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AbouBenAdhem @lemmy.world
Posts 13
Comments 1.1K
Trump's pick of Rubio as America's top diplomat jolts Latin America, long accustomed to US neglect
  • Biden has appointed three Latinos to his Cabinet, and Obama had five. (Trump’s previous administration had one—the Secretary of Labor.)

    I think the controversy with Rubio isn’t that he’s Latino, it’s that he advocates for a more interventionist foreign policy.

  • Maybe prehistoric cave paintings were actually the worst paintings of their time, because bad artists were forced to practice in caves where no one could see them.
  • There was a last major migration out of Africa starting around 70–50,000 years ago that coincides with both the disappearance of Neanderthals and Denisovans, and with the appearance of representational art. Earlier Neanderthals made artistic crafts like shell jewelry, but it wasn’t representational.

  • Maybe prehistoric cave paintings were actually the worst paintings of their time, because bad artists were forced to practice in caves where no one could see them.
  • Prehistoric people leaving things in caves is practically the only way we still know about them, but that doesn’t mean humans normally hung out in caves as a permanent lifestyle. We have evidence of people making wooden structures in Africa long before the first cave paintings—and compared to structures, caves would have been cold and dark, unlikely to be conveniently located, and contested for by cave-adapted animals.

    It’s because the caves were so shitty that subsequent people left them untouched for tens of thousands of years.

  • Maybe prehistoric cave paintings were actually the worst paintings of their time, because bad artists were forced to practice in caves where no one could see them.

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    Ranked choice voting faces cloudy future after election setbacks
  • My city (Oakland) has ranked-choice voting for mayor and city council, and (as far as I’m aware) doesn’t have a similar issue with under-voting.

    Was there another factor besides the number of candidates on the ballot (e.g., no candidate statements in voter guides, or an ad campaign against ranked voting)?

  • Is there a graph about the amount of people named after the Olympian gods in the real world?
  • I don’t know, but there are some common names that are actually obscure forms of classic theonyms, and the people using them may not even be aware of the connection—for instance, “Dennis” is a form of “Dionysus”. Would you count that or not?

  • Democratic backsliding
  • In some ways, sure—but having grown up in the Cold War, things certainly feel different now. (For one thing, the party that was once the most rabidly anti-Soviet is now the most pro-Russian, with all the foreign policy realignments that entails.)

  • oakland-observer.ghost.io Empower Oakland Principals' Circle of Funding Powers Recall-Focused Slate

    Three independent expenditure committees are driving a secondary series of committees run by a close-knit group of political operatives associated with the Thao recall and Empower Oakland*. Together they make up the bulk of the money being spent on candidates in the Empower Oakland endorsement slate...

    Empower Oakland Principals' Circle of Funding Powers Recall-Focused Slate
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    Trying to build viable third parties by voting for them in presidential elections is like trying to build a third door in your house by repeatedly walking into the wall where you want the door to be.

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    Non-language-using animals must think humans are the worst songbirds ever.

    To clarify: I’m not suggesting animals think all sounds are songs—just that songbirds and humans are the only common animals that combine sounds into arbitrary sequences where each individual sound doesn’t have a single fixed meaning.

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    Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester

    The Elitzur–Vaidman bomb-tester is a quantum mechanics thought experiment that uses interaction-free measurements to verify that a bomb is functional without having to detonate it. It was conceived in 1993 by Avshalom Elitzur and Lev Vaidman. Since their publication, real-world experiments have confirmed that their theoretical method works as predicted.

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    oaklandside.org Lake Merritt’s iconic pelican, Hank, is ready for her closeup

    A short documentary about her, her caretakers, and her fraught future premieres this Sunday at the New Parkway Theater.

    Lake Merritt’s iconic pelican, Hank, is ready for her closeup
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    phys.org Same species, different sizes: Rare evolution in action spotted in island bats

    A University of Melbourne researcher has spotted a rare evolutionary phenomenon happening rapidly in real time in bats living in the Solomon Islands.

    Same species, different sizes: Rare evolution in action spotted in island bats
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    Emerging niche clustering results from both competition and predation. (My take: more species can coexist in an ecological niche if they have distinct predators.)

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    If whales are ignorant of conditions on land, they probably think humans are an endangered species.

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    "Are Oakland community ambassadors making a difference?"

    oaklandside.org Are Oakland community ambassadors making a difference?

    Ambassadors are meant to improve public safety, de-escalate conflict, and help keep the city clean. Are these programs working?

    Are Oakland community ambassadors making a difference?
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    Compared to fountain pens and ballpoints, "Sharpies" are actually the least sharp pen type.

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    "Phones" were named after the Greek word for "sound", but modern phones are used in silence as often as not.

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