Americans aren’t facing a democratic collapse. We’re living in its aftermath
For tens of millions of people, democratic life has been absent for decades as they endure precarious housing, inaccessible healthcare, unchecked policing powers, debt servitude, vanishing public goods, and near-total exclusion from meaningful formal political power. For others – the wealthy, the politically connected, the donors and oligarchs – the same system produces not insecurity, but insulation, along with a constant need to rationalize the deprivation of others upon which their power is predicated and to disavow any responsibility for it.
Should add, for many people, democratic life, since the founding of America, has nearly never existed.
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science.nasa.gov/planetary-science
science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets
science.nasa.gov/venus/venus-facts
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Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong
Outsiders’ power over the story of the Maya is written into the people’s very name. After their arrival in the early 1500s, the Spanish named local populations “Maya” after the ruined city of Mayapán in present day Mexico. Yet the Maya never saw themselves as one people and were never governed under one empire. They spoke many languages – 30 of which are still around – and belong to an intricate mix of cultures and identities.
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Editing the same document on a computer from different geographic locations over the internet in 1968.
"The Mother of All Demos" was a landmark computer demonstration, named retroactively, of developments by Stanford Research Institute's Augmentation Research Center . . . on December 9, 1968.
At separate times, his Augment associates Jeff Rulifson and Bill Paxton appeared in another portion of the screen to help edit the text remotely from ARC. While they were editing they could see each other's screen, talk and see each other as well. He further demonstrated that clicking on underlined text would then link to another page of information, demonstrating the concept of hypertext.
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Chickens Get All the Attention, but You Should Raise Ducks Instead
Chickens need individual nesting boxes and fight for preferred spots, while ducks have a more communal approach to laying eggs (which is: wherever you feel like it, man). Sometimes an egg will pop out of a duck’s rear while she’s just standing around, surprising even her. (I have video of this; it’s hilarious.) To compensate for this haphazardness, the shells of duck eggs are twice as thick as those of a chicken’s. Also, ducks don’t make noise while laying; unlike chickens who alert the neighborhood, they’re more discreet and humble. Ducks aren’t protective of eggs like chickens because of a migratory instinct that keeps them from getting too attached to one place; if food runs low, the flock will be moving again. Spring, it should be said, is a little different, and allowing a duck to accumulate a few eggs in a clutch might click her into “broody” mode, but for the most part, ducks are pretty unconcerned with their calcareous progeny.
Almost . . .
OK, there is the poop thing. Though there are many reasons to choose ducks over chickens, there’s only one legitimate counterargument I’ve heard, and it’s purely aesthetic. Everyone poops, but creatures’ quality and consistency can be awfully varied, from spherical rabbit marbles to Pope logs in the woods. Any other animal unloading like a duck would be described as having “explosive diarrhea.” Sometimes it shoots out with a cartoon “splorch” sound (hilarious!). They will splatter walls with it, and every egg needs to be cleaned. It’s far from Instagram-friendly.
caveat lector