Buffalo - Ithaca - San Antonio - here___ Posting books from my collection, various points of view.
Illinois, USA ( not Chicago )
Joined September 2014
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Just to clarify: I post books and observations that I think might help some people understand more about what they are interested in. I am not on a mission to convince anyone of my personal views. 📚 📖 📜 🕯 💡
anne witkowski retweeted
Another angle of the incredible ‘Human Poppy’ made by local school children on Southport Beach!
Bloody lovely!
anne witkowski retweeted
So Dad is now taking hides and trimming them down into more manageable pieces to wrap up in.
Kinda like the old Carriage Robes
anne witkowski retweeted
A dairy farm outside Belgrade, Montana put a stand out by the road in May, and nobody works it.
You come in, pick out what you want, add up your own total, and pay before you drive off. Cash, Venmo, or a tap.
Nate Brown, who grows the vegetables, says it has surpassed all of their expectations and they are restocking more often than they planned.
The family has farmed dairy since 2000 and got into vegetables about 15 years ago. The stand sells squash, carrots, greens and cheese.
Ashley lives a few miles away. She says it is knowing where her food comes from and supporting her neighbors.
USDA counts farm stores and farm stands at more than one billion dollars in direct to consumer sales.
anne witkowski retweeted
This is a huge deal. This will begin to massively reduce the need for launches. Instead, space infrastructure will be constructed remotely using 3d printing techniques and drawing on repurposed space debris. Space forges are being constructed so that key metals can be mined, refined, and put to work without ever having to return to Earth. The space economy will self-assemble rather than be constructed from Earth. Think of the next James Webb Telescope as something that was never on Earth in the first place.
BREAKING: A robot developed by Caltech and funded by DARPA has successfully built part of a structure in orbit without astronauts, marking what researchers describe as the first autonomous construction of a structure in space.
The experiment, called ASTRA, uses a robotic arm to retrieve individual structural tubes and connecting joints, then assemble them into sections of a larger framework directly in orbit.
Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 in March, the system has spent approximately six months in space testing the technology.
The robot successfully constructed a new section of a truss structure, demonstrating that spacecraft could eventually assemble large structures from smaller components rather than launching them fully assembled.
The experiment is part of DARPA's NOM4D program, which aims to enable construction of enormous structures in orbit, potentially hundreds of meters or even kilometers across.
Potential applications include:
> Giant space telescopes
> Large satellite communications antennas
> Orbital solar power stations
>Future space infrastructure too large to fit inside conventional rockets
The demonstration did not complete the full planned antenna, but establishes an important proof of concept for autonomous orbital construction.
The technology could eventually allow the size of structures built in space to exceed the physical limits of the rockets used to launch their components.
Link to official report submitted by Caltech: sciencedaily.com/releases/20…
ALT Concept art showing how a NOM4D-inspired device might one day autonomously construct a truss structure in space. Credit: DARPA, Colie Wertz
anne witkowski retweeted
Norway now has more than 2,000 underwater AI laser robots shooting lice off its salmon
they're made by a company called Stingray, and they already guard more than 50 million salmon and trout 24/7
the reason is sea lice, tiny parasites that latch onto salmon and feed on them
as few as 11 can kill a small fish, and one pen can hold 150,000 salmon
the usual fix is pumping the fish out and blasting them with warm water or water jets to knock the lice off
but the handling is so rough that Norway's fish health report ranks it the top cause of death in full-grown farmed salmon
so instead, Stingray puts a robot inside the pen that hunts lice one at a time, all day:
> two cameras watch every salmon that swims past
> AI checks two frames to make sure it's really a louse
> then a green laser fires from up to 2 meters away
> the salmon's scales reflect the beam, so the fish swims off fine and the louse is dead
we now live in a world where AI lasers do pest control on your dinner lmao
anne witkowski retweeted
Getting a little more clarity around the Santa Barbara Half Marathon poisoning. And yes, it was a poisoning.
Not exhaustion, despite marathon organizers’ insistence.
Tests for ketamine take 1-3 days to process at Cottage, unless the Sheriff is involved. Which he was.
The exact substance has yet to be publicly confirmed.
The poisoning seems to have been isolated to one hydration booth at mile 11 or 12 and limited to one gallon.
Whether this was intentional or a manufacturer error is not clear.
Runners were interviewed by police. Hospital higher-ups were present in the ED.
There is more to this story than is being shared.
anne witkowski retweeted
A 21.5 pound Tiger Fish caught and released at my family's world famous Barotse Tiger Camp near Lukulu on the Zambezi River in Western Zambia yesterday. If you want to experience the wildest of Africa the Barotse Flood Plains are a wonder of the world. Pure paradise.
anne witkowski retweeted
Nah man. I’m not gonna let this go unchecked. As a GWOT veteran I can’t.
I listened to Massie drone through his articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth and I recognized the sickness immediately.
We fought under this ridiculous worldview during GWOT, and it cost us dearly.
Massie is merely an acolyte of the bloodless bureaucratic religion that puts the lawyer in the center of the kill chain, treats every American use of force like a moral emergency, and somehow always finds more sympathy for the enemy being hunted than for the American sent to hunt him.
His whole speech I began wondering who he actually was speaking for, and that’s not good.
GWOT vets know EXACTLY where that road leads. Another approval. Another review. Another JAG opinion. Another commander afraid to make a decision because one bad headline will destroy his career faster than losing the fight ever could.
We were lectured for years about “courageous restraint.” We were told that killing one enemy might create ten more. We were taught to fear our own lethality while the enemy studied our hesitation.
And then we spent twenty years bleeding into the fucking sand.
So spare me the sermon about how dangerous it is to remove lawyers who think their job is to become a veto point over command. Spare me the sudden reverence for process from people who watched Afghanistan collapse, watched thirteen Americans die at Abbey Gate, watched the Taliban retake Kabul, and somehow found no constitutional apocalypse worthy of impeachment then.
Now the outrage is that the machine is actually being used. That commanders are expected to command. And that enemies are being treated like…. actual enemies for once.
That civilian leadership is telling the bureaucracy to get the hell out of the way of lawful military action.
From where I sit, the betrayal isn’t that Washington finally found some aggression for a chang. The realest betrayal is that men like Massie still think the lesson of the GWOT was that we needed more hesitation.
No. WE NEEDED MORE VICTORY.
And I’m done pretending those are the same thing. We’re all done with it. Massie is dead wrong here, he knows it, you know it, and I know it.
Sincerely,
-A seriously disgruntled GWOT vet who knows Hegseth is the cure to what ails our military here.
Breaking News: Congressman Thomas Massie is reading Articles of Impeachment against @SecWar Pete Hegseth on the House floor now.
Watch here: youtube.com/live/3EmwC0QQ8f8…
anne witkowski retweeted
I was honored to watch the speech today. I look forward to meeting with the Naval War College President tomorrow morning. Couple of other direct quotes from SecWar today:
"The primary task of our Senior Service Colleges cannot be the passive transmission of credentials. It cannot be the curation of an insulated salon for intellectual leisure. It must be teaching victory."
"Strategy divorced from operational reality is nothing more than academic daydreaming. Wars are not won at the strategic level in the abstract; strategy succeeds or fails at the point where operational art and tactical lethality meet the adversary."
"At my direction - effective immediately - there will be no more eighty-page theoretical written thesis as the primary capstone of war college achievement. In its place, we are establishing competitive, SI-assisted wargaming and high-stress decision forcing scenarios as the centerpiece of senior officer evaluation."
"We will create a permanent, inter-college wargaming architecture across all senior service colleges. No longer will jointness be reduced to an Army Colonel and a Navy Captain sharing coffee in the same seminar room. True jointness is forged under competitive operational friction. Our service colleges will execute interconnected capstone wargames, linking live, virtual, and constructive forces across domains, testing students against complex, unscripted peer adversary maneuvers. Furthermore, these wargames will feed directly into the newly established Joint Warfighter Exercises."
"The Senior Service Colleges will serve as the modern proving ground. Through intensive wargaming, combined with rigorous, adversarial oral defense boards that eliminate the ability to hide behind academic ghostwriters or generative SI, we will stress-test every prospective general and flag officer. Promotion to senior rank will not be an administrative reward for longevity; it will be earned by demonstrating the intellectual agility, lethal operational competence, and moral resolve required to win in combat."
Important remarks today by @SecWar at the @NavalWarCollege.
Team effort on the task force led by Dr Lin Todd, ASW (Readiness). Hard part starts now as we rapidly implement the 33 directives. Dr Todd (St Andrews PhD, SAMS grad, Georgetown Master of Science, Marshall Center Program Director, Chinook Pilot in Command, USMA top 5%) will be driving this change through every institution.
As SW quoted Elijah Root at Army War College founding: “Not to promote war but to preserve peace … and repel aggression.”
“Simply put that is Peace through Strength.”
media.defense.gov/2026/Nov/0…
anne witkowski retweeted
The Derwent Pencil Museum seems so benign until you realise pencil prices were artificially controlled, OPEC-like, by the sinister owners of graphite mines
anne witkowski retweeted
ODFW seeks public comment on fish passage waiver proposal on an Unnamed Tributary to Salt Creek in Polk County myodfw.com/news/odfw-seeks-p…
anne witkowski retweeted
WATCH: A small plane suddenly flips upside down while taxiing at a California airport, with the entire incident caught on camera.
The Cessna 172 was moving behind a United Airlines flight Saturday when it overturned, according to the FAA.
Both people aboard escaped without injuries.
Officials are investigating whether a powerful blast of air from a nearby passenger jet caused the plane to flip.
Download the Fox News app or go to Foxnews.com for more.
anne witkowski retweeted
🌧UPDATE: The Pagosa Springs History Museum survived the back-to-back floods that struck this community in late October & early last week. Sitting near the mighty San Juan River, the ground underneath the old museum was eroded away by the rapid floodwaters. While at least partial or total demolition will be likely, almost all of the museum's artifacts were salvaged & removed.
#COwx
anne witkowski retweeted
🌨️❄️FLAKES FLYING IN NEW ENGLAND! As temps continue to drop, snow chances continue to ramp up across the Northeast! With the first flakes flying high over the weekend in Northern Vermont! Who's ready for more snow?
#VTwx
anne witkowski retweeted
Ethiopia has announced a major 24-year plan to build dams.
Over the next 24 years the country intends to construct 40 large and 300 medium-sized hydroelectric and irrigation dams on major rivers including the Abay (Nile), Wabi Shebelle, Genale, Dawa, Omo, Baro, Tekeze and Awash.
It also plans at least 250 more medium and small dams on the tributaries of those rivers.
The programme is meant to boost hydropower, irrigation, water management and agricultural development across the country.
anne witkowski retweeted
I’m 12 miles from the Gobeklitepe site and 98 miles away from the mysterious Ark site. I’m just about to hit the hay in a wee cave.
If you are into the ancient civilisation stuff, the next few days will be right up your street. If you aren’t into that, stick around anyways because nothing ever goes smooth and I’m sure some mad situations are inevitable. 🥸
anne witkowski retweeted
you have no idea how much Arctic research data from the past is out there and underutilized and/or even undigitized. Spend an afternoon in the library at UAF Fairbanks, will blow your mind.
We should really devote greater resources to rediscovering what we once knew - or thought we knew
For most of the 19th century, American whaleships kept a logbook entry every day, with the ship's position at noon and every whale they struck. Whalinghistory.org has digitised about 1,500 of these logbooks: 468,249 daily positions between 1784 and 1920.
The first part shows where the ships were at noon over all those years, folded into a single calendar year. The fleet followed the whales with the seasons: south in the southern summer, north to Japan, Kamchatka and the Gulf of Alaska in the northern summer. The second part shows the 30,508 strikes recorded in the logbooks, by species. Sperm whales were taken in the warm water of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, right whales in cooler water north and south, and bowheads in the Arctic after the first whaler sailed through the Bering Strait in 1848. The last part counts the American ships at sea each year. The fleet peaked at 763 ships in 1845, then shrank with the 1849 gold rush, the switch from whale oil to petroleum after 1859, the Civil War, and the loss of 33 ships in the Arctic ice in 1871.
These are American logbooks only, and most surviving logbooks date from the 1830s to the 1850s. Positions were worked out at sea and can be off by two or three degrees.
anne witkowski retweeted
.@SECWAR “One of the most alarming findings of our comprehensive review was that our war colleges actively AVOID the rigorous study of recent American strategic failures.
Faculty dismiss them as ‘sore subjects’ or politically sensitive topics.
We must ask ourselves: How can an institution claim to teach military strategy while refusing to conduct an unsparing autopsy of, for example, the catastrophic withdrawal in Afghanistan?
Thirteen brave American service members were murdered at Abbey Gate due to gross operational, strategic, and political failures.
The chaotic collapse of that theater was an unmitigated disaster for American credibility.
Our war colleges owe it to every sailor, soldier, airman, and Marine who served in that twenty-year conflict – a brutally honest post-mortem.
Why did our senior leadership fail to foresee the collapse? Why did our operational plans unravel in days?
f our future generals and flag officers do not study – and understand – that collapse with clinical precision, they are doomed to repeat it in other AORs and other domains.”