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Found a great (free) documentary on the Freedom House Ambulance Service here- https://www.wqed.org/freedomhouse/ (has captions too)!
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I like words, and organising things, and photographing other things, and being silly and laughing heaps, and you know... stuff
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Melbourne
Melbourne
So, there’s a lot of USians around who are very clearly fucking fed up with their political choices this election cycle, and planning to sit it out.
And I get it! What’s the point of voting if there’s no one to vote for?
The thing is, I’m Australian. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We don’t get to sit out our elections, and I’ll be real honest with you - we don’t exactly get better choices than you lot. So how do you vote if there’s no one to vote for? You find someone to vote against. And there’s always someone to vote against.
Now, we have the pleasure of preferential voting in Australia - We get to rank every candidate from 1 to X, and I’ll tell you, there’s something so cathartic about putting the biggest bastard of the lot at the very bottom of your preferences. I understand that USians don’t get that option - you get to mark one person, and that’s it.
That means that you get one shot, so aim it at the biggest bastard of the lot. The candidate you most utterly detest. Put your vote in the worst possible place for them. Don’t even think about who that vote’s going towards, that’s not the point. Remember, every vote is a vote against someone. Make sure you fuck up that someone’s election day!
Melbourne
Etienne Constable of Seaside, California is a boat owner. It's parked on a trailer in his driveway, in plain view. The city government informed Constable that this was illegal; the boat would need to be visually concealed behind a six-foot visual barrier.
Constable complied and had a six-foot gate built. Then he hired a local muralist, Hanif Panni, to adorn it:
Constable is now technically in compliance with local codes.
Images of the mural went viral, and according to KSBW News, "Panni says other Seaside residents have already asked for him to create murals for their boat fences."
Melbourne
1 public comment
Ha!
Brilliant design is when you can take a waste product and transform it into something badly needed.
In 1989 Phil McCrory, an Alabama hairdresser, was shampooing a customer's head. The TV in the salon was on, and news footage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill was being broadcast. As McCrory saw the tragic footage of otters coated in oil…
…he noticed that the water around the oil-soaked otters was cleaner. The poor creatures' fur was soaking up the mess.
This gave McCrory an idea for an experiment. He brought home five pounds of hair clippings from the salon. He stuffed the hair into a pair of his wife's pantyhose, filled up a kiddie pool with water, and dumped used motor oil into the middle. He placed the hair-stuffed pantyhose into the pool.
Within a minute and a half, the water was crystal clear. The oil had been drawn into the pantyhose and was clinging to the hair fibers.
You can try this yourself and see:
As it happens, McCrory's salon was near NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, and NASA scientists were among his customers. He told them about his experiment. NASA then replicated it and got the same results. NASA subsequently put out a press release that stated:
"In an initial test, David Glover, a chemical systems supervisor...filled a 55-gallon oil drum with 40 gallons of water and 15 gallons of oil. 'The mixture was filtered through nylon bags filled with hair,' said Glover. 'When the water was tested after just a single pass through McCrory's innovative filter, only 17 parts of oil per million parts of water remained.'
"McCrory estimates that 25,000 pounds of hair in nylon collection bags may be sufficient to adsorb 170,000 gallons of spilled oil. Preliminary tests show that a gallon of oil can be adsorbed in less than two minutes with McCrory's method.
"There is also a potential cost savings in McCrory's method. Present oil cleanup methods cost approximately $10 to recover a gallon of oil. McCrory's system may cost as little as $2 per gallon…."
After years of research and development, McCrory patented his idea and eventually partnered with Matter of Trust, an ecological nonprofit. Together they produced booms, long sausage-like netting casings filled with human hair donated by hair salons, and animal hair donated by farms and pet groomers. They also produced doormat-like hair mats. These were used to help clean up the Cosco Busan oil spill in 2007 and the BP Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010.
The old way of cleaning up an oil spill was to use polypropylene sponges to soak it up. This, ironically, requires petrochemicals to produce. Afterwards, the only thing you can do with the oil-soaked plastic is to burn it, or landfill it as hazardous waste. But following the Cosco spill, Matter of Trust developed a way to compost the oil-saturated hair mats:
"We begin by treating the oily mats using oyster mushrooms donated from Fungi.com, then thermophilic composting, and finally vermiculture (worms) to turn the hazardous, bunker fuel waste into healthy compost over 18 months (see the study here). Composting is a viable alternative to conventional methods used for disposal of oil spill waste (for more information on composting visit our Global Compost Project)."
Today Matter of Waste continues to assist with cleaning up oil spills—there are 2,500 a year, they say—as well as beach cleanups. Additionally, they supply municipalities with hair mats and booms for "filtering and cleaning water in cities, airports, truck stops, and more. They can live inside and around storm drains, under heavy machinery, or can even be used as a thick towel. Preventing soil erosion and protecting natural habitats through sandbagging are two more skills the hair mats and booms have added to their repertoires."
The organization also has a contract with the Department of Defense and provides hair mats to the U.S. Air Force, who are conducting experiments to see if they can adapt them for help tackling contaminated wastewater.
Their raw materials are free. Hair is donated by salons happy to get rid of the stuff, and with hundreds of thousands of salons in the U.S. alone, they have an inexhaustible supply.
Since Matter of Waste is a nonprofit, their production process is no secret. In fact they have a video showing you how the hair mats are made, using a needle felting machine:
You can learn more about Matter of Trust here.
Melbourne
The archaeological landscape is rarely static. Discoveries continuously shift our understanding of the past, forcing us to redraw the boundaries of what we thought was possible or likely. A recent find on ancient woodworkings at Kalambo Falls, Zambia, is a prime example – it introduces us to early hominin builders with unexpected skills, operating long before the rise of Homo sapiens.
Kalambo falls
The unique conditions at Kalambo Falls were instrumental in the extraordinary preservation of ancient woodworking artifacts.
The site’s lush vegetation, sustained by a reliable water source, provided the necessities of life, making it a consistently appealing location for various hominin species across vast stretches of time. This long-term occupation increased the likelihood of artifacts being left behind.
Periodic flooding events deposited layers of sediment that protected these precious remnants from decay and the ravages of time. The layered deposits act as a natural time capsule. They enable scientists to create a chronological framework and associate artifacts with specific periods in prehistory.
Ancient woodworking
Two interlocking logs, each exceeding a meter in length, form the foundation of this study. These wooden artifacts offer a multitude of clues about our ancient ancestors.
The wood used in the logs has been identified as bushwillow, a species common to the African savannah. This provides valuable information about the types of plants and resources that were accessible to hominins in the region.
The logs exhibit clear signs of modification, including notching, tapered ends, scraping, and potential evidence of burning. These features suggest someone deliberately manipulated the wood using techniques rarely observed in artifacts from this early time period.
The intentional notches on the logs indicate designers made them to assemble into a larger structure. This structure could have served as a platform, shelter, or another type of construction that archaeologists are still trying to identify.
The level of skill required to modify and assemble these logs indicates that these early hominins possessed greater cognitive abilities and technological sophistication than previously believed. These findings challenge traditional perceptions of these ancient humans and their skillsets.
Precise dating of ancient woodworking
Determining the precise age of the wooden structure was essential to understanding its significance. To achieve this, scientists turned to the unique geological features of Kalambo Falls and employed a specialized dating technique called Infrared Stimulated Luminescence (IRSL).
IRSL targets specific minerals like feldspar, commonly found within sediment layers. These minerals contain a natural ‘clock’ affected by background radiation.
Over time, the minerals accumulate energy due to the constant, low-level radiation present in the environment. However, exposure to sunlight resets this natural clock.
By measuring the amount of energy trapped within the feldspar crystals since they were last exposed to sunlight, scientists can determine how long the sediment layers (and the artifacts within them) have been buried.
IRSL analysis revealed a truly astonishing result: the wooden structure at Kalambo Falls was constructed approximately 476,000 years ago. This places the structure’s creation firmly within the Middle Pleistocene, a fascinating epoch of early human evolution.
Who were the builders?
The age of the structure, determined at approximately 476,000 years old, has profound implications. This places its construction well before the emergence of our own species, Homo sapiens.
The fact that hominins built a structure during this earlier period forces us to reevaluate our understanding of their capabilities.
Researchers theorize that the impressive skill and knowledge required for this kind of woodworking must have been possessed by a different hominin species. This opens up a fascinating line of inquiry as scientists consider possible candidates.
Species like Homo heidelbergensis, known to have existed during this era, become a likely possibility. However, an even older, yet-to-be-discovered hominin ancestor could also be responsible for this astonishing feat.
Implications of ancient woodworking
The term “Stone Age” carries the connotation of simple tools and a focus on bare survival. However, the discovery of a complex wooden structure forces us to reconsider this definition.
Moreover, sophisticated woodworking and construction indicate a level of technological advancement that extends beyond stone toolmaking, suggesting a much richer toolkit and broader knowledge base than previously assumed.
This structure was not merely a makeshift solution for immediate needs. The time, effort, and skill invested in its creation point to deliberate action and a desire to modify the environment for a specific purpose.
It reflects a level of planning and forethought that transcends simple survival instincts, suggesting a more complex thought process and perhaps even long-term goals.
The coordination necessary to create such a structure hints at a developed form of social organization and communication.
Hominins would likely need to work together, share knowledge, and possibly even have some form of leadership to execute this project.
This finding emphasizes that human ingenuity, inventiveness, and collaborative skills have deep roots stretching back far further than we once believed.
“These people were doing something new, and large, from wood. They used their intelligence, imagination, and skills to create something they’d never seen before, something that had never previously existed,” noted Larry Barham, the lead archaeologist.
Their work underscores the adaptability of our lineage and opens doors to further research about the dawn of human ingenuity.
This research was published in Nature.
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Melbourne
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