Engineering teams around the world have been attempting to develop new methods of seawater desalination.
Scientists in China have developed a more efficient form of solar desalination that uses 47.4% less energy than alternatives. After the first year of testing, the scientists believe that at scale it would be able to desalinate water more cheaply than producing bottled water.
The goal is now to scale the technology for use in coastal areas and islands experiencing water insecurity.
The rule could have heavy impacts towards trans people across society.
Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"
The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.
Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitation—hospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed promoting the belief that "sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic."
This is all very bad and horrible, but I want to be clear that it’s worse and more sweeping than just eliminating trans research.
This torches everything. And I do mean everything.
A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):
ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives
allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason
preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies
requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.
What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.
Please, if you only ever write one public comment, this is the one to do.
Bringing back this guide to writing an effective public comment. This gives you the basics you need to know, what you need to include, a basic outline you can follow, etc.
Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:
"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"
But also, if possible, don't stop at writing a comment. Don't stop at calling your representatives. You should ideally be talking to people in your community about this and organizing resistance on-the-ground; there is a good chance people are already doing that even if you aren't hearing about it.
Some added 101-level context from someone (me) who’s worked in federal grantmaking for 20 years and is literally certified on this document - this is a document that governs all federal grantmaking. It’s been around for over a decade and is a mega-document that combine multiple previous smaller documents that have been around for ages. It is updated every few years and generally the updates are minor - a notable change in the previous update was raising the small procurement threshold from $10,000 to $15,000 for example. Deeply dry boring minutiae that no one outside of federal grantmakers need concern themselves with. It was also federal GUIDELINES, which means there was flexibility.
This year’s is different. They are now federal REQUIREMENTS, which means there’s no flexibility. As was said previously, the 400 pages are not singularly devoted to being absolute shitheads to trans people. Theres a lot of stuff in there, some of which is the standard dry boring grants stuff, some of which is the horrible ideological warfare outlined above.
This document is issued by the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is currently lead by fucking Russell Vought, the principal architect of Project 2025. This is how they’re going to implement all the horrible shit in there that wasn’t covered by Executive Order. Russell Vought is actively coming for my job, my marriage, and my kid, and most of my friends lost their jobs last year because of him. He is the fucking arch villain behind the heinous shit the current regime is doing.
So yes, please comment. You don’t have to read all 400 pages before doing so, it’s dry and dense as fuck, but I thought this information might be helpful. Also, while there is a public comment period, this isn’t voted on by Congress. The OMB just fucking issues it. Pressuring your elected officials into publicly saying “hey what the fuck are you doing here” is good, though.
Please note the comment period is open through JULY 13th, not JUNE 13th. I saw a lot of relogs yesterday saying "last day!" and I just want to say it is very much not too late.
As of today, 7/8/26, we have five days for public commentary on this to go through. I am begging y'all: if you care about independent science in the country that produces the most global science funding in the world, please leave a comment.
Dude. DUDE. HUMPTY DUMPTY JUST FELL. YOU NEED TO SEE THIS ALL THE KINGS MEN ARE THERE TRYING TO GET HIM BACK TOGETHER. THIS IS SO FUCKED DUDE. IM SO SCARED. HE'S DEAD
🖐️ stand aside. only the court necromancer can save him now. we must pray his body isn’t too broken…
if you work in a creative field...or if you do creative hobbies like writing or drawing...you need to make friends with people who don't do those things. you need to befriend normie Steve who has never written a story in his life. and this is because when you are in a creative job or hobby and spend all your time doing that thing, surrounded by very capable people, who you inevitably compare your own progress and skills to, you forget what the baseline human skill at that thing is. and it's usually zero. normie Steve has not written a story since the 3rd grade when his teacher made him do it. he's very good at other things that are not storytelling - but if you tell normie Steve that you wrote a full 300-page book from start to finish, he will think you're some kind of savant. he does not know ANYONE else who has done this. you need this perspective. because when you're constantly on Let's Write Stories dot Com then everyone on Let's Write Stories dot Com will inevitably be like "oh of course everyone on earth has written a book or several at this point!" and you canNOT let yourself think that. that is not even close to the average human experience. you are in a bubble. do not put yourself down. do not give up.
Anyway this disability pride month I would like to shoutout disabled folks whose creativity has suffered because of their condition. I’m talking people with hand tremors and pain that stop them from drawing, knitting, and playing instruments. People whose thinking has become so disorganized that nothing they write makes sense to other people. People with chronic pain who can no longer dance. People so over medicated in a fruitless attempt to maintain stability that the wells of their imagination have run dry.
I see you and I love you. You are more than your creative output. You are not a shell of what you used to be. You are a whole, complete person, regardless of what your creativity has been, is now, or will be in the future.
With a heavy heart, I come to you all with the news announced by close friends of Cat Frazier that she had passed away on Monday, June 29.
She had been running @animatedtext since 2012, with her impact on the internet SHAPING tumblr. If you have a years long history on this site, you’ve seen her art.
She ran a venue in Oakland called Oakland Secret, a punk venue where I’d vend at regularly as an artist. She made a safe space for queer artists, artists of color, and local furs too. I am forever grateful for her work both in the Bay Area creative scene and online, and am forever changed by the totality of her impact.
I’ll be linking some articles from the 2010’s about her impact online: The Fader | Action | Jezebel | ObviouslySocial
I invite you to take a visit through her archive, and if you have a long history with this site like I do, it’s like walking down memory lane. (open link in browser)
Happy disability pride month to severely disabled people who are housebound/bedbound
happy disability pride month to severely disabled people who don’t have access to proper treatment or medical equipment, and are stuck without care that would ease symptoms or make their life easier
happy disability pride month to severely disabled people who won’t be getting better, and who will be getting worse, or who will be dying due to their conditions
happy disability pride month to severely disabled people with photosensitivity who can’t look at screens for long, and feel even more isolated by not being able to interact with much the disability community, even online
happy disability pride month to severely disabled people who aren’t happy to be severely disabled, but are happy to be alive
In case anyone finds it helpful because mobility aids are horrifically expensive and inaccessible…
And for those people who have access to mobility devices but might benefit from a second chair they can abuse without risking expensive damage…
Erik Kondo has made a website, Open Source Innovations, that details plans for DIY wheelchairs. These wheelchairs can be made from common materials like wood, plastic, and pvc. They are lightweight and can be custom fit to the user allowing from the same degree of movement you would get from a custom chair. And they are durable and easily repairable. (he has been stress testing his latest design by dropping it down stairs, dropping it out of a car, launching it across a driveway, and throwing it off a deck). Its 12lbs and I think he said its was in the $200 ish range for parts.
He also is working on cheap, open source, accessible designs for beach chairs, off road chairs, motorized attachments (think smart drive), and so on. Plus he skateboards in his wheelchair. Cool dude, helpful info, pass it on.
It's incredibly sad people have to resort to this, but it's a damn good resource. Use it. Spread awareness. Maybe one day people with physical disabilities won't need DIYs like this. But until then, reblog and share.
Pump Punks Post Jam Update is out NOW!
👇 What's new 👇
-Updated Sprites!
-New alternative colors for all characters!
-Revised Stages!
-Updated menus and features!
-Arcade mode with unlockable rewards!
-Bug Fixes and Balance Changes!
Link to the game (Free and also playable in browser!)
Curious to know about the game? Check the previous blog post!
(More info on development in the break below! It's a LOOOONG one)
A LOT has happened since the initial game jam release!
First thing first, our game showed up at Combo Breaker's Mystery Game's Tournament last month! If you don't know, Combo Breaker is one of the bigger fighting game events. Every year, they like to host a "Mystery Bracket" where the catch is that all competitors don't know what games they're going to be playing, Doesn't have to specifically be fighting games either, just any game with a competitive mode. It's very entertaining from a casual perspective.
But yeah, to our surprised, Pump Punks was one of the games! Rod, our programmer, detailed it more over on the itch page. It was very surreal to see how much reach our game had, especially something made for a game jam. Thanks to the organizers for including our game! I know for sure, I will not forgot the audience chanting "Bop that punk" during the final match lol.
Besides that, the game jam's judging period ended earlier this month and we hit the number one ranking in best presentation!
We also got the top 4 spots in the other categories as well. Thanks for Andrea and the FGC dev discord community for hosting this jam! Here's a link to the jam itself so you can check out the other games that were made during this. Bunch of cool stuff there! Honestly, I should've shout out the organizers in the last blog, but it completely slipped my mind. Sorry about that! Without the game jam existing in the first place, Pump Punks wouldn't have been a thing so I'm deeply appreciative for all the effort they put into running this event.
Moving onto the game itself, the trailer up there and the patch notes detail what's up but basically this is a more polished version of the original game jam build. A big thing is finally finishing up the last two characters, Pom and Frevo!
(Left are the animation roughs provided by Pencilwing, clean up done by myself)
With that, all the game's visuals in its current version are now consistent! Initially this was supposed to be part of a larger update, but we figured to release a smaller one over to hold people over since the original build had some issues that needed to be fixed. We couldn't update the game last month since it was a month-long judging period, so that's why it took a while (that and we needed to take a break from the amount of work done within one month, lol).
We might push out some smaller updates but our big plan is to put this up on Newgrounds later this year. It might take a bit due to various factors, however. Mostly now that the game jam is over, couple of us who worked on this game are taking more of a lax approach since we don't have to worry about a deadline anymore. The game was mostly an excuse to challenge ourselves for a lot of people. Just kind of hard to put more time into it when it's currently a completely free project, but it's still slowly being worked on!
Personally, I also want to revamp some things about the game and give it a stronger showcase on the website. I'm sorta viewing the Newgrounds release as a test to see if Pump Punks got any legs or if we should leave it as is once we finish the initial NG build.
During the Game Jam run, we got a bunch of comments saying something along the lines of "This should be up on steam!" "I would so buy this if this was on sale!" "You guys should work on it some more!". I do agree with some of these points and I can see a potential future where we take this game further, but it's also tough to justify jumping head first when we lack the money and resources to do. Especially so when it's a casual fighting game, which has a limited reach.
There are some avenues we can take, mind you, but we figured it's best to see how the game fares on a website like Newgrounds first before taking that risk. Otherwise, maybe we do put all that effort only for the game to bomb and we end up in debt, you never know! The game industry is just challenging like that! Hope that's understandable.
So if this is the last edition of the game, I do want to give it my all within the limited time we got currently and make something great for everyone.
Updates regarding Pump Punks will probably be quieter since I want to keep some things as a surprise, but hopefully you'll hear about some stuff sooner than later! We do have a discord for the game where we share some exclusive info on there too. You can access it either through the game or on the itch page. For safety reasons, I'm not going to be posting a link to it on this blog post, lol.
hi so recently there was a very strong earthquake in Venezuela that left so many people deeply affected including my family that lives there.
The government obviously doesn't have the means to help its people with the current economic situation and all so I would really appreciate some monetary help as my grandpa and aunt are currently struggling, their home is barely livable at this point (theres multiple cracks in the infraestructure) and they're in dire need of basic need products (food is scarce due to the high demand)
There's also some direct friends of the family that were deeply affected and I would like to help them too, any dollar or sharing helps
Venezuela is not dealing with an absence of government, it's actively fighting back a government that does nothing but to terrorize, steal, and kill. They've done nothing but to bloke humanitarian help from other countries and close down any donation centers that belongs to the opposition.
This is a dictatorship run by murderers, and they are behaving as such. It is cruel on its maximum expression, but no one is surprised.
This political climate combined with the absolute scarcity of economic resources in Venezuela, means that the country and its people are entirely dependent on international help. all the efforts done to help people have been carried out by Venezuelan citizens and international forces that have come to the aid, which we are extremely grateful for 🙏🙏🙏
Monetary donations 💵
If you want to donate money, always ensure that these sites and websites are not affiliated with the government whatsoever. Always donate to independent foundations and even individuals (like the person above) otherwise these funds will never reach the people.
actual links 🔍🔍
Donarseguro.com
A comprehensive platform created by Venezuelan Ernesto Fuenmayor that contains information regarding numerous trusted charities not linked with the government. Constantly being updated and available in English
Other supplements 👕💊
If any of you also live in countries and states with large Venezuelan communities that have organized donation centers to send material donations to Venezuela, don't doubt to donate anything! Such as:
✅ Canned Goods and non-perishable food
✅ Clothing in a good state
✅ Medicine and Hygiene products
✅ Bottled water
✅ Construction tools
✅ Clean blankets
Thanks to anyone who has already donated, shared or even just prayed for our people. Events like this have brought the worst and the best of the world, and we couldn't be more grateful for the amount of international help that's been mobilized to help our homeland. Venezuela is barely a country anymore, with millions of Venezuelans trying to survive the regime.
Reasons for hope: Lots of amazing people did a ton of work to make this fantastic, fully interactive resource available - because no matter how bleak things seem, there are millions, and millions of people doing everything they can to protect both the world and their own communities.
You can use this to view and subscribe to updates, project statuses, and for at least some of them even whole dossiers. This is an amazing resource, I highly recommend checking it out
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