delight | Network

Posted by Jorge C. Carrasco

https://restofworld.org/2025/brazil-data-center-environmental-risk/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feeds

In May, Brazil’s Finance Minister Fernando Haddad flew to the U.S. to meet with executives from Amazon, Google, Nvidia, and Meta. His agenda: to pitch his country as the newest,...

https://restofworld.org/2025/brazil-data-center-environmental-risk/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feeds

swaldman

I'm on holiday!
I haven't been blogging much on this trip, because it's mostly a trip to see friends and family. But yesterday was all about tourism, and I spent the day in Aachen, Germany, in 36C heat. I came here once before with friend L, when she showed me the place briefly, and I knew I needed to come back. Six years later, here I am.

My favourite thing about Aachen, although I've no idea how true it is, is this quote from Wikivoyage:

"As Aachen is a legally recognised spa, it could call itself Bad Aachen, but refuses to do so, as it then would no longer be first in almost all alphabetical lists."

My second favourite thing about Aachen, and the reason I'm here, is undoubedly the cathedral. It's unique, and beautiful. The central octagonal part dates from the 9th century, while the gothic "extension" is newer. It was built as the seat of Charlemagne (and this is why the octagonal shape - it resembles an Orthodox cathedral and he was making a statement about being equal to the rulers of the eastern empire). The throne that was allegedly his, and almost certainly wasn't, is present in the upper level. But it's not really the history that interests me so much as the look of the thing, with wonderful mosaics on the ceilings and a general sense of opulance that actually - in contrast to most Catholic opulance - manages to look well-designed. I didn't bring my good camera on this trip, but here are some phonecam photos.

Exterior view showing a tall but narrow octagonal section between a larger gothic bit and a tower (which is actually part of the city hall)

Exterior view showing a tall but narrow octagonal section between a larger gothic bit and a tower (which is actually part of the city hall)

Interior, looking down at the octagon. A two-level space with marble walls and an intricate mosaic floor, seats for worshippers.

Tall choir in a gothic style. Stained glass either side, golden reliquaries on stands in the centre.

Blue and gold mosaic ceiling with a hanging lantern. Vaulting between marble-clad columns.

poliphilo

I was sitting out on the patio in the cool of the evening and there was a snapping noise coming from my left- tiny, irregular, continuous- like small arms fire. Eventually I got up to see what it was. At first I thought it was coming from behind the gorse bushes- like some bird was doing it- but it wasn't, it was coming from the bushes themselves- and was the sound of the pods that had once been flowers popping open to release the fresh green needles inside.

"Well" I thought, "I didn't know that was a thing..." and then I remembered John Davidson's poem "The Runnable Stag"- the first line of which is "When pods went pop in the broom, green broom" and realised I'd known it since forever but discounted it- because who'd have thought that poets might have anything to tell us about Nature?

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250702.html

Does the Milky Way always rise between these two rocks?

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250702.html

kevinandkell_feed

http://www.kevinandkell.com/2025/kk0703.html

Comic for Thursday July 3rd, 2025 - "Snout twitch" [ view ]

On this day in 1996, Kell was doing some online research and found out why her shedding was so bad. She wasn't the only one affected... [ view ]

Today's Daily Sponsor - Today's comic strip is sponsored by: Hilary Syddall. [ support ]

http://www.kevinandkell.com/2025/kk0703.html

silveradept

Let's begin this entry with One Hundred reasons Not To Die, which starts with oranges and moves through the ways that communities come together in the face of disasters and help each other. Which stands in stark contrast to the ways that having more wealth than could possibly be earned or expended in one lifetime (at least, not without seriously screwing over everyone and everything you can) has altered the way that the richest think of how they should be allowed to rule without fetters, that their ideas are always the smartest, and the rest of us should be beholden to them for everything so that we can't stop them or tell them no.

Ask most people who go through a university program where there's at least some amount of sport, and they'll tell you that the sports parts of the university are almost always the things that get the most money and what they want the fastest. A non-tenured professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder doesn't make nearly as much as the football head coach, and very little of the money that the football program makes ever finds its way back to the academics, nor does it seem that the football program (or other programs) can be decalred to be self-sufficient and their budget allocations moved over to other places that could desperately use it, like salaries for those doing the teaching. This is the perpetual issue with universities that have well-known athletics programs - they bring in a fair amount of revenue, but a lot of that revenue then gets spent improving the athletics portions and the rest of the university is left to figure out how to get their own funding. (My university was at least fairly explicit that a lot of the revenue from their "revenue-generating" sports is used to ensure scolarships and other materials for the "non-revenue-generating sports," which means that the football program often provides the operating budget for much of the women's sports available at the university, which is not a terrible thing to do with that cash. It also helps that it was a university with a fair number of alumnae who have gone on to prestigious jobs, so there's a lot of regular donations and endowments that they can use for capital and operating expenses. They still don't pay everyone on the teaching side enough, though.)

Harvard University employed someone to find descendants of slaves who had a history with Harvard's founders and prominent people. For doing the job admirably, thoroughly, and well, Harvard fired him, because he was finding far too many people with the associations than what the university wanted to acknowledge. They were willing to peek beneath the hood, but not to fully look at what was found there.

( International Affairs, Domestic Fascism, and the occasional piece of good news )

Out of this post, McSweeney's says "Happy Father's Day, fools" with a post about just what it takes to be a dad.

And the need to remember that you don't know the gender of the person in front of you unless they've told you, which means a lot of habits that people have about gendering people based on things that don't actually say what their gender is need to be unlearned, both in person and in things like describing the contents of photos or other archival content.

(Materials via

adrian_turtle,

azurelunatic,

boxofdelights,

cmcmck,

conuly,

cosmolinguist,

elf,

finch,

firecat,

jadelennox,

jenett,

jjhunter,

kaberett,

lilysea,

oursin,

rydra_wong,

snowynight,

sonia,

the_future_modernes,

thewayne,

umadoshi,

vass, the

meta_warehouse community,

little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: Daft Punk - Georgio by Moroder

mecurtin

I finished taking the laundry out of this basket & put it down on its side for Purrcy investigation. It was worth snooping in, but not really good for long-term use, he found.

What's that in the sky? he wondered, after several days of rain & thunder-growler attacks.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby stands in a brown cloth laundry bin lying on its side. He peers out and up at the sunlight coming from the skylight above, his whiskers looking long but rather doubtful.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby stands in a brown cloth laundry bin lying on its side. He peers out and up at the sunlight coming from the skylight above, his whiskers looking long but rather doubtful.

My back continues to be better, while not being anything like *all* better. Prednisone has the reputation of being Side Effects City, my biggest ones so far are dry mouth making my voice all scratchy, and a certain amount of ADHD/mania type behavior, trouble settling & sleeping. Only 3 more days of tapering to go, though.

Amid all The Horrors ramping up & up, here's something that's given me active joy in the past couple of days: Sir Ian McKellan joining Scissor Sisters onstage at Glastonbury Festival:

Watch on YouTube

My god, he's still got that full Royal Shakespeare voice.

It makes me cry a bit with joy at the end there, seeing Sir Ian being able to lead his people in a public celebration of being out & proud. And to see an old man being *venerated*, for once, admired for achievements but in this case also as a symbol of what people like those in the audience can have with age: a *full* life, a *long* life, a life with everything in it, despite what they may have been told. You don't have to be young to be queer, it's not a phase, it's part of a complete human life.

torachan

1. Today was kind of a long day but I did get stuff done.

2. Just one more day of work this week and then three day weekend!

3. Finished another puzzle today. This is from the multi-puzzle box of Disney 70th anniversary puzzles. I really love this design, and they've got a fair bit of merch using it, too, but sadly not anything I actually need (and not even much that I particularly want).

4. Chloe loves lying on Carla's bed by the window.

lassarina

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

tsuki_no_bara

first, i need to share that last tuesday, so about a week ago, it was so hot i went to my sister's to take advantage of her a/c. i called her when i got home from work and was waffling about going over there - i wanted to keep packing! - and then my power went out. >.< which kind of decided it for me. i mean, if there's no power i can't run the fans and if i can't run the fans i'm going to melt. in the morning she drove me to the t station and after work i went home and continued to put things in boxes.

so yes. i'm all moved in. :D the movers came like fifteen minutes early - i was ready for them - i showed them around the place and said "everything goes except the ficus" because i wanted to put it in my car and they were very efficient and didn't have to take the legs off my couch to get it out the door! (the guys who moved me in did.) but did have to disassemble my bed and take the legs off my dining room table. it took them five hours and fifteen minutes to move all my shit. my sister came over to be moral support and after the movers were done she went back to the old place with me to eat lunch (we sat on the dining room floor because, you know, there was no furniture) and clean up. she cleaned the stove, i swept and wiped down the kitchen counters. there was A LOT of dust under my bed. O.O and then my roommate showed up to get rid of the plant pots on the back porch - why she didn't do it sooner i have no idea - we'd had this whole conversation last week about when i would be around and i thought she needed me to let her in because she'd turned in her key, but no. she still had it. so why did she have to come over when i was there? who knows! she's someone else's wtf-magnet now.

i tried to set up my internet and cable in the new place, failed utterly, and spent like an hour on the phone with comcast while they tried to fix it. (and failed utterly.) a tech was supposed to come today but is apparently coming tomorrow? and in the meantime i hooked into some free-floating unsecured wifi so i could get online today to get some work done. after comcast was unable to help me my sister and i went out for dinner, came home, discovered the internet had not magically turned itself on, she went home, i unpacked some clothes so i'd have something to wear. because sunday

tamalinn had a birthday brunch (mexican food, delicious) and then we went to her house to play games and pet the dog, and after that i went to the grocery store - it's right around the corner from me! but i might still go to the store that's closer to the old apartment - and sat outside the coffeeshop that's near the aforementioned former grocery store and eventually went home.

because i couldn't count on the home internet i went in to work monday and tuesday, enjoyed the a/c, told fellow admins about the move, met the new admin (admin f) who replaced one of the admins c who just retired, tried to figure out the best commute. it takes longer than it used to and i'm at the mercy of the bus schedule but overall it's not bad. and i used to take the bus when i worked for tax people so it's not like this is totally unfamiliar.

so far i have unpacked:

a wardrobe box full of coats (like i need them in this weather :| )
a wardrobe box full of clothes and art
a wardrobe box full of random bedroom stuff
almost all my suitcases (except the one with my shoes in it) (see below)
dvd's
cd's (altho i seem to have lost a bunch of classical cd's)
silverware
kitchen knives (so i can cut up a lettuce for a giant salad)
the salad spinner (so i can wash the aforementioned lettuce)
two (2) cereal bowls
the teapot
all the bathroom stuff
a box of clothes and hangers

i have not unpacked:

a bowl large enough for the aforementioned salad
a can opener

...which is only important because i like chickpeas in my salad but i have no way to open the can. oy.

things i don't love:

there's no overhead light in the bedroom or the living room
it gets very dark in the bedroom without a light
there's not as much cross-breeze as i was hoping for
the ceilings are low
i can't put hooks over the top of the doors or the doors won't close

which mostly means i can't hang my shoe thing on the closet door if i want to close the closet door (which i do) but if i don't hang my shoes i don't know where to put them. the closet ain't that big. this will require some creative thinking. also another couple of lamps.

(there's no cross-breeze in the bedroom but there is in the kitchen! which is nice altho not helpful when i want fresh air to sleep in.)

i miss the front porch in the old place and i haven't met any dogs yet and it's very weird living alone and not having to share the kitchen or the bathroom and not having to deal with someone else's clutter. i haven't even unpacked enough to make my own clutter. it's also really quiet. every so often i can hear someone out in the hallway or outside and this afternoon i could hear someone vacuuming in the apartment next door but otherwise it's kind of like i have the whole building to myself. but so far i like this place. i think i'll stay. :D

in totally other news the old guard 2 (2 old 2 guard, mamma mia here we guard again) is out and i know this because gif sets are appearing on tumblr. no one tell me nothing. i don't want to know until i see it myself.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: just the fan

muccamukk

The whole Diddy thing. It doesn't matter how much proof there is.

Brad Pitt, who is known to have struck his wife and his children then perpetuated lawfare on them for years to the point where several of his kids no longer want contact with him, has the number one movie right now. Best opening weekend of his career. Most of the coverage doesn't even mention the violence.

On the anniversary of Tortoise Media publishing allegations of rape and sexual assault against Neil Gaiman, Netflix is dropping season two of The Sandman. Meanwhile, Gaiman is forcing one of his victims into arbitration. Not because she's libling him, but because she broke an NDA. Everything's gone very quiet, which I assume is what he wanted.

Some thoughts from smarter people:

Rebecca Solnit: Cynicism Is the Enemy of Action.

Tarana Burke: Tarana Burke doesn’t define #MeToo’s success by society’s failure.

Some people want to judge the movement on specific outcomes, so when a case is overturned, Burke said, “people are like, ‘Oh the #MeToo movement has failed.’” Instead, she said, such outcomes are proof of the difficulty of the work.

“It’s not about the failure of the movement; it’s the failure of the systems,” Burke explained. “These systems are not designed to help survivors, they’re not designed to give us justice, they’re not designed to end sexual violence.”

“When we bind ourselves to the outcomes of these cases, we are constantly up and down with our disappointment, our highs and lows,” Burke continued. “What they tell us is just how much work we need to change the laws and the policies but most importantly, to change the culture that creates the people who commit, who perpetrate acts of harm.”

innitmarvelous_og posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

james_davis_nicoll

The inspiration being the 1999 Mummy movie is not without problematic elements.

Imagine an Egyptian film company wanting to make a movie about idiots waking a horror in Canada that only the Egyptian lead can resolve.
( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith

Thanks to a donation from

fuzzyred, you can now read the rest of "In the Heart of the Hidden Garden." Lawrence gives Stan a tour of two more buildings and two more gardens -- and then explains why.