Good morning, Gnusies!
Lots of stuff happening in the world — have some good stuff that hasn’t been reported by every news outlet and screamed from every mountain top.
As some of you already know, I am an avid gamer. Currently, I’m all wrapped up in Solasta, playing several different campaigns* with various combinations of my online gaming group. And while horror isn’t my genre, I have to give props where props are due:
In 2021, a pair of Polish computer game designers produced a free video game based on the works of American sci-fi author H. P. Lovecraft, and it went on to become a “significant success.”
Then the following year, Russia invaded Ukraine in a war that has devastated parts of Poland’s southern neighbor. Though the game, titled Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft, is free, the game’s developers, Bit Golem, released several pieces of downloadable content for small charges.
Downloadable content allows people who already own a game to buy additional features, stories, and activities to augment the standard game version. These small funds allowed them to amass a $50,000 donation to humanitarian aid groups working in the conflict zones of Ukraine.
“We debuted Dagon in 2021 as a narrative experiment and our first non-commissioned game,” writes Bit Golem. “It became a significant success, and as of the latest transfer, together with you—players from all over the world—we have collected over PLN200,000 / $50,000 for charity (organizations such as the Polish Red Cross, Polish Humanitarian Action, Save the Children, or Voices Of Children) Thank you!”
* Yes, we’ve gotten to the “Don’t we have item/spell/class?” “Different game.” point.
Another story that got my attention through gaming, since I prefer to play gnomes. And this one just tickled my funny bone. I cannot do this story justice, so I ask that you click through for more details.
The group calls themselves the 'Gnome Restoration Society,' and Kelowna resident and gnome-owner Kelly Blair has no idea who or how many people may be involved in the secretive organization.
In late June, Blair was sad to discover that his beloved, albeit weathered and worn, gnomes were missing from his front lawn.
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However, on July 3, Blair curiously heard a knock at his backdoor.
There stood an elderly woman who presented a perplexed Blair with a blank envelope addressed to "The Homeowner."
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Every single gnome that had gone missing from his lawn, plus two extra had been cleaned, painted and were smiling up at him from boxes in the back of the mysterious woman's vehicle.
I love seeing bridges across cultures, and I’m familiar enough with this particular movie to be very interested in watching this particular dub. Also super glad to see stuff like this given the history of the language.
AKA: Mark Ruffalo re-assembled the original cast of The Avengers to dub it in Lakota.
Parks and recreation! Not just for the able-bodied (or your television)! And in Tennessee of all places!
Tennessee has just launched a program offering at 22 of its state parks for providing all-terrain electric wheelchairs to visitors.
These allow disabled users to explore the beauty of the Volunteer State’s scenery for free to all kids and adults.
“We’re trying to extend other parts of accessibility so everybody feels welcome and invited to come to Tennessee State Parks,” deputy commissioner Greer Tidwell said.
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Tennessee joins a number of states and parks, including Colorado, Michigan, and South Dakota, as well as Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a National Park Service unit, that allow visitors to use or reserve off-road wheelchairs.
In 2022, GNN reported that Georgia and Minnesota also offer all-terrain chairs at some of their parks. Expensive and heavy, most of these states offer wheelchairs at only some of the parks, so always check before taking a disabled friend or loved one out for the day.
SCIENCE! For serious, I love this particular thing because it’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to experiencing exploring the far reaches of space — I want to watch this in an IMAX theater and pretend like I’m watching from the observation deck of the starship Enterprise.
The new 3D visualization also uses data from NASA’s more modern James Webb telescope to produce a detailed multi-wavelength movie of these towering star-birthing celestial structures—and it takes visitors into their three-dimensional structures, beyond the otherwise flat, two-dimensional images captured from telescopes.
“By flying past and amongst the pillars, viewers experience their three-dimensional structure and see how they look different in the Hubble visible-light view versus the Webb infrared-light view,” explained principal visualization scientist Frank Summers of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who led the movie development team for NASA’s Universe of Learning.
“The contrast helps them understand why we have more than one space telescope to observe different aspects of the same object.”
NASA said the new movie (scroll down to view) helps viewers experience how two of the world’s most powerful space telescopes work together to provide a more complex portrait of the pillars.
More SPACE! I admit, I totally forgot that the acquisition of asteroid material had been a Thing ™. So for me, it’s two announcements in one!
Among the possible origins for the asteroid Bennu, which recently became the first asteroid ever sampled by a NASA mission, a surprising indication is that it may have come from a water world.
The development arose after researchers analyzed the mixture of rocks and dust from bodies beyond Earth, collectively called ‘regolith’, scooped up from Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in 2020.
A spacecraft was able to extract the sample and carry it 200 million miles back to Earth.
Scientists had hoped the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) sample would hold secrets of the solar system’s past and the prebiotic chemistry that might have led to the origin of life on Earth.
An early analysis study of the sample, published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, documents compounds found that are the components of biochemistry for all known life on Earth today.
Sports and motherhood are getting closer to kicking the “one or the other” label. (And honestly? This should have been done decades ago.)
Before they have even begun, the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris have already made history. After announcing that Paris 2024 will be the first-ever Games to achieve gender parity, the International Olympic Committee has also announced an expansion of services for athletes that could change the game.
This year, in a partnership with longtime sponsor P&G, the Olympic Village will be home to its first-ever nursery.
According to a press release from the IOC, the nursery will “provide a comfortable and convenient environment for athlete parents to spend time with their babies and young children during the Games.”
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“I just knew how difficult it was to compete at the top level after I had my daughter,” Felix told CBS News.
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“Many athletes are balancing their sporting careers and family. I know how this feels as I competed at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games as a mother with a young child,” said IOC Athletes’ Commission Chair Emma Terho. “Pregnancy and motherhood don’t have to mean a career end for female athletes.”
That’s it for me, folks!
And now….the weather. (My name is still not Cecil Baldwin. I swear.)
