40 years ago today, Voyager 2 became the first (and, so far, only) spacecraft to visit to Uranus, sending back astonishing images of the planet, its thin rings, and its peculiar set of moons.

https://www.nasa.gov/history/35-years-ago-voyager-2-explores-uranus/ #space #science #nature #history

Hooray for Santa Cruz #California. More communities can live without #surveillance.

Santa Cruz the First in California to Terminate Its Contract With Flock Safety | KQED
https://www.kqed.org/news/12069705/santa-cruz-the-first-in-california-to-terminate-its-contract-with-flock-safety

If you are a resident of California, the state now has a portal where you can demand deletion of your personal data from 500+ registered data brokers with a single request form, for free.

https://consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov/

The Trump administration is closing NASA’s largest research library on Friday,
a facility that houses tens of thousands of books, documents and journals
— many of them not digitized or available anywhere else.

Jacob Richmond,
a NASA spokesman, said the agency would review the library holdings over the next 60 days
and some material would be stored in a government warehouse
while the rest would be tossed away.

“This process is an established method that is used by federal agencies to properly dispose of federally owned property,”
Mr. Richmond said.

The shutdown of the library at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.,
is part of a larger reorganization under the Trump administration
that includes the closure of 13 buildings
and more than 100 science and engineering laboratories
on the 1,270-acre campus by March 2026.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/climate/nasa-goddard-library-closing.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

FYI apparently Amazon has a feature in beta that scrapes the web stores of companies (and independent artists) not on their website, allowing you to buy the items on Amazon. Basically they act as a middle man, without your consent, to put your stuff on their marketplace. They're doing this to artists right now.

https://bsky.app/profile/houseofdarkly.bsky.social/post/3mb7znamirs2r

#art #artists

After 15 months of hard work, my dad has finished this impressive model of Minas Tirith! It is 1.4 m high and entirely hand-made out of wood. One of the most time-consuming parts was manually engraving the bricks on all walls and buildings, but this was key to properly convey the huge size of the city. Everything was painted by hand, adding some wear and tear. For a behind-the-scenes look at how he built this check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Ywlc8ojjE

#lotr #MastoArt #art #craft