Grass growing out of Astro-turf. Life is tenacious.

My workplace’s wellness committee is soliciting suggestions on various amenities and activities. I am refraining from responding, because the only thing I want to suggest is an Outdoor Retreat and Team-Building Occurrence. #severance

When precedents like this stand for 90 years, to some extent it’s because each side wants to deny the other side an advantage when power changes hands.

The Trump 6 overturned this because their side plans to hold power forever.

#USPolitics

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/29/supreme-court-trump-agency-firings-slaughter-ftc

I reported this to the city and heard back. Apparently cars are supposed to park to the left of the bike lane. This is not obvious—it’s not marked, and motorists seem to be conditioned to park in bike lanes in any case. The city suggests I “request enforcement” in the future. I’m sure that’ll work great.

Climate.us launches independent website for trusted climate information
https://www.climate.us/

At exactly the point where this protected bike lane ends, metered parking (in what is still a bike lane) begins, so not only are cars creating a blind alley and a hazard for cyclists, the city is profiting from it.

#cycling #AustinTX

Bell pepper with a curlicue

Photo sent to me that looks like Sheena and Joey, but isn't. I will let my cats see it and tell them they have to try to outdo it. #cats #catsofMastodon #whiskersWednesday

Mind. Blown.

“In 1949, shortly before he died, English author George Orwell prepared a list of notable writers and other people he considered to be unsuitable as possible writers for the anti-communist propaganda activities of the Information Research Department, a secret propaganda organisation of the British state under the Foreign Office.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell's_list

Prediction: the Orange Menace is going to fill in the Strait of Warm Ooze with concrete, and turn it into a dragstrip.

NPR just had a very short story about the Burevestnik—a Russian nuclear-powered missile, saying that MIT researchers think they’ve figured out how it works.

It works like a proposed American nuclear-powered missile that never got built, the Flying Crowbar. It has an exposed nuclear pile and spews radioactive material in its exhaust. The fact that Russia actually built this and has test-flown it is horrifying. I haven’t found the actual report from MIT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile

McSweeney's shot to kill. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/ai-economics-for-dummies

Via Metafilter. This stuff is fascinating.
https://lr0.org/blog/p/arabic/

#typography #arabic

@cstross in Accelerando, 2005:

"The president of agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.AB5 is agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.201. The secretary is agalmic.holdings.root.184.D5, and the chair is agalmic.holdings.root.184.E8.FF. All the shares are owned by those companies in equal measure, and I can tell you that their regulations are written in Python. Have a nice day, now!"

E-mail I received from my bank, yesterday:

"AI agents can now form your company, get an EIN, open a bank account, issue cards, and move money in a single prompt with Meow.

"It works with Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, Gemini, and more.

"Your agent starts the formation flow, gathers the details needed to create your company, and keeps the same session moving into Meow onboarding when you're ready.”

Went to Alamo South Lamar to see I Love Boosters. Great movie. The shopping complex the theater is in has instituted paid (and expensive) parking that’s completely unattended (of course). You’re supposed to be able to get credit after you pay if you are going to the theater, but the system they’re using for that isn’t working. The Alamo staff were having us write down our plate numbers. I’m less than confident this will work.

Since Sony’s takeover, I’ve cooled a lot on the Alamo in general. The food has gone downhill, the bathrooms are filthy (no surprise since they reduced staff), but it’s still expensive.

After Southwest Airlines took private equity, they remade themselves to be exactly as customer-hostile as all the other airlines. Before, I would always give them priority. Now I treat them like any other airline. I had given Alamo priority (so had lots of other people—shows would often be sold out there and wide-open at other theaters), but I’m going to start treating them like any other cinema.

#AustinTX

I went to see HeartByrne, a Talking Heads tribute band, last night. They were really good. High energy. It got me thinking.

The crowd was mostly older, but there were some yoots there. Just in terms of the math, it would have been analogous to me seeing a Tommy Dorsey tribute band when I was in college. But the Talking Heads’ music somehow remains fresh. They used the same instrumentation as any rock band of their era—in that sense they’re a product of their time—but they were doing something different.

They were outside the mainstream when they were new (though Psycho Killer was on their first album, and remains popular), but after a while, the mainstream caught up with them, despite them doing nothing to cater to popular tastes. A few tracks from each album would end up in heavy rotation. In spite of being popular and memorable, they don’t seem to have been influential. There are lot of bands that sound like the Beatles. Are there any that sound like the Talking Heads? I can’t think of any.

#music

John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:

"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.

"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both cases. Here’s the first.

"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets angels are shown playing in medieval art.

"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened. The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep the French name to save embarrassment.

"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with the “French” horn.

"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it ‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even more gloriously stupid.

"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn players started calling the horns they played in orchestras French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but still calling them French horns.

"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic. Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is what it is.

"All clear? Good. Carry on."

Link Post: Jewish groups launch new diaspora movement rejecting Israel’s ethno-nationalism https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260520-jewish-groups-launch-new-diaspora-movement-rejecting-israels-ethno-nationalism/

The first legal structure for artists in America is now law. Colorado just created the Artist Corporation. Here's how to get in line for one. By Yancey Strickler • 3 Jun 2026

Read the Article: https://blog.metalabel.com/the-first-legal-structure-for-artists-in-america-is-now-law/?ref=metalabel-studios-newsletter

The full text of the law and a sample registration process: https://www.artistcorporations.com/

A legal framework for protecting your Art Business and your artwork rights.

#FediArt #MastoArt #Art #ArtBiz #Artist