Trevor B @trevorb@mastodon.sdf.org

Avian and mammalian biomass on the planet earth

I am a man, and I should dress like a woman if I were not such a coward.

That is, I should revel in velvets, in silks and satins, in plumes and ruffles, in rich or delicate colors, in daring and dashing modes, in endless variety suited to my whim, to the weather or the occasion. It would be great fun. It would be an artistic gratification. But I don't dare.

In the days of knighthood, when men were really breve, they out-dressed the women; but in these degenerate days we do not venture our fancies beyond cravats. No man in modern times has dared to dress as he pleased, except Oscar Wilde, and we buried him with craven hisses.

We men rail at women's fashions, but in our hearts we know ourselves to be the slaves of fashion, of one dull, deadly, monotonous fashion, which we hate, but from which we are too cowardly to free ourselves.

-- Life magazine, February 1916

debates

- Nine people are dead and 16 injured

- Police officers were in the area when the shooting started and killed the shooter in "less than a minute," according to the authorities.

That's an average of a victim almost every 2 seconds. Police response time of a minute if true is incredible.

If gun rights activists are to be believed the only answer for self protection is to always be armed. Not just armed, but unholstered. Weapons ready. Safety off. Like every public space is a war zone.

This is not the definition of a civil society.

2019

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found this on twitterland 🤪

Person A: "What is speleology"
Person B: "The study of caves. Here's a wikipedia link if you want to learn more."
Person C: "Wikipedia isn't a reliable source@!@!!!!"

Me: I wish people would stop mistaking "don't use this as an academic source for citations in a paper" with "this is not a reliable source for getting an overview of what something is." For non-controversial topics, Wikipedia is rarely inaccurate, and controversial topics are typically flagged.

Revolt.

Cottage on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand [1500×1000]

Alan Turing - the face of the new £50 note.

It’s too little and too late, of course, to make up for the horrendous way that Turing was treated by the establishment. But it’s a good thing.

https://www.grahamcluley.com/alan-turing-the-face-of-the-new-50-note/

"You'd be surprised how many sad sons of bitches believe people only care about each other in books."
--Spider Robinson, _Time Travellers Strictly Cash_

Addressing these design problems depends on your view of a just society. For this I appreciate Rawls's Veil of Ignorance: imagine creating a just society, but not knowing what your future place in that society will be. You could end up as a rich person on the fortunate side of the border, or a poor person on the unfortunate side.

If the possibility of not winning the borders lottery makes you queasy, then you know that morality wise borders shouldn't be a thing anymore.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance

In IT you can only fix a symptom issue a few times before you have to start looking for the underlying problem.

Looking at the concentration camps in the US and the landfills of dead boat migrants in the EU as symptom issues, shouldn't we start to address the underlying problem there?

It's borders. The whole idea that some people should live here and some people there, and that only a privileged few may move freely in between, is an ugly design problem that we need to fix.

Wow look at that! Renewables!!!

From http://grid.iamkate.com.

Canyon City by Tu Bui

HOW DARE YOU?? I CAN'T BE RACIST, MY GRANDAD'S WELSH