Ancient Antarctic water-mass upheavals unleashed stored carbon—and may hint at our climate future.
As the last Ice Age waned and the Holocene dawned, deep-ocean circulation around Antarctica underwent dramatic shifts that helped release long-stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Deep-sea sediments show that ancient Antarctic waters once trapped vast amounts of carbon, only to release it during two major warming pulses at the end of the Ice Age. Understanding these shifts helps scientists predict how modern Antarctic melt may accelerate future climate change.
It's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.
05: Capitalism
As soon as I decided that I was going to let other people into my life and have them partake of my resources, I failed at capitalism. This is offered not simply as a trite observation or a tautology, but as a condemnation of the system itself, because capitalism as a system is about hoarding and always trying to have your resources be used in a way that produces advantage to you, and usually, it demands that the advantage be financial in some manner. The person with the biggest bank account wins at capitalism, and therefore it can't be anything other than the height of folly to willingly share your resources with other people without expectation of being repaid or otherwise reimbursed for such a thing.
It's why we have corporations that allow humans to evade responsibility and accountability for actions intended to reinforce greed, hoarding, and scarcity, with bad results to everyone else who is caught in this amoral situation.
If I had, instead of taking up with the idea that I might want to have companionship in my life, decided that I was only going to live alone, with my books and my poetry to protect me, then I would not have encountered so many of the expenses that I have in this world, regarding vehicles, and mortgages, and repairs, and replacements, and so many other things. I would probably have a much more comfortable retirement position, and savings, and possibly be wistfully wishing that I could afford a mortgage on a house of my own, but for the entire and complete bubbling of real estate right after the last bubble exploded. Or I might be aggravated about the rent and the presence of all the condos driving the rent up further. Who knows. It certainly would seem like I would be in a far better position with regard to capital and the use thereof if I hadn't embarked upon the choices that I did.
It's possible I could have some of those things to myself at this point if I hadn't made the choices that I did about trying to make a bad relationship work, because I wanted to make it work and ignored signs that it wasn't doing so. And because, as the entries so far have hinted at, I'm not exactly brimming with self-confidence in any domain outside of a space that I have both expertise and a firm understanding of the problem. Except, I guess, in some places where I have the confidence of a mediocre white man and don't notice that I'm outside of my expertise. So, I made bad choices and then continued to suffer from them for a significant amount of time. My failures at capitalism are numerous.
But even before that point, I'd definitely been failing at capitalism before. I decided to go into a profession that requires graduate schooling and that doesn't pay for shit, because it's a profession that's been heavily feminized and therefore discounted and devalued. I took on significant debt for something that wasn't going to give me great returns from it. (And that has an entire awe section about how crass it is to expect to be properly compensated for the job that you do, because if you are in it for money, then you lack the passion and devotion to the profession and should go somewhere else.)
Even before that, of course, I was also making bad decisions at capitalism, choosing to go to the more expensive and prestigious university that had the graduate school I eventually wanted to go to, rather than taking the scholarship offer to a different school for my undergraduate experience and then to go into graduate school with the grades from there and have saved significant money along the way.
It's not hard to set my life up, at least from a certain point, as a series of failures of capitalism and making poor decisions about money and therefore, if I am in a situation where money is tight, stretched, or otherwise a source of stress for me, then it's completely my fault because I made poor decisions. This is the mode that I generally operate on in my life, because I've also internalized the belief that I am the only thing I can control and change in my life, and used it as a way of making sure that I blame myself for everything that happens that may be negative. Other people may have contributed to this, and some of them may, to outside observers, hold significant or even primary responsibility for the situation, but that's not usually something that I will admit to, because to do so would be to let go of the belief that I have total and complete control over my situation and therefore I can simply will myself into a better situation. This is the curse of being brought up in a society that believes I, by privilege of my assigned gender at birth and the membership I have in whiteness, should be the unquestioned ruler of everything around me that is neither my assigned gender at birth and/or those who are not permitted entry into whiteness. It then encourages me, through media accounts, advertisements, and other means to blame those people who are not me and not part of my group as the cause of my unhappiness and lack of comfort. From there, I'm supposed to either vote in politicians who promise to hurt them for having the gall to try and exist or take some part of the resource share that is rightfully mine or to engage in direct action to dominate, control, or remove resources from those other people who have been taking from me through their mere act of existence, or who have been "taking" from me because my government is redistributing my tax dollars to the "undeserving," instead of refunding them back to me to that I can use them more effectively and efficiently on myself.
The choices that I have made that are not according to the dictates of capitalism have had many other benefits for me, of course. As, presumably, they have for you. The decision to go to the more expensive university also came with several years of participation in campus life, including the marching band (where my face was on national television for a brief moment as I marched in a parade), intramural sport and refereeing such sport, which may have further cemented my interesting in the Olympic program, and in several of the things that are charmingly referred to as "non revenue-generating sports" that are equally as excellent to watch, if you have the opportunity), and it likely expedited the process of acceptance into graduate school (as well as giving me the opportunity to understand whether I could function at that level) by making it so that the reviewers were comparing the grades of their own institution, rather than trying to decide whether the other institution has sufficient academic rigor for them to believe that my good grades really do mean that I can hack it at that level.
Choosing the profession that I have, even knowing that the money wouldn't be great, has resulted, all the same, in plenty of opportunities for my mental health to stay good (as well as several opportunities for it to be regularly trashed). Doing programming for tinies is still a thing to look forward to and enjoy. Helping people find things and showing them that we have access to the materials they're interested in is helpful, and sometimes there's a fair amount of appreciation expressed for it. There's something satisfying about being able to help people work through their various issues regarding technology and using it for their purposes, even if there's also sometimes a fair amount of frustration expressed at various entities because they made things obtuse, or because they dumped a device on someone, made some statement about it being intuitive and not needing any learning, and then skipped town instead of supporting the device they had just thrust on someone. Sometimes we get back a little bit of our teens who have gone on to other situations and parts of their lives, and they come back and appreciate what we were trying to do with them, now that they're adults who have to deal with the life outside. And there are always people who use the resources and appreciate that we're still here, even as they are themselves confronting capitalism's failures of them. And doing the work I've done has had me met all kinds of wonderful people and attempt all kinds of things that I might not otherwise do, like practicing my art skills, or penning articles for publication, or presenting at various conferences about the intersections of my profession and the professions and careers of others. Often in a "we should be able to work better together" way, but that working together is often curtailed by lack of resources and by the often aggravating, but very true assertion that a public library that has to be heavily involved in making sure people have basic needs met is not able to sustain more complex and more interesting programming for the majority of their users. (Much as it would be cool to do some of those things.)
The decisions I have made about relationships and about wanting human companionship in my life have resulted in having a house that I can then use to help other people have a house and companionship in their lives. And in pets, who are often yell, but routinely are also love. They have proven to me that there are friends that I still had outside of a bad relationship, and that the worst things that I think about myself are often not as terrible as I might otherwise believe they are, or that what I think about myself is the shadow on the wall being cast by something much smaller and less terrible.
And that some things are forgivable. And that others can be worked through, or around, or with, in a way that results in the thing getting done, instead of a way that results in the thing getting done and me feeling terrible about my failure to be a normal human being who can do all the things that normal human beings do without needing additional assistance from outside sources. Or without building structures and systems of reminders and pathways so that whatever the last mistake is, it won't be made again, making sure that all the mistakes of the future are novel ones. So long, of course, as the system performs flawlessly and I remember to engage it at every juncture that I'm supposed to.
Having other people around can mean articulating to them the secret fears that you have, or the ways that things used to go in other situations, so that they understand why you are expecting them to do one thing, or that you want them to do one thing, because if they do that thing, that will signal to you that there are no further things that will be sprung upon you later.
And, despite all of those things that I have done capitalism wrong with…I keep surviving. I keep finding ways to make the money work, even if it makes me fret a lot about whether or not the whole enterprise is going to hold together long enough to succeed. To me, this seems like standard operations, but to others, it might suggest that there's some sort of financial wizardry involved in here, to keep rolling with life and still managing to stay afloat, even with all the things that have been in my way. To me, it's mostly just persistence and sometimes a fair amount of denying myself anything that might be fun.
The persistence part is probably to good one. The long bouts of self-denial, probably not. But, there's another way in which I'm failing at capitalism, by not choosing to extend myself out to as far on the margins as I can, either in hope of a great payoff or because money is meant for my happiness, and so I should spend it profligately.
Current Mood:depressed
Current Music:Darren Korb feat Sam Grendel - Sightless Shepherd
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 6, 2025 is:
sensibility • \sen-suh-BIL-uh-tee\ • noun
Sensibility is a formal word often used in its plural form to refer someone’s personal or cultural approach to what they encounter, as in “the speaker made sure to tailor his speech to the sensibilities of his audience.” Sensibility can also be used for the kind of feelings a person tends to have in general, as well as for the ability to feel and understand emotions.
// Many older cartoons feel out of line with modern sensibilities.
// She brought an artistic sensibility to every facet of her life, not just her celebrated painting.
“[Lady] Gaga’s absurdist sensibilities have long been an underrated facet of her work—probably because she’s so good at delivering them with a straight face.” — Rich Juzwiak, Pitchfork, 10 Mar. 2025
Did you know?
The meanings of sensibilityrun the gamut from mere sensation to excessive sentimentality, but we’re here to help you make sense of it all. In between is a capacity for delicate appreciation, a sense often pluralized. In Jane Austen’s books, sensibility is mostly an admirable quality she attributes to, or finds lacking in, her characters: “He had ... a sensibility to what was amiable and lovely” (of Mr. Elliot in Persuasion). In Sense and Sensibility, however, Austen starts out by ascribing to Marianne sensibleness, on the one hand, but an “excess of sensibility” on the other: “Her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation ... she was everything but prudent.”
Today I'm trying out a new recipe for Banana Banana Bread that I found in All Recipes. This one uses 5 bananas where my usual one takes 3, and butter instead of oil. I made half the flour whole wheat. Partway through I realized there was no other flavoring besides the bananas, so I added a teaspoon of cinnamon. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. :D
EDIT 12/5/25 -- This turned out pretty well. It's a bit prone to falling apart, but may set up more as it cools. It has quite a strong banana flavor. I don't think I'll replace my usual recipe, but this certainly works for using up a lot of bananas.
I just realized that I have eight or nine different star mapping projects on the go with various members of the Tranquility Press gang.
All this has been building up over the last five years, partly to cope with other stuff and partly for fun and research giggles (which have been plentiful).
When we say that we want equality, what do we mean? Same pay for everyone? Same caloric intake? Same size of house? Same amount of electricity consumed every day? Same amount of household waste? Same amount of political power, influence, or fame?
Mollion says some job candidates have always misrepresented themselves, but AI has made the gap between presentation and reality even wider—making interviews and written materials even less reliable.
“On top of that, traditional interviews simply don’t reveal real skill, work style, responsiveness, or judgment,” Mollion told me. “People can say all the right things in an interview, but none of that guarantees how they actually perform on the job.”
I've been saying for years that brief resumes, college degrees, and office interviews offer very little indication of an applicant's actual ability to do a job.
I think it’s important to note, when writing a series of essays about “comfort watches,” that not every movie on that list is going to be a comfortable watch. Some of them might even be hard-“R” movies with lots of violence, portraying a decaying civilization where law is rare and order is even more so, and where everyone in the movie is pretty much just hanging on by their fingernails. These movies are not nice! Nevertheless there is something relentlessly rewatchable about them, something that makes you just settle in on the couch for a couple of hours with a smile on your face, maybe because you’re sure glad you don’t live there. For me, Dredd is one of those films. The world of Mega-City One is a terrible place and I hope never to take up permanent residence, but I’m happy to visit. That is, from behind a pane of bulletproof glass.
For those of you not familiar with the 2000 AD comic feature on which the film is based (and have otherwise and correctly blocked the painfully bad 1995 Sylvester Stallone film made from the same source material from your brain): The world is fucked and irradiated and almost all of it is a wasteland, except Mega-City One, with 800 million people stretching across the Acela Corridor of the United States. Most people there live crappy lives in “megablock” apartment complexes that can house 50,000 people, and along with residents, are filled with crime and drugs. Law enforcement is sparse and in the hands of “Judges,” empowered both to stop and punish crime at the same time. Basically, life sucks, and if you do crime, you’re likely to get away with it, but when you don’t, some extremely well-armed dude is going to shoot you in the head about it. Fun!
The titular character, Dredd, is a judge, who never takes off his helmet and rarely speaks more than a sentence at a time. He’s assessing a trainee judge named Anderson, who also happens to be psychic (in the Judge Dredd mythology there is a whole thing about mutants and such, and it’s not really more than waved at here). Dredd and Anderson enter a megablock after a drug-related crime, which for various reasons annoys the local drug lord named Ma-Ma; she locks down the entire megablock and puts a hit out on the judges. From there, things get real messy, real quick.
As noted earlier, this comic book material was made into a movie before, in 1995. It just did not work, not in the least because it was far more of a Sylvester Stallone vehicle than a Judge Dredd movie — here’s Stallone galumphing around without his helmet so you can see his face, complete with overly-blue contacts, here’s Stallone tromping through a bunch of sets that look like sets, not slums, here’s Stallone bellowing Dredd’s catchphrase “IYAMDELAW” with scenery chewing abandon, and being saddled with Rob Schneider as comedy relief because it was the 90s and apparently that was just what was done back in the day. This movie was made by Hollywood Pictures, which at the time was Disney’s off-off-brand, and while the movie was rated “R,” every inch of it gave off a soft PG-13 vibe. This was a movie that yearned for its hero to be made a figurine in a McDonald’s happy meal.
Dredd, which came out in 2012… is not that. From the opening moments, Dredd makes it clear that this future, shot on location in South Africa, is literally trash; everything is run-down, nothing is new, the color scheme is graded heavily into sicky yellows and greens (except for the blood, which is super, super red). This Mega-City One doesn’t feel like a bunch of sets; it’s ugly and tired and feels all-too possible. Dredd himself, played by Karl Urban, is night and day from the Stallone iteration. When he says “I am the law,” it’s not a bellow. It’s a deeply scary intonation of facts. And he never takes off his damn helmet.
It helps that Dredd isn’t trying to do too much. The movie isn’t trying to jam in seven different storylines and five movies’ worth of worldbuilding into a single film. It keeps to a single story, a single day, and, mostly, a single location. After a brief opening voiceover, you learn about the world diagetically. For longtime fans of the Judge Dredd world, there are little easter eggs here and there but nothing that winks at the viewer. For everyone else, you learn just enough of what you need to get through the story, and everything else is atmosphere. The story is economical, partly because it had to be — the film had a budget of no more than $45 million, half of what the 90s version had to work with more than two decades earlier — but also partly because Alex Garland, who wrote the script (and who largely edited the movie after it was shot) was smart enough to realize every thing he wanted and needed to say about this world could be done with one, admittedly extreme, bad day in the life of its protagonist.
And what is there to say about Dredd himself? Largely that Urban plays him not as a star vehicle but as an archetype. Urban’s Judge Dredd could hang out with Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name quite handily. The two of them wouldn’t say much, but they wouldn’t have to; like understands like. Dredd doesn’t explain himself, has no extended monologues that are a journey into his interior life, and there is no indication that, when he is off the clock, he does anything but stand in a room, silently, waiting for his next shift. In the movie, Dredd isn’t focused on anything other than what’s directly in front of him, and Urban isn’t focused on anything other than getting Dredd to his next scene. Now, you can argue whether Urban’s low and mostly emotionless growl in this film constitutes good acting in a general sense. I don’t think you can argue it isn’t just about perfect for what the character is supposed to be, in the context of the film.
Judge Dredd, the comic book, is known to be a satire of both US and British politics and both nations’ rather shameful but continual flirtation with fascism, but as George S. Kaufman once said, satire is what closes on Saturday night. Even when one acknowledges that satire doesn’t have to be overtly funny, and is often more effective when it is not, there is nothing about Dredd that feels particularly satirical. Garland’s version of Mega-City One doesn’t present as satire or even as a cautionary tale; it just feels like a fact. Shit went bad. This is what’s left.
There is no world in which individuals should be walking around, embodying an entire legal process whole in themselves. “I Am The Law” is the very definition of authoritarianism and in the real world should be actively and passionately fought against. In Dredd’s world, however, this battle has already been fought, and lost. You get the law you get, piecemeal and not enough of it, and if you’re not actively a criminal, you’re happy with what little you get at all.
This is not a world I ever want to live in, and I will be happy to spend the rest of my life fighting against anything like it. But as a spectator, it’s fascinating, and in Dredd, it feels close enough to real to pack a punch. Everything in Dredd is some flavor of bad; everyone in Dredd is some level of desperate. No one is happy and everyone is looking for an escape of some sort. In this context, Judge Dredd is a strange and compelling constant. He’s not happy or sad, or fearful or mad. He is, simply, the law. That’s all he is. That’s all he needs to be.
So, today was my day off and I watched the first three episodes of the Heated Rivalry tv series just because I've seen some gifs around Tumblr. I read the whole Game Changers series years ago, I'm a big m/m romance reader, unsurprisingly, and I enjoy a good sports romance tremendously. I am Italian, I know nothing about hockey and this has not prevented from enjoying the hell out of a fair bit of m/m hockey romance and fanfic.
Wild Ice by makeit_takeit. 46K words. Men's Hockey RPF, Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick. As with all hockey RPF, I have no idea what these two guys look like or even what team they played for, but it's all irrelevant. This is an AU where one of the two is himself, I guess, retired after hockey, while the other is not a hockey player. This is just such a gorgeous love story, with, complex layered characterisation and the natural beauty of Canadian winter landscape as its backdrop. It's a sort of grump/sunshine pairing, I guess. The tags give you a good idea of what to expect.
Front Runner by makeit_takeit. 60K words. Men's Hockey RPF, Jamie Benn/Tyler Seguin. This is another AU, a high school one, where the characters play football in Texas. Picture Friday Night lights only gayer? :D This is another great story. Again, I know nothing about American football, but I'm a sucker for coming-of-age story mixed in with romance. And this has such a strong sense of place, which makes it all the better. Not that I know the first thing about Texas high school football culture, but I am a big fan of Friday Night Lights, trust me when I say I didn't throw the comparison lightly.
and i spit out the seed by linearity. Heated Rivalry AU, of the canon divergence kind. Basically Ilya and Shane get outed much earlier than in canon. Amazing characterisation and dialogue.
The Pitt
Since we're talking sports romance, I cannot help but reccing the best sports AU in this fandom: Love Game by homespun. Mel/Frank, ofc, still a WIP but it's going to be complete soon, in, like, a 4 days? And I can already tell this is going to be an all-time favourite. Ah, it's a tennis pro AU. And it's P-E-R-F-E-C-T.
I was feeding the cats their wet food this morning, and paused for a second, and remembered to split it into three. I've recently lost two older cats, one unexpectedly, the other after a lingering illness. I've gone from having four for many years, to briefly five, and then back to four and now to three.
Loss makes me think of Data's quote: "As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The input is eventually anticipated and even 'missed' when absent."
I remember watching that episode and thinking it was an interesting way to justify an android having emotions, but I have reflected back on it often over the years when dealing with grief, and how much routines can increase loss.
My mom was the worst, because I was very close to her and we often did things together. She was gone and I missed her but also so many... we both watched these shows and discussed them the next day, who do I talk about them with? Do I go clothes shopping by myself or can I find a friend who will be as encouraging as she was?
Maybe that sounds heartlessly practical or self-absorbed? This person is gone and how does it impact my life? But I've lost people like my paternal grandparents where I was very sad but also, they lived three hours away, our getting together was semi-regular but also sporadic. It wasn't tied to any particular activity except Thanksgiving, and then we continued going down to see other relatives in that city. For me, it's a different type of grief when it's not tied to routines. It's just this general sadness rather than coming up to event and knowing you have to do it alone. Or find a replacement.
I guess my situation is sorta the reverse of Data's, he found routines built emotions, while I'm dealing with absence requiring new routines to be built. But still, I find that quote to be poignantly relevant. Data was a wise man.
My nephew has already found a new kitty for me, but he still has a month to be weaned. So we'll see. Maybe I'll go back to fourths on the wet food in January.
On Wednesday, my lunch consisted of sandwiches and a pair of pears, the pears being from the farmers’ market, and very good. I’ll see whether there are more pears available on Sunday.
Today, it’s snowing, which is a pleasant change after days of intermittent rain and dank cold.
I’m at home today, and about to start teleworking.
For the last four days, the 2025 Whatever Gift Guide has been about helping you find the perfect gifts for friends and loved ones. But today I’d like to remind folks that the season is also about helping those in need. So this final day is for charities. If you’re looking for a place to make a donation — or know of a charitable organization that would gladly accept a donation — this is the place for it.
How to contribute to this thread:
1. Anyone can contribute. If you are associated with or work for a charity, tell us about the charity. If there’s a charity you regularly contribute to or like for philosophical reasons, share with the crowd. This is open to everyone.
2. Focus on non-political charities, please. Which is to say, charities whose primary mission is not political — so, for example, an advocacy group whose primary thrust is education but who also lobbies lawmakers would be fine, but a candidate or political party or political action committee is not. The idea here is charities that exist to help people and/or make the world a better place for all of us.
3. It’s okay to note personal fundraising (Indiegogo and GoFundMe campaigns, etc) for people in need. Also, other informal charities and fundraisers are fine, but please do your part to make sure you’re pointing people to a legitimate fundraiser and not a scam. I would suggest only suggesting campaigns that you can vouch for personally.
3. One post per person. In that post, you can list whatever charities you like, and more than one charity. Note also that the majority of Whatever’s readership is in the US/Canada, so I suggest focusing on charities available in North America.
4. Keep your description of the charity brief (there will be a lot of posts, I’m guessing) and entertaining. Imagine the person is in front of you as you tell them about the charity and is interested but easily distracted.
5. You may include a link to a charity site if you like via URL. Be warned that if you include too many links (typically three or more) your post may get sent to the moderating queue. If this happens, don’t panic: I’ll be going in through the day to release moderated posts. Note that posts will occasionally go into the moderation queue semi-randomly; Don’t panic about that either.
6. Comment posts that are not about people promoting charities they like will be deleted, in order to keep the comment thread useful for people looking to find charities to contribute to.
All right, then: It’s the season of giving. Tell us where to give to make this a better place.
The fewer corporations involved in any product, the more enshitified it becomes. Why spend on quality - let alone take risks with new ideas, which might be better than the tried-and-true - when there's little or no competition - and if anyone starts to outcompete you, you can simply buy them.
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