Plunging equipment costs and higher electricity prices are making solar projects viable in places once considered too dark or cold
Solar’s Boom in Europe Is Reaching Places Once Deemed Too Dark
For decades, Europe’s renewable energy map looked straightforward: solar was mostly used in the sunny south, while the north relied on wind. But plunging equipment costs and higher electricity prices have made solar projects viable in places once considered too dark, cold or remote to pay off.
bloom.bg
Japan’s sprawling sex industry is thought to be worth ¥2trn-5trn ($12bn-31bn) a year. Lately a debate has raged over how the work is policed
Sex tourists fuel outrage about vice in Japan
The debates do not have women’s interests at heart
bit.ly
Long out of print, Aphex Twin’s 2001 masterpiece "Drukqs" returns for its 25th anniversary. Pre-order the reissue on vinyl, CD, or cassette from Warp Records on Bandcamp. https://bit.ly/4hGlMqW
THR, 1973: "Film editors Verna Fields (a former teacher of Lucas at USC) and Marcia (Mrs.) Lucas had an assembly completed in three weeks." Marcia who edited Star Wars and Fields who edited Jaws. www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
How ‘American Graffiti’ Triumphed Over Studio Rejection
Universal's American Graffiti may now be breaking house records in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, but getting it to the screen was no snap. Co-producer Gary Kurtz, who joined the project fro...
hollywoodreporter.com
Sweet Smell of Success (1957) #SummerOfDarkness #FilmNoir #TCMParty
Secret agent Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), who wears a Bogart-like trench coat, comes to futuristic Alphaville to retrieve a missing agent, neutralize Alphaville's creator and destroy its dictatorial computer, Alpha 60. A Godard classic. "Alphaville" (1965) #neonoir
Patrick Modiano (with scenes from the Jean-Paul Rappeneau film "Bon Voyage". Modiano coauthored the screenplay with Rappeneau) - BOTD
The used booksellers were trying to figure out wtf was going on a while ago and I was afraid it was something like this.
Sacrifice! At the Harvest Festival@theharvestmaid.bsky.social · last wk.Why is everything so transparently evil now?
!["Print books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination. That alone is a significant advantage," it explains in an article on its website, as quoted by
404. "Physical books published before this date [pre-2022] are structurally clean of modern poisoning tools."
Once focused on helping libraries, distributors, and book shops find and sell books, ISBNdb now helps Al companies bulk-buy anywhere between 1,000 to one million books per order, according to 404.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:pxunhtt4zdl4rkkjub54m5ia/bafkreic7burhqtyy3mrqnzzf5gwr3pokwr6gznvg7p5htr4gz3mghh4hny)
“The world's best AI training data is sitting on a shelf. Books represent curated, peer-reviewed, domain-specific human knowledge, structured in a way no web crawl can replicate. Dense, edited, authoritative." www.404media.co/ai-companies...
AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop
ISBNdb, a company that sources printed books for AI companies to turn into training data, tells clients “the optics problem is real.”
404media.co
BOTD Dianna Rigg!! Seek out her performance in Paddy Chayefsky's The Hospital - appreciation via @brucelabruce.bsky.social: talkhouse.com/bruce-labruc... More: Bio: www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/O/One-... @vulture.com: www.vulture.com/2020/09/dian... @nickromano.bsky.social: ew.com/movies/diana...
Mars-1 (Canceled, 1988): Mars expedition spacecraft, design - approved by NASA - by Ron Cobb A project mounted by Apple computer, JPL & MCA, meant to create public support for a manned, joint US/Soviet mission to Mars. Canceled upon the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That’s heaven. That’s gold and anything else is just a waste of time.” — Cormac McCarthy, born on this day 1933
The Kremlin is now like spiders in a jar. A war of all against all has started among the Kremlin elite, accompanied by unprecedented arrests of people who were close to Putin. They used to believe they were "untouchable" and that this status was guaranteed. ⤵️
Jacques Tourneur's OUT OF THE PAST is just about as noir as it gets. Don't miss the East Coast premiere of the new 4K restoration from the original nitrate camera negative. Part of NOIR CITY: NEW YORK, co-presented with @noirfoundation.bsky.social. www.paristheaternyc.com/film/out-of-...
“With fewer competitors, the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. entity would have both the incentive and the ability to lower costs by suppressing writers’ wages and reducing output. Writers will be paid less and have fewer employment opportunities.” #BlockTheMerger vist.ly/5bha2
Writers Guild Sues Paramount Over Warner Bros. Deal
The Writers Guild of America sued Paramount Skydance Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. Tuesday, alleging the $110 billion merger would harm competition in the markets for film and television writing.
bloomberg.com
I pored over this sequence as a kid. That second frame...
Colin Smith@colinsmith.bsky.social · 3w agoIt’s sometimes exaggerated how fast Batman stories became entirely unthreatening after Robin arrived in April 1940. This Two-Face sequence👇 👇- from October 1942’s Detective Comics #68 - is pure horror, and all the more entertaining for it.
Phobos and Saturn - Mars Express - From Aster Cowart (terrasabaea.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/DiMyu1
Mars2020 - Sol 654 - NavLeft - From Kevin M. Gill (kevinmgill.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2oNLeEX
Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances. RIP Sam Neill
