On Making Christmas Greener - Twelve top tips that the Internet gave to me - for a green Xmas... Have fun, save money, do the right thing by the planet - triple win! #greenXmas - https://m.earth.org.uk/note-on-…
Gotham FC are our 2025 CHAMPIONS! | Sports Are Fun! by Just Women's Sports
#nwsl
The topic has also highlighted the rise of “fictosexuality” and fan culture in Japan, where many young people form strong emotional connections with fictional characters.
Really funny how CNN set up this very fun interactive site to show how ranked-choice voting works, with lots of flavors in the mix, and after all is said and done, the two final contenders are…chocolate (51.4%) and Vanilla (48.6%). Almost like Rs and Ds.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2…
Day 28: Samira Ahmed
As foreshadowed, we're back to YA land, which represents a lot of what I've been enjoying from the library lately.
I've read "Hollow Fires", "This Book Won't Burn", and "Love, Hate, and other Filters" by Ahmed, along with "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know" which is quite different. All four are teen ~romances with interesting things to say about racism & growing up as a South Asian Muslim, but whereas the first three are set in small-town Indiana, the third is set in France and includes a historical fiction angle involving Dumas and a hypothetical Muslim woman who was (in this telling) the inspiration for several Lord Byron poems.
Ahmed's novels all include a strong and overt theme of social justice, and it's refreshing to see an author not try to wade around the topic or ignore it. Her romances are complex, with imperfect protagonists and endings that aren't always "happily ever after" although they're satisfying and believable.
My library has a plethora of similar authors I've been enjoying, including Adiba Jaigirdar (who appeared earlier in this list), Sabaa Tahir ("All my Rage" is fantastic but I'm less of a fan of her fantasy stuff), Sabina Khan ("The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali"), and Randa Abdel-Fattah ("Does My Head Look Big In This?"; from an earlier era). Ahmed gets the spot here because I really like her politics and the way she works them into her writing. Her characters are unapologetic advocates against things like book bans, and Ahmed doesn't second-guess them or try to make things more palatable for those who want to ban books (or whatever). Her historical fiction in "Mad..." is also really cool in terms of "huh that could actually totally be true" and grappling with literary sexism from ages past.
#30AuthorsNoMen
I think this is the first time I like a GitLab UI change. The "search or go to" field makes much more sense on the top of the page. And I can create a new issue from anywhere in a project. Still not a fan of issues opening in this weird sidebar thing (my browser has tabs and a back button..).
Roadmap: Emerging Platforms and Applications of Optical Frequency Combs and Dissipative Solitons
Dmitry Skryabin, Arne Kordts, Richard Zeltner, Ronald Holzwarth, Victor Torres-Company, Tobias Herr, Fuchuan Lei, Qi-Fan Yang, Camille-Sophie Br\`es, John F. Donegan, Hai-Zhong Weng, Delphine Marris-Morini, Adel Bousseksou, Markku Vainio, Thomas Bunel, Matteo Conforti, Arnaud Mussot, Erwan Lucas, Julien Fatome, Yuk Shan Cheng, Derryck T. Reid, Alessia Pasquazi, Marco Peccianti, M. Giudici, M. Marconi, A. Bartolo, N. Vigne, B. Chomet, A. Garnache, G. Beaudoin, I. Sagnes, Richard Burguete, Sarah Hammer, Jonathan Silver
https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.18231 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.18231 https://arxiv.org/html/2511.18231
arXiv:2511.18231v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The discovery of optical frequency combs (OFCs) has revolutionised science and technology by bridging electronics and photonics, driving major advances in precision measurements, atomic clocks, spectroscopy, telecommunications, and astronomy. However, current OFC systems still require further development to enable broader adoption in fields such as communication, aerospace, defence, and healthcare. There is a growing need for compact, portable OFCs that deliver high output power, robust self-referencing, and application-specific spectral coverage. On the conceptual side, progress toward such systems is hindered by an incomplete understanding of the fundamental principles governing OFC generation in emerging devices and materials, as well as evolving insights into the interplay between soliton and mode-locking effects. This roadmap presents the vision of a diverse group of academic and industry researchers and educators from Europe, along with their collaborators, on the current status and future directions of OFC science. It highlights a multidisciplinary approach that integrates novel physics, engineering innovation, and advanced researcher training. Topics include advances in soliton science as it relates to OFCs, the extension of OFC spectra into the visible and mid-infrared ranges, metrology applications and noise performance of integrated OFC sources, new fibre-based OFC modules, OFC lasers and OFC applications in astronomy.
toXiv_bot_toot
"I don't really look for specific types of projects any more. I'm not taking care of a career anymore. I'm just having fun acting."
—Kurt Russell
#acting #coaching #inspiration
I am really interested in the linked.art initiative, but I’m finding it hard to wrap my head around it. What strikes me as particularly odd:
* The types-of-types pattern, which creates JSON structures that are very unlike usual JSON properties.
* The AATization of everything, including things like language tags, for which perfectly fine native RDF patterns exist.
Has anyone worked with it? Are there good Getting Started guides?
After #Trump finally crashes and burns (I'm still saying I don't think he makes it to the mid terms, and I think it's more than possible he won't make it to the end of the year) we'll hear a lot of people say, "the system worked!" Today people are already talking about "saving democracy" by fighting back. This will become a big rally cry to vote (for Democrats, specifically), and the complete failure of the system will be held up as the best evidence for even greater investment in it.
I just want to point out that American democracy gave nuclear weapons to a pedophile, who, before being elected was already a well known sexual predator, and who made the campaign promise to commit genocide. He then preceded to commit genocide. And like, I don't care that he's "only" kidnaped and disappeared a few thousand brown people. That's still genocide. Even if you don't kill every member of a targeted group, any attempt to do so is still "committing genocide." Trump said he would commit genocide, then he hired all the "let's go do a race war" guys he could find and *paid* them to go do a race war. And, even now as this deranged monster is crashing out, he is still authorized to use the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
He committed genocide during his first term when his administration separated migrant parents and children, then adopted those children out to other parents. That's technically genocide. The point was to destroy the very people been sending right wing terror squads after.
There was a peaceful hand over of power to a known Russian asset *twice*, and the second time he'd already committed *at least one* act of genocide *and* destroyed cultural heritage sites (oh yeah, he also destroyed indigenous grave sites, in case you forgot, during his first term).
All of this was allowed because the system is set up to protect exactly these types of people, because *exactly* these types of people are *the entire power structure*.
Going back to that system means going back to exactly the system that gave nuclear weapons to a pedophile *TWICE*.
I'm already seeing the attempts to pull people back, the congratulations as we enter the final phase, the belief that getting Trump out will let us all get back to normal. Normal. The normal that lead here in the first place. I can already see the brunch reservations being made. When Trump is over, we will be told we won. We will be told that it's time to go back to sleep.
When they tell you everything worked, everything is better, that we can stop because we won, tell them "fuck you! Never again means never again." Destroy every system that ever gave these people power, that ever protected them from consequences, that ever let them hide what they were doing.
These democrats funded a genocide abroad and laid the groundwork for genocide at home. They protected these predators, for years. The whole power structure is guilty. As these files implicate so many powerful people, they're trying to shove everything back in the box. After all the suffering, after we've finally made it clear that we are the once with the power, only now they're willing to sacrifice Trump to calm us all down.
No, that's a good start but it can't be the end.
Winning can't be enough to quench that rage. Keep it burning. When this is over, let victory fan that anger until every institution that made this possible lies in ashes. Burn it all down and salt the earth. Taking down Trump is a great start, but it's not time to give up until this isn't possible again.
#USPol