ralnode.net

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days

2025-01-10T12:28:20+00:00

Filing this one under "warnings from history", although the warning has clearly had little effect on some.

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days

Luigi Mangione and Media Double Standards

2024-12-31T10:10:36+00:00

Ricky Hale on the US media's response to the Brian Thompson murder. His critique of course applies equally to sections of the UK media as well.

"The correct moral position is that violence is wrong, but if you’re pushing the message that violence is fine when its against people you don’t care about, you can’t act surprised when we don’t care that a killer on your team is killed. You can’t even act surprised when some people cheer it on. This is the climate you created!"

No, supporters of Luigi Mangione are not monsters, no matter how much you insist otherwise

Another quote, this one from comedian Josh Johnson, taken from the video embedded on the above page:

"I don’t want anybody to die, I don’t celebrate death in any way, but I will say if you feel in the wake of this thing happening, that you [CEOs] have to scrub all mention of you, all knowledge of your existence off the internet, then maybe, just maybe, take a look at how you do business…"

The Seikilos Epitaph

2024-06-30T22:25:43+01:00

The Seikilos epitaph is a haunting and IMO beautiful piece music that dates from the second century CE. It is the oldest surviving complete musical composition that includes musical notation (source).

It's commonly assumed to be a lament to the composer's dead wife, although there's a less romantic hypothesis, namely that the stone on which the musical score and lyrics are carved might instead have been erected by the composer as a monument to his own talent.

Regardless of the reasons it was written, the song gives us an entrancing insight to the sensory world of the Greco-Roman culture of Tralles in the second century CE.

There are many versions of the song available online. To me they're all haunting and moving, but I've selected the following two for this post.

The first version recreates the simple original, without (as far as I can tell) any modern embellishments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm1aPxOORrs

The next, performed live by the "YK Band", also starts with the original but then builds to a more elaborate, very beautiful contemporary version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNLEFz9wwz8

Phew. Does anyone have a tissue? I seem to have something in my eye...

A spot of Google Street View tourism makes clear that the modern town of Aydin gives little sense of the environment that would have existed when the song was composed. Although the mountains in this panoramic photograph must be virtually unchanged since Seikilos himself gazed upon them.

Katharine Hayhoe's Challenge to Sceptics

2024-05-03T12:08:00+01:00

Re-upping this 2018 tweet by climate scientist, Katharine Hayhoe.

The original tweet can be seen here. Nearly six years later the thread in which it occurs is still well worth a bookmark. It's packed with resources, both in the main thread and dispensed during the course of answering the questions of many of those replying.

The thread also provides a glimpse of some of the nonsense that climate scientists are subjected to on social media. People replying with no relevant qualifications, little understanding of the topic, and no desire or capacity to learn, but who nevertheless have a direct line to experts in their field which they can use to be disrespectful, dismissive and abusive.

NB. Prof Hayhoe makes a typo in that thread. She states that on average "all geologic activity put together, emits only about 10% of the heat-trapping gases that humans do". She later corrects that to 1% [sic].

It's not dirt

2024-04-26T00:44:15+01:00

A delightful post in the North East Bylines from teacher and smallholder, Melody Bird.

As the digging went on, we made cross curricular links to the Battle of the Somme and sang ‘mud, mud glorious mud’. The clart was all encompassing. Accident prone Pupil H looked like the creature from the black lagoon by the end of the afternoon, but I think he was still smiling. The children keep referring to soil as dirt and so I keep correcting them. 6 inches of it and rain water means we can survive on earth. Yet it hardly gets a mention in the curriculum as I think I’ve mentioned before. For life on earth soil is more precious than gold… yet kids don’t see it as valuable as most of their food comes off a supermarket shelf. We really need to launch new campaign “Just Top Soil”.

Excerpts from the diary of a teacher on the verge of climate breakdown Week 9: Potatoes

Ed Zitron on Elon Musk

2024-04-25T12:43:46+01:00

While hatchet jobs on the rich and famous are a penny a dozen, this Ed Zitron piece resonated with me, not least because it reinforces many of the observations I've made about Musk in recent years.

The Descent of Elon Musk

You'll need to watch Don Lemon's interview with Musk to understand some of utterances and demeanor that Ed Zitron is referring to, although with that interview clocking in at over an hour, this might stretch the interest and patience of many.

Some will no doubt dismiss Zitron's post as just another ad hom heavy attack piece. But the rambling multi-billionaire who Zitron is critiquing now controls the algorithms that govern who sees what on one of the world's most influential social media platforms.

The Earthrise Story

2024-04-24T15:24:55+01:00

I stumbled across the official story behind the famous "Earthrise" photograph taken during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. Not only was it humanity’s first view of Earth from another planetary body, but it also played an important role in the growing environmental awareness in the late 1960s and '70s. The image was used as the cover photograph for the Spring 1969 issue of the Whole Earth Catalog and US Nature photographer Galen Rowell later described it as "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken". [¹][²]

The Wikipedia entry contains additional information, including interesting details about the camera and film development process used as well as the image's impact and legacy.

Fifty years later, Bill Anders, the astronaut who took the photograph, observed "We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth."

Surveillance as a Service

2024-04-09T10:46:14+01:00

Technologies and tools that further erode citizens' privacy and ability to organise, protest, dissent and to engage in civil disobedience.

Surveillance as a Service: The Global Impact of Israeli “Defense” Technologies on Privacy and Human Rights

A Última Árvore (The Last Tree)

2024-04-08T17:12:20+01:00

A Última Árvore (The Last Tree)
Mixed-media sculpture, Will Ferreira, 2013

Markarian's Chain

2024-04-05T15:52:11+01:00

I've changed the image in my page-top banner to a shot of Markarian's Chain. This group of galaxies is one of the most awe-inspiring sights I've had yet through an amateur telescope. I first viewed the chain in our back garden using my 150mm f8 refractor under the Bortle 4.5/5 skies we have here, and even in these less than ideal conditions, it looked wondrous.

It's not the size or brightness of the galaxies in the chain that's so jaw-dropping (they're rather faint in the eyepiece of a 6" refractor or 8" reflector), it's their number, coupled with the fact that with a low or medium power eyepiece you can see multiple galaxies in the field of view simultaneously. The chain and the Virgo cluster of which it is a part is probably the closest you can get, when using a small telescope, to the sort of galaxy-peppered views captured by the likes of Hubble and the James Web Space Telescope.

To view a single galaxy is mind-blowing enough, but being able to see several in same field of view is an experience for which you quickly run out of adjectives. To boot, being able to see the chain from a location as familiar as your own back garden just makes the experience feel all the more special.

So, if you're as relatively new to this as I am and you haven't yet pointed your scope at Markarian's chain, you really must put it on your shorlist of objects to see. It's quite something. For the majority of viewers in the northern hemisphere, the Virgo Cluster (the location of the chain) should be at its best between now and June.

So far I've only viewed the galaxies in the chain using my 150mm (6") refractor. I'm not sure how impressive the views are through scopes that gather less light, say, a 3" or 4" refractor. I'll get around to pointing my 100mm (4") refractor at the chain at some stage and will report back here with the results.

Links to articles about Markarian's Chain:

messier-objects.com
Wikipedia
Sky & Telescope

Markarian's Chain image courtesy of Hewholooks (Wikimedia Commons)

The Anthropocene: an event not an epoch

2024-04-02T23:58:05+01:00

Following last month's decision by the International Union of Geological Sciences to reject the proposal to declare an Anthropocene epoch, I saw one or two comments on social media by environmental campaigners who seemed to regard the decision as a setback, even a defeat.

In the light of this, I was interested to read the following a couple of days back, in a paper published last year on the stratigraphic basis of the proposed epoch. This is from the introduction (the emphasis is mine and I've removed the inline references for readability):

"It is no longer necessary for every paper on the subject of the Anthropocene to summarize the case for the proposed new series/epoch and its suggested start in the mid-20th century, or to outline the whole history of the Anthropocene concept. Instead, this paper takes as its starting point recent work which reconfigures the Anthropocene from a proposed geological epoch to an emergent, unfolding, intensifying event. This work proposes that the Anthropocene concept would be most useful to science if it continues to be regarded as an informal time unit alongside the GTS."

Source: The stratigraphic basis of the Anthropocene Event

I have no expertise in the field, but I do like this approach, focusing not on the attempts at classification, but on the effects of recent human activity -- particularly on the effects of the Great Acceleration.

It reminded me of a twitter thread I read last year by Jacquelyn Gill, a palaeoecologist, who pointed out that we already have a geological epoch defined by humanity, namely, the Holocene, and that defining the Anthropocene as a formal geological epoch is not necessary for raising awareness about the profound global changes our activities are causing.

ICYMI: The Web turned 35 this month

2024-03-27T22:36:27+00:00

The World Wide Web turned 35 earlier this month. Tim Berners-Lee marked the day by posting an open letter:

Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: An Open Letter

In it he urges users to work to protect the web from corporate control and to support projects that give users the tools to take control of and manage their own data.

Colour Schemes for Linux

2024-03-24T00:42:08+00:00

Colour schemes for the Linux desktop and applications. The author highlights some really nice work.

My Top 3 Linux Color Schemes

The author also gives an honourable mention to Ethan Schoonover's venerable Solarized scheme. Solarized doesn't make it in to his top three, but only because he couldn't make it play nicely with the GTK themes he likes.

Dark Skies and Bibliophilic Design

2024-03-19T15:56:00+00:00

A fascinating and alarming interview in the Journal of Bibliophilic Design with Steve Tonkin, dark sky advisor to the Cranborne Chase National Landscape. Topics covered include the effects of light pollution on human health, on wildlife and biodiversity, and on the night sky and astronomy.

Right Light, Right Place, Right Time.

Disclosure: Steve is a member of my astronomy club, the Fordingbridge Astronomers.

Vim Learning Stages

2024-03-18T19:14:00+00:00

Mine went something like this.

0. Morbid curiosity

"Seriously? This is a joke, right?"

1. Initial fascination

"Hmm, in fact this appears to deliver the kind of text editing power I've always dreamed of possessing. I must explore this further."

2. Down the rabbit hole

"Wow, there's so much here. It's complex and often seems counterintuitive, but it's completely intoxicating! My previous text editor now seems hopelessly inadequate, even though I keep returning to it like a child reaching for its blankie."

3. Cutting the cord: Vim citizenship

"Having read the transcript of Andrei Zmievski's 2009 presentation 'VIM for (PHP) Programmers', I'm converted. Vim is now an indispensible part of my life."

At this stage it was no longer possible to return to using less powerful text editors, even though I experienced occasional urges to do so.

4. Text editing freedom

"Normal mode is like flying over a landscape wearing a jetpack. I can go anywhere and do anything! Wheee!"

Appendix A

Possible humorous responses.

"Actually, Stage 1 should be 'Rejection: Horrified, you run to emacs'"
"You're missing Stage 5 in which you learn how to exit vim."

etc.

Bibliography

Andrei Zmievski, Vim for (PHP) Programmers, 2009

Sea Level Rise

2024-03-17T21:46:00+00:00

Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading (and the creator of the warming stripes) has posted on twitter this animation of sea level rise between 1900 and 2023. It's a crucial range of data, but personally I find this complementary graph posted in the replies to be a more helpful visualisation.

Some pseudo-sceptic in the replies posted a de rigueur "Plymouth Rock" jibe: Here's a short thread about that by Rob Larter, a polar marine scientist*.

*I've linked to the last tweet in Rob's thread to prevent twitter truncating it with a "Show replies" link. Please just scroll up to see the thread in its entirety.

Shell Abandons 2035 Emissions Target and Weakens 2030 Goal

2024-03-17T21:46:00+00:00

Filing under "Quelle surprise". CarbonBrief has the story

The longest tunnel specifically built for biking and walking

2024-03-13T21:01:00+00:00

Now this is cycling and walking infrastructure!

The longest tunnel specifically built for biking and walking

Apparently it's the Fyllingsdalstunnelen in Norway.

Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies

2024-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

This is a pretty jaw-dropping exposé of the extent to which automakers are tracking their customers driving behaviour and sharing that telemetry data with insurance companies.

Anyone buying a new car needs to read this.

Automakers are Sharing Consumers' Driving Behaviour with Insurance Companies

(Tip of the hat to Dan Gillmor on Mastodon for the 'gifted' link ).

Cory Doctorow picks up the topic in an expansive and well referenced essay in which he links this latest piece to broader consideration of corporate behaviour, regulation, personal privacy and consumer rights.

Your car spies on you and rats you out to insurance companies

AI and Surveillance Capitalism

2024-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

There's a lot to unpack here. Meredith Whittaker & Camille Francois discuss the recent AI hype, the nature of AI, who controls it, whose interests it serves, to what uses it's being put, what its impacts will be on politics and society, and more.

The AI series: AI and Surveillance Capitalism …