Just like it says, Popcorn Shorts is about the kind of things we think are really interesting, but don’t really need a large article to explain them. From the sublime to the ridiculous, check in here for crunchy bits of info you’ll love to munch.
The Dahlia born and bred here in Sellwood
(from Eileen Fitzsimons in the Sellwood Bee, 1996) Thanks to client Phyllis B. for making us aware of a flower created in and named for our glorious Sellwood neighborhood! We went looking for info and found this article on our local dahlia, by a local resident, in our local paper… “I was inventorying back issues of The Bee [the neighborhood paper in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland, Oregon] when a brief notice caught my eye. “Dick Beyerle, owner of Sellwood Floral and Greeenhouses will talk on dahlias. He won the highest award from the American Dahlia Society for a wine-colored dahlia called ‘Sellwood Glory’.” (The Bee, Feb. 2, 1950) As a gardener and historian, I had found a gold nugget at the bottom of a sack of coal! I was obsessed. ‘Caroline Testout’ had become our “city rose” when it was planted throughout Portland during the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition. But a flower named for our neighborhood? Was the dahlia still being grown, forty-six years later? Four months later, I am pleased to report that both the dahlia and 89-year-old Richard Beyerle are still with us…”
And here’s a video with Sellwood Glory breeder Dick Beyerly
Balcony Solar is, slowly, on the way
(from Akielly Hu at Wired.com) Raymond Ward wants to see solar panels draped over every balcony in the United States and doesn’t understand why that isn’t happening. The technology couldn’t be easier to use-simply hang one or two panels over a railing and plug them into an outlet. The devices provide up to 800 watts, enough to charge a laptop or power a small fridge. They’re popular in Germany, where everyone from renters to climate activists to gadget enthusiasts hail them as a cheap and easy way to generate electricity. Germans had registered more than 780,000 of the devices with the country’s utility regulator as of December. They’ve installed millions more without telling the government…
You may also like this article, “Can’t put solar panels on your roof? Plug-in ‘balcony solar’ may be for you.” from Washington Post.
World’s first humanoid robot games begin in China
(from Sean Sinico at DW.com) More or less human-like robots played soccer, table tennis, ran, danced and, often, fell over at the kickoff of the first humanoid robot games in China. More than 500 humanoid robots in 280 teams from 16 countries are competing in 26 events ranging from soccer and boxing to sorting medicine and cleaning up at the first World Humanoid Robot Games. Three days of competitions began in Beijing, China, on Thursday evening as the country steps up efforts to develop robots powered by artificial intelligence. “We come here to play and to win. But we are also interested in research,” said Max Polter, a member of the HTWK Robots football team from Germany, affiliated with Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, told Reuters news agency. “You can test a lot of interesting, new and exciting approaches in this contest. If we try something and it doesn’t work, we lose the game,” Polter said. “That’s sad, but it is better than investing a lot of money into a product that fails…”
The Project 2025 Tracker
(intro from Kimberly Wehle at The Hill) “On July 5, 2024, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that he had “no idea who is behind Project 2025,” the nearly 900-page manifesto published in April 2023 by the conservative Heritage Foundation for use by “the next conservative president” to reshape the federal government. Trump went on to say that “some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” and that “anything they do, I wish them luck, but have nothing to do with them.”
Many voters presumably believed Trump when he said he knew nothing about Project 2025 and disavowed its objectives. Others – including non-MAGA voters – ignored Project 2025 or simply waved it away as hyperbolic fuel for the base, assuming that such a hellscape could never actually take hold in America, even under Trump 2.0.
Now, over six months into Trump’s second term, Project 2025’s roadmap for dismantling American government is 47 percent complete. That’s according to the website Project 2025 Tracker, which bills itself as a “comprehensive, community-driven initiative to track the implementation of Project 2025’s policy proposals.”
We have three links for you on Project 2025.
- First, here’s the rest of The Hill’s article on Project 2025
- Next, from the horses’ mouth, here’s the link to Project 2025 on the Heritage Foundation’s website.
- Finally, finish up with the Project 2025 Tracker, going over the implementation of P2025 in painful, exquisite detail.
