h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

It's not all that surprising that businesses have lied about the recyclability of plastics. What was *somewhat* of a surprise to me was ... just how far back that deceit goes: 1973.

Back in 1973, Exxon knew there would not be a cost effective way to recycle plastic.

@pluralistic's latest Pluralistic traces the lies from Exxon's early recycling campaign ads through Dow's promise to turn sneakers into playground surfaces: https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/14/they-knew/#doing-it-again

My UK power grid grafana now has aggregation by power plant, powered by #wikidata. (This balancing unit to power plant linkage is a really good use for wikidata.)

https://gridstats.russss.dev/d/FB1Q3mbVz/plant-detail?orgId=1&var-Plant=Q84277667

mySociety's report on fragmented public sector data makes total sense, but it's personally heartbreaking to see nothing about the Open Data Institute, building on the work we did, the things we made, in there. How easily things are lost to history.

(For clarity, this is a failing of the ODI and its legacy, not the authors of this report)

https://research.mysociety.org/html/unlocking-fragmented-data/

How the Finnish demoscene turned Helsinki into "The mobile gaming capital of the world."

There is one crucial line in this article, "We know we have the social security network to fall back on, so you don't have to mortgage your own house to set-up a company."

In other words, a good benefits system is the basis of an innovative population. People with a safety net are likely to take more risks in their businesses.

Governments take note.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64655633

The less documented fourth stage of the Pioneer/Settler/Town Planner development model is "Survivors living in the Ruins" which we can see playing out on Twitter now

🆕 blog! “Never use a URL shortening service - even if you own it”

The Guardian launched its online adventures back in 1999. At some point, they started using the name "Guardian Unlimited". Hey, the dot com boom made us all do crazy things! As part of that branding, they proudly used the domain GU.com Over time, the branding faded and GU.…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/02/never-use-a-url-shortening-service-even-if-you-own-it/
⸻
#guardian #hyperlinks #newspapers #url #web

Gotta remember to keep this handy. I'm always getting my eras and epochs and things mixed up.
#DeepTime #fossils #prehistory

🆕 blog! “Get Chartered!”

Computing is a comparatively young industry. We don't have hundreds of years of history, or secret societies jealously guarding our knowledge, or much love for hierarchy. This makes it difficult to progress in a world which values strict demarcations between people. There's an obvious and well documented path from Army Private to Sergeant. If you're […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/02/get-chartered/
⸻
#bcs #CITP #ComputerScience

Eurostar say leisure travel is back to 100% of pre-pandemic levels & business travel 80-85%. But due to Brexit they can only provide 70% of pre-pandemic capacity. They've plans to resolve this including trialling online check-in, I've added a summary at https://www.seat61.com/news.htm