Brian Beach has moved @bwbeach@qoto.org

Unearthing long ignored African writing system, researcher finds African history

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/fallou-ngom-discovers-ajami-african-writing-system/

“U.S. cities, in contrast to their international counterparts, dedicate a relatively greater proportion of land area to streets…A typical street in modern Osaka or Paris is under 20ft wide, while many American cities require widths of between 50-60ft .”

North American cities waste too much space/land & public money on too wide roads that encourage us to drive too fast, fueling (among other things) too many injuries & deaths.
https://planning.org/blog/9229552/the-costs-of-wide-streets-in-the-us/

Carl Sagan passed away #OTD in 1996. In his final interviews he left us with two messages that are even more relevant today: one emphasizing the importance of a science literate public, the other a warning about how hard it is to extract ourselves when we’ve been conned.

Just a friendly reminder!

#TwitterMigration #TwitterExodus #fediverse #FediTips

If Mastodon diehards want this to be The Next Place after Twitter, the move is to bend over backwards to listen to disabled and Black community about what they do and don't need in social media space.

Even if it's challenging.

Even if it makes you uncomfortable.

These are power user communities, whether folks like it or not.

Want to work on Mastodon full time? I’d like to pay a Rails dev for the next 3+ months to implement some auth improvements that matter to me but also just burn down bugs, make perf improvements, whatever is needed as this place grows. Remote 100% ok but need 3-4 hrs of Pacific time zone overlap, fair pay, meaningful work. #fedihire #ruby #rails #job

Believe me, I would much rather talk about happy things like butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales, but I kinda need people to get on board with this whole stopping the fascists thing.

Hi Mastodon, sorry it took me so long to get here. Not big on words, prefer to let my photos do the talking. Here for the #bees and #nature. Up to my neck in this with @thebeeguy Let's save the bees together.

#bees
#nature
#wild
#photography
#naturephotography
#beesofmastodon
#sanctuary
#wicklow
#ireland

Only in America do we call working people ‘essential’ but deny them paid sick leave.

We don’t need to treat essential workers like heroes. We need to treat them like human beings with dignity.

Raise their wages. Give them hazard pay. Guarantee health care and paid sick leave.

This amazing map shows travel time from London to the rest of the world in 1881
@histodons @geography

Really fascinating story that is a good reminder that slavery was not that far back in American history. Many families today are still grappling with its aftereffects.
#histodons #genealogy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/12/01/coles-hill-virginia-slavery-uranium/

Take a moment to read about Jerry Lawson. It’s his birthday today. He developed the first video game cartridge which revolutionized the gaming industry. He was a real genius. But we only hear admiration for the pseudo genius of the Elon Musks of the world and the Great White industrial barons. America would be NOTHING without the contributions of Black folks. We must promote our history because the truth must be heard.

#BlackMastodon #BlackTwitter #JerryLawson

https://www.ideastream.org/news/their-dad-transformed-video-games-in-the-1970s-and-passed-on-his-pioneering-spirit

Tonight I've asked Stable Diffusion to generate 250 different pages from the 1987 Radio Shack catalog.

I’m so confused. Santa has always been Asian. I met him in the internment camps, and he was definitely Japanese.