Gregory Palmer

The Dude Abides...

[slash1s @slash1sol]

IN 1982 GRACE HOPPER WALKED INTO THE NSA AND EXPLAINED THE NEXT 40 YEARS OF COMPUTING

48 minutes from the woman who invented the compiler -- the first person who made a machine understand human words.

-> The idea that lands: stop bending humans to the machine. Bend the machine to humans.

She built the first compiler when the experts swore computers could only crunch numbers.
She wanted you to write in plain words and let the machine handle the translation.

Forty years later you barely write code at all -- you tell the model what you want in plain English and it writes it for you.

The compiler was step one. The LLM is the same idea, finished.

Memorizing syntax was never the skill -- saying clearly what you actually want is. This is where that idea was born.

Most people think talking to your computer in plain English started in 2023. The ones who watch this know a Navy admiral called it in 1982.

Bookmark & Watch it today ↓

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Twenty-five years ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made a bold move that most universities would never dare.

Instead of locking its world-class course materials behind campus walls, MIT decided to put nearly its entire curriculum online, completely free for anyone with an internet connection.

That decision gave birth to MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW).

What began as a bold experiment in 2001 has become one of the most significant educational initiatives in history.

Today, OCW provides materials from more than 2,500 undergraduate and graduate courses across virtually every discipline: physics, engineering, artificial intelligence, economics, biology, mathematics, computer science, and many more.

Anyone can access lecture notes, problem sets, exams, syllabi, and a growing library of video lectures, with no tuition, no application, and no account required.

According to MIT, more than 500 million people worldwide have used these resources over the past 25 years.

The impact has been profound. Students use it to ace exams, explore new fields, and launch careers. Educators around the globe integrate the materials into their own teaching. Many learners credit OCW with helping them pass professional certifications and unlock new opportunities.

Beyond its direct benefits, OpenCourseWare helped spark the global open education movement, inspiring dozens of other universities to share their knowledge freely online.

Even more impressive: the project was originally planned as a 10-year initiative. A quarter-century later, it's still expanding.

MIT now aims to reach 1 billion learners in the coming decade, while enhancing the experience with powerful new AI-powered learning tools.

[BowTiedPhys @BowTiedPhys]

Remind myself of the role reversal often.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Morgan Freeman is turning his entire 124-acre ranch in Mississippi into sanctuary for bees.

Alarmed by collapsing bee populations, Freeman decided to act back in 2014. He imported 26 beehives from Arkansas to his ranch in Mississippi and planted fields of clover, lavender, and magnolia – creating a pollinator paradise across the entire property.

What began as a personal hobby quickly became a full-scale conservation effort. Bees pollinate about 80% of the world’s flowering crops – including many fruits, nuts, and vegetables. One healthy colony can pollinate up to 300 million flowers in a single day. Without bees, ecosystems collapse. Food systems follow.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

In 1995, 14 wolves were released in Yellowstone National Park.

No one expected the miracle that the wolves would bring.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

In 1962, Brendon Grimshaw purchased Moyenne Island in the Seychelles for roughly $11,000. At the time, the small island was completely barren and uninhabited.

Over the following decades, Grimshaw dedicated his life to restoring its ecosystem. He personally planted more than 16,000 trees, created walking trails, and reintroduced endangered species — most notably giant Aldabra tortoises — transforming the once-desolate island into a lush, thriving nature sanctuary.

Despite numerous offers from wealthy developers eager to turn the island into a luxury resort, Grimshaw consistently refused. He famously rejected a $50 million bid, determined to keep Moyenne Island as a protected natural haven open for people to enjoy rather than a private commercial venture.

In 2009, his vision was permanently secured when Moyenne Island was incorporated into the Sainte Anne Marine National Park, becoming the smallest national park in the world.

Grimshaw lived on the island until his death in 2012, leaving behind a remarkable legacy of conservation and environmental stewardship that continues to protect this unique paradise for future generations.

[Dudes Posting Their W’s @DudespostingWs]

Possibly the best unboxing video on the internet

[Time Capsule Tales @timecaptales]

Rick Astley & the Foo Fighters perform "Never Gonna Give You Up" in the style of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", after Dave Grohl spotted Rick on the side of the stage and just pulled him up to do the song

[Sesame Street @sesamestreet]

Congratulations to our friend @michaelb4jordan for winning Best Actor at the 2026 Oscars! 🌟 All of us on Sesame Street are so proud of you! 🏆💛💚

[Tolkien Universe @Tolkienuniverse]

Erebor recreated in real life with lego bricks!

[All day Astronomy @forallcurious]

At the NASA space science center, there's a poster with bees that reads:

"The aerodynamic body of a bee is not suited for flight, but it's good that the bee doesn't know this."

The law of physics, the aerodynamic principle, states that the wingspan is too small to keep its massive body aloft in flight, but the bee doesn't know—she knows nothing about physics or its logic—and yet she flies anyway.

This is what we all can do: fly and triumph at any moment, in the face of any difficulties and under any circumstances. Bees—regardless of the size of your wings, fly and enjoy life.

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

In 1982, Winona LaDuke made a choice that defied the logic of upward mobility. At 23, armed with a degree in economics from Harvard, she bypassed the high-rise career path to move to the White Earth Reservation in rural Minnesota—a place she had never lived, where her arrival was met with suspicion. Her father was Ojibwe from White Earth; her mother was Jewish from the Bronx. LaDuke had grown up in Oregon, spoke no Ojibwe, and carried the "Ivy League" label—a credential that, on the reservation, often signaled an outsider who came to talk rather than listen.

She took a job as a high school principal at Pine Point, where she listened more than she spoke. What she heard was the mechanical hum of a century-old theft. In 1867, a treaty had established White Earth as a permanent home for the Anishinaabe—over 837,000 acres of tallgrass prairie and sacred wild rice beds. It was supposed to be protected in perpetuity. By the time LaDuke arrived, a staggering 90% of that land had been stripped away through "paper-wars": fraudulent land deals, tax forfeitures on a people with no cash economy, and contracts written in English for people who spoke only Ojibwe.

In 1985, LaDuke joined a massive consolidated lawsuit to recover the stolen territory. When the courts eventually dismissed the claims, ruling that too much time had passed, most people would have moved on. She stayed. In 1989, using $20,000 from a human rights award, she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP) with a mission that was deceptively simple: buy back the land, acre by grueling acre. No dramatic protests or media campaigns—just quiet, persistent reclamation.

It was impossibly slow work, measured in single-digit parcels while hundreds of thousands of acres remained beyond reach. But something else was growing alongside the land. LaDuke launched Ojibwe language programs so children could speak the words their grandparents had been punished for using. She reintroduced buffalo herds that hadn't roamed the region in a century and established wind energy projects when renewable energy was still considered fringe. She revived the cultivation of manoomin (wild rice)—the sacred grain that had sustained her people for generations but had nearly disappeared.

By 2000, the project had recovered 1,200 acres. It was a fraction of what was lost, but it meant ceremonies could resume and memory could take root. Then came the pipelines. When Enbridge proposed the Line 3 tar sands pipeline—a project cutting through treaty-protected waters—LaDuke’s quiet work became loud resistance. She organized legal challenges, led direct actions that blocked construction equipment, and stood with "Water Protectors" in freezing conditions. She was arrested multiple times and spent days in jail, facing criminal charges that took years to resolve.

More than 600 people were arrested during the Line 3 protests. They chained themselves to equipment and demanded the world pay attention. Though the pipeline was completed in 2021, the fight shifted the foundation of future battles. Treaty rights entered mainstream legal debate, and when a Minnesota judge eventually dismissed charges against LaDuke and other protectors, it established a precedent for the right to protect treaty lands that continues to influence cases today.

LaDuke also took this message to the national stage, running for Vice President on the Green Party ticket in 1996 and 2000. She knew she wouldn't win; she ran to force Indigenous issues into presidential debates and make erasure impossible. In 2016, she became the first Green Party member and first Native American woman to receive an Electoral College vote—a symbolic moment reflecting four decades of making herself impossible to ignore.

© History Pictures

#archaeohistories

[Really American 🇺🇸 @ReallyAmerican1]

BREAKING: Rep. Grijalva immediately slams Speaker Johnson with a fiery speech for "an abuse of power. One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing in of a duly elected member."

Let's go. 🔥

[Protect Kamala Harris ✊ @DisavowTrump20]

🚨NEW: Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus is joining Jane Fonda in re-launching The Committee for the First Amendment, an organization founded in the 1940s to defend free speech against fascism.

RETWEET if you stand with @OfficialJLD for free speech!

[Gregory Palmer @SideShowGary]

@AuntCunt Pendent really ties the “look” together. 🔥

[Wu Tang is for the Children @WUTangKids]

I love Bill Burr….every single word….not a single lie detected�

[kira 👾 @kirawontmiss]

imagine interviewing Willem Dafoe and not knowing who he is😭

[IntellectualDorkWeb @Intel_Dork]

I live in a Van Gogh down by the river!

[meg “Yooper” bitchell @MeganBitchell]

Sort of the best anyone has ever played a character for like 5 minutes

[WiscoJasmine 🧀 @WiscoJasmine]

@theliamnissan