Good morning, Mastodon friends! Winter Solstice will be a chilly one here, but the sunshine makes the outdoors look happy and bright. Even though Jan. and Feb. usually are the coldest and snowiest parts of the winter, my mood always improves once the days start getting longer instead of shorter!
My fun holiday project for the day is dehydrating mini marshmallows. I've never done it before, but supposedly they're great to eat by the handful or add to cereal or hot chocolate.
Have a good day!

https://www.europesays.com/1705667/ Iran becomes Türkiye’s second-largest source of tourism in November #Conflicts #ForeignArrivals #germany #Iran #Russia #Turkey

“Of course I married her! She’s a Christmas witch!”

Current* conditions near Muskegon, MI:

https://www.europesays.com/1705665/ Princess Kate ‘teaches Meghan Markle a vital lesson’ as Christmas cards compared | Royal | News #BritishRoyalFamily #catherine #CatherineMiddleton #KateMiddleton #MeghanMarkle #MeghanMarkleFashion #MeghanMarkleNews #PrinceOfWales #PrinceWilliam #PrincessKate #PrincessKateFashion #PrincessKateNews #PrincessOfWales #RoyalFamilies #RoyalFamily #William

NOPE. Nope all the way down.

#TIL you can get out of accidentally soft locking yourself out of being able to reflash keyboad firmware via #qmk by holding the upper leftmost button as you plug it in

“Mama! I have far too much sniffing to do to be bothered with your silly sit-stay request. You know you have a million pictures of me already.”

#RigbyTheDog #Dogs #DogsOfMastodon

Whatsapp beats NSO in landmark #spyware case. Free link. Https://wapo.st/4gs8r20

https://www.europesays.com/1705663/ Princess Kate will reportedly extend an olive branch to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle this Christmas #BritishRoyalFamily #DuchessOfSussex #DukeOfSussex #Harry #Meghan #MeghanMarkle #PrinceHarry #RoyalFamilies #RoyalFamily

Apparently citydwellers in the US are walking 15% faster than they did in 1980

that's the result of some cool research ...

... by academics who acquired video from four major pedestrian areas in big cities, taken in 1979-80 ...

... then compared it to video from the same precise spots in 2008-2010

Other findings:
- people *linger* less
- they're more likely to be alone

Item #3 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, read/subscribe here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-28-neolithic-octopuses-weeping-trees-and/

Fer shared this picture of his coworkers laboring to remove water from strawberry fields in Castroville CA after recent rain. #WeFeedYou
Ñ

New Package Management Tool Debuts YQPkg, a promising new package management tool for openSUSE, is preparing to make waves in the Linux community. Designed as a standalone GUI, the software package offers a lightweight, intuitive alternative to traditional tools like YaST for users of openSUSE distributions. YQPkg provides a glimpse into the future of package... https://news.opensuse.org/2024/12/20/new-pkg-mgmt-tool-debuts/

https://www.europesays.com/1705661/ Royal Family LIVE: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle blasted over ‘colossal’ mistake | Royal | News #autoplay_video #ctp_video #HarryMeghanLiveNews #HarryMeghanNews #HarryNetflix #MeghanAdnHarry #MeghanHarryLatest #MeghanHarryUpdate #MeghanMarkle #MeghanMarkleNetflix #MeghanMarkleNews #MeghanMarklePrinceHarry #royal #RoyalFamilies #RoyalFamily #RoyalFamilyLive #royals

Interesting. Apparently at least for now, you can query #Apple FindMy Network with #python

https://github.com/malmeloo/FindMy.py

A letter from my medical insurance company welcoming me to its dental plan includes a helpful notice in 65 languages, including Cherokee, Karen, Pennsylvanian-Dutch, Samoan and Yiddish. Sadly, Esperanto and Klingon didn’t make the cut.

HAPPY SOLSTICE! Whether you celebrate it or not, it's happening! So why not celebrate it?

He’s anti-democracy and pro-Trump: the obscure ‘dark enlightenment’ blogger influencing the next US administration | Far right (US) | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/curtis-yarvin-trump?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

billionaires have no right to exist because their "billions" aren’t actual billions.

i hope every union is gearing up for a general strike against the unelected b̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶a̶i̶r̶e̶s̶ milliardaires demanding USGOV smash unemployment benefits, plunder Medicare & Medicaid, eliminate minimum wage and the 40-hour week and, more pointedly, smash them & make unions illegal.

but more importantly: are you ready to go to the streets, with your neighbors, and be the wrench in the machine, from wherever you are?

Allen meinen Quietscheenten einen schönen Samstagmorgen!
🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆

Tagesmotto: "Wenn meine Gattin Klöße kocht, sind sie leicht und bekömmlich." (Loriot)

Wowzer! Map of cosmic flows, by yours truly, makes it to the cover of the Nature Astronomy journal.

"Galaxies from
wherever flock
together"

I'm no poet, but could this be a Haiku?

https://www.nature.com/natastron/volumes/8/issues/12

Credits:
Image: Daniel Pomarède, Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l’Univers, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay.
Cover design: Bethany Vukomanovic.

#Cosmology #Galaxies #Astronomy #Astrodon #Astrophysics #Cosmography #Cartography #Map #Cosmicflows #science #STEM #news #space

Happy Solstice! I'm sharing once again my favourite scene from Blight, which takes place at the Kensington Festival of Lights in Toronto.

"But this was what people always did, in the darkest season—huddle together for warmth and convince themselves that the dawn would come again."

Dear friends, may you kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.

Art by Masivart on IG.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk Have Energized the German Far-Right – Mother Jones

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/12/donald-trump-elon-musk-alternative-fur-deutschlandafd-german-elections/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

https://www.europesays.com/1705659/ Pregnant Princess Beatrice stuns in a black blazer and dress as she joins Emma Weymouth at glitzy Ralph Lauren event in London

CBS News: Senate approves bill to expand Social Security to millions of Americans
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-fairness-act-senate-vote-passed/

Elon Musk is, more or less, a rogue state.

His intentions are self-serving and nefarious,
and his nation-state level resources allow him to flout the law with impunity.

To put it into context,
if dollars were metres, Musk’s money would be enough to take him to Mars and back,
while a mere millionaire could only make a round trip from Paris to Amsterdam.

The sheer immorality of any one person possessing so much wealth is obvious to most people with basic amounts of empathy.

But when it comes to Musk and the other 14 people worth more than $100bn, the morality of it is almost a secondary concern.

Their individual wealth is a society-distorting threat to democracy in the same way that economics has always recognised monopolies to be dangerous to a functional market.

For $250m in direct support
– and an additional $44bn for control over X, nee Twitter, and with it the algorithm behind what 300 million users see on their timelines
– Musk was rewarded with a co-presidency.

What else are we supposed to make of his appearance at Notre Dame’s reopening, joining Donald Trump and various heads of state?

X’s valuation may be dropping as swiftly as its user count,
but that’s missing the point behind the purchase.

X served its purpose by helping elect Trump,
with one study suggesting the platform’s algorithm was tweaked to boost conservative-leaning users.

That Tesla stock has surged more than 40% since the election surely has little to do with the company’s fundamentals
and much to do with investors speculating on an unprecedented boost to its fortunes to come.

Tesla and SpaceX grew into behemoths on the back of public contracts and public subsidies,
and from xAI to Neuralink, his other companies stand to benefit from Musk’s inside influence over regulation.

Plutocracy is not enough, though, because nothing is ever enough for the handful of men who have everything.

Musk’s new obsessions
(beyond the validation and human affection that he mistakenly believes he will find on social media)
are attacking public servants,
slashing social spending
and going after the most vulnerable.

“In most cases, the word ‘homeless’ is a lie,” Musk tweeted recently.
“It’s usually a propaganda word for violent drug addicts with severe mental illness.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/20/elon-musk-is-becoming-a-one-man-rogue-state-its-time-we-reined-him-in?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.europesays.com/1705657/ Prince William, Kate Middleton prep for throne after ‘brutal’ year #BritishRoyalFamily #BuckinghamPalace #charles #CharlesIII #KateMiddleton #KingCharles #KingCharlesIii #MeghanMarkle #PrinceGeorge #PrinceHarry #PrinceWilliam #PrincessCharlotte #PrincessDiana #QueenCamilla #QueenElizabethIi #RoyalFamilies #RoyalFamily

@pluralistic Cory Doctorow’s prescient story in #Radicalized is about health insurance and murder

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/20/cory-doctorow-radicalized-novella-healthcare-ceo-killing

‘Heroic’ childcare manager who sounded alarm over ‘Australia’s worst paedophile’ found not guilty of hacking
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/dec/20/yolanda-borucki-ashley-griffith-computer-hacking-charge-not-guilty-ntwnfb?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Good news for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere - starting tomorrow, the days will get longer :mastodance:

The winter solstice will occur on Saturday, December 21, 2024 at 09:21 UTC (4:21 a.m. EST).

"The term “solstice” comes from the Latin words sol (Sun) and sistere (to stand still) because, during the solstice, the angle between the Sun’s rays and the plane of the Earth’s equator (called declination) appears to stand still."

https://www.farmersalmanac.com/winter-solstice-first-day-winter
#WinterSolstice
1/n

Just a reminder - THIS 👇🏼 is what it's like when government is working for the people...

Swimming mouse among 27 new species discovered in Peru

New critters discovered in Peru.

https://news.yahoo.com/swimming-mouse-among-27-species-120122170.html

https://www.europesays.com/1705654/ A girl reported to the German police in September 2023 about the danger of a man called Talib Abd AlMohsen, who was planning to run people over with his car. The German police ignored the report #europe

¡Feliz solsticio de invierno!

Hoy el Sol Invicto empieza a levantarse de su letargo, o lo que es lo mismo, se queda con nosotros, en el hemisferio norte, un poquito más cada día. Aunque aún queden por delante los días más fríos, en unos dos meses empezarán a brotar las precoces flores de almendros, cerezos y ciruelos para anunciarnos la primavera.

Out of the oven - multi-seeded sourdough using a Colorado levain, 9% scalded home milled rye grain, 5% scalded cracked Emmer grain, 6% scalded home milled pulses, 80% very strong Canadian white flour and 65g mixed seeds.
#sourdough #bread #colorado #breadsky #rye #pulses