Tootfinder

Meta builds giant datacenter in rural Louisiana. Utility to add 2.3 GW of gas turbines to power it, if they can source the turbines in a sold-out global market.
And just to be sure, the Louisiana Legislature passed a new law that adds natural gas to the definition of green energy...
Climate anyone?
http…

Meta is sinking $10 billion into rural Louisiana to build the home of its wildest AI aspirations, setting the template for the nation’s grid buildout
The massive data center buildout is underway, requiring massive amounts of new power and, increasingly, more fossil fuels and gas plants.

Spain wildfires: Decades of rural decline made the blazes worse, but local economies can prevent further destruction https://phys.org/news/2025-08-spain-wildfires-decades-rural-decline.html

Spain wildfires: Decades of rural decline made the blazes worse, but local economies can prevent further destruction
Every summer, forest fires sweep across Spain, dominating headlines and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. This year's have been especially harsh, with devastating fires thus far in Tarifa, Zamora, the Madrid area, Galicia and Extremadura, while the UNESCO-listed natural park of Las Médulas, in León, has been completely wiped out.

Exploring the potential resource integration under passenger-freight shared mobility: collaborative optimization of multi-type bus scheduling and dynamic vehicle capacity allocation for urban-rural bus routes
Jiabin Wu, Zijian Huang, Linhong Wang, Yiming Bie, Yuting Ji, Jun Gong
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.20017

Exploring the potential resource integration under passenger-freight shared mobility: collaborative optimization of multi-type bus scheduling and dynamic vehicle capacity allocation for urban-rural bus routes
Under the global background of developing urban-rural travel patterns, traditional urban-rural public transport systems are generally faced with the serious challenges of passenger loss and operating deficit, leading to a reduction in the bus frequency and service reliability. In order to break the vicious circle of demand decline-supply shrinkage, passenger-freight shared mobility (PFSM), an innovative operation mode, can achieve synergies between urban-rural logistics and public transport ser…

As pesticide leaches into residents’ wells
EPA said grant to provide clean water was a ‘wasteful DEI program’
White House rescinds $20m for clean water in pesticide-contaminated rural California
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j

Another #hiking story is online! No mountains this time but along the shores of the river #Mangfall .
Tough to photograph on such a day. In autumn - with some fog - it must be great. But we really had a great day there!
See more of it:

Rural Masterminds - Bush Inspiration
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: #GreatAusPods

ugandan_village: Ugandan village networks (2013)
Complete friendship and health advice social networks among households in 17 rural villages bordering Lake Victoria in Mayuge District, Uganda in 2013. Nodes are households and edges represent either a close friendship or a trusted health advisor connection, obtained via a name generator questionnaire.
This network has 139 nodes and 709 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Multilayer

I recently briefly heard about the Indian rural telephone exchanges (RAX), which appear to go back all the way to electromechanical switches. They (C-DOT) even built a V5.2 Access Network called AN-RAX. Started to collect some documents at https://osmocom.org/projects/retronetwork…

Invisible Labor, Visible Barriers: The Socioeconomic Realities of Women's Work in Pakistan
Sana Khalil, Angela Warner
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16664 https://

Invisible Labor, Visible Barriers: The Socioeconomic Realities of Women's Work in Pakistan
We provide a short note on the barriers shaping womens economic opportunities in Pakistan, where female labor force participation remains among the lowest in the world. Recent labor force surveys (2020-21) show a sharp rural-urban divide: rural womens participation is 28 percent compared to 69 percent for rural men, while urban womens participation is 10 percent compared to 66 percent for urban men. Unemployment is higher for women in both rural (7 percent) and urban (16 percent) areas than for…

Three Rural VA Health Clinics Close Due To Megabill - Joe.My.God.
https://www.joemygod.com/2025/09/three-rural-va-health-clinics-close-due-to-megabill/

After News Media Corporation announced the closure of 31 outlets in five states on August 6, a publishing group bought 8 papers in WY and another bought 4 in SD (Sarah Raza/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/rural-newsp…

Closed newspapers in Wyoming and South Dakota are saved as buyers swoop in
A dozen newspapers in Wyoming and South Dakota are set to publish again after buyers stepped in to keep the communities from becoming news deserts where little or no local media remains. This quick action is notable in an industry where, according to a 2024 report from the Medill School of Journalism, more than two newspapers close each week. Illinois-based News Media Corporation had announced the closure of 31 outlets in five states. Within two weeks, new buyers in Wyoming and North Carolina p…

"Light pollution causes urban birds to stay awake longer each day, study finds"
#LightPollution #Birds

Burlington publishes a PDF of both sides of the foldable cycling route map (same one given away at community centres and street events) - it was last updated in 2022.
* #BikeTooter #OnPoli

♨️ A geothermal network in Colorado could help a rural town diversify its economy
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/a-geothermal-network-in-colorado-could-help-a-rural-town-diversify-its-economy/

A geothermal network in Colorado could help a rural town diversify its economy
Town pitches companies to take advantage of “reliable, cost-effective heating and cooling.”…

ugandan_village: Ugandan village networks (2013)
Complete friendship and health advice social networks among households in 17 rural villages bordering Lake Victoria in Mayuge District, Uganda in 2013. Nodes are households and edges represent either a close friendship or a trusted health advisor connection, obtained via a name generator questionnaire.
This network has 121 nodes and 577 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Multilayer

Now starting up Wolf Man. Definitely won't finish this til next week, but wanted to get it started.
#horror #2025Movies

Wolf Man (2025)
With his marriage fraying, Blake persuades his wife Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit his remote childhood home in rural Oregon. As they arrive at the farmhouse in the dead of night, they're attacked by an unseen animal and barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. But as the night stretches on, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable.

A Fault-Tolerant Architecture for Urban and Rural Digital Connectivity: Synergizing SDWMN, Direct-to-Mobile Broadcasting, and Hybrid Cloud Streaming
Pavel Malinovskiy
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14205

A Fault-Tolerant Architecture for Urban and Rural Digital Connectivity: Synergizing SDWMN, Direct-to-Mobile Broadcasting, and Hybrid Cloud Streaming
We propose an integrated architecture combining Software-Defined Wireless Mesh Networks (SDWMN), Direct-to-Mobile (D2M) broadcasting, and Kafka-based hybrid cloud streaming to improve wireless network performance in both urban and rural settings. The approach addresses urban congestion and rural digital exclusion through traffic offloading, enhanced fault tolerance, and equitable resource allocation. We model urban congestion $ρ_u = λ_t / μ_c$ and rural coverage deficit $δ_r = 1 - C_r / C_{…

The president thinks his rule is absolute.
But in America, we don’t have kings,
and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.
Grow our movement and join us.
📍 Where: Alameda Park,
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
When: 12 Noon, October 18, 2025
The rally at Alameda Park will be followed by a march to De La Guerra Plaza.
More details on the rally and march will follow.

NO KINGS Santa Barbara · No Kings
**In America, we don’t put up with would-be kings.** Our peaceful movement is only getting bigger and stronger. “NO KINGS” is more than just a slogan—it’s the foundation our nation was built upon. Born in the streets, carried by millions in chants and on posters, it echoes from city blocks to rural town squares, uniting people across this country to fight dictatorship together. The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings, and we won’t back down…

The #CPB cuts are likely to be the first obvious impacts to rural communities - the Medicaid, etc cuts will probably take longer to impact the rural areas. It's a painful way for voters to discover how much the Federal budget provided critical services to them, and that perhaps they are not as self-sufficient as they thought.
This is just the first in a chain of unpleasant hits to rural life,…

The #CPB cuts are likely to be the first obvious impacts to rural communities - the Medicaid, etc cuts will probably take longer to impact the rural areas. It's a painful way for voters to discover how much the Federal budget provided critical services to them, and that perhaps they are not as self-sufficient as they thought.
This is just the first in a chain of unpleasant hits to rural life,…

Another bloody SovCit 🤬
#Australia

Porepunkah shooting live updates: Two police officers killed in rural Victoria as search for shooter continues
The public is being asked to avoid the scene, which has been described as an "active and ongoing incident which may present a significant risk to members of the public".

Light pollution causes urban birds to stay awake longer each day, study finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/21/light-pollution-causes-urban-birds-to-stay-awake-longer-each-day-study-finds…

Scotland, it seems, does not like the #OnlineSafetyAct. I've long been interested in opinion maps on which the England/Scotland border is clearly defined, but this one surprises even me.
#ScotPol

Optimal Coordination of Local Flexibility from Electric Vehicles with Social Impact Consideration
Si Chen, Benoit Couraud, Sonam Norbu, Merlinda Andoni, Zafar Iqbal, Sasa Djokic, Desen Kirli, Satria Putra Kanugrahan, Paolo Cherubini, Susan Krumdieck, Valentin Robu, David Flynn
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16814…

Optimal Coordination of Local Flexibility from Electric Vehicles with Social Impact Consideration
The integration of renewable energy sources (RES) and the convergence of transport electrification, creates a significant challenge for distribution network management e.g. voltage and frequency violations, particularly in rural and remote areas. This paper investigates how smart charging of electric vehicles (EVs) can help reduce renewable energy curtailment and alleviate stress on local distribution networks. We implement a customised AC Optimal Power Flow (AC OPF) formulation which integrate…

Arc Routing Problems with Multiple Trucks and Drones: A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm
Abhay Sobhanan, Hadi Charkhgard, Changhyun Kwon
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18105 https://…

Arc Routing Problems with Multiple Trucks and Drones: A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm
Arc-routing problems underpin numerous critical field operations, including power-line inspection, urban police patrolling, and traffic monitoring. In this domain, the Rural Postman Problem (RPP) is a fundamental variant in which a prescribed subset of edges or arcs in a network must be traversed. This paper investigates a generalized form of the RPP, called RPP-mTD, which involves a fleet of multiple trucks, each carrying multiple drones. The trucks act as mobile depots traversing a road netwo…

Artificial Intelligence in Rural Healthcare Delivery: Bridging Gaps and Enhancing Equity through Innovation
Kiruthika Balakrishnan, Durgadevi Velusamy, Hana E. Hinkle, Zhi Li, Karthikeyan Ramasamy, Hikmat Khan, Srini Ramaswamy, Pir Masoom Shah
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11738

Artificial Intelligence in Rural Healthcare Delivery: Bridging Gaps and Enhancing Equity through Innovation
Rural healthcare faces persistent challenges, including inadequate infrastructure, workforce shortages, and socioeconomic disparities that hinder access to essential services. This study investigates the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in addressing these issues in underserved rural areas. We systematically reviewed 109 studies published between 2019 and 2024 from PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and Scopus. Articles were screened using PRISMA guidelines and…

Ontario is investing $400 million to help small, rural and Northern communities as part of the government’s more than $200 billion capital plan investing in key public infrastructure. That's 0.2%
Had they instead paid all their 99.8% bills with a MasterCard, the 0.5% cash-back would have given a full billion dollars to rural communities for free!
https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1006474/ontario-investing-in-local-infrastructure-to-support-small-rural-and-northern-communities

Okanogan County Protests Highlight Rural Impact of Trump Policies | The Daily Yonder
https://dailyyonder.com/okanogan-county-protests-highlight-rural-impact-of-trump-policies/2025/09/15/

Michigan State University professor Josh Cowen announced Thursday that he is running for one of the battleground state’s most competitive congressional districts,
joining a crowded field of Democrats seeking to challenge Republican Rep. Tom Barrett.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Cowen said federal worker layoffs and cuts to research funding and Medicaid inspired him to run for the Lansing-area seat that Barrett flipped in 2024.
“What it really means in our daily…

Michigan State professor Josh Cowen announces run for US Rep. Tom Barrett's seat
A third Democrat has announced a bid to run against Michigan Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett in one of the battleground state's most competitive districts. Josh Cowen is an education policy professor at Michigan State University known for his research on school voucher programs. He announced Thursday that he is running for the state's 7th Congressional District that encompasses the capital city of Lansing and surrounding rural areas. Barrett flipped the district in 2024, winning by 3.7 points …

Epstein shit and adjacent, Rural America, Poverty, Abuse
Fyi, the Legal Eagle video on Epstein
https://youtu.be/4Xuu7Jtt-ik

First of many Hospitals to close.
Rural southwest Nebraska clinic closes, blaming expected Medicaid cuts
https://www.klkntv.com/rural-southwest-nebraska-clinic-closes-blaming-expected-medicaid-cuts/

Comprehensive indicators and fine granularity refine density scaling laws in rural-urban systems
Jack Sutton, Quentin S. Hanley, Gerri Mortimore, Ovidiu Bagdasar, Haroldo V. Ribeiro, Thomas Peron, Golnaz Shahtahmassebi, Peter Scriven
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.14258

Comprehensive indicators and fine granularity refine density scaling laws in rural-urban systems
Density scaling laws complement traditional population scaling laws by enabling the analysis of the full range of human settlements and revealing rural-to-urban transitions with breakpoints at consistent population densities. However, previous studies have been constrained by the granularity of rural and urban units, as well as limitations in the quantity and diversity of indicators. This study addresses these gaps by examining Middle Layer Super Output Areas (MSOAs) in England and Wales, incor…

The closure of rural hospitals is a looming problem across all of California.
Two Inland Empire lawmakers are urging state officials to take action to save a hospital in Blythe.
Last spring, Palo Verde Hospital in Blythe was on the brink of closure,
after a series of financial mishaps left it bleeding cash.
In May, the hospital announced that it would not accept new patients, “for the foreseeable future,”
although its emergency room and clinic remained open, th…

This rural hospital almost closed. Emergency state funding is keeping it open, but for how long?
The closure of rural hospitals is a looming problem across California. Two lawmakers are urging the state try and save a hospital in Blythe.

🤕 Medicaid cuts are likely to worsen mental health care in rural America
#mentalhealth

Medicaid cuts are likely to worsen mental health care in rural America
Across the nation, Medicaid is the single largest payer for mental health care, and in rural America, residents disproportionately rely on the public insurance program.

In an earlier life I grew peanuts at Tolga so happy to see a good news story. #peanuts
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2025-09-12/b…

Bega sells peanut processing plants at Kingaroy and Tolga to family business
Workers and growers in the state's peanut industry receive a lifeline, with a major deal struck between Bega and the Crumpton Group.

The Rapid Rise of Killings by Police in Rural America - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/us-news/police-killings-rise-rural-sheriffs-1663159a?st=cxiyKL&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

I will try to use "Demon Copperhead" in my book club next spring here in Wiesbaden, Germany.
#books #acitivism

Designing with Culture: How Social Norms Shape Trust and Preference in Health Chatbots
Arpita Wadhwa, Aditya Vashistha, Mohit Jain
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.15575 https://

Designing with Culture: How Social Norms Shape Trust and Preference in Health Chatbots
AI-driven chatbots are increasingly used to support community health workers (CHWs) in developing regions, yet little is known about how cultural framings in chatbot design shape trust in collectivist contexts where decisions are rarely made in isolation. This paper examines how CHWs in rural India responded to chatbots that delivered identical health content but varied in one specific cultural lever -- social norms. Through a mixed-methods study with 61 ASHAs who compared four normative framin…

What's Not on the Plate? Rethinking Food Computing through Indigenous Indian Datasets
Pamir Gogoi, Neha Joshi, Ayushi Pandey, Deepthi Sudharsan, Saransh Kumar Gupta, Lipika Dey, Partha Pratim Das, Kalika Bali, Vivek Seshadri
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16286

What's Not on the Plate? Rethinking Food Computing through Indigenous Indian Datasets
This paper presents a multimodal dataset of 1,000 indigenous recipes from remote regions of India, collected through a participatory model involving first-time digital workers from rural areas. The project covers ten endangered language communities in six states. Documented using a dedicated mobile app, the data set includes text, images, and audio, capturing traditional food practices along with their ecological and cultural contexts. This initiative addresses gaps in food computing, such as t…

A look at Starlink's plans to launch a cellphone service that some experts say will likely remain complementary to existing networks, focusing on rural coverage (Washington Post)

Elon Musk eyes next target after cars, rockets and robots
The tech entrepreneur has upended one business after another. Now he may be going after our phone networks.

Looking forward to #IC2S2 next week! On tuesday we'll have a talk on our "Urban highways" PNAS paper, and a poster (ID 94) on 3 bike network papers. See you there!

ugandan_village: Ugandan village networks (2013)
Complete friendship and health advice social networks among households in 17 rural villages bordering Lake Victoria in Mayuge District, Uganda in 2013. Nodes are households and edges represent either a close friendship or a trusted health advisor connection, obtained via a name generator questionnaire.
This network has 124 nodes and 603 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Multilayer

Republicans’ food aid cuts will hit grocers in many towns that backed Trump - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/19/trump-snap-food-cuts-rural-grocers-megabill-00463048

High Plains Public Radio plans to expand rural coverage with a "contributors network" of part-time and volunteer community members after receiving a $750K grant (Sophie Culpepper/Nieman Lab)
https://www.nie…

With public media under siege, High Plains Public Radio builds a blueprint to cover more rural news with fewer resources
To expand regional coverage while keeping costs down, HPPR aims to build out a “contributors network” of part-time and volunteer community members coordinated by a lean central editorial team.

🧑‍🚒 California wood pellet plants canceled amid market decline & public pushback
https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/07/california-wood-pellet-plants-canceled-amid-market-decline-public-pushback/

California wood pellet plants canceled amid market decline & public pushback
Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR), a California nonprofit that focuses on rural economic development, has canceled plans to build two industrial-scale wood pellet plants in the state. The organization cited weakening market conditions and pushback from locals as the drivers of their decision. Conservation groups are hailing the move as a win for forests and […]

One highlight of 4 runs this week. My goal was 5 runs of at least 5 miles; I just got in 4, though (definitely not going out at night tonight, lol).
These were in rural western Wisconsin. Health has been a bit all over the map this week, and things have been hectic with family stuff. Yet, it was good to take time off work for vacation 😎
Note, this is running on beta blockers; a whole new world to me, and I don't know if I like it.

Modeling for the Growth of Unorganized Retailing in the Presence of Organized and E-Retailing in Indian Pharmaceutical Industry
Koushik Mondal, Balagopal G Menon, Sunil Sahadev
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.17023

Modeling for the Growth of Unorganized Retailing in the Presence of Organized and E-Retailing in Indian Pharmaceutical Industry
The present study considers the rural pharmaceutical retail sector in India, where the arrival of organized retailers and e-retailers is testing the survival strategies of unorganized retailers. Grounded in a field investigation of the Indian pharmaceutical retail sector, this study integrates primary data collection, consumer conjoint analysis and design of experiments to develop an empirically grounded agent-based simulation of multi-channel competition among unorganized, organized and e-phar…

As someone who grew up in India when many people were still begging for vaccines (I helped in rural vax clinics, saw sights I won't ever forget), I never thought in 2025 it would be hard to get vaxed in a "developed" country. Glad to live in RI, where I still can.

Legit question for rural South Americans — how do I kill the 30-50 feral hippos that run into the yard while my kittens play?

West Texas Congressman's 'Big Beautiful' Cuts Could Harm Rural Hospitals in His District https://www.texasobserver.org/jodey-arrington-obbba-cuts-west-texas-rural-hospitals/

West Texas Congressman's 'Big Beautiful' Cuts Could Harm Rural Hospitals in His District
Jodey Arrington was the House architect of Trump’s massive tax-and-spend bill that includes steep healthcare cuts.

Mayor of Kansas City Quinton Lucas: "what they did this time has undermined, destabilized health care in rural Missouri and rural middle America and rural parts of our entire country. You are going to see more hospitals closed in rural parts of America. You are going to see more people die and more people die earlier in rural America."
Trump move seen as 'astonishing' attack on red states and rural voters - Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-astonishing-megabill-kc-mayor/

Ever wondered how Kubernetes runs on a tractor? At Berlin Buzzwords 2025, Wieneke Keller & Sebastian Lenartowicz from Aurea Imaging presented their innovative AgTech journey! Discover how they built an edge device with Python microservices and K3s for precision farming, tackling unique rural challenges.
Watch the full session: https://

Epstein shit and adjacent, Rural America, Poverty, Abuse
Everyone who's not a pedophile thinks pedophiles are bad, but there's this special obsessed hatred you'll find among poor rural Americans. The whole QAnon/Epstein obsession may not really make sense to folks raised in cities. Like, why do these people think *so much* about pedophiles? Why do they think that everyone in power is a pedophile? Why would the Pizzagate thing make sense to anyone? What is this unhinged shit? A lot of folks (who aren't anarchists) might be inclined to ask "why can't these people just let the cops take care of it?"
I was watching Legal Eagle's run down on the Trump Epstein thing earlier today and I woke up thinking about something I don't know if I've ever talked about. Now that I'm not in the US, I'm not at any risk of talking about it. I don't know how much I would have been before, but that's not something I'm gonna dig into right now. So let me tell you a story that might explain a few things.
I'm like 16, maybe 17. I have my license, so this girl I was dating/not dating/just friends with/whatever would regularly convince me to drive her and her friends around. I think she's like 15 at the time. Her friends are younger than her.
She tells me that there's a party we can go to where they have beer. She was told to invite her friends, so I can come too. We're going to pick her friends up (we regularly fill the VW Golf well beyond the legal limit and drive places) and head to the party.
So I take these girls, at least is 13 years old, down to this party. I'm already a bit sketched out bringing a 13 year old to a party. We drive out for a while. It's in the country. We drive down a long dark road. Three are some barrel fires and a shack. This is all a bit strange, but not too abnormal for this area. We're a little ways outside of a place called Mill City (in Oregon).
We park and walk towards the shack. This dude who looks like a rat comes up and offers us beer. He laughs and talks to the girl who invited me, "What's he doing here? You're supposed to bring your girl friends." She's like, "He's our ride." I don't remember if he offered me a beer or not.
We go over to this shed and everyone starts smoking, except me because I didn't smoke until I turned 18. The other girls start talking about the rat face dude, who's wandered over by the fire with some other guys. They're mainly teasing one of the 13 year old girls about having sex with him a bunch of times. They say he's like, 32 or something. The other girls joke about him only having sex with 13 year olds because he's too ugly to have sex with anyone closer to his own age.
Somewhere along the line it comes out that he's a cop. I never forgot that, it's absolutely seared in to my memory. I can picture his face perfectly still, decades later, and them talking about how he's a deputy, he was in his 30's, and he was having sex with a 13 year old girl. I was the only boy there, but there were a few older men. This was a chunk of the good ol' boys club of the town. I think there were a couple of cops besides the one deputy, and a judge or the mayor or some kind of big local VIP.
I kept trying to get my friend to leave, but she wanted to stay. Turns out under age drinking with cops seems like a great deal if you're a kid because you know you won't get busted. I left alone, creeped the fuck out.
I was told later that I wasn't invited and that I couldn't talk about it, I've always been good at compartmentalization, so I never did.
Decades later it occurred to me what was actually happening. I'm pretty sure that cop was giving meth he'd seized as evidence to these kids. This wasn't some one-off thing. It was regular. Who knows how many decades it went on after I left, or how many decades it had been going on before I found out. I knew this type of thing had happened at least a few times before because that's how that 13 year old girl and that 32 year old cop had hooked up in the first place.
Hearing about Epstein's MO, targeting these teenage girls from fucked up backgrounds, it's right there for me. I wouldn't be surprised if they were involved in sex trafficking of minors or some shit like that... but who would you call if you found out? Half the sheriff's department was there and the other half would cover for them.
You live in the city and shit like that doesn't happen, or at least you don't think it happens. But rural poor folks have this intuition about power and abuse. It's right there and you know it.
Trump is such a familiar character for me, because he's exactly that small town mayor or sheriff. He'll will talk about being tough on crime and hunting down pedophiles, while hanging out at a party that exists so people can fuck 8th graders.
The problem with the whole thing is that rural folks will never break the cognitive dissonance between "kill the peods" and "back the blue." They'll never go kill those cops. No, the pedos must be somewhere else. It must be the elites. It must be outsiders. It can't be the cops and good ol' boys everyone respects. It can't be the mayor who rigs the election to win every time. It can't be the "good upstanding" sheriff. Nah, it's the Clintons.
To be fair, it's probably also the Clitnons, a bunch of other politicians, billionaires, etc. Epstein was exactly who everyone thought he was, and he didn't get away with it for so long without a whole lot of really powerful help.
There are still powerful people who got away with involvement with #Epstein. #Trump is one of them, but I don't really believe that he's the only one.
#USPol #ACAB

Infrastructure-enabled risk assessment of hazardous road conditions on rural roads during inclement weather
Suhala Rabab Saba, Ph. D. Student, Sagar Dasgupta, Ph. D., Mizanur Rahman, Ph. D., Nathan Huynh, Ph. D., Li Zhao, Ph. D, Mehmet C. Vuran, Ph. D., Qiang Liu, Ph. D., Eren Erman Ozguven, Ph. D
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19444

Infrastructure-enabled risk assessment of hazardous road conditions on rural roads during inclement weather
Rural roadways often expose Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) drivers to hazardous conditions, such as heavy fog, rain, snow, black ice, and flash floods, many of which remain unreported in real time. This lack of timely information, coupled with limited infrastructure in rural areas, significantly increases the risk of crashes. Although various sensing technologies exist to monitor individual hazards like low visibility or surface friction, they rarely assess the combined driving risk posed by mu…

"'We can and will continue to pursue the same goal we have had from the outset — for each member of Congress to represent both urban and rural voices,' Schultz and Adams said."
Objecting to this reasoning is how Proposition 4 passed with the majority of #Utah voters in 2018.
We know this because of how many rural Republican constituents showed up at public meetings th…

Cleaning up some construction debris and leftover materials, left by the previous homeowner. Thanks.
There are a few polystyrene insulation panels that I'm thinking of making into gravestones, for #Halloween decorations. Coming from a rural area, that had zero trick or treaters, we are now planning how to participate in Halloween and welcome costumed kiddies.
So I'm looking for input and please boost to assist in my research. Who should I put on the gravestone? Trump is an obvious candidate but likely overdone (if not overdue). Maybe Common Sense? Or the guy who followed health advice from an AI chatbot.
Anyway I'm looking for ideas. Who would you like to see virtually buried on my front lawn?
#LookingForAnswers

Despite the country's financial straits, this is a wonderful time to be a technologist in government, according to Paul Mukherjee, CTO of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2025/ai/g

Government CTO: 'I had a lightbulb moment with agentic AI'
Defra’s CTO believes AI may help government thinking move from processes to outcomes, while agents could assist in complex technical tasks like cloud migrations.

Driving around rural #Ontario this weekend we happened on a damn fine French bakery (when you marry a Gaul, you learn about such things). The place is nowhere near much of anything. If you ever end up on Highway 89 in Mono, do yourself a favour and stop by Bistro Dupain.

Yesterday we received Auchencairn Climate Transition's new hand-cycle (ours is the yellow one), and I got shown around the key points of maintaining it and adapting it to fit riders. This extends our hire bike fleet so that we can now support riders with leg function impairments.
In practice we'll be sharing this with other 'try a bike' projects locally.
#BikeTooter

Identifying Key Features for Establishing Sustainable Agro-Tourism Centre: A Data Driven Approach
Alka Gadakh, Vidya Kumbhar, Sonal Khosla, Kumar Karunendra
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.09214

Identifying Key Features for Establishing Sustainable Agro-Tourism Centre: A Data Driven Approach
Agro-tourism serves as a strategic economic model designed to facilitate rural development by diversifying income streams for local communities like farmers while promoting the conservation of indigenous cultural heritage and traditional agricultural practices. As a very booming subdomain of tourism, there is a need to study the strategies for the growth of Agro-tourism in detail. The current study has identified the important indicators for the growth and enhancement of agro-tourism. The study…

From Drone Imagery to Livability Mapping: AI-powered Environment Perception in Rural China
Weihuan Deng, Yaofu Huang, Luan Chen, Xun Li, Yao Yao
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.21738

From Drone Imagery to Livability Mapping: AI-powered Environment Perception in Rural China
With the deepening of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization strategies, improving the rural living environment and enhancing the quality of life have become key priorities. Rural livability is a key indicator for measuring the effectiveness of these efforts. Current measurement approaches face significant limitations, as questionnaire-based methods are difficult to scale, while urban-oriented visual perception methods are poorly suited for rural contexts. In this paper, a rural-specific …

How thousands of small-scale farmers in Malawi are using a government-backed AI chatbot, designed by the nonprofit Opportunity International, for farming advice (Gregory Gondwe/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/malawi-ai-fa…

AI is helping small-scale farmers in Malawi
Some small-scale farmers in the southern African country of Malawi are using an AI chatbot for advice to help them improve their methods and become more resilient to climate change. The chatbot is designed by the non-profit Opportunity International and is being used by around 180,000 rural households. The project is also backed by the Malawi government. Artificial intelligence has the potential to boost productivity in African agriculture, which is lagging behind. But there are many challenges…

From Cell Towers to Satellites: A 2040 Blueprint for Urban-Grade Direct-to-Device Mobile Networks
Sebastian Barros Elgueta
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14188

From Cell Towers to Satellites: A 2040 Blueprint for Urban-Grade Direct-to-Device Mobile Networks
In 2023, satellite and mobile networks crossed a historic threshold: standard smartphones, using unmodified 3GPP protocols, connected directly to low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. This first wave of direct-to-device (D2D) demonstrations validated the physical feasibility of satellite-based mobile access. However, these systems remain fallback-grade--rural-only, bandwidth-limited, and fully dependent on Earth-based mobile cores for identity, session, and policy control. This paper asks a more am…

Madre fire in rural San Luis Obispo County grows to nearly 80,000 acres
The bulk of the fire is threatening the
Carrizo Plain National Monument,
which is home to several endangered and threatened wildlife and plant species
https://www.

Madre fire in rural San Luis Obispo County grows to nearly 80,000 acres
The bulk of the fire is threatening the Carrizo Plain National Monument, which is home to several endangered and threatened wildlife and plant species.

Republicans have abandoned their promise to protect rural America
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/5498512-gop-betrayal-rural-healthcare/

One highlight of 4 runs this week. My goal was 5 runs of at least 5 miles; I just got in 4, though (definitely not going out at night tonight, lol).
These were in rural western Wisconsin. Health has been a bit all over the map this week, and things have been hectic with family stuff. Yet, it was good to take time off work for vacation 😎
Note, this is running on beta blockers; a whole new world to me, and I don't know if I like it.

Multiscale patterns of migration flows in Austria: regionalization, administrative barriers, and urban-rural divides
Thomas Robiglio, Martina Contisciani, M\'arton Karsai, Tiago P. Peixoto
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.11503

Multiscale patterns of migration flows in Austria: regionalization, administrative barriers, and urban-rural divides
Migration is central in various societal problems related to socioeconomic development. While much of the existing research has focused on international migration, migration patterns within a single country remain relatively unexplored. In this work we study internal migration patterns in Austria for a period of over 20 years, obtained from open and high-granularity administrative records. We employ inferential network methods to characterize the flows between municipalities and extract their c…

ugandan_village: Ugandan village networks (2013)
Complete friendship and health advice social networks among households in 17 rural villages bordering Lake Victoria in Mayuge District, Uganda in 2013. Nodes are households and edges represent either a close friendship or a trusted health advisor connection, obtained via a name generator questionnaire.
This network has 117 nodes and 210 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Multilayer

Inyo County, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, has two hospitals.
In a matter of weeks it may be down to one, local and state officials say.
Southern Inyo Healthcare District -- a 37-bed hospital in Lone Pine -- had eight days of cash on hand as of Sept.12, chief executive Dr. Kevin Flanigan told CalMatters.
Local officials have sent a letter asking Gov. Gavin Newsom for an emergency $3 million to stabilize its finances through the end of the year,
but absent s…

With just days of cash left, Inyo County hospital nears crisis point
The financial crisis at Southern Inyo Healthcare District comes as rural hospitals nationwide face rising costs and federal Medicaid cuts.

ugandan_village: Ugandan village networks (2013)
Complete friendship and health advice social networks among households in 17 rural villages bordering Lake Victoria in Mayuge District, Uganda in 2013. Nodes are households and edges represent either a close friendship or a trusted health advisor connection, obtained via a name generator questionnaire.
This network has 221 nodes and 579 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Multilayer

Improving Hypertension and Diabetes Outcomes with Digital Care Coordination and Remote Monitoring in Rural Health
K. K. Kim, S. P. McGrath, D. Lindeman
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19378

Improving Hypertension and Diabetes Outcomes with Digital Care Coordination and Remote Monitoring in Rural Health
Chronic illnesses are a global concern with essential hypertension and diabetes mellitus among the most common conditions. Remote patient monitoring has shown promising results on clinical and health outcomes. However, access to care and digital health solutions is limited among rural, lower-income, and older adult populations. This paper repots on a pre-post study of a comprehensive care coordination program including connected, wearable blood pressure and glucometer devices, tablets, and medi…

"Solar farms and sheep grazing show how farming and clean energy can share land"
#SolarPower #Energy #Renewables

Solar farms and sheep grazing show how farming and clean energy can share land
Solar panels now double as shade for sheep and a tool for rural energy production in Georgia, where some farmers are balancing land conservation with renewable energy development.Emily Jones reports for Grist.In short:A solar farm in Lee County, Georgia, uses sheep for vegetation control, allowing t...

Amazon builds a shadow postal service in rural America
https://qz.com/amazon-rural-delivery-last-mile-walmart

Medicaid cuts threaten services for pregnant people in rural America
https://19thnews.org/2025/08/pregnancy-rural-america-maternity-ward-closures-medicaid/

sp_kenyan_households: Kenyan households contacts (2012)
A network of proximity contacts measured between members of 5 households of rural Kenya, between April 24 and May 12, 2012.
This network has 47 nodes and 32643 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Temporal, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.…

🧑🏾‍⚕️ Primary care shortage affects 44% of Virginia's neighborhoods, almost 3.8 million residents, study finds
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-07-primary-shortage-affects-virginia-neighborhoods.html

Primary care shortage affects 44% of Virginia's neighborhoods, almost 3.8 million residents, study finds
Nearly half of Virginia's neighborhoods don't have enough nearby primary care physicians for their residents, with rural communities being hit hardest by workforce shortages, according to a new study led by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University.

sp_kenyan_households: Kenyan households contacts (2012)
A network of proximity contacts measured between members of 5 households of rural Kenya, between April 24 and May 12, 2012.
This network has 47 nodes and 32643 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Temporal, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.…

sp_kenyan_households: Kenyan households contacts (2012)
A network of proximity contacts measured between members of 5 households of rural Kenya, between April 24 and May 12, 2012.
This network has 47 nodes and 32643 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Temporal, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.…

Dalton Henry Stout blends in easily in rural America. -- Except for the insignia on his hat.
It bears the skull and crossbones of the infamous
“Death’s Head” SS units
that oversaw Nazi Germany’s concentration camps
– and the initials “AFN,”
short for "Aryan Freedom Network",
the neo-Nazi group Stout leads with his partner.
From a modest ranch house in Texas,
the couple oversee a network
they say has been turbocharged by Donald…

I hope he's wrong: "It's going to spread from city to city, and then to the suburbs, and then to rural areas, until Trump feels like he has complete authority over local law enforcement"
'These are dangerous times': Lawyer reveals Trump's plan behind his D.C. takeover bid - Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com/these-are-dangerous-times-lawyer-warns-trump-escalating-fight-with-law-enforcement/

Those damned outdoor pigs can't keep getting away with this
https://bsky.app/profile/themerl.bsky.social/post/3lvv4j2bx6k2i

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) (@themerl.bsky.social)
those damned outdoor pigs can't keep getting away with this

sp_kenyan_households: Kenyan households contacts (2012)
A network of proximity contacts measured between members of 5 households of rural Kenya, between April 24 and May 12, 2012.
This network has 47 nodes and 32643 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Temporal, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.…

ugandan_village: Ugandan village networks (2013)
Complete friendship and health advice social networks among households in 17 rural villages bordering Lake Victoria in Mayuge District, Uganda in 2013. Nodes are households and edges represent either a close friendship or a trusted health advisor connection, obtained via a name generator questionnaire.
This network has 65 nodes and 300 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Multilayer

sp_kenyan_households: Kenyan households contacts (2012)
A network of proximity contacts measured between members of 5 households of rural Kenya, between April 24 and May 12, 2012.
This network has 47 nodes and 32643 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Temporal, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.…

sp_kenyan_households: Kenyan households contacts (2012)
A network of proximity contacts measured between members of 5 households of rural Kenya, between April 24 and May 12, 2012.
This network has 47 nodes and 32643 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Temporal, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.…

sp_kenyan_households: Kenyan households contacts (2012)
A network of proximity contacts measured between members of 5 households of rural Kenya, between April 24 and May 12, 2012.
This network has 47 nodes and 32643 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Temporal, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.…

ugandan_village: Ugandan village networks (2013)
Complete friendship and health advice social networks among households in 17 rural villages bordering Lake Victoria in Mayuge District, Uganda in 2013. Nodes are households and edges represent either a close friendship or a trusted health advisor connection, obtained via a name generator questionnaire.
This network has 183 nodes and 873 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Unweighted, Multilayer