Month: November 2024

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Interplanetary Earth

From APOD:

In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting the outermost gas giant. On that same day people across planet Earth snapped many of their own pictures of Saturn. On the right, the Earth-Moon system is seen against the dark background of space as captured by the sunward MESSENGER spacecraft, then in Mercury orbit. MESSENGER took its image as part of a search for small natural satellites of Mercury, moons that would be expected to be quite dim. In the MESSENGER image, the brighter Earth and Moon are both overexposed and shine brightly with reflected sunlight. Destined not to return to their home world, both Cassini and MESSENGER have since retired from their missions of Solar System exploration.

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What a Surprise! 🫤

Coca-Cola (and Dixie Cup) pioneered the recycling movement in the 40's to get people to return valuable glass bottles by charging almost half of the cost of the drink in a returnable fee. Nearly everyone returned their bottles; it was a huge success. When they switched to plastic in the 50's it became more profitable to just toss bottles away so they used shell organizations to secretly lobby congress and senates to kill recycling bills while simultaneously creating massive ad campaigns to convince the public that recycling was all the consumer's responsibility. This isn't a conspiracy theory, it's public knowledge that gets drowned out in the noise made by their PR firms.

Last year Coca-Cola was still up to the same environmental villainry. More recycling advertising campaigns and killed bottle-fee bills which have been long proven to massively boost recycling rates but also push the cost of recycling from the consumer onto the manufacturer. That's also detailed in the previous link.

Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that large corporations care about this world or anything in it other than profit. They'll engage in charity as an investment if the campaign offers good return for their brand value and public image, but don't think for a second we can get capitalists to behave ethically through any other means through any other means than forcing them to do it.

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Will This Be The Last Time? Probably.

Yeah, I know. I got a new MacBook Pro after just getting a new one about fifteen months ago. Why? It was just too goddamned heavy. Yes, I appreciated the additional screen real estate, but since I use it connected to a wide-screen monitor when I'm home, the weight/benefit ratio just wasn't adding up.

I thought about getting the 15-inch Air (like Ben did, the same night), but I needed the one extra port on that came on the Pro.

I also knew that if I was going to replace the 16, with the upcoming threatened tariffs and the soon-to-be accompanying roll-back in my income, it was either now or never. I checked what Apple was offering for the trade-in and pulled the trigger. I'm glad I did. The weight difference is only a couple pounds, but it's amazing what a difference those few pounds make. It also allowed me to go back to the smaller messenger bag, an added benefit.

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Quote of the Day

I am not a liberal snowflake. My feelings aren't fragile, my heart isn't bleeding. I am a badass believer in human rights. My toughness is tenderness. My strength is in the service of others. There is nothing more fierce than formidable, unconditional love. There is not a thing more courageous than compassion. But if my belief in equity, empathy, goodness, and love indeed makes me or people like me snowflakes, then you should know—WINTER IS COMING." ~ Eminem