of some stuff I ran across yesterday.

Let’s All Watch Liz Warren Tariffsplain To Inattentive Dunderhead On CNBC by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Ma’am, you need to use your listening skills. Read on Substack

Snippet-go read this, the videos are delightful- Sen. Prof. Warren remains outstanding!

Professor Senator Elizabeth Warren stopped by CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday for some chattin’ and some rantin’ and some tarriffsplainin’ for the benefit of the show’s blow-dried hosts. We don’t normally watch financial news shows, because what are we, the Vanderbilts? But put Warren on anytime, and we’ll consider tuning in more. She can be entertaining!

Especially if your anchor isn’t following her argument, which sends her into her professorial did-you-not-do-the-reading voice. Which is what happened to Sara Eisen, who must have thought for one moment that she was back at the Medill School and had skipped that week’s assignment. (snip)

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Not to pick up the is-it-blue-or-green thing again, but-

Scientists Learned How to Trick Our Eyes Into Seeing an Entirely New Color

By stimulating thousands of individual cone cells, researchers made volunteers see a blue-green color of “unprecedented saturation.”

By Ed Cara Published April 18, 2025

Black Mirror, eat your heart out. Researchers have apparently just figured out how to make people see a color completely new to humanity.

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley conducted the research, published Friday in Science Advances. Using a technique called Oz, the research team induced human volunteers into seeing a color beyond the “natural human gamut.” Oz could allow scientists to conduct experiments previously not possible before, the authors say, and the lessons we learn from it might even someday help color-blind people regain their missing color vision.

Our retinas contain certain photoreceptive cells, known as cones, that allow us to see color. There are three cone types that correspond to different wavelengths of light: short-wavelength (S) cones, medium-wavelength (M) cones, and long-wavelength (L) cones.

Typically, when we try to reproduce color in front of someone’s eyes, we do so by manipulating the spectrum of light seen by the retina’s cones. But since some of our cones, particularly M cones, share overlap in how they respond to certain wavelengths, there are theoretically colors out there that our eyes can never truly see. The UC Berkeley researchers, based on their earlier work studying cone cells, say they’ve found a way around this limitation. (snip)

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South Africa’s Ambitious Renewable Energy Masterplan involves Solar Manufacturing

The Conversation 04/19/2025

By Ricardo Amansure, Stellenbosch University

(The Conversation) – About 85% of South Africa’s electricity is produced by burning coal. The country’s move to renewable energy means that the coal industry will be phased out. To this end, the South African cabinet recently approved the country’s first renewable energy masterplan, which sets out what’s needed to establish new renewable energy industries. Ricardo Amansure of the Centre for Sustainability Transitions researches the move towards renewable energy and how communities can benefit from this. He explains what the masterplan aims to achieve, what problems it might face, and how it can succeed.

What is the South African Renewable Energy Masterplan?

It is an industrial strategy that sets out how South Africa can set up a new manufacturing industry in renewable energy and battery storage value chains.

The masterplan was developed by the government, some sections of organised labour, a non-profit organisation advocating for renewable energy, and representatives of the renewable energy industries. It sets out a framework to produce renewable technologies locally. These include solar photovoltaic panels, wind turbines and batteries.

The masterplan has been drawn up so that it aligns with South Africa’s existing national target of adding 3–5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity each year to 2030. This is a scale that can support the development of local manufacturing hubs. (One gigawatt can supply electricity to about 700,000 average homes.) This steady supply will be enough to give businesses and investors the confidence to commit to long-term investments in local manufacturing hubs. These are zones where renewable systems and components are produced or assembled for domestic and export markets.

The state-owned electricity company, Eskom, has not directly guaranteed that it will buy 3-5 gigawatts of renewable energy each year. But the government’s national electricity plan (the Integrated Resource Plan) provides a strong indication of future demand. (snip)