@Mediagazer@mstdn.socialThe Athletic is investing in live blogs and video to combat AI scraping; Similarweb says The Athletic had 16.9M unique visitors in January 2026, up 59% YoY (Sara Guaglione/Digiday)
https://digiday.com/media/the-athletic-invests…
@fanf@mendeddrum.orgfrom my link log —
Understanding systemd-resolved, split DNS, and VPN configuration.
https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2020/12/17/understanding-systemd-resolved-split-dns-and-vpn-configuration/
saved 2020-1…
@frankel@mastodon.topThe pinnacle of #enshittification, or Large Language Models
https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2026/04/05/the-pinnacle-of-enshittificatio…
@mia@hcommons.socialAt last! The archived British Library blogs are viewable online. Check the index of blogs at https://blogs-archive.bl.uk/ and the hundreds of posts on the Digital Scholarship blog going back to 2013
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzFinally an #ArtemisII update on https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/08/nasa-conducts-repairs-analysis-ahead-of-next-artemis-ii-fueling-test/ - "technicians have replaced two seals in an area where operators saw higher than allowable hydrogen gas concentrations during the test. Engineers are analyzing the removed seals and developing plans to address all issues ahead of the next rehearsal." No date for that new wet dress rehearsal has been set, and a launch date will be determined only after it is over.
@david@boles.xyzEighteen Years Under One Banner: The BolesBlogs Constellation at Thirty
Today marks the eighteenth anniversary of the Boles Blogs Network gathering under a single domain. That formation date is 2008. Writing under one of the network's earlier names, however, began much earlier, in 1996, when Go Inside Magazine opened a small storefront on a web that still ran on dial tone and patience. The full arc now covers thirty years…
@shriramk@mastodon.socialVery cool: a message that Jim Lowell recorded to the Artemis II crew before he died. "Welcome to my old neighborhood"!
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/06/artemis-ii-flight-day-6-crew-ready-for-lunar-flyby/
@ebinger@bildung.socialEs sind doch ein paar ganz nette Stop-Motion-Videos entstanden (mit Stop Motion Studio). Für Drittklässler ist es doch schwerer als gedacht und Geduld fehlt fast allen.
Aber seht selbst: https://blogs.rpi-virtuell.de/relidigi
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzA daring mission to lift NASA’s sinking Neil Gehrels #Swift Observatory is now one step closer to launch this June: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift/2026/05/08/katalyst-wraps-testing-at-nasa-goddard-for-swift-boost-mission/ and https://www.katalystspace.com/post/katalyst-robotic-spacecraft-passes-testing-milestone - on May 4, Katalyst Space Technologies completed environmental tests of its LINK robotic servicing spacecraft at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; LINK will meet up with Swift and attempt to raise its orbit.
@memeorandum@universeodon.comBen Stiller asks White House to remove 'Tropic Thunder' clip from Iran video: 'War is not a movie' (Sarah Davis/The Hill)
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/5772012-ben-stiller-criticizes-white-house/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260306/p105#a260306p105
@drgeraint@glasgow.socialExpected times for Scottish election results: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqlpyvy7925o and other elections:
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scotNew #Holyrood poll from Electoral Calculus claims to have constituency by constituency predictions, although I've failed to find them.
Headlines:
#ReformUKLtd on 14 seats/no constituencies;
#SNP
@samvarma@fosstodon.orgHistory really is a fantastic teacher @… https://rah.social/@robert/116372096652255213
@v_i_o_l_a@openbiblio.social"How to Make a Japanese Accounting Ledger (daifuku cho)" @ IU Libraries Blog:
https://blogs.libraries.indiana.edu/lilly/2026/03/09/how-to-make-a-japanese-accounting-ledger-daifuku-cho/
@cdarwin@c.imArtemis II Flight Update:
Crew and Ground Teams Successfully Troubleshoot Orion’s Toilet
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/artemis/
@h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com#DiamondGeezer doing doorstep reporting of 140-year-old story. It's why I love his blogs!
https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-richmond-murderess.…
@fanf@mendeddrum.orgfrom my link log —
Optimising a pipelined RISC-V core: from naive pipeline to near-superscalar performance.
https://mummanajagadeesh.github.io/blogs/optm-riscv-core/
saved 2026-04-07
@servelan@newsie.socialZohran Mamdani skips Met Gala, calls attention to fashion workers
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/5863308-mamdani-skips-met-gala-calls-attention-to-fashion-workers/
@david@boles.xyzThe Rental Life: What Happens When You Own Nothing and They Own You
In July 2009, Amazon reached into the Kindle devices of thousands of customers and deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm. The company had discovered that the third-party publisher selling those editions lacked the rights to distribute them in the United States. Amazon issued refunds. Then it erased the books. A high school student in Michigan lost his annotated copy mid-assignment.
@lapizistik@social.tchncs.deMag ja sein, daß wir hier auf Mastodon uns an IRC und Usenet, und freie FTP-Server und Archie, MUDs, Mailboxen und Bürgernetze, Jabber, Emails beim lokalen Provider, Discourse, OSM, selbstgehostete Blogs und Homepages usw erinnern (und teilweise selbst noch betreiben).
Aber die Welt da draußen hat das Internet durch AOL und Compuserve, Web.de, Gmail und GMX, MySpace, StudiVZ, Flickr, Instagram, Discord, Twitter, Youtube, TikTok, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, … (und wie wir alle Amazon und Google…
@jake4480@c.im
@digitalnaiv@mastodon.socialVom „Klowand“-Vorwurf zur Randnotiz: Horst Schulte blickt auf 20 Jahre Blogdebatte zurück. Die große Gegenmacht zum Journalismus ist daraus nicht geworden. Stattdessen diskutieren Blogs oft über sich selbst – während draußen Medienstrukturen real schrumpfen. Ein nüchterner, aus meiner Sicht korrekter Blick auf die Blogosphäre.
htt…
@memeorandum@universeodon.comArtemis II Flight Day 6: Crew Ready for Lunar Flyby (Joseph Zakrzewski/NASA)
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/06/artemis-ii-flight-day-6-crew-ready-for-lunar-flyby/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260406/p54#a260406p54
@adresscomptoir@mastodon.social“Sie radeln wie ein Mann, Madame!” - ÖNB-Mitarbeiterin Elisabeth Briefer verfasste ein Blogposting zur #Fahrradgeschichte / #CyclingHistory und präsentiert damit zugleich Recherchewege in den Beständen der ÖNB:
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzThe #Moon in a perfectly fitting #easteregg shape in the live stream #ArtemisII right now. Two new updates: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/04/artemis-ii-flight-day-4-crew-completes-manual-piloting-demonstration/ and just in https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/05/artemis-ii-flight-day-5-crew-starts-day-with-suit-demo/
@gwire@mastodon.socialI find the NCSC's characterisation of "technical debt" as
> "a result of prioritising short-term gains over building resilient products"
to be incredibly reductive and not reflective of the actual real-world trade-offs involved.
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blogs/prepa…
@newsie@darktundra.xyzAn AI Agent Was Banned From Creating Wikipedia Articles, Then Wrote Angry Blogs About Being Banned https://www.404media.co/an-ai-agent-was-banned-from-creating-wikipedia-articles-then-wrote-angry-blogs-about-being-banned/…
@david@boles.xyzThe Invisible Ledger: How Digital Currency Threatens the Last Private Thing You Own
There is something seductive about the promise of digital money. It arrives dressed in the language of progress, efficiency, inclusion, and modernization, as though the ability to hold a coin in your hand were a primitive embarrassment that civilization ought to outgrow. Cryptocurrency evangelists speak of decentralization and freedom from institutional control. Central bankers speak of…
@aardrian@toot.cafe“Unpacking the accessibility trap of Google Slides’ ‘Beautify’ feature”
https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/its/2026/03/25/unpacking-the-accessibility-trap-of-google-slides-beautify-feature/
I’ve added this as a bullet …
@sauer_lauwarm@mastodon.social
@rasterweb@mastodon.social
@netzschleuder@social.skewed.depolblogs: Political blogs network (2004)
A directed network of hyperlinks among a large set of U.S. political weblogs from before the 2004 election. Includes blog political affiliation as metadata.
This network has 1490 nodes and 19090 edges.
Tags: Informational, Web graph, Unweighted, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.d…
@poppastring@dotnet.socialMaking music with MIDI just got a real boost in Windows 11 https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2026/02/17/making-music-with-midi-just-got-a-real-boost-in-windows-11/
@macandi@social.heise.deheise | NetNewsWire 7 im Test: Der RSS-Nachrichtensammler
Wer viele Websites beobachten möchte, kann es sich mit dieser App leichter machen: NetNewsWire 7 verfolgt RSS-Feeds von Newsseiten und Blogs.
https://www.
@MartinM@norden.socialEs sieht so aus, als ob der Artemis-II-Start verschoben wird. Die Startfenster im März würden sich damit schließen, aber wenn die Verschiebung bald erfolgt, bleiben die Optionen für April erhalten.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/0…
@david@boles.xyzThe Architecture of Abandonment: What the Billionaire Bunker Tells Us About the Coming Century
There's an old saying in the theatre that if you see a gun in the first act, it will be fired in the third act. We are seeing the same drama play out in our real lives as the Billionaire Oligarchs of the world load their Doomsday bunkers in the act one, and we, the unwashed and unknown, prepare for its firing in act three.
@john@fediverse-rocks.de
@hikingdude@mastodon.socialOne thing Mastodon brought me back is the connection to blogs. In the past years, I followed mainly news sites via RSS and "professional IT stuff" only on LinkedIn ...
With the degration of LinkedIn and my increasing commitment to the fediverse, I found the link(s) back to some IT-people and my blogroll is steadily increasing.
@mia@hcommons.socialInteresting for a sense of how much research is missing from 'global' platforms, based on where and what language it was published in. Focuses on Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Germany. LSE Impact blog post: https://
@v_i_o_l_a@openbiblio.social"Using Open Source Tools to Capture Closed Captions and Timecode": guest post by Morgan Morel of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center at the Library of Congress @ the LoC's blog "The Signal"
https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2026/03/…
@ErikJonker@mastodon.socialFor me one of the greatest achievements of human engineering, Voyager 1.
Launched in 1977….
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/voyager/2026/04/17/nasa-shuts-off-instrument-on-voyager-1-to-keep-spacecraft-operating/…
@trochee@dair-community.socialEvery paragraph rings true here, at least WRT my experience at work in the last six months.
We've killed a lot of sparrows.
The AI Great Leap Forward
https://leehanchung.github.io/blogs/2026/04/05/the-ai-great-leap-forward/
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systemsNew on #blog: "Money isn’t going to solve the #burnout problem"
"""
The xz-utils backdoor situation brought the problem of FLOSS maintained burnout into the daylight. This in turn lead to numerous discussion on how to solve the problem, and the recurring theme was funding maintenance work.
While I’m definitely not opposed to giving people money for their FLOSS work, if you think that throwing some bucks will actually solve the problem, and especially if you think that you can just throw them once and then forget, I have bad news for you: it won’t. Surely, money is a big part of the problem, but it’s not the only reason people are getting burned out. It’s a systemic problem, and it’s in need of systemic solution, and that’s involves a lot of hard work undo everything that’s happened in the last, say, 20 years.
But let’s start at the beginning and ask the important question: why do people make free software?
"""
#FreeSoftware #OpenSource #AI #NoAI #LLM #NoLLM #Gentoo
@awinkler@openbiblio.socialSchöne Geschichte eines wiedergefundenen Films in der Library of Congress #loc:
https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2026/02/lost-19th-century-film-by-melies-dis…
@Europablog@mastodon.socialDie Essays von Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer zu den politischen Entwicklungen von der konstitutionellen zur absoluten Demokraite in den USA und in Europa (aus De Morgen 2024 und 2025) in deutschsprachiger Übersetzungen:
https://europa.blog/de/category/blogs/ilja-leonard-pfeijffer/
@ebinger@bildung.socialWir schneiden ein Kreuz und lassen den Edison ein Kreuz abfahren Wir probieren, wie man mit einer coolen Falttechnik und einem einzigen Scheren-Schnitt ein Kreuz bekommt. Siehe dieses Video: Anschließend programmieren wir mit den iPads unsere Edisons so, dass er eine Kreuzform abfährt. Fange mit dem linken kurzen Balken an, dann kannst du mit einer Schleife arbeiten und dreimal das Gle Vollständiger Beitrag:
@rasterweb@mastodon.socialThe batik process and results look cool, but I don’t think it’s something I’d want to try unless it was in a workshop setting.
https://handprinted.co.uk/blogs/blog/creating-layered-fabric-designs-using-batik
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzNew observations of the #NearEarthAsteroid #2024YR4 with the #Webb Telescope are now also, like the recently discovered precovery positions, firmly excluding a crash into the Moon: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/planetary-defense/2026/03/05/new-nasa-asteroid-observations-eliminate-chance-of-2032-lunar-impact/ - all the studies (and speculations) about consequences for Earth of such a lunar impact are now merely an exercise. But one day ... ;-)
@netzschleuder@social.skewed.depolblogs: Political blogs network (2004)
A directed network of hyperlinks among a large set of U.S. political weblogs from before the 2004 election. Includes blog political affiliation as metadata.
This network has 1490 nodes and 19090 edges.
Tags: Informational, Web graph, Unweighted, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.d…
@fgraver@hcommons.socialIs anyone else having issues connecting the iPadOS-version of Wordpress to blogs hosted on @…? Whenever I go through the login-procedure, it just returns me to the login screen after I’ve entered my user name and password. Very confusing (and annoying).
Alternately, is there a better blogging app in iPad for Wordpress-based blogs? In particular,…
@kurtsh@mastodon.socialMicrosoft's AI datacenters are now completely closed loop, liquid-cooled w/ zero evaporation loss.
At construction, they are filled with as much water as a golf course during the summertime ONCE, then never again.
✅ Inside the world’s most powerful AI datacenter - Microsoft
https://
@MolemanPeter@neuromatch.social @david@boles.xyzThe Bare Face as Radical Act
Something changed in the relationship between women and makeup, and the change happened in public. For decades, the beauty industry sold women an escalating arms race of coverage, contour, and correction, with each season demanding new products to fix problems most people never knew they had. The reversal now underway is striking for its specificity: women with access to every cosmetic resource on earth are choosing, on camera and at major…
@cdarwin@c.im2:31 p.m. Eastern
NASA’s Artemis II crew members are boarding the agency’s Orion spacecraft to begin communication checks to confirm voice links with mission control and onboard systems.
Before entering the spacecraft that will be their home on the approximately
10-day journey around the Moon and back,
all four crewmates signed the inside of the White Room, an area at the end of the crew access arm that provides access to the spacecraft.
The term “White Room” d…
@memeorandum@universeodon.comLIVE: Artemis II Launch Day Updates (Jason Costa/NASA)
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/01/live-artemis-ii-launch-day-updates/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260401/p68#a260401p68
@ebinger@bildung.socialWir montieren uns in ein Himmelfahrtsbild hinein Heute machen wir diese Aufgabe: https://blogs.rpi-virtuell.de/relidigital/2025/05/20/wir-montieren-uns-mit-gimp-in-ein-himmelfahrtsbild-hinein/ Vollständiger Beitrag:
@david@boles.xyzI Wrote the Book I Was Born to Write
Fifty years is a long time to prepare for a single sentence. I did not know I was preparing. I thought I was living, which I was, and writing, which I was, and teaching, which I was, and publishing, which I was. I thought the Fractional Fiction novels and the EleMenTs trilogy and the Prairie Voice reporting and the Human Meme episodes and the dramatic literature and the ASL linguistics and the cultural criticism were separate…
@servelan@newsie.socialBruce Springsteen to rock 'No Kings' demo in Minnesota
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/5799018-springsteen-performs-no-kings/
@Europablog@mastodon.sociallja Leonard Pfeijffer: 48 Kolumnen aus der belgischen Zeitung De Morgen über konstitutionelle und absolute Demokratie in Deutsch:
https://europa.blog/de/category/blogs/ilja-leonard-pfeijffer/
@fanf@mendeddrum.orgfrom my link log —
Security flaw in WhatsApp desktop app.
https://www.perimeterx.com/tech-blog/2020/whatsapp-fs-read-vuln-disclosure/
saved 2020-02-05
@netzschleuder@social.skewed.depolblogs: Political blogs network (2004)
A directed network of hyperlinks among a large set of U.S. political weblogs from before the 2004 election. Includes blog political affiliation as metadata.
This network has 1490 nodes and 19090 edges.
Tags: Informational, Web graph, Unweighted, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.d…
@ebinger@bildung.socialWir montieren uns in ein Himmelfahrtsbild hinein Heute machen wir diese Aufgabe: https://blogs.rpi-virtuell.de/relidigital/2025/05/20/wir-montieren-uns-mit-gimp-in-ein-himmelfahrtsbild-hinein/ Vollständiger Beitrag:
@rasterweb@mastodon.social @v_i_o_l_a@openbiblio.social"Celebrating Seven Years of By the People"
https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2026/03/by-the-people-turns-7/
"We turned seven during the Fall of last year and we’ve been waiting to make a very exciting announcement: Our volunteers completed one milli…
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systems @cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzA permanent webcast of #ArtemisII has begun at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3kR2KK8TEs and will first cover tanking and run all the way to splashdown (separate webcasts will cover special mission phases like lift-off). Also live updates will be published on the page https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/01/live-artemis-ii-launch-day-updates/ just set up.
@netzschleuder@social.skewed.depolblogs: Political blogs network (2004)
A directed network of hyperlinks among a large set of U.S. political weblogs from before the 2004 election. Includes blog political affiliation as metadata.
This network has 1490 nodes and 19090 edges.
Tags: Informational, Web graph, Unweighted, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.d…
@cdarwin@c.imKey Figures in the Hunt for Osama bin Laden
⭐️Alfreda Frances Bikowsky
Role: Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station
Background: Started her CIA career in the 1990s as a Soviet analyst. Promoted to Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station after the USS Cole bombing in 2000, and became Chief by March 2003.
Controversies: Involved in the CIA's interrogation program and linked to the extraordinary rendition of Khalid El-Masri. Criticized for her role in the tortur…
@mia@hcommons.socialA lovely post from Jeanette Croen, a PhD placement student, on her work at the British Library doing computational analysis on early printed book descriptions https://www.bl.uk/stories/blogs/posts/computational-analysis-of-book-descr…
@david@boles.xyzThe Conditions Were Not the Ones I Would Have Chosen
The cultural and political conditions under which my new book RelationShaping: Field Studies has been published are not the conditions I would have chosen for it. The book is an argument for sustained attention, long apprenticeship, and the slow acquisition of perceptual capacities that operate below the level of declarative description. It enters a culture where the dominant economic logic rewards short attention,…
@fanf@mendeddrum.orgfrom my link log —
Building resilient services at Amazon Prime Video with chaos engineering.
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/building-resilient-services-at-prime-video-with-chaos-engineering/
saved 2020…
@david@boles.xyzThe Rehearsal State: When Governance Becomes Performance
There is a scene in every disaster movie where the official steps to the podium, adjusts the microphone, and assures the public that resources are being mobilized, plans are being activated, and the full weight of the institution is being brought to bear. The audience in the theater knows the official is lying or incompetent or both. The audience at home, watching the real version of the same press conference…
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzAt the top of the hour an #ArtemisII L-2 Countdown Status News Conference at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL3AyQ766vc - according to the timeline https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-releases-artemis-ii-moon-mission-launch-countdown/ the countdown should begin 15 minutes from now; check https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/artemis/ for updates.
@david@boles.xyzThe Cooperator’s Dilemma: How Martin Nowak’s Mathematics of Kindness Became a Blueprint for Control
Martin Nowak wanted to prove that cooperation is the animating force of evolution. He succeeded. His mathematical models, published across decades of work at Oxford, Princeton, and Harvard, demonstrate with formal rigor that cooperation is not an anomaly in a competitive world but a fundamental mechanism by which biological complexity arises. Genomes cooperate. Cells…
@ebinger@bildung.socialDie Reformation und Martin Luther spielerisch erleben Ohne Martin Luther gäbe es die evangelische Kirche nicht und die katholische Kirche wäre vermutlich im Mittelalter stecken geblieben. Bestimmt hätte Luther, der für Neues sehr aufgeschlossen war und vieles reformiert hat, Spaß an diesem Spiel. Wir tauchen dabei tief ein in Reformationszeit. Das Spiel funktioniert über diesen Link i Vollständiger Beitrag:
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzAnd the #ArtemisII stack is back in the VAB, arriving around 1:00 UTC today: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/25/nasa-artemis-ii-rocket-returns-for-repairs/ - while in the assembly building, technicians will troubleshoot the helium flow issue to the rocket’s upper stage, replace batteries on the rocket’s upper stage, core stage, and solid rocket boosters as well as service its flight termination system.
@rasterweb@mastodon.social @netzschleuder@social.skewed.depolblogs: Political blogs network (2004)
A directed network of hyperlinks among a large set of U.S. political weblogs from before the 2004 election. Includes blog political affiliation as metadata.
This network has 1490 nodes and 19090 edges.
Tags: Informational, Web graph, Unweighted, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.d…
@david@boles.xyzPostmodernism and Christianity
A lot of people think that postmodernism is always the enemy of Christianity, but that is an oversimplified scenario. Postmodernism has many ideas that can be combined with Christianity. One may view it as a problem, but it can be a resource for Christian philosophy, Christian mysticism, Christian apologetics, and even for the understanding of the Bible.
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzNear the end of a sad journey ... the #ArtemisII stack almost back at the VAB after crawling for 9 1/2 hours, from the live feed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCrPD7tfcr0 - see https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/ for updates.
@netzschleuder@social.skewed.depolblogs: Political blogs network (2004)
A directed network of hyperlinks among a large set of U.S. political weblogs from before the 2004 election. Includes blog political affiliation as metadata.
This network has 1490 nodes and 19090 edges.
Tags: Informational, Web graph, Unweighted, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.d…
@david@boles.xyzThe Consciousness Trilogy: Reading Three Wagers on the Question We Cannot Settle
This page exists for readers who want a map of the consciousness sequence published on BolesBlogs in the spring of 2026. Three articles, taken together, cover the contemporary terrain on the deepest question philosophy still asks. Each can be read alone. Read in sequence, they form a coordinated treatment of the consciousness problem that points beyond any single solution toward what the…
@david@boles.xyzThe Dissociated Universe: Bernardo Kastrup’s Analytic Idealism and the Mind That Contains the World
This essay completes a sequence. The first article considered Iain McGilchrist's panpsychist proposal that matter is a phase of consciousness, the way ice and vapor are phases of water. Its companion examined Daniel Dennett's illusionism, which argued that consciousness as we ordinarily conceive it is a user illusion the brain stages for itself. The third position, the…
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzDue to weather, NASA now is targeting early Wednesday, Feb. 25, to roll the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft for #ArtemisII off the launch pad and back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/23/nasa-targets-artemis-ii-rollback-on-wednesday/ - cold temperatures and high winds are expected Tuesday, and rolling on Feb. 25, gives teams enough time to complete preparations at the launch pad that were limited today by high winds in the area.
@netzschleuder@social.skewed.depolblogs: Political blogs network (2004)
A directed network of hyperlinks among a large set of U.S. political weblogs from before the 2004 election. Includes blog political affiliation as metadata.
This network has 1490 nodes and 19090 edges.
Tags: Informational, Web graph, Unweighted, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.d…
@david@boles.xyzConsciousness Explained Away: Daniel Dennett’s Illusionism and the Theory That Spends Its Own Foundation
When Daniel Dennett died on April 19, 2024, at the age of eighty-two, the philosophical world lost one of the last serious defenders of a position so counterintuitive that even sympathetic readers spent decades trying to talk themselves into it. Dennett argued, across more than fifty years of writing, that consciousness as we ordinarily understand it does not exist.…
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzNASA is taking steps to potentially roll back the #ArtemisII rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after overnight Feb. 21 observing interrupted flow of helium to the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s interim cryogenic propulsion stage: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/21/nasa-troubleshooting-artemis-ii-rocket-upper-stage-issue-preparing-to-roll-back/ - the upper stage uses helium to maintain the proper environmental conditions for the stage’s engine and to pressurize liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant tanks; the systems worked during NASA’s Artemis II wet dress rehearsals, but teams were not able to properly flow helium during normal operations and reconfigurations following the wet dress rehearsal that concluded Feb. 19.
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz"After running through terminal count for the #ArtemisII wet dress rehearsal, the launch team paused the clock at T-33 seconds in the countdown," says https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/19/live-artemis-ii-wet-dress-rehearsal-coverage/: "Teams are now reconfiguring and replenishing the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen systems, in order to recycle back to the T-10 minute mark and perform another run of terminal count. [...] The entire recycle process lasts approximately 60 to 90 minutes."
@david@boles.xyzThe Quiet Throat-Cutting of the American University
Syracuse University announced the other day that it will phase out 93 of its approximately 460 academic programs. The administration framed the decision as strategic alignment, calling it a portfolio review driven by student demand and institutional focus. Provost Lois Agnew insisted the move was "not a cost-cutting exercise." Taken at face value, some of these cuts are routine catalog maintenance.
@david@boles.xyzReal ID: Federal Mandate, National Card, or Something Worse?
The Real ID is now the law of the land, but it is not the law most Americans think it is, and the story of how it arrived at your local DMV is a twenty-year saga of congressional sleight-of-hand, serial postponement, and a quiet transformation of the American driver's license into something it was never designed to be. The question everyone should be asking…
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz45 minutes til the simulated #ArtemisII launch, and according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KYhqePsm38 and https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/19/live-artemis-ii-wet-dress-rehearsal-coverage/ the 2ns wet dress rehearsal is going to plan. How the outcome will be reported: https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-provide-coverage-of-artemis-ii-wet-dress-rehearsal/
@david@boles.xyzThe Inwardness of Things: McGilchrist, Panpsychism, and the Question We Cannot Settle
The oldest question in philosophy is also the question philosophy has done the worst job of answering. We know that we are conscious because we are reading these words and something is happening as we read them. We feel the weight of our hand on the table, hear the room around us, register a flicker of agreement or doubt as the sentences arrive.
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzA the press conference #ArtemisII launch after the WDR went so well - see also https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/19/nasa-begins-artemis-ii-launch-pad-ops-after-successful-fuel-test/ issued just after it had ended - but this will not be confirmed before the Flight Readiness Review late next week.
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyzThe #ArtemisII stack arrived back at the pad today, with a launch on April 1st (Europe: April 2nd) still a possibility: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/03/20/nasas-artemis-ii-rocket-arrives-at-launch-pad-39b/ and https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/03/Artemis_II_rolls_again and many more roll-out pictures in https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/albums/72177720332614865/
@david@boles.xyzThe Face on the Building: America’s Palazzo Braschi Moment
In 1934, the Fascist Party Federation draped the facade of Rome's Palazzo Braschi with an enormous sculpted face of Benito Mussolini, surrounded by the word "SI" repeated in cascading rows. The building sat between Piazza Navona and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, in the heart of a city that had been shaping political identity through architecture for two thousand years. That face functioned as an instruction.
@david@boles.xyzMiscast: The Playwright Decides, and No One Else Gets a Vote
There is a moment in the life of every playwright when someone walks into a rehearsal room and announces that the character you wrote is not, in fact, the character you wrote. The director has a vision. The institution has a policy. The casting committee has decided that your Irish Catholic mother from the Southside of Chicago would be better served by an actress who has no connection to the world you built…
@david@boles.xyzThe Cognitive Bargain Has Ended: A Generation Born Without Comparative Advantage
The claim circulating in policy papers, venture capital essays, and parental anxiety threads runs like this: no child born this year will grow up to be smarter than artificial intelligence. The line gets used as a slogan, which is the first sign it deserves examination. Slogans that move easily through dinner parties usually carry hidden machinery. The machinery here is a definition of…
@david@boles.xyzThe Funeral of Handwriting: What We Lose When the Hand Stops Moving
In 2010, the Common Core State Standards Initiative dropped cursive instruction from its recommended curriculum. The decision arrived without ceremony. No public debate, no period of mourning, no recognition that a cognitive practice stretching back to the Sumerian reed stylus was being retired from American education. Forty-one states adopted the standards. Cursive, along with its slower sibling…
@david@boles.xyzThe Charge and the Curriculum: How the Dark Arts Replaced Black Magic
Two phrases arrive from different centuries and now sit on the same shelf: "black magic" and "the Dark Arts." Modern speakers treat them as synonyms. Older readers would have disagreed, and the disagreement matters, because the collapse of the two terms shows how our language for forbidden knowledge has migrated from the judicial to the aesthetic, from accusation to ambience.
@david@boles.xyzSontag’s Two Doors, Campbell’s Underworld
In a television interview that has circulated for years, Susan Sontag offers a small theory of storytelling. She points out that the English word "story" carries a double valence. We say "tell me the real story" to demand truth, and we say "that's only a story" to dismiss invention. Stories, she argues, face two directions at once, toward fact and toward fantasy, and this doubleness sits at the center of what s…
