badbrainstorm

www.latimes.com

Congressman nominates 27 Latino films for National Film Registry

Films by and about Latinos have often been left out of historical conversations including the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. But Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), along with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has been trying to change that.

Castro has been working for years to help increase Latino representation in multiple industries across the U.S., including entertainment. Last week he sent a letter to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and the National Film Preservation Board listing 27 Latino films that should be considered for this year’s selection.

The goal of the registry is to select films that showcase a variety of range and diversity of American film heritage.

“This is my attempt and the Hispanic Caucus’ attempt to celebrate their contributions so that people will rightfully see us for something other than just the stereotypes,” Castro said. “As an industry that is purported to be incredibly culturally progressive in all kinds of causes, [the entertainment industry] has in fact been regressive and detrimental to the development of new voices, and the Latino community has paid the price of that exclusion.”

Castro said that the lack of representation on the registry is harmful not only to the Latino community, but also to other marginalized groups. He said he carefully selected films that break common stereotypes placed on the Latino community.

“Given the film industry’s continued exclusion of Latinos, we must make a special effort to ensure that Latino Americans’ contributions to American filmmaking are appropriately celebrated and included in the National Film Registry,” Castro said in his letter.

Every year the registry adds 25 films from the list of nominees and in recent years has increased emphasis on films by people of color and women. Even with this increase, out of the 850 titles on the registry, only 24 of them are Latino films.

Ana-Christina Ramón, the inaugural director of the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative at UCLA, has dedicated much of her work to researching access and equity in the entertainment industry. She said that including Latino films on the list of nominees and in the registry is crucial.

“Latinx people have been living here since before it was the United States and they are part of the American experience, and so for them not to be included, I think it would be a travesty,” Ramón said.

Ramón also said it is not only about the types of diverse stories that are being told, but also who is getting the jobs to play those roles.

“These films not only tell the story about Latin culture, but they influence American culture as well,” Ramón said.

Castro said the film industry seems to be more exclusive with the diversity of its lists than the music industry because it’s “layered with more gatekeepers.”

“That’s what this work is about. It’’s a celebration of the culture, but also a reminder to Hollywood that we’re here, that our contributions matter, and that they are worthy of recognition,” Castro said.

One of the films on the Library of Congress’ nomination list is “Sleep Dealer” by director Alex Rivera, which was released in 2008. The Sundance award-winning film is a sci-fi thriller about a young man, Memo Cruz, played by Luis Fernando Peña, in near-future Mexico who tries to survive a “misguided drone attack.”

Cruz tries to find safety near the U.S.-Mexico border but finds out migrant workers are unable to cross the border. He then tries to connect his body to a robot in the U.S. to help find a better future.

For over two decades, Rivera, who is a MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner and professor at Arizona State University, has dedicated his career to telling adventurous Latino stories. He said that Latino stories are not given adequate support to be successful. He said there is no shortage of Latino stories, but the problem is that there is not enough interest in Latino stories from decision makers.

“It’s so important that someone like Rep. Castro is using his platform and his power to highlight the simple reality of our community as part of this country,” Rivera said.

The official list of films added to the registry will be announced in December.

Here are the films nominated by Castro:

“... and the Earth Did Not Swallow Him” (1994)
“Blood In Blood Out” (1993)
“Raising Victor Vargas” (2002)
“Frida” (2002)
“I Like It Like That” (1994)
“Walkout” (2006)
“Mosquita y Mari” (2012)
“The Milagro Beanfield War” (1988)
“Under the Same Moon” (2007)
“American Me” (1992)
“Tortilla Soup” (2001)
“Mi Vida Loca” (1993)
“Instructions Not Included” (2013)
“Maria Full of Grace” (2004)
“Girlfight” (2000)
“La Mission” (2010)
“Sleep Dealer” (2008)
“Alambrista!” (1977)
“Our Latin Thing” (1972)
“Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke” (1978)
“A Better Life” (2011)
“Gun Hill Road” (2011)
“In the Time of the Butterflies” (2001)
“Roberto Clemente” (2008)
“The Longoria Affair” (2010)

https://irle.ucla.edu/emri/

latimes.com/genius-fellows-latinx-files

asu.edu/20221027-genius-grant-fellows-launch-latino-filmmaking-lab-asus-poitier-film-school

A new powerful antibiotic, isolated from bacteria that could not be studied before, seems capable to combat harmful bacteria and even multi-resistant 'superbugs'. Named Clovibactin, the antibiotic appears to kill bacteria in an unusual way, making it more difficult for bacteria to develop any resistance against it. Researchers from Utrecht University, Bonn University (Germany), the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Northeastern University of Boston (USA), and the company NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, USA) now share the discovery of Clovibactin and its killing mechanism in the scientific journal Cell.

Urgent need for new antibiotics

Antimicrobial resistance is a major problem for human health and researchers worldwide are looking for new solutions. "We urgently need new antibiotics to combat bacteria that become increasingly resistant to most clinically used antibiotics," says Dr. Markus Weingarth, a researcher from the Chemistry Department of Utrecht University.

However, the discovery of new antibiotics is a challenge: few new antibiotics have been introduced into the clinics over the last decades, and then they often resemble older, already known antibiotics.

"Clovibactin is different," says Weingarth. "Since Clovibactin was isolated from bacteria that could not be grown before, pathogenic bacteria have not seen such an antibiotic before and had no time to develop resistance."

Antibiotic from bacterial dark matter

Clovibactin was discovered by NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, a small US-based early-stage company, and microbiologist Prof. Kim Lewis from Northeastern University, Boston. Earlier, they developed a device that allows to grow 'bacterial dark matter', which are so-called unculturable bacteria. Intriguingly, 99% of all bacteria are 'unculturable' and could not be grown in laboratories previously, hence they could not be mined for novel antibiotics. Using the device, called iCHip, the US researchers discovered Clovibactin in a bacterium isolated from a sandy soil from North Carolina: E. terrae ssp. Carolina.

In the joint Cell publication, NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals shows that Clovibactin successfully attacks a broad spectrum of bacterial pathogens. It was also successfully used to treated mice infected with the superbug Staphylococcus aureus.

A broad target spectrum

Clovibactin appears to have an unusual killing mechanism. It targets not just one, but three different precursor molecules that are all essential for the construction of the cell wall, an envelope-like structure that surrounds bacteria. This was discovered by the group of Prof. Tanja Schneider from the University of Bonn in Germany, one of the Cell paper's co-authors.

Schneider: "The multi-target attack mechanism of Clovibactin blocks bacterial cell wall synthesis simultaneously at different positions. This improves the drug's activity and substantially increases its robustness to resistance development."

A cage-like structure

How exactly Clovibactin blocks the synthesis of the bacterial cell wall was unraveled by the team of Dr. Markus Weingarth from Utrecht University. They used a special technique called solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) that allows to study Clovibactin's mechanism under similar conditions as in bacteria.

"Clovibactin wraps around the pyrophosphate like a tightly sitting glove. Like a cage that encloses its target" says Weingarth. This is was gives Clovibactin its name, which is derived from Greek word "Klouvi," which means cage. The remarkable aspect of Clovibactin's mechanism is that it only binds to the immutable pyrophosphate that is common to cell wall precursors, but it ignores that variable sugar-peptide part of the targets. "As Clovibactin only binds to the immutable, conserved part of its targets, bacteria will have a much harder time developing any resistance against it. In fact, we did not observe any resistance to Clovibactin in our studies."

Fibrils capture the targets

Clovibactin can do even more. Upon binding the target molecules, it self-assembles into large fibrils on the surface of bacterial membranes. These fibrils are stable for a long time and thereby ensure that the target molecules remain sequestered for as long as necessary to kill bacteria.

"Since these fibrils only form on bacterial membranes and not on human membranes, they are presumably also the reason why Clovibactin selectively damages bacterial cells but is not toxic to human cells," says Weingarth. "Clovibactin hence has potential for the design of improved therapeutics that kill bacterial pathogens without resistance development.."

Sciencedaily.com

A paper recently published in Nature Energy based on pioneering research done at Illinois Institute of Technology reveals a promising breakthrough in green energy: an electrolyzer device capable of converting carbon dioxide into propane in a manner that is both scalable and economically viable.

As the United States races toward its target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, innovative methods to reduce the significant carbon dioxide emissions from electric power and industrial sectors are critical. Mohammad Asadi, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Illinois Tech, spearheaded this groundbreaking research.

"Making renewable chemical manufacturing is really important," says Asadi. "It's the best way to close the carbon cycle without losing the chemicals we currently use daily."

What sets Asadi's electrolyzer apart is its unique catalytic system. It uses inexpensive, readily available materials to produce tri-carbon molecules -- fundamental building blocks for fuels like propane, which is used for purposes ranging from home heating to aviation.

To ensure a deep understanding of the catalyst's operations, the team employed a combination of experimental and computational methods. This rigorous approach illuminated the crucial elements influencing the catalyst's reaction activity, selectivity, and stability.

A distinctive feature of this technology, lending to its commercial viability, is the implementation of a flow electrolyzer. This design permits continuous propane production, sidestepping the pitfalls of the more conventional batch processing methods.

"Designing and engineering this laboratory-scale flow electrolyzer prototype has demonstrated Illinois Tech's commitment to creating innovative technologies. Optimizing and scaling up this prototype will be an important step toward producing a sustainable, economically viable, and energy-efficient carbon capture and utilization process," says Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Program Director Jack Lewnard.

This innovation is not Asadi's first venture into sustainable energy. He previously adapted a version of this catalyst to produce ethanol by harnessing carbon dioxide from industrial waste gas. Recognizing the potential of the green propane technology, Asadi has collaborated with global propane distributor SHV Energy to further scale and disseminate the system.

"This is an exciting development which opens up a new e-fuel pathway to on-purpose propane production for the benefit of global users of this essential fuel," says Keith Simons, head of research and development for sustainable fuels at SHV Energy.

Illinois Tech Duchossois Leadership Professor and Professor of Physics Carlo Segre, University of Pennsylvania Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Andrew Rappe, and University of Illinois Chicago Professor Reza Shahbazian-Yassar contributed to this work. Mohammadreza Esmaeilirad (Ph.D. CHE '22) was a lead author on the paper.

www.vox.com

Guatemala is on the verge of electing Bernardo Arévalo, a former academic and diplomat whose campaign has focused on fighting corruption, giving many graft-weary Guatemalans hope that building strong democratic institutions could be possible in the Central American nation.

Arévalo’s Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement in English) pulled out a surprise win in first-round elections in June and will face off against conservative establishment leader and former First Lady Sandra Torres on Sunday. But Arévalo’s path to the presidency has been fraught, as establishment politicians used the court system to disqualify or challenge anti-establishment candidates.

Indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera, businessman Carlos Pineda, and Roberto Arzú were all barred from running in June’s contest by the Constitutional Court, Guatemala’s high court. Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche began investigating Movimiento Semilla in July, just before the June elections were certified, claiming that some 5,000 of the signatures on a petition to form the party were fake.

Guatemala’s Supreme Judicial Court granted an indefinite injunction against the effort to bar Arévalo from running, but the decision could still be appealed to the Constitutional Court. And the injunction hasn’t stopped Torres from launching specious attacks against Arévalo, including that Movimiento Semilla is trying to steal the elections and that Arévalo will make Guatemala a Communist country.

Arévalo’s support has remained significant, and the court’s decision to allow Movimiento Semilla a place in Sunday’s elections have brought cautious optimism to Guatemalans and observers alike. Arévalo, the son of the nation’s first democratic president Juan José Arévalo, was raised abroad after a military coup overthrew his father’s successor. He was polling at 61 percent as of Wednesday, compared to Torres’s 31 percent, according to Fundación Libertad y Desarrollo, an independent think tank focused on Latin America.

Torres is the head of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) party, which has long been entrenched in Guatemalan politics, including, reportedly, the less savory side, like trading votes in congress for favors and jobs. This is Torres’s third bid for the presidency, after failed efforts in 2015 and 2019, and over the years she has more closely aligned with outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei, according to InSight Crime, an investigative outlet reporting on issues in Latin America.

Arévalo’s message is powerful in a deeply corrupt nation

Torres’s coziness with the political establishment, both as a legislator and as a confidant of the unpopular Giammattei, signaled that a Torres presidency would be much the same as Giammattei’s. In a country with unstable democratic institutions — a situation aided by US meddling in Guatemalan politics under progressive leftist President Jacobo Arbenz — as well as serious inequality and violence, Arévalo’s success seems like a revelation.

In the first round of elections, Semilla was the underdog; Torres was widely expected to be a frontrunner, as was Zury Ríos, a populist legislator and the daughter of General Efraín Ríos Montt, a right-wing military dictator who took over Guatemala in a 1982 coup. Many Guatemalans were also expected to avoid voting to protest the corruption in the process.

But Semilla and Arévalo — upstarts offering Guatemala the chance to “vote different” — resonated with voters for reasons beyond Arévalo’s political pedigree, primarily because of his message that corruption would not be tolerated under his watch.

Guatemala suffers from the serious, interconnected problems of violence, inequality, and government corruption. Powerful interests, and especially business interests, can easily persuade the government to cater to their demands — increasing inequality and setting up the government as a mechanism for enrichment.

There was, starting in 2007, an attempt to address Guatemala’s corrupt politics under the Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala, or CICIG, which confronted and prosecuted criminal organizations as well as corruption in the government, as Vox previously reported:

Under CICIG, Guatemalan prosecutors were tasked with investigating crime at the highest levels, even bringing corruption charges against a former president and vice president, among others. It was enormously successful, providing a model for other Latin American countries where similar problems — state capture, organized crime, and graft — have been allowed to flourish with impunity.

Former President Jimmy Morales, himself dogged by accusations of corruption, refused to renew CICIG’s mandate in 2019. CICIG’s efforts were already under attack by corrupt and powerful forces within the country; under Morales and Giammattei, anti-corruption judges and officials have fled Guatemala following arrests and threats of prosecution.

Arévalo has made tackling corruption the centerpiece of his campaign, particularly speaking out against CACIF, the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Financial Associations, which in June he accused of “underpinning the economy of privilege” — defined in Arévalo’s words as “the economy in which the success of a group or company depends on the level of contact or political clout it has with a powerful politician, with a minister.”

But his anti-graft message, as well as his clear-eyed view of what’s possible given powerful and antagonistic interests, has resonated in urban areas and, increasingly, smaller towns as well.

Arévalo faces obstacles, even if he wins

Guatemala’s democracy is young; it has a strong, entrenched history of dictatorship, civil war, and corrupt and weak institutions which are extremely difficult to overcome, especially in just one presidential term — the limit under Guatemala’s constitution.

Inequality and poor social services, a struggling economy, and a legacy of violence following a 36-year civil war and violent dictatorships have allowed multiple armed groups to terrorize Guatemalan society. Those groups, according to InSight Crime, comprise street gangs like MS-13 and Barrio 18, but also involve former and current police officers, as well as members of the military and intelligence officers. The groups mostly engage in illegal drug smuggling, but also “human trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, money laundering, arms smuggling, adoption rings,” and other illegal businesses.

They are also entrenched in the government, with connections to powerful people “ranging from local politicians to high-level security and government officials,” Insight Crime reports.

Even if he wins, Arévalo could face renewed calls for prosecution or attempts to overturn the election, even after the results are posted. But in a Friday interview with El País, he remained positive that his ideals would win out.

“We believe that democratic institutions must be reestablished,” Arévalo said. “We have to re-found the process that this corrupt political class has hijacked from us.”

Many links in article

I was gonna submit a pull request, but I see they say no new feature request rn with big changes coming.

Just wanting to throw out there my wish for a new feature.

I like the current ability to switch from video to audio, so would like that to stay the same

But I'd love to be able to set it to a default codec option for each.

It's a pain to have to always have to switch it to those free as in freedom codecs everytime

gizmodo.com

If you’re not Google (or, to a much lesser extent, Apple), map apps are damned hard to make. Last year, several major heavy hitters in tech, including the likes of Meta, Microsoft, TomTom, and Amazon, decided to lay down their arms and meet under a flag of parlay held aloft by the Linux Foundation to make mapping just a little easier, cheaper, and less dominated by two companies. Alone, none could establish a big enough data pool to rival the likes of Google Maps, but with their individual hoards of business location data, satellite mapping tech, and more support from smaller tech firms, they could perhaps gather enough data together to help create a whole new series of up-to-date map apps.

On Wednesday, this pooled initiative, called the Overture Maps Foundation, shared its first alpha release for its mapping data. It contains millions of examples for buildings, roads, and geographic boundaries. It’s only the first large release for the planned massive dataset, but the hope is there will be much more to come as companies sign on.

Marc Prioleau, the executive director of the Overture Maps Foundation, was named as head of the project back in May. He’s been around mapping projects for many years, having worked in the start of the GPS market back in 1995, and later moved on to the likes of Meta and Uber for their location-based services. He said if there’s one thing that strikes at the difficulty of building a high-quality app with exacting road and place information, it’s the ephemeral nature of public infrastructure.

“The hardest thing in mapping is knowing what’s changed in the world,” Prioleau told Gizmodo in a video chat. Essentially, map apps are some of the hardest to design simply because of the massive amount of data required to build the systems. Not only do they need to be accurate, but they need to be constantly updated when businesses close and new ones open.

The first Overture release contains about 59 million points of interest that the group claims has not yet been released as open data before. A POI could be anything—a public landmark, a specific building, or a local business. Otherwise, the data contains about 750 million building footprints alongside road data that’s mostly collated from the crowdsourced OpenStreetMap project.

So how much of the world does this alpha release truly cover? Prioleau said the POI data makes up around 60 to 70% of a worldwide dataset. In his mind, a good number to shoot for is somewhere between 80 and 100 million places. It’s something of a Goldilocks problem. With around 200 million POIs, Prioleau said you’d likely be hoarding a lot of “junk,” but too little means you’re obviously missing out on locations, especially from less represented countries.

As far as the building data, he said that “feels pretty complete” as far as laying out worldwide structures, considering that the U.S. itself contains something around 100 million buildings. A good chunk of that data came from Meta through businesses listing their addresses on Facebook or Instagram. Microsoft also handed over some of its data through its work on Bing Maps, but the two sets combined included duplicates, which cut down on total numbers. The Overture director said the foundation has plans to add more datasets in the future from other sources centered on different continents.

The road data is a different beast entirely. The vast majority of it is based on the OpenStreetMap project, an open source, wiki-style resource compiled by internet users going on nearly 18 years. Prioleau said Overture has modified the project’s info to make it easier to attach new datapoints. The project has also worked to standardize and fact check the data contained on the project’s site. There’s also several benefits to using this Wikipedia-style map compared to how Google might spend billions maintaining its map data every year (or otherwise buying up the competition like it did with Waze). Users on the ground can archive and modify the map to note damage during a natural disaster.

“One of the things [OpenStreetMap] does incredibly well is build richness into the map, because what you map is no longer determined by what your commercial interest is, it’s what the community wants to map.”

Prioleau described himself as “the only full time employee” of the Linux Foundation-based group. Otherwise, the Foundation has depended on around 130 engineers from Meta, Microsoft, and more of the steering companies. As far as maintaining the data, the Overture head said that there’s no contractual agreement for companies to use the open source resources, but they’re still heavily encouraging all those who build upon their foundation to somehow give back to the data source with any new information they collect.

“The incentive is: if you want to fork [AKA build off] Overture, start building your own dataset and not give stuff back, then you’re on your own to maintain that dataset going forward.” Prioleau said. “So the incentive to giving back is that your data remains part of this consortium.”

What’s next is to create a “global entity reference system” for attaching data points to a map, which will then facilitate even more layers of information for new apps. Today’s map users aren’t just looking for ways to get from place to place, but from door to door. Delivery drivers need to know where they can pick up and drop off items. People with disabilities want to know where they can find ramp or elevator access.

“Maps are really digitization of things that are observable,” the Overture lead said. “We’re not mapping secret stuff. We’re mapping roads and addresses and places—things that are observable. And as the ways of capturing observable stuff gets better, the ability to build maps gets better.”

openstreetmap.org

Links: gizmodo.com/your-phones-navigation-app-is-probably-smarter-than-you

https://gizmodo.com/iphone-find-my-apple-maps-mistake-houston-house

gizmodo.com/linux-google-maps-meta-aws-microsoft-tomtom

prnewswire.com/news-releases/overture-maps-foundation-names-marc-prioleau-as-executive-director

gizmodo.com/why-google-buying-waze-will-keep-you-out-of-gridlock

www.latimes.com

Despite decades of colonial violence, extractive greed and invasive Mt. Rushmore tourism, South Dakota’s wondrous Black Hills are fixed in the hearts and minds of those they were taken from, the Očéti Šakówiŋ, a First Peoples alliance of the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota tribes.

Everyone agrees on the place’s stunning beauty and bounty. But the fight for who belongs on these millions of acres — the descendants of its original stewards, for whom the Black Hills are sacred, or the government-backed settlers who’ve exploited the land — is a drawn-out story rarely contextualized effectively. That corrective history is now front and center in Jesse Short Bull’s and Laura Tomaselli’s documentary “Lakota Nation vs. United States,” a lyrical, edifying and blistering plea for Indigenous justice.

Toggling between interviews, archival footage and graceful imagery of the region (underscored by evocative narration from award-winning poet Layli Long Soldier), the film charts a generational conflict that has shown the United States to be an untrustable partner, beginning with the Fort Laramie treaty of 1851. Protesters gather behind a banner

A scene from the documentary “Lakota Nation vs. United States.”

(IFC Films)

America’s routine encroachments in the years that followed — to mine gold, to expand property ownership or just to wipe out a perceived threat to Manifest Destiny — were only the physical violations. Just as pernicious were the spiritual and cultural erasures: the sadistic boarding schools designed to force Christian assimilation, and the racist Hollywood stereotyping in cartoons, movies and television (snippets of which the filmmakers thread in for appropriately queasy emphasis).

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George Armstrong Custer’s homicidal craziness, meanwhile, gets white-washed into a tragedy, while the carving of Mt. Rushmore, which required the spoiling of a treasured mountain known as Six Grandfathers, is rightly viewed as a shrine to white supremacy. The goal, journalist Nick Estes notes in the film, was to make the Indigenous a “phase” in American history.

The battle hasn’t always felt insurmountable, thanks to persistent legal challenges and the birth of the Red Power movement during the civil rights era. Even a 1980 Supreme Court decision in favor of the Great Sioux Nation laid bare the unconstitutional misdealings, and recognized the theft of the Black Hills from the Očéti Šakówiŋ. Three Indigenous persons in face makeup pose for the camera.

A scene from the documentary “Lakota Nation vs. United States.”

(IFC Films)

But the tribes have never accepted the awarded money, now totaling $2 billion. To them, the land can’t be bought, only returned. The modern campaign to restore Black Hills sovereignty for the tribes, as seen on the cap of interviewee Nick Tilsen, an activist, is called “Land Back.” Not to own, but to keep and respect.

Milo Yellow Hair, one of the film’s more eloquent elders, calls the Black Hills their “cradle of civilization.” That concept is bolstered by the interstitial photography of the landscape, woven in like a visual commentary throughout. Somehow avoiding the nature-film trap of being blandly picturesque, these images convey a sublime transcendence that binds us more deeply to a story of identity.

The timeline has always been grim. But this tableau of past wrongs and wretched consequences nonetheless feeds into what’s celebratory about our current progressive moment: a re-energized debate about stolen land and inequity, spurred by young people invigorated by the history they were never taught, and gaining traction with non-Natives to boot. Their inspiring actions against pipelines (another 1868 treaty violation) and further environmental harm give “Lakota Nation vs. United States” a well-earned third-act uplift. There’s no way to know what will happen with the Black Hills, but we get the idea that not only is the fight far from over, the legacy of resistance is in good hands.

'Lakota Nation vs. United States'

Rating: PG-13, for some strong language, violent images and thematic elements

Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes

Playing: Starts July 21 at Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles

Links: https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-rushmoreside12aug12-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-layli-long-soldier-20170426-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-apr-12-et-book12-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-21/landback-los-angeles-indigenous-school

lifehacker.com

For a seemingly humble cleaning supply, there has been a lot of discussion about sponges over the years; more specifically, how to clean or sanitize them. Various studies, like the one published in Nature’s Scientific Reports in 2017, found that kitchen sponges were teeming with bacteria—362 different types, to be exact—making them “the biggest reservoirs of active bacteria in the whole house,” including toilets.

But beyond the bacteria, sponges also tend to disintegrate and develop a foul odor with use. Fortunately, there’s a way to revive a worn-out sponge using a few pantry staples. Here’s what to know. How to revive old sponges with salt

So, why salt? Table salt is hygroscopic, which means it attracts moisture from the atmosphere, and is also the reason it can become damp and clog salt shakers in humid weather.

According to an article in House Digest, salt can also draw moisture from a sponge, reducing the dampness that bacteria need to thrive, and, in turn, preventing the growth of mildew and mold, as well as that foul odor kitchen sponges develop over time. And that’s not all: Salt can make the sponge more efficient, absorbing oils and making it easier to tackle stains.

There are two simple ways to put salt to work on your sponges:

1. Saltwater soak

Rinse your sponge with warm water, then squeeze it out to get rid of any lingering crumbs or bits that may be sticking to it. Fill a container with warm water, and add 1/4 cup of salt (e.g. table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, etc). Stir the mixture until the salt is completely dissolved.

Next, place your sponge in the mixture, and make sure it’s fully submerged. Leave it there overnight, or at least for a few hours, then remove it, squeeze it out, and rinse it thoroughly with clean water.

2. Add some vinegar

This process is the same as the one described above, except the mixture consists of 1 cup hot water, ½ cup white vinegar, and 3 tablespoons salt.

To clarify, the aim of these methods is to get rid of (or at least lessen) odors, and help get the sponge back to looking more like it did when it was new. We didn’t come across any research indicating that this would sterilize your sponge, so when you’re done, you may want to pop it in the microwave.

theverge.com

Around the time J. Robert Oppenheimer learned that Hiroshima had been struck (alongside everyone else in the world) he began to have profound regrets about his role in the creation of that bomb. At one point when meeting President Truman Oppenheimer wept and expressed that regret. Truman called him a crybaby and said he never wanted to see him again. And Christopher Nolan is hoping that when Silicon Valley audiences of his film Oppenheimer (out June 21) see his interpretation of all those events they’ll see something of themselves there too.

After a screening of Oppenheimer at the Whitby Hotel yesterday Christopher Nolan joined a panel of scientists and Kai Bird, one of the authors of the book Oppenheimer is based on to talk about the film, American Prometheus. The audience was filled mostly with scientists, who chuckled at jokes about the egos of physicists in the film, but there were a few reporters, including myself, there too.

We listened to all too brief debates on the success of nuclear deterrence and Dr. Thom Mason, the current director of Los Alamos, talked about how many current lab employees had cameos in the film because so much of it was shot nearby. But towards the end of the conversation the moderator, Chuck Todd of Meet the Press, asked Nolan what he hoped Silicon Valley might learn from the film. “I think what I would want them to take away is the concept of accountability,” he told Todd.

“Applied to AI? That’s a terrifying possibility. Terrifying.”

He then clarified, “When you innovate through technology, you have to make sure there is accountability.” He was referring to a wide variety of technological innovations that have been embraced by Silicon Valley, while those same companies have refused to acknowledge the harm they’ve repeatedly engendered. “The rise of companies over the last 15 years bandying about words like ‘algorithm,’ not knowing what they mean in any kind of meaningful, mathematical sense. They just don’t want to take responsibility for what that algorithm does.”

He continued, “And applied to AI? That’s a terrifying possibility. Terrifying. Not least because as AI systems go into the defense infrastructure, ultimately they’ll be charged with nuclear weapons and if we allow people to say that that’s a separate entity from the person’s whose wielding, programming, putting AI into use, then we’re doomed. It has to be about accountability. We have to hold people accountable for what they do with the tools that they have.”

While Nolan didn’t refer to any specific company it isn’t hard to know what he’s talking about. Companies like Google, Meta and even Netflix are heavily dependent on algorithms to acquire and maintain audiences and often there are unforeseen and frequently heinous outcomes to that reliance. Probably the most notable and truly awful being Meta’s contribution to genocide in Myanmar.

“At least is serves as a cautionary tale.”

While an apology tour is virtually guaranteed now days after a company’s algorithm does something terrible the algorithms remain. Threads even just launched with an exclusively algorithmic feed. Occasionally companies might give you a tool, as Facebook did, to turn it off, but these black box algorithms remain, with very little discussion of all the potential bad outcomes and plenty of discussion of the good ones.

“When I talk to the leading researchers in the field of AI they literally refer to this right now as their Oppenheimer moment,” Nolan said. “They’re looking to his story to say what are the responsibilities for scientists developing new technologies that may have unintended consequences.”

“Do you think Silicon Valley is thinking that right now?” Todd asked him.

“They say that they do,” Nolan replied. “And that’s,” he chuckled, “that’s helpful. That at least it’s in the conversation. And I hope that thought process will continue. I’m not saying Oppenheimer’s story offers any easy answers to these questions. But at least it serves a cautionary tale.”

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The Boys season 4 could feature any number of shocking twists, but these revelations would make a lot of sense judging by the satire's story so far. The Boys season 4 story predictions

Although The Boys season 4 is sure to shock audiences, there are a few major twists that viewers could realistically predict for this much-awaited outing. The Boys is a doubly unpredictable show thanks to its wild source material and how frequently the show diverges from this established canon. The dark superhero hero satire of Garth Ennis’s comic book The Boys was already unpredictable, but even viewers who have read the entire run of the cult comic will have a hard time guessing where the Prime series is going. The Boys seasons 1–3 changed a lot of major story details from the comics, making the plot utterly unpredictable.

Except that is not quite true, since canny viewers can still guess where the series is heading through careful viewing. For example, Soldier Boy’s costume change in The Boys season 3 secretly signaled that his character would be based on elements from the comic’s original 1940s Soldier Boy rather than his sycophantic contemporary iteration. While this alone would not have led viewers to guess that Homelander was secretly Soldier Boy’s son, it did clue viewers into Soldier Boy’s real age. This information, in turn, could have led a viewer to guess the big twist. Applying similar logic, here are 10 The Boys twists that could happen in season 4.

10 Billy Butcher Dies In The Boys Season 4

When Hughie and Butcher began using Temp V in The Boys season 3, they knew that this was a risky habit. However, when Butcher learned just how much of a toll the substance had on his health, he continued to use Temp V despite this. As such, if The Boys season 4 doesn’t turn Hughie and Butcher into permanent Supes, the outing is likely to kill off Butcher. This would be a big upset since Butcher is arguably the show's main character, but the twist could work thanks to his self-destructive tendencies.

9 Hughie's Mother Was A Supe All Along

The fact that Hughie’s mother has never been discussed in-depth in The Boys implies that there might be a dark history there, as does the show’s obsession with parents and their impact on the lives of their children. While Butcher and Homelander are locked in a tragic paternity battle, Hughie’s single father seems comparatively stable in most of his brief appearances. Therefore, it would make sense for The Boys season 4 to reveal that Hughie’s mother was really a supe after season 3 saw him gain temporary powers. This would also connect with another possible twist.

8 Starlight and Hughie Have A Child In The Boys Season 4

When Hughie was attempting to access information in The Boys season 3, he admitted to Starlight that he may have accidentally signed them up to adopt a child. While Starlight’s role in The Boys season 4 makes a pregnancy unlikely (but not technically impossible), this forgotten subplot opens up the possibility of Starlight and Hughie having a child together. This would make thematic sense in The Boys season 4, particularly if the series also brought Hughie’s mother back to the forefront of the plot.

7 The Boys Season 4 Brings Back Stormfront

Stormfront got a gruesome, drawn-out death in The Boys season 3, but it seems unlikely that she is really dead given all that she has ensured before. Considering the amount of brutality that Soldier Boy could make it through in the season 3 finale, it is reasonable to suggest that Stormfront could return in The Boys season 4. This would be terrible timing for Homelander, who has just started to successfully rehabilitate his public image after her death. However, the question of whether Homelander would see her as a love interest or an obstacle remains to be seen.

6 Mother’s Milk Takes Compound V In The Boys Season 4

Mother’s Milk has been hoping for revenge on Soldier Boy since his childhood. However, he couldn’t fight the villain during Herogasm because he had no powers. Since Hughie and Butcher already took Temp V numerous times and Mother’s Milk’s counterpart is a supe, it would make perfect sense for him to utilize Temp V to level the playing field. This could make Mother’s Milk a villain in The Boys season 4 if he can’t handle his newfound powers.

5 Ryan Will Kill Homelander In The Boys Season 4

Ryan has already bounced between Butcher and Homelander when it comes to his loyalties. While he ended up on Homeland’s side in The Boys season 3 finale, this doesn’t mean that he will stay there for good. As such, if and when Ryan realizes how awful Homelander is, it is possible that he will be the one to finally kill the villain. Since Ryan is already implied to potentially be as powerful as Homelander, this would be a fitting karmic end for the show's biggest antagonist.

4 Stan Edgar Is Working With Neumann In The Boys Season 4

There is no way that Giancarlo Esposito’s character Stan Edgar is simply gone after The Boys season 3. His support would make it harder for The Boys to stop Victoria Neumann and Neumann’s potential ascent to higher political power would work in Vought’s favor. As such, the smartest thing for this cool-headed villain to do would be to lay low and collaborate with Neumann, so it is likely that The Boys season 4 will see him do just that.

3 Vought Uses Soldier Boy Against Supes In The Boys Season 4

It makes sense for Soldier Boy to return in The Boys season 4. Vought still has him alive in storage, and he remains a lethal asset. However, he also had a unique ability that makes him particularly dangerous for supes. Maeve and Kimiko lost their powers after fights with Soldier Boy, meaning the villain might be able to drain supes of their powers when he fights them. This would make him invaluable to Vought in The Boys season 4 and a major problem for Starlight and Homelander alike.

2 The Boys Season 4 Makes Homelander President

As The Boys season 4 continues to satirize right-wing politicians via Homeland’s presidential campaign, it is looking increasingly likely that the unlikely candidate could end up becoming President of the United States. Homelander is divisive but has a massive, endlessly loyal fan base, and he has a huge media machine working for him. As such, his ascent to the presidency seems downright likely in The Boys season 4.

1 Todd Works For The Seven In The Boys Season 4

Todd was a minor antagonist in The Boys season 3 but if he works with the Seven, this could help Homelander’s campaign and lead to Mother’s Milk confronting him all over again. Todd’s role in The Boys season 4 would allow the show to satirize the ways in which celebrity worship can lead to full-blown political fanaticism and the attendant violence that comes with this. As such, The Boys season 4 is likely to not only bring back this minor villain but also empower him by giving him a role supporting Homelander’s political aspirations.

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Seth Rogen previews the upcoming Sausage Party TV spinoff Foodtopia, revealing that a scene was specifically screened for Amazon’s PR people. Blended image of Frank and Brenda looking worried in Sausage Party

Sausage Party star Seth Rogen hypes the upcoming TV spinoff Foodtopia following a screening of a scene to Amazon's PR people. Directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan, with Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg writing the script, 2016's Sausage Party follows an anthropomorphic sausage that lives in a supermarket and goes on a journey once he learns the truth about what happens to groceries after they're purchased. The comedy was a hit, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated animated movie with $141.3 million until it was surpassed by Demon Slayer: Mugen Train in 2020. In October 2022, Amazon Studios confirmed that a sequel show was in the works.

Speaking with Collider, Rogen gave an update on Sausage Party: Foodtopia. With production on the sequel show underway, the actor and producer mentioned that one scene was specially screened for Amazon's PR people. Rogen also talks about Kristen Wiig's hilarious response to the "unbelievably shocking" sequel show after the Emmy nominee came in to record a few lines. Read his quote below:

“There’s one specific scene that had a special screening for the Amazon PR people. You should all just start wrapping your heads around this now. You’ll probably have to talk about this a lot.’ We had Kristen Wiig in picking up a few lines the other day, and I think we’ve all become desensitized to it, because we’ll just be like, ‘Roll the scene!’, and then she was like, ‘Oh my God?! This is insane!’”

What To Know About Foodtopia

Although plot details about the forthcoming project are being kept under wraps, Foodtopia will see Sausage Party's original voice cast returning. Along with Rogen (Frank) and Wiig (Brenda), the sequel show will feature Michael Cera, David Krumholtz, and Edward Norton reprising their respective roles as Barry, Kareem Abdul Lavash, and Sammy Bagel Jr. Will Forte, Sam Richardson, Natasha Rothwell, and Yassir Lester are set to join the ensemble.

Sausage Party: Foodtopia, which was announced to be in production when the news first broke, will be executive produced by Ariel Shaffir and Kyle Hunter. They'll also serve as co-showrunners. Rogen, Goldberg, James Weaver, and Alex McAtee also executive produce under their Point Grey Pictures banner. Point Grey, a film and TV production company, is also behind projects such as The Boys, Invincible, and Pam & Tommy.

The sequel show is expected to arrive on Prime Video in 2024, though an exact debut date is unknown. The original Sausage Party was generally well-received, sitting at 82 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with a detailed score breakdown of 6.60 and 6.80 with top critics and all critics, respectively. It remains to be seen if what works as a relatively short movie can have the same enjoyment when it's cooked up for the longer TV form.

Source: Collider, Rotten Tomatoes

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