David Syzdek
@dsyzdek.bsky.social
Polymath. Endangered species biologist. Views my own.
This, too, is a coin trick. Extending rights to *nature* reliably makes the world better, but extending rights to *constructs* makes the world *far* worse (Exhibit A is corporate personhood) (obviously). 36/
My mom and grandma told me about this. It happened in Los Angeles. The last streetcar ran in 1963.
David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3d agoIs everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.
It pleases me they have a “not Dracula Day” event.
New town every hour@townsusa.bsky.social · 3d agoDacula, Georgia Pop: 6,350 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacula,_Georgia Images: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=140497986 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=170487622 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34096071
I love finding old tree wounds, the leaking sap ferments into a yeasty mush that persists for years and is full of weird bugs. Here's a flat clown beetle, Hololepta sp, pulling a fly larva out of the muck. Western New York, last month.
I think it also revealed just how quickly a bunch of otherwise very hard problems can be to solve with global collective action. The fuckin Ganga was running clear water for the only time in my lifetime because for 2 weeks nobody threw garbage in it. The canals in Venice had fish.
Dave Andress@davidandress.bsky.social · 4d agoCovid lockdowns demonstrated, in a deeply imperfect way, the possibility of large-scale social solidarity for a higher cause. That is a prime reason why so many powerful people want us to run screaming away from them into the comforting arms of selfish individualist competition.
The story of how the LDS accepted Black people is incredible. IRS: "So you refuse to ordain Black people as bishops?" LDS: "Yes, it's god's will." IRS: "As a racially discriminatory organization, you are no longer tax exempt." LDS: "Hang on... you are NOT gonna believe who I just talked to."
Our flight from Seattle to Sacramento was delayed by a few hours last night, but we were rewarded with an epic sunset on Tahoma (Rainier) as it poked through the low stratus layer. The pastel peach backdrop was made possible by the horrific wildfire smoke from all the PNW fires.
the most annoying thing about the What We Should Have Done With COVID discourse is that the actual viable option to accept more health risk in exchange for less disruption was not to rawdog the plague, it was to push the vaccine wide earlier with worse trial data
“I don’t think people should be taking advice — medical advice — from me." -Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I wish the media would take heed. Stop platforming this man. He has nothing to offer the people of the U.S. Every media appearance amplifies misinformation.
A street grid is resilience. Building neighborhoods full of cul de sacs creates unavoidable choke points. If an exit is blocked by fire or cars that crashed due to low visibility, people can die. If your terrain is not steep, build a street grid. If not, build foot/cycle path escape routes
Cyrus Hall@cyrushall.bsky.social · 4d agoThe updates on Watch Duty are very disheartening. The fire is right up against dense residential and pushing in hard. Sounds like evacuation traffic may not be flowing ("use side streets"). There was very little time from the start of the fire until now: just four hours.
Three years ago, our reporter received an envelope with no return address. Inside was a flash drive containing tens of thousands of files: years of secretly recorded conversations, private militia chat logs and videos sent by a man named John Williams. (Published Jan. 2025)
A Mole Infiltrated the Highest Ranks of American Militias. This Is What He Found.
Outraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends....
propublica.org
I picked up almost as much from the library as I did from school—real history, not that polished nonsense we were fed!
Where the PU 238 Mr Issacman is so concerned about wasting should go, attached to a flagship class orbiter so it can deliver information about this place and its moons for a decade or more. It's PU 238 well used.
Paul Byrne@theplanetaryguy.com · 5d agoThe Solar System's seventh planet, the ice giant Uranus.
Geologist Marie Tharp was born #OTD in 1920. She built the first accurate map of the Atlantic Ocean floor, discovering the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that provided evidence for seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. 🧪 👩🔬 Image: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
We put an entire forest underground. "The Comstock lode was the tomb of the forests of Tahoe."
History:Nevada@historynevada.bsky.social · 7d agoThere is a good article in the Jul 29, 1916 Mining & Engineering World on Philip Dedesheimer, who invented square set timber supports used in mines on the Comstock, especially the Ophir. It enabled mining large amounts of ore in areas of weaker rock. t.co/5e28WUYiav
The caller on Rand Paul’s virtual town hall is all of us.
Need a moment of joy today? I recently gave a talk about what Indigenous inclusion in science looks like. Grab some tissues and get ready to ugly cry… 🐻🪶🐍🐸🐟🧪
July 27-28th, 1997: Fort Collins, CO, was inundated by a flood that killed five people. The event inspired the creation of CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network), an international network of volunteers who monitor daily precipitation totals.
5. Trump can undo them, replace them and keep his base marching to his drum—despite massive failures and misconduct—because Republicans have invested billions in controlling the courts, Congress, many statehouses and much of the mainstream media. A huge structural disadvantage we need to overcome.
Dawn Xiana Moon@dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · last wk.1. Biden got a shocking amount of progressive policy through. 2. Almost no one, even progressives, realized. 3. The Biden admin - & Dems in general - are terrible at communicating their wins. 4. Trump et al have been able to undo a lot of those wins, partially because no one knows they're there.
What an aching and beautiful bit of writing this is.
James Mcconachie@jamesmcconachie1.bsky.social · last wk.“What will this house be like in a hundred years Dad?” ‘It will be a ruin, I tell him, the roof burned off, the windows shattered, the stones scorched, blackened and split. The people of the town will be mostly gone..’ dark-mountain.net/labyrinth-of...
I have visited 8 of 197 countries: 4.1% of the world's countries · 24% of its land area · 8.4% of its population · 35% of its GDP. How much of the world have you seen? #HowMuchOfTheWorld brilliantmaps.com/countries-vi... Guess I should get out more USA Mex. Can. Cuba Australia UK Botswana S Africa
One trip to Safeway, having pressed the "Need Assistance?" button, I started my stopwatch, committed to the bit and got ready to Wait As Long As It Took. At ~9min mark, the employee at the balloons/florist came over to ask if I needed help. They also said "Oh, that button is broken." [1/?]
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · last wk.As good as many of you said. I really appreciate the unambiguous point that this primarily a racist moral panic before unpacking the nuanced second-order explanations. dannykatch.substack.com/p/we-used-to...
Cool cool cool link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Closure of the Strait of Hormuz may trigger a bioinvasion super-spreader event - Biological Invasions
The ongoing conflicts in the Middle East are causing substantial humanitarian, economic, and geopolitical impacts and disrupting global trade. While the human and economic effects remain the focus of ...
link.springer.com
In recent weeks, there has been a remarkable surge in large, intense, fast-moving, and unfortunately in many cases destructive/deadly wildfires in multiple Northern Hemisphere regions spanning a wide range of climates & ecologies, but they all share one key commonality. [Thread]