shekinahcancook

shekinahcancook, 4 days ago to 13thFloor

The History and Mystery of Yemen’s ‘Well of Hell’ - The first-ever expedition to the bottom of a startling desert sinkhole found wonders—but only natural ones, by Sarah Durn October 20, 2021

"...Actually, there was a concern more sinister than reptiles and spirits when Al-Kindi finally reached the bottom: unexploded ordnance. Since 2014, Yemen has been in the midst of a bloody civil war and, Al-Kindi explains, pilots sometimes drop bombs into caves, since people seek shelter inside. “So that got me worried a bit,” he says. “Apart from that, it was a very enjoyable moment.” ...Al-Kindi estimates the sinkhole could be several million years old, but its origin, too, is the subject of local legend. One legend says an ancient king forced jinn to carve the “well” as a place to hide his treasure. In others, the well has always served to contain evil, uncontrollable jinn..."

#Mythology #Superstition #Yemen #Geology #Sinkhole #Desert

shekinahcancook, 5 days ago to Geology

Plate Tectonics Has a Surprise Silver Lining - Without this restless geologic process, which triggers destructive earthquakes, Earth would not be habitable, by Robin George Andrews May 29, 2024

"...on geologic timescales, plate tectonics ensures that Earth won’t grow so catastrophically hot that its surface becomes unlivable. Without plate tectonics, Earth would turn into Venus. And no planet aspires to be more like Venus.

...And, had it not been for—among other things—our world’s endlessly shifting tectonic plates, Earth could have shared the same grim fate as Venus.

Yes, those tectonic plates buckle and stretch, slip and slide, creating faults that jolt and snap, which generate earthquakes—sometimes devastatingly so. But these tremors are the vital sign of a planet with a beating geologic heart, an orb with a transmogrifying face..."

[I immediately thought of Calvin and Hobbes here, lol.]

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/plate-tectonics-make-earth-habitable

#Geology #PlateTechtonics #Climate #Science #Subduction

shekinahcancook, 5 days ago to conservative

The world made by hand, By Brian Kaller, originally published by Restoring Mayberry June 1, 2024

"...All the crafts disappeared in a generation or two – the coopers, wrights, milliners, cord-wainers and thousands more. All the stories handed down through generations disappeared in a few generations, until we all know only the same few pop-culture stories. Almost all the apprenticeships, lodges, clubs, co-ops and guilds disappeared... We are the survivors wandering the ruins of a post-apocalyptic society, but it has been a cultural apocalypse, a mass forgetting, and it’s still going on...

...I realize that we could not build some of these [buildings] now; the crafts to create them are forgotten, along with...[all] these [handcrafted] trades and … everything. The entire human infrastructure.

And I think: None of this world could have been built by the people now living in it."

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-06-01/the-world-made-by-hand/

#Handmade #Craftsmanship #Culture #SkilledTrades

shekinahcancook, 8 days ago to random

Inaugural summer 2024 dinner on the patio - achievement unlocked.

shekinahcancook, 8 days ago to linguistics

How the Brain Processes Different Components of Language - Moving beyond neural localization of language. Posted May 28, 2024

"...This is in line with recent ideas about a "cortical mosaic" architecture for linguistic structure within overlapping portions of posterior temporal and inferior frontal cortices for processing demands that bias syntactic and semantic computations, whereby, for example, effects of composition can be found within a narrow strip of tissue within the broader lexicality-sensitive cortical sites (a spatial mosaic), or where different demands of sentence-level inferential semantics can be detected over closely overlapping temporal windows within a small area of cortex (a spatiotemporal mosaic)..."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/language-and-its-place-in-nature/202405/how-the-brain-processes-different-components-of

Your brain is a big interconnected mosaic, not a nice neat clearly labeled filing cabinet, lol.

#Language #Linguistics #Brain #Psychology #Learning #Education

shekinahcancook, 8 days ago to climate

From ChartR: There might soon be a vitamin C-shaped hole in many Americans’ breakfasts: orange juice prices are hitting all-time highs, as a series of poor harvests strain the existing supply of frozen juice futures.

Indeed, while the price of OJ has climbed at an alarming rate in recent years due to reduced production yields, this week saw frozen concentrated orange juice futures ...reach a record price of $4.87 per pound. That’s roughly 5x where they were trading in 2020.

These juiced-up figures have arisen from a blend of bad weather and disease that’s long plagued the world's orange groves...And Florida, world-renowned for its oranges, won’t be able to pick up the slack. The Sunshine State has seen output decline steadily for more than 2 decades, thanks to citrus greening, hurricanes, falling yields, and a booming housing market that’s turned citrus farms into premium real estate.

#FoodSecurity #FoodPrices #Groceries #CropFailures #ClimateCrisis #Agriculture #Farming #Development

shekinahcancook, 9 days ago to random

Well, that's the end of that. My now ex-friend and I had a huge falling out this morning. It's been a while coming. Somehow it's my fault that everything she was supposed to be doing for the last year didn't get done. She just stops in the middle of things and gets all bent out of shape when you call her on her unfulfilled promises. So we're done. I don't need that kind of crap right now.

shekinahcancook, 9 days ago to Cats

Apparently cats have been our overlords longer than we thought.

Were Egyptians Really the First to Domesticate Cats? Try Cave Men - A map shows the spread of felines by Egyptians, Romans, Vikings—and prehistoric ancestors. by Frank Jacobs, Big Think May 24, 2024

"...major advances in paleogenetic analysis have helped illuminate the deep past of one of mankind’s favorite pets. In the last 2 decades, it has been established that the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica) is the common ancestor of all domesticated cats, and that they were first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago.

It also could be said that cats domesticated themselves; they were attracted to the rodents that feasted off the harvests of the earliest farmers. They chose us, not the other way around. In turn, those early farmers appreciated this welcome form of pest control. ...They arrived as a “ready-made” symbiotic species, so to speak..."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/first-house-cat

#Cats #Archaeology #history

shekinahcancook, 9 days ago to spiders

I didn't really want to know this. Yes, spiders are good neighbors and helpful and all that. But...I don't want them landing on me. Just saying.

Baby Spiders Are ‘Addicted’ to Flying With Mini Balloons - From Himalayan jumping spiders to brown widows, arachnids love to float over your head. by Cara Giaimo May 24, 2024

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wild-life-excerpt-spider-balloons

#Spiders #Arachnids

shekinahcancook, 9 days ago to BadInternetBills

Join the Workers Circle and the Center for Common Ground for this month’s training on how to be an effective citizen advocate. No experience is necessary!

Led by Andrea Miller co-founder of the Center for Common Ground, and Workers Circle Director of Social Justice, Noelle Damico, this once-a-month, hour-long training is divided into two parts.

During the first 30 minutes of "How to be an Effective Citizen Advocate," we review pending legislation.

The second 30 minutes are a legislative visit training so that you can learn or brush up on how to impactfully engage your senators, representatives, and their staff.

Come for all or part of the program! All registrants will receive a video of the training, slides, an advocacy toolkit, and additional background information.

Register Here: https://www.circle.org/events/citizenadvocate-june-2024

#Advocacy #Democracy #Lobbying #Mazeldon #Activism #VotingRights #WomensRights #CivilRights

shekinahcancook, 9 days ago to Insurance

How extreme weather will affect the insurance and energy sectors - By Matthew Wright, Matthew Priestly, originally published by The Conversation May 29, 2024

"...Insurance companies evaluating risks must account for a combination of the most extreme weather systems, and those affecting built-up, developed areas. The most risk-prone areas are quantified by examining historical events and assessing other possible scenarios that are generated by models. Risk experts also consider what impact historical events would have today. Increases in risk may be due to increases in population, density of the built environment, or GDP. For example, Hurricane Katrina’s impact would be $40 billion higher if it occurred today..."

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-29/how-extreme-weather-will-affect-the-insurance-and-energy-sectors/

#Insurance #Sustainability #ClimateCrisis #PredatoryCapitalism

shekinahcancook, 10 days ago to Theatre

Neoliberal economics is killing the arts
By Tim Lutton, originally published by Red Pepper May 28, 2024

"...As a society, we must resist art-as-capital, where it is reduced to pure exchange value in a market of commodities. There, any politically-charged and counter-hegemonic content is rendered powerless, constituted as a stable harmonisation of the dominant socio-political order and drowning out all contradictions.

...In the present era, the tendency towards total marketisation of artistic production accompanies perpetual austerity and an atomised rentier economy that is shrinking public and social life. Without a rupture from neoliberal capitalism in general, the means to make new, generative and disruptive art disappears, and much else that is meaningful in our lives will follow after. The rest is silence."

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-28/neoliberal-economics-is-killing-the-arts/

#ArtHistory #PredatoryCapitalism #Orchestra #Theatre #Arts #Museum #Exhibition #Education #NeoLiberalism #Culture

shekinahcancook, 12 days ago to random

Today we cleaned up the patio area and got the shade sails up, but it's too windy to eat dinner outside.

I feel like I should have got a lot more done today. But I just don't have the energy.

shekinahcancook, 12 days ago to linguistics

Why Do Dwarves Sound Scottish and Elves Sound Like Royalty?
Blame Tolkien and time - by Eric Grundhauser December 7, 2016

"...Tolkien would create languages first, then write cultures & histories to speak them... In the case of the ever-present Elvish in his works, Tolkien took inspiration from Finnish and Welsh. As the race of men & hobbits got their language from the elves in Tolkien’s universe, their language was portrayed as similarly Euro-centric in flavor.

For the dwarves, who were meant to have evolved from an entirely separate lineage, he took inspiration from Semitic languages for their speech, resulting in dwarven place names like Khazad-dûm & Moria.

“When dwarves actually talk, they don’t sound Scottish at all,” says Olsen. “They sound like Arabic or Hebrew.”...As radio & film adaptations of Tolkien’s works were released in later decades, you can see the slow evolution of the dwarven accent..."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-do-dwarves-sound-scottish-and-elves-sound-like-royalty

#Linguistics #Tolkien #Dwarves #Elves #Fantasy #Language

shekinahcancook, 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago) to linguistics

If you watched the Banshee of Inisherin or Netflix's Bodkin and wondered if they really say "that" pretty much every other word in small Irish towns, apparently the answer is yes.

Source: https://thelanguagenerds.com/2024/most-used-swear-words-in-every-european-country/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1bQV9JRF3HLds9prO

#SwearWords #Cussing #Linguistics #Language

shekinahcancook, 16 days ago to sustainability

These U.S. Cities Have More Parking Lots Than Housing - They paved paradise again and again and again.
by Frank Jacobs, Big Think May 17, 2024

"...On average, about one-fifth of all land in city centers is dedicated to parking. But what’s the actual harm being done by all that parking space? For one, city centers that are more “parkable” become less walkable. In other words, fewer things are casually accessible.

...Americans’ attitude toward driving is changing. The share of high school seniors with a driving license has dropped from 85.3% in 1996 to 71.5% in 2015. The rise of shared, multi-modal, and (soon, they keep promising us) autonomous mobility will further reduce the need for driver’s licenses, individual cars, and massive parking facilities in city centers.

Perhaps it’s time for American cities to become denser, more lived-in, more walkable—and less “parkable.”

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/parking-lots-in-cities-usa

#Parking #Zoning #LandUse #Urbanism #Transportation #Sustainability

shekinahcancook, 17 days ago to sustainability

Growth or Scale? By Tom Murphy, originally published by Do the Math May 22, 2024

"...It’s not too hard to lay hands on records of global resource use. One publication I ran across has some useful graphs for a few raw materials in common use. The first graph shows annual extraction of copper, zinc, and lead since 1900, usefully...

...From 1960 to 2005, in no region of the world did annual production of timber moderate alongside growth. The total global activity almost doubled (77% increase) over this interval rather than stagnating or tumbling by a factor of two as growth did.

The result for all of these resources is clear: scale is a more apt correlate than growth. The curves bear a family resemblance to the hockey-stick scale curves: far less resemblance to the peaking growth curves. A confounder in this is that per-capita resource extraction has also risen for many materials, in association with economic growth..."

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-22/growth-or-scale/

#DeGrowth #Sustainability #Resources

shekinahcancook, 18 days ago (edited 18 days ago) to random

If I were to buy a new laptop with some version of newbie friendly linux preloaded, intending to use it for music and graphics arts (not gaming), social media, and regular LibreOffice type stuff (and affinity, audacity, etc), what laptop would I buy with what version of linux?

#linux #tech #laptop

shekinahcancook, 18 days ago to random

Well, just in case my week wasn't going badly enough (need a dr appt for my eye, scrambling to get caught up on work from last week when I was at a conference, my best friend's hubby lost his job), now I find out our heat pump has had it and we have to get a new one installed.

Sigh. I'm melting. Hell will freeze over before dinner gets cooked in this heat, so I guess we're eating out till they get it replaced.

shekinahcancook, 24 days ago to Economics

Markets - Where did all the stocks go?
Public Companies In Decline

The number of public companies has fallen fast by Matt Phillips, David Crowther 4/28/24

"...After analyzing the effects of mergers, private-equity investment, and regulatory costs, the paper suggests that M&A is the main culprit. (Though they do theorize that higher costs associated with regulation could be a less important contributing factor.)

“Mergers seem to be the biggest driver of this trend,” Ali Sanati told Sherwood. Sanati is a finance professor at the American University in Washington, DC, and a coauthor of the 2023 paper.

The authors categorized mergers according to various financial metrics, noting that mergers motivated around financing and innovation “are the ones that effectively reduce the number of U.S. listings.”

So, they got eaten.

https://sherwood.news/markets/the-number-of-public-companies-has-fallen-fast/

#Economics #PredatoryCapitalism #EatTheRich #StockMarket

shekinahcancook, 25 days ago to Jewish

From JIMENA:
Antisemitism since October.

Learn why this concerning trend isn’t just a matter of concern to the Jewish community, but a direct threat to democracy and national security. Gain insights into how the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. government in general, are addressing Jew-hatred around the world and why a comprehensive, whole-of-society approach is more critical now than ever before.

Don’t miss this opportunity to be informed, engaged, and empowered to counter antisemitism.

Join us virtually on May 24th by registering here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLEKEEOvKaxWtY9tI7Hpz94laWk27TgWMbhDtJYD6Rrbo7dg/viewform

Follow the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Instagram and X (Twitter) for updates.

#Mazeldon #Jewniverse #JFedi #Oct7 #AntiSemitism #JIMENA #Jewish #JewishWomen

shekinahcancook, 25 days ago to workersrights

The Unions Strike Back

Apple workers are striking at a store in Maryland by Millie Giles 5/13/24

"...In the aftermath of its outrage-inducing object-crushing advert, Apple has been dealt another PR blow, as it faces its first retail employee strike in history.

...While Apple is currently in the firing line for its employee practices, with labor unions like the Communications Workers of America accusing the tech giant of union-busting, collective strike action has been gaining traction across the US more widely..."

https://sherwood.news/power/the-unions-strike-back-work-stoppages-rose-sharply-in-2023/

#WorkersRights #Labor #PredatoryCapitalism #Union #Strike #Economics

shekinahcancook, 25 days ago to Jewish

From Harif - a US event!

*Annual New York Conference to mark the departure and exile of Jews from Arab Countries, 20 May 2024, Touro University, Brooklyn. With MK May Golan, Shimon Ohayon, Ben Dror Yemini, Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah, Haim Saadoun, Stanley Uruman, Sarina Roffé, etc

Register Here: https://tourocollege.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a8YLdsaEFchHu5M

#Mazeldon #Jewniverse #JFedi #Jewish #Sephardi #MENA #JewishHistory

shekinahcancook, 26 days ago to Economics

Parallels Between Archaic Entrepots and Modern Offshore Banking Centers

By Michael Hudson, originally published by Resilience.org May 10, 2024

"...To create such enclaves has been an objective of mercantile capital through the ages. It patronizes the world’s politically weakest areas as long as they do not do what real governments do: regulate their economies. The search for “neutral territory” expressed itself already in the chalcolithic epoch, many millennia before private enterprise developed as we know it. The result of this impetus is that neolithic towns...and the biblical cities of refuge share the following important common denominator with today’s offshore banking centers: Instead of being centers of local governing, legal, and military power, they were politically neutral sites established outside the jurisdictions of local governments..."

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-10/parallels-between-archaic-entrepots-and-modern-offshore-banking-centers/

#Economics #Taxes #Sustainability #Oligarchs

shekinahcancook, 1 month ago to emacstory

Jews from Arab lands are the missing piece of the Israeli-Palestinian discourse by American Syrian Jew Lisa Sayegh May 7, 2024

"...Over the past years, I have often been frustrated when I find people do not understand the trauma of the 700,000 Jews from all over the Middle East who were violently expelled from their countries in 1948 and how it resonates today. Pro-Palestinian activists who call out Israel as a “European settler colonial project” omit a critical part of the story that calls into question their claim. They ignore the Mizrahi majority in Israel who are descendants of Jews expelled from Arab lands when Israel was declared a state..."

https://www.jta.org/2024/05/07/ideas/jews-from-arab-lands-are-the-missing-piece-of-the-israeli-palestinian-discourse

#Mazeldon #Jewniverse #JFedi #JewishHistory #MENA #JewishWomen