Sunspots 903

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Computing: Gizmodo on how malware can be hidden in graphics files.

Environment: The Conversation on the costs of desalinating water. There are less expensive ways to obtain fresh water.

ABC News, and other outlets, report that Spain has granted personhood status (!) to a pollution-endangered lagoon.

NPR reports that newly hatched puffins get confused by our lights, as opposed to the moon. So Icelanders catch confused puffins and throw them off of a cliff, into the ocean, which saves lots of puffin lives.

Finances: (or something) Gizmodo reports on a study indicating that a 4-day work week is beneficial.

Science: A Conversation writer discusses the Mandela Effect -- where many people "remember" something that isn't, or wasn't, so.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading. 

Sunspots 827

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: Gizmo's Freeware describes a search engine that turns up public domain art, from art museums. See graphic, which comes from the New York Public Library: 

Computing: Gizmodo reports that the National Weather Service's computing structure is in danger of failure, at times when we need it most.

Gizmodo links to a tool that lets you see if your phone number was among those acquired in a massive Facebook data leak. (Mine wasn't, thank God!)

Education: More than half of the US states have names coming from Native American languages.

Environment: Former Environmental Protection Agency head, Scott Pruitt, did his best to cripple the agency's science advisory boards, for example by placing people on them that claimed that air pollution is good for us. The Biden administration is working to reverse the damage.

Gizmodo reports that the cherry blossoms in Japan are blooming earlier than they've bloomed within the past 1200 years.

Politics: The Pacific Standard analyzes gun laws, and finds that you are more likely to be shot in states that have less restrictive gun laws.

FiveThirtyEight discusses media distrust among Republicans.

And FiveThirtyEight tells us why, after losing the senate and the white house, Republicans aren't looking to change anything.

The graphic usually used in these posts (below) is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this. 

Thanks for looking! 

Warning: This may be addictive!

Wordle is an on-line utility which takes text that you enter (or it will get text from any URL with an RSS feed, such as a blog) and generates graphics randomly from the text entered. I'm just getting started, but you can tweak the font and the colors, or just let Wordle do it randomly until you get something you like, by hitting the randomize button.

Here's a sample:





























The sample is the first sentence above.

You can print your creation directly. To save it digitally, you have to take a screen-shot (Use the Alt and Print-Screen combinations) then paste the result into some program, preferably, but not necessarily, a graphics editor.

Thanks to Katherine for the tip. Enjoy!