End0fLine

Only a temporary block at this point, but I love the advice here by the judge:

"Anyone who finds the performance or performers offensive has a simple remedy: don't go."

For as free as conservative Texas politicians claim their constituents are, they sure can’t mind their own business.

I have been hearing about temperature issues in prisons in Texas since I was a child. I can't help but think this stems from a lot of Americans thinking of prisons as places to be punished, not rehabilitated. This quote makes me crazy:

Department officials acknowledge it is hot inside its prisons but deny that the conditions are unconstitutional. During testimony in the case last year, Department Executive Director Bryan Collier argued it would be financially and logistically impossible to immediately install A/C in every one of the state’s prisons and noted that he is working diligently to fix the problem within their fiscal constraints.

This has been an issue for a WHILE. Bryan Collier's statement makes it seem like this is something we just found out about that can't all be fixed at once.

I understand (some) people go to prison for awful things they've done, but they shouldn't have to deal with a Texas summer with no AC on top of that.

It would be best to go to the site itself to see the changes, but here is a snipper:

Trailer on Youtube

What is Vibrant Visuals?

Vibrant Visuals is a visual graphics upgrade that will transform the way players experience Minecraft. Initially releasing for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, it is our developer’s vision for what Minecraft looks like with improved visual elements such as directional lighting, volumetric fog, and more. The result is dazzling – shadows move as the sun arcs across the sky, water reflects the landscape around it, and clouds appear infinite as they stretch far into the distance.

Vibrant Visuals brings thousands of individually crafted elements while preserving what makes Minecraft unique. Chief Creative Officer Jens Bergensten describes it as “a new look that still stays true to our creative principles”, as biomes and builds come to life with the addition of a range of graphical enhancements. But what you will notice the most is the interplay of light and shadow.

Improvements including volumetric lighting mean you’ll be able to watch the sun’s rays carve across the Overworld, and every block will cast its own shadow. Light will shine through your windows, and you’ll be able to see reflections in water and on the surface of metallic blocks, while subsurface scattering brings a gentle glow to leaves and grass. “Water is one of my favorite improvements,” said Game Art Director Jasper Boerstra. “It looks absolutely amazing.”

Mobs and items will also have more of a glow – spider’s eyes will be even more menacing in the dark, and torches will cast a radiant path back to your build. You can see this in action in the deep dark, too. “The sculk is now more emissive, more immersive, and it creates a really magical scene,” adds Jasper Boerstra.

As a cosmetic update to the game, Vibrant Visuals graphics will not impact gameplay mechanics. This means that existing lighting mechanics such as when hostile mobs may or may not burn, crop growth, daylight detectors, mob farms, and more will all still work exactly as before. This also means that players on a Realm can all play together regardless of whether or not they are using Vibrant Visuals – as the gameplay of Minecraft remains the same. As Jasper Boerstra explained in the broadcast: “Vibrant Visuals is backwards compatible with old worlds, and it runs locally – so you can play together with friends who don’t have it activated.”

The changes are coming to Bedrock first, but are coming to Java as well at a later date.

A hunter found a mammoth tusk sticking out of a creek bed on a ranch in the Big Bend region. There is an interview with Bryon Schroeder, director of the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sol Ross (a Texas university), on the linked page, but I'll add a few quotes:

How could this be overlooked for so long? It must be just that remote.

I think it’s that remote and there’s not that many people out there. I think these hunters had a little serendipity involved. These guys were out, you know, the right place at the right time.

It could have also just been dislodged rather recently because, I mean, it was in the creek drainage. So it could have just been exposed that quickly.

And it was it was it known that prior to this discovery mammoths lived in this region or what?

Yeah, so Harvard, with Sul Ross, did a very early, very large study out here in the late 1920s, early ’30s. And they knew about a lot of mammoths, and we’ve been actually trying to find those mammoth localities. And we just haven’t had a ton of luck.

And so people knew about them, but nobody’s ever dated them. Nobody’s ever really found one and figured out, you know, which part of the Pleistocene we’re talking about. Because at some point, mammoths get over here before people do.

You know, are these too early? Are these the right age for being associated with humans? And we’ve just not done that work because we just haven’t been able to find those localities.

How rare is this discovery? I mean, when was the last time a discovery like this was made out in your neck of the woods?

Uh, I’m sure there’s probably some ranchers out here that probably know where a lot of mammoths are on their land.

They just haven’t rang you up yet.

Yeah, haven’t rang me up. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years and I’ve seen one. I’ve seen this one. So they’re fairly rare.

Something a little more lighthearted that what usually gets posted around here, so I thought I'd share.

Hello there!

Would it be possible to get the links in the sidebar updated to use the format that allows you to go to that community without leaving your instance? I'm in midwest.social, but when I click on the sidebar, it takes me to the community on Lemmy.World, meaning I'm not logged in and can't interact.

I think the way to do this would be to format the links like this:

! [email protected]

I have no idea why but my foxtail fern has taken off in the last few days. I’ve been having to turn it every day due to the tops always facing towards the window every night.

I found this what I assume to be tradescantia zebrina last winter as a little stem with three leaves laying on the ground. It has turned into one of my favorite plants over the last year!