← Feed

Posts

• Post #4075364

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@Analyst207/116976753928710218 Every bit spent on weapons is money that can’t be spent on unmet social needs.

• Post #1417954

  “Things are overregulated because people often don’t do the right thing.” A tidy summary of modern human history. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/09/proposed-underwater-data-center-surprises-regulators-who-hadnt-heard-about-it/

• Post #1417953

  Here's my Month in a Minute video for July, 2025. This is the view looking north from #UVic in #VictoriaBC.

• Post #1417952

  I saw this in an elementary school classroom once. It's amazing. #Science

• Post #1417951

  Here's the view looking north from #UVic in January, 2026. There were some technical problems last month so some observations are missing. 1/6 #Saanich #VictoriaBC

• Post #1417950

  Here's my Month-in-a-Minute video for February, 2026 at #UVic.

• Post #771162

  I'm going to try managing 'my own' instance using masto.host. If you follow me here, and want to keep following me, go to @edwiebe@scribili.masto.host. If I follow you here you'll see that account following you. I'll not delete this account for now; I want to see what's going to happen here.

• Post #458158

  'Nature' is good for something! 🤑 "Can nature benefit Canada's economy? New report says parks contribute billions in taxes, wages." https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/nature-parks-tourism-conservation-9.7105393

• Post #458157

  I’ve been reading #MansfieldPark which, I won’t deny, is not without challenges. However, Austen can do wonders with a sentence. I loved this one. “Too soon did she find herself at the drawing-room door, and after pausing a moment for what she knew would not come, for a courage which the outside of no door had ever supplied to her, she turned the lock in desperation, and the lights of the drawing-room and all the collected family were before her.” “for a courage which the outside of no door h...

• Post #458156

  Whatever update or change that just happened @chad turned off dark mode in my settings on the web interface. No big deal. #mstdnca

• Post #458154

  Environment and Climate Change Canada press secretary Keean Nembhard wrote in an emailed statement to DeSmog that the government’s clean energy regulations continue “to apply in all provinces and territories and will require electricity-generating units to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.” However, Nembhard added, “data centres with their own power generation, not connected to the commercial grid, would not be covered by the [regulation].” https://www.desmog.com/2026/02/25/carney-allowed-...

• Post #458153

  Spring blooms.

• Post #250456

  Consider the histogram shown here. it includes all daily average January temperatures observed at #UVic (2002–2026). Extreme events are rare events, by definition. Notice that that while there are a small number of extremely cold days in the record, much farther out than 3 standard deviations (-8 °C is about 3 standard deviations from the mean) there are no similarly exceptionally warm days. This is because the rare really cold days are caused by so-called arctic outbursts, very cold air flowing...

• Post #183086

  @cedric@greennet.social @TheConversationUK@newsie.social Good grief no. Generative 'AI' is not creative is because it's not possible for it to be creative. 'AI' can't be connected to real world concerns because it's not a thing that can feel or experience anything at all. 'AI' is just statistical modelling of words and images. It's boring because most people like boring crap. The stagnation they are referring to is human cultural stagnation and I don&#...

• Post #162717

  Another reason the US is stupid: paper weights. Sane: GSM (grams per square meter) – A metric unit measuring the weight [mass] of a 1m² sheet. Insane: LBS (pounds) – Common in the U.S., it represents the weight of 500 sheets of paper in its base size, which _differs depending on the type_ (bond, text, cover, etc.). https://www.paperpapers.com/news/paper-weight-guide-gsm-vs-lbs/

• Post #161693

  "A court on Wednesday ordered the Dutch government to draw up a plan to protect residents on the tiny Caribbean island of Bonaire from the devastating effects of #ClimateChange https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/bonaire-climate-change-hague-9.7064791 What's with the orange obelisk in the photograph? Colonisation and slavery. https://www.beautiful-bonaire.com/sightseeing/obelisks.php