2022-08-20

etc

Virginia test scores and school pandemic closures

The differences were particularly stark in mathematics. Two-thirds of students passed math exams last school year, compared to 82 percent before the pandemic. Racial and economic disparities also widened, with White and Asian students making more progress toward their pre-pandemic levels than Black and Hispanic students. All groups fared better in reading than they did in math, but state officials said that was due to the fact that standards were lowered in 2021, and cautioned against optimism.

XScreenSaver was released 30 years ago

I probably wrote the first line of code in April or May 1991. If a time traveller had told me then, "this will be your life's work", I probably would have been as surprised by that as by ...gestures wildly... the Current State Of Affairs.
Don’t plug in that free Microsoft Office USB drive you got in the mail
- HN comments
Shared Libraries as Executables
Nvidia to Share New Details on Grace CPU, Hopper GPU, NVLink Switch, Jetson Orin | Hacker News

The Colorado River Drought Across Lake Mead and Lake Powell Seen in NASA Images
Jevons’ paradox revisited: Implications for climate change
Hosepipe ban starts as drought declared in south-west Wales
Solar briefly overtakes coal in Australia as number 1 source of power nationally
The Unexpected Future

Under the UN’s medium variant projection, the world’s population will peak in 2086, while under the low variant, the peak will occur in 2053, and by 2100, the population will be about a billion below today’s level.
The collapsism debate in Spain: a summary

Something funny is happening among the Climate Change activists, policy makers and scientists in Spain. The beginning of a fracture, maybe, on account of how screwed we are, and what course of action to take.
Should we be trying to create a circular urine economy?
Rhine River Runs Dry