As a 65yo, I have achieved a certain hard-earned wisdom that may have eluded you. I will share:

1) Just get up and go pee, it's not goin' away.

2) Start the fitted sheet at the hardest-to-reach corner.

3) If you get a cold drink, only to discover that you already had one, drink the coldest one first.

4) Work and feel shitty, or don't-work and don't feel shitty. Don't-work and feel shitty is a lousy choice.

5) Being weird is, in fact, a perfectly normal thing to be. *Everyone* does it.

NYC, 1919: Perched on a towering pile of donated books, a librarian calls from a megaphone to request more book donations for American troops stationed in France. The American Library Association’s campaign sent up to 55,000 books each month to military camp libraries.

via Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.40926/

#archivespelunking #books #bookstodon

The necropolitics of the climate crisis

"Researchers estimate that dangerous temperatures in Europe will kill 8,000 to 80,000 more people a year by the end of the century, as the lives lost to stronger heat outpace those saved from milder cold."

Imagine a terrorist organization saying they're going to set off a series of bombs across Europe, killing over 10 000 people. And the authorities would shrug and say well, there isn't really anything we can do, try not to die. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/30/spain-records-highs-of-46c-and-france-under-alert-as-europe-swelters-in-heatwave

Wikipedians on the front line of keeping AI nonsense from getting into articles have prepared a list of common catchphrases and signs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AI_Cleanup/AI_catchphrases