#World Wide Developer Conference

[autismonfire]

WWDC 2025 Announcement

Attending WWDC 2025 this coming June. This will be my 9th WWDC (first was WWDC 2017), and I am very excited to be attending virtually.

[consultingwives]

As someone who works in the reliability sector of IT I cannot emphasize how much you have to give 0 fucks about professional standards and best practices in order to do something like what Crowdstrike did.

At the company I work for, which you have definitely heard of, there are thousands of people (including me, hi) part of whose job it is to sit in rooms for literal hours every week with the people building new features and updating our software and ask them every question we can possibly think of about how their changes might impact the overall system and what potential risks there are. We brainstorm how to minimize those risks, impose requirements on the developers, and ultimately the buck stops with us. Some things are just too risky.

Many of the practices developed at this and other companies are now in wide use across the industry, including things like staggered rollouts (i.e. only 1/3 people get this update at first, then 2/3, then everyone) and multi-stage testing (push it to a fake system we set up for these purposes, see what it does).

In cases where you’re updating firmware or an os, there are physical test devices you need to update and verify that everything behaves as expected. If you really care about your customers you’ll hand the device to someone who works on a different system altogether and tell them to do their worst.

The bottom line here is that if Crowdstrike were following anything even resembling industry best practices there should have been about twenty failsafes between a kernel bug and a global update that bricked basically every enterprise machine in the world. This is like finding out the virus lab has a direct HVAC connection to the big conference room. There is genuinely no excuse for this kind of professional incompetence.

[psformybss]

The Greatest

rafe cameron x sahm!reader

warnings: emotional neglect, hurt/comfort, unrequited love vibes, slow burn realization, long-term marriage issues, angst, emotional vulnerability

now playing: the greatest by billie eilish

The sun was low behind the marsh when she heard the front door close. Not slammed. Just the usual firm shut that said he was home.

Rafe.

Not early, not late. Just on time enough to pretend he hadn’t forgotten about them, but never long enough to really be present. Not in the way she used to hope for. Not in the way she’d stopped hoping for years ago.

She dried her hands on a dish towel and glanced toward the foyer. His dress shoes echoed across the hardwood, followed by the familiar clink of keys dropping into the ceramic bowl she’d bought him for Father’s Day.

The kids were upstairs. She could hear the low thump of Alex’s bass through the ceiling, steady and rhythmic. Marley was probably buried under her blanket, texting in bed like she had been since school ended.

No one came down to greet him anymore. That had faded slowly, after too many missed dinners, too many silent apologies that never came, too many “yeah, yeah” responses that sent the kids looking at her instead, waiting for her to translate what his absence meant.

“Hey,” Rafe said as he stepped into the kitchen. He loosened his tie with one hand, eyes on his phone with the other.

“Hey.” She turned off the burner and gave the pasta one final stir.

He kissed her cheek, distracted. His cologne hit her all at once. Familiar. Clean. Sharp. It used to stop her in her tracks. Now it just felt like something old she hadn’t decided to miss yet.

“How was the office?” she asked, same as always.

“Same stuff. Russ messed up the zoning files again.” He shoved his phone into his blazer pocket and opened the fridge. “Did we run out of that ginger beer I like?”

She blinked. “Marley finished the last one. I’ll grab more tomorrow.”

He didn’t say thank you. Just nodded, grabbed a water, and leaned against the counter like it was his. And it was. He’d designed the house himself, every square inch made to be impressive. Vaulted ceilings, wide open rooms, clean finishes. A showpiece.

But it never felt like home. Not really.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” she offered. It felt like muscle memory more than anything else.

He made a small sound, scrolling again.

She used to wait up for him.

Back when things were still new, when being married felt strange and full of promise, she’d sit on the couch in a silk robe she bought just for him. She’d flip through magazines she didn’t care about, eyes on the clock, waiting to hear the lock turn. Some nights he’d sit beside her. Other nights, he’d head straight upstairs.

She hadn’t asked for much. A look that meant something. A hand on her back. A sign he wanted to come home to her.

Then the kids came. Alex first, then Marley. And her world became a series of needs. Diapers and fevers and school pickups and forms she had to fill out alone. And through it all, Rafe worked. He built Cameron Development into something bigger than his father ever had. Bigger than she ever imagined.

She let him sleep while she stayed up with crying babies. She handled the stomach bugs, the parent-teacher conferences, the midnight feedings. She learned to move through it quietly. Without complaint. That’s what she thought being a good partner meant. Making it easier for him. Carrying the weight so he didn’t have to.

Years went by like that.

And he never once asked how tired she was.

Now their children were nearly grown, and she was starting to feel invisible in her own life. The days blurred together—groceries, laundry, orthodontist appointments, dinners no one sat down for. Everything she did revolved around someone else’s needs.

And lately, she’d been wondering what she had left. Who she even was anymore, outside of being theirs.

She plated dinner and set his bowl on the counter like always. He ate standing up, still scanning emails.

“Alex has a band thing Friday,” she said.

Rafe didn’t look up. “What kind of thing?”

“A showcase. He’s been talking about it all week.”

He nodded slowly. “You’ll go, right?”

She paused. “Of course. But he wants you there too.”

He didn’t answer. Just took another bite.

Something in her cracked. Not loudly. Just enough to feel it.

She set her fork down and turned to him. “Rafe.”

He looked at her, finally. But not really. His eyes landed on her, but they didn’t see her. Just the shape of someone he used to know.

“I’m tired,” she said quietly.

He frowned. “You look tired.”

She almost laughed, but it caught in her throat. “No. I mean I’m tired of this. Of doing everything. Of waiting for you to notice. Of making it easy for you not to show up.”

His expression shifted. Slightly. Like he didn’t expect her to say that out loud.

“I’ve been here,” she said, her voice steady. “Every day. Every night. I let you rest. I let you miss things. I kept telling myself that’s what wives do. That if I held it all together, maybe one day you’d love me the way I needed.”

His jaw tightened. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’ve worked my ass off for this family,” he said, standing straighter.

“I know,” she said simply. “And I appreciated it. I loved you for it, Rafe. I probably still do. But I made it too easy. I made this life look effortless, and you stopped seeing what it cost me.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

She stood up, her chair scraping back quietly. Her heart pounded, not with anger, but something heavier. Something final.

“You could’ve been the greatest,” she whispered. Not to hurt him. Just because it was true.

Then she walked out, her shoulders stiff but shaking slightly—like someone holding too much for too long.

And behind her, in the quiet of the house he built, Rafe stood still. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t reach for his phone.

He just stood there. And realized he didn’t know when exactly she stopped waiting for him. Only that she had.

[strangelittlestories]

"You know, Red Riding Hood, *some people* consider it rude to comment on a person's physical traits." Grandma's awfully big and bushy eyebrows (above her awfully big eyes) raised in unimpressed fashion. "Like, if it comes up in conversation, sure. But completely unprompted? For shame, granddaughter."

Red considered this. She considered this deeply. She held a brief little internal conference about this.

Red's Super Ego: She's got a point. In an ideal world, this isn't how we'd behave.

Red's Anxiety: Yeah, we fudged it, lads. We've screwed the pooch. Really wrenched the dalmatian. And absolutely bolted the little doggie too. The only thing to do now is apologise and get eaten.

Red's Healthy Boundaries: Hold up, can we consider context? Sure, avoiding physical commentary is usually a good rule, but it's situational right? And the situation we are *currently in* is noticing that our grandma has suddenly developed a severe case of apex predator. A condition that, by the way, is usually terminal ... but not for her.

Red's Lizard Brain: RUN RUN RUN! TEETH! RUN! TEETH! OH GOD! FLEE FREEZE! AAAAAAAAAA! GULLET! MUZZLE HER WITH A DOILIE! USE THE CROCHET LIKE A NET! PUNCH THE SNOOT!

Red's Ancestral Knowledge: Hold up. Something feels ... I dunno. Itchy? Like. Itchy on the inside. There's something we're missing. Why does it feel like night-time when it's not dark? Why do I love this wolf in grandma's clothes? What *day* is it?

Red's Critical Thinking: Sorry I'm late to the party, gang. Hey, if this wolf ate grandma, then why's everything so clean still? Like, no gore or splatter? And if it ate her whole, then how's it wearing her nightgown?

Red's Adrenal Glands: Hey, you guys like 4 Non-Blondes? 'Cos we're about to take a deep breath and then GET REAL HIGH.

All of this happened in moment. But that, it turned out, was still a moment *too long*, because Red's mouth had been talking out loud while the other bits had been talking in her head.

"Grandma, let's cut the crap." Red's voice was blunt, but still fond. "You're a big old wolf and I'm snack-size. But just because you're a danger doggo, doesn't mean you're not *also* my family. Maybe you ate grandma. Or maybe the full moon's about to come out and it turns out granny's always been a bit howly around the edges. It doesn't matter - either way, my gran's in there somewhere. And I love you. You hear me? I love you no matter what you are. So if you're gonna eat me, you'd best do it quick, because the woodcutter usually checks in around this time and he is not a lover of anything lupine. So ... what do you say?"

Red could see two different creatures were warring in grandma's eyes horizon-wide eyes. One hungered for community. Another hungered for flesh.

But, ultimately, both were pack predators.

"My, what a big heart you have, granddaughter."

And the wolf engulfed Little Red Riding Hood with its limbs, rather than its jaws.

"Phew. That's a relief. I wasn't sure who was gonna win there." Red's voice was a little muffled from around the fur and fluffy nightgown. "But I wasn't joking about the woodcutter. So unless he's likely to get real chill with some stuff real quick, you and me have gotta make a man disappear, grandma."

Grandma the Wolf nodded.

"Hey kid. If a tree falls in this forest and no-one's around to hear it?" Grandma's big-ass teeth were all the better for grinning. "Then can they do us for murder?"

"They cannot." replied Red, resolutely. "Let's make this tree-hating motherlover cry wolf."

"I'm actually a little surprised you're so down for murder, Red."

"Well, they do say the best defence ... is a *hood* offence."

[disillusioneddanny]

Have you thought about like a nice sweet short story where Danny Phantom is somehow blood related to princess Diana

Like she's an important meeting on the Watchtower and here comes Danny coming through a random portal asking about Greek mythology question. Almost all of the League members are freaking out, but she simply answered the question and he left out quickly like it was nothing. The aftermath after he left is hilarious.

I hope you like this little piece of drabble :3

Danny let out a grumble as he stomped through his island in the Infinite Realms, his arms crossed over his chest as he glared ahead of him. This was so stupid, he couldn’t believe that Clockwork was making him take history classes before he would be allowed to become Clockwork’s apprentice. It was entirely unfair if he was being completely and total honest. He didn’t get why it was important, he was going to be able to access all of time and space as soon as he got the cool time powers from Clockwork! 

So was learning history really that important? 

Not in Danny’s opinion. 

But if he was going to have to learn about history then he was going to go to his favorite niece and see if she would be willing to help him. As the adopted son of Clockwork, he was now related to pretty much all of the Greek gods and goddess due to his former position as Kronos, Titan of Time. Which meant that the amazing and wonderful Wonder Woman, or Diana of Themyscira was his niece. 

And the perfect person to start up his studies for history. She had been around for ages and had gotten first hand experience about the way the world had changed and developed over the years and if anyone could help him, it would be her!

He ripped open a portal and stepped through, imagining that his niece, Diana was on the other end. 

He stepped out and looked around the area lazily until his eyes landed on the warrior princess who was currently decked out in her Wonder Woman gear and sitting at a large conference table with a bunch of other caped heroes. 

“Diana,” he said, a wide smile on his face. 

A large grin split on the woman’s face as she stood. “Phantom!” She exclaimed. She hurried over and pulled Danny in a tight hug. “What brings you, dear one?”

Danny hugged the woman tight and pulled away and smiled. “I need a history tutor and I thought you would be the best person for the job.”

“I would be honored!” She said and patted his head. 

“Perfect! Then I’ll come over to your house tomorrow for lunch and we can come up with a study plan,” he said before he gave his niece one more tight hug. “Bye D!”

Diana simply smiled and ruffled her uncle’s head. “Until tomorrow, young one,” she said and smiled as he stepped back through the portal, the swirling green disappearing soon after. 

“Um, Diana?” Clark said with a cough, giving the woman a concerned look. “Do you care to explain?”

The hero just smiled and sat back down in her seat. “That is the future god of time, and my uncle, Phantom.”

[probablyasocialecologist]

Today, we know from the research of Jason Hickel and his colleagues that in 2021 the Global North was able to extract from the Global South 826 billion hours in net appropriated labor. This represents $18.4 trillion measured in Northern wages. Behind this lies the fact that workers in the Global South receive 87–95 percent lower wages for equivalent work at the same skill levels. The same study concluded that the wage gap between the Global North and the Global South was increasing, with wages in the North rising eleven times more than wages in the South between 1995 and 2021. This research into the contemporary global labor arbitrage is coupled with recent historical work by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik that has now documented the astronomical drain of wealth during the period of British colonialism in India. The estimated value of this drain over the period of 1765–1900, cumulated up to 1947 (in 1947 prices) at 5 percent interest, was $1.925 trillion; cumulated up to 2020, it amounts to $64.82 trillion. It should be emphasized that the Global North’s contemporary drain of economic surplus from the Global South, via the unequal exchange of labor embodied in exports from the latter, is in addition to the normal net flow of capital from developing to developed countries recorded in national accounts. This includes the balance on merchandise trade (import and exports), net payments to foreign investors and banks, payments for freight and insurance, and a wide array of other payments made to foreign capital such as for royalties and patents. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the net financial resource transfers from developing countries to developed countries in 2017 alone amounted to $496 billion. In neoclassical economics, this is known as the paradox of the reverse flow of capital, or of capital flowing uphill, which it ineffectively tries to explain away by various contingent factors, rather than acknowledging the reality of economic imperialism. With respect to the geopolitical dimension of imperialism, the focus this century has been on the continuing decline of U.S. hegemony. Analysis has concentrated on the attempts of Washington, since 1991, backed by London, Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo, to reverse this. The goal is to establish the triad of the United States, Europe, and Japan—with Washington preeminent—as the unipolar global power through a more “naked imperialism.” This counterrevolutionary dynamic eventually led to the present New Cold War. Yet, despite all of the developments in imperialism theory over the last century, it is not the theory of imperialism so much as the actual intensification of the Global North’s exploitation of the Global South, coupled with the resistance of the latter, that has stood out. As Sweezy argued in Modern Capitalism and Other Essays in 1972, the sharp point of proletarian resistance decisively shifted in the twentieth century from the Global North to the Global South. Nearly all revolutions since 1917 have taken place in the periphery of the world capitalist system and have been revolutions against imperialism. The vast majority of these revolutions have occurred under the auspices of Marxism. All have been subjected to counterrevolutionary actions by the great imperial powers. The United States alone has intervened militarily abroad hundreds of times since the Second World War, primarily in the Global South, resulting in the deaths of millions. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the primary contradictions of capitalism have been those of imperialism and class.

3 November 2024

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Sam Olley

There are "major gaps" in surveillance of new pathogens from animals and countries should prepare for a pandemic worse than Covid-19 in our lifetimes, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

Covid-19 technical lead Dr Maria Van Kerkhove also said that New Zealand, being an island nation, was not protected from this risk.

It has been five years this month since scientists believe Covid-19 began to spread from animals to humans, triggering a global pandemic that the WHO estimates to have caused at least 20 million deaths and $16 trillion in lost revenue.

Van Kerkhove told 1News she did not think this pandemic needed to be as bad as it was.

"And in fact, this was not really the big one, we have to prepare for an even worse one."

WHO was not trying to scare people, she said, but instead called on them to be prepared.

"Hopefully we won't have one in our lifetime, but I am sure that we will have another outbreak and another pandemic during our lifetime."

Surveillance of new human infections has improved but the WHO is highly concerned about "patchy" surveillance of pathogens spreading between animals that could be transmitted to humans.

"Right now, we have some major gaps," Van Kerkhove said.

When asked if the loss of some specimens was a problem for pandemic preparedness, Van Kerkhove said: "I don't have direct evidence, because this is not something that's shared quite widely, that some samples that have been collected over time that are stored in freezers, some of those samples are starting to be destroyed."

"If we look at coronaviruses, we want to go back in time."

She said she was also grappling with the impact of geopolitical conflicts taking money from health.

"I do find it striking that there always seems to be money for an aircraft carrier. There always seems to be money for war, but we are yet to provide consistent funding for global health threats."

There was no place for complacency, she said, and island nations were not exempt from the risk.

"These pathogens do not respect borders."

Van Kerkhove addressed New Zealand public health experts this week at the Te Niwha conference to relay the latest updates and research from the work of the WHO.

Those attending included Sir Ashley Bloomfield who is currently the interim chief executive for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR). Earlier this year, he co-chaired a working group for 196 countries to agree to amendments to the International Health Regulations to better protect health and safety in response to future outbreaks and pandemics.

These included the introduction of a universal definition for a pandemic emergency, a commitment to solidarity and equity on access to medical products and financing, as well of the establishment of a States Parties Committee and the creation of National IHR Authorities.

Sir Ashley said a theme of these negotiations was that developing countries felt there was "an overreaction" from other countries around travel and trade if there was a new variant reported.

"The other issue that developing countries had is that they would often provide samples that were then used to develop vaccines that they could not access. So these are issues that collectively countries need to address."

The WHO is working alongside New Zealand health leaders to upskill new frontline workers and leaders to reduce burnout.

Sir Ashley said some people in key roles are "quite burnt out".

"They probably don't feel they would be able to make the same effort if they were called upon in the near future."

Te Niwha director Te Pora Thompson (Ngati Hauā) said: "We cannot go through subsequent pandemics — which we will, we absolutely will — with very tired, very broken people, at all."

She also reinforced the importance of a diverse workforce to reduce inequities in pandemics.

"There are a few more seats that we need to be pulling up to this table."

Asked about her own experience with burnout, Van Kerkhove said she was not necessarily the best example of this.

"I'm working through it with my family. I was not present for my kids — I have two little boys — for years."

Around the world in health systems, "we need a deep bench to be able to work with," she said.

Noting the praise New Zealand's Covid response received, she was optimistic Aotearoa could continue at a high standard in future pandemics.

"I think New Zealand can absolutely be a leader."

[mariacallous]

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., declared chronic diseases an “existential threat.” Then his agency terminated one of the world’s longest-running diabetes trials.

In 1999, Peggy Bryant, a fifty-year-old oncology nurse in Boston, received a postcard asking whether she’d like to take part in a clinical trial aimed at preventing diabetes. Well, this is fitting, she thought. How many patients have I asked to enroll in trials? Bryant, who’d long struggled with her weight, told me that she had cared for people dealing with grave complications of diabetes—vision loss, kidney failure, limb amputations—and had worried that “full-blown diabetes might be in my future.” She decided to sign up. Some of the trial’s participants were given a medication called metformin; others were given a placebo. Bryant was assigned to a third group, in which volunteers didn’t receive a pill but instead worked with trial staff to meet their health goals, exercise more, and lose weight. About once a month, she gave blood and urine samples. “It changed the way I approached my health,” she told me. “The staff were so committed that it made you more committed.” The study found that, in people with prediabetes, metformin lowered the risk of diabetes by roughly a third; the life-style intervention cut the risk by more than half. Both components were so successful that the trial was stopped early. (All participants got the life-style intervention for a year; since then, the study has mostly been observational.) The Secretary of Health and Human Services held a press conference to announce the findings. “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve never heard of a study’s results being announced by the head of H.H.S.,” David M. Nathan, a Harvard professor who chaired the study, told me. “It was a big fucking deal.”

Diabetes is a lifelong condition whose consequences can be varied: nerve damage, heart disease, digestive problems, foot ulcers. It affects nearly forty million Americans and kills more than a hundred thousand each year. “Studying it for three or five years seemed shortsighted,” Nathan said. His team applied for funding to extend their project and consider follow-up questions. How long do the health benefits last? How do blood-sugar levels affect the body and the brain over time? For more than a quarter of a century, Nathan and his colleagues tracked thousands of patients—which was itself a feat of logistical and scientific endurance. (Many doctors struggle to get their patients to attend annual physicals, let alone engage them for a study of this duration.)

The Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study, as the project is known, has led to more than two hundred scientific publications. Simply by continuing to exist, it has overcome one of the central difficulties of chronic-disease research: time. Most studies enroll patients for months or for years. But, if you want to prove that a drug or a life style can extend a person’s life—not in theory but in fact—you have to follow them for, well, much of their life. And to study a condition with wide-ranging effects, such as diabetes, you tend to gather wide-ranging data: genetic information, dietary habits, imaging, metabolic markers. The study collected hundreds of thousands of samples, which serve as a sort of time capsule of America’s health. Such troves of medical information can often lead to unexpected breakthroughs. This month, a study found that the people who’d participated in a rigorous diet-and-exercise program in the late nineteen-nineties, as Bryant did, were substantially less likely to develop diabetes decades later. Midlife investments in health compound into older age. As the study’s participants have aged, researchers have turned their focus to a link between diabetes and dementia.

The study’s funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, which in 2022 committed some eighty million dollars to cover five years of further research, one of its largest grants. The N.I.H. sends the money to a coördinating center—in this case, Columbia University—which then distributes the funds to dozens of participating trial sites around the country. But, in early March, the Trump Administration froze hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to Columbia, and the diabetes study was abruptly terminated. Columbia informed collaborators at other institutions that trial-related work needed to stop immediately. “We had to call some participants that night and tell them not to come in the next day,” Nathan said. Bryant, who now lives in New York City, got a call from a study coördinator at Montefiore Einstein Medical Center informing her of the cancellation. “I was shocked,” she said. “It just seemed so pointless.” A few days later, she joined other Montefiore study participants on a Zoom call with the site’s lead researcher and a member of the study’s executive committee, an endocrinologist named Jill Crandall. Even the N.I.H. team overseeing the grant had been blindsided, Crandall told me. They learned of the termination not from the government for which they work but from the study’s leaders. “They were completely in the dark,” she said.

When Bryant joined the trial, her daughter was a child; her daughter now has two children of her own. On the Montefiore video call, Bryant noticed an older man who looked ill—a fellow-participant who appeared to be sleeping or unconscious. The man’s wife was there with him. She held his hand as she explained that he had dementia, and that it had progressed. She wanted everyone to understand the stakes of the research they’d been engaged in. Perhaps hidden somewhere in the time capsule was a key to prevent, or at least delay, such an outcome. “I thought, Wow, that could be any of us one day,” Bryant told me. “We should be doing more—a lot more. Instead, here we are, moving in the wrong direction.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Trump Administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, has called chronic diseases such as diabetes an “existential threat.” He has railed against the food industry, calling sugar a “poison” and labelling high-fructose corn syrup “a formula for making you obese and diabetic.” Strangely—perhaps incoherently—his agency is also responsible for ending a diabetes study that has been running for longer than almost any other. In recent months, H.H.S., which oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and nearly a dozen other entities, has cut some twenty thousand jobs, or about a quarter of its workforce. (Kennedy has acknowledged that the mass layoffs could result in many mistakes.) A C.D.C. unit that works to prevent childhood lead poisoning was purged. Another unit dedicated to helping people stop smoking, the country’s leading cause of preventable death, was also eliminated. At the F.D.A., veterinarians focussed on curtailing the risks of the ongoing bird-flu outbreak were let go; some fired employees at C.M.S. were told to direct their complaints to an administrator who died last year. “I have no argument with the need for government to do things better and more efficiently,” Richard Besser, a former C.D.C. director, told me. “But this is not about that. This is about tearing down institutions they don’t like. I doubt that rebuilding them will be possible in my lifetime.”

Patients are already feeling the effects. It’s estimated that at least a hundred clinical trials are at risk of stopping or have already halted, including some dedicated to preventing sexually transmitted infections, reducing rates of postpartum depression, and keeping organ-transplant recipients safe from infectious threats. More may soon follow. Bryant told me that she’s been working at a contract research organization that helps enroll patients in trials. Even studies sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry are being affected: many rely partially on federal funding, or are run by staff who do, and who have consequently been laid off. An oncologist told me about a patient with Stage IV cancer who, until recently, had three options for experimental trials. She now has none. Meanwhile, people who have never participated in a trial will suffer the costs of unrealized discoveries—potential treatments and insights that never materialize.

The lapse in funding means that the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study can no longer continue to collect patient data as planned; it can no longer pay staff to do blood work, collect urine samples, scan brains, or conduct neurocognitive tests. Even worse, the study’s existing data are at risk. Scientists need funds to properly store and retrieve samples; they need money to pay for computer servers and to hire statisticians and analysts, who clean and curate the data. (Although the N.I.H. stores some study samples, the agency has told researchers that it doesn’t have the capacity to accept the entire collection.) “The absence of funding could prevent us from continuing to maintain the integrity of the database,” Nathan, the Harvard professor, told me. “It’s a tremendous waste of resources.” The contents of the time capsule may become irrecoverable.

In recent weeks, Nathan, Crandall, and others involved with the study have worked furiously to try to have the N.I.H. funding restored. They’ve spoken with agency representatives and members of Congress. They’ve gone to the media and lobbied professional societies. In March, the bipartisan chairs of the Congressional Diabetes Caucus sent a letter to Kennedy and the N.I.H. acting director, urging them to “take necessary action” to insure that the diabetes study continues. (The N.I.H. and H.H.S. did not respond to my requests for comment.)

The longer that the trial is paused, the harder it will be to resume. Trial staff at the various clinical sites, with whom some participants have decades-long relationships, are already being laid off. “People think trials are just about collecting data, but there’s an art to keeping participants invested and engaged,” Crandall said. “That personal connection will fade.” She told me about an older participant who’d recently passed away. The woman didn’t have much family; a friend organized her memorial service and wound up inviting the study team. At the service, the friend spoke about how much the study had meant to the woman—how, through it, she felt that she was contributing to something larger than herself, something that might help others. “That’s what a trial like this can be,” Crandall said. “If we let this study fade, it will never be duplicated. No one else is going to do it.”

[ashtarels-archives]

The Enigma of Elune & the Elements

The goddess Elune is known by many names across cultures and even planets; such as Mother Moon, White Lady, Night Warrior, Mu’sha, etc. She has a wide reach across various spheres of cosmology, and her domain seems to at least encompass the arcane, the natural, the astral, the spiritual, and in many unexpected connections–the elemental. It could be that, as Elune is considered a life goddess with some connections to the afterlife, she may have pseudo-elemental expressions of power because they are partially intertwined with spirit. This might explain the physical tangibility, and yet silvery-blue coloring that often manifests within elements of Elunian origin. The following is a collection of curiosities in which the goddess’s influence presents itself in such forms.

Water

The first, most notable link between Elune and the elements would be her thematic ties and manifestations of power within water. An iconic and central piece of Kaldorei culture is the moonwell: it is often the focal point of temples, and a place of respite in the wilds which restores mana, cleanses impurities, blesses armaments, purifies corruption, and even banishes maddened elementals. Dave Kosak, in his development of the Warcraft cosmology, describes the combination of spirit and water as one of the main vehicles for healing; both of which are linked to the outer ring of Nature. An old myth of the Kaldorei Empire described Elune sleeping inside of the Well of Eternity during the day, and rising into the sky as the moon each night. Today, moonwells are established through local wild spirits granting their blessing, a combination of natural and lunar magick, as well as a droplet of eternal waters from another purified well. All of these spheres together (spirit, water, nature, and arcane) encompass the very essence of Elune's moonwells.

Tears of Elune are one of the most recurring themes in relation to the goddess - seen in the pillar of creation, and lesser items scattered throughout the world. We do not know for certain how these tears form; however, there is an implication that they are a manifestation of Elune’s emotions, whether crying tears of sadness, or of joy. These remnants from the goddess seem to possess a myriad of properties the beholder can make use of: the Tearstone of Elune legendary ring has a chance to cast an additional regrowth on targets, Tears of the Goddess from the Hyjal raid slow the player’s falling speed, and Elune’s Tear can ease the symptoms of illness. Mu’sha’s Tears are gathered at the base of a waterfall in Highmountain, which are guarded by fiercely protective water elementals, to eventually be used during a ritual that allows us to witness the events of the War of the Ancients. Interestingly, these specific tears are said to “flow of their own accord,” entirely ignoring the rushing rapids that would normally carry away physical objects or other water currents; which may lend to the notion that Elune’s elemental manifestations are partially comprised of spirit. The Sisters’ Tear, born of Elune and the Winter Queen’s combined power, is yet another example of renewal and lifegiving springing forth from the goddess’s sorrow: which resulted in the growth of the World Tree, Amirdrassil.

Elune is described as having partial influence over the tides, a power that she shares with Neptulon, as evidenced by the Tablet of the Balancing Tides: "The whispers of Elune and Neptulon play on the tides, their words etched in stone are a tribute to the balance of their powers." There is additionally a brief archaeology quest in Throne of the Tides we can pick up from an ancient fountain. Delving into our historical knowledge from reading a Highborne Scroll fragment, we discover that the purpose of this fountain is to confer a blessing called “Waters of Elune,” which specifically increases our damage against the naga while inside the domain of Neptulon, further strengthening the alliance between the two. The goddess also seems to feel a responsibility, or at least have an interest, in purifying maddened water elementals. We see this demonstrated in Moon Priestess Tharill’s questline in Darkshore, who asks us to use a relic called the Orb of Elune; which has the power to soothe and permanently banish these beings back to their plane. This ultimately protects the elementals from the cycle of being resummoned, further manipulated, and driven to madness. As the orb was carried by Tharill just south of Auberdine, this may have been a prized and sacred relic of the town used in banishing angered elementals from the coasts of Darkshore. It would not be the first or only sacred artifact kept here, as Auberdine also once housed the Eye of Elune.

Elune’s aqueous blessings were also a crucial part in the battle of the Molten Front within the Firelands. It seems that somehow, the nature of Elune’s blessings can circumvent traditional interactions between elements. The very existence of a moonwell, or any body of water for that matter inside the scorching plane of Ragnaros, would reasonably evaporate. The fact that this one is able to withstand the extreme heat of the Firelands speaks to a high resistance, if not complete immunity, to the effects of fire. Ayla Shadowstorm explains that the moonwell’s waters can indeed provide some protection against flame, as well as bless the expedition’s food stores. Once the well is filled, small bushes and trees begin to sprout nearby that eventually bear eternal fruits which can be used indefinitely while inside the Molten Front. While it is unclear what role Elune plays in the existence of wisps, these spiritual beings are considered “perfectly suited” to banishing elementals (similar to the goddess herself) as seen in this quest where the wisps aid us in closing the portals of fire elementals.

In the tauren mythos of Eyes of the Earthmother, Mu’sha as she is called, is said to "dance with the waters of the tides," "flow out of shadow’s reach like water," and bind injuries with the powers of water and wind.

Fire

The satyr camp of Sargeron in Desolace, known colloquially as the Palace/Sanctuary/Cathedral/Temple of Elune, reveals an interesting relic that links Elune to the element of fire. Unearthed from the ruins of the temple here, there is a tall runestone monument known as the Ancient Vortex Runestone. It is said that the ancient Kaldorei “revered the gems created by this mystical object, claiming that they were gifts from the goddess herself. It was believed that they were weapons capable of delivering them from any enemy.” As we progress in the questline, we are able to make use of these gemstones, which summon forth a giant firestorm, whose power is strengthened “either through sustained worship of Elune, or charged by spiritual energies of the fallen.”

During the war against the scourge in Northrend, the settlement of Stars’ Rest converted their moonwell to house the liquid fire of Elune, an offshoot of traditional moonwell waters. The very nature of this substance seems to be an oxymoron, combining two opposing elements of fire and water into one. However, if we consider again Dave Kosak’s notes on the life-giving essence of spirit; he links spirit and water with healing, and spirit and fire with holy powers of retribution. The fact that Elune’s liquid fire encompasses spirit, water, and fire then becomes clearer in the goal of this quest: to pour it over the corpses of scourge-blighted animals and cleanse them of their corruption. This essentially combines Kosak’s ideas through healing their bodies and demonstrating a retribution against the unnatural state of undeath. This may also speak to the circumventing of traditional elemental interactions, as the liquid fire of this moonwell (assumedly) prevents the vessel from freezing over.

In Darkshore, a moonkin named Aroom requests our aid in cleansing their corrupted brethren. They task adventurers with slaying a ghost of their kind who wields a relic called Elune’s Torch. After retrieving the torch, Aroom creates a ritual bonfire with the flames from this item, which allows the corrupted moonkin to find rest in the afterlife and “return to Elune, finally.” It could be that these flames of Elune act as spiritual purification, essentially burning away the madness or corruption clouding the moonkin’s minds. The fact that they are able to find peace (after this torch is used to create a larger and more substantial bonfire) may indicate that Elune’s flame acts as a beacon of guidance for the dead, which allows them to more easily move on from the physical plane.

There is also a unique type of silvery blue and purple fire found in Kaldorei settlements, old ruins, and temples that is vastly different from traditional orange, red, and yellow flame. The most intriguing are the braziers found in Azsuna and Tel’anor of Suramar, a necropolis assumed to be abandoned by its groundskeepers. Yet, all throughout the area there are braziers still burning brightly as if just fed with wooden kindling. It is unclear how they are sustained, but this may reinforce the idea that it is not true fire in the typical understanding of the element, but a mixture of fire and spirit together.

Earth

While Elune seems to be more distant from the element of earth than its counterparts, it is interesting to consider her manifestations that appear in traditionally earthbound mediums.

The first is Elunite Ore - ore in general being a naturally occurring rock or stone with valuable minerals inside. Elunite is described as being a fine material to work with, and directly blessed by Elune herself. The nature of Elunite is unclear; we do not know if it is an ore that is blessed by the goddess after its formation, or if Elune has a hand in its creation within the earth. It is not a usable material by miners and blacksmiths, perhaps implying that crafting with Elunite is a rare technique known only to select artisans, Elanaria (the questgiver) being one of them. It could also be that the privilege of shaping Elunite requires performing an act in defense of the goddess’s domain; as Elanaria tells us that in order to make our weapon, we must slay a satyr corrupting a moonwell, and defeat the shade of Elura who has cursed herself to guard her shipment of Elunite ore beneath the waves for all eternity.

The next earthly manifestations of Elune come in the form of gemstones, which traditionally find their origin from “deep in the earth, brought to the surface by explosions of molten rock.” Some are also “crystallized slowly from hot fluids and gases, formed from liquids filtered into cracks and pockets in rock, formed when rocks were heated and pressurized by earth movements, and recombined to form new, different minerals.” It is unclear whether Elunian gems are created similarly, or whether they are perhaps crystallized magic of some kind. As mentioned in the section of Fire, the Ancient Vortex Runestone was said to produce gemstones that Elune bequeathed to her followers here to defend themselves with. Additionally in Winterspring, there is an old altar that once housed a precious relic called the Gem of Elune that allowed direct communication with Her, and through which she “channeled her infinite wisdom.” In Outland, there are also rare jewels called Stars of Elune that can be prospected from various native ores, and dropped by random enemies.

In the Legend of Elun’Ahir, the goddess is said to be one who gifted Eonar with a branch of G’Hanir, a Mother Tree that once existed inside the Emerald Dream. After Aman’thul ripped it from the earth, its roots still grew below ground, nourished by Eonar’s tears: “Below ground, the roots fed upon the tears of Eonar and grew strong. The war was long, but in the end, the titans claimed victory. And Eonar was pleased, knowing Elune's legacy would endure. It is said that much later, as the world entered a new age, mysterious guardians arrived who dedicated their lives to protecting the roots.”

There are also several flowers said to be touched by Elune. One grows in the shadows of Duskwood, called Elune's Grace, which glows with the intensity of the moon and attracts wolves to its location. The flowers required to craft various Blossom Crowns during the Lunar Festival supposedly hold a strong connection to the goddess as well, imbued with a "solemn peace," "Elune's might," "happiness," and "great fortune." Myrael Lunarbloom also wields a staff whose flowers bloom during this time of year, greatly empowered by a moonwell pilgrimage ritual. She even says, "Flowers flourish under Elune's light. She was always known to cherish them."

Air

The Eyes of the Earthmother tells of the goddess’s early mythological origins, and her sphere of influence includes both water and wind. It seems that Elune (Mu’sha in this story) works with the wind most commonly as a means to communicate, and to deliver thoughts, words, and feelings. While the Earthmother slumbers, Mu’sha’s powers were said to be diminished, and she could no longer harness the winds' power since they “whipped up in storms and blizzards.” She is also described as “sharing secrets” with the winds, later sending upon them a plea to the Earthmother. Eventually, the Earthmother is able to find her way back to Mu’sha, because “the winds pulled at her hands, and guided her swiftly to find her Sun and Moon.” After the Earthmother’s sacrifice, Mu’sha pays homage to her by carrying her last words on the breeze for the tauren to hear, as well as setting the winds across the tides so that her voice could always be followed. Mu’sha’s favored weaponry was also said to be the bow and arrow, the efficacy of which is highly dependent on wind flow. Her movements are described as “quick as the wind,” and when her brother, An’she, is severely wounded, she calls upon these forces in an attempt to heal his injury: “Mu'sha tried to bind her brother's wound with water and wind, but no matter what she did, he continued to bleed.”

An in-game connection between Elune and the realm of wind is from a side quest in Darkshore just following the events of the Cataclysm. Sentinel Selarin, at the Auberdine refugee camp, leads the endeavor to eradicate the Twilight’s Hammer wind elementals overtaking the ruins of the town. An arduous process that requires an intricate solution, as the Twilight’s Hammer can continuously resummon the elementals at their command. In order to put an end to this, the elementals must be “slain;” after which we take their bracers, thought to be physical bindings anchoring them to this plane. The way to stop this cycle once and for all is to place the bracers into a moonwell. This act is said to not only prevent the elementals from being resummoned, but completely destroying the bracers as well. While this is not said to “soothe” them like the Orb of Elune, this seems to accomplish the same goal of freeing the enslaved elementals and the remaining Kaldorei.

While not a manifestation of elemental power per se, Elune’s influence upon the winds is also demonstrated in priestesses who channel her power through song; as well as relics like the Chimes of the Moon in Tel’anor: “The Sisters say that Elune sings a song, notes pure and beautiful. The Chime does not ring often, but when it does it is the same note as the one She is singing.” During the War of the Ancients especially, the strengthening magic utilized by the Sisters was invaluable to the war effort, notably through battle chants: “Then, another welcome surprise—chanting came from the center of the advance. The Sisterhood of Elune, resplendent in their battle armor, strengthened the fighters further. Day might have held precedence at the moment, but the priestesses’ rhythmic singing literally fed the nocturnal warriors. It was as if the moon herself suddenly hung over the host.” (Demon Soul, Ch. 8)

While we may think of this magic as under the strict purview of the elementals, it has been said that "Elune’s true nature is not fully understood," and the breadth of her power and influence may be even more vast and complex than initial impressions.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Truthout/Floodlight:

The IRA is the Biden Administration’s signature climate law. The historic act is the most aggressive climate policy in U.S. history, rolling out billions in tax breaks and other incentives with the goal of cutting economy-wide carbon emissions 40% by 2030.

Every congressional Republican voted against the bill, arguing it was nothing more than handouts to prop up climate and social justice programs. Some on the extreme right continue to argue that climate change is a hoax. But now some GOP House members who voted against the IRA are urging their leader to consider saving key portions of it.

In fact, it is the red states that overwhelmingly have benefitted from the federal government’s infusion of clean energy money, according to a report released today by, a national nonpartisan group of more than 10,000 business leaders that advocates for a cleaner economy and environment.

Friday marks two years since Biden inked his signature on the IRA. Companies have announced roughly 330 clean energy and vehicle projects since that time, efforts that could create 109,278 jobs and bring in a whopping $126 billion in private investments, if completed, according to the E2 report.

E2’s report breaks down IRA-boosted projects by state, sector and industry as well as by congressional district. It found that “nearly 60% of the announced projects — representing 85% of the investments and 68% of the jobs — are in Republican congressional districts.”

Among the major projects is the South Korea-based solar manufacturer QCells. Last year it announced a $2.5 billion expansion in Dalton, Georgia, spurring more than 2,500 jobs and helping change a town known as the “carpet capital of the world” into a destination for clean energy manufacturing.

Since 2022, the northern third of Nevada has added more than 5,000 jobs from a $6.6 billion investment in projects such as the Rhyolite Ridge and Thacker Pass lithium mines as the state aims toward becoming the lithium capital of the United States.

And in North Carolina, $19.7 billion has been poured into the state, creating 22 clean energy projects and more than 10,000 jobs in solar, recycling, electric vehicle and battery manufacturing. The investments include a $13.9 billion Toyota Motor North America EV/hybrid battery plant slated to open next year.

E2’s report is based on publicly available information, including news releases and formal government announcements. Roughly one-third of the information did not include how much money was being invested or how many jobs a project was expected to create, E2 stated.

In other words, the impact of the IRA is likely broader than the nonprofit’s tally. That bodes well for environmentalists and clean energy advocates.

18 congressional Republicans signed a letter to GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana urging him to be cautious in repealing all or parts of the IRA — something Trump has vowed to do if he is again elected president.

“Energy tax credits have spurred innovation, incentivized investment and created good jobs in many parts of the country — including many districts represented by members of our conference,” the Aug. 6 letter to Johnson said.

The Congress members said they had heard from industry and constituents that clawing back previously issued energy tax credits, especially on projects that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development.

“A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return,” the letter states.

[kerryweaverlesbian]

Let me tell you about my special interest and favourite radio show BBC Radio 4's The Archers!!!! Please imbue the below with a tone of extreme glee:

BBC Radio 4's The Archers is a radio soap opera set in the fictional farming village of Ambridge. It was created in 1951 as an effort to get more farming listeners and to get more general audiences interested in farming due to the shortage of skilled farmers after ww2. The BBC tested out a variety of more dry farming programmes that failed to gain listenership, so they went to a farming conference and asked "hey what do you guys actually want from a radio show?"

And the consensus was that they wanted "a farming Dick Barton". Dick Barton was a spy drama which was half thriller and half domestic drama¹. While a farming spy thriller sounds very funny, they opted to instead make The Archers half domestic drama, half facts/debates about farming. Also they pilfered most of the writing team from Dick Barton lol.

The Archers initially had a very strong focus on the Archer family, and its cast broadened over time to now be a very wide ensemble. It is released in 15 minute segments per day, and as an omnibus² on Sundays. It is set in "the present", and always has been, so developments are happening in, kind of, real time. This means that there's a (now elderly) character who was in The Archers as a young woman is still present and the UK public has heard every part of her life, and her family's lives. There is a crazy web of dramas that is carefully recorded at the BBC and referenced as life events. For example, Nickie³ is a young mother who died of sepsis (rip) and recorded a message for her 3 year old child to listen to when he's 21. This message was then given to him literally 18 years later. Of real time. Listeners are very frequently life-long Archer fans, so there are people who heard both instances of this 18 years apart⁴. Isn't that cool!! They're keeping track of all the minutiae of a small village life from birthdays to anniversaries to that memorable stupid night out they had in their teens that their friends and family still reference to tease them. All for the sake of realism. And it works!

When The Archers was first airing, for quite a few years the cast and bbc offices frequently got post offering direct advice to the characters from members of the public who believed they were real people (or, were having fun doing some fiction writing). One very concerned letter writer offered one of the Archers come and stay at their house during a contentious unplanned pregnancy. For some of that time the cast were asked/encouraged to write back in character, but (thankfully) that practice has now stopped. Parasocial relationships have always been a thing lol.

The Archers has never been afraid to tackle big social issues. It was the first UK soap opera to have a gay wedding (with a civil partnership between Adam⁵ and Ian - contentious both due to gayness⁶ AND the class divide between them). It had a very well known and (unintentionally) well timed story about coercive control in abusive relationships with Helen Archer and her HORRIBLE ex (and now deceased haha fuck you) husband Rob which came to a head at the time the laws around coersive control were changing, so it became a central figure in explaining what this kind of abuse looks like, what it means, and how it affects people⁷. It had another big storyline about modern slavery in the UK, one about workplace bullying (very well done bc it was inflicted on Tracey whom everyone adores. And by everyone I mean. Me. I adores her. Let's go Horrobin-nation.), one really very affecting one at the moment about reconnecting with biological family very late in life, and the feelings that can bring up, and the fostering system of the 60s/70s. There was a really masterful and fairly subtle scene, after some of the Grundy family going "why in the world has our beloved George started going down the alt right misogyny pipeline when he's so surrounded by strong women??" and then it cut between the three Grundy households and in every single one of them the men waited around for the woman of the house to start making dinner and complained about it⁸.

All this might make The Archers sound like a long slew of trauma each week, but! There are always multiple ongoing storylines and SO MANY of them are comedy plots. You only get maybe 2-4 minutes of tragic stuff and then you cut away to such antics as "Linda Snell MBE is trying to put on a pantomime to her very very high artistic standards in one week while being actively sabotaged by a guy who hates pantomimes", "we were going to just have a small christmas as young flatmates but our parents all guilted us into an invite. And also the old woman who lives across the street.", "Hilda is a devil cat from Hell but someone from the family HAS to take her bc the elderly matriarch is going into an assisted living facility", "Stick in the mud, upper class The Prof. has a lodger of the rowdy laddish scottsman who wants to let his pet tarantula out to play" (the prof and jazza's relationship becomes one of the most touching and profound ones on the whole show btw). Every year there is a timetable of big village events (because, again, it's in real time!) that the audience gets to look forward to along with the characters because there's ALWAYS drama. Last year the village fête had a hostile takeover because Ed Grundy wanted to use it as aggressive marketing for his ferret business. Last year's Flower and Produce Show had an upset because a series of farcical events led to a table of pies getting destroyed, with only one remaining as the defacto victor¹⁰. And that's just from last year. Competition runs deep in this village.

As with any media I love, The Archers has its problems. It very much told from a white British normie perspective. It is set in a small rural village, so, statistically it is accurate to have it be 99% white, but it comes off as deeply self-conscious when there are non-white characters because (as an audio medium) it feels it has to clunkily find a way to say or remind the audience THIS CHARACTER IS BLACK or THIS CHARACTER IS ASIAN. I feel this doesn't efficiently utilise the strengths of an audio medium to be diverse - I had fully been picturing Welsh Natasha as south-asian bc she reminded me of a friend of mine until they introduced Ardil Shah and suddenly people were saying to him on first meeting "ah the vicar's wife is muslim..." and (really bad) "when I was a teenager I did a hate crime against an indian guy and I feel really bad about it" (??? is it Ahdil's job to absolve you???? Why put him in this position - and not interrogate in the show why it is weird to put him in this positon). Maybe they're concerned about the general public not clueing in to the fact that they're not all white if it's not spelled out very loudly in their first appearance, and they do then subsequently get storylines that aren't about race. It is true for small English villages that people will be Noticed for their ethnicity.

But Ambridge isn't a real village, it is an idealised one. If someone is really struggling to find housing, eventually the Ambridge Fairy (not a real character, just a fan term) will come along and oh look, conveniently an affordable living situation has opened up¹¹. Chelsea¹² gets an abortion and this is outed to the whole village, and there's only one or two people judging her harshly for it who eventually come around and apologise. Everyone rallies around making the Big Event go off despite the hitches! And I think more of that Ambridge acceptance and normalisation that it employs with those storylines should be extended to characters of colour. The general acceptance of south asian people in the UK increased from seeing - someone. I don't know her name I'm not a bake off head - just be happy and baking and a normal person. They could do this with the Archers, as they have already done with gay characters. Although, credit where it's due, I do believe they are doing just that with the rest of the Shah family and with Gay Paul's family.

Anyway. A big thing I love about The Archers is the intergenerational aspect of listening. Most people are introduced to it via family members (because the relationships and history are fairly complicated, it's hard to just dive in on an episode, and there's not really an obvious "start here, new listeners" place bc it's year-round, there aren't new serieses. Also as a new listener it can be hard to discern whose voice is whose and who is related to whom so sometimes you're going "are they flirting or are they cousins...? Who are they talking about...?" lmao). If you are talking to pretty much any old person in the UK, there's maybe a 70% chance they listen to or used to listen to The Archers, and can give exciting (to me) facts about characters previous storlines that I had no idea about bc to me they are "The Grandma" but to them they are "one third of a heated love triangle between two sisters and a guy, and a battle for parental approval that the other one definitively WON by dying young in a barn fire, and that pattern of child favoritism carried on through to her parenting". I am always discussing what's going on in the Archers with my parents (who also listen) and my book club (who don't).

If you want to learn more about The Archers. Listen to it if you can (it's on BBC Sounds, and on Itunes, idk how accessible it is outside the UK...). I know I said it's hard to get into but give it like 4 omnibus episodes and you'll have heard at least one complete short storyline and 4 in-episode short ones and you'll have gotten to know whoever is in those episodes. The history of their characters is an added bonus, not a requirement, and if it's important to the episode someone will say the relevant details to someone else bc they're all incurable gossips ❤️. And! You can read Flapjacks and Feudalism: Social Mobilty and Class in The Archers ed.s Cara Courage and Nicola Headlam (a book of essays on sociology through the lens of the archers. and the others in the essay book series, Flapjacks is just my favourite.) I also recommend Life on Air: A History of BBC Radio 4 by David Hendy, which only briefly and occasionally discusses The Archers but it always excites me when it does. Apparently someone was so pissed that The Archers timeslot was moved and nailed a dead fish and threatening letter to the comptroller's office door (relatable). There's also an Archers reaction podcast, TumTeeTum (named after singing along to the instrumental theme tune, although I personally go Bah bah duh bah duh bah dahhhh), a poisonous facebook group where people post the worst takes known to man and a new accompanying podcast where they interview the actors. I can't speak to the general quality of those 3 because I don't participate in them at all. My knowledge of the facebook group is from perusing it for research purposes and my general knowledge of facebook open communities. And! you can also type bbc radio 4's the archers into a search engine of your choice!!

¹when Dick Barton was being recast as Dick Barton the first actor was retiring, they did an open call for audition tapes and got one from an 8 year old who stated his qualification for the role as "I can shout really loudly". He did not get the part.

²all the segments collected together into one episode. This is how I listen.

³I actually might spell some names wrong bc. It's a radio show. Lol.

⁴not me, I only started properly listening about 6 years ago

⁵the guy who plays Adam is also voice actor for Raphael Balder's Gate 3. Reportedly also a pretty gay role lol.

⁶the current main cast Queer Ambridge Contingent are: Adam and Ian (long term married, have a little baby Xander through surrogacy, had a memorable small argument recently about how Ian is still kind of afraid to hold Adam's hand or kiss him in public even though it's Okay To Be Gay); Stella (CLOCKED her when she named her whippet "Weaver" after the woman in Alien. LESBIAN.) and her girlfriend Pip Archer (unlabelledly queer, has a little daughter Rosey who is Obsessed with Stella lmao); Rúairi (bisexual, was in a problematic sugar baby relationship with a much older woman LOL); Gay Paul the vet nurse (I am the one calling him Gay Paul no one in the show is. I call him Gay Paul because he has Gay Kevin from Riverdale energy (positive). He immediately befriended absolute Ambridge LEGEND Linda Snell MBE and had a rocky relationship with a guy who tried to strongarm him into an open relationship which Gay Paul did not want.); And I have my suspicions about newcomer Zainab. What with her not noticing/caring if teenage boys are interested in her but being deeply upset when her and Chelsea had a falling out on valentines day. I'm on the lookout. Honorable mention, Lilly's made up study-buddy Millicent who her mum became certain she was secretly dating because she'd use "studying with Millicent" as an excuse to be away from home to in fact date her SIXTH FORM ENGLISH PROFESSOR (WE HATE RUSS IN THIS HOUSE!!!!!!).

⁷I will say, I personally really did not like how they brought Rob back into her life for a while as he was terminally ill. The Archers falls back on "outsider arch villain" a little too often, and I think showing an abuse survivor happy and settled and firmly moved on without her abuser being a major player in her life was a more responsible path than He Will Always Get Some Power Over You Until He Literally Dies. But I'm not an abuse survivor, maybe some people felt seen and understood by this. It was also just geberally unpleasant to listen to lol.

⁸also he was ??? Rewarded ??? For calling his mum a stupid slut to her face by being given a new bedroom. Which he only asked for to get revenge on his female superior at work (who was renting the place his dad owned) for doing her job and telling him how to look after the pigs safely.

⁹shoes horses and suchlike

¹⁰ there is a recipie for the winning pie somewhere on the Internet, which my parents' friend who is MORE into the archers than me has reportedly made at least twice

¹¹ something interesting in how the archers is written is that there are class based catagories that are necessarily perpetuated for archetypal storytelling. The Aldridges are moneyed, upper class snobs. The Archers are middle class (they do frequently worry about losing x thing with an especially bad year, but they're land and business owners and run artisanal cheese courses). The Grundys are working class. They work at the tea rooms and pubs and farms that the Archers and Aldridges (and others) own. These strata include other families and intermingle - Jennifer Archer became Jenny Aldridge, for example. But the dynamic of upper middle working class has been preserved through every generation of The Archers (initially VERY insulting towards the bowing and scraping working class labourers, now the Grundys, Carters and Horrobins are arguably more the main characters than The Archers. But as the financial divide irl gets steeper between a Grundy and an Aldridge, it gets less and less easy to dismiss this Ambridge Fairy "it will be okay just keep working". The characters themselves have spoken about this to each other - Clarrie despaired that she and Eddie have been working multiple jobs their entire adult lives to make ends meet and might have to work until the grave. Every windfall they get to shore them up is eventually taken away from them or used up by the needs of living. But The Archers NEEDS to have good old salt of the earth types who aren't too depressed to move to be able to continue the age old comedy of stuffy stiff upper lip rich folk vs cheerful and honest poor folk that it's always engaged in. All this isn't necessarily a bad thing but it is interesting.

¹² we LOVE chelsea in this house!!!!

[calder]

Fallout: Empire Wastes preview on Saturday, Feb 22 at 4:30PM EST

C3 is a virtual conference for charity created by a community collaborative of like-minded and passionate modders dedicated to expanding the worlds and universes of Fallout, Elder Scrolls and Starfield. From Construction Set to Creation Kit in all its forms, we bring together gamers and creators, streamers and modders to celebrate some creations of our own and help others create theirs. During this multi-day Twitch-based event we bring together notable names, teams and some very special guests for a host of unique content to support the charitable cause Make A Wish International:

Modder/Mod Team Showcases – a peek behind the curtain at some of some of the most anticipated mods in development as well as small scale mod projects covering a wide array of categories, from quests to cosmetics.

Virtual Learning Classes – Keynote speakers break down the many forms of creation tools available to allow you to reinvent the game you love most, in the universe you love most.

Planned and unplanned peer networking – encouraging collaboration across projects, bringing modders everywhere together to learn, to inspire and celebrate our work.

Designed to be inclusive, diverse and supportive, C3 is open to all and welcoming to all. Whether you are new to modding, a seasoned pro, or just a passionate downloader who loves our work, we invite you to join us for this community networking event. As part of C3 2025, we will be showcasing Empire Wastes with a sort of 'first look'. Join us for a half hour of the start of our mod, to get a feel for what to expect. While you're there, and if you have the means, please consider donating to the charity. While C3 is an event to showcase content you are creating, this event is to benefit the Make A Wish Foundation International and help bring some light and hope to sick kids everywhere. Schedule here.

Join Empire Wastes on Twitch and catch some first looks at the start of the mod!

check it out! empire's gonna reveal some content i helped design. looks like a great show overall

[whencyclopedia]

Women Religious Crossing between Cloister and the World: Nunneries in Europe and the Americas, ca. 1200–1700

This book is recommended to advanced scholars of medieval and early modern religious history. This collection of essays focuses on how women participated in and were shaped by monastic and religious life. The contribution this book makes is to examine medieval and early modern gender history through a transatlantic lens.

Women Religious Crossing Between Cloister and the World: Nunneries in Europe and the Americas, ca. 1200-1700 is the result of a collaborative research project focused on the relationships between women and the “religious.” Edited by art historian Mercedes Pérez Vidal, a research fellow at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, this collection of essays analyzes religious women from the Middle Ages through the Early Modern period through a transnational lens. The Société d’Études Interdisplinaires sur les Femmes au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance (SEIFMAR) organized the research project, and its goal was to examine how women participated in and were shaped by monastic and religious life. As a transnational undertaking, the volume also takes a comparative geographical approach to women and religious life in Europe and America.

The collection originated as SEIFMAR conference papers that were developed into articles. There are seven essays in the collection. Each essay addresses one or more of the four themes from the conference including studying religious women across time, space, and category; examining women’s agency within and outside the cloister; analyzing race and social class among religious women and studying material objects through cultural networks as a mode of creating and extending power. The essays were written by European and Latin American scholars, and each essay concludes with findings and an extensive bibliography. Chapter One by Sylvie Duval examines “Female Dominican Identities” while Chapter Five by Doris Bienko de Peralta is titled “Transatlantic Circulation of Objects, Books, and Ideas in Mid-Seventeenth Century Mexican Nunneries.” The last chapter by Annalena Müller is in French and focuses on class-based feminine power at the convent of Fontevraud in the 17th century.

Vidal makes a convincing argument that scholarship spanning continents focused on religious women, agency, and the transmission of ideas expands the historiographies of empire, nation, gender, and class. The book illustrates that religious women were political and powerful purveyors of information and played a role in shaping religious identity inside and outside of the convent both in Europe and the Americas.

This is not a collection aimed at a wide readership. It is a text aimed at medieval and early modern scholars. While the whole collection could be beneficial in a graduate classroom setting, it may be too advanced for undergraduate students. There are individual chapters such as Claudia Sutter’s piece, "In Touch with the Outside: The Economic Exchanges of the Observant Dominican Convent of St. Catherine in St. Gallen," which would work well in a European medieval course illustrating the economic exchanges of the time through the lens of gender. Miguel Garcia-Fernandez’s article, "Beyond the Wall: Power, Parties, and Sex in Late Medieval Galician Nunneries," would be interesting to those studying gender and sexuality in a medieval history course. I would recommend this collection to scholars who are interested in the intersection between medieval and early modern gender dynamics concerning religious history. The book is part of a series focused on Western and Eastern Christian communities from 500-1500 CE and could be of interest to a broader readership to those who have some prior knowledge of medieval and early modern history. In other words, this is not a book for those new to the subject. Transnational academic histories of medieval and early modern women are rather limited in terms of scholarship, and this collection contributes to understanding women’s agency, the transmission of information, and power structures through the lens of the "religious" in a new and worthwhile way.

Continue reading...

[scotianostra]

On November 8th 2001 Dorothy Dunnett, the cult Scottish novelist, died.

The writer of intricate and meticulously researched historical novels, she attracted a devoted following with her multi-volume sagas. Her novels included the million-word Lymond Chronicles, in six volumes, which covered 15 years in the life of a 16th-century Scottish aristocrat, Francis Crawford of Lymond, she followed that with the eight-part prequel The House of Niccolò.

Aficionados of the Dunnett epics formed their own societies, meet regularly at international conferences, and swap theories about the puzzles and the sub-plots that the author sewed so carefully throughout the developing storylines. They are also a protective bunch which I found out in my last post about the author, being pulled up for a previous post that was slightly wrong!

Dunnet also wrote a novel about the real Macbeth called King Hereafter, and a series of mystery novels centred around Johnson Johnson, a portrait painter and roving agent for British Intelligence, it showed her versatility as a writer.

An only child, Dorothy went to James Gillespie’s High School for girls, where she overlapped with Muriel Spark, and was taught by Miss Kay, the model for Jean Brodie. She discovered a talent for painting, and contemplated a career as an artist, but war broke out, and at the age of 18 she went to work as a, typist.

Only after the death of her father, which caused her great misery, did her husband suggest that she take up writing. She began researching the childhood of Mary Queen of Scots, and invented a character, Francis Crawford of Lymond, a dashing Scots mercenary, who travelled widely, visiting the French and English courts, caught up in intrigues across 16th- century Europe.

The Game of Kings, her first novel, was rejected by English publishers because it was considered too long, but was spotted in New York by Lois Cole, who had published Gone With the Wind. It came out in 1961 and was an instant best-seller, marking the beginning of a remarkable fictional journey, which took Dunnett round the world in pursuit of historical detail.

Dunnett, tempted her fans with buried clues and red herrings that keep them reading and rereading the books, indeed I had a comment on a post about her a few years ag, that on rereading they would often find certain parts that they somehow missed first time around.

Although she led a busy life, her favourite relaxation was sitting in their Morningside home, with a glass of malt whisky, discussing the day’s events, sounds good to me!

As with many of our writers, Dorothy Dunnett is remembered in Makars Court, the stone bears her name, her coat of arms, and a brief quote from one of her books “Where are the links of the chain … joining us to the past”.

Dorothy Dunnett has a slab in Makar's Court beside the writers museum, it reads;

Where are the links of the chain… joining us to the past? and is from her novel, Checkmate, part of the Lymond Chronicles

Dorothy Dunnett died on this day in 2001 after a short illness; she was 78 years old.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Wuerker

* * * *

"We're not weird."

August 10, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

I am watching the Harris-Walz rally in Arizona as I write this newsletter on Friday evening. The venue is packed, and the crowd is wildly enthusiastic. Tim Walz delivered an even more enthusiastic speech than when he was introduced in Philadelphia on Tuesday. (Who knew? Where has this guy been hiding?)

But the most striking takeaway is the look of pure joy and happiness on Kamala Harris’s face as she delivers her remarks. She is genuinely enjoying herself as she delivers hopeful remarks and plays off the energy of the crowd.

Trump, on the other hand, used his press conference yesterday to predict the “end of days,” including an economic depression and World War III. And on Friday evening, he was reduced to telling his MAGA supporters, “We’re not weird.” It's hardly a compelling campaign slogan, but Trump has to work with what he’s got.

Which message is more likely to motivate voters to turn out at the ballot box? If the trends in the polls and the reaction of crowds at rallies are any indication, the momentum strongly favors Harris and Walz.

Kamala Harris has led the most remarkable political turnaround in American history for which she (and Joe Biden’s immediate endorsement) deserve tremendous credit. But there is much work to be done. We know that Republicans will sow chaos to interfere with a Democratic victory. That is why we must do everything in our power to ensure that Kamala Harris wins the presidency by a wide margin. We must convert enthusiasm into votes.

To state the obvious, converting enthusiasm into votes is a much better problem than fighting a pervasive sense of impending doom. We must not deceive ourselves about the level of effort and organization being demanded of us. But as we engage in the hard work of converting enthusiasm into votes, we should do so with a sense of hope, confidence, and joy.

For the second weekend in a row, we can look to the future unburdened by the anxiety that dragged us down for so long. I will go into the weekend with the image of Kamala Harris’s joyful remarks to an enthusiastic crowd in a swing state that is now back in play. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Coda to yesterday’s press event at Mar-a-Lago.

First, if you have not watched Lawrence O’Donnell’s analysis of the media's collective failure in its reporting on Trump’s press event at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, I urge you to do so. Lawrence O’Donnell’s segment is destined to become a classic of broadcast television that rivals the statement during the McCarthy hearings by Army lawyer Joseph Welch, “Have you no sense of decency?”

I guarantee that if you watch the segment, it will deepen your understanding of how the media enabled Trump’s initial rise and continued viability despite an attempted coup, inciting an insurrection, attempted bribery of Ukraine, refusal to return national defense documents, and two impeachments. See Lawrence: 'Stupidest' candidate Trump did not answer reporters' questions (msnbc.com).

Two post-debate developments underscore the bizarre nature of the press event yesterday.

Were reporters mere props at Trump’s press event on Thursday?

Susan Glasser published an analysis in The New Yorker, Does Anyone in America Miss Joe Biden as Much as Donald Trump? Glasser’s analysis included this shocking statement:

Trump summoned handpicked members of the media to Mar-a-Lago for a press conference, the point of which was to change the subject from Harris’s remarkable honeymoon.

If true, the hand-picked journalists were used as props by Trump in a propaganda event. Worse, they knew they were props but played their assigned role nonetheless.

If true, that fact would explain the journalists' odd complacency, the obsequious nature of the questions, and the lack of follow-up in the face of obvious lies.

I say “If true” because I can find no separate confirmation of Glasser’s statement. But someone should pursue that question. If true, it is a scandal, and every reporter who participated in the sham press event owes an apology to the public.

Was Trump involved in an emergency landing of a helicopter with Willie Brown, the former Speaker of California’s State Assembly?

At the press event, Trump claimed he was in an emergency landing of a helicopter on which California Speaker Willie Brown was a passenger. Trump told the story of the near crash in a helicopter to frame a story that Willie Brown told him something negative about Kamala Harris during that helicopter ride. Trump said of Willie Brown, “He told me terrible things about her.” (Kamala Harris and Willie Brown dated in the 1990s. )

Willie Brown told the media that he was not on a helicopter with Trump that was forced to make an emergency landing. The NYTimes published a story on Thursday titled, That Time Trump Nearly Died in a Helicopter Crash? Didn’t Happen. (This article is accessible to all.)

The Times’ story makes clear that “several elements of the story” do not stand up to scrutiny, including the claim that Willie Brown was on the helicopter with Trump.

On Friday, Trump threatened to sue the NYTimes, claiming that he had flight records to back up his story.

So, this is interesting. Trump is either doubling down on his lie, or the NYTimes published a story with false statements.

As of Friday, it appears that Trump is doubling down on his lie—a fact that became clear when another Black politician—Nate Holden—told Politico that he was on the helicopter ride with Trump that was forced to make an emergency landing. See Politico, The other Black politician who says he was with Trump in that near-fatal chopper crash.

So, it appears that Trump has confused two Black politicians from California. And the Black politician who was on the helicopter ride with Trump told Politico the following:

Before he hung up with Politico, Holden assured a reporter that nobody discussed—let alone criticized—Kamala Harris as Trump claimed Brown did.

“He either mixed it up,” Holden said. “Or, he made it up. This was just too big to overlook. This is a big one. Conflating Willie Brown and me? The press is searching for the real story and they didn’t get it. You did.”

The most reasonable inferences are (a) Trump confused two Black politicians from California, and (b) there was no discussion of Kamala Harris on the helicopter ride.

Now that Trump has threatened to sue the Times for defamation over the story, perhaps the Times will show more interest in documenting Trump’s lies.

A final bizarre aspect of this story occurred on Friday. Trump told the New York Times he was going to sue the Times and asserted that he had flight records to prove his story. Here is the Times’ account of the exchange:

“We have the flight records of the helicopter,” Mr. Trump insisted Friday, saying the helicopter had landed “in a field,” and indicating that he intended to release the flight records, before shouting that he was “probably going to sue” over the Times article. When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice. As of early Friday evening, he had not provided them.

So, Trump is doubling down on his story that Willie Brown told him “terrible things” about Kamala Harris and has descended into a childish mocking of the Times’ reporter asking for records of some elements of Trump’s story.

While this story may seem overly complicated and like a tempest in a teapot, the fact that Trump has put the Times’ credibility on the line could be a tipping point for the Times to begin holding Trump to a standard for veracity that it applies to all other politicians. That would be a welcome development, indeed!

[Late update: In a Truth Social post late Friday, Trump attacked Maggie Haberman of the New York Times over the story, calling her “Maggot Hagerman.” Looks like the gloves may be coming off.]

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[ausetkmt]

In recent years, commercial spyware has been deployed by more actors against a wider range of victims, but the prevailing narrative has still been that the malware is used in targeted attacks against an extremely small number of people. At the same time, though, it has been difficult to check devices for infection, leading individuals to navigate an ad hoc array of academic institutions and NGOs that have been on the front lines of developing forensic techniques to detect mobile spyware. On Tuesday, the mobile device security firm iVerify is publishing findings from a spyware detection feature it launched in May. Of 2,500 device scans that the company's customers elected to submit for inspection, seven revealed infections by the notorious NSO Group malware known as Pegasus.

The company’s Mobile Threat Hunting feature uses a combination of malware signature-based detection, heuristics, and machine learning to look for anomalies in iOS and Android device activity or telltale signs of spyware infection. For paying iVerify customers, the tool regularly checks devices for potential compromise. But the company also offers a free version of the feature for anyone who downloads the iVerify Basics app for $1. These users can walk through steps to generate and send a special diagnostic utility file to iVerify and receive analysis within hours. Free users can use the tool once a month. iVerify's infrastructure is built to be privacy-preserving, but to run the Mobile Threat Hunting feature, users must enter an email address so the company has a way to contact them if a scan turns up spyware—as it did in the seven recent Pegasus discoveries.

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“The really fascinating thing is that the people who were targeted were not just journalists and activists, but business leaders, people running commercial enterprises, people in government positions,” says Rocky Cole, chief operating officer of iVerify and a former US National Security Agency analyst. “It looks a lot more like the targeting profile of your average piece of malware or your average APT group than it does the narrative that’s been out there that mercenary spyware is being abused to target activists. It is doing that, absolutely, but this cross section of society was surprising to find.”

Seven out of 2,500 scans may sound like a small group, especially in the somewhat self-selecting customer base of iVerify users, whether paying or free, who want to be monitoring their mobile device security at all, much less checking specifically for spyware. But the fact that the tool has already found a handful of infections at all speaks to how widely the use of spyware has proliferated around the world. Having an easy tool for diagnosing spyware compromises may well expand the picture of just how often such malware is being used.

“NSO Group sells its products exclusively to vetted US & Israel-allied intelligence and law enforcement agencies,” NSO Group spokesperson Gil Lainer told WIRED in a statement. "Our customers use these technologies daily.”

iVerify vice president of research Matthias Frielingsdorf will present the group's Pegasus findings at the Objective by the Sea security conference in Maui, Hawaii on Friday. He says that it took significant investment to develop the detection tool because mobile operating systems like Android, and particularly iOS, are more locked down than traditional desktop operating systems and don't allow monitoring software to have kernel access at the heart of the system. Cole says that the crucial insight was to use telemetry taken from as close to the kernel as possible to tune machine learning models for detection. Some spyware, like Pegasus, also has characteristic traits that make it easier to flag. In the seven detections, Mobile Threat Hunting caught Pegasus using diagnostic data, shutdown logs, and crash logs. But the challenge, Cole says, is in refining mobile monitoring tools to reduce false positives.

Developing the detection capability has already been invaluable, though. Cole says that it helped iVerify identify signs of compromise on the smartphone of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a lawyer and Sikh political activist who was the target of an alleged, foiled assassination attempt by an Indian government employee in New York City. The Mobile Threat Hunting feature also flagged suspected nation state activity on the mobile devices of two Harris-Walz campaign officials—a senior member of the campaign and an IT department member—during the presidential race.

“The age of assuming that iPhones and Android phones are safe out of the box is over,” Cole says. “The sorts of capabilities to know if your phone has spyware on it were not widespread. There were technical barriers and it was leaving a lot of people behind. Now you have the ability to know if your phone is infected with commercial spyware. And the rate is much higher than the prevailing narrative.”