End0fLine

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/25255100

I haven't kept up much with this since moving, but I first read about Synagro and their biosolid fertilizer when it started causing problems in Johnson County, Texas.

Long story short,

This company has been selling a biosolid fertilizer that people have been using in their fields, which has led to incredibly high levels of PFAS contamination in nearby ponds and animals. A couple in Grandview lost a good portion of their cattle mysteriously at the same time.

This actually led to an investigation in Johnson County, but since counties can't regulate PFAS levels and the state (at the time, I'm not sure about now) hasn't regulated it either, there wasn't much that could be done.

Following the county’s investigation, Woolley led the charge to pass a local resolution urging farmers to stop using biosolids on their land.

The resolution called for Fort Worth to stop sending its biosolids to fertilizer companies until the TCEQ tests them for the presence of PFAS and asked the EPA to set limits on PFAS in biosolids. The resolution also called on state lawmakers to regulate the application of biosolids-based fertilizer on farmland or give power to counties to do so.

“That’s the hard part,” Woolley said. “We don’t have authority to ban biosolids.”

The city of Fort Worth has now contracted their contract with Synagro "over contract requirements".

Johnson County, Texas declared a state of disaster in February of this year.

• Investigation reveals "stunningly" high toxin levels near Grandview , Cleburne Times Review Feb 19, 2024

• Texas farmers say sewage-based fertilizer tainted with “forever chemicals” poisoned their land and killed their livestock Cleburne Times Review Dec 5, 2024

• Suits filed against biosolids companies , Cleburne Times Review Dec 12, 2024

• Fort Worth sewage sludge fertilizer leads Johnson County to declare ‘state of disaster’ KERA News, Feb 18, 2025

• Fort Worth ends 10-year contract with fertilizer company accused of water, land contamination KERA News March 26, 2025>

• Johnson County declares disaster over land contamination, asks Gov. Abbott to seek federal aid CBS News Feb 12, 2025

*The Cleburne Times Review has a very stingy article limit. I apologize.

I haven't kept up much with this since moving, but I first read about Synagro and their biosolid fertilizer when it started causing problems in Johnson County, Texas.

Long story short,

This company has been selling a biosolid fertilizer that people have been using in their fields, which has led to incredibly high levels of PFAS contamination in nearby ponds and animals. A couple in Grandview lost a good portion of their cattle mysteriously at the same time.

This actually led to an investigation in Johnson County, but since counties can't regulate PFAS levels and the state (at the time, I'm not sure about now) hasn't regulated it either, there wasn't much that could be done.

Following the county’s investigation, Woolley led the charge to pass a local resolution urging farmers to stop using biosolids on their land.

The resolution called for Fort Worth to stop sending its biosolids to fertilizer companies until the TCEQ tests them for the presence of PFAS and asked the EPA to set limits on PFAS in biosolids. The resolution also called on state lawmakers to regulate the application of biosolids-based fertilizer on farmland or give power to counties to do so.

“That’s the hard part,” Woolley said. “We don’t have authority to ban biosolids.”

The city of Fort Worth has now contracted their contract with Synagro "over contract requirements".

Johnson County, Texas declared a state of disaster in February of this year.

• Investigation reveals "stunningly" high toxin levels near Grandview , Cleburne Times Review Feb 19, 2024

• Texas farmers say sewage-based fertilizer tainted with “forever chemicals” poisoned their land and killed their livestock Cleburne Times Review Dec 5, 2024

• Suits filed against biosolids companies , Cleburne Times Review Dec 12, 2024

• Fort Worth sewage sludge fertilizer leads Johnson County to declare ‘state of disaster’ KERA News, Feb 18, 2025

• Fort Worth ends 10-year contract with fertilizer company accused of water, land contamination KERA News March 26, 2025>

• Johnson County declares disaster over land contamination, asks Gov. Abbott to seek federal aid CBS News Feb 12, 2025

*The Cleburne Times Review has a very stingy article limit. I apologize.

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 haven’t collected cards in years, so seeing these cool, small pieces of art is nice.

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.

Dates: March 27, 2025 10:00 EDT - April 3, 2025 10:00 EDT

Items included in the Stupendous Jester's Festival Box, earned by completing event daylies:

• Festive Dazzlers
• Cherry Blossom Confetti
• Revelry Pies
• Festive furnishings
• Jester’s Festival provisioning recipes
• Treasures that can be sold to vendors for Gold
• Previous years’ style pages

One of the following:

• A random unbound page for either the Broom or Bucket styles.
• Regal Regalia, Second Seed, or Jester’s Seeker Suit style pages
• A fragment for previous Jester’s collectibles:
• • Cadwell's Surprise Box memento
• • Sovereign Sow pet
• • Playful Prankster's Surprise Box memento
• • Jester’s Daedroth Suit costume

In addition to the aforementioned rewards, the Stupendous Jester’s Festival Box has a chance to contain the following goodies:

• NEW: A random unbound page of the Alliance Mimicry outfit style
• • Note that this style consists of head and chest pages for each alliance
• NEW: An unbound Jester’s Deadly Headband adornment Runebox
• Jester's Scintillator Runebox
• Cherry Blossom Branch Runebox
• Cadwell's Kitchen weapon style page
• High-value treasures
• Festive Noise Maker Parts
• Joke Popper Parts

There are also items that you can obtain using the 3 event tickets you receive for completing the first Jester's Festival quest every day, for a total of 24 through the event. More details at the link

I've only played in Cyrodiil a handful of times so I haven't really noticed the performance issues associated with it, but its nice to see they are trying other methods to try and figure out where the performance bottleneck is.

It sounds like they are going to separate PvE and PvP effects on abilities, looking to simplify what goes on in the background.

From the story as written, it seems locals see this as a temporary win, knowing that Las Vegas Sands will keep trying to get a casino approved until they get what they want.

It seems that this company is full of Dallas Maverick people, leading some to wonder if the team will be moved from the American Airlines Center to this new development in Irving.

Las Vegas Sands first entered into an agreement to buy the land in 2022, and the purchase was finalized in 2023, months before primary Las Vegas Sands shareholder Miriam Adelson acquired a controlling stake in the Dallas Mavericks.

Patrick Dumont, governor of the Dallas Mavericks, was also recently named the next chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands.

The Sands’ attachment to the project raised additional concerns about whether Mavericks ownership would move the team from the American Airlines Center in Dallas to the new Irving location — something Birkenheide neither confirmed nor denied at Monday’s planning and zoning commission hearing.

How do you guys feel about having a local casino? Would this really be something for the locals or people coming from out of town?

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/24698265

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.

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.