Oh it's a new year, I'm allowed the one annual futile curse: I hate Google's UI/UX/IXD. The mystery meat, the low contrast, low info scent, bloat, all of it.

Sigh. Okay thanks carry on.

Aww now the wind has done gone and woke the pup.

I did finally order a...
uh, okay gotta be honest with y'all
FIVE pencil sharpeners.

What the daggum things dull my knife.

If I'm not liking the premise of the first episode of the 2nd season of Picard, do I need to watch more or may I skip to season 3?
#starTrek #picard

Hey hey I thought this store was g-rated

https://www.jetpens.com/KUM-Mr.-Big-Wood-Pencil-Sharpener-12-mm/pd/29364

Damn this got my hopes up, but there's no super-sound-wavey anything to it.
#wibblyWobbly
Sonic Pencil Sharpeners
https://www.jetpens.com/Sonic-Ratchetta-Capsule-Pencil-Sharpener-Blue/pd/12751

Old enough to remember when Boeing could make things.

Dogs decide to take naps just as I have free time for finishing a house project. Mitre saw is noisy/Let sleeping dogs lie.
#dilemma

Furnace what furnace who needs a furnace not this guy.

More animal science. You may have these in your pantry so it's good to know more about them.

"On the third day of Christmas: Getting to the bottom of how red flour beetles absorb water through their butts."
#science #butts
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/12/getting-to-the-bottom-of-how-red-flour-beetles-absorb-water-through-their-butts/

It's a sciencey animal-testingy kind of morning

"...body-on-chip device has the potential to replace a significant number of the animals currently used in safety testing across a range of industries."
#goodNews #medicine #manufacturing

https://edinburgh-innovations.ed.ac.uk/news/new-device-could-replace-animals-used-in-drug-and-chemical-safety-testing

Damn got too much done today, set the bar way too high. I think this will be addressed via new year's resolutions.
#slackOffMore #beLazyer #2024

Korshak, always a good read, calls out a cogent Estonian report, "laying out how the coalition can and should win the war by 2026 at the latest. I recommend reading it in detail because — am I anthropomorphizing here? — like the Estonian stereotype it’s logical, straightforward, direct, pragmatic, and written in English better than the overwhelming majority of native speakers can manage."

#ukraine

https://medium.com/@Stefan.Korshak/december-16-day-661-sturm-und-drang-clever-estonians-missile-records-5696a18a9d7a

and the report (pdf, 24pp):
https://www.offidocs.com/public/?v=ext&pdfurl=https://kaitseministeerium.ee/sites/default/files/setting_transatlantic_defence_up_for_success_0.pdf

/nosanitize

This AP picture is showing up on news sites with bylines like, "Dr. bandages an amputated limb", which misses that the doctor, Alexis Cholov, is also an amputee and his arm in the picture is a bionic from a Ukrainian company. A proper story about him at the link.
#ukraine #biotech

https://www.kaaltv.com/news/health-science/the-war-took-away-their-limbs-now-bionic-prostheses-empower-wounded-ukrainian-soldiers/

Meanwhile in the United "Free Speech" States of America, From July 2021 to June 2023, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans recorded 5,894 instances of book bans across 41 states and 247 public school districts.

Because some folks get frightened by ideas.

3/2 (okay I'll stop)

https://pen.org/spineless-shelves/

E.g.; Russian state investigators have raided the Zakharov publishing house, because they have refused to stop selling the work of popular Russian-Georgian author Boris Akunin (real name Grigori Chkhartishvili). Akunin, who currently lives in the UK, has been added to a list of “terrorists and extremists” because of his comments condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and his actions in co-founding the TrueRussia Foundation, which attempts to aid those affected by the invasion.
2/2

The Association of American Publishers, which oversees the AAP International Freedom to Publish | Jeri Laber Award, given annually in recognition of a publisher outside of the United States that has "demonstrated courage and fortitude in defending freedom of expression," this year issued the award to “all publishing houses in multiple countries and regions of the world that continued to publish in the face of increased government pressure, harassment, and threats."
1/2
https://publishers.org/news/aap-international-freedom-to-publish-award-recognizes-publishers-under-attack-across-the-globe/

Hmmm. Wikimedia getting into the stackexchange business, sorta. YMMV, caveat emptor, etc. I predict flamewars in the Discussion sections.

"Wikifunctions is a Wikimedia project for everyone to collaboratively create and maintain a library of code functions"
#code #crowdsource

https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/12/05/introducing-wikifunctions-first-wikimedia-project-to-launch-in-a-decade-creates-new-forms-of-knowledge

/nosanitize

Oh this is fun. I'm learning!
All of the posts a CoSo username has by hashtag: go to the profile address and append /tagged/hashtag, e.g.
(Sorry Doc, picked you)
#tips #cosotips

https://counter.social/@nursefrombirth/tagged/goodnews

Texas do you really want to mess with Chicago?
Have you _met_ Chicago?