@callunavulgaris@mastodon.scot2026-09-20 16:34:38
I've just reserved the new Miss Marple from the library, Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley. I've been disappointed by some books that take a dead author's characters, but have read a couple of crackers recently so am going to give this one a whirl. I can also recommend Longbourn by Jo Baker, P&P below stairs and really well done, and The Golden Hours by Louisa Young, EJH's niece and a continuation of their own family history, The Cazalet Chronicles
@aardrian@toot.cafe2026-09-20 15:25:33
I’m surprised there aren’t more lawsuits already.
“Texas abortion ban caused pregnant woman's death, lawsuit claims”
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/texas-abortion-ban-caused-pregnant-womans-death-lawsuit-c…
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-08-21 15:01:32
Space data center startup Starcloud raised a $250M extension, at a $2.3B valuation, to its March $170M Series A; source: Nvidia invested $25M (Tim Fernholz/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/21/starcloud-raises-200-mil…
@hikingdude@mastodon.social2026-08-20 18:09:39
We expected rain (but no ⚡⛈️).
So we got our jackets, did our errands with our little bike trailer - and were lucky because it didn't even rain 💪
✅ Saved fuel again
✅ Physical activity
✅ Faster way to detach from work
✅ Saw a couple of cats
Totally recommended!
#cycling #BikeTooter
@stargazersmith@social.linux.pizza2026-07-20 19:33:09
Did Viking 1 find life on Mars 50 years ago? Here's why the debate continues | Space https://www.space.com/astronomy/mars/did-viking-1-find-life-on-mars-50-years-ago-heres-why-the-debate-continues
@arXiv_physicsinsdet_bot@mastoxiv.page2026-08-21 07:58:14
Serenity-S1, a CMS Tracker Readout and Data Processing Card for HL-LHC
G. Fedi, L. E. Ardila-Perez, M. Balzer, M. Fuchs, M. Holmberg, A. Howard, G. M. Iles, H. A. Krause, T. Mehner, D. Parker, M. Pesaresi, A. Rose, K. Whalen, T. Williams, J. Zhao, for the CMS Collaboration
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.19226 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.19226 https://arxiv.org/html/2608.19226
arXiv:2608.19226v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The CERN Large Hadron Collider will be upgraded to the High-Luminosity LHC, increasing the particle-collision rate and the demands on detector readout. A key element of this upgrade is the new CMS Tracker, whose silicon sensors will generate data at an aggregate rate of about 10 TB/s. This data must be routed efficiently to processing systems and filtered before storage. Serenity-S1 is an ATCA readout and data-processing card based on an AMD Virtex UltraScale VU13P FPGA with 128 high-speed serial transceivers. Twenty 12-channel Samtec FireFly optical modules provide up to 120 transmit and 120 receive channels at line rates of up to 25 Gb/s, while an additional optical module supports CMS Tracker links at up to 10 Gb/s per channel. The modular optical layout, combined with the large FPGA, makes Serenity-S1 suitable for several applications within and beyond CMS. ATCA provides the power and cooling required for operation in the CMS service cavern. Low-level management and the IPMI interface are provided by an OpenIPMC mezzanine, while an AMD Kria K26 system-on-module running AlmaLinux 9 performs higher-level board management and application control. Firmware and software frameworks provide common infrastructure so that users can focus on application-specific logic. The paper describes the hardware, firmware and software architecture of Serenity-S1 and its deployment in CMS Tracker integration and R&D activities.
toXiv_bot_toot
@erikdelareguera@mastodon.nu2026-08-21 18:19:40
”I ett 20-tal inlägg och videoklipp hyllar användaren gärningsmän som Anders Behring Breivik … attacken på Kronans skola i Trollhättan … och Rickard Andersson, som dödade tio personer på Campus Risbergska i Örebro” https://www.dn.se/sverige/konto-publicerad
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2026-08-20 22:28:10
So about that discomfort...
In the end, we have basically "hooray, national park declaration will protect the endangered species, whose traditional guardians, effectively extinct, will move into a new formal structure."
Celeste isn't Indigenous-coded, but this is *way* to close to several layers of colonialist myth that we have in America. The real story of our national parks, after all, is that we genocided the original inhabitants and forced them to move out of the parks, including banning culturally-important religious ceremonies at sacred sites in parks like Yosemite (in a country that's supposed to be very serious about freedom of religion...). Then we mostly erased those tribes from officially-taught history, pretending that they had tragically disappeared (they're still around; I could probably go look up their websites right now if I wanted to), and said "look at the majesty of this *wild*, *untamed*, *remote* wilderness. Isn't its completely *natural* beauty, untouched by humans, so wonderful?" Then just like the original tribes we do a bunch of human intervention to maintain the ecosystems there, and start charging camping and parking fees to support that work.
Yeah, it's a really fucked-up history.
So that's why it bothers me that the book ends with this as a positive resolution. In the book, the dragons' guardians are actually extinct, down to just Celeste. The prophecy-bending pretty much ensures that they won't actually make a comeback as a culture... But in real life, the descendants of the tribes that were forced out of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and other national parks are still around. The portrayal of genocides of indigenous peoples as completed is actually one big part of the colonialist myth: if they're all dead already, it might be tragic, but it's history, and there's no reason to give the land back or pay reparations or anything like that (Hollow Knight is sadly another extremely popular example of this myth-making). Then there's the idea that humans and nature are separable, the idea that the colonizers are trustworthy stewards of the land they stole, etc. When you set these things up to be true in your fictional world, you're helping acclimate readers to the idea that they're true in the real world, and that's bad.
I don't think that Matrin necessarily did this with malice: she's probably just reflecting back the myths she was taught. Special order tasked with sacred duty now almost extinct? Great way to give a character a tragic backstory and some powerful motivations, right? Etc.
TL;DR: I wish Martin had been as conscious of and clever in undermining colonialist myths as she was in dealing with standard fantasy racism.
@tomteo@mastodonczech.cz2026-09-20 17:27:16
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-08-19 16:02:02
Memo: GOP asks AI companies to stem the backlash against data centers, saying the issue could kill the party's chances of holding a vital Senate seat in Ohio (Alex Isenstadt/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/08/19/gop-data-center-memo-ai-election
