@mcc in my headcanon they're written by the same person

Just a reminder that Nobel-prize winning PCR (1983), used in basically any genetic tech today, was only possible because of an extremophile bacterium discovered in 1964 in Yellowstone funded by a small ~$80k NSF grant with no obvious application at the time. The value of basic #science cannot be predicted and often is realized decades after it's done.

How a discovery in Yellowstone National Park led to the development of PCR - Richmond Scientific
https://www.richmondscientific.com/how-a-discovery-in-yellowstone-national-park-led-to-the-renowned-technique-of-dna-amplification-pcr

Our library has opened a stick library. I needed you to know this.

@aras Things have been mostly calm and cautiously positive for customers so prolly shareholders are upset that no public violent extraction means they aren't making as much money as their friends

some close-ups of my #pixelart :3
#dinchenix #ドット絵

Unless you’re a Nobel laureate, the brain drain will be away from science and not to other countries.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/us/trump-federal-spending-grants-scientists-leaving.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ME8.sh9q.qy7jX0S1ZrBa&smid=url-share

LinkGaslighting? - For several months now I’ve continued my project where every day I go back through my archives and clean up broken links in old posts. If something is broken and I can find it in the Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/), I replace the link. Lately I’m noticing something new and insidious. Of course there’s a lot of linkrot, where stuff is just gone. (In my archives, Yahoo News and Make’s Craftzine are the two biggest offenders.) Then there’s stuff that’s gone, but the domain has been repurposed by someone else. Sometimes it’s obvious (porn and gambling ahoy!) and other times they create a plausible looking site filled with SEO glurge. And then there’s this third dark pattern I don’t even have a name for yet, where the same entity is still in control of the domain and the link goes to a plausible looking URL, but it’s NOT the page I linked to originally.

Here’s an example. In 2001 I wrote a post (https://www.web-goddess.org/archive/554) about Jenna Bush, saying I sympathised with her and that she was just acting like a college student. In it, I linked to a Salon.com article (http://www.salon.com/mwt/wire/2001/05/30/jenna_bush/index.html) about her. If you follow that link now, you are silently redirected to an article about her beliefs about safe sex (https://www.salon.com/2007/09/25/jenna_bush/). If you don’t look closely, you might miss the fact that the safe sex article is from 2007. If you go to the Wayback Machine, you’ll see that the actual article I linked to was about her buying booze (https://web.archive.org/web/20010605091134/http://www.salon.com/mwt/wire/2001/05/30/jenna_bush/index.html). I’ve now found several other Salon.com links to that redirect to posts about the same general topic of the post, but aren’t the actual one I linked to.

Another example. In 2013 I linked to (https://www.web-goddess.org/archive/11354) a Serious Eats recipe for “tobacco cookies” (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/05/tobacco-cookies-recipe.html). If you click that link now, you’re redirected to a recipe for Chocolate Dipped Tuile “Cigarettes” (https://www.seriouseats.com/chocolate-dipped-tuile-cigarettes-cookies-recipe). That one gave me pause. Is that what I originally linked to? If that’s what the recipe is called, why did I call it something else? Here’s the Wayback Machine to the rescue again, confirming that there really used to be a recipe for tobacco cookies (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/05/tobacco-cookies-recipe.html). WTF.

I’m not clear on why or how this is happening. Maybe some sort of custom 404 logic that picks out a keyword and sends you to a likely recent link? It’s infuriating though that they don’t give you any warning that it might not be the page you’re looking for. It makes finding broken links that much harder, because they’re actively trying to gaslight me. Links are a contract and a promise. Silently redirecting https://www.web-goddess.org/archive/77747

The train I'm in just crossed the border from Spain into France. No announcement and I expect no one else noticed the moment. Freedom to disregard borders is a huge boon to those who have it. Many don't and many more are losing it.

A HARRY POTTER FAN'S GUIDE TO NAVIGATING PRIDE MONTH

• STOP reading the books

• STOP watching the movies

• STOP buying the merch

• STOP playing the games

• STOP fucking talking about it

• STOP engaging with this franchise altogether

• PERMANENTLY

every dollar and every moment you spend towards the harry potter fandom gives it and by extension transphobia space in our cultural consciousness and harms trans people directly

KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF

https://www.advocate.com/news/jk-rowling-anti-trans-organization

#HarryPotter #JKRowling #HogwartsLegacy #PrideMonth #pride #pride2025

A friend of mine making a pertinent point at Parkrun today.

#trans #lgbtq #politics #bigotry #fascism #capitalism #lgbtqia #queer

“‘But I just use AI for boilerplate!’ you whimper, clutching your Co-Pilot subscription. Listen to yourself. If you’re writing the same boilerplate every day like some industrial-age cog monkey, automate it yourself. Write a library. Invent a macro. Reclaim some dignity.”

https://deplet.ing/the-copilot-delusion/

Hey folks, I have a HUGE request from the Trevor Project and would appreciate help getting the word out. Trevor is now recruiting for it's 2025 National Youth Survey. They need people 13-24, LGBTQ+, in the United States to take it. This research is critical to LGBTQ+ rights. Take it here:

trevorredcap.trvr.org/surveys/?s=ARP...

Kind of sums it up.

(An op-ed in New York Times this weekend.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/opinion/europe-train-travel.html

Calling human creations "content" was the beginning of the end. It enabled AI people to see it as free fuel, and for people to devalue it and not appreciate the hours of work put in. I loathe the word content.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:3gr6tk7csa7abbqtwcs6tkzu/post/3lp7rttdmms2l

In early 2015, I was in an all-day meeting that involved a bunch of scientists and high level NASA officials, including the then NASA Associate Administrator for Science.

We ordered pizza because the meeting went so long. All the scientists got a slice of pizza first, and then AA was allowed to get one, because leftover food is not considered a gift.

At any rate, that's how the #EmolumentsClause was interpreted a decade ago.

EU citizens, if you want in while you can, there's a EU citizen's petition for the EU to ban "conversion therapy" (this is as ominous as it sounds) of LGBTQs, with 7 days left to sign.

It will not make the threshold, but might be able to rack up a few more country thresholds— I'm happy to note Spain just hit it. Belgium and The Netherlands are the next best bets as they're over 65%; If you know queer-friendly folks in those countries, maybe a good time to forward this:

https://eci.ec.europa.eu/043/public/#/screen/home

One of my kiddo's teachers is replacing some old iPads that are being taken out of service by the district. Couple hundred bucks left, she's amazing & uses these to incorporate digital literacy incl. coding in the 3rd-grade science and social studies curriculum.

https://www.donorschoose.org/project/ipads-for-coding/9063194/

what's the word for when you write a mountain of dog shit code in a serene cloud of total autopilot flow, but you wrote it all yourself because you're actually good at computers

Accidentally took a really great rainy day selfie showing another mom my Garbage umbrella.