Tootfinder

I appreciate news orgs doing this sort of “here’s the big picture” reporting:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14032024/inside-clean-energy-coal-power-decline/
This isn’t breaking news. This is seeing the forest instead of runn…

Coal Power Plunged Again in 2023 and Is Fading Away in the U.S. So What Replaces It? - Inside Climate News
Natural gas has filled most of the void left by the decline of U.S. coal power, but that’s not a long-term solution.

syren-halofit: A fast, interpretable, high-precision formula for the $\Lambda$CDM nonlinear matter power spectrum
Deaglan J. Bartlett, Benjamin D. Wandelt, Matteo Zennaro, Pedro G. Ferreira, Harry Desmond
https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.17492

syren-halofit: A fast, interpretable, high-precision formula for the $Λ$CDM nonlinear matter power spectrum
Rapid and accurate evaluation of the nonlinear matter power spectrum, $P(k)$, as a function of cosmological parameters and redshift is of fundamental importance in cosmology. Analytic approximations provide an interpretable solution, yet current approximations are neither fast nor accurate relative to black-box numerical emulators. We use symbolic regression to obtain simple analytic approximations to the nonlinear scale, $k_σ$, the effective spectral index, $n_{\rm eff}$, and the curvature, $…

Doonesbury, February 18, 2024
https://www.tumblr.com/naturalephemera/743139883247386624?source=share

We are a flawed species, destined for extinction.
Gannett-owned newspapers declined to run Doonesbury (long known for confronting controversial topics) last Sunday. Here it is, for those who may have missed it.

“The Insurance Buys The Wheelchair, But Not The App To Run It”
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/09/the-insurance-buys-the-wheelchair-but-not-the-app-to-run-it/
Which covers this post from a wheelchair user who had to hack hi…

The Insurance Buys The Wheelchair, But Not The App To Run It
The writer Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification to describe the way that services decline in quality as their users become the product. He was talking about online services when he came u…

3D active nematic disclinations behave as Majorana quasiparticles
Louise C. Head, Giuseppe Negro, Livio N. Carenza, Ryan R. Keogh, Giuseppe Gonnella, Alexander Morozov, Enzo Orlandini, Tyler N. Shendruk, Adriano Tiribocchi, Davide Marenduzzo
https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16149

3D active nematic disclinations behave as Majorana quasiparticles
Quasiparticles are low-energy excitations with important roles in condensed matter physics. An intriguing example is provided by Majorana fermions, quasiparticles which are identical to their antiparticles. Despite being implicated in neutrino oscillations and topological superconductivity, their experimental realisations remain scarce. Here we propose a purely classical realisation of Majorana fermions, in terms of 3-dimensional disclination lines in active nematics. Activity is required to ov…

What Are the Long-run Trade-offs of Rent-Control Policies?
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - February 12, 2024
“Policymakers must balance maintaining affordability for those with rental housing, while possibly shrinking the stock of affordable housing for others, especially when such housing is already in short supply.”

What Are the Long-run Trade-offs of Rent-Control Policies?
While rent-control policies can mean more affordable housing for some, research shows they can also lead to a decline in the supply and quality of rental housing.

If only Netanyahu and his extremist government would dissappear, Israel would be safer and probably there would be room for better solutions for the big problems the country is facing.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-68331272

Tel Aviv protesters call on Netanyahu to resign
The Israeli prime minister's popularity has declined among Israelis after the 7 October Hamas attacks.

IOW, #Trump says America is a #shithole country...
Trump touts defeating immigration deal — says America has fallen into ‘cesspool of ruin’ - Alternet.org

Trump touts defeating immigration deal — says America has fallen into ‘cesspool of ruin’
CONWAY — Former President Donald Trump told thousands who gathered to see him Saturday that America has declined under President Joe Biden, but with their help, he could turn things around. “We are a nation that is no longer admired, respected or listened to on the world stage,” he said over swe...

A few things currently and credibly threaten to kill billions of people. This is not hyperbole. Runaway climate change, solar weather, a nuclear exchange, several others. Front page news occasionally reminds us of a few of these, but mostly it's about sick princesses, manufactured crises in USA congress, and other relative fluff. We bemoan the steep decline of the media business, but does a healthy one actually materially help us? We're swirling around the drain either way.

The National Assessment Governing Board has released a report on The COVID Generation's Future, and it's pretty bleak. They'll have lifetime earnings 6% less than non-impacted students, adding up to 600-900 billion dollars in unrealized earnings.
Beyond that, graduation rates are likely to decline and with that a host of other negative outcomes rise.
But "Covid is over" and states and the federal government have dried up any money for schools to provide reme…