ksoltys.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Next year, the EU will require cars to have buttons & dials -- not just touchscreens -- to get a top safety rating. This is a great move. Drivers can fiddle with knobs & buttons without taking their eyes off the road, but they can't do that with touchscreens. (Even better: Tesla will hate this)

submitted 2 days ago • 595 comments

Just occurred to me. We are, JFC, living in the world of Heinlein's I WILL FEAR NO EVIL. Why, God, why, did You have to drop us into what's almost certainly his worst book?

submitted 1 day ago • 124 comments

JFC We do NOT want to have a season of unvaccinated influenza. The flu is a lot worse than a cold and thousands die in the US every year from it

submitted 2 days ago • 35 comments

This is one of the scariest articles I've read recently about US politics, and I've read too many for my own good. Gilead rising, anyone? thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/russell-vo...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Carole Cadwalladr, a journalist at The Guardian is losing her position in April. She's decided to start a newsletter and podcast called "How to Survive the Broligarchy", a term she coined in 2024. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/surv... broligarchy.substack.com/p/how-to-sur...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

We can call it trumposis.

submitted 4 days ago • 5 comments

This week's Featured Links post has links to articles about cuts in U.S. weather and climate research putting public safety at risk, a mysterious civilization collapse in 1177 BCE, how the smarter AI's start cheating, and more. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/feat... #AI, #COVID19, #Politics

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Here's an interesting article from Your Local Epidemiologist (a newsletter I highly recommend subscribing to) about the benefits of investing in public health. Public health is a good investment. yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/the-cost-o...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Canadians tend to view US politics with a mixture of disdain and apprehension. Right now, it's causing quite a stir up here in the Great White North. So this post is a grab bag of some recent Canadian political commentary with some cultural asides. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-... #Camada

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Today, I published a long guest post by Kevin Davies: "The Republicans and Trump Are in Power Because of Unequal Representation". It's an important topic that affects both the United States and Canada (to a lesser degree). coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-... #politics #ElectoralReform

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

I've started reading Emmett Macfarlane's newsletter about Canadian politics: Defending Canadian Democracy. His comments today about the threat to Canada posed by Trump and our premieres' responses is dead on.

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

The Globe and Mail, the closest thing that Canada has to a national newspaper, has updated its Android app. It finally supports dark mode, which means I can start using it instead of the saved web page as app I was using. The app has some useful features but I've been avoiding it until now.

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Kim Stanley Robinson's THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE is on sale in the major ebook stores for $2.99 right now. This is probably the best novel about climate change yet written and certainly one of the best books I've read in the last decade.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Dispatch from the Northern Front.

submitted 12 days ago • 4 comments

This week's Featured Links post has links to articles about how to make the most of the snipping tools in Windows, how Canadian residents are racing to save the data in Trump's crosshairs, why the COVID deniers won, and five more. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/feat... #AI #COVID19 #Politics

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

CDC source: “We just had word that all our fellows and post doc staff are laid off effective immediately. The famous Epidemic Intelligence Service, aka the Disease Detectives, is no more. That’s 1260 staff. They are calling this ‘Phase 1’.”

submitted 14 days ago • 599 comments

Today's blog post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. I am beginning to think that the planet is actively trying to kill us. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/were...

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Once again, Canada comes to the aid of the US. "Canadian residents are racing to save the data in Trump's crosshairs. Guerilla effort underway to preserve medical, environmental data from deletion." www.cbc.ca/news/politic... #politics #canada #InternetArchive #environment

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier has published an article in Foreign Policy going into more detail on the DOGE attack (for that's exactly what it is) and its implications. I said it was bad and according the Schneier, it's even worse. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-...

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Good lord! If I was still working and using Word, this would drive me up the wall. I still use Word at home but I don't have the paid Copilot plan and certainly never will if this is what it does. office-watch.com/2025/copilot...

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Astronomer Phil Plait weighs in on the Trump administration's attacks on science. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/the-attack... #science #politics

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

The war in Ukraine has led to major advances in the use of drones. By some reports, Ukraine is producing more than 100,000 drones per month. Now for the first time, the Ukrainians have staged a successful attack using only drones without any ground troops. www.counteroffensive.news/p/the-first-...

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

This week's Featured Links post has links to articles about the Batman comics Batbible, when doctors with AI are outperformed by AI alone, the rise of 'influencer voice', and seven (mostly) politics-free articles. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/feat...

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

A good analysis, worth reading. (Your Local Epidemiologist is almost always worth reading). yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/data-and-c...

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

It's being reported by Wired and other sources that Elon Musk's team now has full administrative-level access to the US Treasury Department's payment system, and have actually made changes to production systems. This is BAD news in many different ways. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/be-p...

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

An update with latest data available for graph of life expectancy vs health care expenditures per capita for 20 countries and one outlier.

submitted 26 days ago • 34 comments

This is Martin Mycielski's Authoritarian Checklist from 2017. Their #coup has succeeded in all three branches. Note the only line unchecked: We still have freedom of assembly. We must protest. Follow Germans' example: Resist. Loudly. Now. verfassungsblog.de/the-authorit...

submitted 26 days ago • 10 comments

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. My apologies for the all-politics content this week but these articles are important. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/feat... #politics #economics #society #gender #tariff #coup

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

This is terrifying. Sorry for posting a Facebook link but they don't seem to have any other web presence. IT'S A COUP--Trump Moves to Completely Take Over Government www.facebook.com/cwdailynews/...

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

Trump is a thug, a bully and a gangster. This is what statesmanship looks like: doing what's necessary to protect your country's interests, but keeping open the hand of friendship and hoping for a day when the US will return to its senses.

submitted 27 days ago • 43 comments

Today's Saturday Sounds post is the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at Rich Stadium in Orchard Park, NY, on July 4, 1986. I was there! The concert was part of Farm Aid and hence there are decent videos circulating. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/02/satu...

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...

submitted 28 days ago • 502 comments

If you're a technical writer, today is a sad day. The Society for Technical Communication has filed for bankruptcy. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/01/stc-...

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription and are being harassed by Copilot, this article might help you disable it. It works for me in Word, but I don't see the disable Copilot option in Excel. (Since I now use Google Sheets for spreadsheets, it doesn't matter). office-watch.com/2025/how-to-...

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

It looks like the Trump regime is staging what amounts to a coup by the Executive branch. thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/trump-omb-...

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

"Post it on your social media." Thank you, Mr. Acosta.

submitted 32 days ago • 101 comments

Please support Syd Perry. I have known him for about 20 years and have enjoyed following his personal and musical journey around the world. He's trying to make the world a better place with his music and deserves support. Details in the link below. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/01/plea...

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

This week's Featured Links post has links to articles about what the US withdrawal from the WHO will mean, how dust from chicken barns could be spreading avian flu, how authors are being victimized by AI-generated copies of their books, and more. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/01/feat...

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

The halo around the sun, on the drive back home today. We made it home just fine, incidentally.

submitted 34 days ago • 306 comments

Calling my senators today

submitted 34 days ago • 5 comments

It's time, unfortunately, for links to more articles about disinformation and misinformation. coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/01/more... #disinformation #misinformation

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Before I purchased my induction stove, my HVAC air source heat pump, & my hybrid heat pump water heater, folks said they would be too loud. In all 3 cases they are quieter than the appliance they replaced. Don’t fall for misinformation. Vested interests want you to stay on fossil fuels. 🧪💡☀️💨🔋

submitted 36 days ago • 34 comments