Paul Sutton @zleap@social.cleverlibre.org

It was about time that we followed this call:

"Join the Organidons: Organization and Management Scholars on Mastodon"
https://osconjunction.net/2023/01/27/join-the-organidons-organization-and-management-scholars-on-mastodon/

wrote about how Zoom went from an indispensable pandemic tool to a flailing business whose recent pivots—to generative A.I., to customer data-mining, to office-bound work—are only turning up the heat on a once-beloved company: https://slate.com/technology/2023/08/zoom-ai-privacy-business-pandemic.html

“The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/08/britain-poor-people-leisure-victorian-workhouse

Cutting-Edge technology reveals hidden details in ancient Egyptian paintings

Researchers have used cutting-edge portable chemical imaging technology to uncover hidden details in two ancient Egyptian paintings dating back over 3,000 years. The paintings were discovered in the Theban Necropolis, situated near the River Nile, within the tombs’ chapels where people gathered to commemorate the deceased....

Continue Reading: https://archaeologymag.com/2023/07/hidden-details-in-ancient-egyptian-paintings/
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Follow @archaeology

Two things together.
∆ Realisation that 2 degrees, even 1.5 degrees, is far from safe.
∆ Realisation that #climate impacts are happening faster than anticipated.
What a juxtaposition.
An emergency requires an emergency brake.
It's called #degrowth.

#Visegrád24 reports that #Ukrainian combat medic #DariaFilipieva has been killed in battle against the #Russian Army.

Rest in Peace
#RIP

President Biden to designate 1m acres around Grand Canyon a national monument

The Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon monument – home to several Native tribes – will be protected from uranium mining
#News #USA #grandcanyon

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/08/biden-grand-canyon-new-national-monument?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

If Trump didn’t want his case tried in D.C., he shouldn’t have committed crimes in D.C. See how that works?

Remote work is described to be so dangerous that it could disrupt nation states. When ppl have the power to choose their own jurisdiction, they can sculpt their lives to live in the most favorable location possible, and that includes paying the least taxes.

Sound familiar? This is what the 1% has been doing all along. The uproar against remote work corresponds with working class ppl starting to enjoy the exact same perks that the ultra-rich have enjoyed all along.

Now that working class ppl might start figuring out how to avoid paying taxes in the sane way the rich already have, suddenly we start finding remote described "dangerously disruptive" and billionaires going all out on information warfare against it.

#RemoteWork #WorkFromHome #BackToOffice

https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/digital-nomadism-disrupting-nation-states?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

Hey students… the existence of the notes doesn’t matter. The thinking you do when you read/ listen and summarize then write it down… that thinking is what matters. Don’t be fooled by the advice to “have AI take your notes.”

March 2022 a prospective buyer of my building started coming around trying to get my neighbours and I to move out. These were get-rich-quick flippers led by a 19 year old. They bought the building and proceed to try and "renovict" us. My neighbours and I resisted and got a lawyer once we needed one.

A year later they gave up and sold the building to another real estate investor who is more of an established get-rich-slow type. They walked into the legal shitshow the previous buyer had created and tried to carry it on.

They failed and finally they fired their lawyer, and signed every demand we gave them to drop their pursuits to evict us, fearing the embarrassing number of claims we had open against them that we would likely win. My neighbour, who had no physical lease and very little documentation, even got them to sign a new lease with him at his current rent.

So 16 months later we are all still in our apartments, with our rent unchanged. It's certain that this landlord or another will come around and try again at some point, but we collectively have maintained our 3 apartments at some of the cheapest rents in Montreal. Not to mention humiliating 2 different sets of landlords in court at the Tribunal Administratifs du Logements. Total victory.

"Gaither High School teacher Joseph Cool told the Tampa Bay Times that because there is 'some raunchiness in Shakespeare,' the Hillsborough County school district decided to limit students to only reading certain excerpts of his work rather than full plays..."

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/08/school-district-censors-shakespeare-to-comply-with-dont-say-gay-law/
School district censors Shakespeare to comply with Don't Say Gay law - LGBTQ Nation
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/08/school-district-censors-shakespeare-to-comply-with-dont-say-gay-law/

People are getting paid for #publishing #AI-written #books, in an #author's name, when in fact the author did not, and knew nothing about this happening.

Then, when the author tries to do something about it to stop this obvious #abuse, they are told no.

Glacial floods could threaten ~15M ppl worldwide🚨. Sat’s event was astonishing bc the water gushed so quickly, raising the river’s flows to ~1.5X the highest previously recorded & washed away sensors to study the glacial phenomenon. 8 buildings have been condemned. The destruction came as a glacial dam burst-⬆️levels of the Mendenhall River to an unprecedented degree. >1/2 the ppl at risk from glacial outburst floods are in IN, PK, PE & CH. #ClimateEmergency #ClimateCrisis https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/8/alaskas-bursting-ice-dam-highlights-threat-of-glacial-floods-worldwide

This is America #voteblue

While little known in US, glacial flooding could threaten about 15 million people around the world, researchers say.
Alaska’s bursting ice dam highlights threat of glacial floods worldwide

Suppose you were trying to invent a bright orange powder that could easily dye clothes and be hard to wash off. Using your knowledge of quantum mechanics you'd design this symmetrical molecule where an electron's wavefunction can vibrate back and forth along a chain of carbons at the frequency of green light. Absorbing green light makes it look orange! And this molecule doesn't dissolve in water.

Yes: you'd invent turmeric!

Or more precisely 'curcurmin', the molecule that gives turmeric its special properties.

The black atoms are carbons, the white are hydrogens and the red are oxygens.

Read on and check out what pure curcurmin looks like.

(1/n)

Unless we change course immediately, large parts of the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent will become uninhabitable for humans (along with many plant and animal species) within only a few decades.

Hundreds of millions of people — potentially billions — will be forced to migrate. Or die.
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Iraq, with its population of about 43 million, is one of the hottest places on Earth. Matters are made worse as power shortages mean that people have to rely on generators to keep their cooling systems on during the heat.

Extreme temperatures and a lack of electrical power are a deadly combination, and one that is being felt across Iraq.

The country is one of the world’s most vulnerable to climate change, faced with scorching heatwaves, reduced rainfall, water scarcity, and desertification.

Last weekend in Iraq, a nationwide power outage caused by an accidental fire at a power station in the southern province of Basra led to the almost total collapse of the country’s power grid on Saturday afternoon, adding to the suffering of many across the southern and central regions of Iraq.

On Wednesday, Baghdad recorded a high of 49C (120F) and in Basra temperatures went beyond 51C (123F); the hottest city in the world this week, according to the monitoring group Hot Cities.

The temperature across several Iraqi governorates including Maysan, Dhi Qar, Muthanna, Diwaniyah, and Najaf, in the southern part of the country also exceeded 50C (122F), according to the Iraqi Meteorological Organisation.

“Iraq is facing three perfect storms in the next decade,” said Azzam Alwalsh, environmental expert and founder of Nature Iraq. “Yet decision makers are not even aware of the abyss facing us, let alone thinking about solutions and the time needed to implement them.”
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FULL STORY -- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/4/extreme-heat-hits-iraq-as-temperatures-exceed-50-degrees-celsius

#Iraq #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

The fight against deforestation in Latin America has been going on for years.Governments have long given orders to security forces to go after illegal miners...
Colombia tries new approach to halt Amazon rainforest destruction