There was a faint puff of smoke from the bottle, and a small genie appeared.

"You have freed me," it said, "so I'm obliged to grant you a wish."

It hesitated. "But I am not very powerful."

I nodded. "Of all things I need, give me the greatest you can."

Suddenly, I held a large mug of hot cocoa.

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

seen on fast trains to and from Paris lately: The SNCF drastically undersells the environmental advantage of taking the train. the 3g-to-260g difference is actually much more drastic and thus should also look like it - here 87x difference looks only like 4x. I don’t want to go all Tufte on French rail, but excusez-moi: the illustrations and colors can stay, but accurate representation matters.

PS: the trains were punctual!!

#climate #dataVis #TGV #SNCF #europeanRail #carbonFootprint

Remember when a “legitimate argument” peddled against #EVs was the power grid would fail? Too much strain? Oh WOE be to the power lines! Grandma will DIE in her home in August because YOU plugged in!

Yet suddenly we are full steam ahead building #datacenters the size of Manhattan to make banana pics. #AI #slop. And the electric demand will be colossal and constant.

Society and the world needs to stop being fooled and corralled by interests that don’t care about you.

#politics #environment

🛰️ 'Miracle': Europe reconnects with lost spacecraft

｢ The lost spacecraft had been "tumbling" when an ESA team in Spain "saw that some sunlight is actually hitting the solar panels," Aschbacher explained.
They seized the chance, using this small amount of power to re-establish a connection.
The spacecraft's solar panel is now facing the sun, allowing it to charge its batteries ｣

https://phys.org/news/2026-03-miracle-europe-reconnects-lost-spacecraft.html

#science #space #esa

Arts and Science Residency – Call for proposals

The Department of Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity at @mpi_grav Potsdam has teamed up with the Center of Gravity at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen.

The two institutions are offering a joint arts and science residency program, with residencies available at each site for up to three months.

1️⃣ https://www.aei.mpg.de/artsandscience

#GravitationalWaves #SciArt #science #art #STEAM #Potsdam #Berlin #Copenhagen

Darya, 24, and Donya, 20, were studying to become medical nurses at the University West campus in Trollhättan, SW Sweden and had been in Sweden for 7 years after being granted temporary residence because they were related to their father, but when they turned 18 being related was removed as grounds for residency and the (anti-)Migration Agency decided to deny them work permit due bureaucratic nonsense (had extra work as carer and at major hamburger chain, but hadn't gotten those through the Govt Public Employment Service due to the employers' fault, which was corrected when they found out).

At a meeting with the (anti-)Migration Agency after already having begun their medical nurse studies they were told that they had to leave Sweden to apply for a new permit… while in Iran, so they had to pause their studies with university slot reserved for their return this latest October to go to Iran in spite of not having social network and having lost much of the Farsi ("Iranian") language already due to integration in Sweden, but then the Agency decided that naah they had not proven that they really had the intent to study (which they had already begun doing Agency interrupted), so now they are stuck under the mass-murderous Iran-theocracy while their family, father and mother, still live in Sweden.