Brian Leech

Brian Leech

@brianleechphd.bsky.social

111

Posts

Historian of American West, Midwest, environmental history, mining, energy. Currently writing about the history of U.S. speed limits & mining in popular culture. https://brianleechphd.net

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I ran the problem of breaking bedrock by my 11-year old and he tells me that it’s pretty tough to break bedrock since not even a diamond pickaxe will work. You can use ender pearls, but you might take damage, or you can try some cheat codes, so I humbly suggest those options to the engineers.

Bedrock surprise slows Rock Island revitalization, raises costwww.ourquadcities.com There’s no doubt Rock Island is making a big investment in the future of downtown. But the early stages of that $8.7-million revitalization project are rocky at best. The streets at the core …

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Our Fall ‘24 catalog is live! Poetry, history of science, architecture, Latin American Studies. Take a look, there’s something for everyone. upittpress.org/fall-winter-...

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Princeton's new Humanities Initiative is looking for an Executive Director. Apply here: main-princeton.icims.com/jobs/19340/e...

Careers | Human Resourcesmain-princeton.icims.com A career at Princeton provides the opportunity to make meaningful impact. We invite you to imagine the difference you can make being a part of our community.

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Uhhhh… this is probably bad 😬😬

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Four women writers who did not have a room of their own or a private income. womenshistorynetwork.org/radical-port...

Radical Portraits of Working Class Women Writers – Laura Mawwomenshistorynetwork.org Virginia Woolf’s maxim in her now-classic polemic was this: ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’.[1] But what if a writer did not have access to these resource…

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Thanks to significant international cooperation between fisheries and scientists, Pacific bluefin tuna stocks are rebounding a decade ahead of schedule. #ShareGoodNewsToo www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-stor...

From Overfished to Sustainable Harvests: Pacific Bluefin Tuna Rebound to New Highswww.fisheries.noaa.gov The recovery of Pacific bluefin tuna has achieved a major milestone—the species exceeded international targets a decade ahead of schedule. The rebuilding of Pacific bluefin tuna reflects a fisheries m...

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Check out the new #MustRead book by @cjdenial.bsky.social! I'm bringing a big stack of #PedagogyOfKindness with me to the Syracuse CTLE when I start my new job as Director in August. www.oupress.com/978080619385...

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Google’s emissions are up 48% in 5 years. Microsoft’s are up 30% since 2020. Those soaring figures are being driven by mass investments in data centers to power AI tools. Generative AI is a climate disaster and data center expansion must be stopped.

Generative AI is a climate disasterdisconnect.blog Tech companies are abandoning emissions pledges to chase AI market share

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If you prefer your #histsci (or #philsci!) in audio form, be sure to listen to @emilyherring.bsky.social (2018-19 LHL Fellow) discuss Henri #Bergson's theories of time & comedy w/Matthew Sweet on a recent episode of Free Thinking on BBC Radio 4. bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... [8/9] #philosophy #histSTM

Free Thinking - The illusion of time, the summer solstice & the philosophy of comedy - BBC Soundsbbc.co.uk Mark Miodownik, Emily Herring, Rob Newman and Fay Dowker consider Time with Matthew Sweet.

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Online Event - Let’s Chat About Communicating Environmental History to the Public - ASEH Connects Friday, July 12th – 4pm EDT – Zoom Join @jessicamdewitt.bsky.social & @palmblad.bsky.social for a casual chat about communicating #EnvHist to the public! niche-canada.org/2024/07/05/o...

Online Event - ASEH Connects - Let's Chat About Communicating Environmental History to the Publicniche-canada.org 12 July 2024 - Online - Join DeWitt and Palmblad for a casual discussion of communicating environmental history to the public.

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An Empty pot. arboretum.harvard.edu/stories/an-e... A new article by me on a curated absence of extinction at Kew Gardens. Fantastic to see this in the beautiful latest issue of Arnoldia on the theme 'Perspectives on Extinction and Botanical Collections' #extinction #envhist

An Empty Potarboretum.harvard.edu Seeking stories of extinction in museums worldwide, Dolly Jørgensen finds a curated absence at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. It is just an empty pot. The huge orange clay container stands amidst verdant ...

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Does immunity extend to department chairs? Asking for a friend.

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Coming briefly out of my summer hibernation to announce this - I’ll be a fellow at the SHI in October with a project on Gaming Green Transitions. Definitely a side project, but such a fun one! #envhum and #boardgames!

Science History Institute Welcomes 2024–2025 Beckman Center Fellowswww.sciencehistory.org Our scholars study a wide range of topics in the history and social studies of chemistry, chemical engineering, and the life sciences.

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which is more troublesome: advertising auto tourism in the fraser canyon in a princeton-based paper, or associating auto travel through the fraser canyon with alcohol consumption? from the similkameen star, 10 may 1951. #bchist #cdnhist #envhist

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"The Work of their Hands: The Association of Oil Wives Clubs" by Rebecca Dolgoy is the 5th post in our series highlighting the Canadian Energy Museum, a small museum situated in the town of Devon, Alberta that has closed due to the loss of funding. niche-canada.org/2024/07/01/t... #envhist #cdnhist

The Work of their Hands: The Association of Oil Wives Clubsniche-canada.org With the founding of the Oil Wives Club, these women forged community, created friendships, and established support systems.

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“I need to get beach body ready” That beach body 🦀 🐬:

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Watching academics get into public writing like 🥹🥹🥹

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Oh boy, $150,000!

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we're all just gut biomes with internet access

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Over the weekend, I found a tiny pink plastic shoe on the ground near my office. I placed it at eye level, on a wooden post, by the stairs. This morning, on that same post, was this picture.

Looking forward to a big rise in “how to constrict your pupils” on TikTok. apple.news/AywtuF9idRqK...

This facial feature makes people more attractive, new study findsapple.news Beauty, as the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. But a particular feature of the eyes plays a role in a person's perceived attractiveness, according to a new study.

I’m beginning to think that maybe the internet was a bad idea.

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Werner Herzog directing a Maybelline ad: Perhaps she is born with it. What a frightful notion, to be imbued with the fetters of capitalist commodification from birth. It suggests God Himself is a part of our dreadful pattern instead of a refuge from it.

“People think they’re choosing something totally unique, but they do it in a way that winds up moving with the zeitgeist…names have actually gotten less distinctive over time…- a phenomenon Wattenberg calls ‘lockstep individualism.’” apple.news/AbP-0PkEPQ1W...

Analysis | The mysterious tyranny of trendy baby namesapple.news Why is every other kid these days named Mason, Grayson or Carson? We mined America’s biggest baby-name database to find the surprising answer.

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this newspaper headline is the 1930 version of encountering an incomprehensible trending story about some Twitch streamer with 4 million followers

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If you take a book, is that Godzilla Minus One?

Godzilla free library Spokane, WA

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the rainforest cafe won’t be authentic enough for me if they don’t bulldoze 40% of the restaurant while i’m there.

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heartbreaking. this was probably my favorite part of visiting Seattle. Now instead of being accessible to people it'll all be parted out to rich people's collections. www.xda-developers.com/living-compu...

The Living Computers Museum in Seattle is closing down, and it'll auction off 150 pieces of history for charitywww.xda-developers.com The Living Computers Museum's auctions will contain some amazing items, such as a signed letter from Einstein and Bill Gates's first PC.

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Okay so to be clear we are destroying power grids, the livelihoods of actual humans beings, and communication/research infrastructure for the sake of an algorithm that converts stolen data into unreliable stolen data and consistently loses millions of dollars. Just to be clear

Illinois mine subsidence in the news. #mininghistory

Sinkhole swallows soccer field in Illinois in shocking videowww.nbcnews.com The hole, about 100 feet wide and 30 feet deep, was caused by an underground mine.