ML2 @mathlover@qoto.org

@elonjet @mmasnick

Looks like Elmo pulled the plug on Datacenter Dynamics’ website!

Not just for communication platforms, either. For many many things, if you don't control it, it isn't yours. You might have found the perfect little program for part of your workflow but oops it's an online app from Google and it's now in the Google graveyard. You might have found the perfect free to use 3d tool, but oops they got bought out and now it's $1000 a year to keep using it. You might have found the perfect iot device for your home but oops, it relies on a third party server and the company went out of business so now you have to throw all the equipment you bought away.

Americans can help defeat a fascist billionaire oligarchy with the choices they make but instead are like “choosing a server is too hard!!” 😩

I've tried not to bring too much baggage with me from COVID Twitter but this NYTimes story is appalling. Not only do they paint those still wearing masks as holdouts, but they somehow couldn't find someone who wears anything in between a handmade cloth mask and an elastomeric P100, giving the impression that the remaining mask wearers are either wearing ineffectual protection or wearing a level of protection that most people were unwilling to adopt even pre-vaccination.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/us/covid-masks-risk.html

My grandfather had the heart of a lion, and a lifetime ban from the zoo.

Snowball Earth

Through many posts we have talked about the Great Unconformity (yes, you must capitalize it) and how it occurs worldwide in different rock sections. Why? Scientists believe that at several times in Earth’s history the planet was buried in a blanket of ice. Oceans were nearly frozen. This is what scientists call Snowball Earth, or sometimes Slushball Earth.

The last occurred sometime before 650 million years ago, during the aptly named Cryogenian period. In 200 million years, uplift and the giant erosive conveyor belts of ice eroded continents down to the roots of the ancient mountains and left the land at sea level. Think the Canadian Shield. This scraped bare land is the base of the Great Unconformity. As the glaciers melted, sea level rose and covered the land and deposition of sedimentary layers began. Variations of this happened worldwide. We can focus on the North American continent which looked much different at that time. Forget anything west of Idaho or so. It wasn’t there yet.

Geologist Myron Cook does a much better job then I could of explaining Snowball Earth, the Great Unconformity, and why different gaps, between hundreds of million to billions of years, of time exist in rock section across what was North America at the time in his great video published only 11 days ago. Throw in a master-class in Deep Time, and you have it all put together as only a master story teller can. And there are lots of rocks, yay! Watch this wonderful video. Yes, it’s long, but you’ll absolutely hate yourself if you don’t get to see the Mineral Fork Tillite and how the story ends. Trust me.

https://youtu.be/LXzDfQyUlLg

Follow it up by further findings on Snowball earth using thermochronology by Kalin T. McDannell, et. al. including our own @brenhinkeller as they work to help determine if glaciation or the recent hypotheses of tectonic influence had more impact on denudation of the continent. Spoiler alert: read the title of this post again.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2118682119

Another version here: https://eos.org/articles/erasing-a-billion-years-of-geologic-time-across-the-globe

Pinging @BoxcarMurphy who probably knows all about this already :)

#SnowballEarth #SlushballEarth #Glaciation #Cryogenian #TheGreatUnconformity #NorthAmericanContinent #DeepTime #MyronCook #HowSnowballEarthLeveledTheContinentsAndCreatedTheGreatUnconformity #WatchTheDamnVideo #geology #ScienceMastodon @geology

Big Journalism is still largely unwilling to call things what they are. Today's example is the Washington Post's use of "vaccine hesitancy" to describe a movement that is based on rejecting science and evidence in favor of dangerous and, increasingly, politically motivated lies.

The people who reject vaccines are attacking their communities. They spread disease and death. We should recognize this, and say it out loud.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/12/26/vaccine-hesitancy-measles-chickenpox-polio-flu/

Christmas is a celebration rooted in a very explicit story of migrants seeking shelter, and a strong implicit critique of those who would turn them away.

That white Christian nationalists would leverage the lives of vulnerable immigrants to try & own libs right now says it all

What an idiot

Trump rambles that he has 'total immunity' from any kind of prosecution

#politics #news
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-has-no-immunity/

#GeorgeSantos, a former call center employee falling behind on his rent, lent his campaign a staggering $705,000.

Where did all that money come from? The Ethics Committee MUST start investigating immediately.

About damn time:

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/12/22/west-point-is-removing-confederate-symbols-from-campus/

tiny holiday project: I made a little site to show/hide boosts for the people you follow on Mastodon, using the Mastodon API https://manage-boosts.jvns.ca/

I'm not really taking feature requests but I found it helpful so I'm sharing in case other folks do as well

the code is here: https://github.com/jvns/manage-boosts

@KimCrayton1 @QasimRashid @mekkaokereke On a similar note I remember Kara Swisher (I think) talking about how she didn't like the term "unconscious bias" because after the first dozen or so times it's been pointed out to a person, just how unconscious is it really?

Wayback Machine is useful to journalists. Very. But we need to archive. Very.

"Past statements of Mr. Santos are relatively clear however: An archived version of Mr. Santos’s former campaign website preserved by the Wayback Machine says that he “began working at Citigroup as an associate and quickly advanced to become an associate asset manager in the real asset division of the firm.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/nyregion/george-santos-interview.html

(don't mean to be partisan, just timely)

Please donate.
https://archive.org/donate

Cathay Williams was the first African-American woman to enlist in the army. She became a Buffalo Soldier, by disguising herself as a man. She called herself William Cathay and was deemed fit for duty. When she was wounded and sickened from diabetes and could no longer work she applied for disability. The doctor found her out and she was denied disability...because she was a woman.

@shoq most on Musk timeline are Musk fanboys. I'm unsure on how many bots and trolls from other govt.

Now that the man I had dinner with is passed out from carb overload, I'm stepping up to my soapbox:

Sorry, but the ACA fixed very little and was never meant to be an endgame. People are still going bankrupt from medical debt. Many people still can't afford to go to the doctor, even with insurance, due to outrageous deductibles.

Medical care is still a privilege in the US and not the right that it should be. We tend to fight for things, make a little progress, then move on.

Keep fighting.

at this rate, @mmasnick may become twitter CEO by default since it appears he's the only one rational enough to give it life saving advice.

👇
Elon Musk Claims He’s Not Worried About The FTC; He Should Be
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/26/elon-musk-claims-hes-not-worried-about-the-ftc-he-should-be/

It honestly still blows my mind today that Santa isn’t Asian. I remember seeing him during in the internment camps, and dude was def Japanese.

For more of my story, catch me live and on stage in London Jan-Apr in Allegiance:
https://AllegianceMusical.com