That’s a fantastic comparison, because the reason they added lead to gasoline was just to increase convenience a tiny bit, and they’ve poisoned the world in the process.

The good news is: Impossible as it may seem, we banned it worldwide and its bad effects are now mostly gone.

Makes you think.

We need to talk about Sudan.

After more than 18 months of an inhumane siege and starvation in El Fasher, the RSF militia are committing mass killings of civilians on an unimaginable scale.

There is so much blood it can be seen from space.

Also: anyone who wants to use this as a chance to wallow in doom and despair can fuck right off - every tonne of CO2 matters, every fraction of a degree we prevent saves lives and ecosystems. We need to fight like HELL to save what we can, grieve what we can’t, and lock up those responsible.

A BBC news cover that says scientists reveal the secret. A photo of a fat little puffy dog is shown.

I fucking knew it.

Girl: Where do you see yourself in ten years? / Cat: Eating lunch! / Girl: Where do you see yourself in ten miles? / Cat: Eating lunch at the gyro place / Girl: Where do you see yourself in ten degrees / Cat: Pouring my liquid assets into the sweet tea economy / Girl: Where do you see yourself in ten seconds? / Cat: Unconsciously accepting an accelerating level of background violence / Girl: Where do you see yourself ten years ago? / Cat: Wasting time / Girl: Where do you see yourself in ten months? / Cat: Looking back on the present as wasted time / Girl: Where do you see yourself now? / Cat: Just trying to get by - minute by minute / Girl: Where do you see yourself in one hundred years? / Cat: Being tortured for all eternity by a super-intelligent color field for not doing my part to bring a super-intelligent color field into existence - ROTHKO'S BASILISK / Girl: Where do you see yourself in one hundred degrees? / Cat: Toiling ceaselessly in the Lord's caverns in exchange for a thin gruel of amaranth and Fritos - everyone in the caves knows me as the funny guy! / Girl: Where do you see yourself in one thousand years? / Cat: Perfectly preserved in a peat bog! / Girl: When are we going to industrialize the peasantry? / Cat: After lunch!

Powers of ten.

As described, autumnal scene.

Silk painting depicting a squirrel on a branch, Tao Cheng, China, c.1500 AD.

YouTube video by The Mountain Goats - Topic Possum by Night

Possum by night! music.youtube.com/watch?v=miHP...

Australia is seen as a young country — but do you really know its ancient story? Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' story goes way, way back… take an awe-inspiring journey into Deep Time.

This is really well done:
www.abc.net.au/news/deeptim...

a jazz club named "Club Gombe" with a chimpanzee band going nuts on stage and more chimps hooting and hollering at the tables. one empty table has a card on it reading "reserved for Jane Goodall"

BRAND NEW Far Side from Gary Larson just dropped

As of now there is nothing Albanese's govt has done that has changed the country in any structural way.

No change at all to how the fundamental debates of the nation are addressed.

The virgin AGI existential risk vs the chad global warming

Airborne iceberg behemoth hasn't reached our suburb yet, BoM's a bit off again

Human Error Is the Point: On Teaching College During the Rise of AI - The Rumpus My syllabus is a mess of half-remembered intentions. I re-use icebreakers that I know don’t work. I forget to grade the first assignment until Week Four. I write emails that begin with “So sorry for t...

In my classroom, there is always a delay. Between question and answer. That space—the stutter, the pause, the gesture—is where actual teaching happens. Not in the bullet points or the Google Doc comments, but in the moment someone says, “I don’t know if this makes sense, but—” and suddenly it does.

Brown falcon(???????) on a pole

Is it possible for a birdnerd to confirm/deny if my terrible photo I took in north Canberra is of a brown falcon?

Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop

sound on

For the record, my break is not well earned but I’m taking it anyway

Italy has moved me to tears for 3 days straight. Bravo ❤️

Photo of Duncan's Lifeline Bookfair buys, 4 books in a square, on grass n clover: - I hate the internet, by Jarett Kobek - A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again, by David Foster Wallace (cover flappin in the breeze) - Stories of your life and other stories, by Ted Chiang -No one is talking about this, by Patricia Lockwood

Lifeline bookfair haul, o yes!

What is the value of Meanjin? We’ve done some calculations – and it’s not about money New research considers the true value of Meanjin, using publicly available data. The journal has trained generations of Australian writers and editors.

"All arts and cultural value reporting has its limitations. But it’s time to properly recognise forms of value beyond price. What’s more, assessments of broader cultural value need to be routinely accessible and visible, to a broad range of stakeholders."

My Votes for RN's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century: Questions of Travel (2012) — Michelle de Kretser House of Leaves (2000) — Mark Z. Danielewski My Struggle Book One: A Death in the Family (2009) — Karl Ove Knausgaard Cold Enough for Snow (2022) — Jessica Au The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty — Vendela Vida The Jakarta Method — Vincent Bevins Devil House—John Darnielle Kafka on the Shore (2002) — Haruki Murukami The Years of Rice and Salt — Kim Stanley Robinson Life of Pi (2002) — Yann Martel

This was a fun challenge – booknerd Hottest 100 of the 21st Century!

Also great for reminding me of how many books are out there that I want to read, and that would probably be competing for this list if I did.

Headline stating that Australia recognises the state of Palestine with a photo of Albanese and Wong

Australian Labor recognises the State of Palestine but won’t sanction Israel or stop supply of weapons parts

Australian Labor recognises the devastating effects of climate change but keeps approving massive fossil fuel projects and won’t tax the industry sufficiently

Sensing a pattern here..

PLAUSIBLE BUT FALSE is the defining trait of the 21st century.

Timeline cleanse, featuring the majestic sea flap-flaps (aka mobula rays).

They're a migratory animal, moving from one part of the ocean to another in large groups called "fevers".

They migrate to follow upwellings that enrich for zooplankton food items & to visit their breeding grounds.

(📷:OCR)

Investing in joy. How to save our declining arts sector - submission Australian artists, writers, musicians and other creative industries helped the nation survive the COVID pandemic, yet they've been left to decline, according to a submission by The Australia Institut...

As venues close and festivals cancel, our artists and arts sector is in desperate need of support.

We've just published a submission with 3 key ideas to save our arts industry.

• Culture passes
• Book bounty
• Remove tax on art prizes & grants

We've got five ideas for how to pay for it too. ⤵️

'How to keep the lights on' conversation totally ignores where we are already at We don't have to wait for moonshot technologies to reach our climate targets. Most of the solutions to the climate crisis are already around us.

"[Climateworks] CEO Anna Skarbek says its modelling has found that Australia can reach an 85 per cent cut in emissions by 2035 with solutions that are already out there."

Albo is selling out the nation and our future with the cowardly 62% target.

A pika sits on a mossy rock.

Tighter crop of the same pika, focusing on its head.

An even tighter crop, focusing more on the pika's eye.

An extremely tight crop of the pika's eye, emphasizing their reflection of an early morning mountain scene.

"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?"

Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.

The Govt just set a 2035 emissions reduction target of 62–70%.

That’s below science & flies in the face of the duty we have to protect the people & places we love.

State commitments have 🇦🇺 headed for ~70%. This lowers the bar & makes it harder to push for more global ambition.

Built in the 13th century. So that mosque stood for 800 years with every sort of person from every place and every religion in the world passing through Gaza century after century, only for it to be blown up by some shithead loser sitting behind a computer that we probably paid for.