Of COURSE people are trying to laser drones out of the New Jersey skies — how else would 2024 end? @jasonkoebler of @404mediaco says the pilots of at least 11 commercial planes flying into NYC-area airports have reported lasers being shone into their cockpits due to the hysteria over mysterious objects in the skies. [Story may be paywalled]
#Drones #NewJersey #AirTravel #Planes #Technology #Tech #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
Until recently, Latin America’s most viewed figure on YouTube was then president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. His press conferences were watched for 49 million hours in 2023 alone. A slew of creators built reputations, audiences, and careers on covering those press conferences. Now, López Obrador is out of office — and the YouTubers are trying to figure out how to stay relevant.
https://restofworld.org/2024/amlo-youtubers-mexico-president/
#Tech #Technology #Mexico #YouTube #Influencers #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
Kenya has about 40,000 “shadow scholars” who are paid by university students in Western countries to write their essays. @thecontinent reviews a new documentary, “The Shadow Scholars,” about this industry, which is directed by Eloïse King in collaboration with Oxford scholar Patricia Kingori. “Kingori’s scholarship is interested in teasing out how power dynamics shape the past, present and future of the global order. In this case, she is appalled by how easily the efforts of these young Kenyans are erased as they go uncredited for their intellectual output – an erasure with loud echoes in history,” writes Wilfred Okiche
https://continent.substack.com/p/review-outsourcing-academia
#University #Academia #Kenya #Movies #Film #Documentary #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
We have so many renewable sources of energy now, we don’t know what to do with it — literally. @KnowableMag looks at the storage technology engineers are developing, from batteries to systems that harness air pressure, to see us through days when wind turbines are quiet and the sun slips behind clouds.
#Science #Technology #Engineering #Environment #ClimateCrisis #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
“Carol of the Bells” is actually a Ukrainian song called “Shchedryk.” Oksana Ostapchuk and Myroslava Tanska-Vikulova of @timkmak’s Counteroffensive explain the history of the song, and its significance to one American who’s volunteering in Kyiv.
https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/the-ukrainian-history-of-your-favorite
#Music #ChristmasSongs #Ukraine #Ukrainian #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
Documentary photographer Alan Pogue has been contributing to @TexasObserver for decades. Here’s a selection of some of his greatest work for the magazine, which is coming to the end of its 70th anniversary year.
https://www.texasobserver.org/alan-pogue-photo-essay-observer-seventieth-anniversary/
#Photography #PhotoJournalism #AlanPogue #Texas #TexasObserver #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
Yes, we have been tooting our own horn about this for the past few days but honestly, we’re pretty proud. Flipboard has opened a beta for @surf, a new app for building custom feeds and surfing the open social web. @verge@flipboard.com liked it — you can read more here and sign up for the waitlist at the second link.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/18/24323903/flipboard-surf-fediverse-social-web-app
#Flipboard #SocialMedia #OpenSocialWeb #Technology #Tech #Fediverse #Surf #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
And finally, to our @ScienceDesk, which shared this story from @ScienceAlert about the best way to cook broccoli — and also referred to it as “our most polarizing vegetable,” to which we would respond, “you misspelled Brussels sprouts.”
#Food #Cooking #Lifestyle #Broccoli #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
