Tootfinder

Abuse in Buddhism: The Law of Silence https://openbuddhism.org/library/videos/2022/elodie-emery-wandrille-lanos-present-buddhism-the-unspeakable-truth/

‘Abuse in Buddhism: The Law of Silence’
In a brief video in English, the French filmmakers Élodie Emery and Wandrille Lanos introduce their documentary ‘Abuse in Buddhism: The Law of Silence’ (Arte, 2022). It can be watched here.

The radio flare and multi-wavelength afterglow of the short GRB 231117A: energy injection from a violent shell collision
G. E. Anderson, G. P. Lamb, B. P. Gompertz, L. Rhodes, A. Martin-Carrillo, A. J. van der Horst, A. Rowlinson, M. E. Bell, T. -W. Chen, H. M. Fausey, M. Ferro, P. J. Hancock, S. R. Oates, S. Schulze, R. L. C. Starling, S. Yang, K. Ackley, J. P. Anderson, A. Andersson, J. F. Ag\"u\'i Fern\'andez, R. Brivio, E. Burns, K. C. Chambers, T. de Boer, V. D'El…

The radio flare and multi-wavelength afterglow of the short GRB 231117A: energy injection from a violent shell collision
We present the early radio detection and multi-wavelength modeling of the short gamma-ray burst (GRB) 231117A at redshift $z=0.257$. The Australia Telescope Compact Array automatically triggered a 9-hour observation of GRB 231117A at 5.5 and 9 GHz following its detection by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory just 1.3 hours post-burst. Splitting this observation into 1-hour time bins, the early radio afterglow exhibited flaring, scintillating and plateau phases. The scintillation allowed us to p…

Dynamic #EV charging prices, following the spot market, and available to all - including direct payment with bank or credit card, without ‘fees’. A big ‘Bravo!’ for enercity and EV-Pay for showing what is possible in Germany, despite all the ‘Eichrecht’ hurdles.

Stündlich wechselnde Ladepreise: Enercity und EV-Pay führen dynamische Ad-hoc-Preise ein - electrive.net
Der Strompreis am Spotmarkt schwankt, an Ladesäulen sind heute aber starre Festpreise die Regel. In Hannover ist das bald anders: Enercity und EV-Pay starten

TL;DR: what if nationalism, not anarchy, is futile?
Since I had the pleasure of seeing the "what would anarchists do against a warlord?" argument again in my timeline, I'll present again my extremely simple proposed solution:
Convince the followers of the warlord that they're better off joining you in freedom, then kill or exile the warlord once they're alone or vastly outnumbered.
Remember that even in our own historical moment where nothing close to large-scale free society has existed in living memory, the warlord's promise of "help me oppress others and you'll be richly rewarded" is a lie that many understand is historically a bad bet. Many, many people currently take that bet, for a variety of reasons, and they're enough to coerce through fear an even larger number of others. But although we imagine, just as the medieval peasants might have imagined of monarchy, that such a structure is both the natural order of things and much too strong to possibly fail, in reality it takes an enormous amount of energy, coordination, and luck for these structures to persist! Nations crumble every day, and none has survived more than a couple *hundred* years, compared to pre-nation societies which persisted for *tends of thousands of years* if not more. I'm this bubbling froth of hierarchies, the notion that hierarchy is inevitable is certainly popular, but since there's clearly a bit of an ulterior motive to make (and teach) that claim, I'm not sure we should trust it.
So what I believe could form the preconditions for future anarchist societies to avoid the "warlord problem" is merely: a widespread common sense belief that letting anyone else have authority over you is morally suspect. Given such a belief, a warlord will have a hard time building any following at all, and their opponents will have an easy time getting their supporters to defect. In fact, we're already partway there, relative to the situation a couple hundred years ago. At that time, someone could claim "you need to obey my orders and fight and die for me because the Queen was my mother" and that was actually a quite successful strategy. Nowadays, this strategy is only still working in a few isolated places, and the idea that one could *start a new monarchy* or even resurrect a defunct one seems absurd. So why can't that same transformation from "this is just how the world works" to "haha, how did anyone ever believe *that*? also happen to nationalism in general? I don't see an obvious reason why not.
Now I think one popular counterargument to this is: if you think non-state societies can win out with these tactics, why didn't they work for American tribes in the face of the European colonizers? (Or insert your favorite example of colonialism here.) I think I can imagine a variety of reasons, from the fact that many of those societies didn't try this tactic (and/or were hierarchical themselves), to the impacts of disease weakening those societies pre-contact, to the fact that with much-greater communication and education possibilities it might work better now, to the fact that most of those tribes are *still* around, and a future in which they persist longer than the colonist ideologies actually seems likely to me, despite the fact that so much cultural destruction has taken place. In fact, if the modern day descendants of the colonized tribes sow the seeds of a future society free of colonialism, that's the ultimate demonstration of the futility of hierarchical domination (I just read "Theory of Water" by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson).
I guess the TL;DR on this is: what if nationalism is actually as futile as monarchy, and we're just unfortunately living in the brief period during which it is ascendant?

The National Weather Service is forecasting a major storm for Santa Barbara County expected to arrive Monday, October 13th. The following conditions are possible countywide:
Hail and lightning
Brief, heavy rainfall
Dangerous flash flooding
Flooding in low-lying areas and strong winds
Shallow debris flows for locations in and beneath recent wildfire burn areas including the Gifford Fire and Lake Fire.
Detailed weather forecasts are available at

🔥 Grand Canyon’s Dragon Bravo megafire shows the growing wildfire threat to water systems
https://theconversation.com/grand-canyons-dragon-bravo-megafire-shows-the-growing-wildfire-threat-to-water-systems-263104…

Grand Canyon’s Dragon Bravo megafire shows the growing wildfire threat to water systems
Water systems are vulnerable to melting plastic components, toxic contamination and failures that can leave firefighters without flowing water.

@… oh, that's a pleasant surprise!
I wasn't chasing in any way, haven't been following progress. I just remembered that it's a handy way of configuring for SCFB (without referring to documentation).
For brief private discussion of something script-related, is here OK? Or would you prefer email?

Got my water/utility bill for the spring/summer yesterday. (we get billed 3 times a year as part of our general city utilities bill including water, sewer and garbage/recycling fees).
Figured it would be a big water year this year so I've been wanting to see this. And of course, I have data going back to 2019ish.
Today's bill only goes to August 1st, so it doesn't include when we started to fill the #pondpool!
This was already a dry year in the spring and we were doing lots of watering in the front yard for the new ground cover in the modified driveway and the 3 new fruit trees.
Verdict:
2024: Apr 12 - Aug 7: 122, 200L
2025 Apr 14 - Aug 1 (7 less days!): 136,600L
It will be interesting to see if the August pond filling will add a big chunk onto our summer/fall consumption or if that is offset by both the brief August water restrictions, and the departure of both kids this fall to consume other people's water. ;=)
If you want an indication of how much water people use vs. yards: look at our August 2022 bill, which captures when we were on our cross-Canada roadtrip for 30 days in July/August of the 100 day period.
#water #consumption #gardening #utility #PortAlberni

Browns rookie Shedeur Sanders pantomimes answers to Cleveland media following Joe Flacco's benching https://www.nfl.com/news/browns-rookie-shedeur-sanders-pantomimes-answers-to-cleveland-media-following-joe-flacco-s-b…

The indictment of former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey
was just two pages long and contained so little detail that it was hard for legal experts to assess its merits.
Some former government lawyers, as well as prominent Democrats, said the case appeared so flimsy that it was likely to fail.
Some Republicans also expressed concerns

Brief Comey Indictment Prompts Questions and Criticism
The two-page indictment of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, offered little indication of the evidence that would be presented at a trial. Some legal experts called it flimsy and dangerous.