was telling kid that birch is generally accepted as an European substitute for Japanese oak for bokutō swords, having similar softwood properties of denting without splintering and resisting breaking on impact etc. kid asked, what about Brazilian woods?

I said I don't know—lots of people made ipê swords but ipê is one of the "ironwoods", super hard, meaning it will shatter and will shatter badly, so it's in the same category as ebony, beautiful wooden swords that are for swinging alone but not for fighting. and I said if I wanted to look up good woods maybe I would check what were historical woods for tacapes/bordunas—heavy clubs used by various different indigenous peoples in the Amazon and Atlantic, many of them suspiciously sword-shaped.

turns out it's actually quite hard to find out reliable info on what premodern tacapes were made of (a common difficulty with indigenous things), but I found on Parellada 2017 that the Xetá from my home state used "alecrim" wood for weapons, which was surprising for me because I only know the word as the Portuguese for "rosemary" (from the Arabic, إِكْلِيل, more like "crown" or "garland"). thought I myself didn't know that, the word is also used for a couple different native trees, and I think Parellada means Holocalyx balansae aka alecrim-de-campinas, Guanari: ybyra-pepe. According to Remade it's a dense wood good for billiard clubs and tool handles, so it fits
https://www.remade.com.br/madeiras-exoticas/324/madeiras-brasileiras-e-exoticas/alecrim

(the Xetá/Héta are a Tupian folk that the farmer colonisers genocided all the way down to 8 survivors in the barbaric, remote historical past of the 1950s).

> At the Paraná Museum, the 9 bordunas, "aura haimbé", are oar-shaped in alecrim, with length varying between 78 to 135cm,, width 16 to 23cm, with the widest part hardened with hot coals. The wooden surface was polished with ipê bark, ash and water, giving it a rusty brown tint (Fernandes, 1959, 1961; Kozák et al., 1981). Kozák documented narratives, later illustrated, of these bordunas used for fighting. The handle could be used in daily life to grind jerivá fruit or pound meat meal...

other sources say that the oar shape—BDSM people would surely call this a paddle—is specific to the Xetá, and was used as a sort of multi-tool; you could dig roots with it, or hit against trees for percussion communication, etc.

The UK Environment Agency has some tips for the public to help conserve water, including

> Deleting old emails to reduce pressure on data centre servers

I kid you not.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/england-faces-5-billion-litre-public-water-shortage-by-2055-without-urgent-action

Reposting this because now I know her name.

FIFA let Trump walk off with their trophy. Every Republican in office let Trump walk off with their integrity. MAGAs let him walk off with their Medicaid, just a lot of them don't know it yet.

In a world full of cowards and sycophants, be a Rebecca Torres. 👏🏼

#ICE #California #resist #fascism #Trump

Bit o’ Átl'ka7tsem/Howe Sound eye candy.

#photography

How many parked (unused) domains do you own? I have an idea and want to know if my assumption is correct.

Boost generously, please.

well hello, I would really like to #getFediHired

I have 7 years of experience at Microsoft in cloud infrastructure, focusing on Kubernetes and devOps with additional experience around databases, front end, algorithm design.

I am a skilled technical communicator and used to working across teams and even across companies. I have experience teaching people new to or experienced with technical topics.

Documentation and maintenance are passions of mine, and I want to ensure that not only do shiny new systems get built, but that they are documented, maintained, and can be monitored.

I've done considerable work in LGBTQ+ and accessibility education and love to find the places where these topics shine a light on technology.

Please reach out with leads. I am happy to send my resume on request.

(US, remote work pls!)

#fediHire #fediHired

I have just read the following from a friend in Wales. Sue, a veteran of Greenham Common, is in her late 70s & in poor health; & yet has been subject to arrest & imposition of unreasonable bail conditions, while her partner was subject to a raid on their home by police at 3am.

Her crime? To protest peacefully in defence of the right to protest.

The United Kingdom & its constituent parts have become, under a Labour government, a police state.

#Starmer must go. #Cooper must go.