Cavalcade of Mammals

Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot. The story follows Rig as she embarks on a journey across the galaxy to save her estranged sister from her former faction – who are trying to blackmail her into returning what she stole from them.

The new moonshot by Jacinta Bowler, Joshua Byrd and Teresa Tan.

The National Park Service race to rewrite history becomes a slog by Heather Richards
“The sheer volume of park signs, panels and museum exhibits flagged by park rangers because they mentioned topics like slavery, climate change or violence against Native Americans overwhelmed the Trump administration from the beginning, said three people familiar with the process used to evaluate potential changes, granted anonymity because they feared retribution.”

Unpublished Games Network (Unpub). We support the game design and development community by organizing events intended to help designers receive public playtests and feedback, and connect with other tabletop gaming industry folks. These events are open to anyone who wishes to bring their game to the table.

Google Has a Secret Reference Desk. Here’s How to Use It.
climate AROUND(3) policy
intitle: “index of” inurl:gov
“can anyone recommend”
“the * of artificial intelligence”

The NIH Restructuring Congress Rejected Is Happening Anyway by Elizabeth Ginexi

Selling Oppression to Gen Z Women by Jessica Valenti and Kylie Cheung

Limitations of serial cloning in mammals.
“…we continued serial cloning for 20 years from a single donor mouse. These re-cloned mice appeared normal and had normal lifespans, but large structural and lethal mutations accumulated in their DNA with each generation. The birth rate of serial cloning began to decline from the 27th generation, and the 58th generation was the last.”

Well, that was easier than expected. I followed the directions here: https://linuxvox.com/blog/install-ssl-certificate-ubuntu/. Added a “Let’s Encrypt” certificate using certbot.

a2enmod ssl
systemctl reload apache2
certbot --apache -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com

Expires every 90 days. Auto-renew:

crontab -e

Add:
0 0,12 * * * python -c 'import random; import time; time.sleep(random.random() * 3600)' && sudo certbot renew --quiet

Kindle e-reader models
Kindle root / dashboard project
Kindle jailbreaking

Windsurf Launches SWE-1: AI Models Built for the Entire Software Engineering Process

Landmark NHS-Galleri Trial Demonstrates a Substantial Reduction in Stage IV Cancer Diagnoses, Increased Stage I and II Detection of Deadly Cancers, and Four-Fold Higher Cancer Detection Rate

PCSK9 inhibition: A game changer in cholesterol management, PSCK9.
PSCK9 / heart disease discovery paper

Early trials of the prostate cancer drug VIR-5500 showed it shrinking tumours in some patients

Everyone is stealing TV. Fed up with increasing subscription prices, viewers embrace rogue streaming boxes.

Rare, dangerous side effects of some COVID-19 vaccines explained. “Groundbreaking” study uncovers why adenovirus-based shots caused life-threatening blood clots and bleeding in some people

Cistercian numerals

Prison guards discussed cover-up of Epstein’s death, inmate tells FBI. by Julie K. Brown

Drugs Would Be Cheap but for Patents That Make Them Expensive by Dean Baker

DOJ nopes out of Ticketmaster antitrust suit

Illumina Constellation Becomes TruPath Genome. $395 / genome, 30X with long read type connectivity information.

The Women Leaving the New Right

Chicago did it, in 2025 we had the fewest murders recorded since 1965–416 in 2025, 395 in 1965!

J6ers: Where Are They Now? Catching up with notorious insurrection offenders a year after Trump’s pardon spree.

JD Vance Roasted After Comparing Trump Economy to ‘Titanic’

Nature article on cuts to Science funding under the Trump administration. Cuts of 25% to 35% this year. Fewer new grants funded. Science agency staff cut 20%. International students down 17%. Nature analysis.

Trump’s acting cyber chief uploaded sensitive files into a public version of ChatGPT

Reported in the Guardian, “AI being used to help cut A&E waiting times in England this winter” by Hannah Devlin. “

The A&E forecasting tool predicts when demand will be highest, allowing trusts to better plan staffing and bed space. The prediction algorithm is trained on historical data including weather trends, school holidays, and rates of flu and Covid to determine how many people are likely to visit A&E.

A&E is England’s term (Accident & Emergency) for the ER. So the national government brought this in from the top. The company and ‘AI’ is not described in the article, really just a puff piece for the government directors, but it is Faculty AI, a UK company. The tool is ‘available’ to all the NHS trusts, not clear if there’s much usage of it.

What does this ‘demand prediction tool’ predict? More demand during cold snaps and heat waves, on school holidays, and higher demand during peak flu and Covid season. Are these pedestrian predictions worth millions of pounds? Doubtful.

User Clip: Trumps insane mental asylum rant

If He Builds It, Tear It Down. Pendulums must swing. by Hamilton Nolan

Illumina: Introducing constellation mapped read technology

Monitor network traffic to web server:
tshark ‘tcp port 80 and (((ip[2:2] – ((ip[0]&0xf)<<2)) – ((tcp[12]&0xf0)>>2)) != 0)’

He made beer that’s also a vaccine. Now controversy is brewing. A scientist’s unconventional project illustrates many challenges in developing new vaccines. by Tina Hesman Saey

Golf Carts w/missing wheels: Rebutting Sen. Lankford’s CNN Appearance, Part 2

Within five years, anything above an entry-level bike will require batteries — and I don’t like it. Bikes shouldn’t need batteries to work: a stance against electronic shifting’s ubiquity. by Michael Venutolo-Mantovani

Setting up web commerce / shopping cart on a WordPress site: woocommerce module & oceawp theme.

Updated Voronoi_inkscape_1.4.2.zip extension to work with Inkscape 1.4.2! (ver 1.1, ver 1.3 of the extension.). To install, go to Inscape -> Extensions -> Manage extension -> Install packages tab -> click on file icon and select the zip file.

Takes as input a shape to fill with a Voronoi diagram. The number of levels of recursive Voronoi diagrams can be set.

Options

Random seed points: Number of starting points. The distribution of the starting points is set for each level of the diagram.

Options:
Levels of recursion: Within each Voronoi region, a new Voronoi diagram is created.

Level(rand_type):relax,…: Sets of parameters for each Voronoi diagram level.
<level>(<normalization method>[param1=n;parms2 = n.n; params3=foo…]):<Llyod’s relaxation interations>
The randomization type can be ‘normdist’, ‘normdist_edge’, ‘random’. ‘Random’ distributes the seed points randomly. ‘Normdist’ distributes the seed points around one or more ‘centers’ (default is 1 center), distributed around the centroid. ‘Normdist_edge’ moves the seeds away from the centers toward the edge.
Llyod’s relaxation moves each of the points halfway between its current position and the centroid of the Voronoi polygon it is located in with each iteration.

Parameters:
centers = 2 – Number of centers to cluster ‘normdist’ random points around. Centers are spaced at center_dist from the centroid of the input path.
keep_centers = 0,1,3… – Which of the centers to use. Numbering starts at 0.
center_dist = 1.23 – Distance from the path centroid to place the random seed centers. dist = size / center_dist. Default = 2.0. Large numbers push the centers towards the edge.
min_dist = 1.23 – Minimum distance of random points from the edge of the path. In Inkscape units. Default = 5.
sd = 1.23 – Standard deviation of the random points. sd = standard deviation of the random points. sd = size / sd. Larger numbers give a tighter distribution. Default = 2.5.
xy = x1,y1, x2,y2… – Explicitly enter random seed point locations. In Inkscape units. Overrides random dist center parameters.

Return lines or polygons: The Voronoi regions are added to the document as polygons or lines.

Examples:

340 mm diameter circle as a polygon of 30 points.
Parameters: 1(normdist[centers=3;center_dist=1.2;sd=4.14;min_dist=25]):1

Two levels of recursion:

Parameters: 2(normdist[centers=3;center_dist=1.2;sd=4.14;min_dist=25]):1, 1(normdist):1

James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers. He co-discovered DNA’s structure but later engaged in rank racism and sexism. by Sharon Begley

“From today until 2030 big tech firms will spend $5trn on infrastructure to supply AI services. To make those investments worthwhile, they will need on the order of $650bn a year in AI revenues, according to JPMorgan Chase, a bank, up from about $50bn a year today.” link

How to Make Repeat Patterns: A Guide for Designers, Architects and Artists. by Paul Jackson.
Designing tessellations : the secrets of interlocking patterns. by Jinny Beyer.

Density:
0.08988 g/L H2
1.2250 g/L air
Lift: 1.13512 kg / m3

Volume to lift 250 kg -> 220.4 m3
220 m3:
6 m diameter tube -> 7.8 m long
4.5 m diameter tube -> 13.9 m long
6.1 m cube
7.6 m sphere

Volume to lift 150 kg -> 132 m3
Wing with 1 m2 cross-section x 132 m long
Wing with 2 m2 cross-section x 66 m long