I keep seeing this. University and school students losing the ability to read, write and think. Civilizational collapse?

𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝟭𝟬𝟬𝘁𝗵 𝗕𝗶𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗱𝗮𝘆.

Computer user interfaces (UIs) have been a disaster for years. Jeffrey Snover is not only the creator of PowerShell, he's done a lot more. Snover just said what many programmers have been facing for years. He calls it a Boof-a-Rama of UI strategy. He knows inside details too.

Fascinating. There are people measuring the nature of democracy and plotting it out year by year, country by country. Their analyses are interesting and thought provoking.

Somebody made a keyboard error and "minted" more money (in USD) than currently exists. Tell me these guys aren't clowns.

Thinking of the people of Iran. Good luck in your search for freedom. Baraye . For all the times we tried to change their minds and stale beliefs . For the rising of the sun after an endless night . For all mankind, for our country ... For woman, for life, liberty. For liberty...

Spare a thought for those in SE Queensland Australia. They have Tropical Cyclone Alfred coming in. 1 metre of rain forecast over 4 days for a wide area. Current forecast and recent satellite image

@whtwnd.com WhiteWind on the nameplate uses Markdown. Is there a way to submit externally developed HTML?

@kathrynemmerson.bsky.social A question about nucleation in the atmosphere. I saw that some work at CERN indicates that sesquiterpenes enhance droplet formation. Do the Eucalypts around here (Sydney) emit any of these compounds? How much?

This is Stainless Steel, Granite and Urethane Paint. About the pace of city life, people briskly walking out their day as the hours speed by. By Dr Byung Kyu Kim, of South Korea, seen recently at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi. Imagine having that in your garden? Or your own version!

Post a picture you took, to bring a burst of Zen.

I've noticed a pick up in new users on Bluesky. A lot coming in. The graphs may look different in a week. Current:

Looks like moves to turn browser first party cookies into third party. But only for the anointed ones.

We had a wee visitor the other day. An echidna. Actually the biggest I've seen around here, in over 15 years. They bury themselves when fires come through. We may have a protection burn soon, so I guess he'll be doing that.

Solar flares are usually over pretty quickly. This recent one ran for 12 hours. If you're into it, you can picture the magnetohydrodynamics at work, in those great arcs of plasma, light, magnetic and electrical forces, etc.

Worth thinking about. Will current corporate management result in the end of us all? www.wheresyoured.at/tss/

People who study the cosmos have been pushing back their observations to earlier. Now we have JADES-GS-z14-0. 290 million years after the big bang. Read: www.bbc.com/news/article... x.com/Kevin_Hainli... arxiv.org/abs/2405.18485 arxiv.org/abs/2405.18462 arxiv.org/abs/2312.10033

Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountains, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills... into Shadow. Hamba Gahle, Bernard Hill

Map of the lava flow as of yesterday - orange = 1:55 AM yesterday, red = 2:56 PM yesterday.

Some Lace Monitor lizards that visited us recently. Two individuals on successive days.

This surprised me. It made me want to control my own search engines more than I do. So that I can limit what's in my results. It's an article about finding deepfake nude images of movie stars in search engines. I find it disturbing. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Juno, the spacecraft, took a swooping course past Jupiter's inner moon, Io. You can see the frosting of yellow elemental sulphur on that amazing place. Good to see that we can still make craft with such capabilities. Happy New Year to all.

These remarkable creatures are Tawny Frogmouths. They are convinced that by staying still they're invisible. They're almost right in thinking that.

Mouth of the Hunter River, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. On an ANZAC day a few years ago.

Test post. Image of countryside southern England.