Sonia Connolly

Students ride the rails in this course to learn about sustainability and tourism by Mark Alan Rhodes II, Assistant Professor of Geography, Michigan Technological University.

What does the course explore?
Over the course of three weeks, students visit six locations, with overnight train rides between each ranging from 16-24 hours. The days are broken up into lessons on observing landscape and land use, sustainable tourism and urban deindustrialization, with at least an hour of class time on each train ride.

Dendrochronology by Robert Moor.

I had read enough forest ecology to know that this chaotic arrangement of forms—a density and diversity of shapes, sizes, and shades that no painter would ever even attempt to capture—belied a deeper order. I was looking not at a site of decay, but of growth—the luxuriant, slow accumulation of something at once resilient and frighteningly fragile.

The Wonder Waller by Kristie De Garis.

‘Fully immersed in my conversation with the land, I began to notice the drystone, and running my hands over the rough, Perthshire fieldstone walls, I felt that same quietude I’d known as a child.’

Millan Millan and the Mystery of the Missing Mediterranean Storms by Rob Lewis.

Suddenly, parts of the climate you couldn’t see before appear. In addition to the atmosphere, you now see the landscapes around you and the soil beneath your feet, not as helpless victims, but as active drivers of this thing we call climate. Not only that, but you see that at one point, not too long ago, science looked at the climate in just such a manner.

The weeds are winning by Douglas Main.

Herbicide resistance is a predictable ­outcome of evolution, explains Patrick Tranel, a leader in the field of molecular weed science at the University of Illinois, whose lab is a few miles from the South Farm. “When you try to kill something, what does it do? It tries to not be killed,” Tranel says.

The joy of clutter by Matt Alt. "The world sees Japan as a paragon of minimalism. But its hidden clutter culture shows that ‘more’ can be as magical as ‘less’." With joyfully cluttered photographs.

The First Virtual Meeting Was in 1916 by Allison Marsh. "The amazing feat linked up 5,100 engineers from Atlanta to San Francisco"

Looking back in my journal about Larry Gordon led me to this post, April 2023 about a video I was searching for, and the gorgeous Songs Stay Sung.

Here's Zoe Mulford and Windborne, because it is more relevant than ever. It made me cry, in a good way. I hope it resonates for you, too. "Love stays loved, and song stay sung."



I searched again for the video I'd been looking for then, 'child musicians from around the world joint video' and it was the first hit. Check out the young drummer, and all these other amazing young musicians and dancers.



And a similar joint video of adults in Turkey playing Hayde Gidelum in outdoor locations around the country. At the end it says they were inspired by playingforchange.com, who made the previous video.


And a cool making of video for that last one, with out takes.

Mnemonic Traditions and Listening from asakiyume.

Listening means being alive, staying alive, and keeping the ecosystems to which one belongs alive as well. Listening is caring. Not listening brings war: that is, a type of destructive encounter, a form of non-co-existence. We listen with our entire bodies, not just our ears ... Our bodies are part of and an extension of the Earth. If we allow them to become sensing instruments for dreaming and conversation, the cosmic sense of life would not be so threatened. --Natalia Brizuela

Linkpost with references and archives from armaina. "[C]harming and lovingly crafted niche info websites."

Emojis popup from starwatcher.
On Windows: Hold down the Windows key plus the period, and you get a popup of emojis to select. If you don't see what you want, type the word, and emojis that match that word will be displayed.
On Mac: Function-E or Command-Control-Spacebar 😍😀 (Just tried them both, they both work for me!)

This game came to mind today, and I managed to find the website. Sure enough, it was published 7 years ago. (Previously linked in 2018)

PhD: Move the bricks to complete your PhD. It's a 2048 game but the tiles have names like Coffee, Code, Conference, Viva, and at the end, PhD. You play in the browser.

There are "garbage" tiles that randomly appear, and sit there and gum up the works until they can be paired with another randomly appearing garbage tile.

A "relationship" tile will also randomly appear. It promotes any tile it touches to the next level - until it turns into a "breakup" tile and demotes on touching as many tiles as were previously promoted before disappearing.

ETA: For more gaming goodness, jesse_the_k points out a source for Timesless (no crossing picket lines) Wordle links in comments.

I spent a chunk of time this evening putting together my passport renewal application (renewal how-to), and I'll go get a photo and mail it out tomorrow. Oddly enough, my current passport was issued Dec 4, 2016. The fee has gone up to $130.

I haven't used the passport since I renewed it 8 years ago. The photo looks charmingly young, and isn't half-bad. I debated about what to put for hair color on the renewal form. I have a decent frosting of gray on top, and the braid is still mostly brown with threads of silver. I put gray, since it's the way to bet in the long run.

Such a weird sense of deja vu. I keep thinking about survivorship bias, and Tamnonlinear (recent post from julian), who died by suicide in 2016. I was so viscerally panicked in 2016. This time I'm more resigned. At the moment, anyway.

When I think back to the beginning of the pandemic, I remember how terrified I was. Now I'm realizing, it was the terror of the unknown, PLUS the accumulated anxiety of the previous four years. At least I'm starting out this time with a nervous system that's more settled?

The key is to avoid perpetuating the autocrat’s goals of fear, isolation, exhaustion and disorientation.. 1) Trust yourself. 2) Find others whom you trust. 3) Grieve [...] 10) Envision a positive future. Via cosmolinguist and ewt

Who Goes Nazi? by Dorothy Thompson."It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi."

I've been following Mekka Okereke @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io over on mastodon, and he's been saying for months (probably years) that the key is the Black vote. White people (he's particularly down on white women) can't be depended on to vote against fascism. He says "Right here is where it all went wrong." Oct 11, 2024, Kamala Harris announced that as president she would create a bipartisan council of advisers. This is aimed at swing voters rather than at Black or other progressive voters.

The whole thread is worth reading, with lots of good points. And someone does call Mekka out on his focus on white women. (I wish people would specify white Christian women too. While I'm sure there are a few Jewish fascist sympathizers, I bet there aren't many.)

If, like me, you want to have some kind of understanding of what happened, the explanations are 1) Voter turnout about 8 million less than in 2020. Trump got about the same number of votes, so the deficit is in the Democrat tally. Partly the betrayal of Black voters (see below), and also, of course, voter suppression. 2) Abortion-rights referendums made some white women feel safer voting for Trump because they think their own right are safe. (?!!)

A thread about why moving to the center, collaborating with Nazis "a little bit", loses a crucial 10% of the Black male vote.( Clearly laid out )

Neglecting the scrollbar: a costly trend in UI design by Blake Watson

I’ve noticed an alarming UI trend over the last five years or so. Apps are neglecting, misusing, or outright omitting the scrollbar from their interfaces. Notice isn’t the right word. I’ve been living this trend.

I have a physical disability that, among other things, makes it difficult for me to scroll by using a typical scroll wheel or touch surface. That means I often scroll by clicking and dragging the scrollbar.

Executive Function Theft by Abigail Goben. "Executive Function Theft (EFT) is the deliberate abdication of decision-making, tasks, and responsibilities that are perceived as administrative or repetitive, of lesser importance, or aren’t pleasant or shiny, to another person, with the result that the receiving person’s executive function becomes so exhausted that they are unable to participate in, contribute to, or enjoy higher level efforts." I posted this a year ago, but I ran across the link again, and it's just that good.

So You Might Be Autistic But How Can You Know For Sure by Masha du Toit. "I’ve been there, and here’s what I discovered: I don’t need an *official diagnosis that I’m autistic* to be sure that I’m autistic." A short, kind article with a great header illustration. Also by Masha du Toit, Resources for Adult Autistic People.

Why You Should Rest—a Lot—If You Have COVID-19 by Jamie Ducharme. "Friedly recommends anyone recovering from COVID-19 stay away from high-intensity exercise for at least a couple weeks and avoid pushing through fatigue." An intro to Long Covid, ME/CFS, and post-exertional malaise, along with acknowledgement that many people simply can't take a lot of time off when they get sick.

After We Kill Our Father and Before We Reach the Mainland by Max Franciscovich, via sophia_sol, who gave it ( a great rec ) I liked the way the writing gradually revealed the characters and the story, and that these three abused teens were still relating with care, and that the story mentions and acknowledges trauma without being traumatic to read.

Transits of Other Lands by Marissa Lingen, mrissa, who introduced it by saying( why she wrote it ) I liked the whimsy and the celebration of public transit while containing delightful snippets of story. It reminded me of Ursula K. Le Guin's "Changing Planes."

When We Disappear by Emily Yu. I love the illustration, even if it doesn't match the image in my head. Another story about family relating in difficult circumstances, beautifully told. I wanted a different ending, though.

(Points to icon) Do you want your own "In Our America, Love Wins" yard sign, window decal, or stickers, now also in Rainbow colors, Trans colors, and Spanish text? inouramericalovewins.org

These folks started in Portland in 2016 as NWGSD (Nasty Women Get Shit Done) and have spun off this non-profit that ships wonderful merchandise to share our values, and donates proceeds to a variety of good causes.

I had a yard sign in Portland that I finally took down just before I moved, and I just ordered a rainbow window cling to put up here. I'm not sure about putting yard signs in a condo's shared yard.

In California, we have two thick voter's guides to decipher. Twice as much democracy! I worked through the state-wide one last week, and worked through the local guide yesterday and finished today. I checked over the five-page ballot, made triply sure I filled in the right oval for Kamala Harris, sealed and signed the envelope, and biked it over to a drop box. It's a relief to be done.

I voted yes on most of the propositions, except the one that wants to fund more police. Wtf, as it is I see at least one cop car most times I go anywhere. I don't know why people think more police will help anything. Also voted no on the silly revenge proposition on the organization daring to support rent control. Oh, and the one that wants to make drug offenses a felony. Again, wtf.

On October 1, I sent out the Vote Forward letters I had been writing, as directed. I've been writing them in sets of 5 since then and sending them out immediately. I'm up to 150 total, and I'll try to send out a few more before the October 29 deadline. I'm sending for a California campaign, so they should get there in good time.

I thought I would write tons of Vote Forward letters while I was unemployed, but 1) I ended up being busy with code challenges and interview prep, and 2) I wasn't sleeping well at all, so I didn't have the focus in the evenings to hand-write without making mistakes. Now that I'm settled into the new job, I'm sleeping much better, and it's easier to focus. Yet another way that capitalism and precarity robs people's life energy.

When the new job was confirmed, I also made a big donation to Movement.vote to fund getting out the vote. It's not too late to donate, if you feel inclined.

And those are the things I can do to affect an outcome that should not be in doubt, would not be in doubt but for the lying, cheating, and stealing that one side is doing. Which reminds me, here's a hopeful and satisfying article: This is the first election since the MAGA Supreme Court ended Roe—why are we talking about anything else? by Jason Sattler. I'm going to hold that thought.

Also relevant, a link I've had open for a while, He tried to clean up Grizzly Peak. Then came the messy part: East Bay politics by Callie Rhoades. How John Kirkham and his volunteer cleanup group, the East Bay Trash Pandas, made sure their work didn’t go to waste.