Collector of knowledge and ideas, connecting them with other knowledge and ideas, and sharing them widely.
Avatar is Katharine Hepburn as Bunny Watson, Head Librarian in the movie Desk Set
From @RebeccaSolnit & @haymarketbooks
“Hope In The Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities” by #RebeccaSolnit is a #free download for a week! (Although donations accepted!)
“ … written to counter the despair at a moment when focused on their losses & had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come … a radical case for #hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain & unknowable.
The #BBC 's sound effect library is now stocked with over 33,000 samples to download for free.
The extensive #archive has been open to the public since 2018 but has since doubled in size and is completely free for anyone to access.
The sound effects and recordings date back to the 1920s, and comprise both those made in the broadcaster's dedicated studio for use in specific BBC programmes, as well as those captured as field recordings out in the world.
Indexed into categories, the sounds span everything from #footsteps and #transport to #nature and machines. Among the plethora of sounds covered are #reindeer grunts, #rain, #clocks, #horses walking in mud, common #frog calls and crowds at the 1989 FA Cup Final. And that barely scratches the surface. 😲
The sounds have been released under a non-commercial use license (a RemArc License) as part of the BBC's RemArc programme, which is “designed to help trigger memories in people with #dementia using BBC Archive material as stimulation".
A RemArc License stipulates that the samples can only be used for research, educational or personal projects, and therefore can't be legally sampled in music that is then sold.
For more info, see
https://djmag.com/news/you-can-now-download-over-33000-sound-effects-bbc-archive
#Libraries #Sounds #SoundEffects #Archives #MemoryLoss #Alzheimer #History
"Is a Library-Centric Economy the Answer to Sustainable Living?"
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/environmental-law-review/blog/is-a-library-centric-economy-the-answer-to-sustainable-living/
"Real world evidence backs up the intuitive environmental and social benefits of a library economy. The Tool Library in Buffalo, New York, recorded over 14,000 transactions in 2022 and saved the community $580,000 in new products that would have otherwise been purchased for short-term use.[2] The non-profit also partnered with the City of Buffalo Department of Recycling to create pop-up “Repair Cafes” that diverted 4,229 pounds of waste from landfill by teaching residents how to repair their items, demonstrating the potential of complementary programming in library economies .[3] Borrowers at the UK Library of Things have saved more than 110 tons of e-waste from going to landfills, prevented 220 tons of carbon emissions, and saved a total of £600,000 by borrowing rather than buying since the library’s inception in 2014."
🚨 #ShortStoryLove 🥰
In case you have misplaced your #autumn #ToDoList, here is a handy reminder from #TheodoraGoss
I love that checking on #frogs is first, that #laughing at your own #jokes (& sharing them with #spiders) is included, and #cycling into town for #books & #IceCream is specified with your scarf flying behind you, and - oh so many other good things.
A lovely, *lovely* gentle essay, and perfect for my mood this time of year. 🥰
Published by @UncannyMagazine , 2023
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-witch-makes-her-to-do-list/
Check on the frogs in the pond, especially the one with the crooked leg, who can’t hop as far as the others. Ask them how they are doing, whether the dragonflies are plentiful this year, if any of them have turned into princes lately. They always croak at that, which is their way of laughing. […]
Night Watch, Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1642
Do zoom in! And in, and in, and IN some more. 🔍 😃
"This is the largest and most detailed photo ever taken of a work of art. It is 717 gigapixels, or 717,000,000,000 pixels, in size.
The distance between two pixels is 5 micrometres (0.005 millimetre), which means that one pixel is smaller than a human red blood cell.
The team used a 100-megapixel Hasselblad H6D 400 MS-camera to make 8439 individual photos measuring 5.5cm x 4.1cm. Artificial intelligence was used to stitch these smaller photographs together to form the final large image, with a total file size of 5.6 terabytes."
#Art #NightWatch #Rembrandt #Photography #Hasselblad #SizeMatters
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/stories/operation-night-watch/story/ultra-high-resolution-photo
I was looking at some tiny Erigeron daisies when I noticed a little speck of detritus in the center of one. The speck was brown and had bits of daisy-petal stuck to it. It turned out to be a minuscule emerald moth caterpillar (Synchlora)!
These fellows nip off bits of the flowers they're browsing and stick the bits onto themselves for camouflage. I found a very sweet story about an enterprising cousin of this caterpillar:
Because I adore things like this. 😊
"We could be producing #concrete that's 30 percent stronger by processing and adding charred #CoffeeGrounds to the mix, researchers in #Australia discovered."
Every year the world produces a staggering 10 billion kilograms (22 billion pounds) of #coffee #waste globally. Most ends up in #landfills."
This could be the answer to so many problems at once: how to dispose of #OrganicWaste / #FoodWaste, reduce contributions to #landfill sites (& the accompanying #GreenhouseGases produced as it decays), reduce the extraction of #sand from river beds & banks around the world, thus preserving our finite natural resources, and so much more.
"The researchers cautioned that they still need to assess the long term durability of their cement product. They're now working on testing how the hybrid coffee-cement performs under freeze/thaw cycles, water absorption, abrasions and many more stressors" - but still, it's exciting! 😃
Edited: forgot link 🙄
John Overholt
Now -> Her_Doing@sunny.garden
HeliosPi
Bryan Wright
CryptoNaturalist
