Reading

Created
Fri, 16/05/2025 - 00:14
Den humanitära situationen är nu akut i Gaza. Värre än någonsin under det här kriget. Bristen på mat, vatten och mediciner uppskattades redan för några månader sedan innebära att 9 000 barn behövde behandling mot undernäring, 2 000 hade behov av akut vård. Sedan dess har situationen förvärrats ytterligare. Antalet akut undernärda barn beräknas ha […]
Created
Thu, 15/05/2025 - 23:32

I remember the phrase from my boyhood, listening to baseball games on the old wooden radio by my bed. A major hitter would be up and — bang! — he’d connect with the ball in a big-time fashion. The announcer in a rising voice would then say dramatically: “It’s going, going, gone!” It was a phrase connected to success of the first order. It was Duke Snider or Mickey Mantle hitting a homer. It was a winner all the way around the bases. Today, though no one may say it anymore, somewhere deep inside my mind I can still hear it. But now, at least for me, it’s connected to another kind of hitter entirely and another kind of reality... Read more

Source: Going, Going, Gone! appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Created
Thu, 15/05/2025 - 23:00

Have you ever wanted to use gasoline as lipstick? Or wished someone would start a campfire up your nose? That’s what it feels like to eat the new Pringles Hot Ones. A chance to be transported to the surface of the sun without your shoes on.

I don’t usually eat Pringles. But I was recently dumped, and it’s left me with a lot of free time to go to the grocery store with my critical mother. She was raised in Poland during communism. Even her hugs are violent.

“Straighten your back when you walk,” my mother says as we enter the grocery store. “You’re hunched over like a depressive.”

I see a sign with fake red flames: PRINGLES! NEW FLAVOR! AISLE 5!

I am depressed, by the way. I was dumped by a thirty-five-year-old man with a combover for a haircut. He ghosted me. Disappeared like a fart into the night.

I move through the grocery store. It’s a labyrinth of cold gray aisles, like the chambers of my ex-lover’s heart. Did I just say that out loud? I feel my mother’s communist eyes on me. “You need a haircut,” she says.

Created
Thu, 15/05/2025 - 22:00

One hat, two independent claims, three bases, two outs, and zero energy from you, the third-base coach wearing a hat that alleges, WOMEN WANT ME, FISH FEAR ME.

I have no standing to doubt that women want you. I’m willing to take you at your word that there are women out there who want a lethargic man who just stands there as a runner that he should’ve told to slide is casually tagged out at third. My issue is with your hat’s second claim.

I do not believe fish fear you.

I believe fish are unaware of your existence. And I think it would be impossible for any animal, land- or sea-faring, to fear an entity it has never known. For instance, you or I could reasonably fear aliens as a concept, but we do not fear one specific alien we’ve never met, like Zorpthop the Destroyer (though we should).

I also believe fish would never fear a man with the cowardice to stop a runner when he had a clear path to home. No creature would watch the outfielder bobble the ball like that, see you fail to send the runner home, and quiver at your existence.

Created
Thu, 15/05/2025 - 20:38

The United Nations Digital Technology Network has recently adopted a new set of Open Source Principles to promote collaboration and drive open source adoption within the UN and around the world. These principles position open source as the default approach for digital projects, encourage contributions back to the ecosystem, foster inclusion and community building, and much more.

The Drupal Association is proud to endorse these principles. As the non-profit organization that supports the Drupal project, already the standard technology platform for the United Nations’ web presence, we wholeheartedly believe that these principles will advance both digital sovereignty and the long-term sustainability of the open source ecosystem.

The UN Open Source Principles

Created
Thu, 15/05/2025 - 18:00
Marcus Buckmann, Galina Potjagailo and Philip Schnattinger Disentangling the sources of high inflation, exceeding inflation targets in the post- pandemic period, has been a priority for monetary policy makers. We use machine learning for this task – a boosted decision tree model that fits non-linear associations between many indicators and inflation. We add economic interpretability … Continue reading Boosted inflation – using machine learning to make sense of non-linear determinants of inflation