Sword of the Sea, the latest game from Giant Squid (ABZU, The Pathless) is out! Scored by the incomparable Austin Wintory. I played the winds on the score, including this giant, custom-commissioned Mayan harmony triple drone flute, and have been so excited to finally share this instrument with everyone! Endless thank yous to Matt Nava and Giant Squid, to Austin for his friendship and artistry, and to Eagle Feather, this incredible instrument’s maker. :)
“exercise will give you more energy” gets said a lot as a common piece of health advice but I think it needs to be expanded into “exercising will make you tired while you do it, and you will continue to be tired immediately afterwards, sometimes even the next day too, but over months of consistent exercise, your muscles will get stronger and therefore get less tired out by everyday activities, making you feel like day-to-day life takes less physical energy than it used to”
I really think we should stop saying “kid-friendly” and start saying “ad-friendly”. We shouldn’t indulge these companies and their excuses anymore. I also think that continuing to pretend that this is about “protecting the children” pushes a lot of the blame onto kids and teens, who don’t have the political power to push through any of this censorship legislature. Corporations and governments are to blame.
Found a long Mastodon thread that makes a lot of sense, and goes a long way to explaining how we got to this point (re: conservatives shooting up the place).
Link to the complete thread in the source thing below. Tumblr won’t let me embed Mastodon links inline (probably because of the embedded @ symbol which tumblr thinks is an email address).
It’s crazy that countries on the edge of the Sahara desert are reversing desertification by just digging half circles
The ground in these places is too compact for water to soak in during wet season which leads to flooding but digging these holes gives the water a place to stop and soak in. And they’re pushing back the desert with this. By just digging holes.
The new plants also help even more water soak into the ground which reduces flooding even more.
These places also give people places to grow food and graze animals like people are turning completely dry compact desert into a refuge for wildlife and plants and solving regional food insecurity just by digging holes.
The half-circles are called zaï! They’re a traditional farming practice in the Sahel desert, and their introduction + reintroduction can be largely credited to Yacouba Sawadogo, the man linked above! He reintroduced and innovated on the zaï on his own farm in the 1980s, and did extensive outreach (along with scientist Mathieu Ouédraogo) to encourage other farmers to adopt them as well.
He also promoted the use of cordons pierreux, which are basically just lines of rocks to reduce erosion, preserve sediments, and increase water absorption.
Immensely cool dude. He’s been a personal hero since I learned about him.
