animal death
@sundogplanets The way light pollution disrupts bird migration is made very clear here in NYC every September 11th, when the city shines its “columns of light” tribute into the night sky. Birds get caught in the beams and just circle around them, trapped and disoriented. When volunteers count more than 1000 birds in the beams, the city shuts the lights off temporarily to let them recover. Here’s a video I took last September — the birds are the tiny floating specks.
sensitive media
Resources:
DarkSky International's 5 principles of responsible outdoor lighting: https://darksky.org/resources/guides-and-how-tos/lighting-principles/
@space_environmentalism's 5 principles for the responsible use of space (more info here): https://www.spaceenvironmentalism.org/about/what-we-believe
Blue light at night affects small mammals' foraging behaviour. Even seals use the stars to navigate. Fireflies need darkness. Streetlights along roadways dramatically reduce the number of insects present. Planting a pollinator garden is a great way to help moths/butterflies/bees, but even better is getting your town to turn off streetlights when not needed. Moths navigate by stars, too.
Biological responses across many species are VERY sensitive even to extremely faint artificial light.
animal death
Bird migration happens at night (can see this on weather radar). Can see migration in N. America here: https://birdcast.org/. Bird migration routes worldwide are disrupted by light pollution, birds rely on stars to navigate (how will they be affected by megaconstellations 😭😭😭)
1 billion birds die in the US every year during migration due to light pollution.
Fish migration is also disrupted by artificial light, resulting in lower hatch rates.
It's easy to fix lights so they don't cause as much light pollution: well pointed, redder lights are better! As you get older, you are more affected by glare from poorly aimed lights (including headlights).
Urban light pollution has gotten much worse every year: primarily due to LEDs. They are higher energy efficiency, so good! But overused because cheaper. US is wasting $3 billion per year on unnecessary lights.
Citizen science, you can report your sky here: https://globeatnight.org/
Only 20 years ago, scientists discovered we have a 3rd type of non-vision-related light receptors in our eyes: Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (what a mouthful... err... eyeful?) We also have a "chemical clock" in every cell nucleus that controls our circadian rhythm (2017 Nobel prize for this discovery!)
Robust circadian rhythms are important for good health. Exposure to blue light at night disrupts our circadian rhythms.
The Trump administration is threatening Europe with economic retaliation for trying to reduce its dependence on Musk's Starlink.
Europe wants technological sovereignty, and Washington responds with threats.
From satellite communications to cloud services, AI and social media, Europe's dependence on US Big Tech threatens democracy and political independence.
When are we going to wake up?
Via Pekka Kallioniemi:
https://lnkd.in/p/d_VzCzyS
❤️
Note that we do offer turnkey Nextcloud accounts now: https://www.koumbit.org/en/content/shared-nextcloud-hosting The individual plan come with a single mailbox "@koumbox.org".
Our services are without AI.
So namecheap just randomly locked my domain (which I've had with them since.. 2006) until I send them a valid government ID.
No complaints about the domain, just a random check. What the actual fuck?? #Namecheap #DNS
I'm looking for a photographer who does headshots in #Seattle! Do you know someone? Can you share with your Seattle people? In particular, I'm looking for someone who is extremely comfortable with gender weirdness and whose style is loose, casual, and nontraditional.
Motorola has announced their new high end flagship phone including upcoming official support for GrapheneOS as an OS option.
Motorola Signature 27 will be the first Motorola device supported by GrapheneOS. More devices will be supported in the future.
I live in the U S A and I've never had a Muslim try to force me to follow Sharia law.
But I've had Christians spend my entire life trying to make their Bible my problem.
It's almost my favorite time of year, when my office does Secret Santa. Except I am self-employed and my office is Just Me, so I just buy myself little treats
There's a competition to name a satellite that will remove debris from orbit. Good for making orbit safer, BUT it just chucks it into the atmosphere, making metal-vapour pollution or hitting the ground. Fediverse, you are so creatively sarcastic, I think many of you could have some very good submissions here!
(I'm not saying this is a bad idea, it's just that with better regulation and better engineering of satellites, we wouldn't have this problem in the first place)
https://mastodonapp.uk/@ianvisits/117562837562231749
RT: https://mastodonapp.uk/users/ianvisits/statuses/117562837562231749
Nation Watches Helplessly As 2028 Election Cycle Begins
WASHINGTON—Exhibiting a growing sense of panic as screens lit up with rumors and speculation about potential candidates, the nation reportedly watched helplessly Wednesday as the 2028 election cycle began. “Oh God, no, it’s not even 2027 yet—what do you mean people are talking about 2028?” said Doug Edmunds, echoing the sentiments of millions of pale, …
#theonion
https://theonion.com/nation-watches-helplessly-as-2028-election-cycle-begins/
Salut, si vous êtes à Marseille, que vous êtes trans, que vous avez fait une demande de changement de prénom quand vous étiez mineur ou majeur, et que le dossier est allé dans les mains du procureur, contactez moi SVP.
C'est très très important.
Boostez ce message, c'edt très important.
Automated Licence Plate Reader
Very unfortunately, I did not get any of my astrophotography published in the Wall Street Journal (which would have been hilarious) but their article about orbital "AI data centres" is now published: https://www.wsj.com/science/space-astronomy/could-orbital-data-centers-ruin-the-night-sky-9462bf2d?st=TVyDmz&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Lots of points I would have loved to see them hit harder on, but I guess just having an article in the Wall Street Journal about how dangerous and damaging all this orbital development would be is going to reach a totally different audience, and that's good.
In a blow to Elon Musk’s vaporware pronouncements, Google’s head of data-center energy says putting data centers in space could cost up to 100x more than building them on Earth.
😬