#last year we had a drought until the end of october and it’s been such a wet fall this year and it’s been so relieving

[whoopseydaisy]

watching the first episode of burrows end as a west coaster who now has a wildfire season every summer, hearing the dust storm being described, unprepared for the obvious and coming emotional damage

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Rio Grande do Sul Floods: How Can Brazil's Politicians Not See Climate?

The deadly floods in southern Brazil are unprecedented but not unexpected. Ahead of the October local elections, Brazilians must remember that politicians have ignored scientists' predictions and weakened legislation that could have helped deal with climate change.

The tragedy that has stuck Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, is unprecedented. The amount of rain that has fallen in recent days and is still falling there is extreme and so are the consequences. The death toll has reached 100, and more than a hundred people are still missing. More than 1 million people have been affected.

These impressive figures and the images that look more like disasters caused by hurricanes or tsunamis can generate a false idea of rarity, of bad luck. “It rained like never before, we couldn't have prepared for it" is the phrase most often used to justify calamities like this.

But it is no accident. It was already known, already expected. And, I'm sorry to say, it's going to happen again. And again. And not just with the gauchos in Rio Grande do Sul.

Don't take me for an alarmist or a pessimist. Science has been warning for a long time that the increased occurrence of extreme events is one of the main consequences of climate change. The surreal amount of carbon dioxide that accumulates in the atmosphere — due to human activities — and warms the planet, alters the entire functioning of the climate system. A warmer Earth means more energy in the equation. Heat is synonymous with tragedy.

Due to its geographical location, Rio Grande do Sul is particularly sensitive to the natural phenomena El Niño and La Niña. That's why it's relatively common for droughts and heavy rains to alternate there. But global warming is making this worse. So is deforestation. And although much of this new reality translates into situations that seem to take us by surprise, scientists had already estimated that this would be the case. The consecutive tragedies that have been accumulating since last year were not for lack of warning.

The independent online newspaper Intercept Brasil recalled on May 6 a study commissioned in 2014 by the government of then president Dilma Rousseff that warned of the risk of flooding in Rio Grande do Sul. The "Brazil 2040" report mentioned the dangers of agribusiness, especially in the state, and also of hydroelectric dams, which clashed with the government's electricity expansion plans. The report ended up being shelved in 2015 without any action being taken.

We didn’t have to wait until 2040 for predicted dangers to become reality. And it wasn't just this study that warned about the risks. Local researchers, such as Francisco Aquino, a climatologist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), have shown that extreme events are already intensifying, without anything having been done to prevent deaths and losses.

Last year, Rio Grande do Sul was the state with the highest number of rain-related emergency and disaster decrees in Brazil.

Continue reading.

[bongaboi]

Texas Rangers: 2023 World Series Champions

PHOENIX -- The Texas Rangers are World Series champions for the first time in franchise history after surviving Arizona ace Zac Gallen’s no-hit bid, getting a gutsy effort from starter Nathan Eovaldi and bringing their ample bats to the late innings in a thrilling 5-0 victory in Game 5 on Wednesday night at Chase Field.

In ending MLB’s longest title drought among title-less teams, the Rangers, who joined the American League as the expansion Washington Senators in 1961 before moving to Arlington and rebranding in '72, showed their mettle in what was, for eight innings, an ultra-tight tilt.

One night after erupting for 11 runs -- including 10 in the second and third innings -- Texas was held scoreless until Mitch Garver’s seventh-inning single brought newly minted two-time World Series MVP Corey Seager home to break a scoreless tie. The Rangers then took advantage of an untimely Alek Thomas fielding error in a four-run ninth highlighted by Marcus Semien’s two-run homer.

Eovaldi, on the other hand, had to sweat his way to success. He had baserunners abound, allowing four hits and five walks in six innings. But the D-backs went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position against him to strand all nine of those runners. They had two aboard with none out in the third, when No. 3 hitter Gabriel Moreno questionably put down a sacrifice bunt to advance the runners, and nothing came of it.

In short, the Snakes let Eovaldi off the hook and, in the process, left themselves vulnerable to anything short of perfection by their ace.

"I kind of joked around that I didn’t know how many rabbits I had left in my hat," Eovaldi said. "I didn’t really help myself out in some of those situations. Other times, they put together quality at-bats and were able to find the whole. A lot of the credit goes to Jonah back there behind the plate. He called a great game. We were on the same page for the most part. We were able to come out on top. That was the main thing."

Gallen finally bent in the seventh, and it began in an ironic way. Seager broke up the no-no, but he didn’t do it in the style that suited him all series. Rather, it was a softly hit grounder to the opposite side -- a ball that would have been harmless if third baseman Evan Longoria hadn’t been shifted toward shortstop. The ball reached the outfield grass, and the Rangers had life.

Reflecting a theme of this series, the Rangers seized the moment in a way the D-backs did not. Evan Carter ripped a double to put two runners in scoring position. And after a consultation on the mound with pitching coach Brent Strom, Gallen gave up a ground-ball single up the middle to Garver to bring Seager home with the game’s first run.

"Gallen was unbelievable tonight, but we came through," Semien said. "Once Corey got the first hit, everybody kind of woke up."

Though Gallen recovered to strike out Josh Jung and October relief hero Kevin Ginkel came on to record the last two outs and escape a bases-loaded jam of his own making in the eighth, the D-backs were made to pay for their early inability to cash in at the plate. The Rangers came out swinging in the ninth against Arizona closer Paul Sewald with consecutive singles from Jung and Nathaniel Lowe. Heim ripped a single to center that Thomas misplayed. The ball scooted toward the wall, as Jung and Lowe hustled home and Heim streaked to third. Two outs later, Semien went deep for the second time in as many nights to make it 5-0, igniting a Texas-sized soiree, 52 years in the making.

"This is the biggest moment, the World Series," Semien said. "Put up four runs in the ninth inning to be up 5-0 after being no-hit, it just felt so good. [I] just looked over to the bench and screamed. It’s just an unbelievable feeling."

[mariacallous]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the former San Francisco mayor whose pioneering career paved the way for a generation of women in politics, will not seek re-election in 2024, her spokesperson told The Chronicle Tuesday.

"I am announcing today I will not run for re-election in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends," Feinstein said in a statement. "Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives. Each of us was sent here to solve problems. That’s what I’ve done for the last 30 years, and that’s what I plan to do for the next two years."

The announcement was not a surprise given that Feinstein would be 91 on Election Day 2024 and, if re-elected, 97 when her six-year term ended. Many high-profile politicians have already jumped into the 2024 race, anticipating an open contest for the first time in decades.

Questions about Feinstein’s mental fitness have followed her for more than two years, and even her Democratic colleagues told The Chronicle in April 2022 that they believe her memory issues were hindering her ability to do the job. Feinstein defended her abilities amid each new wave of concern.

Feinstein said she plans to finish out her current term, which ends in December 2024. She plans to spend her remaining time in Congress focusing on preventing wildfires, mitigating the drought that has plagued the state in recent years and working to pass legislation on one of her longstanding priorities—  gun violence, she said in a statement.

Feinstein’s retirement announcement comes as yet another mass shooting shakes the country and less than a month after two mass shootings roiled California. 

Democrats began vying to replace her days after the new Congress was sworn into office. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, launched her campaign in January, followed by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, two weeks later. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, is expected to announce her candidacy soon.

Yet Feinstein’s massive shadow had hung over the race until now. Schiff made a point to say that he spoke with Feinstein, a longtime ally, “weeks before” announcing. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi prefaced her February endorsement of Schiff by saying, “If Senator Feinstein decides to seek re-election, she has my whole-hearted support” and called her “iconic.”

It was a sign of respect — and perhaps a proposed reframing of how Feinstein’s last months in office should be viewed.

Feinstein’s influence in Washington, once substantial, has been waning for several years. First elected in 1992, last year Feinstein became the longest-tenured female senator in history, and is the longest-serving congressional member from California.

Yet despite Feinstein’s status as the Democrat with the most seniority, she does not chair any Senate committees. Last month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer appointed Sen. Patty Murray of Washington to the position of Senate president pro tempore, a position that stands third in the succession line to the presidency and typically goes to the most senior member. Feinstein said in October that she would not be seeking the position.

Feinstein’s late-career low profile stands in stark contrast to her decades of ground-breaking public service, which started shortly after she graduated from Stanford University in 1955. Her career has been shaped by tragedy, perseverance and an adherence toward political moderation — even as she represented some of the most progressive areas in the country.

“I’ve learned through all this — through death, through illness — this is what I’m meant to do,” Feinstein told The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast in 2018. “It’s sounds like I’m on some kind of messianic mission. That’s not the case. But you do figure out what you’re meant to do. I’ve tried to serve people.”

That mission started in 1960 when Gov. Pat Brown — father of former Gov. Jerry Brown — appointed Feinstein to the California Women’s Parole Board. It was a different era, when sexism was more overt and it was harder for a woman to be taken seriously in politics. A 1965 article in The Chronicle on Feinstein headlined, “A Pretty Expert on Crime,” said “San Francisco’s Dianne (Mrs. Bert) Feinstein is a raven-haired, blue-eyed beauty who looks more like an actress (which she was) than an expert on California criminal justice (which she is).”

Feinstein served on the parole board six years before she was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969. Even then, she faced discrimination. She recalled that she and fellow Supervisor Dorothy von Beroldingen wanted to have lunch at the private Concordia-Argonaut Club in the early 1970s, but were told they couldn’t because it was a men-only day. Feinstein told the staff that if they wanted them to leave, they’d have to call the police to have them escorted out. The club backed down.

She failed in two early runs for mayor — in 1971 and 1975. By 1978, Feinstein was openly contemplating leaving politics for good. 

But her career path changed on Nov. 27, 1978, when former Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in their offices. Feinstein heard the shots and rushed into Milk’s office, where she was the first to see him. The daughter — and former wife — of physicians — instinctively reached for his pulse. She found a bullet hole.

“Then,” Feinstein told the podcast, “everything changed.”

It was “the hardest thing I have ever gone through. The shock and the horror and the fact that this is a colleague of yours that has killed another colleague,” she said.

Then the president of the Board of Supervisors, Feinstein’s colleagues voted to make her mayor — the first woman in the city’s history to hold the position. It was a tumultuous time in San Francisco. Earlier that month, 913 people — mostly San Franciscans — were massacred at a compound in Guyana run by cult leader Jim Jones.

Feinstein steered the city through that era on a more moderate path than her predecessor, the more progressive Moscone. She was re-elected twice — in 1979 and in 1983. She survived a recall attempt in 1983, organized by a group that was upset by her gun-control efforts.

Her popularity grew, and she was on the shortlist to be Sen. Walter Mondale’s running mate in the 1984 presidential election. Mondale ultimately chose New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro — and lost all but one state to the incumbent, President Ronald Reagan. The snub didn’t hurt her standing. In 1987, a Chronicle-sponsored poll found that nearly two-thirds of those surveyed thought that she had done a good or excellent job as mayor and 78 percent gave her a favorable rating.

But her bid to jump to higher office initially stalled. She lost a 1990 bid for governor to Republican Sen. Pete Wilson. Two years later, however, she won election to the Senate along with fellow Democrat Barbara Boxer, in what was dubbed the “Year of the Woman.”

There she carved a role as a centrist at a time when some still existed.

In 1994, she shepherded into law the Desert Protection Bill, which carved new national parks from the Southern California desert and preserved more than 6 million acres of endangered land as wilderness. That same year, she spearheaded passage of the assault weapons ban — inspired in part by a 1993 mass shooting at a Financial District building at 101 California St. that killed eight people and wounded six.

Feinstein wasn’t shy about taking on some institutions.

As the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2009, she oversaw its six-year investigation into the CIA’s post-9/11 program of torturing terrorism suspects to try to gain information. In 2014, she spoke for an hour on the Senate floor, outlining the panel’s 525-page report, which found that the CIA misled policymakers about the extent and effectiveness of the torture program. It showed how intelligence officers tortured foreign prisoners and terrorism suspects, with no proof the efforts were effective in preserving American lives.

She won her current term in 2018, when she was challenged by then-state Senate President Kevin DeLeón, who presented himself as a more progressive alternative. She barely campaigned and refused to debate him, consenting only to a “conversation” hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California that wasn’t televised. The executive board of the California Democratic Party endorsed De León. Nevertheless, Feinstein coasted to a fifth term with 54% of the vote. 

But she largely disappeared during what will be her final term in the Senate. She rarely did interviews longer than a brief chat with reporters in the Senate hallways and rarely did public events in her home state. She hasn’t led a town hall meeting in California since 2017, according to LegisStorm. Her job rating tumbled to an all-time low in February 2022, as 30% of registered voters approved of her performance while 49% disapproved, according to a Berkeley IGS poll. At her peak in 2001, 57% of voters backed her.

In April, four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffers and a California Democratic House member told The Chronicle that her memory is rapidly deteriorating. They said it appears she can no longer fulfill her job duties without her staff doing much of the work required to represent the nearly 40 million people of California.

One staffer for a California Democrat told The Chronicle, “There’s a joke on the Hill, we’ve got a great junior senator in Alex Padilla and an experienced staff in Feinstein’s office.”

Feinstein told The Chronicle in a statement at the time that the past year “has been extremely painful and distracting for me, flying back and forth to visit my dying husband who passed just a few weeks ago.” Her husband, financier and philanthropist Richard Blum, died in February 2022.

Other episodes disappointed even her most loyal supporters. She shocked colleagues at the end of the contentious 2020 Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett by unexpectedly praising Republicans for having conducted a great process. Critics howled when she hugged Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., at the close of the hearings.

“This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” Feinstein told Graham, the Republican chair of the committee. “I want to thank you for your fairness.”

If that was a snapshot of Feinstein at the tail end of her five-decade career, Pelosi preferred to focus on the complete arc of her time representing the state.

“For years,” Pelosi wrote in her February endorsement for Schiff, “California has had a champion for democracy and working families in Senator Feinstein.”

[journeyman-jack-in-ecuador]

FRI 18OCT24 - "November and December will be the most critical months of 2024 due to energy shortages and power outages in Ecuador.

The low water level in the Mazar reservoir puts the operation of Paute-Molino at risk, and in the Amazon, low water flows are expected for Coca Codo Sinclair.

The energy generation crisis in Ecuador worsened in the first week of October 2024. And this is just the beginning, as the harshest drought period is expected to last until at least February 2025.

Ecuador is highly dependent on hydroelectric energy, but due to the drought, the hydroelectric plants, with an installed capacity of about 5,500 megawatts, are operating at only 50%, according to data from the National Electricity Operator Cenace.

"We experienced a 118-day drought last year, but it was from September to December 2023. Now in 2024, we're again facing a drought, but this time since August. So far, we’ve already had 89 days of drought," explains Lenin Álvarez, head of the Hydrometeorological Network of the public water company Etapa.

He referred to the lack of rain in the south of the country, where Ecuador's largest hydroelectric complex, Paute (comprising Mazar, Paute-Molino, and Sopladora), is located between Azuay and Cañar.

Given the severe drought, there is a high probability that the power outages of up to 10 hours, announced by the government of Daniel Noboa on October 9, 2024, could be even longer and continue until the end of the year due to the severe electricity generation deficit, adds electrical sector expert Gabriel Secaira.

This is because the Mazar hydroelectric plant is operating with only one of its two turbines, and if the water in its reservoir drops below 2,110 meters above sea level (masl), it will have to shut down. As of October 9, the water level was at 2,112 masl.

The water level in the Amaluza reservoir, which supplies the Paute-Molino plant, is also dropping. If the water continues to fall to critical levels, there is a risk that this plant will go offline, leading to even longer power outages, says Secaira.

What is happening in the Paute complex?

Paute-Molino, with its Amaluza reservoir, is part of a complex of three cascading hydroelectric plants. It is the largest plant in the complex, with a capacity of 1,100 megawatts.

How does this cascading complex work?

First, upstream, is the Mazar hydroelectric plant, which has a large reservoir with a maximum capacity of 2,153 masl. Further downstream is Paute-Molino (with the smaller Amaluza reservoir at 1,975 masl), followed by Sopladora, which has no reservoir.

Together, the three hydroelectric plants have an installed capacity of 1,756 megawatts, which is 38% of the country's demand.

Normally, when the water level in the Amaluza reservoir drops because the hydroelectric plant is operating at full capacity, the Mazar reservoir releases water to maintain sufficient levels in Amaluza and ensure the continued operation of Paute-Molino.

But now, Mazar has reached critically low water levels, just as the most severe drought season is starting.

It is likely that the water flowing into Amaluza will reach minimum levels during this period, jeopardizing the operation of Paute-Molino, which is currently generating 63% of its installed capacity.

"There has been poor management of the reservoirs. It seems that all the incoming water is being used for generation, preventing the reservoir from filling. The power rationing should help fill the Mazar reservoir, but that’s not happening," says Secaira.

Thus, the current power outages are not helping to fill the Mazar reservoir but rather indicate that Ecuador doesn't have enough energy for 10 hours a day.

Coca Codo is also at risk

Other energy specialists, such as Ricardo Buitrón, believe that the risk of Paute-Molino shutting down is lower because its Pelton turbines are designed to operate with very low water flows.

According to Buitrón, the Paute-Molino turbines can continue generating power with flows as low as 4 cubic meters per second (m³/s). In September, the average flow was 84 m³/s, but in early October, it dropped to 64 m³/s.

"Only if there is an extreme drought where virtually no water passes through Mazar or Amaluza would Paute-Molino be forced to shut down," he adds.

Buitrón explains that once the water level in the Mazar reservoir drops below 2,110 masl, the only option left would be to shut down the remaining turbine and open the floodgates, allowing water from the local rivers to flow directly into Amaluza.

This would be enough for Paute-Molino to operate, albeit at reduced capacity.

However, Buitrón adds that the situation will worsen in the last two months of the year due to other factors.

One of these is that by the end of the year, it is highly likely that the water flow supplying Ecuador’s largest hydroelectric plant, Coca Codo Sinclair (in Napo province), will decrease. This plant is not in the same basin as the Paute complex.

Historical hydrological data shows that November and December are when Coca Codo's water flow reaches its lowest levels of the year.

Coca Codo Sinclair is currently generating 450 megawatts, just 30% of its capacity, and the driest season has yet to arrive, explains Buitrón.

The problem is compounded by increased energy demand in December, driven by Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. Additionally, the government has promised to reduce electricity bills, "which doesn’t encourage energy savings," says Buitrón.

What about emergency contracts?

Secaira also points to the slow progress in contracting new thermoelectric energy.

Of the 340 megawatts the government has contracted, only 110 megawatts are operational, coming from the Turkish Karpowership barge.

Former Energy Minister Antonio Goncalves had promised that a new 250-megawatt barge would begin operating in early November, but he recently acknowledged that the contracting process has been delayed.

A third factor making Ecuador’s situation more critical is that Colombia stopped selling electricity to Ecuador on October 1, 2024, which means the country lost around 400 megawatts of power, the amount the neighboring country used to supply.

This restriction could last until 2025, as Colombia is also suffering from a severe drought." -

https://www.primicias.ec/economia/noviembre-diciembre-meses-criticos-cortes-luz-ecuador-80826/

[ariasandrey]

Preserving the flow: A water conservation crusade

Definitions

Story: A description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events:

Tales: A story about imaginary events : an exciting or dramatic story.

Science fiction: A form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today marks 15 years since the “Big Drought” happened, a world catastrophe so big it managed to break up society as a whole. Unlike any disasters history has recorded, this one was unprecedented, though it was particularly warned about. 

[...]

I was born around 3 years before all this happened, oblivious to any of this. Admittedly, I was indeed too young to comprehend. Likewise, society also failed to understand. 

[...]

And that’s when it hit them. As a consequence of ruthless water consumption, the Earth ran out of its most precious resource. Chaos quickly ensued, and following came governments. Entire nations breaking apart, helpless to the situation. By dusk, borders ceased to exist. Moreover, greedy corporations had taken the last bastions of usable water, only sharing amongst themselves.

[...]

It is now 2076. What used to be a blue marble, is now nothing more than a barren, arid land. To survive, we started organizing in clans. Each clan receives a weekly ration of water, although a paltry one. Hence, many of us started scavenging looking for any unoccupied water source. Furthermore, some clans resorted to guerilla-like operations, preying upon weaker clans to take away their water. All of this, meanwhile the big fish sat back and enjoyed the mess, as if it were nothing but a spectacle to them.

 [...]

“It’s scorching, and I’m thirsty.” – I said, as we descended towards the cave.

“Focus on the mission. We’re here to search out water.” – Ryu replied.

 “Do you really think we’ll find anything?” – Cassie asked, knowing full well the task’s complexity.

[…]

“It’s been hours since we’ve been here, set out and rendezvous with the clan.” – Ryu complained.

“Shhh. I think I hear water.” – Cassie pointed out.

“Let’s find out then.” – I replied.

[…]

Upon reaching a hidden creek, we came across a curious little tablet.

The tablet turned out to be a time travel device, and in a flash we were transported to 2015, a time our elders had talked about numerous times. Water was abundant here, though it seemed it was where all our problems started. Big cities, big needs. Simultaneously, we saw the chance to revert it all. We talked, we warned. They called our anecdotes a spiel, fearmongers. We took leaders to our reality, to hardship. They acknowledged, no longer deaf ears.

[…]

Suddenly, everything shifted. Water resurged; scarcity ended. The world at peace again, no traces of catastrophe.  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

References

story [sic] (n.d). Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved in October 13, 2023 from:https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/story

Tale Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved in October 13, 2023 from: https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/tale

Science Fiction Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved in October 13, 2023 from: https://www.britannica.com/art/science-fiction

How did I generate this image?

The image was really simple to generate.

The image was generated using Microsoft Image Creator, powered by DALLE-3 and found inside the newly implemented Microsoft Copilot, found in the newest version of Windows 11.

It was given the prompt, or rather, the whole story, for the AI to decide the best scenee that represented the narrative. It decided to choose the discovery of the tablet, and then generated images around it.

These images were later tweaked with shorter prompts, until I found the one I considered suitable for the narrative.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[spaciousreasoning]

Marking 26 Years of History

At the time of my last post I was not paying complete attention to the calendar. Sure, we had just “celebrated” Cinco de Mayo, in the same manner we observe other ethnic holidays. Which is mostly using them as an excuse for drinking beer or other alcoholic beverages. (Not me, of course!)

That day is also the anniversary of the first entry in what has eventually become this place of “spacious reasoning,” i.e., my first blog. It was dated May 5, 1997, and entitled “OK, Mondays Suck!” An auspicious beginning. The title for the blog itself was “Streams of Consciousness.”

The entries themselves were created by hand, one at a time, in plain old-fashioned HTML using a simple text editor, and presented on whatever web presence I was using at the time. It was likely my old StarNet account, as the easywriter.com domain did not come into existence until Nov. 21, 1997.

Eventually, I got tired of the manual management of the blog and migrated for a while to Blogger.com, an online content management system founded in 1999 by Evan Williams and acquired by Google in 2003. By February 2001, I had switched platforms again, this time migrating to Greymatter, which I was able to load on my own server and run myself.

At some point, the one-man show that was Greymatter was unable to maintain the system and meet my changing standards. As I learned more, I wanted more from content management. Then I discovered Movable Type, created by a husband-and-wife team and released in October 2001. My blog’s migration was completed in February 2002.

The blog’s name also evolved. It became “Pixel Streams” when I switched to a new host that could handle the Movable Type system. A year later, after yet another hosting transfer, the blog morphed into “Pixel Consciousness,” a combination of sorts of the previous two names.

“Pixel Consciousness” faded away in December 2010, after a year in which only two blog entries were published, one to greet the year in January, another to bid farewell in December.

After that any pretense of blogging ended. Then in June 2014, I decided to make use of the Tumblr platform, where I had been posting image-related content since 2008. The name “Spacious Reasoning” came from somewhere, and my first entry was entitled “Why Am I Trying This Again?”

Rather than copy any of that content in this entry, check out the original. It explains why I continue to do this, although, as before, there are periods of activity and of drought. Like the biblical fat and lean years.

[weathered-canvas]

I live in a rural area, with swampland right on the edge of town. I'm in the Midwest, in Wisconsin actually. I've been here twelve years.

When we moved here, it was cold mid August. You were packing four outfits a day for the county fair because you were gonna be in a hoodie until 10am when the frost melted and then you'd strip down to your sleeveless shirts til 5pm or so, and by then you'd either dressed up for the shows today or got on a long sleeve to keep the sun off your arms. The swamp was wet and stinky, and we snowed by Halloween and then had probably a week off mid February from a snowstorm. March was floods, unless it was ice, and floods again in July.

Five years ago we didn't need warm clothes in the morning until September. Now you can get through to early October, and we're lucky to cool off below 70F routinely at night and the region is in an officially recognized drought. I don't remember any real snow the 2022-23 winter (last winter). Spring was not very wet. The swamp has become a barely recognizable wetland with solid ground and exposed tree roots that have bleached from suddenly being dry and exposed to sun. We don't have a real fall anymore, and the cicadas screamed four weeks ago (the old trend was it was 6 weeks from scream to freeze) and we're supposed to breach 100F again in a few days. The fair ends today. It was already 80F when I woke up this morning because the overnight "low" was 74F.

I miss the seasons actually turning.

You mentioned in a post on my dash that you were old enough to experience real seasons unaltered by climate change. What was that like?

I was young, so it feels like something I read in a book sometimes. I remember how chilly it could get at night in the summer, which doesn't seem to happen as much anymore.

That's actually the thing that seems to keep popping back up in my mind - that like, it was really chilly in the mornings in summer even, and it would warm up, and it seems to just kind of... stay warm all the time.

I dunno. The seasons were more distinct, there were bigger temperature swings on individual days, and like... weather was more predictable on a seasonal basis, if not on a daily basis.

Like... the kind of seasons you read about in Olde Tyme Books? They... were real things. We didn't always have snow on Winter Break, but we had a pretty predictable number of snow days?

And it almost feels silly to talk about it. "What were normal seasons like, Uncle Spider?"

But yeah.

[sophfandoms53]

@ The DuckTales Fandom

Please don’t fool yourself into believing all of these unnecessary and over extensive hiatuses are because the cast and crew are taking the time to work on the show.

This is not the reason for any of the hiatuses.

Yes the cast and crew do fantastic work on the show and make it as best as they can, it’s evident. And certain hiatuses they are working on the show and others are because they are required vacation days.

However, the show going on 4-5 month hiatuses in the middle of ONE season is not because they decided to extend the time they have to work on the show.

That’s not how this business works.

DuckTales’ episode are all done simultaneously. Ending of season one airing, and the start of season 2 airing, production of season 2 was either close to or completely being finished and production on season 3 was already started, and this was back in 2018. I gurantee around 6-7 episodes of season 3 are already finished and animated ready for airing.

The hiatuses we have been on are not at the fault of the cast and crew at all.

It’s the network and it’s decision to air 10 episodes in a burst of two weeks instead of letting the episodes air weekly. If those 10 episodes aired weekly, we’d have a little over 2 months worth of content and the hiatus from middle of season 2 to the last few episodes of season 2 wouldn’t have been such a drought.

Instead of waiting May-September, the weekly schedule would’ve only had us wait July-September. That’s barely a 3 month hiatus, and the fandom wouldn’t have any drought because we just had 10 episodes aired to explore and discuss to fill in that two month gap.

This applies to the the hiatus we’ve been on since September. Had those 10 episodes leading up to the finale aired weekly, this hiatus we’ve been on wouldn’t have started until early-mid November. Again that would be about a 2 month hiatus versus the 4 month hiatus we find ourselves in.

This is an issue season one didn’t have. We had our first 9 episodes air, we had a December-May hiatus (which was annoying), but then 4 episodes aired in May followed by a two week hiatus until June 16th and the season remained on air with a weekly schedule for the rest of the summer until August 18th. And finally, Season two aired on October 20th, meaning there was around a 2 month hiatus between seasons 1 and 2.

These hiatuses won’t stop being as omnipresent or extensive until Disney decides to ditch the airing episodes in daily burst formula and go back to a weekly schedule.

I hope some of you have had this myth dispelled from you and understand how lack luster the network has been with its schedule in the recent year.

[whatkikiwrote]

Jen is a character out of an unwritten book. Fairy Michael said it best, "That girl is from another planet." The girl with the spider legs. I say is because a person like Jen doesn't just leave this planet when they die, it'll take awhile before a sparkle like hers dissipates. She was fire, fun and one of the most hilarious people I'd ever met. She was smart as a whip and great company. Jen and I were the girls dating the Hungarians. Thomas and Sam were attached at the hip, which meant for better or worse, so were Jen and I. 

The four of us lived a few months together in a rusty shipping container until the rainy season hit and we were practically flooded out. That was November 2015. The rain in Big Sur fell especially hard that year, breaking California out of it's drought. We were always together in the beginning. Jen would wake at dawn to work her morning shift at Ripplewood and Sam was always ready to walk her to work. If you were unfortunate enough to be in the Ripplewood parking lot around 6am, you'd encounter them with their tongues down each other's throat. Sam and Jen were always making out. I remember once my parents came to visit from Boston, so we took them to the aquarium and my dad joked that Sam and Jen missed the whole thing because they were too busy engulfed in each other.

Living in the shipping container in late October provided minimal heat and sometimes the night temperatures dropped below freezing, so we spent a lot of our time at the pub. To stay warm Sam, Jen and I spent hundreds of hours in the soft glow of the pub's fireplace, while Thomas worked in the kitchen. The pub was located in the same parking lot as our little container, so we would joke it was the living room. I'm sure I'm not the first to say that about the Maiden, and if you were lucky to have spent an evening there, you understand how special it was. A little cozy corner community of people off the beaten Highway one path.

To bide our time I wrote. And drank.

Harassed the bartenders.

 Sam read countless books. But Jen could never sit still. She would pick up a book she was interested in, read a few pages and then start another one. She'd get bored, order a beer from Spencer or, if it was Friday night, from Heavy Metal Chris. She'd roll a cigarette on the bar, go outside by the barrel to smoke and every time I’d glance out the window at her, she would be hugging someone new. Lots of times she'd spot a friend in the parking lot, jump in their car, leave her stuff inside and come back hours later to her beer and purse, right where she'd left them. You don't deserve that kind of community love unless you work for it and Jen certainly did. She was always around and if I needed her in a pinch, I only had to use the “Big Sur telephone”,  "Hey everyone!” I’d call into the open doors of the pub, If you see Jen, tell her I'm looking for her." "Which Jen?" Someone would ask. "The one with the long legs." I’d reply. "Crossed eye Jen?" That was another thing about us. We both had occasionally lazy eyes.

In November Thomas and I moved into our Kia Forte and Sam and Jen moved into her Jetta. We didn't see them as much. Sam and Jen stayed in the valley, sleeping at The Grange while Thomas and I drove down to the south coast and spend our time off surfing at Sand dollar. I remember once we took Sam and Jen out to surf. I let her borrow my board and watched in horror like a worried mother as she flipped and flopped and smashed her and my board over and over again until she realized she could use just use it as a boogie board. I can still remember the endless joy on her face, even today, years later, holed up in a giant downtown apartment, far far away from the Pacific. That cute squinty smile. She wouldn't give me my board back for the rest of the day, no matter how much I pleaded.

In late December Thomas and I decided to move to Monterey. The day we signed our lease I drove to LA to get the rest of my stuff I had left behind when I abruptly decided to follow my heart and move to Big Sur. When I came home to Monterey, the apartment had been completely decorated. It looked like a homeless hippie had vomited all over our walls and, I guess she kinda did. Jen welcomed me with her big goofy googly eyed smile and offered me a plate of burnt cookies. That wasn't the only time Jen decorated my apartment or cooked for us .Once she made a stew of eggs, beans, greens and any condiment and spice she could find in the fridge and cabinet, including the fish sauce. We all took bites to be nice and then fed our portions to the dogs when she wasn't looking. Poor dogs.

Jen and Sam lost their jobs that winter and survived off of Chips Ahoy. They'd sleep over regularly to do laundry, take showers, smoke giant bong rips. We’d get massively stoned and lounge around listening to music while braiding each other's hair. We always had some new abalone or jade or money or doobie or gossip to share. Our collective favorite drink was a latte with a double shot of Bailey's so when they would sleep over, as a thank you, Jen would always make us Bailey's coffee in the morning. One thing Jen was exceptional at, other than being a phenomenal friend and muse, was making lattes. 

Once Jen hosted a dinner party at Coast Gallery, where Henry Miller’s famed water colors hang on the walls. It was just the four of us and Geologist Steve, who was living there at the time. Jen welcomed us at Steve’s door as if it were her own home. The small apartment had access to the latte machine in the commercial kitchen and together we drank at least 10 if not more coffees. She had made little foam hearts in every cup.

 High on caffeine we walked out to the balcony where the cafe serve sandwiches and drinks and looked out at the moon shinning off the ocean. There were few clouds in the sky as the marine layer had dispersed and clearly we could see shooting stars falling around us. Thomas took me by my hand and we started to waltz, as we circled around, I caught a glimpse of Sam and Jen, tongues down each other’s throats. It’s silly how when you are young you believe a moment can last forever.

Jen and I were like sisters. We didn't always get along in the beginning and we'd go long spans of time not seeing each other, but we always had the other's back. If I needed a job, she'd find one for me. If she needed to talk, we'd find each other. Once I took her to that dive bar in Seaside every Big Sur local has been to. I forgot the name. It was noon on a Tuesday and the place was packed. We spent too much money on booze and too much time complaining to each other about the difficulties of being us. After a very short lived game of pool, we decided it was time to leave, but as I reached to open the door, a man blocked my exit and said, "Where do you think you're going?" I stood motionless, freaked out, but Jen just swatted him away and walked out of the dark into the daylight without a blink. 

Eventually she and Sam made a deal with some deeply loved locals and ended up building their own little shack on a mountainside. Jen found a book on gardening and designed her own, at one point she dug out her own stairway down to the garden. Sam and Jen’s only other source of entertainment was a keyboard piano. When Thomas and I would come to visit, Jen and I would play duets. We were shit at it, but that didn't matter. Jen and Sam were living in a dream world. They forged for seaweed at the beach and dried it. They found a colony of bees and tried to harvest the honey. Two of their four walls were made of glass. They watched and documented the Sobranes Fire from their bed. One day as the fire raged, we climbed on their roof and drank Bailey's coffee from their makeshift kitchen: a tarp, a cooler and a small propane stove

.It's been 3 years since I've seen Jen. Thomas and I ran out of money and options after the Pub closed, so we decided with heavy hearts to move to the other side, my side, of the country. She and Sam broke up about a year after we moved. A poor choice, a painful ending, a breakup I wonder if I could have stopped, had I been there.

Despite the distance, I still shared photos with her, of the dogs, of our wedding, our first born little girl. And Jen has never left us, it wasn't even a week ago Thomas and I were sharing memories about her. I still have the pieces of jade we traded,  but I'm realizing now that she's gone,  how little of her I still keep. My apartment used to be where she kept her books,  her clothes,  some memories. Typically when a person you love dies,  there's a funeral to attend,  a gathering of friends to mourn with, but all I have is Thomas and somehow we'll have to tell Sam. How do you tell someone the greatest love of your life is dead? I'm sure it'll be a few more hours until I find out the details of her passing, a few more hours until the shock wears off and I find myself mourning my friend while playing with my children,  doing the dishes or driving in the car. 

Everyone has their own idea about what happens after we die. Thomas thinks we live on only in memories and DNA, I think a bit more spiritually than that.  Anyway, what we think doesn’t matter. Wherever Jen is, besides in all our hearts,  I know she's having a hell of an adventure and I hope someday we can ride those waves again at Asilimar.

[sciencespies]

Despite the dumpster fire of 2020, here are 11 huge achievements we made in science

https://sciencespies.com/humans/despite-the-dumpster-fire-of-2020-here-are-11-huge-achievements-we-made-in-science/

Despite the dumpster fire of 2020, here are 11 huge achievements we made in science

With just a handful of days left in this strange beast of a year that will most certainly go down in history books, we thought it would be nice to reflect on the marvellous things scientists still delivered, despite everything.

Of course, scientific achievements are usually years in the making. Nevertheless, here’s a round-up of some of the exciting science news we reported in 2020. Just to remember that it wasn’t all terrible.

1. We found the first known extraterrestrial protein in a meteorite

Could life emerge elsewhere in the Solar System? As curious and intelligent beings, humans are naturally interested in finding out if living creatures thrive beyond the confines of our little blue space rock. One way to discover this requires turning to meteorites.

Earlier this year, scientists revealed they had found the first-ever extraterrestrial protein, tucked inside a meteorite that fell to Earth 30 years ago.

“We’re pretty sure that proteins are likely to exist in space,” astronomer Chenoa Tremblay told ScienceAlert in March. “But if we can actually start finding evidence of their existence, and what some of the structures and the common structures might be, I think that’s really interesting and exciting.”

2. We avoided some troubling changes in the atmosphere

A new study revealed that the famed Montreal Protocol – the 1987 agreement to stop producing ozone-depleting substances – could be responsible for pausing, or even reversing, some troubling changes in air currents around our planet’s Southern Hemisphere.

Healing the protective ozone layer surrounding Earth seems to have paused the migration of an air current known as the southern jet stream, a phenomenon that ended up pushing parts of Australia into prolonged drought.

“If the ozone layer is recovering, and the circulation is moving north, that’s good news on two fronts,” explained chemist Ian Rae from the University of Melbourne.

3. An AI solved a 50-year-old biology challenge, decades before anyone expected

Earlier this month, scientists at the UK-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind announced that a new AI system had effectively solved a long-standing and incredibly complex scientific problem concerning the structure and behaviour of proteins.

For about 50 years, researchers have strived to predict how proteins achieve their three-dimensional structure. The astronomical number of potential configurations has made this task – known as the protein-folding problem – incredibly difficult.

DeepMind’s success means a huge step forward in a range of research endeavours, from disease modelling and drug discovery, to applications far beyond health research.

4. Scientists used fast radio bursts to find the Universe’s missing matter

In a mesmerising tale of mystery within a mystery, earlier this year a really clever application of fast radio burst (FRB) tracing gave astronomers an answer to a perplexing question – just where is the missing matter in the Universe?

We’re not talking about dark matter here, but the baryonic (normal) matter that should be there on account of all our calculations, but simply couldn’t be detected until now. The Universe is vast, and the stretches between galaxies enormous. Yet in that seemingly empty space, lone atoms are still kicking around.

While looking for the source of the powerful interstellar signals known as FRBs, researchers figured out that extremely diffuse gas can account for all the missing ‘normal’ matter in the Universe. Phew.

5. We also confirmed the first-ever detection of an FRB in our own galaxy

That’s right. On 28 April 2020, a Milky Way magnetar called SGR 1935+2154 flared up in a single, millisecond-long burst so incredibly bright, it would have been detectable from another galaxy.

This landmark detection made a huge and immediate impact on the study of mysterious FRBs, that until now had only been detected coming from outside our galaxy, making their precise source difficult to pin down.

“This sort of, in most people’s minds, settles the origin of FRBs as coming from magnetars,” astronomer Shrinivas Kulkarni of Caltech told ScienceAlert.

Astronomers had a whale of a time doing follow-up work on this detection, and by November we also had confirmation that this intra-galactic FRB is a repeater. We can expect even more excitement around this next year, for sure.

6. SpaceX and NASA made history with the first crewed launch

Space enthusiasts truly had lots of cause for excitement this year, as various launches and space missions soldiered on despite the global pandemic. On 30 May 2020, SpaceX became the first private space company to deliver NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

We have liftoff. History is made as @NASA_Astronauts launch from @NASAKennedy for the first time in nine years on the @SpaceX Crew Dragon: pic.twitter.com/alX1t1JBAt

— NASA (@NASA) May 30, 2020

Not only did they safely bring them home several months later, another crewed launch went off without a hitch in November, delivering four astronauts to the space station – the first in what will likely be many routine missions in 2021 and beyond. 

7. NASA touched an asteroid, and JAXA brought back a sample

After a long trip of more than 320 million kilometres (200 million miles), NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft finally touched down on asteroid Bennu in October, collecting a sample of its surface rubble, its efforts captured for posterity in magnificent footage delivered by the space agency. We can expect the probe to return with its precious cargo in 2023.

Last year, the Japanese space agency JAXA achieved a similar feat with the Hayabusa2 probe, collecting a sample from asteroid Ryugu. In December this year, we witnessed the safe return of that sample, and have already been treated to a first glimpse of some of the black dust the team retrieved. We can’t wait to learn more about what these asteroid missions will discover.

Ryugu dust on the outside chamber of the retrieval capsule. (JAXA)

8. Scientists found the first animal that doesn’t need oxygen to survive

Back here on our own world, biologists were in for a surprise when they found the first multicellular organism without a mitochondrial genome – which means an organism that doesn’t breathe. In fact, it lives without any need for oxygen at all.

While some single-celled organisms are known to thrive perfectly well in anaerobic conditions, the fact this common salmon parasite, a jellyfish-like creature Henneguya salminicola, doesn’t need oxygen to survive is quite remarkable, and has left researchers with many new questions to answer.

H. salminicola under the microscope. (Stephen Douglas Atkinson)

9. We got spectacular footage of a “long stringy stingy thingy” off the coast of Australia

Back in April, a trailing ribbon of conjoined tentacled clones caused quite a stir amongst a bunch of biologists exploring a little-studied part of the ocean off the coast of Western Australia. This strange entity was a particularly long siphonophore, a floating string of thousands of individual zooids. In fact, it could be one of the longest such strings ever observed.

Check out this beautiful *giant* siphonophore Apolemia recorded on #NingalooCanyons expedition. It seems likely that this specimen is the largest ever recorded, and in strange UFO-like feeding posture. Thanks @Caseywdunn for info @wamuseum @GeoscienceAus @CurtinUni @Scripps_Ocean pic.twitter.com/QirkIWDu6S

— Schmidt Ocean (@SchmidtOcean) April 6, 2020

“Everyone was blown away when it came into view,” biologists Nerida Wilson and Lisa Kirkendale from the Western Australian Museum told ScienceAlert.

“There was a lot of excitement. People came pouring into the control room from all over the ship. Siphonophores are commonly seen but this one was both large and unusual-looking.”

10. A physicist came up with the mathematics that makes ‘paradox-free’ time travel plausible

Wouldn’t it be great to pop into a time-machine and fix up some mishap you’ve done in your past, all without accidentally killing your grandfather in the process?

Well, 2020 also became the year when we learned of a mathematically sound solution to time travel that doesn’t muck everything up. Physics student Germain Tobar from the University of Queensland in Australia worked out how to “square the numbers” to make time travel viable without the paradoxes.

While it hasn’t gotten us immediately closer to having a working time machine, his calculations show that space-time can potentially adapt itself to avoid paradoxes. And, according to Tobar’s supervisor, the mathematics checks out. Fabulous.

11. The first COVID-19 vaccines are already being administered outside of clinical trials

The single biggest challenge the world faced this year was the global COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare professionals and essential workers have carried much of the burden of keeping society afloat, and we can never thank them enough. Meanwhile, researchers from myriad relevant fields – from immunology to genetics – have also worked tirelessly all year long to better understand the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

That work will continue into the new year, but in late November we finally got the first taste of what it means to accelerate scientific research and funding beyond its typical pace. The very first vaccines intended to protect people from COVID-19 have already completed all the necessary phases of clinical trials, and are being rolled out in the UK, US, and parts or Europe.

Lots more will need to be done before we can put this devastating pandemic behind us and protect the most vulnerable communities worldwide, but already having effective vaccines is a truly fantastic achievement, and without a doubt the biggest cause for celebration of science this year. One to carry us into 2021 full of hope.

#Humans

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Millions of hungry Americans turn to food banks for 1st time (AP) Hunger is a harsh reality in the richest country in the world. Even during times of prosperity, schools hand out millions of hot meals a day to children, and desperate elderly Americans are sometimes forced to choose between medicine and food. Now, in the pandemic of 2020, with illness, job loss and business closures, millions more Americans are worried about empty refrigerators and barren cupboards. Food banks are doling out meals at a rapid pace and an Associated Press data analysis found a sharp rise in the amount of food distributed compared with last year. Meanwhile, some folks are skipping meals so their children can eat and others are depending on cheap food that lacks nutrition. Those fighting hunger say they’ve never seen anything like this in America, even during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. The first place many Americans are finding relief is a neighborhood food pantry, most connected to vast networks of nonprofits. Tons of food move each day from grocery store discards and government handouts to warehouse distribution centers, and then to the neighborhood charity. An AP analysis of Feeding America data from 181 food banks in its network found the organization has distributed nearly 57 percent more food in the third quarter of the year, compared with the same period in 2019.

Covid Nomads (WSJ) Alan Frei lives the life of a backpacker. That is, all 62 of his belongings fit into a single backpack, which he carries with him as he travels and lives in different cities around the world—a total of 53 countries over the past three years. The 38-year-old Swiss entrepreneur in October got rid of his apartment near Zurich and all his furniture. Items he kept include his watch, a toothbrush, seven pairs of underwear, and sunglasses. Mr. Frei is an extreme version of a digital nomad, a person with no fixed address, who lives and works while traveling the globe. Today, their ranks are small, but they could become more common in the years ahead. “There will definitely be more digital nomads,” says Nicholas Bloom, professor of economics at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Before the pandemic, only about 2% of Americans worked from home full-time, Mr. Bloom says, but he expects that will rise to about 8% to 10% of workers. If just 10% of them travel and work remotely, that will still be enormous, he says. Scott Cohen, a professor at the University of Surrey’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, expects more countries will cater visa and tourism programs to digital nomads, as they seek an alternative to the standard business travel market. Chekitan S. Dev, a professor at Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business, School of Hotel Administration, says the trend was first driven by millennials; now older millennials are taking their families with them when they move around. By normalizing remote work and school, the pandemic has supercharged a trend. In the future, digital nomads may be middle-aged, rent or own homes for less time, want to go to more exotic destinations and move more quickly between destinations.

California Water Futures Begin Trading Amid Fear of Scarcity (Bloomberg) Water joined gold, oil and other commodities traded on Wall Street, highlighting worries that the life-sustaining natural resource may become scarce across more of the world. Farmers, hedge funds and municipalities alike are now able to hedge against—or bet on—future water availability in California, the biggest U.S. agriculture market and world’s fifth-largest economy. The contracts, a first of their kind in the U.S., were announced in September as heat and wildfires ravaged the U.S. West Coast and as California was emerging from an eight-year drought. They are meant to serve both as a hedge for big water consumers, such as almond farmers and electric utilities, against water prices fluctuations as well a scarcity gauge for investors worldwide. “Climate change, droughts, population growth, and pollution are likely to make water scarcity issues and pricing a hot topic for years to come,” said RBC Capital Markets managing director and analyst Deane Dray.

‘It’s a free-for-all’: how hi-tech spyware ends up in the hands of Mexico’s cartels (The Guardian) Corrupt Mexican officials have helped drug cartels in the country obtain state-of-the-art spyware which can be used to hack mobile phones, according to a senior DEA official. As many as 25 private companies—including the Israeli company NSO Group and the Italian firm Hacking Team—have sold surveillance software to Mexican federal and state police forces, but there is little or no regulation of the sector—and no way to control where the spyware ends up, said the officials. “It’s a free-for-all,” the official told the Cartel Project, an initiative coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a global network of investigative journalists whose mission is to continue the work of reporters who are threatened, censored or killed. “The police who have the technology would just sell it to the cartels.” [And then the cartels would use it against their enemies or those investigating them.] The nexus between state and criminal forces has fuelled a wave of targeted violence which have made Mexico the most dangerous country for journalists in the world, outside a war zone. At least 119 media workers have been killed in Mexico since 2000, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the inevitable fear for reporters is that surveillance could lead to more tangible dangers.

Pope makes surprise early morning prayer visit in rainy Rome (AP) Pope Francis on Tuesday made a surprise early morning visit to the Spanish Steps in Rome to pray for people worldwide struggling in the pandemic. With rain falling and dawn breaking, Francis popped up in the square at the foot of the Spanish Steps at 7 a.m. (0600 GMT), two hours after the end of Italy’s overnight curfew. Before heading back to Vatican City, where he resides in a hotel, Francis stopped to pray some more and celebrate Mass in St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome. Early in the pandemic, Francis made a similar pop-up visit to a little-frequented church in the heart of downtown Rome to pray, startling the few Romans who were in the area during exceptionally tight lockdown measures. In separate, written comments, Francis stressed the need for all to have employment when the world emerges from the pandemic. “How can we speak of human dignity without working to ensure that everyone is able to earn a decent living?” the pope wrote. He urged people to “find ways to express our firm conviction that no person, no person at all, no family should be without work.” As he has previously during the pandemic, the pope praised what he called the “ordinary people” who have kept the world functioning as it reels under the strain of the global pandemic. He cited those providing essential services—health care workers and shopkeepers, cleaners and caregivers and “so very many others.”

The Kremlin Is Offering Russians Free Vaccines, but Will They Take Them? (NYT) Aleksei Zakharov, a Moscow economics professor, got the Russian coronavirus vaccine injected into his upper arm over the weekend. Getting the shot was an easy decision, he said—not because the Russian government said it was safe, but because scores of Russians have shared their experience with it on social media. “I trust the grass roots collection of information far more, of course, than what the state says, at least before the testing results are available and published in a medical journal,” Mr. Zakharov, 44, said in a telephone interview Monday, already clear of a mild fever—a side-effect of the vaccine. Russia made its coronavirus vaccine available for free in recent days to teachers, medical workers and social-service employees younger than 61 in Moscow. But even more than in the West, a lack of trust is hobbling Russia’s rollout of a vaccine: the country’s scientists may well have made great strides in battling the pandemic, but many Russians are not ready to believe it. That distrust looms large as Russia races to roll out the vaccine while facing the fiercest onslaught of the pandemic yet, with some 500 deaths per day.

Mt Everest grows by nearly a metre to new height (BBC) The world’s highest mountain Mount Everest is 0.86m higher than had been previously officially calculated, Nepal and China have jointly announced. Until now the countries differed over whether to add the snow cap on top. The new height is 8,848.86m (29,032 ft). Everest stands on the border between China and Nepal and mountaineers climb it from both sides. Officials at Nepal’s foreign ministry and department of survey said surveyors from both countries had co-ordinated to agree on the new height.

China condemns new US Hong Kong sanctions, Taiwan arms sale (AP) China on Tuesday lashed out at the U.S. over new sanctions against Chinese officials and the sale of more military equipment to Taiwan. The U.S. actions are part of what critics see as an effort by the Trump administration to put in place high-pressure tactics toward Beijing that could make it more difficult for President-elect Joe Biden to steady relations. The Cabinet’s office for Hong Kong affairs expressed “strong outrage and condemnation” over the sanctions leveled against 14 members of the standing committee of China’s legislature, which passed a sweeping Hong Kong National Security Law earlier this year. Foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, meanwhile, demanded the U.S. cancel its latest arms sale to Taiwan and said China would make a “proper and necessary response.” President Donald Trump’s administration has incensed Beijing with 11 separate arms sales and closer military and political ties with the self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. China has stepped up military flights near the island and pledged to punish U.S. companies involved in the arms deals in response.

Libya’s east-based forces seize Turkish-owned vessel (AP) Forces of a Libyan commander who rules the eastern half of the country and who was behind a year-long military attempt to capture the capital, Tripoli, have seized a Turkish vessel heading to the western town of Misrata. The development by Khalifa Hifter’s forces could escalate tensions in the conflict-stricken Libya, since Turkey is the main foreign backer of Hifter’s rivals, the U.N.-backed administration in Tripoli, in western Libya. Hifter’s forces stopped the Jamaica-flagged cargo vessel, Mabrouka, on Monday off the eastern port town of Derna, said Ahmed al-Mosmari, the spokesman for Hifter’s forces. Al-Mosmari said the vessel entered a “no sail” zone and did not respond to calls from the naval forces. It’s the second Turkish-owned vessel seized by Hifter’s forces this year, according to Ambrey Intelligence, a British private maritime intelligence firm. In 2020, Hifter’s forces have seized at least six ships.

[journeyman-jack-in-ecuador]

FRI 18OCT24 - "November and December will be the most critical months of 2024 due to energy shortages and power outages in Ecuador.

The low water level in the Mazar reservoir puts the operation of Paute-Molino at risk, and in the Amazon, low water flows are expected for Coca Codo Sinclair.

The energy generation crisis in Ecuador worsened in the first week of October 2024. And this is just the beginning, as the harshest drought period is expected to last until at least February 2025.

Ecuador is highly dependent on hydroelectric energy, but due to the drought, the hydroelectric plants, with an installed capacity of about 5,500 megawatts, are operating at only 50%, according to data from the National Electricity Operator Cenace.

"We experienced a 118-day drought last year, but it was from September to December 2023. Now in 2024, we're again facing a drought, but this time since August. So far, we’ve already had 89 days of drought," explains Lenin Álvarez, head of the Hydrometeorological Network of the public water company Etapa.

He referred to the lack of rain in the south of the country, where Ecuador's largest hydroelectric complex, Paute (comprising Mazar, Paute-Molino, and Sopladora), is located between Azuay and Cañar.

Given the severe drought, there is a high probability that the power outages of up to 10 hours, announced by the government of Daniel Noboa on October 9, 2024, could be even longer and continue until the end of the year due to the severe electricity generation deficit, adds electrical sector expert Gabriel Secaira.

This is because the Mazar hydroelectric plant is operating with only one of its two turbines, and if the water in its reservoir drops below 2,110 meters above sea level (masl), it will have to shut down. As of October 9, the water level was at 2,112 masl.

The water level in the Amaluza reservoir, which supplies the Paute-Molino plant, is also dropping. If the water continues to fall to critical levels, there is a risk that this plant will go offline, leading to even longer power outages, says Secaira.

What is happening in the Paute complex?

Paute-Molino, with its Amaluza reservoir, is part of a complex of three cascading hydroelectric plants. It is the largest plant in the complex, with a capacity of 1,100 megawatts.

How does this cascading complex work?

First, upstream, is the Mazar hydroelectric plant, which has a large reservoir with a maximum capacity of 2,153 masl. Further downstream is Paute-Molino (with the smaller Amaluza reservoir at 1,975 masl), followed by Sopladora, which has no reservoir.

Together, the three hydroelectric plants have an installed capacity of 1,756 megawatts, which is 38% of the country's demand.

Normally, when the water level in the Amaluza reservoir drops because the hydroelectric plant is operating at full capacity, the Mazar reservoir releases water to maintain sufficient levels in Amaluza and ensure the continued operation of Paute-Molino.

But now, Mazar has reached critically low water levels, just as the most severe drought season is starting.

It is likely that the water flowing into Amaluza will reach minimum levels during this period, jeopardizing the operation of Paute-Molino, which is currently generating 63% of its installed capacity.

"There has been poor management of the reservoirs. It seems that all the incoming water is being used for generation, preventing the reservoir from filling. The power rationing should help fill the Mazar reservoir, but that’s not happening," says Secaira.

Thus, the current power outages are not helping to fill the Mazar reservoir but rather indicate that Ecuador doesn't have enough energy for 10 hours a day.

Coca Codo is also at risk

Other energy specialists, such as Ricardo Buitrón, believe that the risk of Paute-Molino shutting down is lower because its Pelton turbines are designed to operate with very low water flows.

According to Buitrón, the Paute-Molino turbines can continue generating power with flows as low as 4 cubic meters per second (m³/s). In September, the average flow was 84 m³/s, but in early October, it dropped to 64 m³/s.

"Only if there is an extreme drought where virtually no water passes through Mazar or Amaluza would Paute-Molino be forced to shut down," he adds.

Buitrón explains that once the water level in the Mazar reservoir drops below 2,110 masl, the only option left would be to shut down the remaining turbine and open the floodgates, allowing water from the local rivers to flow directly into Amaluza.

This would be enough for Paute-Molino to operate, albeit at reduced capacity.

However, Buitrón adds that the situation will worsen in the last two months of the year due to other factors.

One of these is that by the end of the year, it is highly likely that the water flow supplying Ecuador’s largest hydroelectric plant, Coca Codo Sinclair (in Napo province), will decrease. This plant is not in the same basin as the Paute complex.

Historical hydrological data shows that November and December are when Coca Codo's water flow reaches its lowest levels of the year.

Coca Codo Sinclair is currently generating 450 megawatts, just 30% of its capacity, and the driest season has yet to arrive, explains Buitrón.

The problem is compounded by increased energy demand in December, driven by Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. Additionally, the government has promised to reduce electricity bills, "which doesn’t encourage energy savings," says Buitrón.

What about emergency contracts?

Secaira also points to the slow progress in contracting new thermoelectric energy.

Of the 340 megawatts the government has contracted, only 110 megawatts are operational, coming from the Turkish Karpowership barge.

Former Energy Minister Antonio Goncalves had promised that a new 250-megawatt barge would begin operating in early November, but he recently acknowledged that the contracting process has been delayed.

A third factor making Ecuador’s situation more critical is that Colombia stopped selling electricity to Ecuador on October 1, 2024, which means the country lost around 400 megawatts of power, the amount the neighboring country used to supply.

This restriction could last until 2025, as Colombia is also suffering from a severe drought." -

https://www.primicias.ec/economia/noviembre-diciembre-meses-criticos-cortes-luz-ecuador-80826/

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I hope it's alright to ask, but I see you know quite a lot about gardening and I have recently acquired a lawn, but know very little about gardening. What are some resources you might recommend for learning, especially with regards to reseeding lawns? I am hoping to largely replace the grass with clover ☆ and now that december is almost over I can feel spring coming and want to get ready!

Haha I know… enough to begin with, with gardening! I’ve begun a lot of projects, but now they’ll take months or years to really see to fruition. 

I will say: I have found many books by longterm gardeners very helpful, and the blogs of people in my hardiness zones, but I’ve found Youtube to be patchy in its usefulness. A lot of Youtubers are people just starting out their gardening or farming journeys, so they’ll make a video documenting a brand new process they’re excited to try out for the first time, but it’s a lot harder to find follow-up “Welp, that didn’t work” conclusions. The videos are good to show my mom to demonstrate what the work will look like, but I want to do more research before I decide to try a technique.

I have definitely found that other local gardeners are really valuable to get to know! It can be really hard to figure out what works in your specific area and a lot of it requires trial and error, so it’s helpful to know what’s already been tried. You can also end up sharing tools, plants, seeds, and labour. 

Finding people local to you can be as simple as finding local garden centres or seed stores (preferably dedicated year-round places that hire people specifically for plant knowledge, not just the pop-up garden centre at a store that doesn’t really focus on plants). That way you can talk to employees who have seen a lot of gardeners try things locally and hear how it went. I’ve gone to some really useful talks given by independent greenhouses.

However, a step up from that are actual local gardening groups or clubs. Local to me there are events like Seedy Sunday, which is organized in March in my area, where outdoor planting is still a few months away but people might be starting seeds indoors soon. It has a seed swap, vendors, and information sessions. There I learned about the local permaculture guild’s annual festival a month later, and it had even more info sessions, and the presenters there frequently handed out seeds or were like “PLEASE come and take an apricot seedling from my back yard, here is my address, PLEASE.” From there you might even make garden friends whose garden you could visit, or who could visit your garden, to say things like “Yeah that’s a fungal infection” or “This part isn’t getting enough water.” (I mean, you could also get a landscaper or garden consultant to do that, but it costs money.)

Because really the trick with gardening, as far as I can tell, is all about location and region. I automatically add “zone 3″ to all my google searches now. Clover works really well in some places–I’ve successfully grown it on the bare dirt on the north side of my house, dangit I forgot to post pictures–and not as well in other places. It’s going to act differently depending on what kind of winter you have (Cold but not freezing? Frosty but not snowing? Snow and ice that freeze and thaw several times over the winter? Heavy consistent snow blanket until spring?) and what your general climate’s like. In some places you might be better off with prairie grass or an eco-friendly fescue mix or a mix of grasses and flowers..

I tend to sow seed over the living grass of my lawns instead of completely getting rid of the old grass. I guess I mostly figure that if the new grass really is a better fit for the lawn, it’ll choke out the old stuff. It’s… sometimes worked out well so far? Although I live in a pretty arid area, and I learned that if I want my grass to grow, it MUST get an inch of water every day for the first two weeks, and then at least once a week for a good month or two. It’s drought-resistant when it’s mature, but not when it’s a baby. My garden lives and dies by my automated water timer.

If you wanted to completely kill the grass you had starting out, I’m also not sure about the specific procedure for smothering grass and replacing it with a different lawn cover. A really common technique is to smother it with newspaper or cardboard and mulch like wood chips, straw, hay, or autumn leaves, but I’m not sure how well it works to seed something new on top of that–I can forsee patchiness if you’ve got clover trying to establish itself in, say, wood chips. Maybe mulch and a bit of soil? Complicated questions. Anyone know? @elodieunderglass? Bueller?

Anyway, the smothering process takes months. I moved into my new garden May 2019 and spent the whole summer using the bare-earth beds that came with the house and plotting out where 2020′s new beds would go, and then lasagna gardened them in October 2019 so they’d smother and decompose and be ready for next May 2020′s planting. And I’m still very nervous about whether it’ll work out! All my elderly neighbours are very dubious about the whole idea and ready to lend me their rototillers. My PRIDE is on the line.

I hope to hear more about people’s gardens! Everything’s going to be solidly under snow here for another four months, and I just had to move my compost bins into the heated garage because the compost had literally frozen solid. GOD WHY DOES WINTER HAVE TO LAST SO LOOOOONG. (Oh, though I could update about the seedlings we got going upstairs, and my poor beleaguered boston fern)