szescstopni @szescstopni@qoto.org

Night skies are getting 9.6% brighter every year as light pollution erases #stars for everyone.

The situation is dire for astronomers, astrophotographers, and everyone else who is interested in looking up and taking a look at the tranguility of the ocean of stars.

The stars in the sky taught us #mathematics and #physics, but now we are collectively forgetting its beauty.

#astronomy #astrophotography https://theconversation.com/night-skies-are-getting-9-6-brighter-every-year-as-light-pollution-erases-stars-for-everyone-199383

What I always hear: “We can’t afford to pay our workers $15 an hour.”

What I never hear: “We can’t afford to pay our CEO millions of dollars a year.”

Funny how that works, huh?

America’s legal system today

I want to practice law:
—You need a 4 year Bachelors, take the LSAT, then a 3 year JD, then pass the BAR, buy malpractice insurance, & total cost is ~$300K

I want to enforce the law:
—Here’s paid 13-week training & a gun

I want to write the law:
—No qualifications needed and a billionaire can buy you a seat

@anildash This is a big problem for trans people. I just abandoned some sites that wouldn't let me change my name and/or email.

@anildash My mentor and I had two significant technical disagreements where I ended up being right; one involved a product we were building where I argued hard against (and lost) using email addresses as the unique ID on the back end. It’s an architectural trap. The security line is a straight-up lie.

It is genuinely *unbelievable* how many sites don't let you change the email address on your account. I've been in a (multi-year) effort to move to a new standard personal email address, and there are sites, including sites where I've spent hundreds of dollars, where there is simply no way to update an email address, even if I talk to their support staff. And then they lie and say it's "for security reasons"! Just astounding. People lose/change addresses all the time!

@gratefuldread While I applaud anything that moves marijuana into the mainstream of acceptable products there is always a reason for the shift. States that have medical marijuana also require annual license fees (no other prescriptions require a license/ID card), and 6 month visits to the prescribing Dr. Then there are the dispensaries that are taxed up the wazzoo. It's just another ponzi scheme for states to gain more tax revenue. Full legalization is the way to go.

Part of the reason the NYT thinks they did nothing is wrong is that they were very polite in their articles. To a certain kind of center-right liberal elite, politeness is all that matters. They think it’s okay to advocate for genocide if you say it in a nice way.

The Vinyl Institute has poured millions of dollars into convincing the public, with the help of Democratic and Republican lobbyists alike, that PVC is safe and sustainable. https://theintercept.com/2023/02/18/east-palestine-plastic-industry-lobbying/

Oh my god! Shift Happens is now 400% funded and No. 2 most-funded non-fiction book in Kickstarter history! This is wild!? https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?category_id=48&sort=most_funded&seed=2793152&page=1

A teeny Mangora acalypha (cricket bat spider) spotted in the foliage in Hampstead Heath a couple of weeks ago #Spiders #MacroPhotography #Wildlife #Invertebrates

Someone wrote in asking for technical support, asking for a very specific installer for a specific piece of software, apparently no longer available for download from our site.

Here's the weird part: Neither this software nor an installer for it have ever existed. (Was this software someone else wrote, that we're just hearing about for the first time?)

After several back and forth messages asking for detail and where they heard about this software, it turns out that it all came from ChatGPT.

In case you considered thoughts and prayers to be the least they could care. In case you thought they couldnt be more bored with this shootings at school thing.

Vanderbilt University Caught Using ChatGPT To Console Students After MSU Shooting

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vanderbilt-university-uses-chatgpt-email-after-msu-shooting_n_63f620abe4b0a209e82ad9e6

Patent dekady! 👍 #introductions

So far this winter here in Fairbanks, #Alaska the low temperature has been -39ºF (-39.4ºC) and there's been no significant urban ice fog. It used to be that dense ice fog was a significant winter hazard. Those days are gone. With mild weather expected most of this week, it's very unlikely we'll have even one -40ºF/C day this winter. You might think that's a good thing, but deep cold is an important "regulator" of the northern boreal ecosystem.

#akwx #ClimateDiary

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64726522