keithpinson

In theory, information wants to be free.
In practice, it wants to be rent-seeking, DRM-locked, and rewritten by an LLM trained on ad copy.

It's hard to explain how much this breaks my heart. For both scientific and symbolic reasons, it reinforces my sense of complete hopelessness about the future. This is really, really significant.

Your 'doom quote' for today:

"The earth is a broken machine,
spitting oil into the sea,
its gears grinding down
to a halt—

we watch the gauges climb,
red needles piercing the future,
and still we feed it
our trash, our hunger,
waiting for the shudder
that says it’s done."

-- Alice James

Bar graph showing zonal mean surface air temperature anomalies for each latitude band from the Antarctic to the Arctic in February 2025. All areas observed above average temperatures, except for parts of the Antarctic.

Temperature anomalies by latitude band in February 2025. Pay close attention to the magnitude of this warmth in the #Arctic (x-axis). This is really jaw-dropping.

[Latitude = y-axis (not scaled by distance). Data from NASA GISS (GISTEMPv4) using a 1951-1980 climate baseline]

“The ability of demagogues and autocrats to surprise,
to create a new scandal every day, is their superpower.
It diminishes attention to
the previous day’s transgressions and normalizes them.
It slowly numbs the senses, including outrage.
Values are our only defense – hold them dear.”

 Garry Kasparov

Today, in a meeting at the White House, the only person actually defending American interests was Zelenskyy.

Let that sink in.

The everyday American...thousands of them...millions

I am expecting to hear in the morning that Ukraine has no Starlink

Another fiery exchange from Judge Reyes in the trans military case:

The continent of Australia has only 18 huge and ancient trees left... www.msn.com/en-au/scienc...

Monterey Park Hero

On the Chinese New Year 2023, Brandon Tsay wrestled an UZI from the hands of a gunman entering the Lai Lai Ballroom – he did not know that the man had just shot 20 people and killed 10 celebrating the Chinese New Year in nearby Monterey Park, California.

Heat map-style graphic showing sea ice volume rankings for each month from 1979 to 2024. There is a long-term decreasing trend in ice volume in every month of the year in this time series from PIOMAS. Graphic is adapted from Labe et al. (2018, JCLI).

Monthly #Arctic sea ice volume ranks - updated through 2024. We now have 46 years of record in this data set (46=thickest, 1=thinnest).

+ Data: climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data...
+ Paper: doi.org/10.1175/JCLI...
+ Graphic: zacklabe.com/research-are...

Photo of Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde.

This is the face of courage and compassion. Thank you Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde for speaking truth to power on behalf of the marginalized.

A Liberalism Without Apology or Fear... ...which does not mean blindly defending the status quo and standing in the way of fundamental reforms

"Trump has no business portraying his movement as the rebellion when it is actually the empire. It’s time liberals made that clear by embracing an underdog spirit befitting liberalism’s new underdog reality."

www.theunpopulist.net/p/a-liberali...

In the Trump Bible they cut out that woke stuff about the Good Samaritan and replaced it with the Sermon on the Pot, "Love your President and hate your immigrant".

"Always take sides" – Elie Wiesel

YouTube video by MLB Vault Ichiro's GREATEST defensive plays! | イチローハイライト

a thing you have to keep in mind about Ichiro is that as impressive as his defensive highlights and stats are, they actually underrate him. He was one of those outfielders whose arm was so notoriously deadly that few baserunners tested him and he deterred far more extra bases than he threw out.

The Ugly Truth About Spotify Is Finally Revealed A year-long investigation by an indie journalist is a call to action

www.honest-broker.com/p/the-ugly-t...

*sigh*

"a huge amount of streaming music originates from just 20 people, who operate under 500 different names"

Genetic discovery links new gene to autism spectrum disorder Variants in the DDX53 and other genes on the X chromosome provide genetic clues to male prevalence in ASD.

www.sickkids.ca/en/news/arch...

DDX53, remember that

Variants in the DDX53 gene found to contribute to Autism Spectrum Disorder. (link in comments)

100 years of average September-October-November temperature anomalies over land areas through 2024...

Data from NOAAGlobalTemp v6.0.0: www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/lan...

Not gonna lie, seeing friends proudly sharing their Spotify Wrapped is kinda like going into my chicken's coop with a 20 piece of McNuggets.