AOC talking to RFK Jr. Her facial and hand gesture has the spiritual energy of that Italian hand gesture where you pinch your fingers and wave your hand (the "ma che vuo" gesture).

how it feels to say "sprezzatura"

in AoNZ, even though it is a huge aspect of our future, committing further to electrification (per the Greens), will mean doing business with China. which means we must double down on an independent foreign policy…

part of any academic’s role is to replace themselves. if not in their subject, then in their commitment to producing people who deliver higher, specialised learning. who else is going to restore the sticks to its ladder state?

Dear John Ternus…

I Want a Better Catastrophe · Flowchart A flowchart for navigating our climate predicament

how fucked are we?

“Be of service not knowing whether you're a midwife or a hospice worker.” — Joanna Macy

flowchart.bettercatastrophe.com

#climatechange #ux

@markmitchellmp.bsky.social told @rnz.co.nz.web.brid.gy 'we've always had [weather events], it's just that we're getting better at identifying them' - @nathansurendran.bsky.social made this 'States of Emergency since 2000' chart from CD data (excl. quakes):
www.civildefence.govt.nz/emergency-ev...

how many people questioned your quest to become a “historian of witchcrafts, folklore, France 18-20th c?”

how many did you listen to? how much richer are we for your efforts?

what will we miss if your friend doesn’t pursue their quest?

maybe the future of humanities in universities.

sheesh.

Excellent summary from Russell Norman about what this gov't has done to worsen our energy resiliance, destroy our environment, and amplify the impact of this oil shock.

And they are continuing on despite the overwhelming evidence of this harm.

It's not mere incompetence, it's sabotage.

#nzpol

What keeps coming up again and again is the risk of AI is really the flattening and erasure of plural forms of knowledge and capability with one way of doing things. To appropriate the Zapatista slogan, we need a world where many worlds not only fit but thrive and flourish

Extreme weather scientists warn of impending funding drought 'Some nerd sitting in an office' doesn't seem like exciting research to fund but it's answering urgent questions about severe weather, a climate scientist says.

These are the kind of people we will be needing more of as climate change worsens. The extreme weather events around the country are a stark reminder that the coalition govt. is plucking out the eyes of our research system by reducing $ / shifting $ to things they think will make $$ fast.
#NZPOL

“Famine and widening food insecurity are the foreseeable consequences of military aggression in the Gulf.”

Last week, its UK rival Shell said it anticipated “significantly higher” oil trading profits for the quarter. Analysts have been upgrading their profit forecasts, with the US bank Citi raising its estimate for BP by 20% to $2.6bn adjusted net income in the January to March quarter - despite flat oil and gas production.

We shovel $10bn per year into the pockets of offshore companies to buy fuel - and that was before prices went nuts. You could easily employ every unemployed young person in NZ for $10bn - and buy thousands of solar panels.

"a small nation on the bottom of the world does not become safer by tying itself to the military ambitions of a superpower"

I got mass communication!
I'm the human corporation!!
I ate a rock from the moon!!!
🎶

screen shot from google earth of a map of the pacific ocean. a large label is at the centre that reads: Gulf of New Zealand.

we’re gonna need bigger boats if we’re gonna set up a blockade (also: the kingdoms of tonga, hawaii, etc may have some choice words.)

i didn’t make it. thanks to everyone concerned for making and sharing!

Who’d have thought a fossil-fuel shill like Trump would be the one to spark a green revolution? | George Monbiot The US attack on Iran has made the need for renewable energy inarguable, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

It's the opposite of his intention, but the Idiot Emperor is forcing the world off fossil fuels. This week's column.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

i thought your well tuned thread received plenty of support? including my own recognition of your observations. we might agree that change is urgent, but we might differ on the level of the realpolitik required.

And that takes us back to the beginning, where yeah: a lot of people understand the world is fucked, and can see the logic in what progressives propose, but you have to SELL THEM on it as a viable choice they can be proud to make.

good stuff. a couple of things: why must we always “shatter the foundations of our economy”? violent metaphors are no better than dystopian-end-game-visions. also: the horrific attacks on Iran may have given enough people insight that transition is possible (too bad it’s not the green new deal, etc)

To The Moon The Artemis moon mission provides a vision of a joyous, hopeful liberal future--one built on international cooperation, not war and hatred.

there's a lot that's wrong in the world. and, sometimes, what can feel as if it broke through from the other timeline: a vision of a better, more hopeful future. today from @quinnae.com:

www.liberalcurrents.com/to-the-moon/

What is it about mid-April & space flight?

1961-04-12 — Yuri Gagarin is the first person in space
1970-04-11 — Apollo 13 lifts off
1981-04-12 — STS-1 is the first orbital flight of Space Shuttle
2026-04-11 — #Artemis II’s Integrity splashes down after a Lunar mission

What else happened in April?

well. yes. democratising visualisation techniques (etc) isn’t qn issue if the design community (outside of architecture in many cases) hadn’t failed to create design associations that act as governance or knowledge-bases in sociopolitical contexts.

Mission Specialist Astronaut Christina Kochs hugs the Intrepid command module

#artemis’ Mission Specialist Astronaut Christina Kochs hugs Intrepid.

source: flic.kr/p/2s7aCi3

… wait. do you mean that we actually have to work on maintaining a constructive and functional democracy? like… all the time?!

Send him to Moscow.

Hungary — undoubtedly, convincingly — choosing von der Leyen and Macron over Vance & Trump is a much needed silver lining.

Fun fact: many of the prettiest photos taken by robotic spacecraft were similarly framed ahead of time by humans using simulators of view geometry to pick when the spacecraft should shoot the photo. Case in point: this photo of Europa over Jupiter from New Horizons science.nasa.gov/image-detail...

Congratulations to the Artemis II crew – but the case for sending astronauts into space is rapidly shrinking | Martin Rees and Donald Goldsmith Soon, thanks to the advance of robots, the only reason left to send humans to the moon will be as an ultra-expensive sport, say astronomer royal Martin Rees and astrophysicist Donald Goldsmith

thanks for this insight!

also interesting in the context of this opinion piece (which, tbh, starts to sound like contemporary ‘we must use AI’ apologia) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

IIRC, NASA’s WB57 is what inspired the punchline. maybe @rafluton.bsky.social can confirm?

an important reminder. especially as, unlike Apollo, it wasn’t national leadership committing the US to the challenge. Artemis is the result of many people; political, private and academic inspiring and extolling the value of this type of science and human endeavour.