Posts in: Journal

"Beef guzzlers: 12% of Americans eat half of the country’s cow meat"

A single cow can belch up to 264 pounds of methane in a year, the equivalent of burning almost 4,000 pounds of coal or driving a gas-powered car about 9,000 miles. That’s why climate advocates say people should eat less beef if they want to help ease climate change. … Who, exactly, comprises that group? “There’s some of everybody,” Rose said, but men and people between the ages of 50 and 65 are most likely to be big beef eaters, the study found.

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First day of school blues

Today is the first day of school in Washington, D.C. Every year this heralds a spike in traffic across our neighborhoods: School zones have an active impact on traffic flow again, more people walking and in crosswalks at intersections, parents who use cars to drop off kids and commute are suddenly out on the road at the same time, the few school buses D.C. uses for specific purposes are now on the road, etc.

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I couldn’t take much of the Republican debate (there was already bile pooling in my mouth just after it began) after I heard the sui-eco-cidal answers to the climate crisis question.

My own identity is federated (as well as idle or abandoned and isolated) across many networks and platforms. I feel like some sort of social web equivalent of a vector analysis diagram might reveal a true center, or destination I suppose. Some notional node between the nodes.

Feelings about the half-past dead

It had come to feel trite to, along with “everyone else,” stop and post something, conspicuously sharing that one was aware of and appreciated, ostensibly mourned, the passing of someone well known. I have stepped back on social media, so I didn’t say anything about Robbie Robertson as soon as I heard. But I was listening to World Cafe (I happened to be listening to the WEXT stream, pretending I can feel my idealized version of optimal weather from Upstate NY wash over me with the music being broadcast out of the Mohawk Valley) and they rebroadcast an interview with Robertson.

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What the hell happened to printer friendly CSS‽

What the hell happened to printer friendly CSS‽ Especially you fucks publishing 4,000... 8,000 plus word essays. Jesus. I'm doing your work for you, but just for myself with dev tools or stop the madness, just so I don't go insane. Or maybe because you've already driven me there. And, I see all your ridiculous libraries and frameworks which, even minified, add kilobytes (if not megabytes) of cruft. Maybe not the case when also compressed, but now you're just making me use cycles on my end to realize that "

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Dave and Art did enough damage.

…the least we can do is take their money and run. Or something. Today was the first day in a while without structured plans and without starting out with a steaming hot morning en route to a 90F high, only to feel even hotter. So my son and I got on the bike and went to our town’s free museums… yes, the Smithsonian Institution. We’re lucky to have this and I try to remember that and make use of them, for my own benefit, but especially for my toddler’s.

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Keep it dumb, dummy.

Will it be possible to buy a dumb electric car? No Internet Protocol dependence and certainly no fucking ChatGPT? I don’t mind contemporary local computer-driven safety features—not talking Model T dumb. I like the idea of bringing extra brains and network connectivity to the vehicle with me (e.g. via smartphone) but entirely optionally. I’d still like to go for a drive without anyone but… the CCTV and imagery satellites and drones knowing where I am.

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