You Have Been Warned!

If you care about the planet and its inhabitants, you should read “How I learned to stop worrying and love fake meat”.

If you care about democracy and politics, you should read “How I learned to stop worrying and love fake meat”.

If you care about cheese, you should read “How I learned to stop worrying and love fake meat”.

All those subjects in a single coherent text? Yes, Jason Temple managed to do so. He uses two recent news items – on ‘cultured meat’ and ‘vegan cheese’ – to explain why there is no reason to be afraid of alternatives to meat and dairy products. He also rightly questions the motives of politicians and organisations that fight these alternatives with bogus laws and contest rules.

But in the case of the Florida law he does not go far enough. Politicians did not just give in to pressure from a big lobby group. Witness the letter sent by Republican politicians (including from Florida!) to the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan. That letter is quite threatening, and ends (!) with the sentence: “You have been warned .” Is this a western movie?

On Zeteo.com, you can read one response:

In a statement to Zeteo, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said, “It is fine to express opposition to a possible judicial action, but it is absolutely wrong to interfere in a judicial matter by threatening judicial officers, their family members and their employees with retribution. This thuggery is something befitting the mafia, not U.S. senators.”

No, Senator Van Hollen, it’s not just thuggery. Actually it is a typical fascist reaction! The authors are just (but barely) smart enough not to write an explicit death threat in their letter. The only good news from this letter is that the signatories accept the authority of the International Criminal Court – too bad they did not realise this before signing ;-)

Normally, in cases such as this I would pose the question: ‘What were you thinking?’. But to the signatories of this letter I can only say: ‘Were you thinking???’…

PS. The link to the Technology Review article may be behind a paywall – sorry!

PPS. Did the US Senate agree to the use of its letterhead for this kind of s**t?

Nice Finder Extension

I used to have a small Finder extension on my Macs called “cd2me” (I think), but since I can’t find that anymore I switched to OpenInTerminal. I don’t need it that often, but it does save a bit of mousing and typing when I do ;-) As a nice touch, you can choose which terminal editor you want to open; you’re not limited to the standard terminal.

Oh Boy: The Sun Is Still Hiding

April 2024 was wet and gloomy – just like February and March before it. Our solar panels clearly tell the gloomy part of that story. The electricity production for this year’s April fell significantly below 200 KWh, and was even lower than last year’s April!

(Image generated by Freepik)

If the weather continues like this, I’ll have to start taking pictures when it rains – my conscience won’t let me use image generators all the time ;-)

Should You Want To Be A Billionaire?

I wouldn’t say it in the same words as Esther, but she makes a point: why would you want to amass all that wealth and not do anything good with it?

The word “shame” may be a bit too strong, but I see what she means. After all, the only way to make that kind of money is by taking it from other human beings, by exploiting them in some way, regardless of where they are on the planet. It’s not hard to find examples of such exploitation these days!

So yes, this is a matter that deserves a public debate.

Congratulations, ILF !

Who’s the ILF, you ask?

The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) is a national charity working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander remote Communities across Australia. We are Community-led, responding to requests from remote Communities for culturally relevant books, including early learning board books, resources, and programs to support Communities to create and publish their stories in languages of their choice.

Source: https://www.indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au

The ILF has just been awarded the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award – sort of a Noble Prize for youth literature. It’s good to see respect and recognition for the original inhabitants of Australia.

For an example of the book promoted by the ILF, have a look at this reading of “No Way, Yirrikipayi!“, a story about a hungry crocodile:

Uncharted Territory Dead Ahead

From “Global Warming: Uncharted Territory Dead Ahead” (CounterCurrents.org):

“According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2022 relative to 1991-2020 in central and eastern Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula and Guatemala and El Salvador registered +1°C to +3°C throughout the region. Whereas Paris ’15 set a key threshold holding temps to less than +1.5°C (but compared to 1850, not 1991) or trouble ensues. Well, the consequences of excessiveness are only too evident. One solution for too much heat – Migrate north. According to the US Institute of Peace: Climate change has disrupted up to 70% of crops in some regions of Central America. Solution – Move north.”

Daily global surface air temperature increase relative to the average for 1850–1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period, for 2023. The plot highlights temperature increases within three ranges: 1–1.5°C (orange), 1.5–2°C (red), and above 2°C (crimson). Source: ERA5. Credit: C3S/ECMWF

“Move north”, or more specifically: move to cooler areas, just like many animal species are doing all over the world. That’s why we start to see mediterranian mosquitos in Western Europe, for example. And the increasing droughts in Africa are part of the reason Europe sees increasing numbers of African migrants.

So the “US border issue” is actually a consequence of climate change…? Trump (and other climate change deniers) won’t like that!

Attack On Democracy: Does Project 2025 Have A European Equivalent?

When I read a paragraph such as the following one, my heart (and my brain!) cringes:

Project 2025 makes it clear the Department of Justice is not independent from the executive branch and implies the agency will be used to take legal retribution against whoever Trump decides to investigate.

Media Matters, “A guide to Project 2025, the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration“

Why the cringeing? Because no matter your political leanings, that is a direct negation of one of the pillars of democracy (at least democracy as we know it in the modern Western world since Montesquieu described it): the separation of the three powers in a state: the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. When that separation is broken, democracy is gone. All that will be left is something on a scale between an oligarchy and a dictatorship… meaning the end of justice, solidarity and a cohesive society. A few decades ago, when I was a teacher, I tried to explain the principles of democracy to youngsters. No, that wasn’t easy, and I don’t think a majority of my students realised how important those principles actually are.

_{Montesquieu (left) and Alexander Hamilton (right) laid out the foundations of a modern democracy, with separation of powers and “checks and balances”.}

There are more very disturbing “policy proposals” in the Project’s document, all of them quite frightening, and more so if you put them together… What’s worse: since quite a few elections in the USA have nothing to do with “democracy” there is a real chance that such a project can be put into motion, even when a clear majority of US citizens is against it.

It’s no surprise that Project 2025 sprang from the mind of extreme right-wing people in the USA. You should NOT call them “conservatives” because that is not what they are (unless going back to the Middle Ages is what conservatism is about, but since there were no Middle Ages in the USA that can not be the case). Also no suprise: what they describe is more or less what has already happened in Russia, which has turned into a robber state. No wonder that Tr*mp wants what P*tin already has – as far as I can see T is just jalous of P.

Enough of that. As a European citizen I do wonder: do extreme right-wingers in Europe have a similar “plan” ready? Or will they just copy Project 2025?

No Fun: Another Warm, Wet And Gloomy Month

It’s nothing to joke about, hence I’m publishing this on April 2. March 2024 was yet another warm, wet and gloomy month, according to the Belgian Royal Meteorological institute – and our solar panels concur with that conclusion when it comes to the “gloomy” part. Indeed, the photovoltaic electricity production on our roof was limited to 74% of the expected average…

Image generated by Freepik

Showing Off The Power Of WordPress In 2024

Yes, it’s a video made by/for WordPress-the-company, so it’s biased. No, the video does not succeed in recreating the NYT frontpage in all its detail and finesses.

But, and this is a big but: it does succeed in showing the awesome power of WordPress as a tool for creating and maintaining a website! Just have a look at the video in their blog post of March 14, 2024: “Re-Creating The New York Times’ Website in Under 30 Minutes Using WordPress.com“

No wonder so many sites all over the world are powered by WordPress (including this site ;-)).

Nobody Is Perfect, Neither Are Companies – Not Even Apple

As you may have discovered while reading this blog, I have owned and own a lot of Apple hardware. Why? Because I appreciate design, the attention to detail, and the way Apple tries to make their products and the users of those products work together a seamlessly as possible. But even so, Apple has made mistakes on each of these.

Does that make me a “fan”, blinded to all alternatives? Of course not. After all, Apple is just a company; their strategy centers around “business”, not integrity or being perfect.

Apple is far from perfect, and that is very clear in the way the App Store works. I once contemplated building apps for the iPhone, but have to pay 30% of my income to Apple was a no-go for me (I already pay taxes, thank you).

Not allowing other app stores to exist in order to better protect the users is another example of “business over integrity”. Russell Ivanovic said it well:

AI Madness!

Just to be sure I looked up the meaning of the word “gaslighting”: “to manipulate (someone) using psychological methods into questioning their own sanity or powers of reasoning“. That definition makes the verb a lot stronger than what I had in mind ;-)

Anyway, here’s what I wanted you to look at: “Marta Peirano: Gaslighting AI” (at the conference (Un)real Data – Real Effects last February). This journalist is not the best storyteller, but the talk is worth listening to! She gives a series of examples of how AI can get derailed, including getting Grok to call Elon Musk “the Oprah of censorship”…

Screenshot of Marta Peirano talking (video is also available on Youtube)

The ease with which some of the LLM’s can be gaslighted confirms my disdain for the “I” in “AI”…

Sad News: Dave Myers RIP (2)

Following up on my post about the passing away of Dave Myers: I saw one of the episodes of their last series “The Hairy Bikers Go West“. It was somewhat harrowing to see Dave Myers so frail and somewhat shaky. No wonder that Sy “Kingie” King seemed to be worrying about Dave the whole time, and you could read that worry and fear in his eyes… Somehow that had more impact on me than the recipes they worked on.

An Oscar For Ukraine

The documentary “20 Days In Mariupol” is probably heartbraking, and the political context in the world may have contributed to its win of the 2023 “Documentary Feature Film” category at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood.

I’m just wondering: how long will it be before a russian propaganda film about the war in Ukraine wins a prize in Moscow?

Sad News: Dave Myers RIP

On Wednesday February 28, “Dave Myers, one half of TV cooking duo The Hairy Bikers, has died at the age of 66, two years after revealing he had been diagnosed with cancer.“

Dave Myers (left) and Sy King, as photographed by the BBC on the set of their latest series, “The Hairy Bikers Go West”

As a motorcyclist, I was surprised to see “bikers” cooking on TV many years ago. But from the first episode I saw it was clear: this were not your average TV cooks. They were just two good friends, having a great time together on their bike as well as in the kitchen. Sad to see him go at such a young age…

Darkest, Wettest, Gloomiest February Since Long

The belgian Royal Meteorological Institute calls February 2024 a “very warm, wet and gloomy month”. Specifically: no temperatures below zero Celcius, more than twice as much rain than normal in 23 rainy days, and only 30 hours of sunshine (compare that to the almost 73-hour average of the past 30 years). Combine that with somewhat stronger than usual wind from the SSW, and it’s hard not to link a part of what happened with the rising water temperature in the Atlantic Ocean.

Adapted from a photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Considering all those numbers, it’s almost a miracle that our solar panels managed to generate 59% of what we expected in terms of solar energy production! Nevertheless, even with a “good” performance of our panels in January, that makes it the darkest Winter of our solar array…