Tootfinder

Popular Front recently did a piece on the current conflicts in Ethiopia:
https://popularfront.substack.com/p/everything-you-didnt-know-about-the
It's a good primer for anyone who's unfamiliar, but is definitely lacking if you know any Ethiopian folks or pay attention to much news out of the Horn of Africa.
The interplay between authoritarian liberal nationalism, as represented by Abiy Ahmed and his government, and tribal federalism , represented by various tribal factions, reads to me very similarly to the liberalization of Europe (enclosure of the commons, a push to sacrifice ethnic identities for nationalist ones, etc). Like the liberalization of, say, France, it's a lot more complicated than "old thing bad, new thing good."
Liberalism was violent and authoritarian. It often sacrificed leftists. Liberalism's focus on borders and national identity led directly to pogroms and Nazism. Similarly, liberalization of Ethiopia has led to genocide and ethnic cleansing.
People think of "the terror" in France as a leftist thing, but it wasn't. It was a Liberal thing, centrist extremism, carried out against right and left.
I understand that tribal federalism is also not a good system, but I don't have a ton of depth so I'm not going to try to explain it. During the European Liberal revolutionary period of 1848, ethnic minorities would often side with some monarch or emperor against liberalism out of fear of liberal nationalism. It makes sense to support a system that's bad if your other option is a nationalism that erases your identity.
But even in Europe at that time, anarchism offered an alternative but that alternative often also drew from simply a different branch of liberalism that also suppressed culture and identity. Today the world is different. Democratic Confederalism offers a solution to *exactly* this problem, tested for more than a decade in Syria and developing now in Myanmar.
But the cross pollination between Syria and Myanmar in terms of fighters really made the ideological cross pollination possible. I don't think anything like that is happening now in Ethiopia.
Eurocentrism makes it easy to ignore what's happening now, but Addis Ababa is the seat of the African Union Commission. Ethiopia is a major military power in the region, so these developments carry a lot of weight. Especially as the US collapses and the world becomes more multipolar, the development of regional powers like Ethiopia will have a big impact on how that part of the continent develops.
If any folks are more familiar with Ethiopia than I am (which shouldn't be hard since I'm basically not), please correct me or add context if anything is missing or wrong.

"From rivers to mangroves, microplastics are contaminating the Amazon"
#AmazonRainforest #Mangroves #Plastic

From rivers to mangroves, microplastics are contaminating the Amazon
MANAUS, Brazil — On June 20, a 50-member team led by NGO Asas de Socorro and Rede Reviva walked about 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) along the shoreline of the Puraquequara Lake in eastern Manaus during a garbage-collection effort. When the activity finished covering a stretch of beach on a lake with a water surface estimated at 20-25 km2, […]

Trump threatens to "put a big tariff on the UK" if it does not drop its digital services tax, which he views as unfairly targeting US tech companies (Connor Stringer/Telegraph)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/04/24/trump-dr…

Trump threatens Starmer with ‘big tariff’ over tech tax
President tells The Telegraph he will retaliate if Britain continues to ‘target’ major American companies such as Apple, Google and Meta

From rivers to mangroves, microplastics are contaminating the Amazon https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/from-rivers-to-mangroves-microplastics-are-contaminating-the-amazon/

From rivers to mangroves, microplastics are contaminating the Amazon
MANAUS, Brazil — On June 20, a 50-member team led by NGO Asas de Socorro and Rede Reviva walked about 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) along the shoreline of the Puraquequara Lake in eastern Manaus during a garbage-collection effort. When the activity finished covering a stretch of beach on a lake with a water surface estimated at 20-25 km2, […]

Just my little insignificant opinion, here, but if you manufacture #bleach #cleaning products and non-bleach cleaning products, they shouldn’t be in bottles that are the same color! #ScrubbingBubbles

This is the most detailed picture of a human cell ever made 🧪
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DX1CGIZMKJs/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ

Sam Bousaba on Instagram: "This is a single human cell. The white filament-like structures are microtubules, and the small colored particles are ribosomes. Your body contains on the order of ~37 trillion cells. Each cell functions like a highly organized, self-regulating factory operating continuously. There is no central “supervisor”—yet thousands of processes run in parallel with remarkable coordination. Every ribosome is constantly building proteins by linking amino acids together. In eukaryotic (human) cells, a ribosome typically adds about 5–10 amino acids per second (not ~20). Since a single cell can contain millions of ribosomes, protein production is massive—resulting in millions to tens of millions of peptide bonds formed per second per cell. The microtubules act as an internal transport network. Motor proteins such as kinesin move along these tracks, carrying cellular cargo. They “walk” step by step using ATP, at speeds of roughly 500–1000 nanometers per second. Each cell contains a dense network of these filaments, with many motor proteins moving simultaneously. Just beneath the cell membrane lies the actin cortex, a dynamic meshwork that helps maintain cell shape and resist mechanical stress. This structure is continuously remodeled—assembled and disassembled—allowing the cell to adapt to its environment. Now scale this up. Across ~37 trillion cells, each containing millions of ribosomes and hundreds to thousands of mitochondria, your body is constantly producing energy in the form of ATP. Total ATP turnover is enormous—roughly equivalent to your body weight in ATP recycled every day. The DNA in a single human cell, if stretched out, measures about 2 meters. Across all your cells, this would span distances comparable to traveling from Earth to the Sun and back many times (the exact multiple depends on assumptions about cell count and DNA packing). None of these processes are under conscious control. They began when you were a single cell and have continued uninterrupted ever since."
62K likes, 2,387 comments - scienceoftheuniverse on May 2, 2026: "This is a single human cell. The white filament-like structures are microtubules, and the small colored particles are ribosomes. Your body contains on the order of ~37 trillion cells. Each cell functions like a highly organized, self-regulating factory operating continuously. There is no central “supervisor”—yet thousands of processes run in parallel with remarkable coordination. Every ribosome is constantly building prot…

This is a great thread on remote work. The notes about having to be 💯 while on camera made me realize that all my clients are fine if people have their cameras off (mine is almost always off), and how much that really makes doing meetings easier.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:svvjd

Snitty (@clofsnitville.bsky.social)
Matt and @ed3d.net have offered up some interesting thoughts on making remote work more workable with both technology and camera-facing skills, but I'll throw in my two cents about the limits of technology and why some *workers* still prefer to be in-person. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

Appalling standard of Primary Care in this article.
My experience is a lot better. Efficient web-led system but GP sees us if indicated/in doubt.
However there's little continuity: a big practice and a different GP (or pharmacist or health care assistant) each time. At my age I expect a named GP. One problem is the GPs are all part time (good salaries).
It seems some NHS GPs no longer ‘see’ patients, they process them

It seems some NHS GPs no longer ‘see’ patients, they process them
Unable to get seen or fighting for months just to get basic health care, this is the reality for some with NHS GPs nowadays

And while one wannabe Finnish guy is shouting and trying to fix my internet connection, I'm now heading back to Zurich for an amusing evening with a Finnish comedian
#ISMO