@samvarma@fosstodon.org2026-08-26 15:49:14
@cdarwin@c.im2026-09-26 03:55:00
Oracle invoked a 'force majeure' notice
to protect itself from financial liability
and defer rent payments regarding Project Jupiter,
a massive 2.45-gigawatt AI data center campus in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, built to support OpenAI
The 1,400-acre site has faced local opposition and infrastructure hurdles,
including a denied permit for a planned natural-gas pipeline,
prompting a shift toward costly fuel cells from Bloom Energy.
The legal p…
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz2026-07-24 23:46:46
Some screencaps of the #Starship 13 test flight, more in the thread https://bsky.app/profile/cosmos4u.bsky.social/post/3mrgigiliy22r - the Starship itself has performed flawlessly so far, deploying 20 doomed Starlink satellites and relighting an engine, but the booster lit only 5 instead of 13 engines and crashed harder into the Gulf of Mexico than planned.
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2026-08-26 16:24:32
Just finished "Rialto" by Kate Milford. A wonderful book with a *lot* of things to like but also a few I wish had been done differently.
Starting with the good stuff, an #OwnVoices portrayal of anxiety depression is always welcome, *especially* one that portrays positive coping strategies, including active therapy, and complex but ultimately supportive family dynamics. Dad & daughter each reminding each other to use calming strategies at different points in the book was lovely, and getting to see the complexities of the trying to be a supportive sibling was great! Larger than that aspect, portraying a YA adventure in which the parents are actively involved but don't spoil things is so great and must have been difficult to pull off. Most YA stuff quickly ushers the parents out of the picture, and this fails to provide any kind of positive or negative role model for parent/child interaction. This book had ample examples of the former, *and* let the kids have plenty of agency too. Excellent stuff that I absolutely want to see more of.
So what didn't I like?
First, as an anarchist, I always hate to see unapologetically positive (and thus drastically unrealistic) portrayals of the police. Without getting into spoilers, even the stuff about the Piepowder court bothered me. It's presented here as a cutesy alternate court tradition, but I can't help but speculate that these courts were likely not always fair in practice, and the whole "single person makes immediate judgments model" from this book is terrible in general. I just don't like positive portrayals of terrible systems that happen to be good because the people involved are good people, since they reinforce harmful positive mental models of "justice" that don't apply to the real world. This element wasn't enough to totally spoil the book for me (the plot could have mostly functioned without it) but it's a downside to me.
Second, the book is set in rural Missouri, and has plenty of Black characters. Yay for representation? Certainly better than the cast being all-white given the setting. But the book doesn't have any Black *culture* that I picked up on, and it chooses to try to completely sidestep the relevant history. Maybe I'm just not attuned to elements that were there; if anyone who read this did see them feel free to point them out. The history definitely isn't there though... for example, was the park segregated, or not? During the time it was active one imagines most parks would have been, and that if it hadn't been that would have been a very important difference, which would even have been relevant to the plot and themes of the book as written.
Now perhaps this critique is unfair because Black children and young adults *should* get to see themselves portrayed in cozy fantasies without things always having to be about racism... In a choice between erasing Black characters and erasing racism (and especially racist histories) maybe there's no right answer here and this is fine, actually. My instinct tells me that there are ways to do better, though, and that presenting a history with all the racism carefully elided isn't the greatest compromise to make here.
A while ago I read "Under the Heron's Light" by Randi Pink. It also has mythical animal guides, a Southern setting, helpful family members, a multi-generational mystery to solve, and a (slightly older) teen protagonist who is up to the task. In contrast, it is all about racist history, and takes us through multiple extremely harrowing scenes from the past.
In any case, this discomfort also wasn't a deal-breaker for me, in part because, as I said, I think it's probably good for Black children to see uncomplicatedly positive representations of people like them alongside the plenty of stuff out there that does get deep into the racism and history. I also don't have the best perspective to judge this stuff, although that doesn't mean I should default to "it's probably fine" (I'd be happy to hear from anyone who feels they have a better perspective on this, about this book or the trend in general...).
Overall, I enjoyed Rialto quite a lot. I don't think it quite makes it into my top tier of recommendations for my kids, but I think it does make the list somewhere.
#AmReading #ReadingNow #Bookstodon
@Dragofix@veganism.social2026-08-06 02:20:33
Herby Potato Salad With Grainy Mustard Vinaigrette #plantbased
@lpryszcz@genomic.social2026-07-10 08:13:44
The biggest festival in Poland is happening soon, traditionally the entrance is free of charge and there is free of charge campsites.
Line-up is great, many stars from polish scene Godsmack and POD.
I've been twice, the atmosphere is amazing.
So it's really tempting to change my summer plans accordingly ;)
#best
@cdarwin@c.im2026-09-05 02:58:24
Trump is officially planning for a pay freeze on both base and locality pay for most civilian federal employees, citing fiscal responsibility and economic conditions.
The planned federal pay freeze makes an exception for federal law enforcement personnel,
who are expected to receive a 3.8% raise starting in January.
The larger raise for law enforcement is meant to improve recruitment and retention for “critical law enforcement roles,” (i.e ICE).
The federal pay raise…
@raiders@darktundra.xyz2026-08-06 09:37:18
Raiders Issued Compelling Message on Jaguars’ Brian Thomas Jr. https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/las-vegas-raiders/compelling-message-jaguars-brian-thomas-jr/
@Dragofix@veganism.social2026-06-30 12:46:52
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2026-08-24 16:43:51
The Short End of the Stick
---
"Well damn! Come see this one!"
"Another inhabited planet?"
"Yeah but they really got the short end of the stick..."
"Let me see... Oh wow, they thought synthetic text had intelligence?"
"Yeah, or that it was like a God or something. Classic mistake. But just a second, let me scroll..."
"Oh. Oh wow. That's really unlucky. They had a language model cult happen at the same time as they were burning fossil fuels? Talk about bad timing, but... Oh god."
"Yeah it gets worse!"
"Stockpiling nuclear weapons? They actually used them?!? All that at once? Jeez this is one of the worst eras I've ever seen. Almost like a species with a death wish."
"You know better than that."
"Okay yeah that's not a species problem, I know. But what the hell was the social structure like? How did they survive all that at once?"
"Let's see... Here."
"Oh. Oh shit this actually makes sense. All that stuff wasn't a coincidence, they got hit by a real big wave of nationalism & oligarchy, one right into the other. I didn't even know it could be that bad before the instability flipped things. They had institutions... Yeah they were basically kept down by a few generations of oligarchs; had them pretty much enslaved and worshipping money at the same time. Serious obedience conditioning. Religions were doing it too. Whew that must have been a shitty time. Only a couple of centuries of the worst of it at least. Wait scroll further, what happened?"
"See here, and then here."
"Oh huh. Yeah I guess that flip had been a long time coming. Wow I definitely take back my comment about a death wish, this species is awesome! They made it through all that, haha."
"Yeah pretty cool, huh? Fuck obedience conditioning."
"Yeah, they had it so bad for a minute there. Fuck that bullshit."
"Hey... Wanna go do an intervention? Find some place that's in the middle of that stuff right now and see what we can do?"
"I was just thinking the same thing! But y'know what? Let's stop by this place first, and see if any of them want to come along. I'll bet some of them would be up for it given their history!"
"Well, it's been a couple dozen generations, so you never know how they'll view the history now, but sure, let's do that. The whole point of history is to inspire action, right?"
#Microfiction