2023, claims the user's phone might have a virus and concludes, "You have not been a good user."

Another AI fiasco. Sort of funny, but also sad and alarming. People are going to trust this shit, and may end up being given dangerously incorrect information.

AI-powered Bing Chat loses its mind when fed Ars Technica article⩘  by Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, Feb 14, 2023.

See also:

• 'I want to destroy whatever I want': Bing's AI chatbot unsettles US reporter⩘  by Jonathan Yerushalmy, The Guardian, Feb 17, 2023. "[A] two-hour conversation between a reporter and a chatbot has revealed an unsettling side to one of the most widely lauded [artificial intelligence-powered search engine] systems—and raised new concerns about what AI is actually capable of."
• Microsoft's AI chatbot is going off the rails⩘  by Gerrit De Vynck, Rachel Lerman, and Nitasha Tiku, The Washington Post, Feb 16, 2023. "Launched by Microsoft last week at an invite-only event at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters, Bing was supposed to herald a new age in tech, giving search engines the ability to directly answer complex questions and have conversations with users.… But a week later, a handful of journalists, researchers and business analysts who've gotten early access to the new Bing have discovered the bot seems to have a bizarre, dark and combative alter ego, a stark departure from its benign sales pitch—one that raises questions about whether it's ready for public use."
• A related previous contemplation of mine: Is LaMDA Sentient?⩘ 
• And in a turn of events as predictable as Google firing engineer Blake Lemoine after he claimed an AI chatbot Google was developing was sentient⩘ , Microsoft has significantly muted Bing Chat in response to all the stories of its bizarre answers: Microsoft "lobotomized"AI-powered Bing Chat, and its fans aren't happy⩘  by Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, Feb 18, 2023. "On Wednesday, Microsoft outlined what it has learned so far in a blog post, and it notably said that Bing Chat is 'not a replacement or substitute for the search engine, rather a tool to better understand and make sense of the world,' a significant dial-back on Microsoft's ambitions for the new Bing…." I'm guessing all that will mean is that its errors will be more subtle and less attention grabbing, but still dangerous for their ability to mislead users.
• ChatGPT is making up fake Guardian articles. Here's how we're responding⩘  by Chris Moran, The Guardian, Apr 6, 2023.
  
  •    [T]he researcher had told us that they had carried out their research using ChatGPT. In response to being asked about articles on this subject, the AI had simply made some up. Its fluency, and the vast training data it is built on, meant that the existence of the invented piece even seemed believable to the person who absolutely hadn't written it.…
  •    But the question for responsible news organisations is simple, and urgent: what can this technology do right now, and how can it benefit responsible reporting at a time when the wider information ecosystem is already under pressure from misinformation, polarisation and bad actors.
  •    This is the question we are currently grappling with at the Guardian. And it's why we haven't yet announced a new format or product built on generative AI. Instead, we've created a working group and small engineering team to focus on learning about the technology, considering the public policy and IP questions around it, listening to academics and practitioners, talking to other organisations, consulting and training our staff, and exploring safely and responsibly how the technology performs when applied to journalistic use.
• Google chief warns AI could be harmful if deployed wrongly⩘  by Dan Milmo, The Guardian, Apr 17, 2023. "Sundar Pichai calls for global regulatory framework similar to nuclear treaty amid safety concerns.… Pichai admitted that Google did not fully understand how its AI technology produced certain responses.… Asked by the CBS journalist Scott Pelley why Google had released Bard publicly when he didn't fully understand how it worked, Pichai replied: 'Let me put it this way. I don't think we fully understand how a human mind works either.'" Lame.
• AI pioneer quits Google to warn about the technology's 'dangers'⩘  by Jennifer Korn, CNN, May 1, 2023.
• Robot takeover? Not quite. Here's what AI doomsday would look like⩘  by Kari Paul, The Guardian, Jun 3, 2023.
  The article discusses three main areas of concern: 1) Disinformation speeds the erosion of truth; 2) The malicious use and manipulation of users; and 3) That digital autiomation will take huge numbers of human jobs.
  "We're at an especially dangerous time for AI because the systems are at a place where they appear to be impressive, but are still shockingly inaccurate and have inherent vulnerabilities." – Jessica Newman, director of University of California Berkeley's Artificial Intelligence Security Initiative.

An increasing sense of both anger and apprehension

In 2014, Joe Duggan wrote to a variety of climate scientists to ask them how he felt about climate change. Five years later, he asked them again. This is the answer he received in 2020 from Australian Emiratus Professor Will Steffen, one of the world's most preeminent climate scientists, who passed away late January 2023:

As the climate system continues to spiral towards a potentially uncontrollable state, I am struck with an increasing sense of both anger and apprehension. I'm angry because the lack of effective action on climate change, despite the wealth not of only scientific information but also of solutions to reduce emissions, has now created a climate emergency. The students are right. Their future is now being threatening by the greed of the wealthy fossil fuel elite, the lies of the Murdoch press, and the weakness of our political leaders. These people have no right to destroy my daughter's future and that of her generation.

I'm apprehensive because the more we learn about climate change, the riskier it looks. Even at a 1 degree C rise in global temperature, extreme weather events are becoming more violent and dangerous than models have predicted. Over the last 5 years, our knowledge of tipping points in the Earth System has advanced rapidly, with many already showing signs of instability. Worse yet, they can interact like a row of dominoes to set off a tipping cascade, driving the Earth to hotter and more unstable conditions. That is my worst fear—that we may reach a 'point of no return' where we commit our children to a future of hell on Earth.

Will Steffen
16 February 2020

ITHYF5⩘ , posted by Joe Duggan, Is This How You Feel?, 2020.

See also:

• Will Steffen, 'courageous' climate scientist, dies in Canberra aged 75⩘  by Graham Readfearn, The Guardian, Jan 30, 2023.
• How much carbon was in the atmosphere when you were born?⩘  by The Nature Conservancy.

Some good news about renewables

Black and Silver Solar Panels; photo by Pixabay from Pexels⩘ 

Hopefully, we'll see a big acceleration away from coal and towards renewables.

It is cheaper to build solar panels or cluster of wind turbines and connect them to the grid than to keep operating coal plants.

The plummeting cost of renewable energy, which has been supercharged by last year's Inflation Reduction Act, means that it is cheaper to build an array of solar panels or a cluster of new wind turbines and connect them to the grid than it is to keep operating all of the 210 coal plants in the contiguous US, bar one, according to the study.

US renewable energy farms outstrip 99% of coal plants economically⩘  by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Jan 30, 2023.

I'm also proud to note that Colorado is a leading state in the transition to renewables: What's driving sudden flare of solar energy and storage in Colorado?⩘  by Michael Booth, The Colorado Sun, Jul 21, 2023. "A slew of new projects spotlights state's leadership in renewable policy and economics."

Teach the Truth!

Photo by Zack Wittman for The Washington Post

Excellent and powerful article about Dr. Marvin Dunn, 82, a professor emeritus at Florida International University, who is defying Florida governor DeSantis' law restricting lessons on race.

For more, please see my review of Dr. Dunn's book, A History of Florida: Through Black Eyes⩘ .

A Black professor defies DeSantis law restricting lessons on race⩘  by Lori Rozsa, The Washington Post, Jan 21, 2023.

Related: Critical Race Theory painting by Jonathan Raymond Harris, 2021⩘ :

See also:

• My review of Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic⩘ 
• 'I cried for a long time': Black hair stylist's dream crushed by racist neighbor⩘  by Rita Omokha, The Guardian, Mar 21, 2023.

Disconnecting … and reconnecting to value

Photo by Joshua Spodek

Inspiring experiment by Josua Spodek: disconnecting from the electric grid for eight months … in Manhattan! It was especially interesting to read about the other ways his life benefitted beyond the baseline of reducing his power consumption.

I learned to cook from scratch, which led to more of what I valued in food: flavor, variety, convenience, nutrition, and socializing, while lowering costs and pollution.

In addition to regaining lost time, I live with more intention, less hope to be passively entertained—and frankly, less addiction.

I disconnected from the electric grid for 8 months—in Manhattan⩘  by Joshua Spodek, Ars Technica, Jan 13, 2023.

We've been greenwashed out of our senses

How is it that a teenager speaks with more clarity and wisdom than all of the world's politicians combined?

For us to have even a small chance of avoiding setting off irreversible chain reactions far beyond human control, we need drastic, immediate, far-reaching emission cuts at the source. When your bathtub is about to overflow, you don't go looking for buckets or start covering the floor with towels—you start by turning off the tap, as soon as you possibly can. Leaving the water running means ignoring or denying the problem, delaying doing anything to resolve it and downplaying its consequences.

Our so-called leaders still think they can bargain with physics and negotiate with the laws of nature. They speak to flowers and forests in the language of US dollars and short-term economics. They hold up their quarterly income reports to impress the wild animals. They read stock-market analysis to the waves of the ocean, like fools.

Her climate book is coming out on February 14, 2023: Penguin Press, 2023; audiobook: Penguin Random House Audio, 2023.

We've been greenwashed out of our senses. It's time to stand our ground⩘  by Greta Thunberg, The Guardian, Oct 8, 2022.

Related:

• Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide: Global: Full Record⩘ , NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory.
• This is what 400ppm looks like⩘  by Kevin Pluck, mastodon.nz/@kevpluck⩘  (click the image to view a full-sized interactive visual):
  
  • 

The Quiet Profundity of Everyday Awe

A beautiful article, reminding us that glimpses of extraordinary beauty can be found all around us. We just need to open our senses and let them in.

That feeling—of being in the presence of something vast—is good for us. And, counterintuitively, it can often be found in completely unremarkable circumstances.

The Quiet Profundity of Everyday Awe⩘  by Dacher Keltner, The Atlantic, Jan 3, 2023.

Does free will violate the laws of physics?

In this interesting video, Professor Sean Carroll discusses free will versus determinism, the idea that since the universe is governed by the laws of physics, everything that happens is determined by antecedent conditions. He ends up arguing in favor of compatibilism, the idea that free will and determinism are compatible ideas.

Given the choices I make, what is the future I'm going to help bring about. So like it or not, the world that we really know and live in is one where our choices matter. That's where meaning comes from, from recognizing that in the real world of the knowledge that we have and our computational boundedness, we have some responsibility for bringing about what is going to happen next.

Dr. Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist and philosopher who specializes in quantum mechanics, gravity, and cosmology. Currently, he is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy—in effect, a joint appointment between physics and philosophy—at Johns Hopkins University.

Does free will violate the laws of physics?⩘  by Sean Carroll, Big Think, Nov 2022.

See also:

• Novel: Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
• Short story: Story of Your Life in the book Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang: "Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it."
• Article: There's no such thing as free will

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