We're Toast 59

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. 

On the way to the lake

• The Country Most Vulnerable To Air Pollution Right Now Is... The USA. And the Trump regime is making it worse.
• The Threat of Avian Influenza H5N1 Looms Over Global Biodiversity. H5N1 is a threat to more than just birds and humans. 
• In Our New Climate Reality, There Is No Getting Back to Normal. "The media is failing to warn us about the scale of the disasters that lie ahead. In Los Angeles, as everywhere, we need more than liberal technocratic tweaks."
• The Whole World is Whining. "Edelman’s Trust Barometer and the airing of grievances." Angry people do stupid things. 
• We are witnessing the destruction of science in America. "If we stay on this administration’s course, future life-saving medicines may never be invented."
• Is Our Luck Running Out? "Nature is being less helpful with our carbon pollution."
• Is Our Luck Running Out? Part Two. "Oceans failing to protect us from our own heat pollution." 
• Threats to public health at every angle. "Covid anniversary, pandemic revisionism, chronic diseases, and a boulder going down the hill." 
• The Bleak, Defeatist Rise of “Climate Realism”. "It’s not just the Trump administration. Bankers, centrist Democrats, and others are embracing the idea that climate targets were never realistic—and that we should now prepare,ruthlessly, for a new future."
• Russia and China are threatening SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation, new report finds. "A future conflict in space could have massive, long-term negative repercussions that are felt here on Earth, as everyone on this planet is a user of space data in some form."
• Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer. "Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure." When the insurance companies are worried, it's time to pay attention. 
• ‘The ice is not freezing as it should’: supply roads to Canada’s Indigenous communities under threat from climate crisis. "Northern Ontario is seeing a ‘shorter window’ for ice roads that deliver vital supplies to remote First Nations."
• Scientists Highlight Surprising New Threat to Satellites: Climate Change. "By the year 2100, some parts of Earth orbit may have upwards of 66% less carrying capacity for satellites, according to a new study."

Featured Links - March 24, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The of winter's snow (I hope)

• American Democracy is not in Decline, it's Dead. "We need to get beyond our own disbelief at how quickly the Trump regime has dismantled the vestiges of a liberal democratic order and implemented an authoritarian regime. We need to recognize reality for what it is. It is no longer appropriate to speak of the United States as a democracy under assault from within, or in decline. The United States is no longer a democracy."
• How Should We Think About the Economics of AI? A conversation between economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Paul Krugman. This is quite interesting. 
• What to know about the bird flu outbreak in wild birds and what it means for backyard bird feeders. "Take precautions around sick or dead wild birds, experts recommend. But you can keep your bird feeder up. Despite the spread in birds and other wild animals, scientists say the threat to the general population is currently low."
• Democrats Fighting Wrong Battle Because Trump Is a Symptom of a Huge Societal Problem. "Basically the Democratic Party needs to focus on how to make people's lives better. Some of that involves regulating technology--like banning the use of artificial intelligence in the college admissions process, banning the posting of fake jobs, prohibiting the use of AI to review cover letters and resumes, perhaps putting hard caps on the percentages of international students at American Universities, limiting the use of H1B Visas, and on encouraging people to disconnect."
• Stupidification. "It's getting worser." A light take on a serious problem.
• The Language of Surrender. "How Euphemism and Distortion Are Making Resistance to Authoritarianism Unspeakable."
• ‘All the birds returned’: How a Chinese project led the way in water and soil conservation. "The Loess plateau was the most eroded place on Earth until China took action and reversed decades of damage from grazing and farming."
• You Can Remove DRM From Your Digital Books, but It's Probably Illegal. "There should be a legal way to back up the books and audiobooks you've purchased."
• 'The universe has thrown us a curveball': Largest-ever map of space reveals we might have gotten dark energy totally wrong. "Findings from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) suggest that dark energy could be evolving over time. If they're right, cosmology will need a new model."
• These identical house designs could soon appear all over Ontario. It's a small step in dragging the construction industry kicking and screaming into the 21st century. 

 

Featured Links - March 3, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A model train layout at the Ganarska Railway Modellers show

• Europe’s New AI Weather Model Is Faster, Smarter, and Free—Here’s What to Know. "The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has debuted its own forecast AI model on the heels of a cutting-edge Google model released in December."
• Serenity meow! "With the right love and understanding, cats and humans can live more happily together. New research is upending long-held behavioural theories about how to achieve that."
• Profound Architecture and Multidimensional Depth: Jorma Kaukonen on Phil Lesh. I'm reading Kaukonen's autobiography, Been So Long, now. I found it interesting that in the article he says the first time they played together was at the Grateful Dead's 11/20/1970 concert in Rochester, which was my first Grateful Dead concert. 
• Trump Is Letting Russell Vought Go Wild. "Vought's Project 2025 unitary executive theory has us headed toward a constitutional cliff." This is one of the scariest articles about the current situation that I've read recently, and I've read too many. Gilead rising, indeed. 
• Europe: Is the Force Awakening? "A potential superpower realizes that it can’t rely on America." I'm beginning to wonder if Canada should be seeking membership in the EU. We do have a common border with Denmark, after all. 
• Virology Mini-Review: Pandemic Risk Stemming From the Bovine H5N1 Outbreak: An account of the Knowns and Unknowns. "This is a lengthy, and well-written review and I highly recommend that you read it in its entirety.  While cattle-centric, it touches on other aspects, including spillover into cats, pigs, humans, and other species."
• Surgery implants tooth into eyeball to help blind patients see again. This souns completely bonkers but it works for certain types of corneal blindness.
• Now Introduced Right to Repair Legislation. "The legislation hasn't yet passed everywhere, but all 50 states introducing some form of right to repair legislation is a "tipping point” for the right to repair movement." This is good news.
• The biggest data breaches of 2025 — so far. "We’re barely a couple of months into 2025, but this year has already seen several data breaches affecting the personal information of millions of individuals, including everything from student records to phone data to sensitive health information."
• We Finally Know Why Ancient Roman Concrete Was So Durable. "The ancient Romans were masters of building and engineering, perhaps most famously represented by the aqueducts. And those still functional marvels rely on a unique construction material: pozzolanic concrete, a spectacularly durable concrete that gave Roman structures their incredible strength."
• Carl Zimmer: Air-Borne and the Big Miss With Covid. "One of the top science journalists of our time discusses his new book."
  
• Massive Supereruptions Might Not Trigger the Apocalypse, Just Decades of Chaos. "An ultra-powerful eruption 79,500 years ago may not have disrupted the climate as badly as feared, according to Earth scientists."

We're Toast 57

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. 

Birds in the fog

• An Extremely Violent Global Pandemic” – Mysterious Disease Wipes Out Sea Urchins Worldwide. “This is an extremely violent global pandemic. The Caribbean, Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean are critical regions for the world’s coral reefs, and mortality rates for sea urchins in these areas are very high — over 90 percent. As of now, we have no evidence of this pathogen in Pacific Ocean sea urchins (where some of the world’s largest and most vital coral reefs are located), but this is something we are actively investigating.”
• A Second Type of H5N1 Bird Flu Jumped From Cows to Humans. "The latest human case of H5N1 is the first in the state of Nevada."
• Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies. "The new dynamics of this model can also reproduce the irreversible collapses found in history. Collapse can be avoided, and population can reach a steady state at maximum carrying capacity if the rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level and if resources are distributed equitably." And how likely do you think that is?
• Unprecedented Starlink reentries. "What we're observing is a giant uncontrolled experiment in atmospheric chemistry. The demise of just one Gen1 Starlink satellite produces about 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of aluminum oxide, a compound that eats away at the ozone layer. A new study finds these oxides have increased 8-fold between 2016 and 2022, and the recent surge is increasing the pollution even more."
• Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist. "Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree." Typical journalist bothsideism. I expected better from The Guardian. The 2C target might have been sustainable if Harris had won the US presidential election, but now? I think not.
• Scientists brace ‘for the worst’ as Trump purges climate mentions from websites. "Trump administration pulling references online ‘won’t make crisis’ stop affecting Americans’ lives, say experts." See this article for a positive reaction to what's happening. 
• Differences between Influenza H5N1, A/H1N1 2009, and SARS-CoV-2 in a pandemic risk scenario. "Urgent action is required to mitigate the negative impact of H5N1 on the animal and ecosystem health spheres if we are to reduce its ecological impact and the risk to human health." I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, but I am stocking up on KN95 masks. 
• Donald Trump’s Second Term Will Be Bad News for Endangered Ocean and Coastal Animals. "The waters around the United States are home to many threatened species who need science-based conservation policies to save them from extinction. They won’t get that for the next four years." Nor will any other species, including us. 
• Earth's oceans are filled with what scientists are calling "dark vessels". "The findings reveal staggering gaps in public tracking systems, raising urgent concerns about maritime transparency, environmental sustainability, and global security."
• Sand and dust storms: a growing global health threat calls for international health studies to support policy action. "Sand and dust storms increasingly threaten global environmental and public health. To date, 150 countries are directly affected, with more than 100 classified as non-dust source regions."

Featured Links - February 10, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. After last week's blast of political stories, this week's articles are mostly politics-free. 

A winter farm

• The Batbible. The series bible for DC's Batman comics, written by Dennis O'Neil and updated by Scott Petersen. 
• Why Kodak is ‘Cracking Down’ on Respooled Motion Picture Film. "This week, Reflx Lab announced that it would soon no longer be able to offer some of its respooled 35mm motion picture stock because Kodak is more strictly “crack[ing] down” on respoolers. So, why is Kodak forfeiting the extra money made by selling to brands like Reflx Lab?"
• When Doctors With A.I. Are Outperformed by A.I. Alone. "A series of recent studies compared the performance of doctors with A.I. versus A.I. alone, spanning medical scans, diagnostic accuracy, and management reasoning. Surprisingly, in many cases, A.I. systems working independently performed better than when combined with physician input." 
• The rise of ‘influencer voice’: Why this TikTok creator accent is taking over the internet and maybe the world. "Was that a question? Online platforms have long influenced how we speak. Now a new generation of TikTok creators are fueling the latest variant."
• Video Game History Foundation to release scans of 1,500 vintage gaming magazines. "The VGHF's digital archive will be fully searchable, allowing researchers and enthusiasts to track the first mentions of influential games, developers, and gaming concepts."
• An Exoplanet Menagerie for SciFi Writers. "What would it be like to stand on an alien planet? Here's a quick tour of recent discoveries."
• NASA’s Historic Asteroid Sample Holds Clues to Life’s Origins. "The discovery is a capstone achievement for NASA, which went to great lengths to secure and deliver asteroid samples from asteroid Bennu in 2020."
• In Seattle, a Convergence of 5,444 Mathematical Minds (gift link). "Participants at this year’s Joint Mathematics Meetings explored everything from the role of A.I. to the hyperbolic design of a patchwork denim skirt."
• SpaceX has reshaped the landscape around Boca Chica, Texas. "The Starbase rocket testing facility is permanently changing the landscape of southern Texas."
• Why North England is poor. Some of the reasons discussed in this article would also apply to Northern Ontario.
• American Medical Association YouTube channel. Now that the CDC isn't doing updates about infectious diseases, the AMA has stepped up. 

Featured Links - January 27, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Swans on a foggy bay

• Cultivating fandoms. "Charles Stross's A Conventional Boy is a solid reminder that fandoms aren't bodies of people a company can count on for marketing a franchise."
• The U.S. withdrawal from the WHO. "What it means and why it matters." When we have another pandemic, this will hurt both the US and the rest of the world. 
• Donald Trump Wants You to Die. "The attack on public health begins." The graphic about vaccination rates in the US is truly telling. Canadians who visit the US should be very selective about which places they visit. 
• The Potential Environmental (Airborne) Spread of H5N1. "And we're going to see more human cases related to that. The poultry industry is doomed to have challenge after challenge if they don't change the way they house these birds. They're going to have to find a way to have airtight buildings with only HEPA filter air coming in the intake and HEPA filter air being sent out the backside." I very much doubt that that is ever going to happen, given the current political and economic climate. 
• Is the aurora borealis really that mind-blowing? Or is it just your cellphone photos? TL; DR: It's the camera. 
• How to turn off Copilot in Microsoft 365 Family and Personal subscriptions. Done!
• ICE Watch Programs Can Protect Immigrants in Your Neighborhood — Here’s What to Know. "This op-ed explains how to start an ICE Watch neighborhood program in your community." A public service announcement for my US readers.
• A sprawling megacity of multi-level madness: why Chongqing in China is my wonder of the world. "This megacity is like Hong Kong on steroids – a vertically sprawling, astonishing urban phenomenon that can only be understood in three dimensions."
• Canadian authors warn readers that AI dupes of their books are popping up on Amazon. "Getting fake books taken down is ‘a game of whack-a-mole,' says writers’ union." This isn't just happening to Canadian authors; it's become widespread.

Featured Links - May 6, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A lonely swan

H5N1 update: We have to do better, faster. An update from an epidemiologist.

12-sided Roman relic baffles archaeologists, spawns countless theories. "Since 1739, some 130 of these objects have been discovered across Northern and Western Europe. While archaeologists have dated the relics to Roman times, they have been baffled by the objects for centuries, with no consensus ever emerging on what they were for. There is no known written description of them in ancient texts; nor do any pictorial references exist."

SpaceX reveals EVA suit design as Polaris Dawn mission approaches. "SpaceX has unveiled long-awaited spacesuits intended for spacewalks that will first be used on an upcoming private spaceflight." This is the first new US spacesuit in many years. 

These dangerous scammers don’t even bother to hide their crimes. "Cybercriminals openly run dozens of scams across social media and messaging apps."

mRNA Brain Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise In Early Trials In Humans – And Dogs. "It’s unusual to have the opportunity to test a treatment in both human and animal patients." This is very good news should it pan out. 

NASA veterans propellantless propulsion drive that physics says shouldnt work just produced enough thrust to defeat earths gravity. I should have a tag for "Wouldn't this be nice if it works" category, but I have serious doubts (Remember cold fusion?).

Columbia University has a doxxing problem. "Protesters wanted to expose Columbia; Columbia exposed its students."

Featured Links - April 29, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about:

The marina has yet to wake up

• How AI mathematicians might finally deliver human-level reasoning (archive.ph link). "Artificial intelligence is taking on some of the hardest problems in pure maths, arguably demonstrating sophisticated reasoning and creativity – and a big step forward for AI."
• Here's the latest on H5N1—avian flu—and some resources tracking the virus. You may want to bookmark some of the sites mentioned in this article.
• SpaceX making progress on Starship in-space refueling technologies. "NASA says SpaceX is on track to demonstrate in-space refueling of Starship next year, a critical technology for returning humans to the lunar surface using that vehicle."
• The unspoken obnoxiousness of Google’s Gemini improvements. "Google's Gemini chatbot is seeing all sorts of upgrades on Android this week, but those advancements reveal a darker underlying reality."
• ‘In the US they think we’re communists!’ The 70,000 workers showing the world another way to earn a living. "The Basque Country’s Mondragón Corporation is the globe’s largest industrial co-operative, with workers paying for the right to share in its profits – and its losses. In return for giving more to their employer, they expect more back."
• Urbanist draws attention to city's design monstrosity in local community: 'So tired of pedestrian-hostile areas'. "A corner of TikTok is having a field day over a video bemoaning low-effort city planning, making life dangerous for pedestrians. The online community, especially through hashtags like #cityplanning, has been paving new avenues of communication for unsatisfied urbanites, especially in the United States."
• Restoring sight is possible now with optogenetics (gift link). "People suffering from macular degeneration, along with other diseases that impair sight, may soon benefit from gene therapy." I will have to talk to my ophthalmologist the next time I see him. It's probably too far down the road to help me though. 
• Plato's Burial Place and Details of His Last Night Revealed in Carbonized Scroll From Herculaneum. "Scientists have deciphered a document lost in the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius, using AI to read ink invisible to the naked eye."