Had it about an hour ago: a sort of one-pot pasta and lentil stew thingy, made in our slow cooker. I wouldn't call it it a particular favourite of mine, but it has the advantage of being dead easy and surprisingly substantial.
Canadian scientists say evidence from cave art all over the world shows digits may have been ritually removed to appease deities or aid social cohesion
Men and women might have had their fingers deliberately chopped off during religious rituals in prehistoric times, according to a new interpretation of palaeolithic cave art.
In a paper presented at a recent meeting of the European Society for Human Evolution, researchers point to 25,000-year-old paintings in France and Spain that depict silhouettes of hands. On more than 200 of these prints, the hands lack at least one digit. In some cases, only a single upper segment is missing; in others, several fingers are gone.
In the past, this absence of digits was attributed to artistic licence by the cave-painting creators or to ancient people’s real-life medical problems, including frostbite.
But scientists led by archaeologist Prof Mark Collard of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver say the truth may be far more gruesome. “There is compelling evidence that these people may have had their fingers amputated deliberately in rituals intended to elicit help from supernatural entities,” said
Thanks for the update and for the work in building the new instance!
I'll be keeping my eyes open for further news.
Climate action in New Orleans has found support from faith leaders working across historic divides
It has been another catastrophic climate year: record-breaking wildfires across Canada scorched an area the size North Dakota, unprecedented rainfall in Libya left thousands dead and displaced, while heat deaths surged in Arizona and severe drought in the Amazon is threatening Indigenous communities and ecosystems.
The science is clear: we must phase out fossil fuels – fast. But time is running out, and as the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation worsen, there is mounting recognition that our political and industry leaders are failing us.
If the science isn’t enough, what role could – or should – faith leaders play in tackling the climate crisis? After all, it is also a spiritual and moral crisis that threatens God’s creation, according to many religious teachings.
Globally, 6 billion people – about 80% of the world’s population – identify with a faith or religion, while half of all schools and 40% of health facilities in some countries are owned or operat
Jona Lewie - Stop The Cavalry. Apparently not originally intended as a Christmas song anyway.
That good eh?
Hopefully the weekend will improve things.
Friday: Friendly? Freatening? Freaky? How's it going?
I went out for a curry with some friends last night, have a fairly straightforward day at work today then a pizza this evening and have a day booked off on Monday: I have some DIY lined up over the weekend.
Should be a good showing of the Perseid meteor shower this weekend too. It peaks tomorrow, but it looks like it'll be cloudy. I might spend a bit of time in the garden this evening though, since it is supposed to be clear, and see if I can spot any.
With us, anything that is/would be smelly goes in some kind of container.
Cleaning - I would say once every 3-4 months or so in normal circumstances. Quite possibly longer.
I am not a dog lover. I find them needy, melodramatic and hierarchical: some of the features that I try to avoid in humans.
I work in an office around one day a week which often has more dogs than humans - since one of the regular staff has two dogs. In general, however, they aren't much of a problem. One frequently nudges people's elbows to get attention and howls whenever a phone rings. Another gets in the way of the door an awful lot - resulting in the owner installing a child gate at an inner doorway, and another has been traumatised in the past and needs to be taken out whenever a fire alarm test is due. However, this is not more that the needs and quirks of other people, really, and is fairly easy to work around.
I am glad that I do not have to work in that office all the time, but overall it is not a big deal.
Slashdot -> Digg -> Reddit -> Lemmy. I used to spend lot of time on TheEnvironmentSite.org some time before Slashdot, but I cant recall whether anything else came in between those two.
Working from home today - or supposed to be. I finished a couple of Big Things at the end of last week and am really struggling to get stuck into any one of the dozen other things that are on my list now.
I've deleted a lot of photos and sorted the recycling though. I'll be sharpening pencils soon...
I did get out and do a bat monitoring session last night - part of the national waterway survey in August each year - without getting wet. There were a few pipistrelles about and a couple of noctules and serotines passing by, but no Daubenton's which is what this particular survey is looking for.
Today will be getting the chores out of the way then - if the rain shows any chance of dying down - out to an open air Shakespeare this evening. It will be 'Exit pursued by a very damp bear.' I expect.
Tomorrow: third attempt to get these shelves up. It has been postponed twice so far.
Sounds blissful to me. I can't recall the last time I had a complete weekend reading.
They always say that you should stack up everything that you think you'll need and then put half of it back in the wardrobe. The problem is working out which half, of course.
Hope it all goes well anyway and that you have a good time.
Friday fread
Kickin' in the front seat or sittin' in the back seat: which is it today folks?
Workwise, it should be ok today, then - rain permitting - I have a bat monitoring session this evening. That might be pushed to next weekend though (I'd get to watch the Perseids at the same time, if it was, by the look of it).
And then out to an open air production of A Winter's Tale tomorrow night - also rain permitting and the forecast is currently saying it won't.
What have you got lined up?
you also haven’t addressed my reasons for doubt.
A) When did you ask me to?
B) By pointing out the cost/benefit to both sides, I would have said that I did anyway.
However, if you would like me to go into more detail: this is a property that was not occupied by the PM or his family - Greenpeace have stated that they were aware of this. The 'high security' was evidently provided by the police - who would also have been aware of this. Even at the best of times, given a little advance planning, avoiding a routine police cordon - routine being the key word - is not exactly difficult.
I struggle to see why Greenpeace would take the route that you are suggesting (a literal conspiracy theory) and decide to take the risk of losing credibility instead of doing as they have frequently, attestably, through court records, done and evade the existing security.
Relay (Pro) when using my phone although most of the time I was using RES on a laptop.
You haven't addressed the critical point:
What would be the consequences for both when the co-ordination was leaked/revealed?
Both would stand to lose vastly more in credibility than ever they might gain.
Whilst that might not matter to Sunak - a lost cause politically anyway, and clearly someone who values money highly - Greenpeace thrives on commitment to the cause.
It certainly seems to me a highly implausible scenario.
So, you're suggesting that this was co-ordinated by Greenpeace and ...the Prime Minister? To keep up whose appearances exactly?
What would both parties stand to gain from this?
What would be the consequences for both when the co-ordination was leaked/revealed?
You say that you found out that lemmy.world had disabled downvotes. Where did you you find that out? I'd certainly seen nothing myself here - I know that some instances have - and can certainly see and use the downvote arrows.
I'm on lemmy.world. This thread is on lemmy.world I have just downvoted you successfully as far as I can see.
Lively Lughnasadh folks!
Blood on the corn, harvest in the horn, may you never hunger, may you never thirst!
The play is A Winter's Tale so a bit odd for the time of year, but the weather might be fitting...
Hope that you get through the day OK one way or another.
Off to a flying start? Bad case of the Mondays? Still revelling in the afterglow of the weekend? How's it going folks?
I had a good Sunday lunch at the pub and a relaxed afternoon yesterday, have a relatively sane looking week lined up at work and then out for an outdoor Shakespeare play (rain permitting) on Friday.
I have seen them, but a while ago, whilst binging through all of the show to S11, which was airing at the time. I'd say, yes - go and watch them, but I don't recall them as particularly stand-out from the rest of the show.
Friyay or Frinay?
What's lined up for today - or for the weekend then?
For me, on the plus side: pizza tonight.
On the minus side, I just had to update an address, which ended up involving installing an app which PLAYED MUSIC at me in the play store before even installing it. When did that become a thing?? Needless to say, it did not go down well with the SO.
Indigenous people and experts say Moscow’s military push and increased shipping and mining will destroy Arctic environment
In the past six years, Russia has built 475 military sites along its northern border. The Kola peninsula and the archipelagos of the Barents Sea have seen dozens of new airstrips, bunkers and bases.
The unprecedented new military buildup has experts concerned about devastating results for these delicate Arctic ecosystems. It is already among the most polluted places on Earth. Currents that carry warm water from the Atlantic Ocean into the Barents Sea make it one of the world’s great marine garbage patches, while decades of Soviet nuclear tests, the dumping of radioactive waste, and industrial pollution have left many waterways highly toxic, contributing to elevated rates of disease among local people.
So... do anything good at the weekend then?
Or got any plans for the week?
It was my SO's birthday and she wanted to go to a local transport museum, which was actually great fun riding around the site on trains, trams and trolley buses. A couple of shots of some 1920s trams.
Vulnerable UK migrant workers at risk as audits of farm recruiters stall
A task force launched by UK supermarkets to tackle the exploitation of farm workers has failed to complete audits months after the investigations were supposed to take place, leaving vulnerable migrants at risk.
UK Conservatives lose two seats but hold on to Uxbridge
Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives on Friday suffered two crushing UK parliamentary by-election defeats but averted a “3-0” drubbing by unexpectedly holding on to Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat.
The grave problems facing the British prime minister were highlighted when the opposition Labour party secured its biggest-ever by-election win in the once-safe Tory seat of Selby and Ainsty in Yorkshire.
Earlier the centrist Liberal Democrats demolished a massive Tory majority to win the seat of Somerton and Frome, opening up a dangerous new front for Sunak in the Tory heartlands of England’s South West.
UK renewable energy plans hit after developer halts 1.4GW wind farm project
Swedish energy group Vattenfall on Thursday said it had suspended development of its 1.4GW Norfolk Boreas wind farm after costs on the project rose 40 per cent.
Vattenfall’s announcement is likely to heap pressure on the government, which is in the process of awarding the next round of fixed-price contracts. Developers have already warned that the maximum price of £44/MWh in 2012 prices is also too low.
Dutch emissions laws stall €10bn of green investment at Europe’s biggest port
Strict controls on nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands are undermining the EU’s efforts to fight climate change, said the outgoing chief executive of Europe’s biggest port.
Castelein said that with Prime Minister Mark Rutte running a caretaker administration after the collapse of his coalition government this month, parliament had to find a solution urgently. Plans to reduce nitrogen levels by buying out farmers and closing some industrial plants are unlikely to proceed until after elections in November.
UK outpaced by Germany on emissions cuts since Paris accord
Germany has cut greenhouse gas emissions faster than the UK since the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global warming, further undermining the Sunak government’s claim to global climate leadership.
Richard Black, senior associate at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think-tank in London, said: “Despite some impressive rhetoric, the last few UK administrations have allowed the UK’s lead in the G7 table to slip".
Le Fantôme de la liberté - Luis Buñuel (1974)
Flag of Suffolk, UK. An armorial banner attributed to the canonised King Edmund of East Anglia, killed by vikings in 869. Adopted as the county flag in 2017.
On a field of blue, the flag displays a yellow emblem of a crown and crossed arrows. This is the emblem attributed to St Edmund, king of East Anglia, shot with arrows and decapitated Vikings in 869. A shrine and cult later developed in Bury St Edmunds, and the emblem gradually came to represent the county as a whole.
The keep of Orford castle, Suffolk, UK
Recently rendered to protect the badly weathered local Septaria from which it was built - and which is both scarce these days and difficult to work with. The render is similar to the lime mortar that the castle was originally covered with when built in the 12th century.
Earth Heritage – Free UK Geological and Landscape Conservation Magazine - issue 59 out now.
Earth Heritage is produced twice yearly to stimulate interest in geodiversity and a broad range of geological and landscape conservation issues within the UK and further afield. It is free in pdf format.
In this issue:
• Using drones to monitor geological sites • The Scottish Geology Trust's outreach initiatives • Geo trails in the Fens and the Peak District • New publications on river potholes in Wales, Hugh Miller and the Old Red Sandstone and Natural England's Geoconservation: Principles and Practice
MPs call for UK pause on deep-sea mining to protect biodiversity
News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication
Former environment minister Lord Zac Goldsmith and Green party MP Caroline Lucas are among at least 22 members of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and Scottish National parties calling on Rishi Sunak to back a moratorium on mining in international waters.
The UK government sponsors two exploration contracts across 133,539 square kilometres in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico for small lumps that sit on the seafloor and contain nickel, copper and cobalt. It has invested £6mn through the Natural Environment Research Council, according to the Natural History Museum, in a four-year research project involving trips to the area by scientists.
MPs call for UK pause on deep-sea mining to protect biodiversity
News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication
Former environment minister Lord Zac Goldsmith and Green party MP Caroline Lucas are among at least 22 members of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and Scottish National parties calling on Rishi Sunak to back a moratorium on mining in international waters.
The UK government sponsors two exploration contracts across 133,539 square kilometres in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico for small lumps that sit on the seafloor and contain nickel, copper and cobalt. It has invested £6mn through the Natural Environment Research Council, according to the Natural History Museum, in a four-year research project involving trips to the area by scientists.
