You won't be sorry if you buy _5 Ingredients Mediterranean: simple incredible food_ by Jamie Oliver. But I'm not urging you to acquire it, either.
https://amzn.to/3ZPt0zX

Does 'Avatar' Have No Cultural Footprint? A Statistical Analysis

Fun, thoughtful reading: "Most big-budget movies are designed around fandoms, expressly crafted to cultivate an ever-growing mass of die-hards through successive installments and reinvention of the familiar."

https://open.substack.com/pub/statsignificant/p/does-avatar-have-no-cultural-footprint

"…This article summarizes that presentation and provides resources to help digital map designers incorporate accessibility into their maps. We have also included information about how the state's new Digital Accessibility Standard and WCAG 2.1, Level AA impacts digital map design…"
https://mn.gov/mnit/about-mnit/accessibility/news/

Sierra Leone almost halves maternal mortality in five years
The number of women dying from pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum complications has decreased from 717 per 100,000 births in 2019 to to 443 per 100,000 births in 2023. https://www.unicef.org/sierraleone/media/2271/file/UNICEF%20Sierra%20Leone-%202023%20annual%20report.pdf.pdf

We still don’t fully understand why we find cute things cute, but this fun video helps to shed some light on how it seems to influence our behavior. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxsoE3jO8HM

The 30th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition is live until October 15th, with dozens of brand new text games to try. Anyone can be a judge if you try at least five games. https://ifcomp.org

This story gets weirder and weirder the longer you read the opening sentence.

"An 81-year-old Montana man was sentenced on Monday to six months in federal prison for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in central Asia and the US to create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/01/sheep-cloning-montana-hunting-prison

Julia Child has a GIPHY channel with images and scenes from her WGBH TV show, The French Chef. The channel has more than 200 GIFs and more than 600 million views to date. https://giphy.com/juliachild

HEY FREELANCERS: California just passed the Freelancer Worker Protection Act (SB 988). The gist: Clients have to provide you a contract with scope of work and pay; pay you in 30 days (or else pay double damages); and cannot retaliate for trying to get paid.
https://nwu.org/governor-newsom-signs-senator-wieners-freelance-worker-bill-into-law/

A 25-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes started producing her own insulin less than three months after receiving a transplant of reprogrammed stem cells1. She is the first person with the disease to be treated using cells that were extracted from her own body.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03129-3

.

"New research demonstrates that a well-trained pup can pick up the so-called scents of death from remains that are centuries old." https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/archaeology-dogs/

When I read, “Our technologies are purpose-built to support the most challenging [context] situations,” I think, “As opposed to what? Accidentally-built?”

"I thought at my age I was past being impressed, but you really knocked my hat in the creek." -- Kris Kristofferson to Muhammad Ali
https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/youre-the-last-hero-weve-got

DNA tests have revealed that the mystery goo was kefir cheese, a probiotic soft cheese, and that it was produced using cow and goat cheeses thousands of years ago.
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/mysterious-white-substance-smeared-on-3600-year-old-mummies-is-worlds-oldest-cheese

Wafris' migrated from #Redis to #SQLite for its Rails middleware client. SQLite outperformed Redis in its specific use case, offering about 3x speed improvement locally.

https://wafris.org/blog/rearchitecting-for-sqlite

Open a new window somewhere in the world
Oh, this is SO cool!
https://www.window-swap.com/Window

Over 100,000 Americans have joined a program to welcome refugees in their first three months, helping them find homes, enroll in schools, and pursue their dreams. No cats, dogs, or geese were harmed. https://welcomecorps.org