KelsonV @KelsonV@wandering.shop

Wienerschnitzel of all places is plugging Pumpkin Spice. Or rather, "Pumpkin Spice, Spice, Baby" 🙄

Here's an interesting idea: using sand or gravel and mountains for long-term energy storage. When there's a surplus of solar/wind/whatever-generated electricity, use the extra to lift buckets of sand up a mountain and drop them in a storage basin (similar to pumping water uphill to fill the area behind a hydroelectric dam), and when the grid is low on power, open a chute and let the sand turn a turbine.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/environment/mix-mountains-and-gravity-for-longterm-energy-storage

I always find it interesting when a language reveals or clarifies connections between two others.

Like, it's not obvious at first glance that cheese and queso are related, but if you also know Käse, they're clearly all the same word.

Similarly, I could never see the connection between John & Ivan, until I realized that if you write Juan in all-caps ancient Roman chiseled stone style, it comes out as IVAN. (I know that's not how it happened, but it makes the connection clearer.)

#linguistics

Hong Kong theater troupe performs outdoor Les Misérables production, audiences sing along in catharsis.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-12-11/les-miserables-soothes-breaks-hong-kong-hearts

A baby white rhino born in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park has been named Future, for what she means to conservation efforts.

After a few rainstorms, her new favorite thing is mud.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-11/san-diego-zoo-baby-white-rhino-named

#animals #rhino

Archaeologists have found the oldest known recorded story, painted on the walls of an Indonesian cave.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/12/11/oldest-story-ever-told-is-painted-this-cave-wall-archaeologists-report/

A profile of Archive Team and their ongoing efforts to preserve online culture when massive services shut down. Latest project: Yahoo Groups.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/11/these-crusaders-want-preserve-human-culture-online-their-latest-target-yahoo-groups/

Some useful #WordPress URL tricks I've discovered for combining tag/category searches:

You can search for the intersection of two tags by looking for

/tag/first-tag+second-tag

or the union of two tags by looking for

/tag/first-tag,second-tag

or the subset of posts in a category that are also tagged by looking for

/category/some-category?tag=some-tag

I'm sure there are more that I haven't stumbled across. But I can't find a reference for combined search/archive terms like this.

My suspension of disbelief works a lot better with wild and crazy tech/magic/"science" like dark matter, super-speed, multiverse teleportation and so on than with something that they try to make "realistic" but completely miss.

Watched the episode where Rosso becomes Bloodwork. His moment of transformation: He realizes that the blood supply he's using lacks epinephrine, so he needs to get it from scared people, which means he has to kill them, and he's willing to do that to stay alive.

COME ON.

He's a doctor. He can buy epinephrine by the gallon if he wants, cheaply. (Most of the cost of epinephrine auto-injectors is the device. And greed.)

Story done.