Alex Murrell on the "The Age of Average", why everything around the world looks more and more the same, with remarkable illustrations.
Amazing medieval tomb excavated in China.
This study claims that horses reached the North American plains in the early 1600s, well before Spanish settlers. But this study ignores a lot of evidence that says otherwise, so the question remains open.
New mathematical modeling suggests that earth's population will peak at 8.6 billion around 2050 and fall to 6 billion by the century's end.
The Pergamon Museum in Berlin is to close in October for a 14-year renovation. Guess I'll never see it.
"Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49."
Swedish battery maker Northvolt is opening a facility that they say will recycle old electric vehicle batteries in a cost-competitive way. Which is crucial for a future not dependent on fossil fuels.
The frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii.
Dutch culture: “for years ‘Boer Zoekt Vrouw’ (‘Farmer Seeks Wife’) was a popular reality TV show in which farmers sought wives or husbands to join them in their rural idyll. Windmills and cows featured prominently.” (NY Times, from a piece about the politics of agricultural reform)
South Korean artist Jukhee Kwon creates interesting sculptures from deconstructed books.
Drone footage of a pod of orcas attacking and killing a grey whale, just one of a whole class of videos like this showing orcas attacking larger whales.
Spitalfields Life walks an old route called the Black Path through east London; you can follow it on Google Maps.
Nalujuk Night, a strange Inuit fusion of Christmas and Halloween, bizarre 13-minute video.
Excellent Guardian piece on Timothy Snyder, the world's most famous historian of Ukraine; how many historians have gotten to have long, face-to-face meetings with the leader of a major nation at war?
Stormchaser videos of the violent tornadoes of March: bonkers daylight video of a huge F-4 in Iowa, and a freaky video shot at night in Mississippi.
The US government manages the Yellowstone buffalo herd by allowing nearby American Indian tribes to exercise their old treaty rights to hunt buffalo. Sort of a win-win, except for the buffalo. This year, because of a brucellosis outbreak among the buffalo and a harsh winter that forced them to move to lower elevations, the cull was very large, more than 1,500 animals. Which of course led to "stop the slaughter" protests. (NY Times, NPS page on managing the herd)
Lovely black and white photographs of boundary stones and other interesting rocks on the Yorkshire moors, from "The Smell of Water", aka "Teeside Psychogeography." And a great color photo set of hand-made seaside shacks in Port Mulgrave.
Wars over women in the pre-Malthusian world.
Ceramics by Clara Holt that feature designs from myth and classic literature.
Photographs and video from the SFMOMA's soapbox derby.
After reading student newspapers from many Texas universities, Jonathan Malesic finds that they are not that invested in politics and write much more about personal concerns: long-distance relationships, whether they should ditch their phones, water fountains, grocery delivery, homework, whether its ok to go barefoot on campus. (NY Times)
Since we started holding most meetings online, the number of meetings has surged, and many corporations are now fighting meeting creep with bans and limits. One executive told Forbes, "Our no meetings approach has worked wonders in raising morale." But "U.S. workers spend an average of 31 hours per month in meetings they consider unproductive," so there is still a lot to do. (NY Times, Forbes, CNN)
Ukraine Links
A claim that Ukrainian soldiers have found the remains of 1,700 German soldiers from WW II while digging trenches etc.
The Telegraph thinks Putin may soon face his "Julius Caesar moment."
Russian Telegram channel blasts Rostec (Russia's biggest arms manufacturer) for its inability to make simple drones like the Iranian Shahed.
Commander in charge of Russia's disastrous attacks on Vuhledar in February is relieved.
Summary of Russia's winter offensive by Michael Koffman, long Twitter thread.
Russian offensive in Bakhmut seems to have stalled short of taking the whole city; Wagner head Prigozhin says another Russian offensive in the near future is "out of the question."
The BBC has more on the losses suffered by the 331st VDV battalion, one of Russia's most elite units.
The NY Times on the lessons China is learning from the Russia-Ukraine war: much about logistics and drones, and a focus on destroying or jamming satellite communication systems like Starlink.
New mathematical modeling suggests that earth's population will peak at 8.6 billion around 2050 and fall to 6 billion by the century's end.
ReplyDeleteI sure hope so. Imagine a world in which every single person automatically has nearly a 50% larger share of the world's limited resources, on top of all the extra benefits of reduced pollution, reduced water usage, reduced need to allocate land to crops, etc.
A claim that Ukrainian soldiers have found the remains of 1,700 German soldiers from WW II while digging trenches etc.
ReplyDeleteI dug through the comments in the original German tweet and a bit of machine-assisted-translation later, I've got two separate German news articles about it.
Deutschlandfunk has "Überreste tausender Wehrmachtssoldaten geborgen" (Remains of thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers recovered), also published March 31st. [https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/ueberreste-tausender-wehrmachtssoldaten-geborgen-106.html]
Deustchlandfunk is apparently Germany's most successful public radio station, so that seems pretty legitimate.
The second source I'm going to intentionally omit, because apparently it's a Far-Right organization, and I'd rather not give them any attention / clicks.
The Deutschlandfunk article is rather short, so here's a fairly rough translation:
"Last year, the German War Graves Commission recovered the remains of around 6,700 Wehrmacht soldiers from the Second World War in Russia and Ukraine."
"Volksbund President Schneiderhan told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (Editorial Network Germany) that the bodies of more than 5,000 Germans had been found in Russia alone."
The next sentence the machine-translation struggled with - perhaps someone with a better grasp of German can help out. "Man habe sie aber nicht so feierlich beerdigen können wie früher."
Machine-translation suggests "But you couldn't bury her as solemnly as before", which seems obviously wrong, presumably stumbling over a gendered word form - my guess would be "But you couldn't bury them as solemnly as before", or perhaps something like "But they are no longer as solemnly buried as they were", or possibly "But they could not be reburied properly".
"At the moment, this is only happening quietly, because official contacts with Russia are limited."
"According to Schneiderhan, the remains of 1,700 dead were recovered in the Ukraine. Ukrainian soldiers discovered them while digging a trench. In two cases, the dead were also identified and the relatives informed. According to Schneiderhan, the funeral will take place in Ukraine"
Took a look, Wolfgang Schneiderhan is apparently a retired German general. He resigned in 2009 over allegations of failing to disclose full details about an airstrike in Afghanistan that killed numerous civilians, which was viewed as an attempted cover-up. Since 2014, he has served as the Vice President of the German War Graves Commission. (Also he's the nephew of the famous Austrian violinst of the same name.)
The second source says effectively the same thing, using different language and phrasing. Both cite Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.
Thought this was interesting and didn't know where else to post it. If this has been posted before, apologies.
ReplyDeleteA bit old, but I find these surveys by the Pew foundation on International* opinion of the U.S. (and other things) interesting. The favorability ratings are much better than i thought they would be. I especially found the one on U.S presidents' favorability interesting -- Biden showing a precipitous drop from year 1 to year 2. Same as in U.S. What explains this? I would have thought Ukraine would have raised his favorability ratings. I also was surprised that NATO's popularity among member states -- where is Turkey? -- would have increased more than it did. It actually dipped for some members.
Note Xi's favorability ratings in Singapore and Malaysia versus in Japan, S. Korea, and Australia, the three most westernized states in the area and who also have close ties to U.S. A possibly troubling divide for that part of the world.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/international-public-opinion-of-the-u-s-remains-positive/
I hope another comes out in June.
* The surveys are characterized as international, but it's mostly Europe with a few countries from Asia, and there are no third world country participants.