Month: September 2017

Challenges of parenting in 2017 America:

“Red means stop, Green means go” doesn’t apply anymore because they replaced green LEDs with white.

But, as my neighbor pointed out yesterday, “Wait for the white man” comes with its own baggage, too heavy for toddlers with limited (bilingual) language abilities.

It didn’t even occur to me… I guess from now on I will explain traffic rules exclusively in Russian.

US Energy Dept. Trolls Trump With Yuuuuuge Solar Energy Announcement Promoting Obama’s SunShot Initiative | CleanTechnica

“it seems that the Trump Administration is still committing taxpayer dollars to killing off coal. ”

I decided that I will only post non-depressing politics on here that usually get enough coverage, and this is one of them.

US Energy Dept. Trolls Trump With Yuuuuuge Solar Energy Announcement Promoting Obama’s SunShot Initiative | CleanTechnica

If you are 35 or younger – and quite often, older – the advice of the old economy does not apply to you. You live in the post-employment economy, where corporations have decided not to pay people. Profits are still high. The money is still there. But not for you. You will work without a raise, benefits, or job security. Survival is now a laudable aspiration.

Quoted from Sarah Kendzior’s “Surviving the Post-Employment Economy“ 

“In the United States, nine percent of computer science majors are unemployed, and 14.7 percent of those who hold degrees in information systems have no job. Graduates with degrees in STEM – science, technology, engineering and medicine – are facing record joblessness, with unemployment at more than twice pre-recession levels. The job market for law degree holders continues to erode, with only 55 percent of 2011 law graduates in full-time jobs. Even in the military, that behemoth of the national budget, positions are being eliminated or becoming contingent due to the sequester.

It is not skills or majors that are being devalued. It is people.”

Her work is frank, speaking of a reality I hope that will never be mine. At the same time, it gives me a strange comfort to know that I am not alone.

(via sextus—empiricus)

The most salient part of this, to me, is the underscoring of the fact that there is no “right” college major where you’re guaranteed a job forever. Conservatives love to pretend college graduates working minimum-wage or freelance jobs just didn’t “pick the right major” – those foolish fools studied the arts or literature or something else frivolous, so they deserve crushing debt and no job security! No. There is no magical college major that will let you sidestep the jobless recovery.

(via thebicker)

lovinghk:

INSIGHT: Protestors
rally against Steve Bannon in Hong Kong

(source: reuters | 12 sept 2017) Protesters outside a luxury
hotel in Hong Kong shouted anti-racism slogans on Tuesday ahead of a speech by
former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon at an investor conference
organized by a unit of China’s largest brokerage.

I’m actually curious what the Leninist antiglobalist-in-chief had to say to them.

Glad he was given appropriate welcome though.

startswithabang:

Top 6 Discoveries Of Cassini As Its 20-Year Mission Comes To An End

“2.) The largest storm ever known in the Solar System. Like all the planets with atmospheres, Saturn contains its own weather, complete with storms both large and small. While the Cassini mission was able to discover a number of interesting ones on the ringed-world, such as the long-lived polar hexagon and the Southern hemisphere’s Dragon Storm, the most spectacular occurred in 2011, emerging in the northern hemisphere, encircling the entire planet, lapping itself and lasting over 200 days. Images taken as close together as one rotation apart showed that the storm migrated across the Saturnian surface at 60 miles per hour (100 km/hr).

While a handful of storms of this magnitude have been observed every 20–30 years or so dating back to 1876, this was the largest, longest-lived one. In April, we found these storms are suppressed by water vapor in the lower layers of Saturn’s atmosphere. Being heavier than not only hydrogen and helium but also methane, the wet water vapor forms a layer underneath Saturn’s outer exosphere, insulating the inner part of the world. Eventually, the outer layers cool so much that they sink, allowing the inner, wet layers — and storms — to re-emerge. Having developed this picture from Cassini’s true and false-color images, the next major Saturnian storm, predicted for the 2030s, could finally teach us how much water our ringed neighbor contains.”

Launched back in October of 1997, Cassini will take its final plunge into the ringed world it’s been orbiting for over a decade on Friday, September 15th. Before it does, however, it’s worth a look back at the tremendous science that’s come about from the first dedicated mission to venture out to Saturn, including a series of surprises that we had no idea we’d find when we were planning and preparing this mission. Sure, our radioisotope-powered spacecraft was equipped with a lander to investigate the giant moon Titan, and many instruments to analyze the various molecules it would find on Saturn, in its rings, and in its many moons. But the polar hexagon and the central vortex, the largest storm ever seen in the Solar System’s history, a myriad of features in the rings (and their gaps), the cause of the two-toned nature of Iapetus and much, much more all came about not because we were seeking to solve these mysteries, but because we had built a spacecraft capable of looking for more than what we were anticipating.

Take a look back at the top six discoveries of Cassini, with more than 20 images to take your breath away!

Farewell Cassini