Last night at about 10pm I went outside to see a brilliant Jupiter as high in the sky as it gets in North America. Winter Solstice is here! (At night on WS the ecliptic is as high as the Sun gets at Summer Solstice. ) Got a clear sky? Jupiter is BRIGHT!!! www.livescience.com/space/astron...

Quotes I like: The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give. ⇐ Philip K. Dick

Quotes I like: Let me tell you the truth. The truth is what is, and what should be is a fantasy. A terrible, terrible lie that someone gave to the people long ago. ⇐ Lenny Bruce

!! alles Gute zum Geburtstag !! Don't forget to bring the mac & cheese !!

Some PNW city (is that a Space Needle in the lower right? on Dec 13. (Original source unknown.) Starting on Dec 21 at 7:03 am PST, the days will begin to get longer again, and slowly put an end to this ... this ... this ... stuff.

Quotes I like: Life is change. How it differs from the rocks. ⇐ Jefferson Airplane, Crown of Creation (Aug 1968)

Quotes I like: The world is perfect. It's a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives. ⇐ Joseph Campbell

He's spent 27 years walking from Tierra del Fuego to England. archive.ph/O8kIp Bushby said ... one thing stands out:“99.99 percent of the people I’ve met have been the very best in humanity,” he said. “The world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.”

December 11, 2002, the UN celebrates the first International #MountainDay ⛰️ Swiss geologist Albert Heim (1849-1937), famous for his work on the geology of the Alps, was also a gifted artist, sketching mountains showing their geological layers. ...

Lessons I like: In 1912, German meteorologist, explorer Alfred Wegener proposed that continents move. "Even the possibility of Continental Drift was a huge threat to the established authorities in each of the disciplines." Experts called it pseudoscience. web.archive.org/web/20120528...

City snowfall isn't best for driving, but streets in Montreal look pretty tonight. #Montreal #Snow #Winter #photography Literally #streetphotography 🤓

Quotes I like: If you want to know what's really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to advertising instead of musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than truth or beauty. ⇐ Jaron Lanier

* Quotes I like: The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way… As a man is, so he sees. ⇐ William Blake

Quotes I like: Of the exercise of a right, power may deprive me; of the right itself, never. Privilege, in the abstract, does not exist; there is no such thing. Rights recognized, privilege is destroyed. ⇐ Voltairine de Cleyre en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltair...

Celebrating the first snow day of the season by painting some new birches. Y’all got me excited for them again 😆. 16”x20” oil on canvas #art #painting #trees

"Music for Airports liner notes contain a graphic score designed by Brian Eno himself. Not a trained musician, and unable to read or write sheet music, he instead used graphic symbols to denote each musical phrase or loop." reverbmachine.com/blog/deconst... Still many people enjoyed this ambience

Quotes I like: Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity. ⇐ G.K. Chesterton

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 1 ‘The village’ Artist: SR Badmin

*Interesting* quote: As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in the morrow. ⇐ Horace (poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus 65BC-8AD, Rome) (Promoter of phrase carpe diem, lit. 'Pluck the day.' ) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace

The body of María Florinda Ríos Pérez, a Guatemalan woman killed in Indiana, has been returned to her native country.

Favorite stories: And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers – shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle – to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man. ⇐ Time Traveller, The Time Machine (1895)

#nowwatching The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) After listening to the sound track all day, I had to rewatch it. Brad and Janet run into trouble on their honeymoon - a flat tire, and the only place in sight is the castle of the lovely Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Don't be shy-who else loves this movie?

TIL : "Cold temperatures weaken nasal immunity, making us more vulnerable to viruses. A mere 5°C drop in nasal tissue temperature reduces immune response by nearly half." Mama was right. www.healthline.com/health-news/...

What really led Trump to threaten Seattle's World Cup "Wrestling is a ... metaphor for (his) style. He comes out of the pro wrestling scene in New York ... fans pretend the insults and acted body slams are real, to keep the entertainment juices flowing." www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Quotes I like: All gold is fool's gold. ⇐ Edward Abbey

To go where only a few have gone before: the Star Trek Fediverse! startrek.website

Quotes I like: Even the loneliest nomad on the steppes of Asia can have the news of the world by twisting a dial. He doesn't have to read. Once the common man has a chance to learn what is going on, he has a chance to control his destiny. ⇐ Walter Brattain, transistor co-inventor

Quotes I like: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ⇐ George Bernard Shaw

Tom Baker, MBE Nov. 10, 2025

Quotes I like: I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal. ⇐ Groucho Marx

Quotes I like: Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation. <== Balzac Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. <== Theodore N. Vail

Quotes I like: The question is not how to get good people to rule; the question is how to stop the powerful from doing as much damage as they can to us. ⇐ Karl Popper (1902-1994)

Quotes I like: Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. <== Theodore Roosevelt

Quotes I like He who lives wisely to himself and to his own heart, looks at the busy world through the loop-holes of retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray. 'He hears the tumult, and is still.' He is not able to mend it. ⇐ William Hazlitt (1778-1830) www.blupete.com/Literature/E...

Quotes I like: I follow four dictates: face it, accept it, deal with it, then let it go. ⇐ Sheng-yen (1931-2009 Chan school of Taiwan, originating source of Zen.)

Shielding Chart xkcd.com/3158/

This article describes what shape the White House was in 80 years ago when Harry Truman moved in.... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_H... EG: "a leg of Margaret Truman's piano crashed through the floor in her second floor sitting room and through the ceiling of the Family Dining Room below."

We are deeply saddened by the loss of Greg Newby, who led Project Gutenberg ( @gutenberg.org ) with passion and purpose. Greg’s belief in free and open access to knowledge continues to inspire us and so many others working to preserve our shared culture online. gutenberg.org/about/newby....

Ever read *Treasure Island* ? *Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde * ? RLS and family sailed off to Samoa in 1888. Review of a new book on *The Gypsy Life of Robert Louis Stevenson* hudsonreview.com/2025/10/the-...

“Average musician makes $12 a month on Spotify. The fact that they are not even able to sell a record and it’s taken from them by rich motherfuckers on streaming platforms who get paid royally by record labels,Ticketmaster, merch companies. They’re all fucking getting paid, except for the musician.”

Every state wishes it had one of these. WASHINGTON DOES. (OK, so it's a little long on Seattle.) If your state does, please clue me in! historylink.org/File/8974 historylink.org/File/1173

A news site that only shows headlines (no junk, no ads), gathered from well-known sites? (You can use uBlock to filter out the sites you don't like?) Try: theweblist.net

NYC had an anti-tech rally on Sep 27 Each wore a pointy hat with a note inside. One read: "5 hours of daily screen time = 15 years of life by the age 70," the note read. "Loneliness epidemic? It's not your fault. A society built around a phone is obscene." www.businessinsider.com/anti-tech-ra...

Just me, a hare, a hawk, the Coast Miwok people’s mountain afloat on its seasonal sea of fog — & a bohemian young woman near the hilltop who appears to have been greeting the sunrise bare-breasted until I showed up, sweaty & red-faced. To our mutual surprise. Northern California ftw

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, ... (more)

If you think you'd enjoy a well-made #podcast about the #counterculture, you can download one or two episodes here: bureauoflostculture.podbean.com . And if you like, you'll find the #RSS feed here: feed.podbean.com/bureauoflost...

Quotes I like: The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger. ⇐ David Graeber, 'On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs' (2013)

On this date in 1923 ... Walt Disney founds his cartoon animation studio along with his brother Roy. He's got a contract to make the Alice Comedies.… five years before Mickey Mouse is born. Original studio (before 1926). Ub Iwerks on the left.

30,000 blocked footpaths. If you come across one, be sure to report to the relevant local authority. Many LA’s do not make it easy to find the footpaths officer’s contact details! For an effective report see example below. Add OS reference and reference from LA Definitive Map.