Jack Smith particularly interested in Dec. 2020 Trump meeting

(via wilwheaton)

““The Great Pacific Garbage Patch can now be cleaned,” announced Dutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat, the wonderkid inventor who’s spent a decade inventing systems for waterborne litter collection.

Recent tests on his Ocean Cleanup rig called System 002, invented to tackle the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic pollution, were a success, leading Slat to predict that most of the oceanic garbage patches could be removed by 2040.

Intersections of ocean currents have created the massive floating islands of plastic trash—five slow-moving whirlpools that pull litter from thousands of miles away into a single radius.

The largest one sits between California and Hawaii, and 27-year-old Slat has been designing and testing his systems out there, launching from San Francisco since 2013.

GNN has reported on his original design for the floating device, but his engineering team improved upon it. System 002, nicknamed “Jenny,” successfully netted 9,000 kilograms, or around 20,000 pounds in its first trial.

It’s carbon-neutral, able to capture microplastics as small as 1 millimeter in diameter, and was designed to pose absolutely no threat to wildlife thanks to its wide capture area, slow motion, alerts, and camera monitors that allow operators to spy any overly-curious marine life…

Slat estimates ten Jennies could clean half the garbage patch in five years, and if 10 Jennies were deployed to the five major ocean gyres, then 90% of all floating plastic could be removed by 2040.” -via Good News Network, 10/19/21

How much you wanna bet the State of California will “prohibit” use of this system, because “reasons.”

If it’s in international waters they can’t do anything about it. And I’m pretty sure the federal government decides what can and can’t go on off our coasts too, not local or state.

Slat has been working on this since he was literally a child. I remember the first posts, articles, and I think there was even a fundraising campaign at one point.

I am so, so proud of him holy shit.

^^^ me too!! I remember the first news yeaaars ago that some kid had thought up a brilliantly simple method of cleaning up the oceans, and even that first prototype was amazingly efficient in solving a problem that the grownup world seemed to have given up on. It was so simple I couldn’t believe no scientist or engineer had thought of it before.

And he’s just been refining it and making it better and better? Amazing news!

Well done, sir, well done and thank you <3

My big memory of this is that every time he sent out a prototype, people would overwhelmingly go “AH HA! See? It didn’t work as advertised because a storm broke it/it didn’t filter as much as he predicted/etc.”

And every time, Boyan would analyse what went wrong, tinker with it, and send a stronger version back out.

There are still issues with it, like, but this guy isn’t some shitty billionaire - he’s a normal man walking the walk to clean up an international problem that everyone else is just wringing their hands over. I have no clue why everyone is desperately waiting for him to fail. He’s picked his hill, and he plods along, and if the latest design hasn’t met expectations, he creates a new one.

Their website is here, btw, in case anyone wants to have a look; they still accept donations

He doesn’t stop at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, either! While working on their ocean trash collection system, the Ocean Cleanup is simultaneously also building a number of systems to clean up the world’s 1000 most polluted rivers and is working with local governments and the people directly impacted by the trash at each location to prevent plastic from making it into the oceans in the first place. They are adapting each one to the specific locality it will be deployed in to take the unique circumstances (boat traffic on rivers and spring flash floods) into account. They’re amazing.

You can follow them on their social media sites. I suggest their videos. It’s pretty satisfying to see all that garbage collected and sorted!

This is why fat shaming can have tragic consequences.

If this sort of weight-based medical bias happens to any of y'all, politely tell the doctor (during your visit) that you want them to write in your file that they are refusing ordering tests for you because of your current weight. This usually causes them to order the test anyways because they do NOT want a malpractice suit. Remember: You want to make a paper trail to hold them accountable.

Still Just A Geek is a Hugo award finalist

Still Just A Geek is a finalist for the 2023 Hugo, in the Best Related Work category!

Well, this is certainly unexpected. I thought making the New York Times list was the most surprising thing that would happen with Still Just A Geek, but … Still Just A Geek is a finalist for the 2023 Hugo, in the Best Related Work category! I have been nominated for a few things in my life. I’ve even won a few. But I have not won way more often than I have. Based on my experience, the “I won!”…

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congratulations! well-deserved!

The massacre in Jenin is horrific but just the sight of bodies being left on the street because no ambulances/paramedics can get to them since Israel has been blocking them from reaching areas of the refugee camp…yeah there aren’t any words. Literally what can you even say

Update: now the iof is calling for the evacuation of Jenin Refugee camp - Palestinian families are being forced to leave. Colonizers doing what they do best

timesofgaza & eyeonpalestine & onlinepaleng have been posting about this live all day, please keep an eye on those accounts for updates

I think this is a good time as any to remind you that a little goes a long way. I implore you guys to please donate to Palestine. They have been facing hardships and violence at the hands of the Israelis since the occupation of their homeland started in 1948. Innocent people are being robbed of their homes, their lives, their dignity, and are helpless against it all.

Linked below are a few charities and organizations working to provide relief in the area. Please consider offering whatever you can.

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Helping Hand for Relief and Development

UNICEF

UNRWA

Al-Makassed Hospital (run by and for Palestinians in Jerusalem)

Palestine Red Crescent Society

Islamic Relief

Palestine Children's Relief Fund

Why are Americans so against free healthcare?

Americans are NOT against free healthcare, but enough corporate-owned white supremacist Republicans (and Joe Manchin), are preventing it. People suffer and die so those despicable motherfuckers can get more money with the added bonus of hurting poor people who are statistically ... more Black and Brown than not. ShockedPikachu.jpg

I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.

-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a

I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.

Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.

He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.

So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.

He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.

Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.

Finally, the endless deluge accomplishes something other than flooding.

Satie - Parade (1917)

Before the 20th century, ballet was a genre of beauty and gracefulness, and even at its most 'lighthearted' there was a lyrical elegance in the music and in the dance form. Thanks to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, ballet no longer needed to have that bourgeois elegance. The Paris audience of the ballets premiere were scandalized by the music, costumes, and coreography. Only years later, another ballet would cause a scandal (not as propagandized into being a riot, but a scandal nonetheless) and be another example of Modern art's direct 'offensiveness' toward traditional sensibility. It was an unlikely collaboration between four parties: Erik Satie, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, and Sergei Diaghilev. Cocteau had heard some of Satie's piano music and was interested using it for a ballet. Satie was intrigued, since he had never been involved in ballet before, and agreed on the condition that he write all new music instead of transcribing any early works. The story was lighthearted and simple; a passing parade wanting to get the audience's attention. A kind of 'realist' divertissement. While ritual sacrifice may have been too 'brutal' for the ballet genre, popular entertainment like fairgrounds were thought of as too vulgar for the ballet stage. And after choosing to collaborate and premiere the work with Diaghilev and the ballet russe, the then 20 year old Picasso was hired for costume and set design, filling the sage with jarring cubist figures and vivid colors. That combined with Satie's unusual score created a kind of 'surrealism', and perhaps this was the worst surrealist ballet. The audience was cold toward the new work; a fairground of cubist figures dancing to vaudville bands and sirens, type writers, milk bottles, foghorns, and even pistols all as percussion instruments, seemed too out there. Maybe "too" modern. But it has since been hailed as one of the great 20th century masterpieces.

I gotta admit I used to think Satie was overrated. As usual, it was because I'd listened to a handful of pieces that I didn't like much and thought his popularity was all for the gymnopedie alone. Eating my words as history continues to prove me wrong

another great post, thanks!

Just read a perfectly fine fanfiction that took place in Germany but something that stood out to me was a chapter where the characters walk across a field and is approached by the farmer yelling at them to get off his land.

I’ve come across this plot point a few times and I feel like it’s worth telling writers that most of Europe has some version of Right To Roam. The laws aren’t the same in every country but generally you’re allowed to walk and rest on private property like fields and forests so long as you don’t destroy anything or leave trash, but not gardens or fenced in areas. The owner of the land might put up a sign asking you to follow certain guidelines like no horses or keeping your dog on a leash but but there’s no real repercussions to not following the rules besides the owner eventually fencing the area off so people can’t enjoy it anymore.

I’ve personally walked around on a field while the farmer was harvesting potatoes with his big ass machine and collected the leftovers while my dog was trotting calmly besides me and he looked straight at me and didn’t care one bit because Denmark also has an old tradition of letting people collect what’s left as a form of charity (for my fellow Danes, that’s what “rev vi marken let, det er gammel ret, fuglen og den fattige skal også være mæt” means in the song Marken Er Mejet) This is just a tradition and not a law however so it depends on the farmer.

The very north of Europe like Norway and Sweden even give people the right to put up tents and camp on other people’s private land (except gardens and such). Again, the laws vary from country to country but as a rule of thumb you have more right to roam the further north you go and less the further south but if you want to write in a specific country look up the laws there.

Wow. Yall are really just allowed to exist in public huh?

To an American, this sounds like a beautiful fantasy world

Alexandre Desplat - Main Theme to Asteroid City (2023)

Last night I went out to the movies with friends and we saw the new Wes Anderson picture, Asteroid City. This is the first time in a long time that I've seen a film in a theater and I do have a lot to say about the movie and the unique way that it shows the kind of crisis and anxiety that artists have in the creative process. But from the first moment I fell in love with the score by the acclaimed film composer Alexandre Desplat. Just as Anderson uses picturesque scenes and stock characters of Atomic-Age Americana to evoke a nostalgia for this idealized past we can only experience as artificial recreations, So Desplat turn to post-war American music to capture not only an atmosphere of the era but also of the American Sublime. There are only a few moments that his score comes through mixed with retro country western tracks. The opening of this “suite” holds us with a high-pitched note held over a melody in the lower register of the piano. This distinct “Americana” sound feels that way because it is reminiscent of Copland’s orchestral writing. But then the oscillating xylophone and bells brings in a pulse that makes me think of American minimalism with the likes of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Little wind arpeggios come in to heavily emphasize Philip Glass' style of “minimalism”, which can be heard throughout his scores. And this nod to Glass ends with a long held organ pedal point in the bass, reminding us of his iconic score for Koyaanisqatsi (1982). Then, unexpectedly, the held note which opened the score is revealed to be the opening to the serene and otherworldly prelude to Wagner’s Parsifal (or at least a short pastiche). Why reference Wagner here? I'm going to guess that this is related to the Wagnerian sound of heroism, triumph, and the sublime all being paired with the reminiscent love for the cowboys of the Old West. And these long held notes, and evoking the repetitive and potentially endless sounds of looping American minimalism come together to create a musical depiction of the American Sublime of endless Horizons and expansive nature and the quiet beauty that places like the Southwest has. I might be reading a lot into it and I don't want to argue that this is what Alexander Desplat had in mind when he decided to write in an American musical style for matching aesthetics, but I think this adds a nice little cherry of a detail on top of an already complicated and multi-layered film.

great write-up, thank you!

How you can help the WGA out

AMPTP is currently on a power trip with the 8 biggest studios behind them. and the current head of the AMPTP is Carol Lombardi, who is on record as having said things like this:

"Writers are lucky to have term employment." -Carol Lombardini, AMPTP

Term employment is basically gig work ie: not permanent employment or a permanent guarantee of salary or benefits. This is rich because Carol Lombardini is a salaried Executive of AMPTP and her salary has risen over the years, starting at 1.4 million and has risen to over 3 million per year. In fact, under her leadership, writers saw a collective pay decrease of 23% (adjusted for inflation).

The studios make over 3 TRILLION dollars a year and I have an extensive post on why there is no defense for these big studios studios not paying their employees when folks like David Zaslav was taking home a 243 million dollar yearly paycheck in 2021 and on track to take home at least 11 million in bonuses just this year while writing off both his salary and his bonus as company tax breaks. TL;DR for that post: employee wages are tax deductible so employees will pay better and hire more people, instead the big companies choose to pay themselves more and give themselves bonuses that they can write off their company's taxes.

Here are some ways you can help out the WGA if you can't join the strike:

Call the AMPTP and tell them they should give the writers what they want. Feel free to use and tweak the template below:

"Hello, my name is [first name] and I'm a fan of [x show(s)/movie(s)] and I'm very disappointed in your treatment of the writers and your reluctance to give them what they're asking for. They make the things I want to watch and without them your services have no value to me. I will be cancelling and boycotting the services of the studios you represent until the AMPTP chooses to negotiate with the WGA in good faith and give them what they're asking for" AMPTP's phone number is here: (818) 995-3600.

I know not everyone is comfortable calling on the phone so here's another way you can reach out: Sending Physical Mail. All you need to do is copy the text of the sample letter below and edit or add on as you see fit, then print it out, affix a stamp and send it to the address:

Carol Lombardini Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers 15301 Ventura Boulevard Building E Sherman Oaks, CA 91403

AMPTP's site refuses to post their email address, so physical mail works a lot better at the moment unless you feel up to calling on the phone.

If you need a template letter, feel free to use the one below or to edit it as you need:

Dear Carol Lombardini,

I'm writing to you as a fan of [X Show] which is currently in jeopardy because of your poor treatment of [Writers/Actors/Crew]. Not only have you have been denying them the kind of job security that you yourself are afforded, but you and the other executive level employees of AMPTP have been dismissive and disrespectful of both the creatives and the hard working crew who make media possible.

Without [Writers/Actors/Crew], the major studios you represent have no content. And it is the content created by these talented and dedicated creatives that brings fans like us to the table. Without my favorite shows and movies, I do not care about your streaming services, your merchandise or your advertisements. I pay you money for the media I want to watch and you treat the people who make that media like garbage.

The studios can no longer hide behind the idea that what the creatives they employ are working on is not profitable when studio CEOs are taking home hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual salary. You cannot claim the studios are not profitable when they choose to pay their executives millions of dollars in yearly bonuses as a tax loophole to allow them to write off their own personal profits as "expenses" for the company while adding millions more to their personal fortunes.

I'm tired of you treating the creatives who work on your shows poorly when they are the reason we're paying the studios money.

We know that the AMPTP can do the right thing and we urge you to do so before we remind you that without an audience you have no profits.

Until you resolve this issue and give the WGA not just what they are asking for - which is less than .01 % of the profits raked in by the studios you represent - but ideally a lot more, I am going to cancel and boycott your services and products and tell our friends and family to do the same.

I hope that you can resolve this matter and treat your [Writers/Actors/Crew] with the respect they deserve so I can resume enjoying the content of the studios you represent.

Thank you for your time [Your name]

If you found this helpful, feel free to reblog or repost anywhere and share with anyone you know interested in helping. Credit or a link back is appreciated but unimportant. What is important is getting involved!

Help our writers!

Both parties are clearly not the same. #VoteBlue

(via Reddit - https://i.redd.it/7zs221ajej9b1.jpg)

Source

Another inhumane ruling from our famously corrupt Supreme Court

Republicans have made SCOTUS unhealthy. It is a done deal.

Democrats changing SCOTUS is not unhealthy.

Yeah say it louder: Republicans ALREADY BROKE SCOTUS. Now, to fix it, Democrats need to use their power and popular support to UNFUCK IT. For fucks sake why is this so difficult.